Guderian: Panzer General

by Macksey, Kenneth

  Under the headings by which Wavell tested a High Commander, there is abundant evidence in support of Guderian’s strategic insight. The confident stroke against the rear of the entire Polish Army at Brest Litovsk in the culminating phase of the ‘Great Manoeuvres’ of September 1939, when his execution and verve far exceeded in practice his superior commander’s expectations, was explicit of the feasibility of a military practice Guderian had been developing, almost in isolation, for fifteen years. The exploitation to the Channel coast after crossing the Meuse in May 1940, including Guderian’s suicidal gesture of resignation when his intentions were frustrated, is confirmation that his boldly publicised concept of mechanised warfare contained strategic applications that far exceeded simple military demands; whole nations bent before a system based on elitist principles that, historically, were the essence of orthodoxy. The astonishing speed and purposeful direction of the drive to Smolensk and into the Ukraine in the summer of 1941, along with a skilful juggling of inadequate resources to achieve an outstanding series of envelopments, was further proof of his aptitude in devising a true economy of force – even though its outcome turned into an experience of major personal adversity along with defeat for the Army. Finally, as an example of strategic competence in retreat, there was the halting of the Russian forces at the gates of Warsaw in August 1944 – a brilliant husbanding of minimal resources in ending a rout.

  By the same token the subtle tactical handling of units and formations which, at the beginning of each campaign, were so often out-numbered, and in frequently producing by surprise that overwhelming concentration of strength at the crucial point, puts Guderian on a par with the Great Captains. Though the original strategic plan to break through the Ardennes into northern France in 1940 belongs to Manstein, it was Guderian who reinforced the High Command’s nerve by confidently pronouncing the feasibility of infiltrating massed mechanised armies through intricate terrain (a genuinely original concept in its day) and he whose pre-war preparations engineered the techniques that made the movement possible not only by his own corps but by that of every other part of the German Army. For he had developed the unique logistic and communication systems which enabled mechanised troops to operate independently for up to five days, and to respond rapidly and flexibly to the commands of its leaders. Without this system in perfect operation nothing would have prevailed.

  However, the tactics which the Germans employed with such panache throughout the Second World War (except when untutored influences intervened) were only made possible by superb training. In this connection Guderian also satisfies Wavell. To whatever level – section, company, battalion or any one of the higher formations – that Guderian addressed his creative mind in the search for innovation and the improvement of efficiency, new heights of excellence were reached. Not only did he dream, study and synthesise, but he built practical organisations and expounded his ideas with a crisp phraseology that epitomised his irresistible enthusiasm and sense of practical purpose. He was omnipotent, a trainer and director of training rolled into one who so rationalized new methods that he left himself ample time to tackle, with asperity, those in authority who – in reality or imagination – stood to bar the way to the future. He had a remarkable facility for drawing the best out of his troops or squeezing the most from his superiors; nowhere was this better demonstrated than in his drive into the Ukraine in August and September 1941. Here was the repudiation of those who said he was ‘no good with men’. Yet although the personal staff officers and ADCs remember their general with deepest admiration and affection – few were blind to his shortcomings. For Guderian’s problems were almost as often created by the man as the system or the enemy. His Chiefs of Staff sometimes had difficulty keeping track of him and the orders he gave when separated from them by distance. As Walther Nehring, one of the most efficient of them, said to me, ‘His thoughts would race ahead and sometimes he had to be pulled back, and while he was a deep thinker he was also liable to act without thinking. The same could be said of Rommel’s tactical flair – but not his intellect.

  And what of the soldiers whose faces lit up in his presence? Well, with this general they knew where they stood. Drive them hard though he did, they responded, recognising him as one among them because he really fought at their side in a way few higher commanders ever did. Particularly in time of war (probably more than in peace) the soldiers were touched by his warm humanity, which is the essence of leadership. To him the spur to the most self-sacrificing of all his assaults upon Germany’s supreme leadership was the belief that incompetence was ruining both his beloved country and the men of the Panzertruppe.

