• Field Marshal of the German Army Erich von Manstein, 1887
• General of the German Army Heinz Wilhelm Guderian, 1888

   

He was the initiator and one of the planners of the Ardennes offensive alternative in the invasion of France in 1940. He received acclaim from the German leadership for the victorious battles of Perekop Isthmus, Kerch, Sevastopol and Kharkov. He commanded the failed relief effort at Stalingrad and the Cherkassy pocket evacuation. He was dismissed from service by Adolf Hitler in March 1944, due to his frequent clashes with Hitler over military strategy. In his memoirs, Verlorene Siege (1955), translated into English as Lost Victories, he is critical of Hitler above all for denying the Army flexible defensive maneuverability and for "over - reliance" on his "will", and critical of the attempt by other military officers on Hitler's life.

In 1949, he was tried in Hamburg for war crimes and was convicted of "neglecting to protect civilian lives" and using scorched earth tactics which denied vital food supplies to the local population. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, later reduced to 12, but he only served 4 years before being released. After release from a British prison in 1953, he became a military advisor to the West German Government. His self serving memoirs largely contributed to the myth of "clean Wehrmacht", and only years later scholars unveiled Manstein's full involvement in atrocities and Holocaust in the East during the war.

Von Manstein was born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski in Berlin, the tenth child of a Prussian aristocrat, artillery general Eduard von Lewinski (1829 – 1906), and Helene von Sperling (1847 – 1910). His father's family was of partial Polish origin - Brochwicz coat of arms (Brochwicz III). Hedwig von Sperling (1852 – 1925), Helene's younger sister, married Lieutenant General Georg von Manstein (1844 – 1913). The couple were not able to have children, thus it was decided that this tenth, unborn child would be adopted by his uncle and aunt. When he was born, the Lewinskis sent a telegram to the von Mansteins which stated: You got a healthy boy today. Mother and child well. Congratulations.

Not only were both Erich von Manstein's biological and adoptive father Prussian generals, but his mother's brother and both his grandfathers had also been Prussian generals (one of them, Gustav, leading a corps in the Franco - Prussian War of 1870 – 71). In addition, he was also a nephew of Paul von Hindenburg, the future Generalfeldmarschall and President of Germany, whose wife Gertrud was a sister of Hedwig and Helene. Thus, his career in the Prussian Army was assured from birth. He attended the Imperial Lyzeum, a catholic gymnasium in Strasbourg (1894 – 99). He spent six years in the cadet corps (1900 – 1906), in Plön and Groß-Lichterfelde and joined the Third Foot Guards Regiment (Garde zu Fuß) in March 1906 as an ensign. He was promoted to Lieutenant in January 1907, and in October 1913, entered the Prussian War Academy.

During World War I, von Manstein served on both the German Western Front (1914: Belgium / France 1916: Attack on Verdun, 1917 – 18: Champagne) and the Eastern Front (1915: North Poland, 1915 – 16: Serbia, 1917: Estonia). In Poland, he was severely wounded in November 1914. He returned to duty in 1915, was promoted to captain and remained as a staff officer until the end of the war. In 1918, he volunteered for the staff position in the Frontier Defense Force in Breslau (Wroclaw) and served there until 1919.

Von Manstein married Jutta Sibylle von Loesch, the daughter of a Silesian landowner in 1920. She died in 1966. They had three children: a daughter named Gisela, and two sons, Gero (b. 31 December 1922) and Rüdiger. Their elder son Gero, serving as a Lieutenant in the Wehrmacht, died on the battlefield in the northern sector of the Eastern Front on 29 October 1942.

Von Manstein stayed in the armed forces after World War I. In the 1920s, he participated in the formation of the Reichswehr, the German Army of the Weimar Republic (restricted to 100,000 men by the Versailles Treaty). He was appointed company commander in 1920 and later battalion commander in 1922. In 1927 he was promoted to Major and began serving with the General Staff, visiting other countries to learn about their military facilities. In 1933 the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany thus ending the Weimar period. The new regime renounced the Versailles Treaty and proceeded with large scale rearmament and expansion of the military.

On 1 July 1935, von Manstein was made the Head of Operations Branch of the Army General Staff (Generalstab des Heeres), part of the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres). During his tenure Manstein was responsible for the development of Germany's first war plan against France or Czechoslovakia, which was titled Fall Rot (Case Red). It was also during this time when Manstein came in contact with a group of officers around Heinz Guderian and Oswald Lutz, who advocated drastic changes in warfare with utilizing the new Panzer as an independent weapon. However officers like Ludwig Beck, Chief of the Army General Staff, were against such drastic changes, and therefore Manstein proposed the development of Sturmgeschütze, self - propelled assault guns that would provide heavy direct fire support to infantry, as an alternative to the Panzers. This solution was more preferable for conservative commanders like Beck. In World War II, the resulting StuG series proved to be one of the most successful and cost effective German weapons.

He was promoted on 1 October 1936, becoming the Deputy Chief of Staff (Oberquartiermeister I) to General Ludwig Beck. On 4 February 1938, with the fall of Werner von Fritsch, von Manstein was transferred to the command of the 18th Infantry Division in Liegnitz, Silesia, with the rank of Generalleutnant. In late July 1938, Manstein wrote to Beck telling him that he shared Beck's concerns about a "premature war" if Germany went ahead with an attack on Czechoslovakia planned for 1 October, but urged Beck not to go ahead with his plan to resign in protest, instead urging him to place his faith in the Führer. On April 20, 1939 to celebrate Hitler's 50th birthday, Manstein delivered a speech, in which he praised Hitler as a leader sent by God to save Germany, and warned the "hostile world" that if it kept erecting "ramparts around Germany to block the way of the German people towards their future", then he would be quite happy to see the world plunged into another world war. Giving speeches on the birthday of the head of state was not in the German Army tradition, and for Hitler's birthdays, no officer was required to give one with 42% of officers choosing to stick with tradition during the lavish celebrations of Hitler's 50th birthday. The rise of officers such as Manstein was a part of broader tendency of technocratic officers who were usually ardent National Socialists to come to the fore. The Israeli historian Omer Bartov wrote about the Army's technocratic officers and their relationship to National Socialism that:

"The combined gratification of personal ambitions, technological obsessions and nationalist aspirations greatly enhanced their identification with Hitler's regime as individuals, professionals, representatives of a caste and leaders of a vast conscript army. Men such as Beck and Guderian, Manstein and Rommel, Doentiz and Kesserlring, Milch and Udet cannot be described as mere soldiers strictly devoted to their profession, rearmament and the autonomy of the military establishment while remaining indifferent to and detached from Nazi rule and ideology. The many points of contact between Hitler and his young generals were thus important elements in the integration of the Wehrmacht into the Third Reich, in stark contradiction of its image as a "haven" from Nazism"."

