As a Finn, I have to say Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. He might not be as well known in the outside world as Rommel or Guderian, but he was an excellent defensive tactician who pretty much saved our independence. He also had an eye for politics.

But the best thing about him is that he gave us a drink.

Sharing documentary material I have on H. Guderian.

Is the documentary quoting him or somebody else? You weren't very clear on that.

Major General Carl Gustav Fleischer (1883-1942), Norwegian Army.

Not many know of him, but he was pushing the Germans (Gen. Dietel)towards the Swedish border during the Narvik campaign in 1940. Unfortunately Norway capitulated before Dietel had to choose between surrender or Sweden.

As far as I know, this was the first setback for the Germans in WW II

It is a letter that H. Guderian wrote in 1919 from Mitau (the town is named Jelgava now), just south of Riga. That's where he was with his unit at the time. I translated it from German.

I will see if I can edit my message to make it clearer.

Okay, so what point are you trying to make? Considering that its a letter from 1919 ... I'm not sure what relevance it has to much of anything.

If we're going into ethics and morals for this ... well, unfortunately you have a lot of brilliant military commanders that fought under a amoral and ethicly deficient flag in WW2 -- that of Nazi Germany. To my knowledge, Guderian was never directly involved in any attrocities.

I'm not going to read further into things until you provide an explanation for what you are trying to point out.

That letter was written by H. Guderian. It says what it says, and you're free to take it as whatever you want to take it as. I posted it as primary source information on H. Guderian.
-David R.

Well, the content of the letter looks pretty irrelevant to his performance as a battlefield commander in WW2. Its also taken completely out of context - meaning that its hard for me to tell exactly what he's talking about. This is from a transition time in the Continent of Europe. The great European land empires were broken up after WW1. Those were Autro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire (part Europe, part Asia), the German Empire and the Russian Empire (which wasn't really broken up). Had the terms of Russia's surrender to the Germans been preserved, Germany would have controlled substantially more of Eastern Europe than they historically ended up with. So what I'm getting at is that Guderian might be discussing this. I might be discussing something else. There isn't enough information to go on there.

Let me reinterate though: A letter written in 1919 (though I don't yet understand the meaning of it) has almost nothing to do with Guderian as a WW2 battlefield commander.

Originally Posted by david_the_positive

Hi Doppleganger.

I respect your opinion of Heinz Guderian. His persona, I feel, has become thoroughly idealized and I want to show a document of his, for informational purposes.

A little background: Heinz Guderian was a member in the "Eisernen Division" (Iron Division) in Latvia in 1919.

Below is a letter of his published in "Juni 1941: Der Tiefe Schnitt," (page 51) in my translation. It was sent April 30, 1919 from Mitau. Brackets are some of the german words being translated.

"Bolsheviks overextended themselves, and acted like animals (Viecher). Vulgarness of these Latvians can not be described. Such people ripened for extermination (Vernichtung). These beasts can not have our compassion. [... omission by the book editors] Mitau looks almost entirely German, best citizens (Burger) are all German, poor (armliche) folk (Bevolkerung) are Latvian. Undoubtedly, a lot can be made from this country, and I have solidified in my old views, that Kurland is a suitable colony, and we should try by all means to protect the present German nationality (Deutschtum) and set a foothold on this fertile soil, as a compensation of losses set for us in the west."

translated by David G. Ryzhenkov

Hi David. Firstly I don't see what you posted has to do with my opinion of Guderian's ability and legacy but nonetheless it's interesting. Where did you get this information from? Is there anything posted on the net you can link to? I don't think anyone can say that Guderian, or any other commander at his level, was wholly innocent for sure of any racial or ideological stereotyping. Guderian certainly enjoyed his prestige and status in Nazi Germany and like other senior commanders *may* have turned a blind eye to some of the things being done under his command.
However, there's nothing linking him to any direct orders committing war crimes or atrocities and indeed this was the opinion of the Nuremberg War Trials Panel.

Secondly, this thread is not a discussion on great commander's personalities or whether said commanders may have been involved in anything nasty. It was designed to discuss favourite military leaders and why you regarded them as such. I agree that Guderian's persona probably has been over idealized but you cannot take away anything from the man's vision, foresight, ability and legacy. Like I posted before there are very few commanders in history who can be directly compared to him.

BTW, who is your favourite military leader and why.

I answered why my I posted this letter in my previous message, doppleganger. The source is given with the translation, in the message you quoted.