Guderian: Panzer General

by Macksey, Kenneth

  The third obstruction was later raised by the Artillery, not so much because their status or strength was in peril but because their methods were in question. The demands of infantry for artillery support were much as they had been in 1918 and welcomed by the gunners because they called for more and heavier fire support – and therefore an increased number of appointments for them. But the Panzer Command wanted something different due to the need, as enunciated by Guderian ‘… to follow up a panzer attack which normally opened up very quickly. This led to a demand for self-propelled mounts as early as 1934: but the artillerymen did not believe in such fast-moving combat. Accustomed for five hundred years to draw their guns with the muzzle pointing backwards and to unlimber for action, they successfully opposed this proposal until the bitter experience of war taught them to follow the suggestions of the Inspector General [himself] …’ The source of artillery resistance was widespread but fiercely concentrated in the highest places. Fewer gunners in proportion to infantrymen and cavalrymen had been killed in the First World War and this preservation, allied to the intellectual quality of the type they recruited, meant that more gunners in proportion to any other type of officer were available for high appointments in the 1930s. All three generals who were to hold the top posts in OKW after 1938 and throughout the Second World War were gunners – that is Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl and Walter Warlimont. In the Army High Command (OKH) Fritsch and Beck were gunners, as was Franz Haider who succeeded Beck as Chief of Staff in 1938. As a matter of interest it will also be noticed that, from 1938, not one of the most senior generals in Hitler’s Army was titled, while Franz Haider, a highly intellectual, rather schoolmasterly Bavarian, was the first non-Prussian to become Chief of the General Staff. These men formed the final court of appeal with direct access to Hitler whenever gunner interests were threatened by Guderian and his kind. They were not in a position to prevent the formation of the Panzertruppe in 1934, however. In the implementation of that memorable innovation neither Blomberg nor Reichenau and Fritsch were to be denied.

  The creation of the Panzertruppe in the summer of 1934, with Lutz at its head and Guderian as Chief of Staff, merely opened a gap in the defences of the opposition. Guderian could never convince Beck of the need for the panzer instruction manual which had been written by him and his staff. The Chief of Staff may have seen the need without approving the contents, but by 1939 the greater part of the necessary regulations had still not been issued to the troops. Of course, Beck saw no need for the Panzertruppe at all since tanks, in his opinion, were only of use as ancil-liary weapons incorporated with the infantry – in the manner of the French. It was true that the sight of the first light tanks – the Pz Is which were intended only for training purposes and which were formed into their first battalion in 1934 under the command of Major Harpe – did little to inspire confidence. They bore not the remotest resemblance to dominant weapons, being hardly more than machine-gun carriers of limited cross-country performance. Yet in August 1935 this battalion and another, plus the bits and pieces – real and pseudo – assembled by Lutz and Guderian into makeshift units over the past five years, took the field in special manoeuvres and, in four weeks’ intensive experiment, proved the viability of the comprehensive system they represented and the immense faith of all their men in a new way of warfare that lay so close to hand. The major failures occurred mainly in highly mobile situations when the limited communication facilities were quite inadequate. Clearly far more elaborate radio nets were needed. But the creation of the Panzer Command was then but a formality and obtained formal recognition in October, with Lutz, promoted to the first General der Panzertruppen, in command. Three panzer divisions were formed – without tanks since equipment was still in short supply and enough officers and men had yet to be trained. Even then the project was robbed of its full entitlement, for Beck refused the new Command equal status with the Infantry and Artillery, and the promotion of Guderian to command the 2nd Panzer Division removed him from the hub of progress and policy-making where he was most effective. With him out of the way, Beck at once, and almost unopposed, formed a Panzer Brigade the task of which was to co-operate closely with the ordinary, slow horse and foot divisions – a task which Lutz and Guderian had admitted in their 1935 report as being one of a number of uses it could have. This was the first, but by no means the last, time Guderian was to be sidetracked by a Chief of Staff.