On 18 August 1939, in preparation for Fall Weiss, the German invasion of Poland, von Manstein was appointed Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South. Here he worked along with von Rundstedt’s Chief of Operations, Colonel Günther Blumentritt in the development of the operational plan. Von Rundstedt accepted von Manstein’s plan calling for the concentration of the majority of the army group’s armored units into Walther von Reichenau’s 10th Army, with the objective of a decisive breakthrough which would lead to the encirclement of Polish forces west of the Vistula River. In von Manstein’s plan, two other armies comprising Army Group South, Wilhelm List’s 14th Army and Johannes Blaskowitz’s 8th Army, were to provide the flank support for Reichenau’s armored thrust towards Warsaw, the Polish capital. Privately, von Manstein was lukewarm about the Polish campaign, thinking that it would be better to keep Poland as a buffer between Germany and the Soviet Union. He also worried about an Allied attack on the West Wall once the Polish campaign started, thus drawing Germany into a two front war.

Manstein took part in conference on 22 August 1939 where Hitler underlined to his commanders the need of physical destruction of Poles as a nation. After the war he would claim in his memoirs that he didn't recognize this as policy of extermination against the Poles. Benoît Lemay and Pierce Heyward in their book "Erich von Manstein: Hitler's Master Strategist" write that contrary to Manstein's claims he was perfectly aware of the policy of extermination towards Poles.

Launched on 1 September 1939, the invasion began successfully. In Army Group South’s area of responsibility, armored units of the 10th Army pursued the retreating Poles, giving them no time to set up a defense. The 8th Army prevented the isolated Polish troop concentrations in Łódź, Radom and Poznań from merging into a cohesive force. Deviating from the original plan that called for heading straight for the Vistula and then proceeding to Warsaw, von Manstein persuaded von Rundstedt to encircle the Polish units in the Radom area. The plan succeeded, clearing the bulk of Polish resistance from the southern approach to Warsaw.

On 27 September 1939, Warsaw formally surrendered, although isolated pockets of resistance remained. That same day, Hitler ordered the Army High Command, led by General Franz Halder, to develop a plan for action in the west against France and the Low Countries. The different plans that the General Staff suggested were given to von Manstein and his staff, who, with Gerd von Rundstedt's approval, formalized an alternative plan for Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). This plan received Hitler's attention in February 1940 and finally his agreement.

By late October, the bulk of the German Army was redeployed to the west. Von Manstein was made Chief of Staff of von Rundstedt’s Army Group A in western Germany. Like many of the army's younger officers, von Manstein opposed the initial plan for Fall Gelb, criticizing it for its lack of ability to deliver strategic results and the uninspired use of the armored forces, which may have come from OKH's inability to influence Hitler's planning. Von Manstein pointed out that a repeat of the Schlieffen Plan, with the attack directed through Belgium, was something the Allies expected, as they were already moving strong forces into the area. Bad weather in the area caused the attack to be cancelled several times and eventually delayed into the spring.

During the autumn, Von Manstein, with the informal cooperation of Heinz Guderian, developed his own plan; he suggested that the panzer divisions attack through the wooded hills of the Ardennes where no one would expect them, then establish bridgeheads on the Meuse River and rapidly drive to the English Channel. The Germans would thus cut off the French and Allied armies in Belgium and Flanders. Von Manstein's proposal also contained a second thrust, outflanking the Maginot Line, which would have allowed the Germans to force any future defensive line much further south. This second thrust would perhaps have avoided the need for the Fall Rot (Case Red) second stage of the Battle of France. The plan was after the event nicknamed Sichelschnitt (sickle cut).

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht originally rejected the proposal. Halder had von Manstein removed from von Rundstedt's headquarters and sent to the east to command the 38th Army Corps. But Hitler, looking for a more aggressive plan, approved a modified version of von Manstein's ideas, after details of the plan had been leaked to him. This plan is today known as the Manstein Plan. This modified version, formulated by Halder, did not contain the second thrust. Von Manstein and his corps played a minor role during the operations in France, serving under Günther von Kluge's 4th Army. However, it was his corps which helped to achieve the first breakthrough during Fall Rot, east of Amiens, and was the first to reach and cross the River Seine. The invasion of France was an outstanding military success and von Manstein was promoted to full general and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for suggesting the plan.

Manstein was a proponent of the German invasion Great Britain, named Operation Seelöwe. He considered the operation risky but necessary. It was planned that his corps was to be shipped from Boulogne to Bexhill over the English Channel. However, since the Luftwaffe failed to decisively beat the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, Operation Seelöwe was cancelled. For the rest of 1940, Manstein, with little to do, spent most of the time in Paris or at home.

In early 1941, the German High Command commenced with the planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. In February 1941, von Manstein was appointed commander of the 56th Panzer Corps and one of the 250 commanders to be briefed for the upcoming major offensive. His corps was under the command of General Erich Hoepner in Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb's Army Group North. The Army Group was tasked with approaching through the Baltic States and then advancing on Leningrad. Manstein arrived only 6 days prior to the launch of the offensive at the front. Operation Barbarossa then commenced on 22 June 1941 with a massive German attack along the whole frontline. Manstein's corps was tasked to advance to the Dvina River together with the Georg - Hans Reinhardt's XLI Panzer Corps, securing the vital bridges over the river there. Manstein's corps was able to advance rapidly. The Soviets mounted a number of counterattacks, but those were aimed against Reinhardt's Corps, leading to the Battle of Raseiniai. After an advance of 315 km, Manstein reached the Dvina River in just 100 hours. Being ahead of the rest of the Army Group, he was subject to a number of determined Soviet counterattacks, which he was able to fend off. After Reinhardt's corps closed in, they were now tasked to encircle the Soviet formations around Luga in a pincer movement. Again having penetrated deep into the Soviet lines with unprotected flanks, his corps was the target of a Soviet counteroffensive at Soltsy by the Soviet 11th Army, commanded by Nikolai Vatutin. During this attack from 15 July on, Manstein's spearhead unit, the 8th Panzer Division, was cut off. Although it was able to fight its way free, it was badly mauled and the Soviets succeeded in halting Manstein's advance at Luga.

Manstein then received 2 more infantry divisions as reinforcement under his disposal, while Reinhardt was closing the encirclement on his own. On 12 August the Soviets launched a large counteroffensive with the 11th and 34th Army against Army Group North, cutting off 3 whole divisions at Staraya Russa. Manstein was tasked to relieve them. His offensive led to a major Soviet defeat when he was able to encircle 5 Soviet divisions on his relief mission. His opponent, General Kuzma M. Kachanov of the 34th Army, was subsequently executed. Manstein then was tasked to advance to the east on Demyansk. On 12 September, when he was near the city, he was informed that he will take over 11th Army of Army Group South in the Ukraine.

In September 1941, von Manstein was appointed commander of the 11th Army. Its previous commander, Colonel General Eugen Ritter von Schobert, had perished when his plane landed in a Russian minefield. The 11th Army was tasked with invading the Crimea, capturing Sevastopol and pursuing enemy forces on the flank of Army Group South during its advance into Russia.

