Guderian: Panzer General

by Macksey, Kenneth

  By order of the Versailles Treaty (or Diktat in German terminology) the Germans could only listen, take note, study and wait – their every false move observed and squashed by the members of a Control Commission which acted as monitors of good behaviour. But monitors have their blind spots and treaties their loop-holes: the all-demanding sport with the Germans was finding them. The Versailles Treaty did not prohibit Germany from having allies. What more sensible policy that she should look to another ‘isolated power’ for the alliance that the Entente discouraged? When, in 1921, Lenin made overtures for a German-Russian treaty of co-operation, Seeckt welcomed the new ‘bridge’, such as he had sought in 1919 in company with different supporters on the Russian side. Moreover Seeckt, as the most powerful man in Germany, carried the political weight to push through the Treaty of Rapallo which was signed on 17th April 1922, which restored collaboration between the signatories and encouraged, among other things, military co-operation, particularly with regard to the projects of more advanced technology such as tanks, gas and aircraft. In due course three experimental training centres were set up in Russia where machines, substances and techniques could be tested and a cadre of specialists trained. Not only were Russian-built tanks (the MS I and the MS II with its 37mm gun) developed and employed for the most part, but also certain German designs. One was a 9 ton light tank (Leichter Traktor) armed with a high velocity 37mm gun in a fully rotating turret, produced in secret as agricultural machinery by the firm of Rheinmetall in 1926 or thereabouts and assembled in Russia: it had a remarkable similarity in layout to the British Medium. Another was the heavy, 20 ton Grosstraktor which appeared about 1929 and was armed with a short, low velocity 75mm gun in a fully traversing turret mounted on a hull inherited from an experimental tank of 1918 vintage – the A7V(U). Produced secretly in Germany and at once shipped to the tank testing ground on the Kama River, in Russia, the secret existence and quick disappearance of these machines neatly skirted infringement of the Versailles Treaty. Thus small tank design cells were formed within German industry (Krupp and Daimler Benz came in at this stage along with Rheinmetall) to tackle basic design and production problems in connection with optics, armament, armour, power plant, transmission, suspensions and tracks. Also an eye was kept on the Swedish M 21 tank, manufactured by Bofors, who had an arrangement with Krupps. The M 21 was a derivative of the German LK II which had been copied in 1918 from the British Whippet. It was out of date – but at least it was German.

  Encouraged by Tschischwitz and Lutz, and kept firmly on the ground by Petter, Guderian approached motorisation with inventive zeal. The constructively critical faculties of his mind, which, up to now, had merely been called upon to modify matters of daily routine in work conditioned by the stress of war and civil strife, were highly responsive to brand-new concepts. War had left him physically unscathed and mentally uninhibited by paralysing experiences of trench warfare. Never had he been wounded, rarely infected by personal involvement with the cramping fears of the circumscribed tactical routines of the trenches. Hence he could scan the future prospects of warfare with an outlook that was untrammelled by indelibly inflexible impressions. He began to envisage himself as a repository for information from which he developed new combat ideas that encroached upon a largely unexplored operational field. The age of thirty-five was perhaps a little late to find original inspirations, but he could hardly have been expected to initiate original schemes before since the war had precluded an opportunity. Be that as it may, he now recognised, with mounting and excited perception, the deficiencies of the current ways of making war and, more important, means to make a fundamental change. As he read more deeply into his subject there began to appear profound conclusions drawn from his study of ancient and contemporary history. This led to the pursuit of a pastime which used to absorb the old Prussian General Staff – prodigious writing in military journals. Encouraged by General von Altrock, the Editor of the Militiir-Wochenblatt (Military Weekly) he composed articles (some of them anonymous?) which crystalised his thoughts and his style and, at the same time, won him a reputation for clear exposition on controversial matters of immediate interest in the contemporary debate surrounding the reasons for Germany losing the last war. But it also won him enemies, for at this early stage the tank enthusiasts proposed converting the cavalry to mechanised divisions.

