Heinz Guderian

"Hitler might have waged his war against the Soviet Union more intelligently. Again, he might have listened to the experts (Halder and Guderian among them), who advised him to concentrate German efforts on capturing Moscow rather than diverting Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group southwards towards Kiev. In a similar vein, Hitler might not have squandered his 6th Army so profligately at Stalingrad; Alan Brooke's fear was that Paulus might instead conquer the Caucasus, opening the way to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf oilfields."

"New weapons require new tactics. Never put new wine into old bottles."

"The good news for Liddell Hart was that his work was hugely influential. The bad news was that it was hugely influential not in Britain but in Germany. With the notable exception of Major-General J. F. C. Fuller, senior British commanders like Field Marshal Earl Haig simply refused to accept that 'the aeroplane, the tank [and] the motor car [would] supersede the horse in future wars', dismissing motorized weapons as mere 'accessories to the man and horse'. Haig's brother concurred: the cavalry would 'never be scrapped to make room for the tanks'. By contrast, younger German officers immediately grasped the significance of Liddell Hart's work. Among his most avid fans was Heinz Guderian, commander of the 19th German Army Corps in the invasion of Poland. As Guderian recalled, it was from Liddell Hart and other British pioneers of 'a new type of warfare on the largest scale' that he learned the importance of 'the concentration of armour'."

"Actions speak louder than words. In the days to come the Goddess of Victory will bestow her laurels only on those who prepared to act with daring."

"The moral and intellectual condition of a nation may certainly prove of decisive importance on its own account, but all due attention must also be paid to material considerations. When a nation has to reckon with a struggle against superior forces on several fronts, it must neglect nothing that may conduce to the betterment of its situation."

"We have severely underestimated the Russians, the extent of the country and the treachery of the climate. This is the revenge of reality."

"To imitate the ostrich in political matters has never been a satisfactory method of avoiding danger; yet this is what Hitler, as well as his more important political, economic and even military advisers, chose to do over and over again. The consequences of this deliberate blindness in the face of hard facts were devastating; and it was we who now had to bear them."

"It has been deduced from Hitler's great power over the masses that the Germans are an unusually suggestible race. But in all countries and at all times men have succumbed to the suggestive powers of unusual personalities, even if the wielders of those powers were not always good men in the Christian sense."

"Es gibt keine verzweifelten Lagen, es gibt nur verzweifelte Menschen."

"Man schlägt jemanden mit der Faust und nicht mit gespreizten Fingern."

"Der Motor des Panzers ist ebenso seine Waffe wie die Kanone."

"It's simply our duty to save these people, and we still have time to remove them! But it's useless to sacrifice men in this senseless way. It's high time! We must evacuate those soldiers at once!"

"Logistics is the ball and chain of armored warfare."

"When the situation is obscure, attack."

"Nicht Kleckern sondern Klotzen!"

"If the tanks succeed, then victory follows."

"Fahrkarte bis zur Endstation."

""Klotzen, nicht Kleckern!" — In seinen "Erinnerungen eines Soldaten", Kurt Vowinckel 1960, schreibt Guderian von "einer oft von mir gebrauchten Redewendung" (S. 95) sowie: "Ich gebrauchte Hitler gegenüber meinen alten Grundsatz: 'Klotzen, nicht Kleckern!'" (S. 286)."

""Das Studium der Tagesmeldungen der Heeresgruppen ist mühseliger als die Lösung eines Kreuzworträtsels." — Befehl vom 04. Februar 1945, die Tagesmeldungen der Heeresgruppen der Wehrmacht zu verbessern."