Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg (German, literally "lightning war") is a popular name for an operational-level military doctrine which employed mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense. The doctrines resulting in the blitzkrieg effect were developed in the years after World War I as a method to help prevent trench warfare.

Etymology and modern meaning

Though "blitzkrieg" is a German word (literally "lightning war", meaning "a war as fast as a lightning"), the word did not originate from within the German military. It was first used by a journalist in the American newsmagazine TIME describing the 1939 German invasion of Poland. Published on September 25 1939, well into the campaign, the journalist's account reads:

Related Topics:
Journalist - Newsmagazine - ''TIME'' - German invasion of Poland - September 25

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: The battlefront disappeared, and with it the illusion that there had ever been a battlefront. For this was no war of occupation, but a war of quick penetration and obliteration—Blitzkrieg, lightning war. Swift columns of tanks and armored trucks had plunged through Poland while bombs raining from the sky heralded their coming. They had sawed off communications, destroyed stores, scattered civilians, spread terror. Working sometimes 30 miles (50 km) ahead of infantry and artillery, they had broken down the Polish defenses before they had time to organize. Then, while the infantry mopped up, they had moved on, to strike again far behind what had been called the front.{{ref|TIMEety}}

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Military historians have defined blitzkrieg as the employment of the concepts of manoeuvre and combined arms warfare developed in Germany during both the interwar period and the Second World War. Strategically, the ideal was to swiftly effect an adversary's collapse through a short campaign fought by a small, professional army. Operationally, its goal was to use indirect means, such as, mobility and shock, to render an adversary's plans irrelevant or impractical. To do this, self-propelled formations of tanks; motorised infantry, engineers, artillery; and ground-attack aircraft operated as a combined-arms team. Historians have termed it a period form of the longstanding German principle of Bewegungskrieg, or movement war.

Related Topics:
Military historians - Interwar period - Tanks - Ground-attack aircraft - Combined-arms team - Movement war

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"Blitzkrieg" has since expanded into multiple meanings in more popular usage. From its original military definition, "blitzkrieg" may be applied to any military operation emphasising the surprise, speed, or concentration stressed in accounts of the Polish September Campaign. During the war, the Luftwaffe terror bombings of London came to be known as The Blitz. Similarly, blitz has come to describe the "blitz" (rush) tactic of American football, and the blitz form of chess in which players are allotted very little time. Blitz or blitzkrieg is used in many other non-military contexts.

Related Topics:
Military operation - Luftwaffe - Terror bombing - London - The Blitz - Blitz - American football - Blitz form of chess

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