  There were German generals too, among them von Kuhl, who were saying that the tank had won the war for the Allies and that lack of the tank had been crucial in Germany’s failure – an exaggeration that was sufficiently emotive to discourage serious denial. Essentially Guderian opened his own mind to the future. Günther Blumentritt was to remark: ‘If you suggest revolutionary ideas to Guderian he will say, in 95 per cent of cases, yes, at once’. But that too was an exaggeration.

  In exercises which had taken place in the winter of 1923/24 with motorised troops under Oberstleutnant Walter von Brauchitsch, the examination of mechanisation had gone further than the earlier Harz exercises in that, in addition to march discipline, command and control, they investigated close co-operation with aircraft. As time went by, before and after theoretical exercises such as these, Hauptmann Guderian would be invited to give the tank expert’s opinion – a quite essential requirement demanding of imaginative description since German experience was mostly at the receiving end from these machines. Always his precise and convincing explanations, interlaced with witty historical precedents and skilfully angled arguments, made a strong impact upon the audience. He developed into a star turn equipped with keen analysis and bubbling enthusiasm. Once more career prospects were moving ahead: in 1924 it was suggested that he should be employed as an instructor in tactics and military history – a shrewd placing of a man who had worked himself out of the pit into which he had fallen. Moreover his new master was to be an old commander, von Tschischwitz, whose open-mindedness guaranteed Guderian ample room for the expansion of ideas.

  Prior to 1914, von Schlieffen had sought historical precedents to substantiate the basis of his military theory of attack. Of him Guderian once wrote that he was clever, cold and sarcastic, a general who ‘… through clarity and firmness in military planning … sought to compensate for the aimlessness and indecisiveness of politicians’. Guderian also searched for precedents to justify the creation of a new theory of attack, one which could swiftly overcome the barriers erected by current defensive practices. But it was revealing that, as a supreme optimist, he took to examining examples of failure in history in order to justify his arguments for change, whereas Schlieffen had pinned his hopes on successes, on the Prussian victory at Leuthen and, later, on Hannibal’s masterpiece at Cannae as illustrating how a battle could be won by total envelopment -forgetting to mention that neither of these victories had actually decided a war. Guderian looked to defeats for enlightenment and enlivened his lectures and papers with remarks and quotations which were more sardonic than sarcastic, with a delivery that was as direct as it was pointed. Standing in front of a class, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, and using the minimum of demonstrative posturing, he would drive home each point by sheer force of dedication and knowledge. In the manner of all good teachers he found that the impulse to communicate was itself a wonderful stimulant to original thought. In his case the need for excellence was pitched above that of his normal high standards by the obligation to overcome the scepticism of highly critical students – the pick of the Reichswehr – to what amounted, in some minds, to outlandish concepts. Present these well-informed officers with a weak argument and they would rend the lecturer. Convince them and he had recruited disciples.

  At the centre of his programme was a theme – that of Stosskraft -dynamic punch – and its bearing upon the weapons of the past and the present. Of the disastrous Prussian campaign against Napoleon in 1806 he would ask, apropos the present, ‘Do we make the same mistake as they did “to proudly meet the enemy without firing a shot since to take aim with a volley might upset the battalions’ upright bearing”: in other wor
ds do we fail to take cover from enemy fire?’ He would jeer at the bayonet: ‘One is still regarded as a heretic if one dares impune that sacred symbol of infantry Stosskraff, and called Moltke the Elder to his aid, quoting the Master’s dictum,’Fire must be used against the enemy during an offensive in order to weaken him before a bayonet fight ensues’. Caustically he quoted again: ‘… the day of honour at Hagelberg in 1813 when a celebrated bayonet charge cost the enemy all of 30 to 35 dead’. This was his destructive phase prior to the moment of construction.