His forces were able to achieve a fast breakthrough during the first days, although against heavy Soviet resistance. After most of the neck of the Perekop Isthmus was taken, Manstein's forces were substantially reduced, leaving him only with 6 German divisions and the Romanians. He now had to take the rest of the Perekop Isthmus. After accomplishing this task, his forces were able to spread out on the Crimea peninsula quickly. Simferopol was entered on 1 November and Kerch was taken by 16 November. Only the city of Sevastopol was now still in Soviet hands.

Manstein's probing attack on the city failed, and with insufficient forces to storm the city left, he ordered an investment of the city. By 17 December he launched another offensive into the city, which failed. Just over a week later, on 26 December 1941, the Soviets landed on the Kerch Straits, and on 30 December executed another landing near Feodosiya. Only a hurried withdrawal from the Kerch Straits, in contravention of Manstein's orders, by 46 Infantry Division under General Hans Graf von Sponecks command prevented a collapse of the eastern part of the Crimea, although the division lost most of its heavy equipment. This situation forced von Manstein to cancel a resumption of the attack on Sevastopol and send most of his forces east to destroy the Soviet bridgehead. The Soviets were in a superior position regarding men and material, and were therefore pushed by Stalin to conduct further offensives, which were thwarted by the 11th Army in heavy fighting. The situation was stabilized by late April 1942.

Operation Trappenjagd, launched on 8 May 1942, aimed at expelling the Russian forces from the Kerch Peninsula. After feinting against the north, the 11th army attacked south, and the Soviets were soon reduced to fleeing for the Kerch Straits. Three Soviet armies (44th, 47th and 51st), 21 divisions, 176,000 men, 347 tanks and nearly 3,500 guns were lost. The remains of the force were evacuated and Trappenjagd was completed successfully on 18 May. German losses were only 3,397 men while the Soviets were able to save only 37,000 out of 212,000 men through evacuation.

With months delay von Manstein turned his attention once more towards the capture of Sevastopol, a battle in which Germany used some of the largest guns ever built. Along with large numbers of regular artillery pieces, super - heavy 600mm mortars and the 800mm "Dora" railway gun were brought in for the assault. The furious barrage began on the morning of 7 June 1942, and all of the resources of the Luftwaffe's Luftflotte 4, commanded by Wolfram von Richthofen, descended on their targets, continuing for five days before the main assault began.

11th Army was able to gain ground during mid June, although its forces suffered considerable attrition. To keep the momentum and before the German summer offensive of 1942 would hamper Manstein's reinforcements and supply situation he ordered a surprise attack for 29 June. This attack, supported by amphibious landings, was a success and the Soviet lines crumbled. On 1 July German forces entered the city while the Soviets conducted a costly evacuation, and by 4 July the city was in German hands. Hitler promoted Manstein subsequently to Generalfeldmarschall.

During the Crimea Campaign, Manstein was involved in atrocities against the Soviet Union, especially with the killing squads of Einsatzgruppe D. On September 8, 1941, Otto Ohlendorf of Einsatzgruppe D, which traveled in the wake of Manstein's 11th Army reported that relations with the 11th Army were "excellent". Manstein's command provided Einsatzgruppe D with the vehicles, gas, and drivers that allowed Einsatzgruppe D to move around plus military police to cordon off areas where Einsatzgruppe D planned to shoot Jews in order to prevent anyone from escaping. This way Manstein helped Einsatzgruppe D to exterminate the Jewish population of the Crimea. A Captain Ulrich Gunzert, after watching Einsatzgruppe D massacre a group of Jewish women and children, was shocked by what he had seen and went to Manstein to ask him to do something to stop the massacres. Manstein told Captain Gunzert to forget what he had seen, and to focus on fighting the Red Army instead. Gunzert later wrote about Manstein's actions that "It was a flight from responsibility, a moral failure".

After the capture of Sevastopol the German high command felt von Manstein was the right man to command the forces at Leningrad, which had been under siege from autumn the previous year and the front had been settled into some kind of trench warfare reminiscent of World War I. Von Manstein, with elements of the 11th Army, was transferred to the Leningrad front where he arrived at 27 August 1942. Manstein again lacked proper forces to storm the city directly, therefore he planned an operation called Operation Nordlicht, a bold plan for a thrust to cut off Leningrad's supply line at Lake Ladoga.

However, on the same day as Manstein's arrival, the Soviet launched an offensive of their own. Originally planned as spoiling attack against Georg Lindemann’s 18th Army in the narrow German salient west of Lake Ladoga, the offensive suddenly appeared to be able to breakthrough the German lines, lifting the siege. The superior Soviet forces were able to push a deep bulge into the German lines. Von Manstein was forced to divert his forces in order to avoid catastrophe. Manstein was given control of all German forces nearby. After a series of heavy battles, Manstein launched his own counterattack on 21 September and was able to cut off the two Soviet armies in the salient. The next month he was busy clearing the perimeter. Although the Soviet offensive had been fended off, the resulting attrition meant that the Germans were no longer able to execute a decisive assault on Leningrad, and Nordlicht was put on ice. As result, the siege continued into 1943.

To resolve the always present shortage of oil, the Germans had launched a massive offensive aimed against the Caucasian oilfields in the summer of 1942. To protect the flanks of the offensive, the Wehrmacht planned to occupy the city of Stalingrad at the Volga. While the 6th Army, led by Friedrich Paulus, still struggled with the Soviet defenders inside the town, the Soviets launched a counteroffensive against the flanks of the German forces on 19 November, codenamed Operation Uranus. As result 6th Army and parts of 4th Panzer Army were trapped inside the city. 2 days later Adolf Hitler appointed von Manstein as commander of the newly created Army Group Don (Heeresgruppe Don), consisting of a hastily assembled group of tired men and machines. Manstein advised Hitler not to order the 6th Army to break out, stating that he could successfully break through the Soviet lines and relief the besieged 6th Army. The American historians' Williamson Murray and Allan Millet wrote that it was Manstein's message to Hitler on November 24th advising him that the 6th Army should not break out, along with Göring's statements that the Luffwaffe could supply Stalingrad that "...sealed the fate of Sixth Army". After 1945, Manstein falsified the record and claimed that he told Hitler that the 6th Army must break out. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that "Because of the sensitivity of the Stalingrad question in post war Germany, Manstein worked as hard to distort the record on this matter as on his massive involvement in the murder of Jews". Manstein was tasked to conduct a relieve operation, named Operation Winter Storm (Unternehmen Wintergewitter) against Stalingrad, which he thought was feasible if the 6th Army was adequately supplied through the air.

Wintergewitter, launched on 12 December, achieved some initial success and von Manstein got his three panzer divisions and supporting units of the 57th Panzer Corps (comprising the 23rd Panzer Grenadier Division, and the 6th and 17th Panzer Divisions) within 30 miles of Stalingrad by 20 December at the Myshkova River. Only in mid December 1942 did Manstein changed his stance about the wisdom of keeping the 6th Army in Stalingrad, and Manstein began to urge Hitler that the 6th Army should break out. Since Hitler was against a breakout of the 6th Army and Manstein was reluctant to openly disobey Hitler's orders, he sent his intelligence officer into the perimeter to persuade Paulus to order the breakout attempt on his own. However, Paulus never ordered the breakout, insisting that he has not enough fuel and ammunition to do so. After the Soviet resistance grew stronger, Manstein finally had to withdraw from his forward positions, leaving the 6th Army to its fate.

