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Blitzkrieg (German, literally Lightning war or flash war) is a popular name for an offensive, operational-level military doctrine which involves an initial bombardment followed by the employment of mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense. The founding principles of these types of operations were developed in the twentieth century by various nations, and adapted in the years after World War I, largely by the German Wehrmacht, to incorporate modern weapons and vehicles as a method to help avoid the stalemate of trench warfare and linear warfare in future conflicts. The first practical implementations of these concepts coupled with modern technology were instituted by the Wehrmacht in the opening theaters of World War II.



Definition and methods


Once the point of attack was identified, the schwerpunkt ("focus point," literally "heavy point" or "center of gravity"), tactical bombers, and motorized artillery units struck at enemy defenses. This avoided the setup time and revealing nature of field artillery setup. These bombardments were then followed by probing attacks to reveal defensive detail and allow most effective employment of the main armored spearhead and combined arms groups. The goals were deepest possible penetration and minimal engagement, while avoiding an enemy counterattack. Once the main force broke through the designated strike area, motorized infantry would then fan out behind the armored spearhead to capture or destroy any enemy forces encircled by panzer and mechanized infantry units, and to prevent flanking attacks. Less mobile infantry were designated for "mopping up" operations or to participate in the initial breakthrough.

Etymology and modern meaning

"Blitzkrieg" is a German compound meaning "lightning war." The word did not enter official terminology of the Wehrmacht either before or during the war, even though it was already used in the military Journal Deutsche Wehr in 1935, in the context of an article on how states with insufficient food and raw materials supply can win a war. Another appearance is in 1938, in the "Militär-Wochenblatt," where Blitzkrieg is defined as a "strategic attack," carried out by operational use of tanks, air force, and airborne troops. Karl-Heinz Frieser in his book Blitzkrieg Legende, who researched the origin of the term and found the above examples, points out that the pre-war use of the term is rare and that it practically never entered official terminology throughout the war.[1]

It was first popularized in the English-speaking world by the American newsmagazine TIME describing the 1939 German invasion of Poland. Published on September 25, 1939, well into the campaign, the account reads:



"Blitzkrieg" has since been corrupted to express multiple meanings, in popular usage. From its original military definition, "blitzkrieg" may be applied to any military operation emphasizing the surprise, speed, or concentration stressed in accounts of the Invasion of Poland. During the war, the Luftwaffe terror bombings of London came to be known as The Blitz. Similarly, blitz has come to describe the "blitz" (rush) tactic of American football, and the blitz form of chess in which players are allotted very little time. Blitz or blitzkrieg is used in many other non-military contexts.

Interwar years






German leadership had also been criticized for failing to understand the technical advances of the First World War, having given tank production the lowest priority and having conducted no studies of the machine gun prior to that war.[4] In response, German officers attended technical schools during this period of rebuilding after the war.


On Eastern Front of World War I, combat did not bog down into trench warfare. German and Russian armies fought a war of maneuver over thousands of miles, giving the German leadership unique experience which the trench-bound Western Allies did not have.[5] Studies of operations in the East led to the conclusion that small and coordinated forces possessed more combat worth than large, uncoordinated forces.

Foreign influence


Col. Charles de Gaulle, in France, was a known advocate of concentration of armor and airplanes. His opinions were expressed in his book, "Vers l'Armee de Metier" ("Towards the professional army"). Like von Seeckt, he concluded that France could no longer maintain the huge armies of conscripts and reservists with which World War I had been fought, and sought to use tanks, mechanized forces and aircraft to allow a smaller number of highly trained soldiers to have greater impact in battle. His views little endeared him to the French high command, but are claimed by some to have influenced Heinz Guderian.

British theorists J.F.C. Fuller and debatably Captain B. H. Liddell Hart have often been associated with blitzkrieg's development, though this is a matter of controversy. The British War Office did permit an Experimental Mechanized Force, formed on May 1, 1927, that was wholly motorized including self propelled artillery and motorized engineers.

