Latest / Generals of WWII: The Art of Command / General Guderian: father of the Blitzkrieg (with Kris Thompson) | Ep 19

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General Guderian: father of the Blitzkrieg (with Kris Thompson) | Ep 19 · Generals of WWII: The Art of Command

0:08
Welcome to generals of World War 2, the art of command.
0:11
I am your host, John Viscardo. And with me once again is the
0:15
great Colonel Chris Thompson. For those of you not familiar
0:18
with Chris, he was on our previous episode on Creighton
0:22
Abrams. And today we're going to discuss
0:24
Heinz Goudarian. But before we get to that, I
0:27
want to talk about the National Armor and Cavalry Heritage
0:31
Foundation, which is a charity that Chris is on the board on.
0:34
Chris, can you tell us a bit about that?
0:36
Yes, Sir, Thanks for the opportunity on this.
0:38
The foundation is a nonprofit of The mission of the nonprofit is
0:42
to maintain and refurbish a huge collection of historic armored
0:48
vehicles. They are stored in a warehouse
0:50
at Fort Benning. It's open to the public on
0:53
certain days and you can look them up on the on their website
0:57
for their calendar. But we have almost as many
1:00
historic vehicles from World War One through the most recent
1:04
conflict as the famous tank museum at Bovington in England.
1:09
That's amazing. Yeah.
1:10
And it's Fort Benning, GA, and anyone can go, right?
1:13
Yes, Sir. Anyone can go.
1:14
You can get through the gate. You have to check to make sure.
1:17
There's about one or two days a week.
1:19
It's open to the public, but it is open for tours and it's it
1:24
will blow your socks off when you see all these vehicles.
1:27
Yeah, and you can also donate to the charity.
1:29
There's a website, it's called. The website URL is Armor Cavalry
1:34
heritagefoundation.org so recommend my listeners check
1:38
that out and it sounds like an amazing museum.
1:40
Yes, Sir. Thank you very much.
1:42
Yeah, for sure. OK, let's jump into the topic
1:46
today, which is the famous German Nazi general Heinz
1:51
Gadarian. What makes this guy stand out in
1:54
your mind? So he is the number one person,
1:59
I think in the entire history of the 20th century associated with
2:04
the term blitzkrieg. He's referred to as the father
2:07
of blitzkrieg, the inventor of blitzkrieg.
2:09
So his name and blitzkrieg go together in in many historical
2:14
service. Yeah, it's funny because you
2:15
know, Rommel gets all the publicity on the German side,
2:18
but really there's there's a lot of talented commanders besides
2:21
Rommel. When you hear the term tank or
2:23
blitzkrieg, there's other generals like Gadarian that you
2:26
should really study. Well, exactly.
2:28
And, and the one thing about Gadarian, unlike Rommel,
2:32
although Rommel ended up being much more talented in the field
2:36
and we'll talk about that later. But the one thing about
2:39
Gadarian, Gadarian was into tanks before it was cool.
2:43
I mean, he was into tanks in the 1920s, right.
2:46
And Rommel was kind of trying to come lately in the 1940.
2:52
Yeah. And we, we talk about this in
2:54
other episodes like the airplane and the tank and the aircraft
2:58
carrier. I mean, they're, they're pretty
3:00
standard now, but at the time they were novel inventions,
3:03
right? And they they are and I mean it
3:06
is a good question right now currently as to is blitzkrieg
3:12
still a viable concept in the age of drones?
3:16
In the age of robots I just watched on television today, the
3:20
Ukrainians claim they have launched 10,000 sorties with
3:25
robots on the battlefield. So is blitzkrieg still viable?
3:29
I think that remains to be seen. I'm optimistic it is though, in
3:33
the right circumstances. Well, it's interesting that, you
3:36
know, technology like the B52 or the A10 Warthog, these are old
3:40
technologies, but they still work, we're still using them,
3:43
you know, they're they're still valid and viable.
3:45
So. I.
3:47
I mean, as much as you know, you hear about drones, there's still
3:49
a lot of old technology and I say old and air quotes that
3:52
we're using. Well, exactly.
3:54
And, and you know, for us in the armor force, we've been hearing
3:58
that that the tank is dead ever since 1973 with the suitcase
4:02
saggers. Oh, that ends the day of the
4:04
tank. And it turned out to be not
4:06
true. Yeah, well, let's jump into Mr.
4:10
Gadarian here. He was born June 1888 in Colm,
4:14
Prussia, which is now part of Poland, into a military family.
4:18
What was his early childhood like?
4:20
So his dad was a Lieutenant in a in a Jaeger battalion as part of
4:26
the the German army. Gadarian in his later ridings
4:30
was very proud of the fact that they, he called them landed
4:33
Gentry. But in in those days they're
4:35
referred to as Yonkers, basically small land owning
4:39
people in West and E Prussia. He was seen as a very smart
4:44
child early in his childhood. At the age of three, they moved
4:48
to western Germany. Then they moved into St.
