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Blitzkrieg: From the Ground Up
An examination of the German Blitzkrieg operations from Poland to Operation Barbarossa, as experienced by junior commanders and enlisted men, exploring why they were so successful.
The successes of the German Blitzkrieg in 1939-41 were as surprising as they were swift. Allied decision-makers wanted to discover the secret to German success quickly, even though only partial, incomplete information was available to them. The false conclusions drawn became myths about the Blitzkrieg that have lingered for decades.
It has been argued that German victories in the early part of the war rested less upon newly developed tanks and aircraft and more on German military traditions: rather than creating a new way of war based on new technology, the Germans fitted the new weapons into their existing ideas on warfare. These doctrines focused on independent action, initiative, flexibility, decentralized decision-making and mobility. The conduct of German soldiers, particularly the lower-ranking men, on the battlefield was at the core of the concept and German victories rested upon the quality of the small combat units.
This book focuses on the experience of the enlisted men and junior officers in the Blitzkrieg operations in Poland, Norway, Western Europe and Russia. Using accounts previously unpublished in English, military historian Niklas Zetterling explores how they operated, for example how a company commander led his tanks, how a crew worked together inside a tank, and the role of the repair services. The author fits these narratives into a broader perspective to give the reader a better understanding of why the Germans were so successful in 1939-41.
The successes of the German Blitzkrieg in 1939-41 were as surprising as they were swift. Allied decision-makers wanted to discover the secret to German success quickly, even though only partial, incomplete information was available to them. The false conclusions drawn became myths about the Blitzkrieg that have lingered for decades.
It has been argued that German victories in the early part of the war rested less upon newly developed tanks and aircraft and more on German military traditions: rather than creating a new way of war based on new technology, the Germans fitted the new weapons into their existing ideas on warfare. These doctrines focused on independent action, initiative, flexibility, decentralized decision-making and mobility. The conduct of German soldiers, particularly the lower-ranking men, on the battlefield was at the core of the concept and German victories rested upon the quality of the small combat units.
This book focuses on the experience of the enlisted men and junior officers in the Blitzkrieg operations in Poland, Norway, Western Europe and Russia. Using accounts previously unpublished in English, military historian Niklas Zetterling explores how they operated, for example how a company commander led his tanks, how a crew worked together inside a tank, and the role of the repair services. The author fits these narratives into a broader perspective to give the reader a better understanding of why the Germans were so successful in 1939-41.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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162 people want to read
About the author
Niklas Zetterling
17 books17 followersNiklas Zetterling is a researcher at the Swedish Defense College. Along with Anders Frankson he has previously written Kursk 1943: A Statistical Analysis and The Korsun Pocket: The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 6, 2018
Great analysis of the early stages of WW2 from the narrowed perspective of Panzer operations in key campaigns and the myth of the formation and understanding of the German blitzkrieg. The author demonstrates that the concept of “lightning war” developed as a natural evolution of existing German doctrine emphasizing mobility and training, taking in modern technologies to augment their strengths. He also suggests the concept was more of a propaganda effort (magnified by the Allies) than something in widespread use. This deception was particularly effective from a combined arms perspective, where infantry remained the key to success due to the unavailability of modern transportation and air units in vast quantities. The infantry served to not only hold onto the quickly seized territory by their motorized brethren but supplied the crucial materials and transportation network to keep the advanced units primed for the next attack.
Great discussion of the German reliance on independent command levels allowing for flexibility of tactics and the seizing of initiative whenever possible. The author explains that this was not a new concept for the German Army, but something honed over generations. Decisions made at the highest level allowed for changes down even to the unit level, allowing field commanders to adjust tactics, target priority, and the seizing of objectives as battlefield opportunities arose, often making such judgment calls without consulting the higher echelon of officers.
