A leading architect of armoured warfare and a general of Nazi Germany
In May 1940, he argued that the armoured forces across the Meuse should keep moving toward the Channel rather than wait for the infantry.
Heinz Guderian was a professional soldier who helped develop the doctrine of concentrated armoured manoeuvre and shape Germany’s panzer force and early wartime victories. He presented himself after the war as the “father” of the panzer arm, but his ideas rested on work by Oswald Lutz and many other officers. During the 1940 invasion of France, he pressed for a rapid thrust through the Ardennes, across the Meuse and onward to the English Channel, helping isolate Allied forces around Dunkirk. He nevertheless collaborated with the Nazi regime and commanded in an eastern war of aggression marked by occupation crimes, while his postwar memoirs minimized his responsibility and political ties.
Career Timeline
- 1908Officer, Hanoverian Light Infantry Battalion
- 1914–1918World War I, signals and staff officer
- 1927–1931Staff officer and instructor in army transport and motorized units
- 1935–1938Commander of 2nd Panzer Division, Inspector of Motorized Troops
- 1938–1940Commander of XIX Army Corps, armoured command in the Western Campaign
- 1941Commander of 2nd Panzer Group, Operation Barbarossa
- 1943–1945Inspector General of Armoured Troops, Acting Chief of the Army General Staff