4:51
Avold, which was at that point was was part of Germany, he
4:55
said, and his father was a still a company grade officer and he
4:59
Gadarian said that because of the limited means of his father
5:04
that he was, they were forced to send him to cadet school at the
5:08
age of 12, where he stayed until the age of 18.
5:13
And now this is where maybe his personality gets developed later
5:17
on. But I mean here 12 to 18 is the
5:20
formative period of someone's life and cadet schools in pre
5:25
World War One Germany. I've read that they had intense
5:28
discipline. And in his memoir, Panzer
5:32
Leader, he doesn't say anything about his parents during that
5:35
time frame or about visits or about his father.
5:40
But it's all about his instructors at the school.
5:43
And you wonder how much that instilled in him.
5:46
Yeah. And that kind of reminds me of
5:48
Napoleon. Not to bring in my other
5:49
podcast, but I will hear. You know, his dad dropped him
5:52
off in military school at age 9. And I think he saw his dad
5:55
twice. After that it was just all you
5:57
did was military school. Exactly.
6:00
Now the the good thing about being in an intense academic and
6:06
disciplinary environment and being in that area St. of old is
6:10
he picked up French and English there and then in later schools.
6:16
And so you know, by the time he gets into his own officer
6:21
career, he is fluent in multiple languages which helps him read a
6:26
lot of foreign books and research on on armor and tanks.
6:30
Yeah, and that's a good point. We'll come back to you later.
6:32
He's commissioned into the German army in 19 O 8, serving
6:36
initially in signals and communication units.
6:39
Where was he posted so? He went he was initially
6:43
commissioned out of his school as a Jaeger officer and assigned
6:48
to his father's battalion that his father was then commanding.
6:53
And and again, here's where his story gets interesting because
6:56
his dad sends him pre World War One, sends him off to Telegraph
7:02
school, communication school from his Jager battalion.
7:07
And there are some reports saying that Gadarian was wanting
7:11
to get married to his sweetheart and his father felt he was too
7:16
young, quote UN quote to get married.
7:19
So he sent him away for a year or two communication school.
7:22
And then from that point forward, he was viewed as a
7:24
communication specialist. So they get Arian comes back,
7:27
gets married in 2013 and and you know, had had had his wife with
7:33
him the rest of his life. But that whole thing about going
7:37
to communication school, Gadarian really doesn't talk
7:40
about that much either. And you would think that, I
7:43
mean, most people assume that that's where he got the
7:47
inspiration for later wireless radios being in tanks.
7:52
But he doesn't talk about it that way.
7:53
Matter of fact, he doesn't even bring it up.
7:55
I mean, you get the feeling he was a little bit maybe resentful
7:59
at being sent away again when he had the sweetheart, you know,
8:02
back home with his, with his father's battalion.
8:05
So it's interesting there's ways to look at that situation.
8:09
Well, it's interesting too. I mean, the motif of this
8:11
episode is probably going to be blitzkrieg, but in order to
8:14
operate fast, you have to have good communications, right?
8:17
Right, right. Well, exactly.
8:19
And you know, we'll get into that, but this was the age of,
8:23
of the of the wireless radios becoming rampant throughout all
8:32
the militaries. And Germany maybe had a little
8:37
bit of an advantage because they were kind of building their
8:40
armored forces from scratch. Other armies, United States,
8:44
France, Great Britain really weren't focused on it at this
8:47
time. And so Germany had kind of a 10
8:50
year head start and they had the opportunity to really put those
8:53
radios to good use. Yeah, yeah.
8:56
Gadarian serves in staff roles during World War One, gaining
9:00
experience in Modern Warfare coordination.
9:03
And this is more of a general question for you, Colonel.
9:05
Why is staff work so important in becoming a good commander?
9:10
It, it is because it gives you, I I think a realistic view of
9:15
your unit as a whole. And just as an example, in the
9:19
United States Army in armor forces or make infantry forces.
9:24
Yet your, your, your accession might go like this.
9:26
You come out of officer basic course, you become a platoon
9:29
later, then you become a maybe an exo executive officer, senior
9:34
first Lieutenant. Then you become a staff officer,
9:37
maybe S4 or S1 or a squadron motor officer, battalion motor
9:43
officer, which is a captain level position.
9:46
Then you go to a company command or troop command or or battery
9:50
command position as a captain. And then you go back again to
9:54
staff as a major. But it really gives you the
9:58
rounded experience you need to understand how everything in
10:03
your unit works, which is which is vital.
10:06
Yeah, that's really good points right there is, you know, yeah,
10:10
it's great to be a platoon commander and and be on the
10:12
front lines, but you also got to learn about logistics and how
10:14
things work behind the lines. And yeah, that's a really good
10:17
point. Well, especially with with the
10:20
in the armored forces, it's all about fuel and main gun tank
10:24
rounds, right And those are and maintenance on these vehicles.
