Panzer General

Heinz Guderian and the Blitzkrieg Victories of WWII

De: Kenneth Macksey

Narrado por: Jonathan Cowley

Duración: 12 h y 30 m

Resumen del Editor

Kenneth Macksey's highly regarded biography of Generaloberst Heinz Guderian gives clear insight into the mind and motives of the father of modern tank warfare. Panzer General shows Guderian as a man of ideas equipped with the ability to turn inspiration into reality. A master of strategy and tactics, he was the officer most responsible for creating blitzkrieg in World War II.

Guderian built the Panzerwaffe in the face of opposition from the German General Staff and personally led the lightning campaigns by tanks and aircraft that put a large part of Europe under domination by the Third Reich. Kenneth Macksey, a tank man himself for more than 20 years, reveals the man as a brilliant rebel in search of ideals and a general whose personality, genius, and achievements far transcended those of Rommel.

As well as throwing light on the crucial campaigns in Poland, France, and Russia, this biography illuminates the struggles within the German hierarchy, both in the military and in the Nazi Party, for control of the Panzer forces. Based on information from the extensive family archives, Panzer General demonstrates why Guderian was so admired by some while denigrated by others.

©1975, 2003 Kenneth Macksey (P)2020 Tantor

Great Book

Interested in military history? Read this. Guderian was not hung at Nuremberg. Not sure why not... maybe his charm. Leading from the front usually gets a leader killed.

Engaging Biography with Historical Lapses

The author does a solid job giving us a sense of the great Panzer commander's personality and achievements. While showing him, fairly convincingly, as a figure who helped pioneer the armored element of the Blitzkrieg and sometimes showed great courage in standing up to Hitler and protecting army officers and their families after the July 1944 assassination attempt, the biographer pushes a bit too hard to paint him as an unblemished hero. Though this is clearly meant to fall within the realm of "objective" military history, the brief declarations of Churchill's and FDR's governments being dictatorial (they had great war time or crisis powers, but were by no means in the same league as Hitler and his allies or the Soviets) and the by-passing of Holocaust and Nazi racism's impact in the East represent significant shortcomings. Read if for the story of a fascinating, if problematic, leader. Read the enormous literature on the war, specifically the War in the East (such as Bloodlands) for a better sense of the conflict in which he and his fellow soldiers were involved or embedded.

Terrible narration/pronunciation

Had to stop listening after less than 2 hours. The story seems fairly well organized and detailed but for the love of God please find a narrator that can properly pronounce German words. Based on the subject matter of this book I would have figured that would be a given but I guess not.