Blitzkrieg

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Blitzkrieg^[a] is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with artillery, air assault, and close air support. The intent is to break through an opponent's lines of defense, dislocate the defenders, confuse the enemy by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht: a battle of annihilation.^[1][2][3][4]

During the interwar period, aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with the systematic application of the traditional German tactic of Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare), involving the deep penetrations and the bypassing of enemy strong points to encircle and destroy opposing forces in a Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle/battle of encirclement).^[2][5] During the invasion of Poland, Western journalists adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe that form of armored warfare.^[6] The term had appeared in 1935, in the German military periodical Deutsche Wehr ("German Defence"), in connection to quick or lightning warfare.^[7]

German maneuver operations were successful during the campaigns of 1939–1941, involving the invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands, and France and, by 1940, the term blitzkrieg was being extensively used in Western media.^[8][9] Blitzkrieg operations capitalised on surprise penetrations, such as that in the Ardennes forest, the Allies' general lack of preparedness, and their inability to match the pace of the German attack. During the Battle of France, the French made attempts to reform defensive lines along rivers but were frustrated when German forces arrived first and pressed on.^[9]

Despite being common in German and English-language journalism during World War II, the word Blitzkrieg was never used as an official military term by the Wehrmacht, except for propaganda, and it was never officially adopted as a concept or doctrine.^[8][b] According to David Reynolds, "Hitler himself called the term Blitzkrieg 'a completely idiotic word' (ein ganz blödsinniges Wort)".^[10] Some senior German officers, including Kurt Student, Franz Halder, and Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg, even disputed the idea that it was a military concept. Kielmansegg asserted that what many regarded as blitzkrieg was nothing more than "ad hoc solutions that simply popped out of the prevailing situation". Kurt Student described it as ideas that "naturally emerged from the existing circumstances" as a response to operational challenges.^[11]

In 2005, the historian Karl-Heinz Frieser summarized blitzkrieg as the result of German commanders using the latest technology in the most advantageous way, according to traditional military principles, and employing "the right units in the right place at the right time".^[12] Modern historians now understand blitzkrieg as the combination of traditional German military principles, methods and doctrines of the 19th century with the military technology of the interwar period.^[13] Modern historians use the term casually as a generic description for the style of maneuver warfare practised by Germany during the early part of World War II, rather than as an explanation.^[c] According to Frieser, in the context of the thinking of Heinz Guderian on mobile combined arms formations, blitzkrieg can be used as a synonym for modern maneuver warfare on the operational level.^[14]

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