10:28
And so if you don't understand maintenance and parts and
10:33
replacing track, pulling the Tank Engine, what's called
10:36
pulling the pack out to give it a service, if you don't
10:39
understand how fuel trucks work, where the fuel comes from, how
10:44
it gets distributed out to units, to the troops or
10:47
companies of the battalion, how ammo gets distributed, you will
10:51
be a incompetent commander of that unit.
10:55
Yeah, well after World War One, Gadarian remains in the small or
10:59
Reichsware one of the few officers retained after
11:04
Germany's defeat. How small was Germany's army at
11:07
this time, and did it have the effect that the Allies intended
11:10
after World War One? It was they it was really almost
11:16
non existent the the Versailles Treaty.
11:18
And then there were several other documents that were signed
11:21
by the victorious countries that really hemmed in Germany.
11:26
So first they were limited to an army of 100,000 troopers or
11:32
soldiers. Second, they they were not
11:34
allowed to have armor, tanks or airplanes or poison gas.
11:40
At third, they had to pay a massive amount of reparation.
11:45
Yep. And So what it did it strangled
11:47
their armed forces. Really the only thing that could
11:51
be used for is to suppress internal opposition.
11:55
They had no offensive capability whatsoever and and those
11:58
reparations were so heavy it created a ton of resentment.
12:04
It essentially turned Germany into a vassal state, right?
12:08
And you have these other officers or non commissioned
12:12
officers or just privates that are either on halfway or not
12:15
employed at all and they're just resentful.
12:18
Well, exactly. And the other interesting part
12:20
to me is number one, in the Versailles Treaty, I think the
12:23
most important thing that that that the victorious countries
12:27
were wanting to keep a handle on was tanks.
12:30
So even in 1918 and 1919, the Allies knew that the tank was
12:37
critically important in the future.
12:39
And it's it's interesting that despite all the restrictions on
12:44
Germany, they tested tanks in Sweden and in Russia.
12:50
Gadarian himself went to see German tanks being developed in
12:54
Sweden on contract, went to see field trials in Russia.
12:58
And so even though the Allies knew that the tank was critical,
13:02
it was the Germans on the sly that would got way ahead of the
13:07
Allied countries on developing the tank.
13:10
Yeah, this next part's interesting.
13:12
Gadarian became a leading advocate of armored warfare,
13:15
studying British theorists like JFC Fuller and Lahart, and he
13:20
authored a famous book called Actong Panzer in 1937, outlining
13:25
the principles of fast, concentrated tank warfare.
13:29
Why is this book still read and respected today?
13:32
This is probably out of everything in this podcast, this
13:37
is probably the key issue when it comes to get here.
13:39
It is, this is, this is the book that I purchased I think as a
13:43
young captain. It is.
13:45
It is kind of the Blitzkrieg Bible, if you will.
13:49
But I think it's important to kind of put it in perspective
13:52
about how it came about. So you had JFC Fuller, a British
13:57
staff officer who did the planning for the big tank battle
14:00
in World War One at Cambrai. And Fuller did a lot of prep
14:05
work after the war, talking about layering heavy tanks for a
14:10
breakthrough, then medium tanks to exploit, talking about troops
14:15
coming behind, talking about airplanes coming in.
14:18
So there was a lot there that Fuller came up with.
14:22
However, Kohler, even though he was a British retired officer,
14:26
loved the Nazi party, He loved Hitler.
14:30
He even met with Hitler in the 1930s.
14:33
So Fuller, I'm not sure if that's why he, you know, he
14:37
didn't didn't have the same influence perhaps that Gadarian
14:40
did in their home countries. But Fuller kind of set this set
14:45
the table for for for the full concept in Octoon Panzer.
14:49
Little Hart came in. Little Hart talked about the
14:53
expanding torrent, the indirect approach.
14:56
He was more conceptual. He also talked about the
14:59
importance of breaking the psychological and the emotional
15:04
spirit of the enemy. I wrote a paper actually that
15:07
was a three-part study about mounted warfare that was
15:11
published in 125th edition of Armor magazine.
15:14
And I talked about the fact that there's, you know, when you talk
15:17
about tank warfare and shock, the impact of shock of an
15:22
armored attack, there's kind of two components, physical and
15:26
psychological and physical being.
15:28
You got tanks running through the soft areas, the airfields,
15:32
command post, logistics bases. That's the physical shock.
15:35
But then you have the mental psychological issue.
15:38
They're in our rear and they are cleaning up back there.
15:41
We can't get gas because they're back there.
15:44
So it's so Liddell Hart talked about that.
15:48
And if I were to shorthand blitzkrieg, it would just be,
15:52
you know, air attacks to kind of psychological and damage the
15:55
line. Punch a hole through with your
15:57
armored tanks and then like you said, you're in the command
16:00
posts and fuel dumps before anyone knows what is happening.
16:03
And then you let the inventory sweep up the remnants.
16:06
Here's the brilliant part of Octun Panzer, which makes Octun
16:12
Panzer kind of the equivalent in the armor, force mounted forces,
16:21
planning, operational level stuff.
