blitzkrieg

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noun

A swift advance or attack: charge, rush. See approach/retreat.

Blitzkrieg (Ger.: Blitzkrieg, lightning war), was probably first coined by a journalist in 1939 and has now passed into the English language as a description of a form of warfare waged by Germany at the start of WW II, and, more widely, of any violent campaign intended to achieve speedy victory. An influential subset of armoured warfare, rather than a distinct doctrine in its own right, it combined the use of tanks, mechanized infantry, and air power, often with special forces. Radio communications were fundamental to its success, and it is no accident that Guderian, an influential theorist and effective practitioner of it, had spent much of WW I as a signals officer. There was neither a unifying concept of blitzkrieg, nor a body of coherent doctrine for its use prior to 1939, but German successes in 1939-40 instantly hallowed it. At its best it embodied a style of command which maximized initiative and the delegation of tactical authority within a commander's broad directive. Its origins were complex. Germany's defeat in WW I and the constraints imposed upon her army by the Treaty of Versailles encouraged military reformers, for whom ‘business as usual’ was not an option, to consider several new ideas. In the 1920s the army, considering the possibility of invasion, favoured people's war, which would use conventional operations, terrorism, guerrilla warfare, and scorched-earth policy for the defence of Germany. At the same time the doctrinal foundations were laid for the army's modernization, and a 1929 study sought to combine people's war with a new, highly mobile armoured force.

Careful attention was paid to French and, especially, British developments in armoured warfare, and an agreement with Russia allowed Germany to experiment with tanks and close-support aircraft in Russia so as to circumvent international restrictions. Developments during and experience of WW I were also influential, and Rommel was but one of the successful practitioners of blitzkrieg who had learnt the importance of penetrating the enemy's front at a weak point, unrolling the defence by flank attack, and leading from well forward as a young storm-troop commander.

Blitzkrieg also reflected tensions within the Wehrmacht and political interactions between Hitler and senior officers. Military developments gained momentum after Hitler came to power and shackles of Versailles were broken. Alongside rearmament went the development of plans, once rearmament was complete, for ‘deliberate strategic attack, planned and prepared in peacetime’. During the late 1930s the general staff came under growing political pressure to abandon its methodical approach to rearmament and doctrinal development. Just as Hitler complained that the army would never be ready for war, so too some officers scorned the general staff's quest for operational plans which formed part of a coherent strategy. In his study of German strategy in the age of machine warfare, Michael Geyer complains that ‘it was these officers who now became the proponents of blitzkrieg, which was neither an outgrowth of military technology nor of the German doctrine of mobile offence, but operational management devouring professional strategy’. There is much truth in this criticism. For all its apparent success, blitzkrieg was essentially a tactical doctrine which made possible the construction of devastating operational plans like those which defeated Poland in 1939, the western Allies in 1940, and inflicted such damage on the Soviet Union in 1941. Its success encouraged Hitler to run growing strategic risk and to ignore the economic strength of his adversaries. The Wehrmacht, as many general staff officers had pointed out in the 1930s, lacked the economic base to become fully mechanized, and for a great proportion of it, marching on foot and with its horse-drawn transport, blitzkrieg had little relevance. Finally, at the tactical-operational level, blitzkrieg was increasingly vulnerable to an opponent who kept his head and avoided the panic and moral collapse which characterized so many of Germany's enemies in 1939-41, or who (as the Russians did so effectively) developed a blitzkrieg of their own. Nevertheless it was the dominant tactical doctrine in Europe and North Africa for the first three years of WW II, and there were occasions thereafter—for instance at the Kasserine Pass in 1943—when it flared briefly into prominence again. Other nations have practised their own style of blitzkrieg: both the Red Army's Manchurian campaign of 1945 and the Israeli army's victory in the Six Day Arab-Israeli war of 1967 embody the main characteristics of blitzkrieg. It remains an influential tactical ideal which finds answering echoes in modern manoeuvre warfare.

Bibliography

• Geyer, Michael, ‘German Strategy in the Age of Machine Warfare’, in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Oxford, 1986).
• Harris, J. P., and Toase, F. H. (eds.). Armoured Warfare (London 1992)

— Richard Holmes

ˈblitsܖkrēg the integration of infantry, armor, artillery, and aircraft in a highly mobile team to quickly drive through and defeat enemy forces arrayed in a linear or positional defense. Originally applied to the German conquest of Poland in 1939 and France in 1940, the term “Blitzkrieg” has come to be use for any rapid, violent, and successful military action involving combined arms.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

A form of warfare used by German forces in World War II. In a blitzkrieg, troops in vehicles, such as tanks, made quick surprise strikes with support from airplanes. These tactics resulted in the swift German conquest of France in 1940 (see fall of France). Blitzkrieg is German for “lightning war.”

Tutor's tip: This word was used in the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee finals.

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• Types and Techniques of Warfare - blitzkrieg: German. lit. lightning war; intense infantry attack spearheaded by tanks and supported by aircraft

Common misspelling(s) of Blitzkrieg

• Blitzkreig

Dansk (Danish)
n. - lynkrig

Nederlands (Dutch)
bliksemoorlog

Français (French)
n. - guerre éclair

Deutsch (German)
n. - Blitzkrieg

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αστραπιαίος πόλεμος

Italiano (Italian)
guerra lampo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - ataque (m) repentino (Mil.)

Русский (Russian)
блицкриг, молниеносная война

Español (Spanish)
n. - guerra relámpago

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - blixtkrig, bombräd(er)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
闪电战, 奇袭战法

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 閃電戰, 奇襲戰法

한국어 (Korean)
n. - ~을 기습하다, ~을 전격적으로 하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 電撃戦, 大空襲

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) حرب خاطفه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מלחמת-בזק‬

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