Download The Blitzkrieg Legend

Blitzkrieg
Título:
The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread the Strategic Realities of
World War II (Book). De: Goedeken, Ed, Library Journal, 03630277, , Vol. 128,
Fascículo 20
Base de datos:
Literary Reference Center
Texto completo en HTML
The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread
the Strategic Realities of World War II (Book)
Escuchar Descargar MP3 Ayuda
Sección: Social Sciences
Mosier, John. The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the
Allies Misread the Strategic Realities of World War II.
HarperCollins. Dec. 2003. c.351p. photogs. maps. index.
ISBN 0-06-000976-4. $27.50. HIST
Continuing to shake up the stodgy world of military history, Mosier (English, Loyola
Univ.) follows up his Myth of the Great War with what will certainly be an equally
controversial study of World War II. Mosier, who writes with an easy confidence that may
not be completely justified, challenges the cherished beliefs of many military historians that
Hitler's successes were the result of his brilliant use of armor and the air force, as argued by
two prominent military theorists, J.F.C. Fuller and Giulio Douhet. Mosier believes that,
although tanks and planes were important battlefield weapons, more often than not the
infantry played a crucial role in either Allied or Axis success and that the German army was
better led and better trained than the armies it opposed. Mosier critically examines several
of the most important conflicts, including D-Day, North Africa, and the Battle of the Bulge,
each time pointing out where myths have arisen. This fascinating book will bring out the
military traditionalists in full force, who will again condemn Mosier for either coming to
the wrong conclusion or using his facts incorrectly. But that is what makes history fun!
Recommended for all history collections.
~~~~~~~~
By Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright of this work is the property of Media Source, Inc. and its content may not be
copied without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or
download capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended
solely for the use of the individual user.
Número de acceso: 11750367
he Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West.
Idioma:
English
Autores:
Baillergeon, Rick (1)
Fuente:
History: Reviews of New Books; Spring2006, Vol. 34 Issue 3, p91-91, 1/3p
Tipo de documento:
Book Review
Información de la publicación:
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Descriptores:
BLITZKRIEG Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West, The (Book)
BOOKS -- Reviews
FRIESER, Karl-Heinz
GREENWOOD, John T.
LIGHTNING war
NONFICTION
Información del documento:
Essay last updated: 20060915
Afiliaciones del autor:
1
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
ISSN:
03612759
Número de acceso:
22337338
Base de datos:
Literary Reference Center
A Lightning Read
Escuchar Descargar MP3 Ayuda
Sección: Fact and Comment
"With all thy getting get understanding"
The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread the Strategic Realities of
World War II-- by John Mosier (HarperCollins, $27.50). This provocative book tosses
military-history hand grenades on almost every page, challenging just about every generally
held notion about World War II. The fundamental thesis: that the "airpower theories of men
like [Italian aviator Giulio] Douhet and the Blitzkrieg theories of men like [English General
J.F.C.] Fuller--both proposed to strike directly into the heart of the enemy, to win the war in
one swift and decisive stroke"--are fundamentally false.
Mosier is absolutely right in that neither airpower nor armor alone would prove decisive in
that cataclysmic conflict. But the early World War II German offensives went far beyond
what Douhet and Fuller were proposing. Unfortunately for the Allies, German Blitzkrieg or
"lightning warfare" involved more than armor or airpower. Even by 1918 the Germans had
mastered the art of rapid, mobile attacks by integrating brilliant infantry tactics with various
oft-superior or new weapons systems. What they did in 1940 was to add tanks and effective
ground-to-air support to the formula and catastrophically disrupted the French command
and control systems, which, in turn, crippled their ability to direct military counterstrokes.
German intelligence had factored in the French army's fatally slow reaction to their assault
through the Ardennes Forest. The Germans came perilously close to achieving similar
results against the Russians in 1941. Not until late 1942 did the Allies begin to catch on.
Even if you take issue with some of Mosier's interpretations, you'll find this a superb read.
Contrary to myth, fortifications played an important role in prewar planning for both
Germany (as the Allies ruefully discovered in 1944) and France. France had more tanks
than Germany, and most were superior in design. Strategic bombing cost the Allies dearly.
Erwin Rommel's reputation is grossly overinflated, and British commander Bernard Law
Montgomery's is badly underrated (Monty's insufferable personality has blinded most
historians to his very real abilities). The book gives the heroic Dutch of 1940 their due,
rightly blasts the Allied campaign in Italy and gives a first-rate account of the RussoFinnish Winter War of 1939-40 in which casualties for the Finlanders were about 68,000
and for the Russians, 500,000 to 1 million.
