Lopez, Jean Heinz Guderian

Le Maitre des Panzers

The first French biography of the founding father of the German armoured forces. Guderian: The man in the black uniform of the armoured forces who buried France in Sedan in 1940 before marching on Moscow. Hitler owed him his tank divisions, which shook the world. He turned to him in 1944, when everything was going wrong, to avert defeat. Guderian: a visionary of modern warfare, but also a liar, a repulsive person towards his colleagues, selfish and willing to do anything to keep his top position. But also a master strategist and warrior of the first rank. Guderian: a man who loved his wife Margarete passionately and whose 3,000-page correspondence from 1912 to 1948 provides a solid foundation and human depth to this first biography in French. Guderian: the man who served a criminal regime and yet got off scot-free at the Nuremberg trials. This impunity deserved investigation. Guderian: the life of a man who also provides a thread for understanding the illusions of a Germany that twice attempted to rise to world power and twice failed, leaving more than fifty million dead in its wake. The biography is based on new sources and a comprehensive knowledge of the documentation.