
The book responsible for panzer blitzkrieg
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian (* 17. June 1888 in Kulm, Western Prussia) is a Veteran of the signals intelligence of the First World War, former Freikorps fighter against the Soviet Union and colonel General in the Wehrmacht.
In 1907, Erich von Manstein was his classmate at the War Academy.
During the Weimar Republic, when the Treaty of Versailles forbade Panzers to Germany, he had his soldiers train with tractors and mock Panzers instead. In this time, he developed his concept later to be known as "Blitzkrieg". Critics say however that he copied many Ideas from others - the British Military theoretician B. H. Liddell Hart, his former superior Oswald Lutz (who was fired by the "Führer"), and others.
He wrote diverse texts about motorised warfare, among others his 1937 book Achtung – Panzer! By this way, he aroused Adolf Nazi's Interest in Panzers, who had ordered him in 1935 to create three Panzer Divisions in the new Wehrmacht and gave him the Command of the 2nd Panzer Division to boot. He participated in the invasion of Austria and the Sudetenland with the newly formed XVIth Army Corps.
In World War II, he commanded the XIXth Army Corps in Poland and afterwards, 1940 in the War in the West, during which his corps (three Panzer Divisions strong) was part of Panzer group Kleist. Because he disobeyed Kleist and permanently ignored his long, open Flanks during the advance, he lost his command on May 16th, but got it back from von Rundstedt. For using Panzers, he generally recommends his old maxim: "Klotzen, nicht Kleckern!" (Use them in spades, not in drops!)
He and Günther von Kluge detest each other personally.
In the Hierarchy, he serves under Ewald von Kleist/Gerd von Rundstedt/Walther von Brauchitsch/Adolf Nazi.
On October 1st in 1913 he married Margarethe Christine Goerne in Goslar. They had two Kids: Heinz Günther (*1914), and Kurt Bernhard (*1918).