Mosier rightly emphasizes the disastrous role French leaders played in 1940--France's
position was even more precarious in the early weeks of WWI, yet the French rallied to
save themselves. But he unfairly criticizes Winston Churchill's actions in May 1940-Winnie would have been derelict in his duty had he not had backup plans to evacuate the
British army from France, particularly given the shockingly panic-stricken defeatist attitude
of the French government.
PHOTO (COLOR)
~~~~~~~~
By Steve Forbes, Editor-in-Chief
Copyright of this work is the property of Forbes Inc. and its content may not be copied
without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or download
capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended solely for the
use of the individual user.
Número de acceso: 13344456
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=41b46489-3b6c-47aa-a35a933b4ad9b754%40sessionmgr112&vid=3&hid=24
Frieser, Karl-Heinz, with
John T. Greenwood
The Blitzkrieg Legend:
The 1940 Campaign in the West
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press
496 pp., $47.50, ISBN 1-59114-294-6
Publication Date: October 2005
For the avid book reader, there is the constant
quest to find the perfect book. Ah yes, the perfect
book. It is the one that is superior in every
regard and contains all those extra features
you yearn for. For myself, that quest has
ended after reading Karl-Heinz Frieser’s brilliant
The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign
in the West. It is a book superior in all
facets and includes all those added features
that I desire in this genre of military history
volumes.
The Blitzkrieg Legend was first published
in German in 1995. Frieser (a colonel in the
German Army and a department head at the
Military History Research Institute of the
Bundeswehr [MGFA]) worked extensively
with John Greenwood for nine years to translate
his work into English. The end result is a
book that impeccably takes readers from the
initial planning of the 1940 German attack
against the Allies through the miraculous
escape of the British at Dunkirk. In between,
Frieser dispels myths and interprets the true
factors behind the German success.
Certainly, the biggest myth Frieser convincingly
dispels is that the Germans did
not plan the 1940 Campaign as a true
“blitzkrieg,” nor had a “blitzkrieg” strategy,
as many historians have previously surmised.
Frieser concludes that the German rout was
achieved by other key factors instead of a
“blitzkrieg” plan of attack. In fact, Frieser
states, “What is called blitzkrieg thinking did
not develop until after the campaign in the
west. It was not the cause but rather the consequence
of the victory” (349). Frieser lays
out a compelling argument for his readers.
In the interest of conciseness, I cannot
detail all the strengths of The Blitzkrieg Legend.
However, I would like to highlight a few
that will appeal to prospective readers. First,
Frieser displays his extensive research by
including a superb eighty-page section of
notes at the end of the book. Second, the
author intersperses more than forty color
maps (detailing planning and execution) and
sixteen diagrams to complement his words. It
is these extra features that make this such a
superb volume. Finally, Frieser possesses that
innate ability to keep his readers constantly
engaged. In this regard, you must give due
credit to Greenwood’s ability to translate the
work into English.
Without question, The Blitzkrieg Legend is
an important work. It will be of great value
and interest to those not only seeking knowledge
on this campaign, but those who want to
dissect a true turning point in the conduct of
war. There have many other superb books
written on the 1940 Campaign (Robert
Doughty’s Breaking Point and Alistair
Horne’s To Lose a Battle quickly come to
mind). However, I believe Karl-Heinz Frieser
has now set the standard for books on this
subject.
RICK BAILLERGEON
U.S. Army Command and
General Staff College
Copyright © 2006 Heldref Publications
Citino, Robert M.
The German Way of War: From the
Thirty Years’War to the Third Reich
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas
428 pp., $34.95, ISBN 0-7006-1410-9
Publication Date: November 2005
From start to finish this scholarly and lively
overview of military operations stresses the
German predilection for a short war of movement
(Bewegungskrieg) and tolerance for initiative
on the part of local commanders (Auftragstaktik)
that grew from the Prussian
military tradition. Robert M. Citino, a professor
at Central Michigan University, describes
in clear, sometimes colloquial language the
personalities and intricate details of battles
and wars over three centuries emphasizing
victories and instructive defeats. The many
place names, however, could use more maps
to prevent discouragement in the casual reader.
