Comments on: From blitzkrieg to blitz

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:02:06 +0000

Yes, Fuller is one of my chaps, though I’d argue that the trend started a bit earlier than him (Groves in 1922 popularised it, but even he wasn’t first). In Britain, the knock-out blow wasn’t rigidly defined either, but there was a cluster of characteristics different definitions drew from. And it was all air there — I’ve not seen the term used in a military (or naval) context, anyway. It’s interesting to get a glimpse of the Continental versions — thanks once more.

By: Bill Fanning

Bill Fanning — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:53:31 +0000

Thanks for your reference to my article. As for the “knockout blow,” it seems that many writers during the 1920s and 1930s simply used it and expressions such as the French “attaque brusquee and the German “Ueberfall” or “Ueberfallskrieg” in a somewhat vague sense to describe the ability to defeat an enemy in a matter of days or weeks. In most cases, it was used in connection with airpower alone or airpower and mechanized ground forces together. The sense that I got from reading the numerous articles by journalists and military spokesmen, however, was that they did not often seem to know what the term specifically defined. Many of the military writers, for example, Lt. Braun mentioned above, did not believe that a “knockout blow” with airpower alone would be successful, and they also were skeptical of one that included other arms as well. I might add that, starting with J. F. C. Fuller, by the early 1920s it was widely accepted that the next war would begin without a formal declaration of war and that the first strike by an enemy would be by air.

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:40:28 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Bill! I don’t know if you saw it or not, but I cited your paper in my follow-up post to this one, From knock-out blow to blitzkrieg. I found it to be very interesting and useful.

Perhaps you could confirm something for me — when you say ‘knockout blow’, in the German context do you mean a combined land and air offensive? (Is it a translation of a German term?) If so, was airpower to be deployed in strategic bombardment at all, or just in operational support? The reason I ask is that ‘knock-out blow’ is a term I use all the time, but in the British context it more or less exclusively referred to a pure, strategic air war (but similarly short, weeks or months). I think they are closely related concepts (the difference being that Britain didn’t have to worry so much about offensives on land, being an island), but I’d like to be clear on the differences so I don’t elide the two. Thanks again!

By: Bill Fanning

Bill Fanning — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:44:21 +0000

I just wanted to add something about a common misconception on the origin of “blitzkrieg,” especially the notion that it was coined by Western journalists and that it was unknown to the German army prior to WW II. For a full account, see my article “The Origin of the Term ‘Blitzkrieg’: Another View,” which appeared in the April 1997 issue of The Journal of Military History. First of all, I have never seen any confirmed documentation on who coined the term. I have some ideas described in my article. I found about 30 separate instances in which the word was used in books, magazines, and professional journals prior to WW II. The earliest that I found was the one cited by John Erickson in his book The Road to Stalingrad. He quotes Soviet Marshal Tukhachevsky in early 1937 referring to the blitzkrieg, “which is so propagandized by the Germans.” Erickson replied to my inquiry about whether or not Tukhachevsky actually used the German term. Erickson has a copy of the marshal’s speech, and the transliteration from the Russian is “blitskrig.” Freelance journalist M. W. Fodor used the word “blitzkrieg” in an article entitled “Hitler Will Decide,” which appeared in the 10 September 1938 issue of The Nation. As for the Germans, I have a copy of Lt. Col. Viktor Braun’s late 1938 article from Militer-Wochenblatt, entitled “Der Strategische Ueberfall.” The opening passage reads as follows: “Nach den Zeitungsnachrichten hatten die diesjaehrigen franzoesischen Manoever den Zweck, die Bedeutung des strategischen Ueberfalls–auch Blitzkrieg genant–zu pruefen.” I also found in the published Nuremberg War Crimes documents an address by General Georg Thomas, head of the War Economy and Armaments Office of OKW during WW II, to members of the German foreign service, in which he used the word blitzkrieg twice (actually, the genitive case form “Blitzkrieges”). In almost every instance–including the two German examples–prior to WW II, the word had no relation to any tactical doctrine involving airpower and tanks. It was used specifically to describe the knockout blow or, as General Thomas described it, a war of weeks or months.

By: Airminded · From knock-out blow to blitzkrieg

Airminded · From knock-out blow to blitzkrieg — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:08:04 +0000

[...] couple of weeks ago, I showed how the blitzkrieg became the Blitz. Now I’ll show how the knock-out blow became the [...]

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:06:07 +0000

Yes, that sort of thing is partly why it’s a problematic concept, but I’ll mostly be taking another tack. Actually, it does seem that blitzkrieg was used in the pre-war German literature (not as an official term, it’s true), just for something a bit different to what we now think of as blitzkrieg. Which is what I’ll be talking about :)

By: Alan Allport

Alan Allport — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:49:51 +0000

This may be preempting your next post, but when I was at the West Point summer research seminar last year one of the professors was adamant in refusing to use the term ‘Blitzkrieg’ – which, as you know, was a Western coinage not originally used by the Wehrmacht itself – because it elided the difference between the two principal German strategies of Kesselschlacht (battle of encirclement) and Bewegungskrieg (war of movement).