hiya, guys.
so, i've been watching these old WWII documentaries.
learning lots.
of course, blitzkrieg was mentioned.
i knew about this from high school.
lightning thrusts by armor n mechanized infantry
supported by air power.
this nearly won germany the world.

i was wondering who came up with this concept.
i thot it odd that the inventor didn't have his name carved into military history as the greatest genius of the 20th century.

well, wikipedia didn't give me a name.
it went on to say it wasn't even part of german doctrine.
i'm confused.
anybody know about this?

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susie

From history.com:

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642-1, M&P15 TS

Look up Heinz Guderian

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Compact 9mm Just my $0.02

thanks, guys.

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susie

You have to distinguish between the strategy and the term. "Blitzkrieg" as a term or fixed concept was not "invented" by anyone. It showed up in German sometime in the 1930s and was picked up and used by Nazi propaganda (and then the English-language international press) after the Poland campaign 1939, but it was not an official military term and Hitler personally reportedly hated the word.

In terms of the early German campaigns most often associated with the concept, those against Poland, Norway/Denmark, and France, the German commander who deserves the most direct credit would certainly be Erich von Manstein. The quick victory in Poland actually caught even most German generals by surprise, who had planned a slower, more conventional campaign. But Manstein was responsible for revising the battle plan for France and laying the conceptual groundwork for the fast armoured thrusts through the Ardennes and deep into France so effectively executed by, among others, Guderian and Rommel, which has become the archetype of what we now call blitzkrieg.

well, i'm reading that manstein made the plan striking thru the ardennes, so it sounds like he was responsible for implementing a blitzkrieg attack, but goderian was the one who got radios in tanks n trained people to use them n made the coordinated attacks possible.

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susie

Logistics, Logistics, Logistics! Without supplies all armies will fail to reach their objectives! That is the reason and success of the 8th Air Force's massive losses in Planes and Manpower. Napoleon learned the lesson a little too late to turn Russia into a French speaking colony. Hitler's manufacturing and transportation sectors were so disrupted he couldn't win, even after pillaging every country the Blitzkrieg rolled over. That and the loss of 5.5% of military age men to combat and a sizable collateral loss of the civilian sector!

Ivan

I always wondered how it would have worked out if he just took over Europe, without trying to eliminate the Jewish population.

I'm not sure we would have interviened, until it was too late, and he was knocking on our door.

Also he wasted a lot of his resources, on wacky ideas, and trying to build his vision of the Germany he wanted.

The US turned a blind eye to all intelligence regarding the "Jewish Problem", weather because of apathy or it was so horrid no one believed it. But the US intervention in WWII was based on our largest trading partner was getting the snot bombed out of them, AND the fact that the most populated Axis country had blind sided US in the Pacific. (Various sources say Hitler was very pissed that Japan did this without notifying, let alone discussing it with him!) Just like in the American Civil War, we did the right thing (like freeing the slaves), but only as a side effect and not for the right reason. German and World apathy about the plight of the Jewish Europeans continued until 1948 when every body took a side one way or the other. In Germany many citizens felt Jewish apathy until that generation died off. One woman from Munich (a friend's grandmother) had the opinion that Hitler's making the trains run on time was far more important than his "killing a few Jews"{from a conversation at Christmas 1978 at her home in Munich}. Much of the West had similar opinions about Hitler's "Social Programs". But when a GI from my church liberated a death camp, It branded a sense of "Justice for ALL" in his heart, as it was when the "horrors" were released to the free world.

Ivan

from what i'm reading, it looks a lot like the germans could have won that war.
if the military eliminated hitler n took direct charge of the fight they would have avoided the most costly mistakes

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susie

GFM Erich von Manstein von Lewinsky and Heinz ""Fast Heinz"" Guderian, were both brillient Generals. Hitler sacked them both at least once--which was a very stupid move on his part. One of these days ill get around to posting the four original snapshot pics of Guderian I have if anyone wants??

Guderian and Erwin Rommel both lived in the same boarding house in Goslar or Lubeck--I forget which?-at the same time when they both were Majors. anyway, "fast Heinz" didnt get that nickname for being a slow thinker or reacting General.

BTW, I was friends with his son-Heinz Gunther Guderian for years before he passed away. His son is a Knights Cross Recipient-like his papa was.

