Created in the 1930s, the German Panzer waffe (armored branch) revolutionized warfare for the rest of the 20th century, ending the era of the cavalry and non-motorized infantry formation and replacing it with something far faster and more lethal. This era of mobile warfare is with us still: the advent of the helicopter was just another step in its logical development. Operation Desert Storm was a blitzkrieg campaign, and there will be others.

This book provides a guide to the World War II German Army tank divisions from inception to destruction and surrender. The guide is divided into two parts. Part I provides a generalized history of the panzer force. This part also includes a section on the German military districts (Wehrkreise), which were largely responsible for creating the panzer divisions, generally along the lines specified by the Panzer Inspectorate. This information on the Wehrkreise is critical to an understanding of how the German military system worked in World War II. It functioned so smoothly and so unspectacularly that it has generally gone unnoticed by historians, but without it Hitler could never have won his victories. Also, without the Wehrkreise's replacement and training system, it would have been impossible for Germany to have kept its divisions in the field for six years.

Part II of the book provides entries, arranged chronologically, giving the history of each individual division and its commanders. Full entries are included on the German Army tank divisions. Although the focus of the book is on the Army tank divisions, the SS panzer divisions are covered briefly. These divisions were not created until 1943, when the German defeat was inevitable and Hitler's distrust of his generals and the General Staff was such that he began to replace them with a Nazi Party organization (the SS). They had no effect on the evolution of the blitzkrieg. The German theories on employment of tank and mobile divisions was already fully in place by the time the first SS panzer division was created. This comment is not meant to minimize their importance; on the contrary, in the last two years of the war, the SS panzer divisions were exceedingly important, and they fought very well. Although the Waffen-SS (armed SS) fought side by side with the army, it was not part of it.