While Manstein was executing Operation Winterstorm, the Soviets had launched an offensive by their own, Operation Saturn. This offensive aimed at capturing Rostov and thus cutting off the German Army Group A. However, after the launch of Winterstorm, the Soviets had to reallocate forces and the operation was subsequently scaled down and redubbed "Little Saturn". The offensive forced von Manstein to divert his forces thus avoiding the collapse of the entire front. The attack also prevented the 48th Panzer Corps (comprising the 336th Infantry Division, the 3rd Luftwaffe Field Division, and the 11th Panzer Division), under the command of General Otto von Knobelsdorff, from joining up with the 57th Panzer Corps as planned to aid the relief effort. Instead, the 48th Panzer Corps held a line along the River Chir, beating off successive Russian attacks. General Hermann Balck used the 11th Panzer Division to counterattack Soviet salients. At the verge of collapse, the German units were able to hold the line, but the Italian 8th army on the flanks was overwhelmed and subsequently destroyed.

Spurred by this success the Soviets planned a series of follow up offensives in January / February 1943 intended to decisively beat the Germans in southern Russia. After the destruction of the remaining Hungarian and Italian forces during the Ostrogozhsk – Rossosh Offensive; Operation Star and Operation Gallop were launched to recapture Kharkov, Kursk and to cut off all German forces east of Donetsk. Those operations succeeded in breaking through the German lines and threatened the whole southern part of the German front. To deal with this threat, Army Group Don, B and parts of Army Group A were reunited as Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd) under Manstein's command in early February.

During their offensives in February 1943 the Soviets had succeeded in breaking through the German lines, retaking Kursk and Kharkov. Despite the Soviet advance, Manstein launched a counteroffensive into the overextended Soviet flank on 21 February 1943. The assault proved a major success; von Manstein's troops advanced rapidly, isolating Soviet forward units and forcing the Red Army to halt most of its offensive operations. By 2 March tank spearheads from Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf met, cutting off large portions of the Soviet Southwest Front, and by 9 March the Wehrmacht had inflicted a heavy defeat on the Soviets at Krasnograd and Barvenkovo.

Von Manstein then pushed forward, with his effort being spearheaded by Paul Hausser's 2nd SS Panzer Corps, recapturing Kharkov on 14 March, after bloody street fighting in what is known as the Third Battle of Kharkov. In recognition for this accomplishment, von Manstein received the Oak Leaves for the Knight's Cross. The 2nd SS Panzer Corps then captured Belgorod on 21 March. When the offensive finally came to a halt, the Wehrmacht had dealt heavy damage to the Soviet troops and blunted their offensives. The successful counterattack at Kharkov allowed the Wehrmacht to prepare for one last strategic offensive, named Operation Zitadelle, which would mount into the Battle of Kursk.

During Operation Citadel, von Manstein led the southern pincer, and despite losses, he managed to achieve most of his initial goals, inflicting far more casualties than he sustained. In his memoirs, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who led the Soviet defense at Kursk, praised von Manstein. But due to the almost complete failure of the northern sector's pincer led by Günther von Kluge and Walther Model, chronic lack of infantry support and an operational reserve, as well as Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, Hitler called off the offensive. Von Manstein protested, asserting that the victory was almost at hand as he felt he had achieved local superiority, and that with a little more effort, he could crack the Soviet defenses before they could bring up their reserves. The American historians Williamson Murray and Allan Millet wrote that "By 12 July, only Manstein wished to continue the battle. With two relatively fresh panzer divisons in hand, he argued he could break through to Kursk. However, Manstein's claim was wishful thinking in the face of the depth of Soviet reserves". After the failure of Citadel, the Soviets launched a massive counterattack against the exhausted German forces.

A German victory in the sense of annihilating the surrounded Soviet forces required both the completion of the encirclement (that is the linking of the northern and southern German pincers) and holding the encirclement long enough to overcome the encircled Soviet forces. Even if the first had been accomplished it does not follow that the second would automatically follow. The German forces post Stalingrad were never able to force the Soviets into significant retreats, except for temporary reversals like Kharkov. After halting the German offensive at Kursk, the Soviets had enough strength to launch immediate counterattacks.
Manstein regarded the Battle of Kursk as something of a German victory as he believed that he had destroyed most of the Red Army's offensive capacity for the rest of 1943 during the course of that battle. As such, expecting little in the way of new Soviet offensives in the summer of 1943, Manstein moved his panzer reserves to the lower banks of the Dnieper river to stop a Soviet diversionary offensive there. It was only in late July 1943 that Manstein informed the OKW that his forces as placed on the Donets river area were holding a too wide area on the flat plains of the Ukraine and southern Russia with insufficient numbers, and given this, that he needed to withdrew either to the Dnieper river or be provided with massive reinforcements to hold the line on the Donets river, should he be faced with a major Soviet offensive. On the night of August 3, 1943 a Soviet offensive struck and placed Manstein's Army Group South under heavy pressure at once. This was made worse as Manstein's "overconfidence" about the supposed inability of the Soviets to mount major offensive operations after Kursk had led him to place his troops in exposed forward positions instead of their old defensive positions they had held prior to Kursk. After two days of heavy fighting, on August 5, 1943 the Soviets broke though Manstein's lines and reached a point 60 kilometers behind the German lines and took Belgorod in the process. In response to Manstein's pleas for help, Hitler sent the Grossdeutschland, 7th Panzer, SS 2nd Das Reich and SS 4th Totenkopf divisions to Army Group South. However, Hitler refused Manstein's request to pull back to the Dnieper, despite the 35 mile hole that the Soviets had torn into Manstein's Donets Line, through which a Soviet front began to move through. As such, Manstein waged a series of desperate counter attacks with his reinforcements committed in a piecemeal way against the advancing Soviet forces. Between August 13 - 17, 1943 a series of armored battles took place between the Soviet tank forces and the two SS panzer divisions outside of Bohodukhiv, which ended in a bloody draw with both sides equally battered. Manstein was only saved when the Soviets threw their main reserves behind a drive by General Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin who took Kharkov on the night of August 21 - 22, 1943. Manstein took advantage of this to use the 8th and 4th Panzer Armies to finally stop the Soviet offensive. Manstein's triumph proved to be brief as an offensive by General Konstantin Rokossovsky's Central Front in September 1943 had severed Army Group Centre from Manstein's Army Group South, and severely threatened Manstein's northern flank. In light of this threat, Hitler finally allowed Manstein to withdraw back to the Dnieper.

