"Hurrying Heinz" Guderian Talked Tanks in 1937

In 1931, Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz Guderian was named chief of staff to the Inspectorate of Motorized Troops, the center of Germany's work on mobile warfare and armored forces.  Guderian was the public advocate while his new boss General major Lutz worked behind the scenes.  Guderian reached out to leaders of the Nazi regime to promote the panzer force concept, attract support, and secure resources, including a demonstration for Hitler himself.  Lutz persuaded, cajoled, and compensated for Guderian's often arrogant and argumentative behavior.  In autumn 1936, Lutz asked Guderian to write a book that promoted the Mobile Troops Command and strategic mechanized warfare. The resulting work was “Achtung! Panzer!”.  First published in German in 1937, Guderian’s best-selling book remained in print for much of the war but was only translated into English in 1992 by historian Christopher Duffy.   (His memoirs, “Panzer Leader”, appeared in English in 1952).  The book opens with a preface from General der Panzertruppen Lutz.

With 10 chapters, each with two to five subheadings, the first 133 pages recount the history of armored warfare from the World War I British and French introduction of tanks, and eventually Germany’s limited adoption of them.  Drawing on the information available to him in 1937, Guderian provides a professional military assessment of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of their use during the Great War.  He includes 14 maps to illustrate the various battles.  In the following sections of the book, he surveys post-Great War developments regarding tanks and tank warfare, technically, tactically, and organizationally.  This segment also lays out Guderian’s distillation of Germany’s (and his own) thinking on tank warfare. 

Guderian’s analysis of the Great War battles reflects his own thoughts on tactics and especially tactics for mechanized warfare.  The evolution of the tank to mounting a single main cannon in a turret capable of 360 movement sets the standard for tank armament – supported by multiple machine guns.  He dismisses the Spanish Civil War as fielding too few tanks on any battlefield to offer any serious insights.  His most interesting revelation is that the German mechanized force, rather than start with a blank page, adapted the British Army’s 1927 Provisional Instructions on Tank and Armoured Car Training, Part II as its first manual, subsequently modified to reflect Germany’s own lessons, experiences, and thoughts.  Guderian freely admitted that the British and French had led the way in armor and tactics at the end of the Great War while Germany neglected to develop either

Each chapter includes endnotes provided by the translator and there is a one page bibliography of works cited by Guderian.  This edition includes 40 black and white photographs of tanks of day (1916 to 1937) as well as the classic profile photo of Guderian himself.   Unfortunately, the photos and captions are not tied to related points in the text.  The imagery and Guderian’s original text clearly rely upon the classic reference work of the day, Taschenbuch der Tanks, by Heigl.

With an admittedly limited focus and only a short vision into the future (because of technology limitations), the book addressed two important questions which would require answering if an army was to be mechanized.

How will the army be supplied with fuel, spares and replacement vehicles?

And how to move large mechanized forces, especially those that are road-bound?

Guderian answered these questions in discussions of three broad areas: refueling; spares parts; and access to roads.  He also called for radio receivers in all tanks as well as transmitters in command vehicles (in these pre-transceiver days).   One additional point, reflecting both his historical analysis and in his prescripts for the future use of tanks, is the emphasis upon mass – concentrating armor into a major element in either attack or defense (usually by counterattack) rather than scattering and dissipating the power of armor by distributing it amongst and tying it to the infantry. 

From our modern perspective, the ideas Guderian presented on how armored units should be organized and how they should fight are not surprising.  And even in period, the ideas were all out there but no one had brought so many of them together and helped implement them as early and completely.  The lessons of actual combat would offer further developments and tweaks but it’s all pretty much here.