  Let it not be thought, however, that Beck was alone in resisting the Panzer Command or that the Panzer Command was the only modern scheme which he opposed. He merely represented the focal point of wholesale resistance by those influential members of the General Staff who remained unconvinced of the viability of the new weapons and systems – be they tanks, aircraft or the new Wehrmacht Central Staff with its challenge to the old supremacy of the General Staff. Guderian was not being unfair when he remarked, after 1945, that this type of general ‘… dominated the Army General Staff and pursued a personal policy which insured that the leading General Staff positions in the Central Branch were always occupied by men of their way of thinking’. This, after all, is a familiar story in most armies, but it was provocative to eager men like Guderian – and Hitler – who also pursued personal policies. Each protagonist was full of good intentions to himself.

  Nevertheless, even without Guderian close to its helm, the strong organisation he had formulated gradually grew. The officers who had been trained in Russia, the staff he had imbued with his ideas at the Panzer Command and the blueprints laid down had merely to be implemented as funds and new equipment became available and the original instructors and men in the lower echelons caught the enthusiasm of their leaders. The tank industry, too, was directing its energies on lines which had the approval of Lutz and Guderian, though it was expending so much time on research and development that production tanks of the required type were a long way from being built in worthwhile numbers. But, of course, industry was treading fresh ground and this slowed initial production: for example, there were all sorts of problems involved with the working and mounting of armoured plate.

  With the other types of supporting cross-country vehicles there were problems, too, due to the inadequate specifications put forward by the General Staff. Guderian is remembered for his temerity, at a disastrous demonstration of these soft-skinned vehicles in 1937, marching up to the Commander-in-Chief of the time, Fritsch, and roundly condemning the two-wheeled drive vehicles that had been shown, concluding with, ‘Had my advice been followed we would now have had a real armoured force’. The remark is significant in its meaning rather than in its smack of insubordination, for it showed that, by demanding not only the very high establishment of 561 tanks in the original armoured divisions but also armoured infantry-carrying vehicles, he was a true disciple of Fuller who has invariably (and wrongly) been criticised for over-stating his demands for the tank. Both Fuller and Guderian thought in terms of a truly armoured force even though, perhaps, Fuller used the word ‘tank’ rather loosely when referring to supporting armoured vehicles. And one day, in the march on Russia, lack of four-wheel drive transport was to prove fatal to the German Army.

  A prolonged debate, concerning the type of tank needed, retarded industry. The final specifications did not meet all of Guderian’s requirements either for, although he attached far more importance to fast-moving machines, he also stated the desirability in 1936 for a heavy tank ‘… to assault permanent fortifications or fortified field positions’, tanks which must have ‘… a good destruction, gap-crossing and wading capability besides strong armour and armament of up to a calibre of 150mm’ – and these machines, he thought, would come out at 70 to 100 tons and might be too expensive. They would, he said, be used independently in small numbers but ‘They are extremely dangerous opponents and should not be underestimated’. With trepidation he appreciated that the heavy French 2 C was barely vulnerable to a 75mm gun.

