Guderian: Panzer General

by Macksey, Kenneth

  There were rumblings. Haider was disgusted, made a strong protest and was overruled. Two SS infantry formations, which arrived to take over from 1st Panzer on the Aa Canal, pushed forward on the 26th to improve their positions and were spurred on by Guderian. Sepp Dietrich, the commander of SS Leibstandarte Division, had Hitler’s ear. That afternoon, quite unexpectedly or perhaps because the true Nazi SS was now involved, Hitler relaxed his embargo. But now the British and French had come back in strength, the original German momentum had been lost and the going was hard. Slow progress was made on the 27th and 28th, with Guderian up at the front in observation. Fearful that Germany’s best troops would be wasted, he returned to his headquarters and sent advice to Kleist in a report which he does not mention in Panzer Leader (probably because, after the war, he had no access to the Corps Diary):

  (1) After the Belgian capitulation [which had taken place on the 27th] continuation of operations here is not desirable as it is costing unnecessary sacrifices. The panzer divisions have only 50 per cent of their armoured strength left and their equipment is in urgent need of repair if the corps is to be ready again in a short time for other operations.

  (2) A tank attack is pointless in the marshy country which has been completely soaked by rain. The troops are in possession of the high ground south of Dunkirk; they hold the important Cassel-Dunkirk road; and they have favourable artillery positions … from which they can fire on Dunkirk.

  Furthermore 18th Army [part of Bock’s Army Group B] is approaching [Kleist] Group from the east. The infantry forces of this army are more suitable than tanks for fighting in this kind of country, and the task of closing the gap on the coast can therefore be left to them.

  This was the view which had been put forward by Hitler and OKW on the 24th when the way was clear. This time Kleist was bound to agree and move XIX Corps into reserve to prepare for its next task which was to be a renewal of the offensive in a southerly direction.

  The Germans might have been less sanguine had they been aware of a new factor that was on the eve of one of the greatest turning points of the war. Until 23rd May their enemies had operated almost blindly against the fast moving armoured columns. But that day an intercepted plain language radio message had told the British that Kleist’s Group would discontinue its advance towards Dunkirk for the present. Potentially far more crucial, however, was the British interception and first decryption of an operational Luftwaffe Red key Enigma signal. The message revealed, with 8 hours notice to spare, the time and place of a meeting between the Chiefs of Staff of four Luftwaffe Air Korps, but was not exploited by the British. Even more deadly for the Germans was the British feat not only of being capable of rapidly breaking the fondly-imagined ‘unbreakable’ Enigma machine but also defeating Fellgiebel’s vigilance against such an occurrence.

  For the rest of the war the Germans would communicate by radio in a Fools Paradise, totally unaware that the top secret GC&CS organisation at Bletchley Park would be intercepting and rapidly decoding the Red key (and many another). Thus, for example, reading messages sent by FLIVOs (Luftwaffe Liaison Officers working with the Army) and thereby providing profuse intelligence about the Army some time before it was possible to break the Army’s Enigma keys – which were always more securely operated than those of the Luftwaffe. Of course, at this stage of the overrunning of the West this menace was of little concern to Guderian because it hardly mattered that the enemy was aware of OKH strategic plans and his own movements, chiefly because the Allied Intelligence Staffs were in an appalling state of chaos and their defeated forces on the verge of collapse.

  Ironically, for several years after the war, the authors of the British Official History of the campaign also were denied intelligence because they were not allowed to know of the very existence of Ultra, let alone its import to their tasks. Therefore they were sometimes prone to drawing false conclusions. For example, they implied that, if Guderian had known about the state of the ground in the approaches to Dunkirk on 23rd May he would not have been so keen to enter the area with his tanks: and it has sometimes been suggested that he was not fully aware of the inhibiting effect of difficult ground on tank forces. If they had known what the FLIVOs were reporting they might have guessed otherwise. In any case, the pages of Achtung! Panzer! fully reject the latter suggestion and it is irrelevant to compare the nature of the consolidated defences of Dunkirk on 28th May with those that barely existed on the 23rd. So, although Guderian indirectly was made to appear in agreement with Hitler’s fears, this was far from the case.

