This aim was expressed in direct orders of Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Heinz Guderian.

Guderian said that the tank deployment was “ on too small a scale to allow accurate assessments to be made .” The true test of his “ armoured idea ” would have to wait for the Second World War.

Historian Kenneth Macksey found Liddell Hart's original letters to Guderian, in the General's papers, requesting that Guderian give him credit for " impressing him " with his ideas of armoured warfare.

(' There is nothing about the matter in my file of correspondence with Guderian himself except ... that I thanked him ... for what he said in that additional paragraph '.

After an intense argument with General Heinz Guderian, who insisted on a change of command of the Army Group Vistula, Hitler assigned General Walther Wenck to Himmler's headquarters to take over command of a limited counter-offensive ; Hitler then observed that it was not possible for him to move the troops needed for Guderian's planned double pincer attack from neighbouring regions.

* March 1 – Heinz Guderian becomes the Inspector-General of the Armoured Troops for the German Army.

The success of Hitler's bribery system backfired in that some officers, who had proven themselves especially greedy, such as Guderian and Raeder, came to be regarded by Hitler as a serious annoyance because of their endless demands for more money and more free land for their estates.

This was however prevented by personal intervention of Gen. Guderian, who in his memoirs stated that he encountered his staff " wearing helmets, preparing an anti-tank gun for a possible Polish cavalry attack ," and that " the panic of the first day of war was overcome quickly ".

Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, the Chief of the German General Staff, insisted to Adolf Hitler that the troops in Courland should be evacuated by sea and used for the defense of Germany.

In 1927 Guderian was promoted to major and transferred to the Truppenamt group for Army transport and motorized tactics in Berlin.

Guderian told Manstein that he was given a list of Polish estates which he studied for a few days before deciding which to claim for his own ; after the war he changed the dates and circumstances of situation in his memoirs to present taking over of the estate as legitimate retirement gift.

He was relieved of his command on 25 December 1941 after Feldmarschall Günther von Kluge, not noted for his ability to face up to Hitler, claimed that Guderian had ordered a withdrawal in contradiction of Hitler's " stand fast " order.

According to Guderian, Hitler was easily persuaded to field too many new tank designs, and this resulted in supply, logistical, and repair problems for German forces in Russia.

Hitler finally dismissed Guderian on 28 March 1945 after a shouting-match over the failed counterattack of General Theodor Busse's 9th Army to break through to units encircled at Küstrin ; he stated to Guderian that " your physical health requires that you immediately take six weeks convalescent leave ," (" Health problems " were commonly used as a facade in the Third Reich to remove executives who for some reason could not simply be sacked, but from episodes Guderian describes in his memoirs it is evident that he actually did suffer from congestive heart failure.

On January 11, 1934, following specifications laid down by Heinz Guderian, the Army Weapons Department drew up plans for a medium tank with a maximum weight of and a top speed of.

As early as June 1940, before the armistice with France had been signed, General Heinz Guderian also argued for seizing Britain's strategically important naval base of Gibraltar.

When the antebellum concluded and Europe went again to war, many of the officers in high command in Germany ( chief among them General Heinz Guderian ) were all too aware of this doctrinal failure and had specific ideas for its replacement.

General Heinz Guderian, one of the creators of the combined-arms tactical doctrine commonly known as " blitzkrieg ", believed the best way to provide cover for the crossing would be a continuous stream of ground attack aircraft on French defenders.

Among them, Guderian claimed, was Chief of the General Staff Ludwig Beck ( 1935 – 38 ), who he alleged was skeptical that armored forces could be decisive.

Plans to form a Landsturm national militia in Eastern Germany as a last resort to boost fighting strength initially came from Oberkommando des Heeres chief General Heinz Guderian in 1944.

At the center Major General Heinz Guderian and Brigadier Semyon Krivoshein

At centre is Major General Heinz Guderian and at right is Brigadier Semyon Krivoshein.

At the center Major General Heinz Guderian and Brigadier Semyon Krivoshein.

In late 1944 General Heinz Guderian ordered that production of the Type 38 ( t ) Hetzer tank be modified to incorporate a Tatra Type 928 V-8 air-cooled diesel engine, though this order was delayed so production could continue uninterrupted.

The innovative German Major ( later General ) Heinz Guderian developed the motorised part of this strategy as the head of one of the Truppenamt groups and may have incorporated Fuller's and Liddell Hart's ideas to amplify the groundbreaking Blitzkrieg effect that was seen used by Germany against Poland in 1939 and later against France in 1940.

Under the command of General Heinz Guderian l, the German armoured divisions crossed the river at Dinant and at Sedan, France.

General Ewald von Kleist was now to command Panzer ( Armoured ) Group Kleist, consisting of three armoured corps, led by Heinz Guderian, Georg-Hans Reinhardt and Hermann Hoth.

During the Invasion of Poland in 1939 the city was defended by a small garrison of four infantry battalions under General Konstanty Plisowski against the XIX Panzer Corps of General Heinz Guderian.

In June 1919, Guderian joined the Iron Brigade ( later known as Iron Division ) as its second General Staff officer.

Britain at this time was experimenting with tanks under General Hobart, and Guderian kept abreast of Hobart's writings using, at his own expense, someone to translate all the articles being published in Britain.

It featured Guderian's son, Heinz Günther Guderian, ( who became a prominent General in the post-war German Bundeswehr and NATO ) along with other notables such as Field Marshal Lord Carver ( 129th British Field Marshal ), expert historians Kenneth Macksey and Heinz Wilhelm.

* Macksey, Kenneth, Guderian: Panzer General ( 1992, revision of Guderian, Creator of the Blitzkrieg, 1976 )

Guderian's troops crossed the Meuse River near Sedan on May 14 and advanced until General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist ordered Guderian to halt and not attack the British fleeing from Dunkirk.

Using the Blitzkrieg, Guderian, Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist and other field commanders such as Rommel broke the hiatus of the Phoney War in a manner almost outside the comprehension of the Allied — and, indeed, the German — High Command.

Hitler sent Guderian on a forced medical leave of absence, and he resigned his post as chief of staff to Hans Krebs on 29 March.

" Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, chief of staff of the German Army, stated that Patton " was the American Guderian.

On 21 July 1944, after the failure of the July 20 Plot in which Guderian had no involvement, Guderian was appointed chief of staff of the army ( Chef des Generalstabs des Heeres ) as a successor to Kurt Zeitzler, who had departed July 1 after a nervous breakdown.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s German tank theory was pioneered by two figures: General Oswald Lutz and his chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Guderian.

Chief of Staff of the German Army, General Heinz Guderian, obtained restoration to duty for him in late December.

At the beginning of World War II, Bayerlein served in the Invasion of Poland as the First General Staff Officer of General Heinz Guderian.

From July 1944-April 1945, he served as an adjutant to the Chief of Army General Staff ( first, General Heinz Guderian and then General Hans Krebs ).

He was initially assigned to the prosecution of the German General Staff and the High Command, preparing cases against Walther von Brauchitsch, Heinz Guderian, and Erhard Milch for trial before Nuremberg Military Tribunals.