•             “we have no desire to impose a rigid tactical framework”

•             “most important mission is not infantry support, but to destroy the enemy anti-tank defenses and suppress or blind the enemy artillery” first

•             “The tanks will go ahead of the infantry when an extensive tract of open ground has to be traversed before the break-in.  When the two sides are in close contact and the terrain favors the attack, the tanks will attack simultaneously with the infantry; the infantry will have to attack under artillery cover ahead of the tanks when we need to overcome initial obstacles – a stretch of river, for example, or barriers or minefields – before the tanks can intervene” 

•             What was needed was a “modern and fast moving force of infantry possessing strong fire power, and specially equipped, organized and trained in permanent co-operation with tanks”

•             “if… rifle units were united permanently with tanks in a single formation, it would form a comradeship of army in time of peace – a comradeship that would prove its worth”

•             “Airpower’s role is to “bring the entire depth of the enemy defense under simultaneous attack” and to ‘delay intervention of enemy reserves” road and rail traffic, command centers and the whole communications system…troop accommodations… - paratroops and air-landing forces”

Guderian offers a number of positive references to Hitler and his importance to the panzers, including Hitler’s words about motorization and mechanization at the 1937 Automobile Exhibition.  Guderian would later say “The Fuhrer is a man of vision….[who] recognized the enormous significance …of road construction which is massive in scale and carried through on consistent principles….7,000 kilometers of autobahn.”  Two and a half pages are dedicated to the “The Versailles Diktat” and how the Germans looked for loopholes.  It is also generally known that Guderian was one of the very few generals to repeatedly challenge Hitler’s views and decisions and survive, although it cost him field commands on more than one occasion.

Guderian and his staff surrendered to U.S. forces on 10 May 1945.  He answered Allied questions and denied being an ardent supporter of Nazism.  He avoided conviction at the Nuremberg Trials because there was no substantial documentary evidence against him at that time, though having joined the U.S. Army Historical Division in 1945, the U.S. refused requests from the Soviet Union to have him extradited.

While interned by the Americans, his conversations were secretly taped. In one such recording, in conversation with Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb and General Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, Guderian said, "The fundamental principles [of Nazism] were fine".  Guderian was released from captivity without trial in 1948.  He retired to Schwangau near Füssen in Southern Bavaria and began writing. He remained an ardent German nationalist for the rest of his life.  He died on May 14, 1954 at the age of 65.

“Achtung! Panzer!” remains an important milestone in the history of the development of armor and mechanized warfare, collecting and presenting principles for their use that still apply today.  It is also an important historical work for understanding the thinking and operational art of the German army during the Second World War. 

Some Philosophical Musings from The Military Philosopher

Having been at this for a while, I should share my thoughts about the military philosophy of The Military Philosopher.  After a lifetime of reading military history, studying wargames and simulations, walking battlefields, time spent in various uniforms in the Army National Guard and as a living historian, and a career working in political military affairs in both the State and Defense Departments, I do have a military philosophy. It principally draws upon Clausewitz mixed with a bit of Sun Tzu, a dash of Liddell Hart and the indirect approach, JFC Fuller’s mobile warfare, and odd ideas here and there from many others.  What I propose to do here is to hit some of the highlights rather than attempt to replicate On War or The Art of War.

Let’s begin by defining some terms.  War is the organized use of the threat of violence and/or actual violence in conflict between two or more states (or proto-states).  Warfare is how humans go about  conducting a war.  War is universal while warfare is where we see the impact of culture, history, social organization, technology, personality, inspiration, etc.  War and warfare exist upon one extreme end of a spectrum that runs from that extreme to the other – peace.  This spectrum presents the range of activities of states and proto-states as they interact with each other. 

  

The first lesson I took away from reading Clausewitz at the Naval War College was what I read as his insistence in the introductory chapters of On War that war is absolutely, definitively the dumbest possible way to resolve a dispute.  The rest of the book is for the benefit of those who ignore that advice and read on as Clausewitz explains what war is, what warfare is, and how to be successful in waging war.

The Principles of War are a checklist, a reminder, not a straightjacket.   The commander needs to mentally run down the list in planning or executing military operations to determine which ones are relevant, but there is no need to churn out reams of explanation of how each one does or does not apply.  I’m not fixated on any one version of the many lists of principles that have been put out, primarily because there is a lot of overlap from one list to the next and usually the variations reflect a particular technological period and are adjusted as technology changes.

