In 1940, French historian Marc Bloch witnessed the swift invasion of France by the Wehrmacht. He noted the Germans’ “embarrassing skill in appearing where they ought not to have appeared.” In 1939, the German army had similarly overcome Polish forces. During World War II, the European press coined “Blitzkrieg” (lightning war) for the seemingly unstoppable German advance. This term described the new German doctrine of flexible maneuvers with mechanized forces and air power, which stunned Allied military observers.
Who Invented the Term Blitzkrieg?
“Blitzkrieg! Blitzkrieg! Blitzkrieg!” proudly proclaimed an article in the Ostasiatischer Beobachter, “that word was flashed at us everywhere during the weeks between the defeat of France and the start of major air attacks against England.” The author of the piece, aptly titled Blitzkriegpsychose (Blitzkrieg Psychosis), also remarked that the term Blitzkrieg was so evocative that it inspired fear in the opponents of Nazi Germany. “With the speed and force of lightning, our Wehrmacht struck and destroyed every obstacle,” boasted the magazine’s contributor.
In the early years of World War II, the word Blitzkrieg became a permanent fixture of everyday vocabulary. Despite its undeniable popularity, the exact origins of the term remain unclear. In the English language, Blitzkrieg was allegedly introduced in 1939 by Time magazine to describe the swift invasion of Poland. In the following months, the British press used the German word almost constantly in its coverage of the new conflict. During the Battle of Britain, the term Blitzkrieg even inspired journalists to coin several English neologisms. Thus, the raids of the Luftwaffe became “the Blitz” and the German attackers were often referred to as “the blitzers.”
While the word Blitzkrieg first gained traction in English-speaking countries, Time was not the first publication to mention it. In 1935, the periodical Deutsche Wehr (German Defense) used the term in an article suggesting that countries with limited resources should launch short and swift military campaigns. Three years later, another German magazine described Blitzkrieg as a “strategic surprise attack.” While these instances show that the term already existed in the German language by the time World War II broke out, the Wehrmacht never used it to describe its official military doctrine.
Was Blitzkrieg a Revolutionary Doctrine?
At the beginning of World War II, faced with the rapid advance of the Wehrmacht, the Allies believed they were dealing with an offensive strategy never seen before on a battlefield. The academic discourse of the postwar period cemented the idea of Blitzkrieg as a revolutionary tactic pioneered by the Nazi regime. Captain Robert O’Neill claimed in a 1965 essay that the German Army “went on to develop a new form of warfare by which its rivals when it came to the test were hopelessly outclassed.”
In more recent years, however, military historians and experts have challenged the depiction of Blitzkrieg as an invention of the Third Reich, declaring that the more agile approach of fighting resulted from a military tradition dating back to Frederick the Great. German commanders, tasked with defending a country surrounded by potential opponents on every side, had always relied on fast maneuvering to attack the superior enemy forces with a single fatal blow. In his influential Vom Krieg (On War), Prussian General Claus von Clausewitz dubbed this tactic Schwerpunktprinzip (concentration principle). Rather than dispersing their forces, the military strategist advised officers to identify the opponents’ Schwerpunkt (center of gravity).
Speed of maneuver was also at the heart of the Schlieffen Plan, the military strategy implemented by the German army during World War I. Devised to avoid a long and draining static conflict, the plan aimed to defeat Germany’s enemies with a double envelopment to achieve through a single swift blow. In 1870, General Helmuth von Moltke had already successfully executed a similar tactic at Sedan, the location of the decisive battle of the Franco-Prussian War. In 1914, however, the desired Bewgungskrieg (war of movement) quickly turned into a trench warfare that eventually exhausted Germany’s resources.
Speed, Communications, and Technology
World War I marked a turning point in the history of warfare. Among the new military technologies employed in the bloody battles were the first tanks, heavy armored vehicles able to advance through trenches and spread terror in the enemy’s lines. In the postwar period, when European military leaders were busy reevaluating their military doctrine, German army officers sought to find effective ways to make their centuries-old tradition of Bewegungskrieg sustainable on the modern battlefield. Their main objective was to prevent future campaigns from bogging down in static confrontations unsuited for a country surrounded by better-equipped opponents. After all, as von Clausewitz had already pointed out, war “was an act of violence to force our enemies to do our will.”
In 1937, Heinz Guderian, a young Wehrmacht officer, suggested that mobility and speed could be increased by capitalizing on the full potential of the new mechanized machines: the tanks. In his Achtung-Panzer!, Guderian argued that the tank divisions were better suited than the artillery or cavalry “to carry out operation envelopment and turning movements in the open field.” Once the tanks had set the rhythm of the attack, a successful break through of the enemy lines would then be achieved with the coordinated cooperation of the motorized infantry and the air force.