The German Air Force was not always useful in taking out opposing units, but its unmatched reconnaissance efforts were vitally important to ensuring ground-unit flexibility; the psychological impact of dive bombers and strafing runs on the defenders notwithstanding. As the author already showed, the German use of combined arms was not revolutionary but in combination with the training, willingness to fully engage technology, and independent command levels, made for stunning, quick battlefield victories. Keeping such fast-moving units properly supplied was another issue, also not new to the German experience, but one that undermines all offensive actions if not properly planned.
Enjoyed the use of small unit and individual soldier experiences spread over carefully chosen campaigns to highlight the larger battle, helping the reader experience the situation directly.
Great discussion of the German reliance on independent command levels allowing for flexibility of tactics and the seizing of initiative whenever possible. The author explains that this was not a new concept for the German Army, but something honed over generations. Decisions made at the highest level allowed for changes down even to the unit level, allowing field commanders to adjust tactics, target priority, and the seizing of objectives as battlefield opportunities arose, often making such judgment calls without consulting the higher echelon of officers.
The German Air Force was not always useful in taking out opposing units, but its unmatched reconnaissance efforts were vitally important to ensuring ground-unit flexibility; the psychological impact of dive bombers and strafing runs on the defenders notwithstanding. As the author already showed, the German use of combined arms was not revolutionary but in combination with the training, willingness to fully engage technology, and independent command levels, made for stunning, quick battlefield victories. Keeping such fast-moving units properly supplied was another issue, also not new to the German experience, but one that undermines all offensive actions if not properly planned.
Enjoyed the use of small unit and individual soldier experiences spread over carefully chosen campaigns to highlight the larger battle, helping the reader experience the situation directly.
November 28, 2020
While I appreciated the level of detail provided in this book in terms of maps, the correlation of forces (or the accounting of equipment, unit type, and number), I felt the underlying thesis of the book, that “Blitzkrieg” was not a doctrine consciously developed a-priori, and that much of success Germany experienced prior to 1942 has much to do with individual initiative taken at, or below, the division level, and less to do with explicit designs of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), or German high command, who were often surprised at the effectiveness of their own strategy in practice, was obvious and/or trivial. As far as I knew, I thought this was well-known in most amateur and professional military history circles, and this “bottom-up” force discipline was already put into practice for at least 3 - 4 decades, in at least two professional division/armies, the US Marine Corps (USMC), and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).
The book covers 4 campaigns in decent detail:
1. Case White (Invasion of Poland)
2. Case Yellow (Invasion of Norway)
3. Invasion of France
4. Invasion of the USSR
Each campaign opens with a varying standard set of facts, some provide an accounting of the correlation of forces, the divisions, armies involved, all include battle maps, though not in consistent scale. The campaigns from Case White and Case Yellow have a few sub-10 km maps, with good detail of fine-grain unit menuevers, though icons are not often present. The invasion of France through the Ardennese is mostly within the 10 - 50 km scale, with at least 1 or 2 maps in the 200 km range to illustrate overall objectives in theater. For the USSR, we see mostly maps within the 50 - 100+ km range, which affords very little detail on maneuvers (though there are a small handful in the 10 km scale). This change in scale may be a result of the overall “tempo” of the campaign, with the first few campaigns against the Western powers having many instances of “defeat in detail”, or the timely exploitation of holes/weaknesses in the adversaries position to partition their forces, disrupt internal lines of movement, and otherwise weaken the cohesion of their corps to more easily disable or destroy their units, and these defeats in details were often inflicted in relatively smaller surface-areas vis-a-vis those actions taken in the Soviet Union. A good example of these actions and the associated map details are from the Battle at Lowicz against Poland in early September of 1939 that was part of the Battle of Bzura, which led to the fall of Warsaw. There is a lot of value to having 10 km or less maps to outline the synchronicity of actions and for the reader to understand how actions were sequenced both in space and in time, and the presence of points in space and relative dates allows one to understand the momenta of battle as well. Unfortunately, few of the maps have this very-fine grain in time-sequencing detail in the book.