  But because of the restrictions imposed by expense and his demand for high numbers, Guderia
n had to settle for the smaller solution represented by lighter, faster and cheaper machines: in any case an upper weight limit of 24 tons had to be imposed because of the weight restrictions on existing field engineers’ bridges. Two types of tank were fixed upon in 1934: as a stop gap, a light tank for reconnaissance with a top speed of about 35 mph and as main armament a 20mm gun, called Pz II; and a medium battle tank (to be called Pz IV) with an initial weight of 18 tons, a top speed of 25 mph and a short rather inaccurate 75mm gun as main armament, whose primary purpose was direct support, not for tank-versus-tank combat. Neither of these tanks in their initial production form had armour in excess of 30mm, and therefore they were only proof against small arms fire and shell splinters, not against direct hits from field artillery and special anti-tank guns such as were already in service. Moreover neither the 20mm nor the short 75mm gun had a good performance at battle ranges against the existing type of heavy French tank. However, bearing in mind that although much reliance was to be placed upon mechanised infantry anti-tank guns (deployed in depth) for dealing with enemy tanks, tank-versus-tank combat was rated a certainty in 1935 and so a third type of battle tank was proposed. This was to be Pz III, a slightly smaller version of Pz IV, whose prime purpose was as a tank killer since neither the 50mm gun, suggested by Guderian, nor the 37mm gun finally installed by the Chief of the Ordnance Office in consultation with the Inspector of Artillery, would fire a satisfactory high explosive round such as that fired by the 75mm gun on Pz IV. Hence the initial equipment for the panzer divisions was to consist of three complementary types of tank, not one of which was the equal of the heavily armed and well-armoured tanks being laid down by the French. Moreover the standard infantry anti-tank gun was inadequate before it came into service, though the overall design of the Pz III and IV was good. Both, however, had ample capacity for expansion in armament, armour and power plant if the need arose – as Guderian knew, from the study of history and the application of plain common sense, that it must. The arrangement of crew seating was also good and so were the optical instruments provided for turret gunners: hence fighting efficiency was high, while crew morale was well taken care of by the provision of excellent escape hatches.

  But though the proposed tanks themselves were suspect, while possessed of immense potential, there was one vital field in which the Germans were moving far ahead of their prospective opponents – that of superlative command and control procedures allied to a revolutionary and unique philosophy which had advanced beyond the most extreme ideas of other armies after 1934. The extent to which German thinking had overtaken all others was defined in an article, written by Guderian in 1935 with a view to refuting criticisms of mechanisation which were being made in military and non-military journals, the Berlin Stock Exchange Journal for one. In this article Guderian reflected upon von Schlieffen’s call in 1909 for methods that made possible the existence of ‘a modern Alexander’. He developed the proposition that ‘Only leaders who drive in front of the troops will influence the outcome of the battle – the best aviators did so and so did the British General Elles at Cambrai’. He was opening a campaign to raise the scale of wireless sets so that radio communication could be extended below company level (as it stood until 1936) to give each tank a set of its own. ‘The modern Alexander must bend modern technology to his will and instil it into his soldiers … If he forges his sword with a firm, clear mind to protect the honour and freedom of his people, that is a task set him by Fate.’ The paper was endorsed by Oberst Erich Fellgiebel, the Chief of Staff to the Signals Corps Inspectorate, who would become Inspector and Generalmajor in 1938 and declare that modern signal systems were the only way to make the panzer weapon work. But midway through the paper a poignant sentence tells us something additional about Guderian: the comment ‘Alexander was a king – not a mere divisional commander’, has a wealth of expression along with its insight into the uphill struggle in which he was engaged. As usual, Beck took the opposite view: to him human beings and not machines were the real instruments of war, as he said in a speech before Hitler in October 1935.

  For Fellgiebel, a brilliant signalling specialist and one time member of the Truppenamt, Guderian had enormous respect. They had been close comrades since before WWI and since then had been constantly in touch on signals matters. Indeed, Fellgiebel’s daughter Susanne (who was born in 1924) recalls that ‘since I was able to think’, they knew each other, although she has no idea whether they were on ‘Du terms’ – an intimacy which, in those days, was not as common between friends as it is to-day. It is, however, uncertain if they shared political views – even though Guderian was somewhat dubious about the inherent dangers of the oath to Hitler. Indeed, Guderian might have been astonished had he known that, by 1938, Fellgiebel had become a dedicated leader of the small group of officers that was bent on removing Hitler from power. Although Fellgiebel’s daughter believes that they might have discussed that prospect in general.

  Be that as it may, Fellgiebel designed the flexible radio network for the Panzertruppe to satisfy the sort of long-range operations anticipated by Guderian. Diagrammatically the sets were to appear as under, though with variations.