Hitler forgot one big thing. The Russians were losing the war because stalin was the one making decisions instead of his battlefield commanders. About early 43--he gave more and more decision-making power to his battlefield commanders and started. At about the same time, Hitler was taking more and more power away from his generals and lost the war. One of his big mistakes was Stalingrad, another was allowing Army Group Center-to be descimated and destroyed (after Kursk etc) instead of allowing it to be saved because of his insanely STUPID decision to almost never allow any tactical retreats. Both Guderian and von Manstein were sacked because of army-saving "adjustments" made against Hitler's orders. Hitler COULD have had both shot for disobeying his orders, but knew the public-let alone the military--wouldnt like that at all because they both were loved by the masses.

Well he had no problem getting rid of Rommel and even gave him a lavish state funeral!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

We entered the war against Germany on Dec. 11, 1941, when Germany declared war on us. One wonders if and when we would have gone to war with them, had they not declared war.

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What, me worry?

I almost mentioned that. Chalk that us as another disasterous mistake Grofaz made.

It's one of history's mysteries as to the reason why Hitler decided to declare war on the USA when he did. Although war was inevitable, Hitler's declaration could have easily been delayed.

Regarding Blitzkreig, it really was not possible without the advances in logistics and mobility (both in the air and on the ground) and communications which were pioneered during WWI. Part of the reason for the Russian setbacks in the early years of the war was that the Russian military lacked mobility - horse-drawn vehicles were the norm for military transportation on the battlefield. One of the real reasons for Russia's becoming a viable opponent of the German Wehrmacht was the supply of nearly 200,000 U. S. Studebaker (and to a lesser extent REO) US6 trucks to Russia under Lend-Lease beginning in late 1941, giving its military far more mobility. Virtually no one gives U. S. trucks much credit for winning WWII, but in fact it could not have happened without them.

Russia can thank their fight with Finland in helping them defeat the Nazi's.

Blitzkrieg, with horse drawn artillery and supply wagons.

True, The Panzers and mobile field guns on tracks. Far less than a third of the artillery was vehicle mounted which tied a truck to every gun. Supply arrived by train surprisingly well through out the war, but from the depot to the action it went mostly by horse (not many mules for some reason), or on the backs of labor battalions. The US 6x6 was the supply salvation of the Allies as we constantly out ran our rail head, the 20 to 50 miles to the action was done by the almost endless supply of trucks that could travel bomb riddled roads. (The provided many men the training to start their own Trucking Companies on their return to the US; and began the demise of the Rail system in America.)

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe scrubbed 1/3 then up to 1/2 the missions in the eastern front due to shortages of fuel and bombs. Logistics, Logistics, Logistics!

Ivan

When you build and employ large numbers of vehicles which require a huge amount of fuel, Daily -
Make sure that you have multiple sources of large amounts of fuel.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

It's always fun to play "what if", but I firmly believe that the war was lost on the day the Wehrmacht attacked Russia, if not earlier. Russia was undefeatable, no matter which brilliant general did what or what Hitler decided. Even taking Moscow and occupying Russia west of the Urals, (and going further would have simply been geographically, physically and manpower-wise impossible,) the Germans would have only found themselves in Napoleon's shoes. Better strategic decisions could have prolonged the fight by years, but ultimately, only an internal political collapse like in 1917 could have led to a Soviet defeat, highly unlikely under a regime like Stalin's.

But of course Hitler had to attack the Soviet Union. That's what he was all about. Arguing, like many people do, that Barbarossa was a mistake, is like arguing Hitler's biggest mistake was being Hitler. Revenge against France wasn't that important to him, he never really wanted to fight England, and only sent troops to the Balkans and North Africa to clean up after his clutzy ally Mussolini. The East was what mattered. Russia was the real enemy, politically and racially.

As for the declaration of war against the US, historians still seem to be divided. Some see it as an irrational outbreak of Hitler's contempt for Roosevelt, whom he falsely believed to be Jewish, and the "racially mixed nation" as a whole which he despised. But there are possible military motives. The most compelling is within the context of the Battle of the Atlantic; given the importance of the US to the convoys, the German navy was eager to be allowed to go at the Americans directly. Within weeks, the first U-boats of Operation Drumbeat were headed for the East Coast, where over the next several months they inflicted the most humiliating defeat ever on Admiral King and the US Navy, more damaging and more dangerous than Pearl Harbor.