In September 1943, von Manstein withdrew to the west bank of the river Dnieper in an operation that for the most part was well ordered, but at times degenerated into a disorganized rout as Manstein's exhausted and defeated soldiers became "unglued". At times, during the retreat, Manstein was able inflict heavy casualties on the pursuing Red Army as such when he smashed two corps of Rodion Malinovsky's army, which had advanced too far from their supporting units. From October 1943 to mid January 1944, von Manstein stabilized the situation on the Southern Front.

A major factor in the Dnieper campaign was the Soviet use of maskirovka (deception) which they often used successfully to fool Manstein and the other German officers about their intentions. Murray and Millet wrote that Manstein and other German generals' "fanatical belief" in Nazi racial theories about the Germans as the herrenvolk (master race) "...made the idea that Slavs could manipulate German intelligence with such consistency utterly inconceivable". The Soviets established a salient from Kiev, and were within reach of the crucial town of Zhitomir. In late December 1943, Manstein started a counteroffensive in the Korosten - Kiev area, in which he totally destroyed the opposing Soviet forces. Manstein counteroffensive saw 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and 2nd SS Division Das Reich, together with 1st, 7th, 19th, and 25th Panzer Divisions and 68th Infantry Division (part of 4th Panzer Army), wheeled around the flank of the Russians in front of Zhitomir. Several notable victories were won at Brussilov, Radomyshl, and Meleni, under the guidance of General Hermann Balck. Balck and his chief of staff had wanted to attack the base of the salient and go for Kiev, but General Raus favoured a more prudent approach. This period marked the beginning of the Manstein legend as Manstein's actions received extensive and very favorable coverage in the German press, where he was lionized as an Aryan Übermensch (super man), a general of superhuman skill who was effortlessly holding back the “Asiatic hordes” of the Red Army. This was the start of the Manstein legend that was to reach its full flowering after the war. Such was the degree of Manstein’s fame that on January 10, 1944 he appeared on the cover of Time magazine, which was unusual as German generals who fought exclusively on the Eastern Front rarely received much media interest in the United States.

The forces that Manstein destroyed in his counteroffensive had been placed there as a bait, and were intended to draw Manstein's troops out into a trap in a successful example of maskirovka (through they were not intended to be destroyed). On December 25, 1943 Vatutin's First Ukrainian Front sprang the trap when it started in its turn an offensive that broke through Manstein's overextended lines on the Dnieper in a drive towards the cities of Koziatyn and Berdychiv, thereby threatening to turn Manstein's left flank. In the face of the Vatutin's offensive, Manstein requested permission to pull back, which was granted, but Hitler so interfered with the conduct of operations that Manstein lacked the necessary operational control to carry out the withdrawal successfully. On December 28, 1943 Vatutin's troops entered Koziatyn, which was one of Army Group South's most important supply bases, and during a armored battle on the same day knocked out hundreds of German panzers outside of Koziatyn. On December 31, Valutin's forces entered Zhytomyr, an important supply hub used by Army Group South. Valutin's drive ended shortly thereafter at the old Soviet – Polish border. On January 4, 1944 Manstein met with Hitler to tell him at the Dnieper line was untendable, and that he needed to retreat in order to save his forces.

In late January 1944, von Manstein was forced to retreat further westwards by the Soviet offensive. In mid February 1944, he disobeyed Hitler's order to "hold his ground at all costs" and ordered 11th and 42nd Corps (consisting of 56,000 men in six divisions) of Army Group South to break out of the "Korsun Pocket", which occurred on 16 – 17 February 1944. Eventually, Hitler accepted this action and ordered the breakout after it had already taken place.

Von Manstein continued to argue with Hitler about overall strategy on the Eastern Front. Von Manstein advocated an elastic, mobile defense. He was prepared to cede territory, attempting to make the Soviet forces either stretch out too thinly or to make them advance so fast so that their armored spearheads could be counter attacked on the flanks with the goal of encircling and destroying them. Hitler ignored von Manstein's advice and continued to insist on static warfare; all positions held by the Germans were to be defended to the last man. Because of these frequent disagreements, von Manstein publicly advocated that Hitler relinquish control over the army and leave the management of the war to professionals, starting with the establishment of the position of commander - in - chief in the East (Oberbefehlshaber Ost). Hitler, however, rejected this idea numerous times, fearing that it would weaken his hold on power in Germany.

This argument also alarmed some of Hitler's closest associates, such as Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and the SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who were not prepared to give up any of their powers. Himmler started to openly question von Manstein's loyalty and he insinuated to Hitler that von Manstein was an idealist and a defeatist unsuitable to command troops. Von Manstein's frequent arguing, combined with these allegations, resulted in Hitler relieving von Manstein of his command on 31 March 1944. On 2 April 1944, Hitler appointed Walther Model, a firm supporter, as commander of Army Group South as von Manstein's replacement. Nevertheless, von Manstein received the Swords for his Knight's Cross, the third highest German military honor for his military service to the Wehrmacht. The American historians Allan Millet and Williamson Murray wrote, "After Manstein became convinced the Führer would not recall him to save the Reich, he displayed his grasp of strategy and politics by taking the substantial honorarium he had received from Hitler as well as the family savings and buying an estate in East Prussia in October 1944". Later in October 1944 Soviet forces entered East Prussia, and Manstein was forced to abandon his newly purchased estate and flee west.

After his dismissal, von Manstein entered an eye clinic in Breslau for cataract surgery. He recuperated near Dresden and then retired from military service all together. Although he did not take part in the attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944, he had been contacted by Henning von Tresckow and others in 1943 about the plot. While von Manstein did agree that change was necessary, he refused to join them as he still considered himself bound by duty. (He rejected the approaches with the statement: "Preussische Feldmarschälle meutern nicht" – "Prussian Field Marshals do not mutiny.") He also feared that a civil war would ensue. Though he did not join the plotters, he did not betray them either. In late January 1945, he collected his family from their homes in Liegnitz and evacuated them to western Germany. He surrendered to British Field Marshal Montgomery and was arrested by British troops on 23 August 1945.

During the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, von Manstein was only called as a witness for the defence. Von Manstein was subsequently interned by the British as a prisoner of war in "Special Camp 11" in Bridgend, Wales. Later, because of pressure from the Soviets, who wanted him extradited to stand trial in the USSR, the British accepted their indictments and charged him with war crimes, putting him on trial before a British Military Tribunal in Hamburg in August 1949. In part, because of the Soviet demands in the Cold War environment and respect for his military exploits, many in the British military establishment, such as Field Marshal Montgomery and the military strategist Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, openly expressed sympathy for von Manstein's plight and, along with the likes of Sir Winston Churchill, donated money for the defense. Liddell Hart, who was one of Manstein's leading admirers portrayed Manstein as the world's greatest operational genius in his best selling 1947 book On the Other Side of the Hill, which helped to add to the lusture of Manstein's name. Manstein's trial would led to popularization of the "Wehrmacht myth".

