88 Facts About Heinz Guderian

At the beginning of World War II, Guderian led an armoured corps in the Invasion of Poland.

Heinz Guderian led the 2nd Panzer Army during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Heinz Guderian was appointed as a member of the "Court of Honour" by Hitler, which in the aftermath of the plot was used to dismiss people from the military so they could be tried in the "People's Court" and executed.

Heinz Guderian was Hitler's personal advisor on the Eastern Front and became closely associated with the Nazis.

Heinz Guderian's troops carried out the criminal Commissar Order during Barbarossa, and he was implicated in the commission of reprisals after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Heinz Guderian surrendered to US forces on 10 May 1945 and was interned until 1948.

Heinz Guderian was released without being charged and retired to write his memoirs.

Heinz Guderian's writings received backlash in the decades since their release, with historians finding the original works to contain post-war myths, including that of the "clean Wehrmacht".

Heinz Guderian portrayed himself as the sole originator of the panzer force and refused the stipulation that units under his command committed crimes of war.

Heinz Guderian was born in Kulm, West Prussia, on 17 June 1888, the son of Friedrich and Clara.

Heinz Guderian was a capable student, although he performed poorly in his final exam.

Heinz Guderian became a second lieutenant on 27 January 1908, receiving his patent backdated to 22 June 1906.

At the outbreak of World War I, Heinz Guderian served as a communications officer and the commander of a radio station.

Between May, 1915 and January, 1916 Heinz Guderian was in charge of signals intelligence for the 4th Army.

Heinz Guderian fought at the Battle of Verdun during this period and was promoted to captain on 15 November 1915.

Heinz Guderian was then sent to the 4th Infantry Division before becoming commander of the Second Battalion of Infantry Regiment 14.

On 28 February 1918, Heinz Guderian was appointed to the General Staff Corps.

Heinz Guderian finished the war as an operations officer in occupied Italy.

Heinz Guderian disagreed with Germany signing the armistice in 1918, believing that the German Empire should have continued the fight.

Early in 1919, Heinz Guderian was selected as one of the four thousand officers allowed by the Versailles Treaty in the reduced-size German army, the Reichswehr.

Heinz Guderian was assigned to serve on the staff of the central command of the Eastern Frontier Guard Service which was intended to control and coordinate the independent freikorps units in the defense of Germany's eastern frontiers against Polish and Soviet forces engaged in the Russian Civil War in conjunction with the Estonian War of Independence.

In June, 1919 Heinz Guderian joined the Iron Brigade as its second General Staff officer.

Heinz Guderian studied the leading European literature on armored warfare and, between 1922 and 1928, wrote five papers for Military Weekly, an armed forces journal.

Britain was experimenting with armoured units under General Percy Hobart, and Heinz Guderian kept abreast of Hobart's writings.

In 1927, Heinz Guderian was promoted to major and in October he was posted to the transport section of the Truppenamt, a clandestine form of the army's General Staff, which had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles.

Heinz Guderian was the public face advocating mechanized warfare and Lutz worked behind the scenes.

Heinz Guderian reached into the Nazi regime to promote the panzer force concept, attract support and secure resources.

However, Heinz Guderian is widely accepted as having pioneered the communications system developed for the panzer units.

Heinz Guderian stood beside the Fuhrer in Linz as Hitler addressed Germany and Austria in celebration.

Heinz Guderian attended opera with the Fuhrer and received invitations to dinner.

Under his corps command was one of Germany's six panzer divisions; Heinz Guderian's corps controlled 14.5 per cent of Germany's armoured fighting vehicles.

Heinz Guderian's task was to advance through the former West Prussian territory, then travel through East Prussia before heading south towards Warsaw.

Heinz Guderian used the German concept of "leading forward", which required commanders to move to the battlefront and assess the situation.

Heinz Guderian made use of modern communication systems by travelling in a radio-equipped command vehicle with which he kept himself in contact with corps command.

Heinz Guderian had accomplished his first operational victory and he gave a tour of the battlefield to Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS.

The historian Russell Hart writes that Heinz Guderian supported the invasion because he "despised the Catholic, Slavic Poles who now occupied parts of his native, beloved Prussia".

Foremost in his mind was the "liberation" of his former family estate at Gross-Klonia; Heinz Guderian ordered the advance on Gross-Klonia at night and through fog, leading to what he subsequently admitted were "serious casualties".

Heinz Guderian's corps withdrew before the SS began its ethnic cleansing campaign.

Heinz Guderian learned of murder operations and of Jews being forced into Nazi ghettos from his son, Heinz Gunther Guderian, who had witnessed some of them.

Heinz Guderian was involved in the strategic debates that preceded the invasion of France and the Low Countries.

Heinz Guderian then complained about the lack of resources until he was given seven mechanized divisions with which to accomplish the task.

Heinz Guderian's corps spearheaded the drive through the Ardennes and over the Meuse River.

Heinz Guderian led the attack that broke the French lines at the Battle of Sedan.

Heinz Guderian was then ordered to advance to the Swiss border.

Heinz Guderian had accepted some core elements of National Socialism: the Lebensraum concept of territorial expansion and the destruction of the supposed Judeo-Bolshevik threat.