It is argued that Guderian, a critical figure in blitzkrieg's conception, drew some of his inspiration from Liddell Hart. This was based on a paragraph in the English edition of Guderian's autobiography in which he credits Liddell Hart. In opposition, it is argued that Liddell Hart, as editor of the autobiography's English edition, wrote that paragraph himself or, more broadly, that his influence on Guderian was not as significant as held. The paragraph is missing in other language versions. Fuller's influence is clearly recognized by Guderian. During the war, he developed plans for massive, independent tank operations and was subsequently studied by the German leadership. It is variously argued that Fuller's wartime plans and post-war writings were an inspiration, or that his readership was low and German experiences during the war received more attention. The fact that the German's saw themselves latterly as losers may be linked to the root and branch review, learn and rewrite of all Army doctrine and training manuals by senior and experienced officers, the UK's response was much weaker.[7]



Some precursors of Blitzkrieg style were used in the First World War–most notably by General Alexei Brusilov in Russia's Brusilov Offensive of 1916 and Britain's General Allenby in the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918. Both relied on achieving surprise; Brusilov by merely omitting the usual clumsy preparations, Allenby by laboriously painting a false intelligence picture for the enemy commanders. Brusilov pioneered the use of infiltration by small groups of specially-picked infantry to dislocate enemy artillery and headquarters; the Germans themselves used a variation of such tactics in their 1918 Spring Offensive. Allenby used cavalry to seize railway and communication centers deep in the enemy rear, unhinging the entire defense, while aircraft disrupted enemy lines of communication and thwarted counter-moves.


Guderian into the Wehrmacht


Guderian argued that the tank was the decisive weapon of war. "If the tanks succeed, then victory follows," he wrote. In an article addressed to critics of tank warfare, he wrote "until our critics can produce some new and better method of making a successful land attack other than self-massacre, we shall continue to maintain our beliefs that tanks—properly employed, needless to say—are today the best means available for land attack." Addressing the faster rate at which defenders could reinforce an area than attackers could penetrate it during the First World War, Guderian wrote that "since reserve forces will now be motorized, the building up of new defensive fronts is easier than it used to be; the chances of an offensive based on the timetable of artillery and infantry co-operation are, as a result, even slighter today than they were in the last war." He continued, "We believe that by attacking with tanks we can achieve a higher rate of movement than has been hitherto obtainable, and—what is perhaps even more important—that we can keep moving once a breakthrough has been made."[10] Guderian additionally required that tactical radios be widely used to facilitate co-ordination and command by having one installed in all tanks.

Organisation of a 1941 German panzer division.

After becoming head of state in 1934, Adolf Hitler ignored the Versailles Treaty provisions. A command for armored forces was created within the German Wehrmacht—the Panzertruppe, as it came to be known later. The Luftwaffe, or air force, was re-established, and development begun on ground-attack aircraft and doctrines. Hitler was a strong supporter of this new strategy. He read Guderian's book Achtung! Panzer! and upon observing armored field exercises at Kummersdorf he remarked "That is what I want–and that is what I will have."[11]

Guderian's Blitzkrieg


In this year of 1929 I became convinced that Tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance, My historical studies; the exercises carried out in England and our own experience with mock-ups had persuaded me that the tanks would never be able to produce their full effect until weapons on whose support they must inevitably rely were brought up to their standard of speed and of cross country performance. In such formation of all arms, the tanks must play primary role, the other weapons beings subordinated to the requirements of the armor. It would be wrong to include tanks in infantry divisions: What was needed were armored divisions which would include all the supporting arms needed to fight with full effect.[12]

Guderian believed that certain development in technology must be developed in conjunction with Blitzkrieg to support the entire theory; especially in communications with which the armored divisions, and tanks especially should be equipped (Wireless Communications). Guderian insisted in 1933 to the high command that every tank in the German armored force must be equipped with radio.[13]

Spanish Civil War

German volunteers first used armor in live field conditions during the Spanish Civil War of 1936. Armor commitments consisted of Panzer Battalion 88, a force built around three companies of PzKpfw I tanks that functioned as a training cadre for Nationalists. The Luftwaffe deployed squadrons of fighters, dive-bombers, and transports as the Condor Legion.[14] Guderian called the tank deployment "on too small a scale to allow accurate assessments to be made."[15] The true test of his "armored idea" would have to wait for the Second World War. However, the German Air Force also provided volunteers to Spain to test both tactics and aircraft in combat, including the first combat use of the Stuka.

