Heinz Guderian

This article deals with the Colonel General of the Wehrmacht. For his son of the same name and major general of the Bundeswehr see Heinz Günther Guderian .

Heinz Guderian on the Eastern Front in Russia, July 1941

Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (born June 17, 1888 in Kulm , West Prussia ; † May 14, 1954 in Schwangau near Füssen ) was a German army officer (from 1940 colonel general ), commander of large tank units and in the final phase of the Second World War temporarily taking care of business commissioned chief of the general staff of the army .

Guderian is often cited as the inventor of the armored force as an independent type of service and a key driver of the tactical concepts of " Combined Arms Combat " and " Frontline Command ". However, Ernst Volckheim , Alfred von Vollard-Bockelberg u. a. significant influence.

Life

Empire and First World War

Heinz Guderian was the son of Lieutenant General Friedrich Guderian (1858–1914) and his wife Irtha Ottilie (1865–1931), b. Kirchhoff. On October 1, 1913, he married Margarethe Christine Goerne in Goslar. The couple had two children: Heinz Günther Guderian (1914–2004), most recently major general in the Bundeswehr , and Kurt Bernhard Guderian (1918–1984), retired captain. D. and later a businessman .

Heinz Guderian joined the cadet corps in Karlsruhe on April 1, 1901 and later moved to the War Academy in Berlin . From February 1907 he served as an ensign in the Hanoverian Jäger Battalion No. 10 . After a brief visit to the war school in Metz , he was appointed lieutenant in Bitsch in 1908 . In October 1909 he returned to Goslar . In 1912 Guderian joined the Telegraph Battalion No. 3 in Koblenz .

During the First World War , Guderian served with the intelligence forces . Among other things, he took part in the Battle of the Marne and the Battle of Verdun . In 1914 he was promoted to first lieutenant and in 1915 to captain . He did not have a direct troop command. Towards the end of the war he was on the General Staff of the High Command. Since he served for a long time under Duke Albrecht von Württemberg , he wore the two classes of the Iron Cross and the Knight's Cross 2nd Class with swords of the Württemberg Order of Frederick .

Weimar Republic

Major Guderian (left) visits the Göta Leibgarde armored car battalion, Sweden 1929.

Before he was accepted into the Reichswehr after the First World War , he served for several months as a general staff officer in the so-called Iron Division , a free corps fighting against Russian-Bolshevik troops in the Baltic States . In the Reichswehr he was first used as a company commander in Jäger Battalion 10. His father was in command of the Hannoversche Jäger Battalion No. 10 , which was dissolved in 1919, from January 27, 1903 to December 16, 1908. After teaching tactics and military history at the officers' school in Szczecin for three years , he switched to the transport troops .

In 1927 Guderian was promoted to major and used as commander of the troop office for army transport and as an instructor for tactics in motorized transport units in Berlin. In this role he already collected material for tank tactics and visited tank units in other countries. In 1929, during one such visit, he drove a tank for the first time near Stockholm. The vehicle used was a Stridsvagn m / 21, the LK II developed in the German Reich . Since the Versailles Treaty forbade the Reichswehr to maintain tanks, Guderian had similar exercises held with tractors, cars and dummy tanks . From 1932 he replaced his superior, General of the Armored Troops and Inspector of the Transport Troops Oswald Lutz , as head of the secret tank school Kama on the territory of the Soviet Union.

In 1931 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and in 1933 to colonel .

time of the nationalsocialism

Pre-war period

Guderian wrote various treatises on motorized warfare, including the book Achtung - Panzer! Published in 1937 . , in which he relied on the writings of various military theorists, such as the Austrian General Ludwig von Eimannsbergers . Thereby he aroused Hitler's interest in the tank weapon, who had commissioned him on October 15, 1935 to set up three tank divisions in the newly created Wehrmacht and at the same time gave him command of the 2nd tank division . On August 1, 1936 Guderian was promoted to major general and on February 4, 1938 to lieutenant general, with simultaneous appointment as commanding general of the newly formed XVI. Army Corps , to which the previous three armored divisions were now subordinate. With this association he was involved in the invasion of Austria and the Sudetenland .

On November 20, 1938, Guderian was promoted to General of the Panzer Troops and at the same time appointed "Chief of the Rapid Troops" in the Army High Command . He was responsible for the formation, training, technology and tactics of the motorized units and the cavalry of the entire Wehrmacht.

Second World War

During the attack on Poland he commanded the XIX. Army Corps in Army Group North . His corps pushed from Pomerania through the Polish Corridor to East Prussia (see also Battle in the Tucheler Heide ), later from East Prussia to Brest-Litovsk , where it met with Soviet troops. For his rapid advances he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on October 27, 1939 .