  In the event, the Luftwaffe tried to accomplish by bombing what the Army had wanted to achieve by occupation. Guderian’s troops were thus privileged spectators of the first major attempt by air power to win a land battle in absolute terms of its own – the first of many similar failures to come.

  There could no longer be any doubt that panzer divisions had won their spurs. Not even their most hardy opponents within the German military hierarchy could deny them as a dominant weapon. Those who still harboured sectional reservations wisely maintained silence as, on 28th May, Hitler conferred the command of a Panzer Group upon Guderian. It consisted of XXXIX and XXXXI Corps, each of two panzer divisions and a motorised infantry division, with the addition of certain supporting formations – a composition which made Panzer Group Guderian (prominently identified by a large letter G upon its vehicles) into an army, except in name. This clear distinction was retained to keep the eager tank men in their place. Panzer Groups were denied full army status and kept under command of an army – in Guderian’s case he was put under List’s Twelfth Army – so that the traditional authority of the old system should not be weakened and denigrated.

  Victory was assured for the Germans. Not only could they assess the Allied formations and equipment which had been destroyed by counting the carcasses on the battlefield and the prisoners in their hands, but through wireless intercept they built up a comprehensive picture of the improvised defences opposing them from the Maginot Line to Abbeville. They knew the defences lacked both depth and sufficient mobile armoured troops. Because they were aware of these things their task appeared relatively easy; at last there was harmony in their construction of plans for the southward directed offensive. Guderian had made his peace with Busch and Kleist, and both had been generously sincere (to his delight) in their praise of his achievement. All was peace with Rundstedt under whom Twelfth Army and Panzer Group Guderian now came. Enemy weak spots could be recognised. In a mood of relaxation – almost of over-confidence – liberties could be taken. The offensive was to begin when individual Army Groups had recovered from the exertions of the past weeks and had completed their redeployment. Army Group B, on the right close by the sea, started forward on 5th June whereas Army Group A was held back until the 9th. Moreover the infantry were to be given an opportunity to re-assert their influence, with permission to lead the offensive and punch holes for the panzer divisions.

  Penalties had to be paid. The French and a handful of British divisions fought hard and Kleist’s Group took a mauling south of Amiens on the 6th and 7th. It was Hoth’s Corps on the extreme right, led with characteristic dash by Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division, which made the first clear breakout and began a non-stop drive for Rouen, Le Havre and Cherbourg. But things did not go well on the 9th, the date on which Guderian was intended to exploit an initial infantry crossing of the Aisne and Aisne Canal between Chateau Porcien and Attigny. At dawn the infantry made heavy weather of the crossing and established only one small bridgehead at Chateau Porcien: elsewhere they were repelled. It was nightfall before the leading tanks of 1st Panzer Division could begin to enter the bridgehead. Throughout the day Guderian had motored tirelessly from one place to another, seeking information about infantry progress and trying to coordinate his future operations with them. In the course of it he trod on a few corns and managed to have a sharp (victorious) tussle with List who falsely assumed that inactivity among the tank crews designated for the assault was a s
ign of Guderian’s disobedience. This was symbolic. Though List was quick to realise his error, many senior commanders held implacable convictions that Guderian would sabotage their plans to prove panzer superiority over infantry: they were ever ready to find examples of his insubordination for which he had a well-founded reputation by this time.

  The Drive to Switzerland

  It made no difference that Guderian had become the equivalent of an army commander. Unlike Kleist in the first days of May, he was frequently at the front, urging on everybody from regimental to corps commanders and encouraging the fighting men themselves. This could so easily have been mistaken by his subordinates as interference in their province. It rarely was, partly because they now needed little urging, largely because they realised that Guderian’s main purpose was to dovetail their activities at the utmost speed with flanking formations by using his superior communication system to give them the maximum assistance by short-circuiting the time-honoured, statutory links of command.