In court, von Manstein's defence, led by the prominent lawyer Reginald Thomas Paget, argued that he had been unaware that genocide was taking place in the territory under his control. It was argued that von Manstein did not enforce the Commissar order, which called for the immediate execution of Red Army Communist Party commissars. According to his testimony at the Nuremberg Trials, he received it, but refused to carry it out. He claimed that his superior at the time, Field Marshal von Leeb, tolerated and tacitly approved of his choice, and he also claimed that the order was not carried out in practice. Manstein had perjured himself when he claimed that he did not enforce the “Commissar Order”: documents from 1941 showed that he passed the “Commissar Order” to his subordinates, and that he had suspected “commissars” shot. Manstein's lawyer Paget claimed that the only commissars Manstein had shot were in the rear area in the Crimea by police units, likely because of partisan activities.

Manstein issued an order on 20 November 1941: his version of Field Marshal von Reichenau's infamous "Severity Order" of 10 October 1941, which equated "partisans" with "Jews" and called for their extermination. Following complaints by some of his officers about the massacres being committed by Einsatzgruppen, Reicheanu issued the "Severity Order" to explain to his men why in his view the massacres were necessary. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of Army Group South and Reicheanu's superior, upon hearing of the "Severity Order" expressed his "complete agreement" with it, and send out a circular to all of his generals suggesting that they issue their own versions of the "Severity Order". Manstein's lawyer Paget claimed that he had a subordinate write a more moderate version of the order and he wrote a part himself in which he recommended lenient treatment of non - Communists in order to secure their cooperation. This did not apply to the Jewish population, whom Manstein equated with Communism, and wanted to see exterminated. The order stated that::

This struggle is not being carried on against the Soviet Armed Forces alone in the established form laid down by European rules of warfare.
Behind the front too, the fighting continues. Partisan snipers dressed as civilians attack single soldiers and small units and try to disrupt our supplies by sabotage with mines and infernal machines. Bolshevists left behind keep the population freed from Bolshevism in a state of unrest by means of terror and attempt thereby to sabotage the political and economic pacification of the country. Harvests and factories are destroyed and the city population in particular is thereby ruthlessly delivered to starvation.
Jewry is the middleman between the enemy in the rear and the remains of the Red Army and the Red leadership still fighting. More strongly than in Europe they hold all key positions of political leadership and administration, of trade and crafts and constitutes a cell for all unrest and possible uprisings.
The Jewish Bolshevik system must be wiped out once and for all and should never again be allowed to invade our European living space.
The German soldier has therefore not only the task of crushing the military potential of this system. He comes also as the bearer of a racial concept and as the avenger of all the cruelties which have been perpetrated on him and on the German people....
The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh punishment of Jewry, the spiritual bearer of the Bolshevik terror. This is also necessary in order to nip in the bud all uprisings which are mostly plotted by Jews.

The order also stated: "The food situation at home makes it essential that the troops should as far as possible be fed off the land and that furthermore the largest possible stocks should be placed at the disposal of the homeland. Particularly in enemy cities a large part of the population will have to go hungry." This also was one of the indictments against von Manstein in Hamburg; not only neglect of civilians, but also exploitation of invaded countries for the sole benefit of the "homeland", something considered illegal by the then current laws of war.

The order additionally stated that "severe steps will be taken against arbitrary action and self interest, against savagery and indiscipline, against any violation of the honour of the soldier" and that "respect for religious customs, particularly those of Muslim Tartars, must be demanded." The German Army always disapproved of so-called "wild shootings" where troops would engage in sessions of indiscriminately shooting people on their own initiative, and it was normal when issuing orders calling for violence against civilians to warn against "arbitrary actions". The evidence for this order was first presented by prosecutor Telford Taylor on 10 August 1946, in Nuremberg. Von Manstein acknowledged that he had signed this order of 20 November 1941, but claimed that he did not remember it. The American historians Ronald Smelser and Edward Davies wrote in 2008 that Manstein was a vicious anti - Semitic of the first order who whole - heartily agreed with Hitler’s idea that the war against the Soviet Union was a war to exterminate “Judeo - Bolshevism” and that was simply committing perjury when he claimed he could not remember his version of the “Severity Order”. This order was a major piece of evidence for the prosecution at his Hamburg trial. At this trial, Paget argued that the order was justified because he claimed that many partisans were Jews, and so Manstein's order calling for every Jewish men, women and child to be executed was justified by his desire to protect his men from partisan attacks. In the same way, Paget called the Russians "savages", and argued that Manstein showed much restraint as a "decent German soldier" in allegedly upholding the laws of war when fighting against the Russians who at all times displayed the most "appalling savagery".

While Paget got von Manstein acquitted of many of the seventeen charges, he was still found guilty of two charges and accountable for seven others, mainly for employing scorched earth tactics and for failing to protect the civilian population, and was sentenced on 19 December 1949, to 18 years imprisonment which was near the maximum for the charges that were retained. This caused a massive uproar among von Manstein's supporters and the sentence was subsequently reduced to 12 years. As part of his work championing his client, Paget published a best selling book in 1951 about Manstein's career and his trial which portrayed Manstein as an honorable soldier fighting heroically despite overwhemling odds on the Eastern Front, who had been convicted of crimes that he did not commit. Paget's book helped to contribute to the growing cult around Manstein's name. However, he was released on 6 May 1953 for what were officially described as medical reasons, but was in fact due to strong pressure from the West German government, who saw Manstein as a hero.

Von Manstein, one of the highest ranking generals in the Wehrmacht, claimed ignorance of what was happening in the concentration camps. In the Nuremberg Trials, he was asked "Did you at that time know anything about conditions in the concentration camps?" to which he replied "No. I heard as little about that as the German people, or possibly even less, because when one was fighting 1,000 kilometres away from Germany, one naturally did not hear about such things. I knew from pre-war days that there were two concentration camps, Oranienburg and Dachau, and an officer who at the invitation of the SS had visited such a camp told me that it was simply a typical collection of criminals, besides some political prisoners who, according to what he had seen, were being treated severely but correctly." However, Manstein ignored the massacres committed in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union by the Einsatzgruppen who travelled in the wake of the German Army, including Manstein's own 11th Army. That Manstein was well aware of the Einsatzgruppen massacres is proven by a 1941 letter he sent to Otto Ohlendorf, where Manstein demands Ohlendorf hand over the wrist watches of murdered Jews, which Manstein wrote was unfair since his men were doing so much to help Ohlendorf's men with their work. Smelser and Davies note that Manstein's letter complaining that the SS were keeping all of the wrist watches of murdered Jews to themselves was the only time that Manstein ever complained about the actions of the Einsatzgruppen in the entire Second World War.