  For he would then go on to demonstrate how Stosskraft was subject to technological change. In 1914 it lay with fire-power, ‘… that is to say in the infantry’s machine-gun and with other heavy weapons, but largely with the divisional artillery. If the Stosskraft was sufficiently strong, then the offensive succeeded as it did in the East, in Rumania, in Serbia and Italy. If it was weak, as on the Western Front, it failed … The World War proved that Stosskraft does not depend upon fire-power alone … Guns must be brought close to the enemy lines … so that pin-point targets can be recognised at close range and then annihilated by direct fire’. The cavalry sword he would dismiss with a flourish similar to that with which he disposed of the bayonet: ‘Even the celebrated attacks by the Bayreuth Dragoons at Hohenfriedberg and by Seydlitz’s cavalry at Rossbach were made against infantry who were already shattered. Attacks against fresh infantry were not decisive, as the Battle of Zorndorf confirms.’

  From this starting point he could begin his examination of means of ‘bringing fire on to the enemy lines’ during fast monoeuvres. ‘Here’, he said, ‘only the restoration of an ancient means, could help – armour. Armour has fallen out of favour not because it could not be made thick enough to offer protection against rifle shots, but because neither man nor horse has strength enough to carry or move it’. At this moment he could announce the advent and the case for the tank and declaim: ‘What then is Stosskraft! It is the force which enables the soldier in combat to bring his weapons close enough to the enemy lines in order to destroy him. Only troops with this integral capacity have Stosskraft and with it the capacity to attack. We are not unreasonable when we maintain, as the result of our war experiences, that of all land forces the tank possesses most Stosskraft.’ And at this point, as time went by and his convictions hardened, the teaching of history gave way to the dissemination of tank propaganda at which he became expert.

  These were halcyon days in that there was ample time for calm and thorough consideration of problems which, in the foreseeable future, could have no immediate effect upon an army which thought deeply but, in outward form, hardly changed at all. Guderian kept himself thoroughly informed of the latest moves by the Inspectorate of Transport Troops as it took an increasingly active part in the co-operation with Russia and placed the first orders in 1926 for the Leichter Traktor, mentioned above. It was ironic, in fact, that as these small but significant movements took place in the direction of an eventual rearmament, Western Europe entered the zone of a tranquillity such as had been unknown for more than two decades. In 1925 the Locarno Treaty was signed and introduced a brief epoch of mutual security between nations and the gradual rehabilitation of Germany: the admittance of Germany into the League of Nations in 1926 and the withdrawal in 1927 of the Control Commission led to the final removal of Allied troops in 1930. On the other hand, when strong moves towards a Disarmament Conference were in train, it was the British who first assembled an experimental armoured force in 1927. And so, by default, when politicians steered hard for peace, a simultaneous tack was taken in the direction of war by military demonstrations aimed at showing how a short, decisive campaign could be implemented. In Russia they were assimilating fast and furiously everything that the Germans, and anybody else, could teach them; it is probable that they benefited far more from Rapallo than did the Germans.

  In January 1927 Guderian was at last promoted Major in a small Army where circumstances naturally retarded ambition, and in October 1927 his academic work was curtailed by a posting which sent him to the Truppenamt and therefore, for all practical purposes (despite the Versailles Treaty), back to the General Staff. There he was assigned to the Transport Section, which belonged to the Operations Department, where his task was, ostensibly, the further development of troop transportation by lorry. It was another shrewd and logical selection for a man who been converted into what is today called a Technical Staff officer, inviting him to perform a task which involved both technological and operational subjects. It did not matter that he was not an engineer or particularly mechanically trained. His technical awareness was what counted and produced an individual who was of the greatest rarity in almost every army of the day. Change was in the air: his arrival in the Truppenamt practically coincided with that of its new head, Generaloberst Werner von Blomberg, whose destiny would soon be linked with German revolution of another kind.