I go with the side that Germans declared war on us so they could take out the our Navy and merchant ships in the Atlantic.
The Navy just weren't ready to fight that part of the war.
The German Submariners called it the Happy Time.
When we got organized and started sinking Uboats, happy time was over!
Remember I have posted about my FIL who was stationed in Roberts Field,
Liberia. We were flying rubber in B-24s from Firestone plantations across the Atlantic to Brazil.
Navy didn't have the forces available to clear the S. Atlantic.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

It was BH Liddel Hart and JFC Fuller, both British, who wrote about the theoretical underpinnings for what would later be dubbed blitzkrieg.

The later German development of Kampfgruppes was possibly even more important and left its mark on the U.S Army doctrine for a long time.

Ironically for the Germans, the U.S. Army could afford a much greater degree kf mechanization, the Germans always being dependent on horses and low on gas.

Fuller was actually the "father" of modern armor doctrine. It was his work during the inter-war years that conceived the tactics that were later to be termed "Blitzkrieg". Mann stein, Guderian and Romell all studied Fullers tactics, (I believe Guderian actually went to England and talked to Fuller and watched a demonstration of his tactics).

So the doctrine was British, The ground tactics were German.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

"When you build and employ large numbers of vehicles which require a huge amount of fuel, Daily - Make sure that you have multiple sources of large amounts of fuel."

Part of the German battle plan for the breakout in the Ardennes Forest, AKA the Battle of the Bulge, included dependence upon captured allied fuel dumps to keep their Panzers and troops rolling. As it turned out, that was not such a good plan.

ringo, i'd like to see your pics, please.

this thread is teaching me lots.

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susie

Besides being plan nuts Hitler was in a hurry as he was getting older and wasn't in such good shape,if he'd have just knocked Russia out first before he went west,and if he'd have sit on his thumbs a bit and let his top mad scientists perfect jets,missiles and the atomic bomb Germany WOULD have taken the known world over.

Also a lot of his problems where the fruit cakes in his ranks like Goebbels and Göring,if they weren't around and there were sane people under him who weren't afraid to tell him to shut up it'd would have been,again,different.

That said I'll always believe Hitler was a true leader whilst Stalin was nothing but a common thug,Hitler could make his people follow him to literal hell...and he did.

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Life's a grave,dig it!

The roots of lightning war go back to the Mongols. Mobile, strike fast, be ruthless. It really didn't matter about Hitler declaring war on the U.S. We were drawn in to WWI, by the U-boats, they wouldn't just sit and watch us supply England, so they would have sank enough of our stuff that we would have declared war, plus they were allied with Japan, who was also at war with Britain. Hitler was just a big a thug as Stalin, he just had a charisma, and a country with no economy. That makes for fertile grounds for radicals.(like some areas of the Middle East.)

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

Mongols also used communications systems to fight. In an age where you were lucky to just get most of your army to the battlefield at the same time, the Mongols ran coordinated attacks on both sides of the Alps, using flags, lanterns, and riders.

Project management always relies on what's referred to as the "triple constraints":

• Time
• Scale
• Cost

Failure to manage any of these factors results in the failure of a project. However, since people aren't good at forecasting the future, adhering to the triple constraints doesn't guarantee success.

Strategically, war is merely a giant project; to be managed by clear, detached thinking. George C. Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, were experts in this area, and Roosevelt had the good sense to protect both of them from the politics in Washington.

Hitler was shortsighted to the extreme. He literally ignored the first two constraints, leading to defeat - Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and finally the entire war.

Volumes have been written on the subject, but one of the prime factors was the "wow factor" with which Hitler was enamored.

You guys have a much better grasp of WWII history than I do. When I was in school we never got past the civil war. We'd start every school year with the revolutionary period and work up through the civil war by the end of the year. The next fall we'd start back at the revolution again. I've thought about doing some reading on WWII but haven't gotten to it.

It's easy to lose focus when discussing this, as some contributions here show, too. If you apply the blitzkrieg term to every military leader who knows that you have to move decisively if you want to get where you want to be, it loses its distinctive historical role.

There are divergent voices, by the way. John Mosier's "The Blitzkrieg Myth" makes for interesting reading. He argues basically that there wasn't nearly as much blitz in Hitler's krieg as is commonly claimed and that German tactics really were quite conventional.

A son of a lady in my home town was lost one of the first U S Navy ships torpedoed in the N Atlantic.
After that, she couldn't sleep.
Lots of nights she would play solitaire and listen to the radio all night.
She taught my Bro and I to play sol and gave us cards to so we could play at home.
She bought Bicycle cards by the carton so she had no problem giving away two decks.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Compared to the debacle of trench warfare in WW1 Hitlers moves were most definitely to be considered lightning war.