16:24
That makes it the equivalent of Einstein's theory of relativity
16:29
and in terms of being Earth breaking.
16:31
And I want to read something out of this that explains the whole
16:35
thing. And this is where he goes to
16:37
that next huge leap beyond Fuller and Little heart.
16:41
Some powers may have considerable natural resources
16:45
and colonial territories at their disposal, and derive there
16:49
from a considerable degree of independence, both in war and
16:52
peace, France and Great Britain and Poland.
16:56
Others, who are no less viable and may indeed often be larger
17:01
in terms of popular population, will possess a very restricted
17:05
base of raw materials and few colonial territories.
17:09
Because they live in a state of continual economic stress, they
17:13
are not in a position to sustain a long war.
17:17
So you Darien's theory and his concepts explained in this book
17:22
where you do the breakthrough and then you expand that
17:27
breakthrough and even says it on the title, it says development
17:32
of armored forces, tactics and operational potential.
17:36
So strategy is like global diplomacy economics.
17:41
Tactics are battles, operational levels are campaign winning
17:45
issues. And so he takes this armored
17:48
force and, and, and talks about how to win a quick campaign, a
17:53
quick war tailor made for France and.
17:55
Poland. All right, well, let's go ahead
17:58
and take us there. War Two starts in 1939.
18:01
In Poland. Guderian played a central role
18:05
in developing the Blitzkrieg doctrine.
18:08
Rapid combined arms offensives. Does this book or this strategy
18:12
explain Nazi Germany's early successes in World War 2?
18:17
Sort of Poland, they really didn't have the concept totally
18:23
refined or the equipment for it. I mean, part of it is the key
18:28
part of the concept is you mass tanks at one point of of impact,
18:34
a spare pump, a main effort or whatever you want to determine
18:38
on a narrow frontage. And you have all arms,
18:42
engineers, infantry, similarly mobile so they can keep up with
18:46
the tanks, maybe even mobile artillery.
18:49
You have dive bombers running in front of it.
18:51
So in Poland they really didn't have that sorted out quite yet.
18:57
Gadarian score had two motorized divisions and a Panzer division.
19:01
Now he did great. He was on the North End.
19:03
If you're looking kind of as they went into Poland, he was on
19:06
the far north and he penetrated across the Polish or the
19:13
corridor into E Prussia, and then he swung down behind the
19:17
Polish forces on the boundary line that had been agreed to
19:21
with the Russians, but it still wasn't classic blitzkrieg.
19:25
Now going to France 1940, this is the prototypical blitzkrieg
19:34
campaign. The German army had 10 Panzer
19:37
divisions. They had a number of motorized
19:40
infantry divisions. And so out of their ten Panzer
19:43
divisions, they masked seven of them in their main effort, which
19:48
is where Gadarian was. And Gadarian had three Panzer
19:52
divisions and the Gross Deutschland Infantry Regiment in
19:56
his core, which is a essentially a small mechanized division.
20:01
And so. They launched into France and on
20:05
the famous through the famous Ardennes force, the man man
20:08
Stein plan. He penetrated all the way to the
20:11
coast to Abbeville, the first German to reach Abbeville, which
20:16
is about 100 miles South of Dunker.
20:19
But that that cut off essentially a good part of the
20:22
French forces as well as the British BEF.
20:26
And so that was classic blitzkrieg doctrine, a doctrine
20:32
in action. It wasn't perfect.
20:34
I mean, you Darian in his book, Panzer leader kind of criticizes
20:38
a lot of his subordinates and he's got an ego, you know, like
20:41
like like many senior officers. And he goes, you know, if it
20:44
wasn't for me, they'd have stopped at that river, whatever.
20:46
So it wasn't perfect, but they push really helped.
20:50
And on this, I want to add a key point.
20:54
I talked to a officer I served with who I've known since we
20:59
were both captains at the Armor School, which was then at Fort
21:03
Knox. He graduated from the French
21:06
Calvary Armor School at semour. He was fluent in French, lived
21:10
in France, knew a lot of the French officers, knew their
21:13
history. He's done work after retirement
21:15
with the Department of Defense and the Secretary of State
21:18
regarding French or French speaking countries.
21:21
Really top notch officer. And I said, how do the French
21:25
view 1940 and Goderian and the Blitzkrieger all that, He says,
21:30
you know, basically everything we read about that is mostly
21:35
from English speaking authors, right?
21:37
And he says it, everybody gets the impression that the French
21:41
army disintegrated. And he said the French will go
21:45
to great pains to tell you that's not true.
21:49
And he gave me a couple items on that and I looked him up and he
21:53
was dead right. And one is the Germans had 2400
21:58
tanks total in those ten Panzer division for their entire
22:03
invasion force. Out of those 2400, the French
22:07
destroyed 900 of them, you know, well over that's like 40% of the
22:14
German tank force got whacked. And, and whereas the French
22:18
tanks, mostly they lost 2700 tanks out of 4000 high number,
22:24
but a lot of that was a mechanical breakdown.
