ABSTRACT
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was born June 17, 1888, at Culm, Germany, eldest son of Friedrich Guderian and Clara Kirchoff. Heinz attended the Karlsruhe Cadet School at Baden from 1901 to 1903, the Cadet School at Gross-Lichterfelde, Berlin, from 1903 to 1907, and the War School at Metz in 1907. Guderian was the tactical innovator who created the modern armored division, using tanks with motorized support as a battle formation. He led German panzers with great success in the early years of World War II. Guderian's first hands-on experience with tanks in Sweden in 1929 convinced him that tanks alone or with regular infantry divisions could never achieve decisive importance. Guderian was a tactician rather than a mechanical expert, but he contributed tank design ideas to the Ordnance Department. The thunderclap breakup of Anglo-French defenses in a matter of days established Guderian's fame as a military wizard whose tanks were the new 'kings of battle', at least in journalistic accounts.