Yet, as part of the author's narrative, despite these sorts of successes, the German army did not practice “Blitzkrieg” as we have come to associate it in the historical narrative in any of the first 3 campaigns against the Western Allies. These defeats-in-detail were wins for the individual units and their divisions, not the overall-command. As the author notes, the units often did not have an overall-picture of the objectives beyond some vague notion of theater-wide victory. Where the German units prevailed, they prevailed by navigating their local obstacle, whether that be subduing an adversary or negotiating a landmark feature, mostly independently, and not in tight cohesion with other elements of their force, with communication often limited because of interesting/surprising limitations like crowded radio bandwidth preventing a large number of tank commanders to intelligently talk to each other and their commands. The general notion of a German ‘combined arms’, that was a precursor to modern information-centric warfare is false (or at least there are a few things in between connecting those two notions). The main consistency between all of these campaigns that seemed to mark the German style of warfare could be boldness in the face of the ‘fog of war’, and this is exhibited in 2 primary ways 1. Local units taking initiative despite having incomplete information 2. Division and higher-level command willingness to orchestrate actions at night, especially with armored units, which could be especially vulnerable to close-fire of concealed anti-tank (AT) weaponry in low-visibility environments. Likewise, to hammer home that lack of cohesion within the purported "Blitzkrieg", the author makes many accounts of weaknesses and/or errors occurring within OKW’s orchestration of these campaigns, with many occasions, the German units had, at best, incomplete understanding where they fell relative to their allied units, were delayed, and experienced instances of fratricide because of this poor communication and coordination. However, again because delegation of command was distributed much lower in the Wehrmacht than other modern European armies at the time, German units were often able to adapt and quickly seize initiative where they presented themselves, even if these units didn’t always know what they were tasked to do beyond their immediate task. So again, the day was won, from "the ground up", not the "top down". My opinion is that this is a bit much, as the famous German strategist Von Moltke, the elder, has stated "No plan survives first contact with the enemy", and I wouldn't think that the Germans would be immune to this dictum. Even if "Blitzkrieg" were a purposely orchestrated cohesive doctrine, the results of the early campaigns against the Western Allies may not have been executed much differently because so much of the constriction was not only organizational, but more importantly technological.
In any event, I thought the above was mostly well-known, but perhaps the author is speaking to a more general audience when making this his primary point in the book. Especially since in modern times, especially in the United States, a vision of the superiority of wartime German technology has gone to an extreme, with such fiction like the “Wolfenstein” video game, the “Man in the High Castle” television series portraying a Germany that was decades ahead the rest of the world with “space-age” technology and ruthless machine-like efficiency. Of course, anyone who’s read even a introductory text on World War 2 will know that the German forces were far from this image (in fact their supply chain still used animal-drawn carriages in large numbers), and many of the “wonder” weapons that were leveraged against Britain at the end of war were devices developed prior to the ascension of the Nazi party, and in the case of aerial technology, most coming from one design firm, the Horton Brothers.
If there was one thing I regret most about this book it is that there are relatively few fine-grain details, in terms of maps, on the German campaign against the Soviet Union. The maps that do exist are often larger-scale, and paint sweeping movements, which is consistent with the history. I would like to have seen more detailed sequencing detail on the maps, showing how the units positions and maneuvered against each other. However, it may have been the nature of the campaign did not lend itself to those details, especially since my understanding is that the approach to Moscow from Europe is relatively flat, with relatively high visibility, and thus the German with superior ranged weaponry, against a disorganized and shocked defensive corps may have actually swept most of the resistance easily. The book ends right at the start of the campaign as fall and winter have slowed down and damaged their units, and with the Germans supply chains stretched thin, inhibiting movement on account of lack of resources and fuel.
Overall, the book is good. I will have to study these maps a bit more to get more out of them. I am satisfied with the information, and I think it complements other books on the early German campaigns in WW-2, and may be a good prelude into a book dedicated to the Battle of Kursk and the Soviet counter-campaign. Likewise, given that blitzkrieg as an idea was leveraged by famed US military theorist, John Boyd, to craft his theories, which itself serves as foundation to the USMC's maneuver warfare, this book would be interesting for those interested in learning more about the foundations of that thread of thought as well. Recommended.