Guderian during the western campaign (May 1940) in his Sd.Kfz radio armored vehicle. 251/3 with Enigma key machine

During the western campaign in 1940, his three Panzer Divisions strong corps belonged to the Kleist Panzer Group . The corps advanced through the Ardennes and at Sedan over the Meuse to the Channel coast (see also sickle section plan ) and thus cut off part of the French army and the British expeditionary corps . Because he acted against the orders of his superior Ewald von Kleist and persistently ignored his long open flanks as he marched, he was relieved of his command on May 16, but reinstated by Kleist's superior Gerd von Rundstedt .

After the Battle of Dunkirk , his corps was expanded into a tank group . With her he pushed during the Fall of Rot from northern France to the Swiss border, which surrounded the French troops in the Maginot Line . It was after the end of the campaign on 19 July 1940, Colonel General transported. He was originally intended to lead the German victory parade in Paris, but in late June 1940 he was given a new command in the east. The "Guderian Group" was relocated back home; initially it was under the 18th Army in Poland, then directly to the OKH . From this point on, Guderian dealt with plans of operation against the Soviet Union , which included an advance to Kiev and Odessa (see Plan Otto ).

During the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Guderian commanded Panzer Group 2 within Army Group Center and contributed significantly to the victories in the Białystok and Minsk and Smolensk battles with his fast and deep tank advances . On July 17th, during the Battle of Smolensk , he was awarded the Knight's Cross Oak Leaves. On August 23, he was ordered to the OKW headquarters in Rastenburg and received from Hitler the order to regroup his tank group from the Roslawl area to the south in order to take part in the Kessel Battle . At the beginning of October 1941, his tank group from the Gluchow area started the advance through Bryansk and Orel and was stopped by the Soviet troops after unsuccessful attacks in the Battle of Tula .

On December 26, 1941, he was relieved of his post because of conflicts with General Field Marshal Günther von Kluge and Hitler. This fate also overtook Walther von Brauchitsch and other high-ranking officers when they - like Guderian - tried to persuade Hitler to give up the attacks on Moscow in view of the desolate situation of the German army and the danger of Soviet counterattacks and to take up positions that are easier to defend.

On March 1, 1943, after a year and a half, Hitler brought him back to active service and appointed him inspector of the armored forces . He was now responsible for the modernization of the motorized units and worked closely with Armaments Minister Albert Speer to carry out the quadrupling of armored vehicle production ordered by the Adolf Hitler tank program.

Like other high generals in the Wehrmacht, Guderian received a grant from Hitler . After long back and forth with the responsible authorities, which a clerk in the Reich Chancellery described as “absolutely unworthy”, he took over the 974 hectare Deipenhof (Polish: Głębokie) estate in the Hohensalza district in the Warthegau on October 15, 1943  . Nothing is known about the fate of the previous Polish owners. The estimated earnings value was 1.23 million Reichsmarks . 43,000 Reichsmarks were earmarked for renovations and new buildings.

After the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , he became Chief of the General Staff of the Army , a position of no particular importance since Hitler reserved the supreme command of the Army for himself. In the aforementioned function, Guderian was a member of the court of honor , which dishonorably expelled numerous officers from the Wehrmacht who were involved in the assassination , so that the Reich Court Martial was no longer responsible for their cases and they could be tried by the People's Court in show trials chaired by Roland Freisler . Guderian himself, as he explained in his memoir, strictly rejected the July 20 assassination attempt.

In an order to all General Staff officers dated August 25, 1944, he wrote: “Nobody may believe in victory more fanatically and exude more faith than you. ... There is no future of the Reich without National Socialism. Therefore place yourself unconditionally in front of the National Socialist Reich. "

In autumn 1944 Guderian had a plan drawn up for the possible expansion of the German fortifications to the east ( Guderian plan ).

Heinz Guderian presents awards, March 1945

After a dispute with Hitler about the situation on the fronts, he was given leave of absence on March 28, 1945 and was taken prisoner by the Americans on May 10, 1945 .

Awards (selection)

• Iron Cross 2nd class, September 19, 1914
• Iron Cross 1st Class, November 18, 1916
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , October 27, 1939
• Oak leaves for the Knight's Cross , July 17, 1941 (24th award)

Grave site in Goslar

Post-war period and Federal Republic of Germany

He was released from captivity on June 17, 1948. According to the British secret service, in 1950 he belonged to the "Brotherhood", an association of old Nazis around the former Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann who wanted to infiltrate the Federal Republic of Germany .

Until his death he worked as a writer and advisor for the Blank office . During this time he wrote the book Memories of a Soldier , in which he spread the image of the " clean Wehrmacht " who always remained decent and fought honorably.

The Organization Gehlen led Guderian as "special connection honorary".

The grave of the Guderian family is in the Hildesheimer Straße cemetery in Goslar .

