Customer Reviews

Guderian: Panzer General (Greenhill Military Paperbacks.)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Sadly, Kenneth Macksey has declined to perform the major revision that the publisher trumpets on the dustcover. It is not "revised and fully updated" nor can one certify that it "draws upon fresh source material." Macksey retired from the Royal Tank Regiment in the 1950s and has since become a prolific writer on all matter of things military. He frequently provides interesting details in his books that cannot be found elsewhere but few source materials to guide the reader further. By now, he must be recognized as a `pop' writer of history, drawing upon his past works to flesh out new themes and narratives. As interesting as the story of Heinz Guderian is, the author has embellished and exaggerated his story, already well promoted by Guderian himself, and added a fawning, gushy style that convinces me that he has lapsed into a sheer hagiography of a man he admires without limit.
Macksey reveals much when he styles Guderian in the same class as British tank pioneers such as J.F.C. Fuller and Percy Hobart. Scholarship of the last 20 years has fairly demolished their reputations and their former icon status. But Macksey is at ease more with the interpretations and source material of the 1950s. Indeed, his "revision" introduces only two new sources, the story of the cracking of the German `Enigma' codes by the British, revealed by F.H. Hinsley and others in the 1970s, and the publication, in German, of a biography of Erich Fellgiebel, who Macksey considers a key signal officer of the Wehrmacht (and ample material for yet another of his books). The sole source in Macksey's 1 ½ page bibliography postdating his first edition is a volume of Hinsley (1979) and Macksey makes little use of the Enigma story in any case.
The book reveals a strange, iconoclastic and chatty writing style, utterly fawning over Guderian and his record, invoking badly skewed historical presentation and logic in almost every page, such that it remains a maddening read. Macksey relies far too much on Guderian's memoir, Panzer Leader (1953), offers a few letters between Guderian and his wife as the fruit of the "extensive Guderian family archives." The rest of his sources are near-obsolete ones, like John Wheeler-Bennett's 1953 Nemesis of Power. He has thus ignored later seminal writing on General Hans von Seekt, the development of the Blitzkrieg doctrine and forces, the command structure, fresh biographies, the conduct of the war and Wehrmacht implication in atrocities, among many relevant topics.
In order to advance the reputation of Guderian, fellow tanker Macksey portrays him as a lone visionary, scarcely understood in his pure and just quest for a dominant tank arm for the German Army. In doing so, Macksey ignores the evident accomplishments of many other thinkers and practitioners in the German forces, from the 1920-26 chief of staff Seekt onward, and ignores character traits of Guderian that show him to be stubborn, impatient and prone to seeing enemies at every obstacle. Not content with the conventional judgement that Guderian was one of Germany's leading armor advocates (nor was Guderian thus content), Macksey makes him the only theorist and visionary and the only able commander of armoured troops. We have no basis of comparison, for lack of knowledge, of the other major leaders of the Panzertruppen (such as Hoth, Kleist, Hoeppner), nor does Macksey explain how infantry officers like Rommel and Manstein could be at least as adept in handling armoured formations as Guderian. He does not indicate to the reader what the various inspectorates of motorized and fast troops did between his departure from them in 1935 and his return as Inspector of Panzer Troops in March, 1943; and they in fact directed most of the design, construction, organization and fielding of the German mechanized forces largely without Guderian's participation.
Guderian surely deserves recognition for his many feats and accomplishments, but with a critical eye of a modern biographer. Macksey cannot supply us with the information we want to know. Instead we have a flawed survey of the German Army, with Guderian pictured as the rebel at its center. I gather that he reads little German, based upon the assistance he acknowledges, and that plays some role in his neglect of sources. But he also invokes the term `academic' as a pejorative, as in "...the evidence is academic and too thin to be persuasive [p198n]." So Macksey has little use for the tools of modern research and gives us his gut instincts, based upon what he has read. This does not cut it, especially when as a tank officer he writes of a tank pioneer. Why do we know nothing about Guderian's command of one of the first three panzer divisions in 1935-38 (and who were the other two commanders)? Why do we learn little more about the man than he himself wrote in 1953? We learn that he loved his family and enjoyed pastoral scenery! What exactly were his theories in the early years and how are they distinguished from the others working in the field? Guderian was one of the few motor transport officers of the 1920s and combined with his signals experience of World War I, he surely imparted technical improvements to the evolution of the mechanized forces, but can we be so sure of the tactical elements? We simply do not know from this book, but are assured by the author that Guderian was the leader and the brains of the operation of the inspectorate of motorized troops, and (1931-35). To be present at the creation does not make one the architect.
Sadly, this review must lament what might have been instead of extolling the virtues of what has been written. Let this serve as a warning to all of us that the bookshelves offer a broad mix of quality and the reader must discern what truly merits his or her attention.

I echo the comments of 2003 by "Ken Estes" and feel like adding a few. For a book that purports to be groundbreaking and designed to set records straight, its scholarly apparatus is all but worthless -- because it is virtually nonexistent!