  Nehring also helps answer another of Wavell’s criteria, that concerning Guderian’s energy and driving power in planning a battle. In a German Army which was well supplied with senior officers of outstanding intellect and enormous drive, Guderian won a pre-eminent reputation for seemingly inexhaustible spirits, inventiveness and an utter determination to have his way – if not at once, certainly within the foreseeable future. Reinforcing this tenacity was a much tougher robustness than is sometimes supposed, for while Guderian allowed it to become common knowledge that he had a weak heart (to which he drew attention in a hypochondriac style that is unusual among high military commanders who normally prefer to conceal their defects), there is not one occasion on which ill-health actually prevented him from completing a task. Each physical collapse occurred briefly after an exhausting series of events or some quite shattering experience. And at the end, let it be emphasised, it was not a heart defect which took him to the grave. Nehring says of his commander’s physique and his ability to carry through ideas to their fulfilment: ‘He never showed signs of strain because he was a strong man – but one who drove himself hard. In time of battle he would find sleep easy to come by and as a commander he was easy to work for – wonderful in the way he gave one encouragement, full of banter and provocation in his efforts to get the best out of you’. And then with great emphasis, ‘He had charisma – much charisma!’

  But strategic and tactical ability, skill as a trainer, and reserves of physique and willpower are qualities such as lesser commanders may possess without satisfying the demands of high command. There is another essential facility required – perhaps, in the nature of centralisation that evolved out of the elaborate signal systems produced by communication officers like Fellgiebel and Praun, the most important facility of all: it is the ability to deal productively with Government and with Allies.

  In company with Allies Guderian underwent relatively few tests and none of prolonged severity. In the opening stages of his spell as a commander in the field his victories were won with German troops alone. He was spared the frustrations of Rommel in trying to prise concessions out of unwilling Italians; of Manstein making the best of failing Rumanians and Hungarians, and of Dietl in spurring on the reluctant Finns. Indeed, when he was Chief of the General Staff in the closing stages of war, there were few allies left to Germany, and those that remained withdrew shortly after he took office. But there is nothing to suggest that he was incapable, through lack of courtliness and understanding, of negotiating intuitively with other nationalities, for he was a German without racial prejudice. And it is satisfactory to recall that drinks supplied by the Japanese Ambassador suitably fortified him prior to a memorably stormy dispute with Hitler in February 1945.

  In debate with Government, however – and for most purposes this meant with Adolf Hitler – it is much more difficult, because of the dictator’s complexity and ambiguity, to draw a positive conclusion. Between them there seems to have been some sort of mutual understanding, perhaps a genuine empathy strengthened on Guderian’s part by a belief that the Führer could be the saviour of Germany in desperate days besides the essential sponsor of the struggling Panzertruppe. When the threat of war was remote Guderian backed a man who, unbeknown to him, was bent upon confrontations and conflict placed in his hands ‘the sharp sword’ that made possible a short war – the only sort Ger
many could successfully sustain. And while this stimulated Guderian’s ambition, it also strengthened Hitler’s hand against German generals who were divided among themselves over the pace and shape of military reconstruction. The schism within the General Staff ranks was thus not only, in part, of Guderian’s making, but of aid to Hitler in his antipathy to the General Staff. The efforts of the highest in command to reduce Guderian’s standing prior to September 1939 and their continuing attempts to denigrate him ever after were central to the struggle between State and Army, an intrigue of profound complexity since it reflected the conflicting emotions inherent in a process of rapid institutional change. The instincts of the older, tepid members of the German General Staff turned uneasily against the dynamism of a strongly persuasive character who sought radical change – it was natural that they should do so.