22:27
And, and also the fact that that they ran out of gas, they didn't
22:32
have access to gas because their supply lines were cut off.
22:35
They, the French will tell you, we fought that armor, we fought
22:39
the blitzkrieg forces very, very viciously.
22:44
But we were just out maneuver. Yeah.
22:46
And, and General Gamelant, the French commanding general, it's
22:50
kind of looked at as the as the as being at fault, as being the
22:54
villain on this. Yeah.
22:55
A really interesting angle there.
22:58
Yeah, Gadarian LED Panzer forces in the 1940 invasion of France,
23:03
helping achieve A breakthrough at Sedan.
23:06
I know Rommel gets a lot of credit.
23:07
He had the famous Ghost division because they were so far out in
23:10
front nobody knew where they were.
23:12
But does Gadarian deserve more credit from historians here?
23:16
But he does, I'll just say sort of.
23:19
So this is a great comparison, though, between Gadarian and
23:22
Rommel. You Darian grows up in Prussia.
23:25
He grows up in a military family.
23:27
I mean, from his birth until his dying day, he was a Prussian
23:32
officer in that environment. Rommel grew up in southern
23:36
Germany, son of a school teacher.
23:38
Gadarian was in radio stations or commanding communications
23:43
unit in World War One that he never really talked about after
23:48
the fact. Even though he won Iron Cross
23:50
first and second class, he really didn't feel like talking
23:55
about it much in terms of impact on his life.
23:57
Here's Rommel down on the Austrian front commanding
24:00
platoons, companies. He ends the work and basically
24:05
commanding a a battalion size unit, a detachment.
24:09
He wins the blue Max, the Pearl and Mary.
24:14
So Rommel becomes a favorite of Hitler.
24:18
You got to say it. Rommel had a much better
24:20
personality. And so Rommel was assigned to
24:24
his Panzer division five months before the May 1940 invasion,
24:31
whereas Goudarian had been in whip tanks for almost 2 two
24:35
decades. Rommel still be.
24:38
I mean, Rommel's just so charismatic and his soldiers
24:43
loved him, his superior, even though he was kind of outside
24:45
the balance a little bit sometimes with his superiors.
24:48
They liked it, right? Gadarian.
24:52
Gadarian's personality was his biggest issue.
24:56
He was hot headed. He was strict and precise and
25:01
stubborn. And this comes up later.
25:04
Rommel was kind of the Brad Pitt of the German, an armored force.
25:09
I mean, he was the man after World War 1 and in the 7th
25:13
Division. He got a lot of press because
25:15
he's probably a lot better copy than do Darian was in terms of
25:20
personality. And then we go on to Russia and
25:22
Rommel goes down to North Africa.
25:25
But I think it was the personality thing is why Rommel
25:29
gets a lot more attention for 1940.
25:32
Well, yeah. And you got to know how to play
25:33
the game as a senior officer. You got to, you got to have that
25:36
delicate balance of political acumen and military ability.
25:40
You know it's. Tough.
25:41
Yeah. And he was.
25:42
He was in charge of Hitler's bodyguard during the invasion of
25:46
Poland. Hitler just adored him and all
25:50
of many of the interactions for his whole career between
25:53
Guderian and Hitler, we're kind of frosty and kind of kind of
25:58
rubbing each other the wrong way.
25:59
So he's known for his aggressive tactics and frequent clashes
26:03
with superiors over operational decisions.
26:07
But yeah, his relationship with Hitler just seems like it just
26:10
was never there like Ramos was. So it's it's interesting because
26:14
early on before Poland and before France, he met with
26:20
Hitler a lot. Hitler a matter of fact attended
26:23
1 of Gadarians first demonstrations of mock up
26:27
panzers which were basically trucks with boards mounted for
26:32
turrets. Hitler loved, loved it.
26:34
In in the Polish invasion, Hitler actually met Gadarian in
26:39
Gadarian's home because a Gadarian axis of advance took
26:43
him right past his old home in West Prussia.
26:46
Hitler met him there, and after the Poland invasion, he met with
26:50
Hitler some more. There were private dinners
26:52
together, but we'll get to it later.
26:54
About Russia, well. You know, you're a Colonel,
26:58
you've been in the army. In a perfect world, you just
27:02
want to be left alone to run your unit and your your troops.
27:05
And you don't want to have to play the political game.
27:07
But it it's part of the job, right?
27:09
You have to and and there's a lot of things you know that go
27:13
back in every army. Well, is he a good field
27:16
officer? Is he a good officer on parade?
27:19
People you work with, you might not agree with, but it But at
27:22
the same time an army doesn't work unless it works as part of
27:29
a coordinated machine, a coordinated effort.
27:32
And Goodarian would repeatedly dishes.
27:37
But even in the invasion of France he was told to slow down.