1. The index is of low quality. To give one small but telling example: the most curious entry is "International Mark Twain Society, vii, 212." On page 212 it is mentioned (in the same paragraph that describes Guderian's death in 1954) that a few weeks before his demise he became an Honorary Member of the International Mark Twain Society. (Surely it would have been interesting to know the background to this odd fact; since none is provided, it should have been left out.) But on page vii of the Introduction one finds no mention of the International Mark Twain Society; rather, there is a reference to the "International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg," a very different animal.

2. The bibliography is reminiscent of that of an above-average undergraduate term paper, that is, if it were one written 35 years ago: only 37 authors are mentioned (including Macksey himself), some of the books are highly outdated and many are of little relevance to the subject, and despite this edition being promoted as revised and updated, the ONLY listed work dating from after the mid-1970s is one of the author's own subsequent books.

3. THERE ARE NO FOOTNOTES OR ENDNOTES providing sources for his factual statements or backing up his opinions! Not one!!! For an author given to making so many controversial, not-general-knowledge, or simply snide references as this author, that is just about unpardonable. The reader notices some fact or statement, wonders "hmmm, what makes him think that?" and...has to try to infer which of the published books in the wretched little bibliography this quote or item might have come from--or NOT come from, which leads to the next big problem:

4. The bibliography or list of references is woefully, woefully incomplete. In his acknowledgments, dated 2003, Macksey thanks "the staff of various museums and libraries, who provided me with so many essential documents and books"--and while he names the libraries, he doesn't name ANY of the "essential documents and books," other than the list previously mentioned here, which consists mostly of standard works easily available in any research library or as cheap used editions.

I had the strong sense of a profiteering publisher collaborating with a very aged author (Macksey turned 80 in 2003) to plunder the public with a "new revised edition" that really added little, while ignoring the obscene scholarship problems that either the author was too old and tired, or the publisher was too cheap, to fix.

Major Macksey writes with the fluent and decisive literary style, mixing sweeping assertions with catty asides, that British historical writers--I will not go so far as to call him a historian--can be so adept at employing to paper over flaws in their arguments or gaps in their research; and for someone who isn't doing serious work in this area, and is looking for a positive, family-authorized hagiography of the deeply-flawed character who was Heinz Guderian, the book could be entertaining and even informative. As such it is comparable to the works of pop-history maestro Alastair Horne, who indeed makes an appearance in Macksey's rudimentary reference list.

This is one of the best military biographies I have read. It gives a very clear picture of Guderian as a surprising sympathetic character with much humanity; whilst at the same time deliniating Guderian's role in defining the nature of modern warfare. It only fails in not bringing Guderian to the public's eye to a position far above Irwin Rommel, a man who accomplishments pale into insignificance by comparison. Macksey makes clear the manner in which Guderian distillated the ideas of Fuller and his Tank Corps contemporaries: the true pioneers of Armoured warfare, and formed them into a practical and workable whole which secured for Germany her early victories and produced a formula for war still employed today as evinced by the Gulf War. In addition his not inconsiderable operational contribution to those victories are clearly explained as was his unique relationship to Hitler, who in marked contrast as to his attitude towards Guderians contemporaries maintained a respectful, if not admirable mein towards Guderian to the very end. A book that should be read by every student of armoured warfare and the Second World War.

Before start reading I didn't expect to learn much from this book, as many WW II buffs probably would. Guderian's role in WW II is well known and heavily studied in myriads of books and there are also his own memoirs which give many details of his thoughts and actions. Macksey though surprised me, because he goes further away from what General told about himself and has unearthed many documents of his colleagues which often present another, more iconoclastic view of the general. The first 79 pages are devoted to Guderian's career before WW II and are really eye opening regarding his later attitudes. The big surprise though is what follows in the next chapters, where Macksey paints with vivid colors the endless machinations at the top of German military hierarchy and explains why Guderian was often hated by his superiors. The German generals were fighting in reality two wars: one against the enemies and one among themselves for survival and Hitler's flavour. Overall this is a very nice book but it loses the fifth star because of Macksey's persistence to call everything Soviet as "Russian" and not to avoid some common mistakes, like naming Guderian's Motorized Corps of 1940-41 as Panzer Corps. These formations actually were designated as Panzer Corps in the summer of 1942.

Whenever we read history books, we encounter a lot of people such as generals, commanders, ministers and presidents. And we begin to have irresistable longing for the knowledge of him or her,especially you find the most interesting people. Guderian was that kind of person I desperately wanted to know. It may be a little difficult for those who are first comers to the military world. But, if you have a little knowlede, you will find this book's benefits. Especially, it is important to me that his career of wireless communication eventually helped him building the modern tank warfare theory. In short conversation, whenever I refer to tank warfare and Guderian's accomplishments, others are caught in fresh shock. They just heard about Rommel whose career in WW„° was infantry. And another thing which I learnd is that the great accomplishment is not build just in a day. This book will help you find the answer.

I have readed this book many times. it was very clear and simple to understand. I wanted to know about Guderian for writing a book about him in IRAN for my people that have a same race with Germans. they are both Arias and I think its a good relation.