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That was in November 1941, when Guderian, commanding the Second Tank Army, thundered up to encircle Moscow from the south. By Dec. 3 he seemed on the verge of victory; some of his light tanks had penetrated the Soviet capital's suburbs. But Partisan attacks had been weakening his flanks; the tanks were behaving badly in bitter cold and 10 to 20 inches of snow. Marshal Zhukov launched a counterattack with reserves hoarded in the woods near Moscow. Four days later Moscow intercepted a grim radio message from Guderian to his advance units: "Burn the machines and retreat southward."
In the Shadow. After that dreadful failure, the earlier successes in Poland and France lost some of their savor for Heinz Guderian. He disappeared from the military scene for a time, then turned up in a rear-area job, reorganizing armored formations. He tackled his assignment with characteristic energy, and for the past year has served as Inspector General of Panzer Troops. When he returned to the center of the stage this week he showed his old confidence. But when he gave an interview, it sounded more like the work of Dr. Goebbels than the expression of a sound soldier. Example:
"The present Soviet assault will not only be broken,, but the Bolshevik intruders will again be thrown out of all the territory that at present they are devastating so cruelly. . . . Naturally the Soviets' numerical superiority gives us a certain amount of trouble, but we will master them."
General Guderian did not go so far as to explain how this was to be done. For all his bumptious words he must have known that the military situation in itself was desperate—apart from the just-revealed proof of serious disaffection in the German Army's officer corps.
Just how seriously the Wehrmacht chain of command had been affected, the world—and possibly Heinz Guderian—did not know. But Guderian did know what it was to fight a decisive battle with corroded, broken-down armor, and he knew now that the rust of desperation was spreading swiftly through his war machine.
Sixteen Generals. How deep that rust has eaten, Guderian could judge from the statement issued last week by 16 of his fellow generals, now prisoners of war in Russia. They urged all German generals and officers to break with the Nazis and end the war speedily, to save Germany from the abyss to which she had been led by "the adventurist political and strategic leadership of Adolf Hitler."
Twenty-one German generals had been captured in the disastrous Battle of White Russia, which they bitterly described as "a game of chance." Sixteen signed the original statement, a 17th added his name later. Thus only four were loyal to the Nazi Government, at least to the extent of keeping silent.
By contrast, of 24 generals captured by the Red Army at Stalingrad, only nine made such appeals. They had taken six months to a year to think matters over before making up their minds to denounce Hitler. Within two years, disintegration had gone a long way.