He and or his generals had learned enough in WW1 to know they did not want to give that method another go round!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

You are correct. It has been said, "amatures talk tactics, professionals talk logistics".
You have to remember the tooth to tail ratio has to be 8 or 9 to 1, (combat support
and combat service support to combat) to sustain troops in the field.

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CSM, U S Army(Ret) 1963-1990

I've heard most of my life that Rommel came to the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Ms. before the war to study the tactics of Confederate Lt. General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

I had a letter from a German soldier who said at Kursk, he knew the war was lost when he saw empty k-ration and c-ration containers lying on the ground discarded by thye Russians--that had "made in Chicago" or like place printed on them.

I had a letter from a German soldier who said at Kursk, he knew the war was lost when he saw empty k-ration and c-ration containers lying on the ground discarded by the Russians--that had "made in Chicago" or like place printed on them.

Ah, the Lappland War. Ive read some interesting stuff on this. The Germans put all their forces into one large group resembling a giant Amoeba--and had to move that way till out of Finnish territory.

They actually had two happy time periods with the last being in 43.

And Patton kept and read Rommel's book: Infanterie am Grieft an: Infantry Attacks-when he was against him in North Africa.

Can do. Ill have to dig them out of hiding and can make copies if you wish? Otherwise, ill have to get copies made anyway and ask Christer to post them for me. I also have one original Army Group A-press photo of his "boss" GFM Gerd von Rundstedt.

Its easier for me to just get copies made-but let me know either way.

Well, yes, but that applied to everyone, there was nothing specifically German about that. Let's not forget that trench warfare wasn't a "method", nobody planned it as a strategy or tactic. World War I, the original Schlieffen Plan, started as a highly mobile fast-moving offensive plan, not unlike Manstein's plan for 1940. Trench warfare simply happened when the offensive ran out of steam and the technology of the time, which heavily favored the defense (machine guns, mines, barbed wire, no air or tanks yet), left no practical alternative but retreating or digging in. No Rommel, Guderian, Patton or Schwarzkopf in command in late 1914 would have had the choice to do much differently.

Ive heard that too, but dont know if its true or not? However, this is true--after Erich Alfred Hartmann was finally sent back to Germany in 55 (was a Russian PoW for 10 years) the USAF sponsored him to come over and teach new AF pilots-fighter tactics. He did this on and off for about 20 years. He was one of 27-to earn the Knights Cross, Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. I am lucky that I own a cased set of his awards-though NOT the wwii versions. Mine is the last set he had made when he was still in the Bundeswaffe.

In my opinion, there was also a strong element of psychological warfare involved in blitzkrieg. As I recall, a special siren was attached to the (fixed) landing gear of the JU-87 Stuka dive bomber. When the Stuka went in for the attack, the sounds from the siren announced to all its incoming attack.

Regards,

Dave

They were called: Gideon's Trumpets.

One of the more interesting, albeit heavily propagandized, WWII movies about the 1941 German Blitzkreig attacks on the Ukraine was 1943's "The North Star," later re-titled "Armored Attack," with Dana Andrews. I saw it first as a pre-teen, and it made an enormous impression on me at that time. It doesn't show up on TV very often, and when it does, the picture quality is terrible.

I've often seen the question asked, "How could Hitler have won the war?" I always reply, "By not being Hitler".

Hitler had his own priorities, and actually winning the war lagged behind them badly. Trains full of Jews had priority over troop and supply trains.

He made his choices and lived... and died with the consequences. Like Stalin, he styled himself a military genius. Unlike Stalin, he didn't pull his head out of his behind and let the generals win the war for him.

The nice thing about Hitler was that as long as you had the resources and the nerve to hold out, you could usually count on Hitler himself bailing you out of a crisis. Hitler's "leadership" during the war was an endless litany of bad decision making. And we were damned lucky for it.

Hitler has been described as the best General the Allies had. Allegedly there had been several opportunities for the Allies to assassinate Hitler, but every time it was decided that it was not such a good idea, because with Hitler out of the way, someone else who knew what he was doing might take over and make the fight against Germany even tougher.

Had Ludendorff and Hindenberg been in charge on June 22, 1941, they would have ridden into Moscow in triumph... leading a RUSSIAN army.

Generalplan Ost and the "Final Solution" made it a virtual certainty that the Soviets would fight to the bitter end, since there was simply no reason NOT to. Better to die in combat than to be worked or gassed to death.