Fonts

• Attention - tanks! The development of the tank weapon, its combat tactics and its operational possibilities. Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 1937.
• Attention - tanks! Original 1937. Cassell PLC, England, ISBN 0-304-35285-3 (English).
• The armored forces and their interaction with the other weapons. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1937 (Naval and Military Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84342-509-0 ).
• (Ed.): With the tanks in the east and west. People and Reich, Berlin 1942.
• The armored weapon. Their development, their combat tactics and their operational possibilities up to the beginning of the greater German freedom struggle. 2nd Edition. Union German publishing company, Stuttgart 1943.
• Can Western Europe be defended? Plesse, Göttingen 1950.
• That's not how it works! A contribution to the question of the attitude of West Germany. Vowinckel , Heidelberg 1951.
• Memories of a soldier. Autobiography. Original 1951 by K. Vowinckel Verlag, reprint 18th edition, Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-87943-693-2 .
• Tanks - march! Schild, Munich 1956 (edited from the estate by Oskar Munzel ).

literature

• Thilo Vogelsang:  Guderian, Heinz Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 251 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Karl J. Walde: Guderian. Ullstein 1979, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Vienna, ISBN 3-548-33004-5 .
• Dermot Bradley : Colonel General Heinz Guderian and the genesis of the modern Blitzkrieg. 2nd Edition. Biblio, Osnabrück 1986, ISBN 3-7648-1486-1 .
• Gerd F. Heuer: The Colonel General of the Army. Owner of the highest German command posts. Moewig, Rastatt 1988, ISBN 3-8118-1049-9 , pp. 71-78.
• Florian K. Rothbrust: Guderian's XIXth Panzer Corps and the Battle of France. Breakthrough in the Ardennes, May 1940. Praeger, New York NY 1990, ISBN 0-275-93473-X (English).
• Kenneth Macksey: Guderian the tank general . Biography. Kaiser, Klagenfurt 1994, ISBN 3-7042-3037-5 .
• Hans Guderian: The Guderians. Story of a family. Starke, Limburg 1996, ISBN 3-7980-0530-3 .
• Kenneth Macksey: Colonel General Heinz Guderian. In: Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.): Hitler's military elite. From the beginning of the war to the end of the world war. Volume 2. Primus, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-089-1 , pp. 80-87.
• Gerd R. Ueberschär , Winfried Vogel: Serve and earn. Hitler's gifts to his elites. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-14966-5 .
• Gisela Zincke: Joseph Vollmer - designer and pioneer. Gaggenau 2001.
• Russell A. Hart: Guderian: Panzer pioneer or myth maker? Potomac, Washington DC 2006, ISBN 1-57488-810-2 (English).
• Johannes Hürter : Hitler's military leader. The German commanders-in-chief in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941/42. R. Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57982-6 , p. 628 f. (Short biography).
• Klaus-Jürgen Bremm : Colonel General Guderian. Armored weapon tactician. In: Military & History , No. 52, August 2010, pp. 4–21.

Web links

Commons : Heinz Guderian  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Heinz Guderian  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Heinz Guderian in the catalog of the German National Library
• Heinz Guderian. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Biography about Heinz-Wilhelm Guderian

Individual evidence

1. ^ Roman Töppel : Guderian und die deutsche Panzerwaffe - legend and reality , online , accessed on April 19, 2020
2. ↑ Hanoverian Jäger Battalion No. 10, Major Guderian: on bitscherland.fr
3. ↑ Wilhelm II was born on January 27, 1859 . To honor the Emperor's birthday, actions were performed on this anniversary, the importance of which was emphasized by the use of the day.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Arnulf Scriba: Heinz Guderian. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
5. ^ Olaf Groehler: Suicidal Alliance: German-Russian Military Relations 1920–1941. Vision-Verlag Berlin 1992. ISBN 978-3-928787-01-7 .
6. ↑ Russell Hart: Guderian: Panzer Pioneer Or Myth Maker? Potomac Books, Washington 2006, p. 41.
7. ^ Karl-Heinz Frieser : Blitzkrieg legend. The western campaign in 1940. Munich 1995, p. 315 ff.
8. ^ Karl-Heinz Janssen : Plan Otto . In: Die Zeit , No. 38/1997.
9. ↑ Heinz Guderian: memories of a soldier . Kurt Vowinkel Verlag, Heidelberg 1951, DNB  451716493 , p. 245 f .
10. ↑ Winfried Vogel : … absolutely unworthy . In: Die Zeit , No. 14/1997.
11. ^ NOKW-058, quoted in Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. 2nd edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 208.
12. ↑ Also on the following orders Johannes Hürter : Hitler's Army Leader. The German Supreme Commanders in the War against the Soviet Union 1941/42 , Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57982-6 , p. 629 (accessed from De Gruyter Online).
13. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. 2nd edition, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 208, source BA N 1080/272.
14. ↑ Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (=  Jost Dülffer , Klaus-Dietmar Henke , Wolfgang Krieger , Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]): Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Research into the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). Ch. Links Verlag , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 176 .