The book covers 4 campaigns in decent detail:
1. Case White (Invasion of Poland)
2. Case Yellow (Invasion of Norway)
3. Invasion of France
4. Invasion of the USSR
Each campaign opens with a varying standard set of facts, some provide an accounting of the correlation of forces, the divisions, armies involved, all include battle maps, though not in consistent scale. The campaigns from Case White and Case Yellow have a few sub-10 km maps, with good detail of fine-grain unit menuevers, though icons are not often present. The invasion of France through the Ardennese is mostly within the 10 - 50 km scale, with at least 1 or 2 maps in the 200 km range to illustrate overall objectives in theater. For the USSR, we see mostly maps within the 50 - 100+ km range, which affords very little detail on maneuvers (though there are a small handful in the 10 km scale). This change in scale may be a result of the overall “tempo” of the campaign, with the first few campaigns against the Western powers having many instances of “defeat in detail”, or the timely exploitation of holes/weaknesses in the adversaries position to partition their forces, disrupt internal lines of movement, and otherwise weaken the cohesion of their corps to more easily disable or destroy their units, and these defeats in details were often inflicted in relatively smaller surface-areas vis-a-vis those actions taken in the Soviet Union. A good example of these actions and the associated map details are from the Battle at Lowicz against Poland in early September of 1939 that was part of the Battle of Bzura, which led to the fall of Warsaw. There is a lot of value to having 10 km or less maps to outline the synchronicity of actions and for the reader to understand how actions were sequenced both in space and in time, and the presence of points in space and relative dates allows one to understand the momenta of battle as well. Unfortunately, few of the maps have this very-fine grain in time-sequencing detail in the book.
Yet, as part of the author's narrative, despite these sorts of successes, the German army did not practice “Blitzkrieg” as we have come to associate it in the historical narrative in any of the first 3 campaigns against the Western Allies. These defeats-in-detail were wins for the individual units and their divisions, not the overall-command. As the author notes, the units often did not have an overall-picture of the objectives beyond some vague notion of theater-wide victory. Where the German units prevailed, they prevailed by navigating their local obstacle, whether that be subduing an adversary or negotiating a landmark feature, mostly independently, and not in tight cohesion with other elements of their force, with communication often limited because of interesting/surprising limitations like crowded radio bandwidth preventing a large number of tank commanders to intelligently talk to each other and their commands. The general notion of a German ‘combined arms’, that was a precursor to modern information-centric warfare is false (or at least there are a few things in between connecting those two notions). The main consistency between all of these campaigns that seemed to mark the German style of warfare could be boldness in the face of the ‘fog of war’, and this is exhibited in 2 primary ways 1. Local units taking initiative despite having incomplete information 2. Division and higher-level command willingness to orchestrate actions at night, especially with armored units, which could be especially vulnerable to close-fire of concealed anti-tank (AT) weaponry in low-visibility environments. Likewise, to hammer home that lack of cohesion within the purported "Blitzkrieg", the author makes many accounts of weaknesses and/or errors occurring within OKW’s orchestration of these campaigns, with many occasions, the German units had, at best, incomplete understanding where they fell relative to their allied units, were delayed, and experienced instances of fratricide because of this poor communication and coordination. However, again because delegation of command was distributed much lower in the Wehrmacht than other modern European armies at the time, German units were often able to adapt and quickly seize initiative where they presented themselves, even if these units didn’t always know what they were tasked to do beyond their immediate task. So again, the day was won, from "the ground up", not the "top down". My opinion is that this is a bit much, as the famous German strategist Von Moltke, the elder, has stated "No plan survives first contact with the enemy", and I wouldn't think that the Germans would be immune to this dictum. Even if "Blitzkrieg" were a purposely orchestrated cohesive doctrine, the results of the early campaigns against the Western Allies may not have been executed much differently because so much of the constriction was not only organizational, but more importantly technological.