  Amid the all-consuming struggle surrounding Guderian on the eve of war it is less remarkable that he was among the last to perceive the evil and menace which Hitler posed. Not only was the truth obscured by Hitler, but antagonism by his military superiors, their hostility through 1939 to 1941, forcibly contributed to Guderian’s fatal belief that Hitler should be saved from the incompetence of his own High Command. It is easy to criticise Guderian for persisting in attempts to educate the megalomaniac after he had, at last, in 1942, come to detect the Führer’s failings. One has to understand, in this context, Hitler’s unassailable position and point out that what hope of change remained in 1943 could only be realised by indirect action from within the system rather than direct action from without. The eventual failure of the active resisters in 1944 consolidates this view. Hitler merely exploited Guderian’s loyalty to the utmost and without requital.

  It was in his dealings with the Head of State and his underlings – some of them brilliant men – that exposed the essential fissures of Guderian’s character without, in the final analysis, entirely fulfilling Wavell’s most exacting demands. Guderian, like Wavell, failed to develop a satisfactory working arrangement with his political master. For Wavell, of course, the perils involved were less acute: when he rigorously, though ineffectually, opposed Churchill, he merely hazarded his career. By each act of resistance to Hitler, Guderian risked torture and staked his own life and possibly that of his family too. It is in the light of knowledge that opposition to Hitler, particularly in the closing days of the war, might inflict fatal consequences without doing the slightest good, that Guderian’s fundamental political attitude must be examined in the latter years.

  Far sighted in army matters though Guderian certainly was as the result of an almost exclusively military education, and politically aware as he showed himself to be at critical moments of his career, it can never convincingly be claimed that he possessed innate political sense and judgement such as equipped politically orientated soldiers like von Schleicher and von Reichenau. Guderian frequently failed to detect the warning signs of oncoming change – could not, as was said of von Reichenau, ‘hear the grass grow’. Not that either Schleicher or Reichenau, who helped promote the Nazis, managed to read the future with infallible accuracy, but they did at least recognise the dangers inherent in Nazism and took steps, albeit too late and fallaciously, to curb them. Guderian, on the other hand, tended to swallow the official line, to trust too long -without appreciating the consequences. Ironically, he who formulated radically effective military schemes was prone to accept radically pernicious political notions. His readiness to stand at the side of extremists in the Baltic States in 1919, his support for the Nazi programme in the mid 1930s, his reiteration of Hitler’s dogma and diplomatic ploys, bear the marks of superficiality in understanding political motivations and their meaning. Let it be added, however, that he was just one among many in Germany and abroad who were taken in. Yet, while it became habitual for him to challenge those military views which offended his inculcated critical faculties, there is only scanty contemporary evidence to indicate his detection and rejection of politically repugnant ideas.

  It is erroneous to believe that German officers divorced themselves from the world beyond the barrack gates; the General Staff regularly heard lectures on important issues delivered by qualified speakers. The system failed because so many intellectual personalities had fled the country or abandoned their integrity to Nazi ideology in the interests of personal survival. An unbiased objective dissertation was no longer possible when leading intellectuals from all professions fell silent or became warped in their judgement. Their lack of dissent against Nazism in its formative days contributed strongly to Germany’s decline into servile unscrupulousness. Guderian, the lower orders of the General Staff, and the rest of the people were exposed to unrefuted evil. He and they became all the more politically vulnerable through receiving bad advice and taking an insufficiently critical interest in doctrinaire politics and current affairs. They had been trapped in a characteristic German pursuit, that of the search for an Ideal and a rash haste in implementing it without deep regard for the implications.

  It was but a foregone conclusion that, as Chief of Staff in 1944, Guderian stood only the remotest chance of diverting or reversing the political stream which had run so strongly under Hitler’s control since 1938, when Hitler had first undermined the authority of the War Minister, the Army Commander-in-Chief and his Chief of Staff. Justly, in reference to these events after the war, Guderian wrote: ‘… younger officers could not conceive that their superiors would accept without a struggle and without proper action a development which those superiors, as they now allege, clearly recognised at the time as disadvantageous and even pernicious. However, this is precisely what did happen, and it happened at a time when it was still possible to offer resistance – in peacetime.’