  For Guderian a terrific challenge awaited. The Truppenamt, prompted originally by Seeckt with his insistence upon cavalry and infantry aided by motor transport, tended to look upon road transport services as an extension, albeit a more flexible one, of the railway. They seemed to postulate that what already went by rail in future should also go by road to satisfy existing organisations and methods. They rather overlooked the obvious defect that Europe’s railways were much more highly developed than her highways and were quite unprepared to admit that the composition of fighting formations would greatly alter in the future. Hence they demanded that lorried transport must be capable of carrying the same loads in the same manner as railways, and those loads would consist of everything a cavalry or an infantry division possessed – equipment, men and horses. In so many words they were trying to use lorries as taxis in order to preserve the status quo without admitting, as Guderian insisted they must, that past concepts were out of date and demanding of total reconstruction. He says that there were many heated discussions and more sceptics than believers in the possibility of finding a workable solution. The days of tranquillity were past, in fact. In stating his opposition to the unworkable and to concepts which were the antithesis of what he reasoned as essential, he nailed his colours to the mast and embarked upon the course which was to change history.

  At about the same time as liaison with Russia commenced, the training of a new staff was demanded. The Transport Department set up its own small school to instruct officers, civilian employees and noncommissioned officers in automotive mechanics. In 1928 it was decided to add a tactical wing to study and teach the employment of tanks and their co-operation with other arms – and who better to found that wing than Guderian. But in the autumn of 1928. when the suggestion was approved, he had to admit that as yet he had not even seen the inside of a tank. This was soon rectified. In 1929 he went with Gretel to Sweden via Denmark, an occasion which prompted him, in Panzer Leader, to give a rare insight into his abiding delight in beautiful things – the countryside and the Scandinavian cities – the sort of pleasure which used to pass soldiers like Schlieffen and Erwin Rommel by. As the guest of a Swedish tank battalion equipped with the M 21 tank of German origination, he drove the machine, assessed its performance (judging its limitations and vulnerabilities) and witnessed small exercises in which the tanks co-operated with other arms and made attacks under cover of smoke screens. The M 21 was a poor machine but the experience it gave Guderian marked another turning point in his career. Perhaps he rather over-dramatises his conclusions when he says that it was in 1929 he became convinced ‘that tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance’, for his early lectures and studies at no time give the impression of a belief that tanks in isolation could prosper. But that year he devised and consolidated a scenario for all future conflict – presenting it both in the councils of the General Staff and on the training grounds. In the summer of 1929, he ran a divisional-sized field exercise that incorporated a battlegroup of all arms such as an armoured division could deploy – a copy, in fact, of the earli
er British experiment such as the Americans and Russians were trying at the same time.

  The concept of the armoured division, a formation comprising a balanced force of tanks, armoured cars, motorised infantry, artillery and engineers, was by no means a German invention. The idea had long ago been suggested by British and French protagonists of the tank who saw it as the dominant weapon. It had been discussed in public and was often mentioned in the quite large number of books about tanks then beginning to appear. Indeed, so profuse were the writings on tank warfare that the problem facing the Motor Transport Inspectorate was one of selection before making any recommendations. The Russians were tending towards independent tank formations which could be used in the traditional strategic role of cavalry. The French saw the tank as a strictly infantry support weapon, moving at the speed of marching men, and looked on armoured cars as the seekers of information in the old cavalry role. The British quite noticeably tended towards balanced armoured forces, as their experiments in 1927 had plainly shown, but also were attracted by armoured cars for reconnaissance and heavily armoured tanks for infantry support. Economically the Germans could afford to adopt only one system. Though Seeckt had been succeeded as Commander-in-Chief in 1926 by Generaloberst Wilhelm Heye (a milder disciple of Seeckt), Seeckt’s authority still held sway: The smaller the army, the easier it will be to equip it with modern weapons’. And although Seeckt wrote in 1930 that he could not imagine ‘… armoured engines and the horseman entirely superseded by the motor soldier’ the drift of his thoughts ran mighty close to those of Guderian when he added, ‘No longer, like Frederick at the end of the day, will we hurl our jingling squadrons upon the tottering foe. The modern Seydlitz will lead his well-nursed troops with their mobile artillery behind the flank and rear of the enemy in order to join with the advancing infantry and other units in securing the final decision.’ This, though it excluded the provocative work ‘tank’, was the essence distilled of Fuller and Guderian.