Methods of operations



To achieve a breakout, armored forces would attack the enemy's defensive line directly, supported by their own infantry (Panzergrenadiers), artillery fire and aerial bombardment in order to create a breach in the enemy's line. Through this breach the tanks could break through without the traditional encumbrance of the slow logistics of a pure infantry regiment. The breaching force never lost time by "stabilizing its flanks" or by regrouping; rather it continued the assault in towards the interior of the enemies lines, sometimes diagonally across them. This point of breakout has been labeled a "hinge," but only because a change in direction of the defender's lines is naturally weak and therefore a natural target for blitzkrieg assault.








An operation's final phase, the Kesselschlacht (literally translated as "cauldron battle"), was a concentric attack on an encircled force. It was here that most losses were inflicted upon the enemy, primarily through the capture of prisoners and weapons.

Effect on civilians

Blitzkrieg tactics often affected civilians in a way perceived by some to be negative—sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not. Whereas more traditional conflict resulted in a well-defined, slow moving front line, giving civilians time to be evacuated to safety, the new approach did not provide for this luxury. Furthermore, in the total war doctrine, civilians were explicitly targeted (as in the German bombing of London or the Allied bombing of Dresden), in an effort to break the morale of the citizenry of a country in order to frustrate attempts at production, and ultimately support for the cause over which the war was fought.

Operations in history

Poland, 1939

In Poland, fast moving armies encircled Polish forces (blue circles), but the "blitzkrieg" idea never really took hold - artillery and infantry forces acted in time-honored fashion to crush these pockets.

Despite the fact that the term blitzkrieg was coined during the Invasion of Poland of 1939, historians generally hold that German operations during it were more consistent with more traditional methods. The Wehrmacht's strategy was more in line with Vernichtungsgedanken, or a focus on envelopment to create pockets in broad-front annihilation. Panzer forces were deployed among the three German concentrations without strong emphasis on independent use, being used to create or destroy close pockets of Polish forces and seize operational-depth terrain in support of the largely un-motorized infantry which followed. The Luftwaffe gained air superiority by a combination of superior technology and numbers.

The understanding of operations in Poland has shifted considerably since the Second World War. Many early postwar histories incorrectly attribute German victory to "enormous development in military technique which occurred between 1918 and 1940," incorrectly citing that "Germany, who translated (British inter-war) theories into action … called the result Blitzkrieg."[16] More recent histories identify German operations in Poland as relatively cautious and traditional. Matthew Cooper wrote that


He went on to say that the use of tanks "left much to be desired… Fear of enemy action against the flanks of the advance, fear which was to prove so disastrous to German prospects in the west in 1940 and in the Soviet Union in 1941, was present from the beginning of the war."[18] John Ellis further asserted that "…there is considerable justice in Matthew Cooper's assertion that the panzer divisions were not given the kind of strategic mission that was to characterize authentic armored blitzkrieg, and were almost always closely subordinated to the various mass infantry armies."[19]


France 1940

The German invasion of France, with subsidiary attacks on Belgium and the Netherlands, consisted of two phases, Operation "Yellow" (Fall Gelb) and Operation "Red" (Fall Rot). Yellow opened with a feint conducted against the Netherlands and Belgium by two armored corps and paratroopers. The Germans had massed the bulk of their armored force in "Panzer Group von Kleist," which attacked through the comparatively unguarded sector of the Ardennes and achieved a breakthrough at Sedan with air support.

The group raced to the coast of the English Channel at Abbéville, thus isolating the British Expeditionary Force, Belgian Army, and some divisions of the French Army in northern France. The armored and motorized units under Guderian and Rommel initially advanced far beyond the following divisions, and indeed far in excess of that with which German high command was initially comfortable. When the German motorized forces were met with a counterattack at Arras, British tanks with heavy armor (Matilda I & IIs) created a brief panic in the German High Command. The armored and motorized forces were halted, by Hitler, outside the port city of Dunkirk which was being used to evacuate the Allied forces. Hermann Göring had promised his Luftwaffe would complete the destruction of the encircled armies but aerial operations did not prevent the evacuation of the majority of Allied troops (which the British named Operation Dynamo); some 330,000 French and British were saved.

Overall, "Yellow" succeeded beyond almost anyone's wildest dreams, despite the claim that the Allies had 4,000 armored vehicles and the Germans 2,200, and the Allied tanks were often superior in armor and caliber of cannon.[21] It left the French armies much reduced in strength (although not demoralized), and without much of their own armor and heavy equipment. Operation "Red" then began with a triple pronged panzer attack. The XV Panzer Corps attacked towards Brest, XIV Panzer Corps attacked east of Paris, towards Lyon, and Guderian's XIX Panzer Corps completed the encirclement of the Maginot Line. The defending forces were hard pressed to organize any sort of counter-attack. The French forces were continually ordered to form new lines along rivers, often arriving to find the German forces had already passed them.


