Oswald Lutz

Who was Oswald Lutz?

General Oswald Lutz was a German General who oversaw the motorization of the German Army in the late 1920s and early 1930s and was appointed as the first General der Panzertruppe of the Wehrmacht in 1935.

He joined the Bavarian Army Railway Battalion as an officer cadet in 1894 and was commissioned as a Leutnant in the 1st Bavarian Engineer Battalion in 1896. After service in the German Imperial Army in World War I, he was retained in the Reichswehr, in which he attained the rank of Oberstleutnant in 1923, Oberst in 1928, and Generalmajor on 1 April 1931, upon his appointment as the Inspector of Motor Transport Troops.

On 1 October 1931, Oberstleutnant Heinz Guderian was appointed his chief-of-staff. Lutz then continued to oversee the motorization of the army, whilst Guderian created Germany's armoured forces and developed his influential Panzer theory, which was widely publicized. Major Walter Nehring joined them in January 1932 and further developed the Panzer strategy.

Lutz was promoted to Generalleutnant on 1 February 1933, and became the first General der Panzertruppe on 1 November 1935 with his appointment as the Head of Mechanized Forces. He was retired from active duty in February 1938. During World War II he was recalled to service and appointed on 22 September 1941 to head a minor special staff unit before being retired again on 31 May 1942. He died in Munich in 1944 aged 67 following an illness.