What was blitzkrieg in ww2

As a result, while France focused its efforts between the wars on building up its defensive border, known as the Maginot Line , the Germans decided to prepare for a shorter conflict won through military maneuvers, rather than in the trenches.

After Adolf Hitler came to power in and made clear his intention to rearm the nation, he encouraged younger commanders like Heinz Guderian, who argued for the importance of both tanks and aircraft in this mobile approach to warfare. German forces employed some tactics associated with blitzkrieg in the Spanish Civil War in and the invasion of Poland in , including combined air-ground attacks and the use of Panzer tank divisions to quickly crush the poorly equipped Polish troops.

With close air support from the Luftwaffe German air force and the benefit of radio communications to aid in coordinating strategy, the Germans blazed through northern France and toward the English Channel, pushing the British Expeditionary Force into a pocket around Dunkirk.

By the end of June, the French army had collapsed, and the nation sued for peace with Germany. In , German forces again employed blitzkrieg tactics in their invasion of the Soviet Union , expecting a short campaign like the one they had enjoyed in Western Europe the previous spring. But the strategy proved less successful against the highly organized and well-armed Soviet defenses, and by Germany had been forced into a defensive war on all fronts.

Rather than a completely new form of warfare, the strategy Germany followed in May and June had much in common with the strategy it employed at the outset of World War I, when strategists like Alfred von Schlieffen determined Germany should aim to defeat its enemies quickly and decisively, as it was ill-suited to win a long and drawn-out conflict against larger, better-prepared forces.

But unlike in , German forces fighting in had the benefit of new military technology developed or improved in the s and s, including tanks, motor vehicles, aircraft and radios. These new tools, combined with an emphasis on speed, mobility, focused attacks and encirclements, enabled the Wehrmacht to turn traditional military tactics into a devastatingly modern brand of warfare.

List Name Delete from selected List. Save to. Save to:. Save Create a List. Create a list. Save Back. Blitzkrieg, Defined. Early in the war, Hitler had full faith in his generals, especially Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian, so the Fuhrer didn't have to personally authorize every attack plan. In turn, those generals delegated authority in battle to lower-ranking field officers so they could quickly react to changing conditions on the ground.

German tanks, which were inferior in many ways to the French Renault tanks, came with one important technological upgrade — a two-way radio. Tank commanders not only received orders, but passed critical battlefield info back up the chain of command.

France had a standing army of , men and was regarded as the strongest military force in Europe. But their philosophy of warfare was stuck in WWI. The French put all of their faith in the fortified Maginot Line as an unbreakable trench-like defense against a large-scale German invasion. But the Germans identified a point of weakness, a poorly defended stretch of Belgian-German border that ran through the dense Ardennes forest.

To the French, a tank attack through the Ardennes would have seemed hopelessly risky, but the Blitzkrieg was all about taking risks. It's like watching a wildlife show when the lioness starts chasing the impala. There was only one possible outcome. After his successful campaigns in the West, Hitler turned his armies East in June for a full-on Blitzkrieg attack of the Soviet Union.

For Teachers Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust. Wise — International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. About This Site. Glossary : Full Glossary. Blitzkrieg Lightning War. More information about this image. Discussion Questions What does war make possible?