  And yet, in commenting upon the rapid superimposition of an Armed Forces Command (OKW) in time of rearmament and war upon the existing and wasteful system of independent command by each of the three Services, Guderian, in post-war documents, seems not to have fully evaluated the effects of removing a vital, political counterweight. He plays down its political disruptiveness while keen to defend its military advantages. And so when he became the head of a politically devalued organisation (OKH) he felt the draught since he then was deprived of that direct influence over the Head of State which he so badly needed. Therefore, ironically in the winter of 1945, he was compelled to indulge in the very sort of intrigue with politicians that Seeckt frowned upon and Guderian himself, ostensibly in the past, had disapproved. But in the forlorn efforts to manipulate the government and end the war before Germany was overwhelmed, Seecktian rules and principles went overboard. Guderian failed in this attempt as would any other reformer have failed against the entrenched Nazi hierarchy of that time. There was simply nobody left with both the courage and the influence to change Hitler’s mind or eject this mentally deranged demagogue and his sycophants. It is, of course, permissable to ask if he could have produced successful resistance in 1938, but this speculation is profitless. To have succeeded where Beck and Brauchitsch and Haider failed, and in so doing satisfied the most exacting of Wavell’s requirements, Guderian needed the requisite seniority and prestige – and it was only time and the war which provided these. By then Hitler was treating him, like the rest, with ‘scornful disregard’.

  It is a travesty of history, though perhaps only a passing phase, that the German people remain scantily aware of the virtues of their generals who were painted black by detractors. The fear of a caste exists and is kept fresh. In 1965 the newspaper Die Zeit criticised the proposal by the Bundeswehr to name Army barracks after Guderian on the grounds that his character was not emblematic and that he was an unsuitable example because his behaviour was not always exemplary. The old aspersions about his conduct in the summer of 1944 were resurrected with journalistic fervour and, although it was conceded he could not be blamed for taking no part directly in the plot because it was a very difficult matter of conscience, an insinuation of Guderian’s unworthiness was but faintly veiled. It is part of the G
uderian enigma that he chose not to reveal (not even to his son) his knowledge and tacit assent of the attempt to kill Hitler and that, in maintaining his objection to murder as a political solvent, he deliberately allowed the censure of his people rather than their approbation.

  Guderian has been more generously treated abroad though mainly, it must be said, as the author of Panzer Leader and as a prophet and architect of a type of warfare which is now orthodox. Whenever tanks and armoured forces win some new victory a reference to the name of Guderian usually crops up. How can he be classified then? A seer? In the strict military sense, the answer can be a qualified ‘yes’ in that he visualised warfare of the future. A technician? Certainly, since he capitalised upon his vision with professional absorption in his trade to create machinery that worked as near to perfection as is possible in war. A genius? Well, his inspired ability to turn ideas into reality and action by powerfully influencing opinions, feelings, spirit and method can no more be overlooked than he himself could be ignored in person. It was his last Chief of Staff, Thomale, who called him ‘Germany’s best and most responsible general’. Let a disinterested judgement be that of his interrogators, the sceptical American officers who tackled this formidable general across a table in the prison cages after the war, and whose initial scepticism about an enemy eventually was converted to respect, if not admiration for the man. ‘The military career of Heinz Guderian is in itself enough to establish his ability as an organiser, a theorist and an aggressive field commander’, it was written. To them he retained ‘his exceptional intellectual integrity, his firm and uncompromising attitude, his untactfulness under stress and his alloy of courtliness and acid humour. He is a man who writes what he thinks and who does not alter his opinions to suit his audience.’ This judgement, linked with knowledge of the man’s staunchness, amply satisfies Wavell in his demands that a general ‘… must have “character” ’ which, he continued, ‘simply means that he knows what he wants and has the courage and determination to get it. He should have a genuine knowledge of humanity, the raw materials of his trade, and, most vital of all, he must have what we call the fighting spirit, the will to win.’