Heinz Guderian was born at Kulm (Chelmno) into the family of a Prussian army officer and was sent to the cadet school in Karlsruhe, which he attended from September 1900 to April 1903. Guderian moved on to the main cadet school at Gross Lichteffelde, from which he graduated in December 1907. The following year, on January 27, Guderian entered the 10th Hannoverian Jager as a second lieutenant. During 1913-14, he attended the Kriegsakademie (War College), and, at the beginning of World War I, in August 1914, Guderian was assigned command of a radio station. By April 1915, he had been advanced to assistant signals officer for the Fourth German Army. He served in this post through April 1917, when he moved through a variety of staff posts, culminating in an appointment to the Great General Staff in February 1918, the assignment he held until the armistice.

Following the war, Guderian participated in Freikorps operations in Latvia during March-July 1919 as chief of staff of the Iron Division. He then was chosen for retention as one of a small cadre of 4,000 officers of the 100,000-man Reichswehr, the diminutive army permitted Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. In January 1922, Guderian was assigned to the Inspectorate of Transport Troops in the so-called Truppenamt, code name for the German General Staff, a body that had been proscribed by the Versailles treaty. During 1922-24, Guderian served in a transport battalion in Munich, then became an instructor in tactics and military history on the staff of 2nd Division during 1924-27. He returned to the Truppenamt during October 1927-February 1930 and, during this time, was briefly seconded to a Swedish tank battalion. Later, during 1930-31, given command of a motor transport battalion, he reorganized it as a provisional armored reconnaissance battalion. This was the first fruit of work he had begun in 1921, planning for the creation of tank (panzer) forces.

In October 1935, Guderian left the staff post to assume command of the 2nd Panzer Division at Wurzburg. The following year, he was promoted from colonel to major general and, in 1937, gained international attention in military circles with his Achtung! Panzer (Attention! Armor), a compact book into which he had distilled his highly advanced theories of mechanized warfare. . .

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