27:41
And in this occasion it's probably good that he didn't,
27:44
that he did disobey. But you can take that so far if
27:49
you do it all the time and you do it as a total pain for the
27:54
people that that that you work for, you're not going to make it
27:57
brave for. Well, yeah, and that's kind of
28:00
what comes up here in Russia. In Operation Barbarosa, he's
28:02
commanding Panzer Group 2, advancing rapidly to Moscow.
28:06
As we all know, they don't end up taking Moscow, and he's
28:10
dismissed in late 1941 after disagreements with Hitler over
28:15
strategic withdrawal. So what happens here?
28:18
So this is, this is interesting because the key question I think
28:21
with Guterian is what happened to blitzkrieg on the Eastern
28:25
Front? Why didn't it work?
28:27
And, and if you compare France, they had 10 Panzer divisions.
28:34
70% of those seven of those Panzer divisions were
28:38
concentrated on a 50 mile frontage in the main effort.
28:42
Then on the Eastern Front in 1941, Army Group N was going to
28:47
Leningrad, Army Group Center where he was assigned was going
28:52
to Moscow, Army Group S was going to Kiev and the resources
28:57
down there, that is a 1000 mile frontage.
29:02
And the Germans put 50% of the Panzer divisions in Army Group
29:07
Center. Half of those, seven of those
29:10
were under Udarian's command. They had three Panzer divisions
29:14
in the north and another five in in Army Group South.
29:18
So they spread their divisions out over a much wider frontage
29:23
than they did in 1940. And so Army Group Center is
29:27
making great progress of Guderian.
29:30
He was a basically a armored army commander, 3 Corps under
29:34
his command and the Gross Deutschland Infantry Regiment,
29:37
which very elite, and he was assigned to go after Moscow and
29:42
he got close to Moscow. Then he gets an order from
29:45
Hitler to help out Army Group S toward Kiev because they're
29:50
having trouble and do Darian objects.
29:54
But he goes along with the order.
29:56
He transports all his people a few 100 miles South to help out,
30:01
then brings him back to the doorstep of Moscow.
30:05
But then Father Winter closes in and he pulls his people back
30:10
despite the order of his army group commander von Kluga and
30:15
and Hitler's direct order. And Hitler's had enough.
30:19
And von Kluga was really critical.
30:22
Also, you get the feeling that by December, which is only six
30:26
months after this campaign begin, von Kluga has had enough
30:31
of this guy and Hitler has had enough of this guy.
30:35
And you know your your skill will take you so far.
30:37
But if you are a pain for your P, the people you work with, you
30:41
don't work with your fellow commanders, you're not
30:44
supportive of your boss. I mean, what do you expect?
30:47
Yeah, I mean, look at General Patton.
30:49
You can be the greatest Army commander of all time.
30:51
If you're annoying your higher ups constantly and doing dumb
30:54
things that embarrass them, you're going to go on the
30:56
sideline. Well, exactly.
30:58
And Gadarian didn't have the charisma or the IT factor.
31:03
You know, this whole podcast series of yours, which is
31:06
awesome, but it is, but it's about the art of command.
31:11
And so, you know, Gadarian had no it factor.
31:16
He really didn't have unbending loyalty from the people that
31:19
worked with him or that were around him and his whereas
31:22
Patton had a great deal of of, of charisma.
31:27
Rommel had huge charisma. So I think they're the people
31:31
they worked with and for. We're willing to put up maybe
31:34
with a lot more, but Gadarian was not worth the trouble, I
31:37
think, for his superiors. Yeah, and I wish we could tell
31:40
people what the factor is. And maybe that's the object of
31:43
this podcast is like, if we could put it in a bottle and
31:45
have everyone drink it and then you had that natural ability and
31:49
that that charisma and everybody loved you, everyone would do it.
31:51
But we don't. It's hard to identify what it
31:54
is. It is, and I've I've worked for
31:58
I grew up in the in the famous armored Calvary Regiment, the
32:02
Black Horse Regiment, and I was so lucky to work for squadron
32:07
commanders, regimental commanders that were that all of
32:12
them had that it factor. I remember these people.
32:16
I mean you would die for them. You love them.
32:19
They had that sense of humor, that swagger that you knew that
32:24
they were going to win. You knew that if you were with
32:27
them, you were going to hand the enemy their hind it and whatever
32:32
you did, you know, it takes some charisma, takes confidence, it
32:36
takes skill. They have to believe you know
32:38
what you're doing. I know one regimental commander
32:41
told me and this was a kind of a famous saying.
32:43
He says lead from the front, lead by example, be technically
32:46
tactically competent. And that's that's a good start.
32:49
But then you got to have that personality it back.
32:52
They have to want to be with you because you're the best choice
32:56
to kill for them to be successful.
32:58
I don't yet it's hard to find. It's like, but you know what
33:01
when you see it right, right. And I remember 1 regimental
33:04
commander that we had Tommy, Tony White, who was just, we
33:08
worshipped that man And, and Rommel I think had that you hear
33:12
about all his subordinates talking about him.
33:15
You never hear any subordinates of Gudarian talking about him
33:20
after the fact, after the war, about how great he was.
