Heinz Guderian

[Zoya]

I hope I've put this in the right place?

Coming to the end of Alan Clark's Barbarossa, I read this quote, regarding Guderian:
As we watch this man, a superb technician, struggling with worn-out machinery and malicious individuals, it is impossible not to feel sympathy for him.

Would you agree, from a military, if not an ideological point of view? I must admit, having read in detail his progress through the war, I have felt a certain amount of sympathy, and incredulation at Hitler's appointing of Himmler as commander of Army Group Vistula. On top of that, the diversion of the 6th Panzer Army to Budapest, rather than the Oder, must have left Guderian, as a professional soldier, banging his head in utter frustration.

What are others' perceptions of Guderian? How complicit was he, do you think (if at all) in the atrocities of the war on the Eastern Front?

[von Poop]

I do think his lack of a trial at Nuremberg is some testament to the man. They were pretty thorough in rooting out the Higher echelons and many fell for relatively 'minor' events that occurred under their command, but Guderian was considered essentially 'clean' by that tribunal.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Hi Zoya and great thread. Guderian was an extremely capable strategist and excellent tactician although he was stubborn and didnt take direction well. His biography is extremely self-serving and it paints a picture of a man who places himself firmly out of the line of fire when it comes to complicity. One of the funniest pieces of his biography must surely be when his wife is forced to leave their estate in the East and he describes the labourers having tears in their eyes as she left. He doesnt mention the fact that it might be that the russians were about to overrun them!!!!

What is not in doubt was his grasp of the use of armor both in a tactical and strategic view and also his courage. Other accounts from Bunker veterans state that the only Wehrmacht Officer to consistently stand up to Hitler was Guderian.
His campaign in France was a complete success and the initial success of Barbarossa is a noteworthy achievement also.

I would hold a certain amount of sympathy for him in his role as Chief of the Panzer Forces and then as Commander of OKH especialy as he tried to make Hitler and OKW see that the East was in danger of collapse, hence the quote in my sig.

Ultimately Guderian must be judged as a man who rose to high command under an evil regime and ultimately helped that regime to achieve as much as it did. He benefitted greatly from it and so was an accomplice of the regime. Most of the German High Command from a moral point of view was as bad as most of the Nazi party.

[4th wilts]

i am in complete disagreement with you.like rommel ,he did not grasp logistics.lee.

[von Poop]

"Logistics is the ball and chain of armoured warfare." - H Guderian.
I think he might have understood them rather better than the others that forced his hand in such matters.
I wish we had film of some of the rows with Hitler. Suspect they'd be rather entertaining.

[Zoya]

From my (limited ~ I'm fairly new to this, so will stand corrected if necessary) understanding, he was thwarted at virtually every turn by Hitler, so we may never know what he might have been capable of given more leeway.

Fwiw, Alan Clark's book contains the transcripts of some of the arguments with Hitler. Will have to check back to see if Guderian is included in those transcripts. I would recommmend the book.

[4th wilts]

compare montys 1,200mile chase of rommell,he had rommel by the b###s.did guderian do the same.very interesting comparisonsindeed.lee.

[Owen]

Originally Posted by 4th wilts

compare montys 1,200mile chase of rommell,he had rommel by the b###s.did guderian do the same.very interesting comparisonsindeed.lee.

Monty wasn't fighting the Red Army.
A pretty daft comparison , Lee.
Guderian gets my praise simply for being one of the only men to stand up to Hitler.
I'd love to have seen one of those rows for real, with a translation of course.

[von Poop]

I suspect we could safely call Guderian's 1939-40 tour of Europe an even larger success couldn't we? Not exactly strung out in a desert country but not really half bad.
The BEF, French, Belgians, Poles, Dutch, Danes, Norwegians, Luxembergers and large swathes of Russia etc. may just have felt their balls being grabbed somewhat? (while those strikes may not all have come directly under his immediate command they certainly all used his techniques of warfare).

Originally Posted by Owen

I'd love to have seen one of those rows for real, with a translation of course.

Would translation really be required, I think we'd get the gist

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Originally Posted by 4th wilts

compare montys 1,200mile chase of rommell,he had rommel by the b###s.did guderian do the same.very interesting comparisonsindeed.lee.

Comparing the North African Campaign to the Russian Front in 1941 is ridiculous Lee. Guderian was a completely different animal to either Rommel or Montgomery. He didnt have to prove himself Lee, he practically invented "Blitzkrieg" which was so successful in 1939 and 1940. If you want to compare Guderian with Montgomery why not talk about the campaign that both of them were involved in, say France 1940?