Heinz Guderian was awarded a Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves on 17 July 1941.

Halder had Heinz Guderian fly to Fuhrer Headquarters to argue the Army's case for continuing the assault against Moscow.

Heinz Guderian, who had just recently been vehemently opposed to Hitler's plan for the drive to the south, unexpectedly sided with the dictator.

Heinz Guderian's responsibilities were to oversee the panzer arm and the training of Germany's panzer forces.

Heinz Guderian established a collaborative relationship with Albert Speer regarding the manufacture and development of armored fighting vehicles.

The military failures of 1943 prevented Heinz Guderian from restoring combat power to the armored forces to any significant degree.

Heinz Guderian had limited success with improved tank destroyers and fixing flaws in the third generation of tanks, the Panther and the Tiger.

Heinz Guderian opposed the offensive, on the grounds that a victory would be extremely costly and would achieve little, saying "it is a matter of profound indifference to the world whether we hold Kursk or not".

Heinz Guderian became the Acting Chief of the General Staff of the Army High Command with the responsibility of advising Hitler on the Eastern Front.

Heinz Guderian himself denied any involvement with the plot; nevertheless, he had unexpectedly retired to his estate on the day of the assassination attempt.

Post-war, Heinz Guderian claimed that he had attempted to get out of this duty and that he had found the sessions "repulsive".

In reality, Heinz Guderian had applied himself to the task with the vigour of a Nazi adherent, which perhaps was due to the desire to deflect attention from himself.

Heinz Guderian made the Nazi salute obligatory throughout the armed forces.

Heinz Guderian supported the politicization of the military, but failed to see why other officers perceived him as a Nazi.

At a Volkssturm rally in November, 1944, Heinz Guderian said that there were "95 million National Socialists who stand behind Adolf Hitler".

Heinz Guderian cultivated close personal relationships with the most powerful people in the regime.

Heinz Guderian had an exclusive dinner with Himmler on Christmas Day, 1944.

On 6 March 1945, shortly before the end of the war, Heinz Guderian participated in a propaganda broadcast that denied the Holocaust; the Red Army in its advance had just liberated several extermination camps.

Heinz Guderian avoided being convicted as a war criminal at the Nuremberg Trials because there was no substantial documentary evidence against him at that time.

Heinz Guderian answered questions from the Allied forces and denied being an ardent supporter of Nazism.

Heinz Guderian joined the US Army Historical Division in 1945 and the US refused requests from the Soviet Union to have him extradited.

In one such recording, while conversing with former Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb and former General Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, Heinz Guderian opined: "The fundamental principles [of Nazism] were fine".

Heinz Guderian had informed on his ex-colleagues and co-operated with the Allies, which had helped him evade prosecution.

Heinz Guderian retired to Schwangau near Fussen in Southern Bavaria and began writing.

Heinz Guderian remained an ardent German nationalist for the rest of his life.

Heinz Guderian's post-war autobiography Panzer Leader was a success with the reading public.

Heinz Guderian cast himself as an innovator and the "father" of the German panzer arm, both before the war and during the blitzkrieg years.

Heinz Guderian asked Guderian to say that he had based his military theories on Liddell Hart's; Guderian obliged.

Battistelli, examining Heinz Guderian's record, said he was not the father of the panzer arm.

Heinz Guderian stood out from his arguably more able compatriot, Lutz, for two reasons.

Heinz Guderian was a capable tactician and technician, leading his troops successfully in the Invasion of Poland, the Battle of France and during the early stages of the invasion of the Soviet Union: especially in the advance to Smolensk and the Battle of Kiev.

Heinz Guderian's memoirs omitted mention of his military failings and his close relationship with Hitler.

James Corum writes in his book The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform that Heinz Guderian was an excellent general, a first-rate tactician and a man who played a central role in developing Panzer divisions, irrespective of his memoirs.

Freelance historian Pier Battistelli argues that Heinz Guderian rewrote history in his memoirs, but notes that the biggest re-writing of history comes not in his putative fathering of the panzer force but in the cover-up of his culpability for war crimes during Operation Barbarossa.

Heinz Guderian played a large role in the commission of reprisals after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Heinz Guderian wrote in his memoirs that he had been given a Polish estate as a retirement gift.

Heinz Guderian did not mention that he initially requested an estate three times larger, but he was turned down by the local Gauleiter, with support from Himmler.

Heinz Guderian furnished the estate with property stolen by M-Aktion from the homes of French Jews.

Heinz Guderian claimed, contrary to historical evidence, that the criminal Commissar Order was not carried out by his troops because it "never reached [his] panzer group".

Heinz Guderian lied about the Barbarossa Decree that preemptively exempted German troops from prosecution for crimes committed against Soviet civilians, claiming that it was never carried out either.

Heinz Guderian claimed to have been solicitous towards the civilian population, that he took pains to preserve Russian cultural objects and that his troops had "liberated" Soviet citizens.

Kenneth Macksey in his biography eulogized Heinz Guderian, inflating his true accomplishments.

Heinz Guderian thus came across as a consummate professional who stood apart from the crimes of the Nazi regime.