Why was blitzkrieg used

What Comes After the Forever Wars. Full event video and after-event thoughts from the panelists. Author: Andrei A. Kokoshin June Abstract Seventy-five years ago, on June 22, , Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, betting on a brief war with the firmest of goals, a type of war that came to be known as blitzkrieg.

Read the full paper by downloading the PDF below:. Downloads Blitzkrieg Final. For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office. The Author. Andrei A. Nye Nov 02, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen joins other intelligence and defense experts to discuss climate change and security.

The Winter Olympics will be not only a competition between athletes, but also a geopolitical sparring ground. Retreating civilians hindered any work done by the army being attacked. Those civilians fleeing the fighting were also attacked to create further mayhem. In , a diary kept by an unknown French soldier was found. In it are some interesting comments that help us understand why this tactic was so successful :.

All the above were written in a period of just 5 days : May 15th to May 19th Moreover, one of the key successes of the Blitzkrieg was its use of FM radios — these enabled the forces that had broken through the lines to inform support units as to their progress and relay information on what was behind enemy lines. The communication technology promoted quick, decentralised decision-making that was key to this speed focused approach.

The Blitzkrieg was fundamentally about moving away from the tried and tested methods of modern warfare and creating a new, more effective doctrine. 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.

German commander Erwin Rommel , who led a Panzer division during the invasion of France, later employed blitzkrieg tactics against British forces in the deserts of North Africa in After blitzkrieg failed in the Soviet invasion, however, Hitler and German military leaders distanced themselves from the concept, claiming it was an invention of their enemies; Hitler himself denied he had ever used the word. General George Patton in Patton had carefully studied the German campaigns against Poland and France and also favored quick, decisive action as a way to avoid more costly conflict.

Robert T.