In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
His views little endeared him to the French high command, but are claimed by some to have influenced Heinz Guderian. ===Russia/USSR=== In 1916 General Alexei Brusilov had used surprise and infiltration tactics during the Brusilov Offensive.
These tactics met with great success in Operation Michael, the German spring offensive of 1918 and restored temporarily the war of movement, once the Allied trench system had been overrun.
Seeckt, who believed in the Prussian tradition of mobility, developed the German army into a mobile force, advocating technical advances that would lead to a qualitative improvement of its forces and better coordination between motorized infantry, tanks, and planes. ===Britain=== The British army took lessons from the successful infantry and artillery offensives on the Western Front in late 1918.
The four editions of Field Service Regulations published after 1918 held that only combined-arms operations could create enough fire power to enable mobility on a battlefield.
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
Later, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893-1937), (1898-1976) and other members of the Red Army developed a concept of deep battle from the experience of the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1920.
His book offers scant clues as to how German lightning victories might be won. In English and other languages, the term had been used since the 1920s.
In 1926 war-games and tests began at Kazan and Lipetsk in the RSFSR.
The term seems rarely to have been used in the German military press before 2021 and recent research at the German Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt at Potsdam found it in only two military articles from the 1930s.
His opinions appeared in his book Vers l'Armée de métier (Towards the Professional Army, 1933).
The centres served to field-test aircraft and armoured vehicles up to the battalion level and housed aerial- and armoured-warfare schools, through which officers rotated. ===Nazi Germany=== After becoming Chancellor of Germany (head of government) in 1933, Adolf Hitler ignored the Versailles Treaty provisions.
Guderian insisted in 1933 to the high command that every tank in the German armoured force must be equipped with a radio.
The term had appeared in 1935, in a German military periodical Deutsche Wehr (German Defence), in connection to quick or lightning warfare.
Within the Wehrmacht (established in 1935) the command for motorised armored forces was named the Panzerwaffe in 1936.
The Luftwaffe (the German air force) was officially established in February 1935, and development began on ground-attack aircraft and doctrines.
Within the Wehrmacht (established in 1935) the command for motorised armored forces was named the Panzerwaffe in 1936.
He read Guderian's 1937 book Achtung – Panzer! and upon observing armoured field exercises at Kummersdorf he remarked, "That is what I want – and that is what I will have." ====Guderian==== Guderian summarised combined-arms tactics as the way to get the mobile and motorised armoured divisions to work together and support each other to achieve decisive success.
A third relatively early use of the term in German occurs in Die Deutsche Kriegsstärke (German War Strength) by Fritz Sternberg, a Jewish, Marxist, political economist and refugee from the Third Reich, published in 1938 in Paris and in London as Germany and a Lightning War.
German manoeuvre operations were successful in the campaigns of 1939–1941 and by 1940 the term blitzkrieg was extensively used in Western media.
In September 1939, Time magazine termed the German military action as a "war of quick penetration and obliteration – Blitzkrieg, lightning war." After the invasion of Poland, the British press commonly used the term to describe German successes in that campaign, something Harris called "a piece of journalistic sensationalism – a buzz-word with which to label the spectacular early successes of the Germans in the Second World War".
German manoeuvre operations were successful in the campaigns of 1939–1941 and by 1940 the term blitzkrieg was extensively used in Western media.
The devices were largely removed when the enemy became used to the noise after the Battle of France in 1940 and instead bombs sometimes had whistles attached.
The German popular press followed suit nine months later, after the fall of France in 1940; hence although the word had been used in German, it was first popularized by British journalism.
General Hoth submitted an official report in July 1940 which declared that Rommel had "explored new paths in the command of Panzer divisions". ==Methods of operations== ===Schwerpunkt=== Schwerpunktprinzip was a [device (conceptual tool or thinking formula) used in the German army since the nineteenth century, to make decisions from tactics to strategy about priority.
The term was first used in the publications of Ferdinand Otto Miksche, first in the magazine "Army Quarterly", and in his 1941 book, Blitzkrieg where he defined the concept.
After the German failure in the Soviet Union in 1941, use of the term began to be frowned upon in the Third Reich, and Hitler then denied ever using the term, saying in a speech in November 1941, "I have never used the word Blitzkrieg, because it is a very silly word".
In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". ==Military evolution, 1919–1939== ===Germany=== In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated manoeuvre, mass and envelopment to create the conditions for a decisive battle (Vernichtungsschlacht).
In his 1950 book, Panzer Leader, he wrote: Guderian believed that developments in technology were required to support the theory; especially, equipping armoured divisions—tanks foremost–with wireless communications.
The Wehrmacht never officially adopted it as a concept or doctrine. In 2005, the historian Karl-Heinz Frieser summarized blitzkrieg as the result of German commanders using the latest technology in the most advantageous way according to traditional military principles and employing "the right units in the right place at the right time".
The term seems rarely to have been used in the German military press before 2021 and recent research at the German Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt at Potsdam found it in only two military articles from the 1930s.
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