33:24
I mean, they all admire this, this, this is something that
33:28
will never go away. They, they admire that.
33:31
It is the theory of relativity for armed forces, but in terms
33:36
of his leadership in combat, you don't hear all that much like
33:41
you do for the other famous generals running around.
33:44
Well, Hitler didn't keep him on the bench that long.
33:46
He's recalled in 1943 as Inspector General of armored
33:50
troops responsible for rebuilding Germany's Panzer
33:53
forces. So why do you think he was
33:55
recalled? So I think Hitler was running
33:58
out of options. Number one, I mean, he had
34:00
people that were deployed in the East and they had just lost
34:04
North Africa. Rommel was kind of worn down at
34:07
that point. I think Hitler was under a lot
34:10
of pressure. Do Darian was pretty clean in
34:15
terms of, you know, he wasn't part of the big disaster on the
34:18
Eastern front. And this is where the story gets
34:22
interesting as well. Gadarian describes during this
34:27
time frame and later, you know, for his next job.
34:31
But Gadarian talks about frequent conflicts and arguments
34:35
with Hitler. It's interesting that the German
34:39
generals that believed in blitzkrieg, the Aramels, the the
34:43
Gadarians, the von Thomas who was the Africa Corps commander,
34:47
they all liked a mix of heavy, medium and light tanks.
34:53
They liked the medium and light tanks due to the exploit to go
34:57
running in the rear, shooting up because a light tank is still in
35:01
those days was was impervious pretty much the enemy fire, but
35:05
they could cover a whole lot of ground, right?
35:08
And so during this 4344 period, the German army was focused on
35:13
cranking out Tigers and these massive tanks oriented on
35:18
defending the Eastern Front. And I'm sure that didn't sit
35:23
well with Gadarian. Gadarian wanted mobile, fast
35:27
tanks that could maneuver quickly, and they were kind of
35:30
going a different direction. Yeah, well, he's appointed chief
35:37
of the general staff in 1944. Following the July 20 plot to
35:42
assassinate Hitler. Rommel is famously forced to
35:45
commit suicide. Was Gadarian a die hard Nazi in
35:50
your opinion? Because it seems like Hitler's
35:52
only surrounding himself with loyal yes men at this point.
35:55
This is, this is another really, I think, controversial,
36:00
interesting question about Gadarian.
36:01
Gadarian, in one of his conversations with another
36:05
German general after the war, said the principles of National
36:11
Socialism are still valid. And he said this after the war,
36:15
after all the Holocaust stuff came out.
36:18
He was a Nazi. He believed in the Nazi Party.
36:21
He believed in Hitler. Now, that being said, there's
36:24
also reporting from a number of sources that said he was
36:28
actually approached for involvement in the assassination
36:33
plot in July 44, and he waved it off.
36:38
Nobody says that he was involved in the actual plot, but he was
36:41
approached and he was. He knew about something was
36:44
brewing and he didn't say anything to Hitler or anybody
36:48
else. And then after July and the plot
36:51
goes down, Hitler's still alive. Hitler puts Goodarian in charge
36:58
of what's called the Vermont Honor Court because these
37:02
officers under, I guess under German law, had to be discharged
37:07
first before they would be subject to the civilian
37:11
tribunals that were, that were going after the, the, the
37:15
plotters. And so Goodarian essentially ran
37:18
the Army court, which was the 1st court of inquiry about
37:22
officers being involved in this, which is kind of when he knew
37:29
about the plot. You wonder what these guys are
37:31
that knew about that are saying. But here he's sending us off the
37:34
and we approached him so. Well, yeah, and, and it had to
37:38
be awkward for him because he probably knew a lot of these
37:40
guys personally. The the other weird part about
37:42
this time frame, and this is reported, it wasn't just
37:45
Gadarian, but Gadarian on one of his last visits to Berlin and
37:51
Hitler, they almost came to blow.
37:55
And it was reported that that Gadarian stubborn, he would not,
37:59
he would not budget an inch on this discussion and he was very
38:03
dismissive of Hitler. And Hitler got so mad that he
38:07
got right up in his face and had his fists right next to Gadarian
38:11
jaws and Gadarian just sit there.
38:14
Then Gadarian lost his temper and the staff officers had to
38:17
separate them for like 30 minutes and then they brought
38:21
Gadarian back in and the report for it.
38:23
Hitler was worn out and Hitler was slumped in a chair.
38:27
Gadarian didn't give in and so Gadarian flew out of Berlin.
38:30
I think this is maybe a a month or two before the end of the war
38:34
made it to the western side of Germany and and surrendered to
38:37
the Allies. Yeah, he's surrenders in 1945.
38:40
He's later released without trial and dies in May 1954.
38:46
What do you think his involvement with with the
38:48
Holocaust is? Because obviously he's on the
38:50
Eastern Front, so he must have had Einstatz grouping with him.
38:53
Well, exactly that. That's the issue.