Called on by the West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, von Manstein served as his senior defense advisory and chaired a military sub - committee appointed to advise the parliament on military organization and doctrine for the new German Army, the Bundeswehr and its incorporation into NATO. He later moved with his family to Bavaria. His war memoirs, Verlorene Siege (Lost Victories), were published in Germany in 1955, and translated into English in 1958. In them, he presented the thesis that if only he had been in charge of strategy instead of Hitler, the war on the Eastern Front could have been won. For the most part, Manstein was disparaging of other German generals, whom Manstein portrayed as incompetent. Manstein took all credit for German victories for himself, while blaming Hitler and other generals for every defeat. Above all, Manstein singled out for abuse his arch - enemy, General Franz Halder, whom Manstein argued understood that Hitler's leadership was defective while lacking the courage to do anything about it. As for the Red Army, Manstein portrayed the average Russian soldier as brave but badly led. Manstein depicted the entire Soviet officer corps as hopelessly incompetent, and portrayed the war on the Eastern Front as a battle between a German Army that was vastly superior in fighting ability being steadily ground down by an opponent that was superior only in numbers. Smelser and Davies wrote that this aspect of Verlorene Siege was very self serving as it allowed Manstein to ignore several occasions such as the fall of Kiev in November 1943, where the Stavka not only tricked him, but defeated him as well. A noteworthy aspect of Verlorene Siege was Manstein's avoidence of political issues, instead treating the entire war as an operational matter. Manstein refused to express any regret for fighting under a genocidal regime, and nowhere in Verlorene Siege did Manstein issue any sort of moral condemnation of National Socialism. Instead, Hitler was only criticized for faulty strategic decisions. Smelser and Davies wrote that Manstein's criticism of Hitler was extremely self serving as Manstein made the false claim that he wanted the 6th Army to be pulled out of Stalingrad after it was encircled, only to be overruled by Hitler; and Manstein attacked Hitler for launching Operation Citadel, a plan that Manstein himself had developed, although he had urged it to be executed months earlier before Soviet defenses were built up. Manstein's lament about Germany's "lost victories" in the Second World War seemed to imply that the world would have been a much better place if Nazi Germany had won the war. The German historian Volker Berghahn wrote about Verlorene Siege that: "It title gave the story away: it had been Hitler's dogmatism and constant interference with the strategic plans and operational decisions of the professionals that had cost Germany its victory against Stalin". Manstein made the entirely false claim that he did not enforce the "Commissar Order", and made no mention of his own considerable role in the Holocaust, such as sending 2,000 of his soldiers to help the SS massacre 11,000 Jews in Simferopol in November 1941. Verlorene Siege was much acclaimed and a best seller when it was published in the 1950s. The favorable portrait Manstein drew of himself in Verlorene Siege continues to influence the popular picture of him to this day. In 1998, Jürgen Förster, a German historian, wrote that for too long most people have accepted at face value the self serving claims made by generals like Manstein and Siegfried Westphal who promoted the idea of the Wehrmacht in their memoirs as a highly professional, apolitical force who were victims of Adolf Hitler rather than his followers, which served to distort the subject of Wehrmacht war crimes. Berghahn wrote in 2004 that Manstein's memoirs were "totally unreliable", and if more had been known about Manstein's war crimes in the 1940s, he might had been hanged. Berghahn wrote that by "By the time Christian Streit published his book Keine Kamaden about the mass murder of Red Army prisoners of war at the hands of the Wehrmacht, professional historians firmly accepted what Manstein and his comrades had denied and covered up, i.e., that the Wehrmacht had been deeply involved in the criminal and genocidal policies of the Nazi regime". Smelser and Davies note that nowhere in his post war writings nor memoirs did Manstein condemn explicitly National Socialism.

Because of his influence, for the first few years of the Bundeswehr he was seen as the unofficial chief of staff. Even later, his birthday parties were regularly attended by official delegations of Bundeswehr and NATO top leaders such as General Hans Speidel who was the Commander - in - Chief of the Allied ground forces in Central Europe from 1957 to 1963. This was not the case with other Field Marshals such as Milch, Schörner, von Küchler and others, who were disregarded and forgotten after the war. By the mid 1950s, Manstein had become the object of a vast cult centered around him, which portrayed him as not only as one of Germany's greatest generals, but also one of the world's greatest generals ever. Manstein was described as a militärische Kult - und Leitfigur (military cult legend), a general of legendary, almost mythical ability and superhuman skill, much honored by both the public and historians.

Erich von Manstein suffered a stroke and died in Munich on the night of 9 June 1973. He was buried with full military honors. His obituary in The Times on 13 June 1973, stated that "His influence and effect came from powers of mind and depth of knowledge rather than by generating an electrifying current among the troops or 'putting over' his personality."

Guderian was born in Kulm, West Prussia (now Chełmno, Poland). From 1901 to 1907 Guderian attended various military schools. He entered the Army in 1907 as an ensign cadet in the (Hanoverian) Jäger Bataillon No. 10, commanded at that point by his father, Friedrich Guderian. After attending the war academy in Metz he was made a Leutnant (full Lieutenant) in 1908. In 1911 Guderian joined the 3rd Telegraphen - Bataillon of the Prussian Army Signal Corps. In October 1913 he married Margarete Goerne with whom he had two sons, Heinz Günter (1914 – 2004) and Kurt (1918 – 1984). Both sons became highly decorated Wehrmacht officers during World War II; Heinz Günter became a Panzer general in the Bundeswehr after the war.

During World War I he served as a Signals and General Staff officer. This allowed him to get an overall view of battlefield conditions. He often disagreed with his superiors and was transferred to the army intelligence department, where he remained until the end of the war. This second assignment, while removed from the battlefield, sharpened his strategic skills. He disagreed with German surrender at the end of World War I, believing German Empire should continue the fight writing "the most the Allies can do is to destroy us".

After the war Guderian joined the nationalist paramilitary Freikorps as part of commanding staff of Eastern Frontier Guard Service. He would join the Iron Brigade (later known as Iron Division). Eventually Guderian joined the Iron Division as its second General Staff officer to re-assert military's control over the formation. The plan had failed as Guderian's personal anti - communism dominated over the orders he received. Iron Division waged ruthless campaign in Lithuania and pushed into Latvia; traditional German anti - Slavic attitudes however prevented cooperation with Russian and Belarussian forces opposing Bolsheviks. During the division's advance on Riga it committed numerous atrocities as part of its ideological mission to "cleanse and clean"; these events are omitted by Guderian in his memoirs.

After the war, Guderian stayed in the reduced 100,000 man German Army (Reichswehr) as a company commander in the 10th Jäger - Battalion. Later he joined the Truppenamt ("Troop Office"), which was actually the Army's "General - Staff - in - waiting" (an official General Staff was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles). In 1927 Guderian was promoted to major and transferred to the Truppenamt group for Army transport and motorized tactics in Berlin. This put him at the center of German development of armored forces. Guderian, who was fluent in both English and French studied the works of British maneuver warfare theorists J. F. C. Fuller and, debatably, B. H. Liddell Hart; also the writings, interestingly enough, of the then obscure Charles de Gaulle. He translated these works into German.

In 1931, he was promoted to Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) and became chief of staff to the Inspectorate of Motorized Troops under Generalleutnant (Major General) Oswald Lutz. In 1933 he was promoted to Oberst (Colonel).

During this period, he wrote many papers on mechanized warfare, which were seen in the German Army as authoritative. These papers were based on extensive wargaming without troops, with paper tanks and finally with armored vehicles. 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.

