Hitler could not resist the opportunities for expansion that arose along Germany’s borders in the late 1930s, however. As conflict loomed, commanders had to make do with the weapons at their disposal. Guderian was not yet fully equipped to serve as Hitler’s armored fist. The prototypical German tank, the Panzerkampfwagen Mk. I, had armor barely a half-inch thick and carried just two machine guns in its turret, making it no match for heavier models produced by rivals such as France and the Soviet Union. Bigger battle wagons were in production such as the Pzkw Mk. IV, which was armed with a 75mm cannon, but even the heftiest tanks would be sitting ducks if they broke down or ran short of fuel, as many did when Hitler occupied Austria in 1938. Guderian responded by instituting a painstaking system of supply and maintenance that allowed his panzers to advance faster and farther than skeptics believed possible.

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As war approached, skepticism about what an armored force could achieve in battle persisted at high levels in Germany and prevailed in France and Great Britain, where officers were well aware of what Guderian had in mind. He had learned much from the writings of J.F.C. Fuller, a British tank commander who pioneered attacks by massed armor in World War I, and had recently revealed his own tactical thinking in a 1937 training manual titled Achtung! Panzer! The doctrine Guderian espoused had outspoken proponents abroad such as Fuller and French Colonel Charles de Gaulle. But only in Germany did it receive sufficient support to give armor a leading role in battle plans. Britain and France were thinking defensively and put more trust in natural barriers like the English Channel or man-made ones like the Maginot Line, the network of defensive fortifications along France’s border with Germany, than in the offensive potential of tanks.

Germany had its own fortified line—the West Wall facing France—but its military leaders, in confronting potential enemies on both flanks, sought to avoid a prolonged struggle on two fronts by developing plans of attack that stressed speed and surprise above everything else. “Considering our geopolitical position,” one German strategist declared, “we must always aim for a short war and lightning-like decisions.”

That tendency worked to Guderian’s advantage, as did the Versailles Treaty, which restricted Germany to a 100,000-man army and forced many older officers into retirement before Hitler defied the treaty and expanded his forces. On the eve of World War II, the German officer corps was younger and more receptive to new ideas and technologies than its counterpart in France.

Contrary to the stereotype of the German soldier as a man who simply followed orders, German officers expressed their opinions freely to superiors, had wide latitude in fulfilling their assigned missions, and were encouraged to lead from the front—all of which suited Guderian’s conception of armored warfare as fast moving and free wheeling. “Once armored formations are out on the loose,” he insisted, “they must be given the green light to the very end of the road.” Support from Hitler helped Guderian and those who shared his views overcome official skepticism and refine their doctrine by combining massive armored thrusts with air strikes to produce the convulsive effect that is known today as “shock and awe.”

Some journalists and historians hailed the German conquest of Poland that launched World War II in September 1939 as a blitzkrieg, but much of that campaign was conducted conventionally, by artillery and infantry advancing on foot with horse-drawn vehicles. Operations that took advantage of more sophisticated military hardware contributed to the outcome, including an aerial blitz by the Luftwaffe that neutralized the Polish air force and an impressive drive by General Guderian’s XIX Corps, consisting of one panzer division and two motorized infantry divisions. But the Polish campaign was not revolutionary. Not until the battle for France unfolded in 1940 did the Germans concentrate their armor at the Schwerpunkt, or “main point of effort,” and achieve a breakthrough of historic proportions.

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