General Heinz Guderian
Heinz Guderian created the German armoured force and was dismissed twice by Hitler. Born in Kulm in 1888 into a Prussian officer family, he served in the First World War as a signals and staff officer, which is unusual for a man remembered as a tank commander and which shaped his central insight. In the 1920s he worked on motorised transport in the small permitted army, read Fuller, Liddell Hart and de Gaulle, and observed exercises in the Soviet Union under the secret cooperation agreement. His argument, set out in Achtung — Panzer! in 1937, was that tanks should not be dispersed among infantry divisions in support but concentrated in independent armoured divisions with their own motorised infantry, artillery and engineers. The decisive element was radio: every tank was to have one, so that a formation could be redirected while moving, which is what turns a breakthrough into a deep exploitation. He commanded XIX Corps in Poland in 1939 and in France in 1940, driving through the Ardennes to Sedan and then to the Channel in ten days, repeatedly exceeding his orders and being ordered to halt. He commanded Panzer Group 2 in the Soviet Union in 1941, took Smolensk, was diverted to Kiev, and was dismissed in December for withdrawing without permission. He was recalled as inspector of armoured troops in 1943 and made chief of the general staff after the July 1944 bomb plot, sitting on the court of honour that expelled officers for the People's Court to hang. He was dismissed again in March 1945, was never tried, and died in 1954.
- Lived: 1888 CE – 1954 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: general, panzer_commander