In October 1935 he was made commander of the newly created 2nd Panzer Division (one of three). On 1 August 1936 he was promoted to Generalmajor, and on 4 February 1938 he was promoted to Generalleutnant and given command of the XVI Army Corps.

During this period (1936 – 1937), Guderian produced his most important written work, his book Achtung - Panzer! It was a highly persuasive compilation of Guderian's own theories and the armored warfare and combined arms warfare ideas of other General Staff officers, expounding the use of airpower as well as tanks in future ground combat.

The German panzer forces were created largely on the lines laid down by Guderian in Achtung - Panzer!

The British Army was the first to conceive and attempt armored warfare, and though British theorists were the first to propose the concept of "Blitzkrieg" (lightning warfare), the British did not fully develop it. During World War I, the German army had developed the idea of breaking through a static front by concentration of combined arms, which they applied in their 1918 Spring Offensive. But they failed to gain decisive results because the breakthrough elements were on foot and could not sustain the impetus of the initial attack.

Motorized infantry was the key to sustaining a breakthrough, and until the 1930s that was not possible. Soviet marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky pursued the idea, but his doctrine was repudiated as contrary to Communist principles, and Tukhachevsky was executed in 1937.

Guderian was the first who fully developed and advocated the strategy of blitzkrieg and put it into its final shape. He summarized the tactics of blitzkrieg as the way to get the mobile and motorized armored divisions to work together and support each other in order to achieve decisive success. In his book Panzer Leader he wrote:

In this year (1929) I became convinced that tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance. My historical studies; the exercises carried out in England and our own experience with mock - ups had persuaded me that the tanks would never be able to produce their full effect until weapons on whose support they must inevitably rely were brought up to their standard of speed and of cross country performance. In such formation of all arms, the tanks must play primary role, the other weapons being subordinated to the requirements of the armor. It would be wrong to include tanks in infantry divisions: what was needed were armored divisions which would include all the supporting arms needed to fight with full effect.

Guderian believed that certain developments in technology needed to take place in conjunction with blitzkrieg in order to support the entire theory, especially in communication and special visual equipment with which the armored divisions in general, and tanks specifically, should be equipped. Guderian insisted in 1933, within the high command, that every tank in the German armored force must be equipped with radio and visual equipment in order to enable the tank commander to communicate and perform a decisive role in blitzkrieg.

In the Second World War, Guderian first served as the commander of the XIX Corps in the invasion of Poland. He personally led the German forces during the Battle of Wizna and Battle of Kobryn testing his theory against the reality of war for the first time. After the invasion he took property in the Warthegau area of occupied Poland, evicting the Polish estate owners. 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 the situation in his memoirs to present taking over of the estate as a legitimate retirement gift.

In the Invasion of France, he personally led the attack that traversed the Ardennes Forest, crossed the Meuse River and broke through the French lines at Sedan. During the French campaign, he led his panzer forces in rapid blitzkrieg style advances and earned the nickname "Der schnelle Heinz" (Fast Heinz) among his troops. Guderian's panzer group led the "race to the sea" that split the Allied armies in two, depriving the French armies and the BEF in Northern France and Belgium of their fuel, food, spare parts and ammunition. Faced with orders from nervous superiors to halt on one occasion, he managed to continue his advance by stating he was performing a 'reconnaissance in force'. Guderian's column was famously denied the chance to destroy the Allied beachhead at Dunkirk by an order coming from high command.

In 1941 he commanded Panzergruppe 2, also known as Panzergruppe Guderian, in Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, receiving the 24th award of the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 17 July of that year. From 5 October 1941 he led the redesignated Second Panzer Army. His armored spearhead captured Smolensk in a remarkably short time and was poised to launch the final assault on Moscow when he was ordered to turn south towards Kiev (Lötzen decision).

He protested against Hitler's decision and as a result lost the Führer's confidence. He was relieved of his command on 25 December 1941 after Fieldmarshal 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. Guderian was transferred to the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) reserve pool, his chances of being promoted to fieldmarshal, which depended on Hitler's personal decision, possibly ruined forever. Guderian would deny that he ordered any kind of withdrawal. Ironically this act of apparent insubordination is cited by his admirers as further proof of his independence of spirit when dealing with Hitler. Guderian's own view on the matter was that he had been victimized by von Kluge who was the commanding officer when German troops came to a standstill at the Moscow front in late autumn / winter 1941. At some point he so provoked von Kluge with accusations related to his dismissal that the field marshal challenged him to a duel, which Hitler forbade.

After his dismissal Guderian and his wife retired to a 2,000 acres (8.1 km²) sequestered country estate at Deipenhof in the Reichsgau Wartheland.

In September 1942, when Erwin Rommel was recuperating in Germany from health problems, he suggested Guderian to OKW as the only one who could replace him temporarily in Africa, the response came in the same night: "Guderian is not accepted". Only after the German defeat at Stalingrad was Guderian given a new position. On 1 March 1943 he was appointed Inspector - General of the Armored Troops. Here his responsibilities were to determine armored strategy and to oversee tank design and production and the training of Germany's panzer forces. He reported to Hitler directly. In Panzer Leader, he conceded that he was fully aware of the brutal occupation policies of the German administration of Ukraine, claiming that this was wholly the responsibility of civilians, about whom he could do nothing.

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. Guderian preferred large numbers of Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs over smaller numbers of heavier tanks like the Tiger, which had limited range and could rarely go off road without getting stuck in the Russian mud.

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. During his tenure as chief of staff, he let it be known that any General Staff officer who was not prepared to be "a National Socialist officer" was not welcome on that body. He also served on the "Court of Military Honor," a drumhead court martial that expelled many of the officers involved in the July 20 Plot from the Army before handing them over to the People's Court.

However, he had a long series of violent rows with Hitler over the way in which Germany should handle the war on both fronts. 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.) He was replaced by General Hans Krebs.

Together with his Panzer staff, Guderian surrendered to American troops on 10 May 1945 and remained in U.S. custody as a prisoner of war until his release on 17 June 1948. Despite Soviet and Polish government protests, he was not charged with any war crimes during the Nuremberg Trials, as his actions and behavior were thought to be consistent with those of a professional soldier.

After the war he was often invited to attend meetings of British veterans' groups, where he analyzed past battles with his old foes. During the early 1950s he was active in advising on the redevelopment of the West German army: Bundeswehr.

Guderian died on 14 May 1954 at the age of 65, in Schwangau near Füssen (Southern Bavaria) and is buried at the Friedhof Hildesheimer Strasse in Goslar.

In 2000, a documentary titled Guderian, directed by Anton Vassil, was aired on French television. 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. Using rarely seen photographs from Guderian's private collection, the documentary provides an inside view into the life and career of Guderian and draws a profile of Guderian's character and the moral responsibility of the German general staff under Hitler.

The Enigma machine belonging to Guderian is on display at the Intelligence Corps museum in Chicksands, Bedfordshire, England.