  Once more the superiority of mobile armour was demonstrated in the battles which developed amid the French defences south of Rethel. Where infantry attacked unsupported they were frequently held: once tanks were injected into the battle, operations got fluid. Where time was lost by the Germans and French tank counterstrokes developed – even those involving just a few of their Char Bs – there came a pause in the advance while the tank battle was resolved. Overcoming the miserable hesitation which had stigmatised their performance at Sedan, the French tank crews this time countered each German penetration promptly. The outcome was finally settled by superiority of German numbers and techniques rather than superiority of German tanks. On the spot, Guderian personally carried out trials against a Char B using a captured French 47mm anti-tank gun (which he knew to be superior to the German 37) and found that, frontally, the Char B was invulnerable. Shots bounced off the French armour and the wrecks of German tanks and guns in the countryside at Juniville confirmed his opinion that German armour was too thin and their guns not powerful enough.

  Soon the breakthrough was made and instantly mobile operations began. Try though they might, by throwing in the last remnants of their mobile divisions to restrain the avalanche, the French were doomed – as they had been since the initial reverse at Sedan. Their morale collapsed once more after only a temporary resurgence. There is no need to retrace in detail the account of Panzer Group Guderian’s race to the Swiss frontier. Random impressions are sufficient. On 11th June he watched 1st Panzer Division take Béthenville with a copy-book tank and infantry attack supported by artillery fire, and recalled to mind September 1914 when, in the depths of defeat after the Marne, he had arrived there, bereft of his command and all but what he stood in, and had learnt of the birth of his first son. Now he was the victor, surrounded by his triumphant host, and the son was already among the wounded. A letter to Gretel, written on 15th June (the day after Paris fell) neatly summarises the evolving situation as he saw it:

  ‘I wrote to you recently that the front would enter a state of movement. The day after Châlons, Vitry le Francois and St Dizier fell; yesterday Chaumont and to-day Langres. I believe we have broken through and hope to reach Besanfon to-day. That would be a great success which would have a retrogressive effect upon the whole of the Maginot Line, and would also have political repercussions. I am very happy that this performance should be achieved despite enormous difficulties due to constant alterations of directions. The battle against one’s own superiors sometimes makes more work than against the French.

  ‘The country is in a catastrophic condition. As a result of the enforced evacuation there is an indescribable refugee misery and all the cattle are dying. Everywhere places are plundered by refugees and French soldiers. Up till now we have come across only scanty civilian populations. The Middle Ages were humane compared with the present.’

  This letter, composed in the heat of combat, is unusual from the pen of a combat general in its expression of compassion. By conditioning and circumstances the breed can rarely afford to reflect too deeply upon suffering when actually engaged in battle. Cynics may well categorise these as crocodile’s tears from a typical product of the Prussian military machine. This was not in the nature of Guderian: there is a profound sincerity about his letters, in the reflective portions of his book and in his conversations, which reject such aspersions. Of course he prided himself on his accomplishments in manipulating his forces to destructive effect, but that is the clinical pride of the technician. This man was devoid of racial hatred, and registered his distaste for destruction and the by-products of war.

  The same letter also warrants comment by its reference to ‘alterations of direction’. Vacillating orders originated from the top – from Hitler – though only the very highest in command were aware of it at the time. Haider remained consistent in the conventional requirement that ‘… the object of our operations must be the destruction of the remaining enemy forces’. Hitler, on the other hand, bent Brauchitsch to his will on 6th June with the demand ‘… first … to secure the Lorraine iron ore basin so as to deprive France of her armaments industry’ – a truly incredible desire in the light of quite obvious indications that France was prostrate and in no position to prevent Germany taking anything she wanted almost at once. Furthermore he ignored the General Staff’s logical argument that, until an enemy’s forces were destroyed, territorial occupation was worthless. The confrontation was made meaningless in the present context because, within a matter of days, France sued for an armistice. In the longer term, of course, a fundamental principle had been established: in future Hitler would interfere as of routine in detailed Army planning and play one General Staff Officer against another in the realms of strategy and tactics. The Chief of the General Staff was once again reduced in power and influence while the C-in-C became a mere cipher – with vital repercussions for Guderian at a later date.