  These sets were simple to operate and reliable. They were constructed in units which could be easily secured to panels or connected to each other, thus permitting quick assembly or dismantling: their design so good that exceptional performance was possible with tuning to close limits even in a vehicle such as a tank with its enormous vibrations. A point was to arrive when, as Albert Praun, who worked closely with Guderian and was, in due course, to become Chief of Wehrmacht Signals, said: ‘it was possible to maintain uninterrupted strategic and tactical control of armoured units while they were engaged in any form of movement; indeed, this control became simpler, more flexible and more reliable than the control of the non-mechanised units.’ Paradoxically it was the main stumbling block to many officers believing in Guderian: the scope of his vision and experience extended far beyond their limited imagination.

  Paradoxically, too, the Infantry, despite the half-heartedness of their main sponsors, also desired mechanisation, as exemplified by the motorisation of their anti-tank company, against the advice of Guderian who feared for the squandering of limited resources: these guns should be horse-drawn, he maintained, because they travelled in company with foot soldiers. (For the same objection against diversification of industrial effort he opposed, in 1938, the provision of assault guns for the Infantry.) But these digressions were as nothing compared with the dilutions which took place once Guderian had been despatched to command a division, and the cold and more pliable Oberst Friedrich Paulus took his place as Chief of Staff to Lutz. Lutz without Guderian was unable to prevent the erosion of the Panzertruppe by sectional interests. Whereas Guderian might have just been able to maintain the unity of the entire armoured force as he desired, his successors permitted the fragmentation of the force so that, for example, the reconnaissance units were handed over to the Cavalry, and the motorised rifle units to the Infantry along with the creation of motorised Infantry Divisions. As a further diversification, Light Divisions, with only a low tank content, were formed and put under the Cavalry, though with the proviso that when more tanks became available they would be raised to full Panzer Division status. The Panzertruppe was reduced to responsibility only for the actual tank units, although XVI Corps staff was formed to control all three Panzer Divisions and placed under a special Group Command 4 along with the two other Corps which commanded the Motorised Infantry and the Light Divisions. This Group was placed under Generaloberst von Brauchitsch, who had conducted the early experiments of 1923, and given the mission of studying the operational employment of mechanised formations.

  None of this was as serious as Guderian made out, providing there remained ample time for experiment. But in 1936 Hitler began to push Germany along the pathway of aggression, a route which dangerously resembled a tight-rope. In March, when barely a trickle of modern arms had begun to flow from the f
actories and the panzer divisions were little more than inscriptions on paper, he chanced his arm and remilitarised the Rhineland. By the end of that year the better informed generals in OKH began to realise that Hitler was embarked upon war. He coined for propaganda effect the word Blitzkrieg – the lightning stroke by air and land forces aimed at the country concerned. Campaigns, if necessary, were to be short in duration since Hitler, according to General Thomas, ‘… always rejected all measures of preparation for a long war (economic mobilisation) in favour of the creation of new divisions’ – presumably also for propaganda effect. Thomas opposed Blitzkrieg in the press, in military periodicals and in public lectures ‘… because I felt sure that a new war in Europe would mean a new world war for which the German economic resources would be inadequate unless she had strong allies’. But Hitler hoped to conquer without war.

  Guderian was among those who held the opposite opinion to Thomas over Blitzkrieg: he believed in it. As 1936 moved into 1937 his efforts were geared to preserving the Panzertruppe as part of a defence force -though gradually its predatory value was being noticed and exploited. In the autumn of 1936 Lutz suggested that public support might be generated in a book setting out the reasons for and the role of the panzer divisions. That winter, in great haste and in addition to his other duties, Guderian wrote Achtung! Panzer! – a collection of his lectures, integrated with the best of the articles and arguments he had deployed in the past decade. As a result the book’s style was somewhat uneven. But the impact was considerable. It became a military best-seller and the Guderians bought their first car on the proceeds. It was closely studied by the General Staff Intelligence branches of the world and from 1937 to 1939 was essential reading, along with Fuller’s books (but not Liddell Hart’s), for the Kriegsakademie of the Austrian Army, whose leading tank expert, Ludwig von Eimannsberger, was also strongly advocating panzer divisions, based upon Fuller’s doctrine.