38:55
There's no doubt that they had Einstatz grouping.
39:00
He commanded 3 core, so his AO, his area of operations is quite
39:06
large. And same thing in Poland when he
39:08
was a corps commander. You have to think there were
39:11
rail shipments of Jews coming out of Russia from his sector or
39:17
Einsatzgruppen massacres. And if they were in his sector,
39:23
clearly he knew about them. And if the rail was being was
39:27
transporting Jewish victims out there, going back to the to the
39:32
camps, then he had his staff and he had to know about that.
39:36
They were taking that, taking trains away from him.
39:39
I mean, there's every indication he was well aware of what was
39:41
going on after the war. He was he was begging off.
39:45
I mean, he's you talk about the clean work Vermont, the good
39:48
Germans. We didn't know and we.
39:50
Weren't aware? I think it's all you know,
39:52
that's all poppycock. Yeah, it is.
39:54
It's all bunk. But in in the Gypsy Roman
39:57
population, anyone who was handicapped, in their mind, it
40:00
was a lot of people that they just seemed undesirable.
40:03
And it's just really unfortunate.
40:04
So that kind of factors into his legacy.
40:07
What is his legacy? I think his legacy is this, this
40:13
book. This is for all his faults, for
40:17
all his lack of personality, for all his tough relations that he
40:21
had with working with teammates and working with people that
40:25
worked for him and his bosses, for all the issues he had there.
40:29
This concept was the key concept.
40:32
And I think later in the war in Russia, it was simply too broad
40:36
of an expanse. They did spread their Panzer
40:39
divisions out. So were they massing tanks in
40:43
certain areas? Yes.
40:44
But they kind of fell away from the blitzkrieg theory then.
40:48
And the Ardennes, they tried to go back to the blitzkrieg theory
40:53
that about 1000 tanks involved in the attack in the Battle of
40:57
the Bulge. But but the Americans really
40:59
developed the anti blitzkrieg formula in the Ardennes at which
41:05
Gadarian had talked about in his book about how to avoid this.
41:09
But you, you set the shoulders of the penetration to keep that
41:14
gap narrow and you feed units into the flanks of the
41:18
penetration so they can't spill out and start rolling up to the
41:22
flank. Then you put put in some
41:26
obstacles, blow bridges to slow down the penetration.
41:29
Yep. And then once you have them in
41:31
that narrow corridor, they're yours for the taking, which is
41:34
why Patton always said he'll let him go all the way to Paris.
41:37
We'll bag them all. Right.
41:39
And I think the Russians got wise to it, too.
41:41
I mean, after some initial struggles, they said, well,
41:44
yeah, let him come through. We'll just pinch off the salient
41:46
once they're through and then we can deal with it that way.
41:50
Well actually exactly, and cursed is probably the best
41:52
example of that big selling of Kirk's curse.
41:55
The Germans hit it from both sides with some heavy duty tank
42:00
forces, but the Russians simply played those obstacles out.
42:04
Anti tank ditches, wire which could get it, which can screw up
42:07
the tracks and the final drives on the tank minefields.
42:11
You slow that down and then you start feeding units in from the
42:14
flank. So the legacy would be obviously
42:18
Holocaust, which was awful. He was definitely a participant
42:21
within, but he was also, I guess, father of the Blitzkrieg
42:25
and perhaps one of the best German generals of World War 2.
42:28
I I think, well, in terms of conceptual conceiving how
42:32
Germany could beat France and Poland, it was his theory.
42:37
And again, the Blitzkrieg is the theory of relativity for for
42:42
mounted maneuver warfare. And so I don't really put a
42:46
whole lot of praise on to his, the way he commanded.
42:52
I think there's a lot of German generals.
42:54
Rommel proved it. He took command of a of a Panzer
42:57
division and in five months he was moving out toward the coast,
43:01
right. So, yeah, I think they had a lot
43:03
of choices there for, for the invasion of France.
43:07
But I do you got to give him credit for all these
43:10
synthesizing all these different theories theories and explaining
43:15
why this is a campaign winner to win a rapid war if you don't
43:19
have the resources for any long term engagement like World War
43:23
One. OK, well, thank you for that,
43:26
Chris. That was fantastic.
43:27
I do want to call out again the National Armor and Cavalry
43:30
Heritage Foundation. I can go to their website and
43:34
you can also visit their museum in Fort Benning, GA.
43:36
For those who are interested, please go to the website and if
43:39
you feel like it, make a donation because it sounds like
43:42
a great, great organization. Great.
43:45
Yeah, thank you. It is and it's, and if you're in
43:47
the Fort Benning area, Columbus, GA area, please look up on the
43:52
website and go by and visit. They've got Tiger tanks, they've
43:56
got M ones, they've got tanks from World War One.
43:58
It's an amazing collection. Yeah, bring the kids.
44:01
I'm sure it's quite impressive. All right, Chris.
44:03
Well, thank you for that. And we will talk soon, my
44:05
friend. It's been an honor.
44:07
Thanks, John.