In any event, I thought the above was mostly well-known, but perhaps the author is speaking to a more general audience when making this his primary point in the book. Especially since in modern times, especially in the United States, a vision of the superiority of wartime German technology has gone to an extreme, with such fiction like the “Wolfenstein” video game, the “Man in the High Castle” television series portraying a Germany that was decades ahead the rest of the world with “space-age” technology and ruthless machine-like efficiency. Of course, anyone who’s read even a introductory text on World War 2 will know that the German forces were far from this image (in fact their supply chain still used animal-drawn carriages in large numbers), and many of the “wonder” weapons that were leveraged against Britain at the end of war were devices developed prior to the ascension of the Nazi party, and in the case of aerial technology, most coming from one design firm, the Horton Brothers.
If there was one thing I regret most about this book it is that there are relatively few fine-grain details, in terms of maps, on the German campaign against the Soviet Union. The maps that do exist are often larger-scale, and paint sweeping movements, which is consistent with the history. I would like to have seen more detailed sequencing detail on the maps, showing how the units positions and maneuvered against each other. However, it may have been the nature of the campaign did not lend itself to those details, especially since my understanding is that the approach to Moscow from Europe is relatively flat, with relatively high visibility, and thus the German with superior ranged weaponry, against a disorganized and shocked defensive corps may have actually swept most of the resistance easily. The book ends right at the start of the campaign as fall and winter have slowed down and damaged their units, and with the Germans supply chains stretched thin, inhibiting movement on account of lack of resources and fuel.
Overall, the book is good. I will have to study these maps a bit more to get more out of them. I am satisfied with the information, and I think it complements other books on the early German campaigns in WW-2, and may be a good prelude into a book dedicated to the Battle of Kursk and the Soviet counter-campaign. Likewise, given that blitzkrieg as an idea was leveraged by famed US military theorist, John Boyd, to craft his theories, which itself serves as foundation to the USMC's maneuver warfare, this book would be interesting for those interested in learning more about the foundations of that thread of thought as well. Recommended.
July 29, 2019
This was an analysis of the German invasions of Poland, Norway, France, and Russia. The author is arguing that the Blitzkrieg was more a result of individual officers taking initiative and an emphasis on speedy attack rather than tons of tanks and dive bombers. The author uses officer's journals to paint a picture of what actually happened on the front. If you are interested in the history of the blitzkrieg then check it out.
April 29, 2025
battle report after battle report.
Even if they are from the operations that comprise the Germans idea of blitzkrieg they don't really teach anything about the concept of blitzkrieg...
The analytical and reflective parts of the book are short and far between.. I would have wanted more theory, reasoning and analysis...
Even if they are from the operations that comprise the Germans idea of blitzkrieg they don't really teach anything about the concept of blitzkrieg...
The analytical and reflective parts of the book are short and far between.. I would have wanted more theory, reasoning and analysis...
March 6, 2019
Consistent
A good short tight review of the "early years" of the Blitzkrieg, with enough detail to say how did they do what they with the equipment & manpower available. Good discussion of the structure of command.
Not boring, enjoy.
PW
A good short tight review of the "early years" of the Blitzkrieg, with enough detail to say how did they do what they with the equipment & manpower available. Good discussion of the structure of command.
Not boring, enjoy.
PW
March 6, 2019
Interesting analysis and well documented. i learned a lot about the German army and how it worked during WW!!. Much better than a lot of other works on the subject.
October 3, 2019
So good.
December 17, 2020
Good analysis at times, marred by overly colorful descriptive sections
July 14, 2020
An unbelievable account of how Hitler's Blitzkrieg was accomplished, which was the impetus of the Second World War. An intriguing account of what happened, how it occurred, and the various problems that ensued. This is an interesting book, if you are fond of the WWII time period and is well worth the time to read.
February 8, 2024
Gedigen, lite träig. Skulle varit intressant att även få bild från andra sidan i skeendena.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews