Blitzkrieg
I. Blitzkrieg was the tactic used during the invasion of Poland (September 1 1939).
A. The Poles were significantly outmatched by the Germans.
1. The Germans had 2 million men and the Poles had 1 million.
a. The Poles did not fully implement mobilization on the advice of Britain and France because they did not want to provoke Hitler. They were unprepared for the massive force of the German’s Lightning Warfare.
2. The Germans had 2000 airplane and the Poles had less than 1000 obsolete airplanes.
a. Germany had superiority in the air during the invasion.
3. The Polish deployed only one motorized unit and 10% of its army was composed of cavalry.
a. Polish forces did not match up against the superior technology of the Germans, who entered Poland with six Panzer divisions.
B. German blitzkrieg tactics overwhelmed the Polish.
1. The Germans employed Lightning Warfare. Armoured divisions of the Wehrmacht advanced at great speeds while the Luftwaffe provided massive air support.
a. These fast moving attacks delivered by a small but effective tank force supported by massive air power quickly overwhelmed the Poles.
b. The use of aerial attacks resulted in ‘strategic paralysis’ since communication centres were targeted and destroyed.
2. Tanks were followed my motorized infantry.
a. This consolidated the pathway of the advance as infantry occupied territory.
3. The Poles used a strategy of forward defence. Its purpose was to prevent the loss of territory and therefore political, not military.
a. It was ineffective because the army was spread thinly along a long border rather than concentrated in one spot. The Germans easily took advantage of this.
4. The Poles fell within a month.
5. Germans had 45 000 casualties while the Poles had 200 000.
II. Germany invaded Denmark and Norway (April 9 1940).
1. The Danish understood that the Germans had overwhelming forces and capitulated on April 10.
a. The swift fall of Poland in face of German Lightning Warfare was evidence of this.
2. Norway resisted and was reinforced by an Allied expeditionary force; however Norway capitulated by June 10.
a. The use of blitzkrieg resulted in air superiority, effective use of air transport, and good inter-service cooperation, which secured the German victory.
b. The Allied lost due to lack of air cover, and an insufficiently supplied and poor led expeditionary force.
III. Blitzkrieg was used in the invasion of France.
A. France was unprepared for German offence
1. The Germans launched the campaign on May 10.
a. Army Group B attacked in the north, which acted as a diversion to draw the Allies away from France. French General Gamelin moved the British Expeditionary Force and the French 1st and 7th armies, representing a third of his forces, north.
2. On May 12 the Panzers of Army Group A successfully emerged from the Ardennes forest and achieved immediate breakthrough.
a. The Ardennes forest was unprotected by the Maginot Line.
b. Allied attacks towards German flanks were ordered but never occurred. This revealed the weakness of the Allied air force and the slowness of Allied command and control structure.
3. By May 15 Churchill noted that French government officials were burning documents. This was a definite sign of impending evacuation.
4. By May 20 the Panzers reached the sea.
a. This resulted from German dominance in the sky and a crisis of confidence in the French High Command.
5. Gamelin left two-fifths of the army unoccupied at the Maginot Line.
a. The German invasion of France was “a plan well executed and incompetently opposed.” Darby, Graham. Europe at War 1939-45
6. France fell to the Germans in six weeks.
a. The German attack was so successful because it caught the Allies by complete surprise. The French were not expecting an invasion until 1941.
Refer to alternate note for 'Battle of Britain'
Heinz Guderian's “Panzer Leader”, Translator: Constantine Fitzgibbon, p.13, 1952
“In such formation of all arms, the tanks must play primary role... what was needed were armored divisions which would include all the supporting arms needed to allow the tanks to fight with full effect.”
The Path to Blitzkrieg – Doctrine and Training in the German Army, 1920-1939, Robert M. Citino (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999).
“The value of Citino’s work lies in his dispelling this particular myth... that German battlefield success was not the result of any particular new tactical method, technology or weapon but of institutional excellence that came about through sustained effort for a period of decades.”
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