In the 1930s, when the German commanders, considerably downsized after the Treaty of Versailles, began to test its mechanized warfare on the training grounds, they quickly realized that the outcome of their “war of movement” almost entirely relied on the speed of communications between the different divisions involved in the exercises. Thus, the newly introduced radio technology became a key component of what would later become known as Blitzkrieg. In 1932, during the Funkübung (Radio Exercise), the German radio operators were the coordinators of the operations.
Besides constant communication between the troops, flexible decision making was another key element of the fast-moving maneuvering. Indeed, a rigid chain of command would be unsuited for the rapid tempo of Bewegungskrieg. Only officers fully immersed in the actions could be constantly aware of the situation on the battlefield. Thus, they could quickly adapt their orders and direct the attack to the most effective target.
Blitzkrieg in Action: The Fall of France
While the German army perfected its new form of mechanized maneuvering, the French military commanders opted to defend their country from future attacks by building a defensive barrier, commonly known as the Maginot Line, along the border between France and Germany. As the previous conflict had turned into trench warfare, the French military elite believed the imponent construction, consisting of several fortifications, bunkers, and minefields, would be the best way to fight another static war. “The French Army is stronger than ever before in its history,” optimistically claimed General Maxime Weygand in July 1939, “its equipment is the best, its fortifications are first-rate, its morale is excellent, and it has an outstanding High Command.”
In 1940, when the Third Reich had already successfully invaded Poland, General Maurice Gamelin was still convinced the Maginot Line would successfully thwart any aggression. In January, he even declared that “he would be ready to give a billion to the Germans, provided they would do him the favor of taking the initiative in the attack.” However, in May, when the Wehrmacht invaded the Low Countries and France, the predictions of the French Supreme Command failed to come true. On the contrary, the Germans forced their opponent to sue for peace after only a few weeks of fighting.
As the Germans advanced in Belgium and the Netherlands, the French commanders deployed the majority of the troops to the border, planning for a bataille conduite (methodical battle), a type of warfare based on a rigid structure and focused on defense. The Germans, however, were set to avoid a repeat of World War I. The plan devised by General Erich von Manstein, later nicknamed Operation Sickle Cut, consisted of a breakthrough into the enemy forces followed by encirclement maneuvers. The scheme hinged on an unexpected advance of the Panzer divisions through the Ardennes Forest, a rough terrain the French considered impenetrable.
In May 1940, however, the Wehrmacht’s Panzer divisions, aided in the air by Stuka dive bombers, drove through the Ardennes Forest, taking the unsuspecting French army by surprise. On May 13, Heinz Guderian led his Panzer Corps across the Meuse River near Sedan. A few days later, he managed to cut through the enemy’s defenses, spreading chaos in the French rear lines. Then, he began marching to the English Channel, where the Germans trapped the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and other Allied soldiers at Dunkirk.
A key element of the lightning German advance in northern France was the flexible radio communications between the various divisions. While the French field officers had to wait for orders from the High Command located in bunkers far from the actions, their German counterparts made snap decisions independently. In his postwar memoir, Heinz Guderian listed the French static doctrine of warfare among the factors that led to the fall of France. “They wanted a complete picture of the enemy’s order of battle and intentions before deciding on any undertaking,” commented Guderian. However, the centralized chain of command was helpless in front of the swift maneuvers of the Wehrmacht.
Blitzkrieg Between Legend and Propaganda
On June 22, 1940, the French government, led by Marshal Philippe Pétain, signed an armistice with Germany. The signing took place in Compiègen in the same railway car where the German commanders had agreed to the terms of the Allies at the end of World War I.
As the catchphrase Blitzkrieg spread among the Allies observers, the Nazi propaganda started crediting Adolf Hitler as the inventor of the shockingly effective tactics. “Adolf Hitler’s genius as a warlord,” claimed Hermann Goering, “also caused a revolution in warfare in that it breached strategic principles that had been sacrosanct before.” The editor of the Völkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the NSDAP, praised the Führer with a similar rhetoric, stating that he “[strode] the bold path from static to dynamic warfare.” Thanks to Adolf Hitler’s brilliance, “the revolutionary spirit of his Brown Army swept over Europe’s battlefields,” emphatically added the editor.
After the successful operations in Western Europe, in the summer of 1941, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, hoping to use the improved form of mobile warfare to defeat the Soviet Union. After an initial aggressive thrust against the Russian forces, the Wehrmacht commanders were ultimately unable to replicate the lightning campaign of 1940. Before the German troops could achieve a decisive breakthrough in their opponents’ defenses, the Soviets began their counteroffensive. In January 1943, Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, surrounded by the Russians at Stalingrad, surrendered his Fifth Army.
During the remaining years of World War II, the Blitzkrieg method was employed by Allied military leaders, especially U.S. General George Patton. After the end of the war, tactics based on fast maneuvering to defeat the opponent in a single blow continued to inform offensive warfare. The almost legendary Blitzkrieg continued to inspire military leaders and strategists. In 1967, for example, Israel resorted to Blitzkrieg-inspired operations during the Six-Day War against Egypt and Syria.