  To Guderian the almost daily switching from essential to prestige objectives was a source of annoyance rather than concern. One day he would be told to divert and take Verdun, the next St Mihiel, with their evocative memories of the past, instead of shaping a steady course towards targets which would lead to destruction of the enemy’s forces. Naturally, as enemy resistance vanished, it became easy to overcome these difficulties. Guderian merely kept XXXIX Corps moving in the strategically desirable direction and used XXXXI Corps to mop up extraneous objectives. A flexible response is easier to apply when there is a superfluity of resources. On the 17th (his 52nd birthday) XXXIX Corps reached Pontarlier on the Swiss frontier, but this was a symbolic incidental compared with the important 90-degree turn in a north-easterly direction made by that corps’ two panzer divisions the previous day. Using both his corps, Guderian delivered a broad-fronted drive into Alsace to complete the greatest encirclement of the campaign. In conjunction with 7th Army, moving in from the east, over 400,000 French troops, including the garrisons of the Maginot Line, were gathered in. Their contribution to the defence of their land had been worthless.

  The manoeuvre, a truly remarkable feat in terms of the military art, goes practically unnoticed by history – perhaps because Guderian and Nehring made complexities of that sort seem so simple, probably because larger events were impending. But when Patton or Montgomery executed similar changes of direction in the years to come, their prowess was acclaimed to the roof-tops. It was to another that tribute should have been paid for designing the methods which made their triumphs possible.

  An armistice was signed at Rethondes on 22nd June. Hitler and Germany basked in fame. So, too, did Guderian, for he suddenly found himself renowned throughout the land, a hero whom the propagandists praised for his contribution to the victory. Group Guderian was credited with 250,000 prisoners in 13 days’ activity. Josef Goebbels and his agents uplifted Guderian and had him broadcast to the nation. He told Gretel, ‘How lovely that you heard my speech. I really enjoyed making it’. There was an enormous fan-mail and gigantic correspondence. ‘The other day a f
ormer Gefreiter [lance corporal] from the First World War sent me a harmonica from his factory. It’s fantastic how kind some people are’. As soon as the war was over he told his propaganda officer, Paul Dierichs, to find films of the campaign and show them to the troops. Later this material would be made into a documentary extolling Guderian’s command and the Panzerwaffe: never once did he forget to publicise his organisation (and thus, be it said, himself) as counter to those who still resented the triumph. But as Dierichs points out, ‘Though he realised the meaning of his success, it did not go to his head’.

  There were more serious matters to contemplate, among them a genuine hope that the fighting was over in the belief that Britain would give up. That hope would soon die: the British fought on, but in any case neither Guderian nor anybody else on the German side were aware that Hitler was formulating schemes which outlawed peace.

  Yet Guderian himself displayed the same conquering restlessness as his Führer when, on 27th June, he shared his views with General Ritter von Epp, who called in during a visit to the front. He explained to Gretel that they discussed ‘Colonial questions’. They did indeed, for Epp was an expert on the subject: but the discussion also ranged over the course to take if Britain went on fighting, and the manner of carrying the battle to the remaining enemy. It is reflected on pages 136 and 137 of Panzer Leader and is worth study as an indication of Guderian’s contemporary attitude, as well as a demonstration of his accurate reading of the strategic situation and the shifting balance of power – at a time when the vanquished French were turning in anger upon the British and the Italians had already entered the war on Germany’s side. He claimed, after the war, that ‘in view of the insufficiency of our preparations in the air and on the sea, which were far below what would be needed to invade [England], other means would have to be found of so damaging our enemy that he would accept a negotiated peace’.