·         Speed is I think the most important of the principles of war – but in the sense given it by Suvorov when he said, “Speed is essential, haste harmful.”   Speed is critically important for seizing and maintaining the Initiative as John Boyd famously captured the thought in his OODA Loop – observe, orient, decide, act – in order to get inside your opponent’s own OODA cycle and put him into a purely reactive posture.

·         Surprise means doing anything that your opponent did not expect, i.e. attacking him in a place, or at a time, or with a capability that he didn’t expect.  Surprise is one of the very earliest ‘force multipliers.’  A critical effect of surprise is to give the attacker the Initiative.

·         Mass and/or Unity of Effort are aspects of the same challenge for the commander, i.e. making sure that enough friendly force is concentrated at the right place and right time to ensure victory and that few if any friendly forces are needlessly left out of the fight.

·         Simplicity – as in “Keep it Simple, Stupid”.  Combat is a multiple body problem and as the physicists/astrophysicists know the more bodies you have in motion the harder it is to know who’s doing what much less control them as they do it.

You never want to pit your strength directly against your opponent’s strength.  You want to commit it against his weakness – never fight fair.  Therefore, all properly executed warfare is Asymmetric Warfare. 

 

The Combined Arms approach to combat is essential – infantry, armor, artillery, air and sea power.   No single arm wins wars without the support and aid of the other forms of combat power.  While never denying the delight in having effective close air support (among other things), nothing says victory like a foot parade through the streets of the enemy capital (though the political decision-makers may conclude that it’s better to trade that pleasure for a sustainable peace after the war).  When everything inevitably breaks down, everyone in uniform is an infantryman.  When all else fails, you should still have your personal weapon(s) and the knowledge of how to use them effectively.

As for commanders, I have seen at least two senior German Generals, General Kurt von Hammerstein and Field Marshal von Manstein, quoted as offering a formula which must have been taught at one of the German training schools (or learned in the corridors, so to speak).  I prefer the version attributed to von Hammerstein but both say essentially the same thing:

“There are four kinds of officer:  the lazy, stupid type who do no harm; the intelligent, hard-working type who make good staff officers; the lazy, intelligent type are the best strategic leaders; and, finally, the stupid, hardworking type who must be dismissed immediately as they will lead to disaster.”

Thomas Kuhn argued that his concept of scientific revolution was not applicable to the social sciences but I disagree.  I am a believer in the concept of The Revolution in Military Affairs, though I do not buy in to all of the touted RMAs cited over recent decades.  RMA is still not widely or correctly understood.  For example, many people do not realize that there can be more than one RMA at work simultaneously and that they are usually more easily recognized after the fact.  It is also overlooked that the real revolution is in the application of a “new” technology – often something that has in fact been around for a decade or two before its optimal application is understood, recognized, and used.   It is important to remember that there is no such thing as an obsolete weapon or military technology; it retains value as a niche or situational tool.

Holding the Moral High Ground in conducting military combat operations is critically important.  This is true for the individual soldier, sailor, marine, or airman as well as for the armed forces to which they belong, and for the nation that sent them out to do so.  We have to give the individuals all of the tools – physical, mental, spiritual – that will enable them to identify and secure that moral high ground in every tactical, operational, strategic, and political situation.  They need to begin building this from their first day of training because done correctly this will also equip them for the transition back into the civilian world upon the completion of their service.

To close, I offer one final observation.  Having invented warfare in order to better harness war and bend it to benefit humanity, history amply demonstrates that after millennia we generally are not very good at it.  The expenditure of treasure and blood is usually greater than whatever material benefits (barring simple survival) have been gained by that expenditure.  Even the greatest masters of the art of war like Napoleon I and Alexander the Great fell short over the span of their careers.  This should give us all added reason to pause and think calmly about any decision regarding launching a war because war always includes renewed validation of the Law of Unintended Consequences.