Isabel Hull took a far different view recently
in her equally scholarly, though decidedly
critical, Absolute Destruction. Citino’s models
are Frederick the Great, who said wars
should be short and lively (kurz und vives)
and the elder Helmuth von Moltke who masterminded
the wars of unification. He cannot
ignore Napoleon, of course, but German
heroes abound from Georg von Derfflinger at
the time of the Great Elector to Heinz Guderian
in World War II. The specter to fear most
was a war of position (Stellungskrieg), leading
to battles of attrition rather than annihilation.
He finds a convenient scapegoat for the
final destruction of the German Army in
Hitler who withdrew the license to engage the
enemy wherever a local commander found
him and micromanaged Germany into a disastrous
war of position in Russia. But he
wastes no ink on the notorious “Hentsch mission”
that resulted in the war of position on
the Western Front during World War I, and he
is totally silent about Falkenhayn’s strategy of
attrition in the Battle of Verdun, the subject of
Robert Foley’s recent German Strategy and
the Path to Verdun. The spirit that motivated
both the war of movement and the initiative
of local commanders in the end took a back
seat to the tradition of attacking regardless of
the cost, that is, to Prussian militarism. The
German Army exhausted the nation in World
War I and survived to fight another war mostly
due to the myths surrounding it and the politics
of the interwar years.
There are so many wonderful details and
insights in this book that it is hard to criticize
it too strongly. Experts and buffs alike will
enjoy it. The author deliberately downplays
the political and economic aspects of Germanwar making. He is therefore no slave to
the shibboleths derived from Clausewitz to be
found among advocates of large military budgets
regardless of their impact. Wars won on
the battlefield bring immense political prestige,
Paul Kennedy’s warnings notwithstanding.
Citino carefully defines a task for himself.,
to describe German military operations,
and succeeds well within those boundaries.
MICHAEL J. ZEPS, S. J.
Marquette University
Copyright © 2006 Heldref Publications
Shephard, Ben
After Daybreak: The Liberation of
Bergen-Belsen, 1945
New York: Schocken Books
274 pp., $25.00, ISBN 0-8052-4232-5
Publication Date: November 2005
Shephard’s highly lucid book describes the
British liberation that took place at the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp under
strange circumstances and was followed by a
chaotic policy of caring for the dead and living.
Not everything during the liberation at
Bergen-Belsen was heroic. Shephard’s
research reveals the British knew what Belsen
was as early as March 19, 1945 after debriefing
Dr. Rudolph Levy, a Turkish Jew who had
been released from the camp. The Germans,
led by the commandant Jozef Kramer, met
with the British forces on April 12 and agreed
to surrender. What followed, however, was
not what the British expected.
Bergen-Belsen was a landscape of death.
Shephard focuses on several important issues.
The first deals with contradicting what might
be called the traditional view that the British
came into the camp and did the best they
could with a death and medical situation they
did not expect. Part of this is true, as Kramer
failed to reveal initially the extreme conditions
in Belsen. However, the considerable
evidence amassed suggests that the British
medical response to the devastation was inadequate.
Mistakes were made in command
structure, by medics, medical students
brought from London, and by those in charge
of food supplies, who thought that a flourbased
mixture developed during the 1943
famine in Bengal, India, that took three million
lives might help. More than two thousand
inmates died because of eating the wrong
food after liberation. Shepherd suggests that
if the medical students achieved anything, it
was restoration of a moral order among the
survivors. Shepherd does acknowledge, however,
a severe critique by Menachem Rosensaft
(2000) in his book, that accused the
British of indifference.
The survivors were divided into two groups
based on triage decisions. The largest number,
of whom the British believed most would
die, were left in the barracks. Those that
seemed to have a possibility of survival were
Spring 2006 91
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=4273ed67-5d29-43bb-bb89ec481687b7d5%40sessionmgr115&vid=1&hid=122
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=eafce2ef-6a33-489c-aff0e8d813c5c15f%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=122
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c083d6ed-48b8-4550-bd90ac21bb37268e%40sessionmgr112&vid=1&hid=122
Copyright © 1995. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995. All rights reserved.
Copyright of Journal of Modern History is the property of University of Chicago Press and
its content may not
be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=42bba333-989f-43d1-8325feea1c6c9630%40sessionmgr114&vid=1&hid=122
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=cbd4d565-fcaa-4fe1-895369c19f128786%40sessionmgr110&vid=1&hid=122