North Africa, 1940-43

When Italy entered the war in 1940, a large Italian force faced the British Western Desert Force under Richard O'Connor on the frontier between Egypt and Libya. The British force included a substantial mechanized contingent, the Mobile Force (Egypt). The concepts of operations of the Mobile Force had been worked out by its former commander, Percy Hobart, a comparatively little-known theorist of armored operations. The British Commander in Chief in the Middle East, General Archibald Wavell, had been a staff officer under Allenby in Palestine and had extensively analyzed his operations.

In Operation Compass, launched in December 1940, O'Connor's forces effectively destroyed the Italian armies in Libya. The British mobile force several times outflanked and isolated the Italian front line troops, and ultimately drove across the desert to intercept and capture the retreating Italians at Beda Fomm. At this point, British forces were diverted to campaigns in Greece and elsewhere, being replaced by comparatively inexperienced units, and German armored forces under Erwin Rommel landed in Africa to reinforce the Italians. Rommel improvised a Blitzkrieg riposte which destroyed many British armored formations and drove the remaining forces back into Egypt, except for the besieged fortress of Tobruk.


The large British armored force which mounted Operation Crusader, the final attempt to relieve Tobruk in late 1941, had a vague mission which amounted to seeking out and destroying Rommel's armored forces. Rommel, having temporarily knocked out many British armored formations, did launch an armored raid into the British rear areas in an attempt to induce a strategic collapse among his opponents but this did not occur and he was forced to withdraw. Once again, British forces were diverted from the Middle East (on Japan's entry into the war), and once again the German Afrika Korps mounted a small-scale blitzkrieg counter-attack which recovered most of the ground lost in Crusader. Rommel's subsequent attack against the British rear at the Battle of Gazala failed, and nearly left his forces stranded and isolated. In the event, Rommel was able to restore his position, capture Tobruk and advance far into Egypt as a result of British failures at a tactical, rather than strategic level. Supply problems and stiff resistance at the El Alamein position, the last defensive line before Alexandria and the Nile, halted Rommel's forces. Rommel's last attempted blitzkrieg operation in Egypt, the Battle of Alam el Halfa, failed because the Allies had plenty of warning of his intentions through ULTRA decryption of German signals, and even "canalized" his advance into a head-on attack against dug-in British forces.


Soviet Union: The Eastern Front: 1941–42

After 1941–42, armored formations were increasingly used as a mobile reserve against Allied breakthroughs. The black arrows depict armored counter-attacks.




The Jagdtiger, one of the most formidable German tank destroyers. These specialized vehicles traded mobility for firepower and protection, reflecting the defensive and non-blitzkrieg nature of German operations in the second half of the war.

Western Front, 1944–45

As the war progressed, Allied armies began using combined arms formations and deep penetration strategies that Germany had attempted to use in the opening years of the war. Many Allied operations in the Western Desert and on the Eastern Front relied on massive concentrations of firepower to establish breakthroughs by fast-moving armored units. These artillery-based tactics were also decisive in Western Front operations after Operation Overlord and both the British Commonwealth and American armies developed flexible and powerful systems for utilizing artillery support. What the Soviets lacked in flexibility, they made up for in number of multiple rocket launchers, cannon, and mortar tubes. The Germans never achieved the kind of response times or fire concentrations their enemies were capable of by 1944.



Germany's last offensive on its Western front, Operation Wacht am Rhein, was an offensive launched towards the vital port of Antwerp in December 1944. Launched in poor weather against a thinly-held Allied sector, it achieved surprise and initial success as Allied air power was stymied by cloud cover. However, stubborn pockets of defense in key locations throughout the Ardennes, the lack of serviceable roads, and poor German logistics planning caused delays. Allied forces deployed to the flanks of the German penetration, and Allied aircraft were again able to attack motorized columns. However, the stubborn defense of U.S. units and German weakness led to a defeat for the Germans.

Asia 1942-1945

The terrain and logistical infrastructure in the areas of Asia in which Japanese forces were engaged presented far fewer opportunities for wide-ranging mechanized operations, but a few battles were noted for fast-moving attacks which resulted in the dislocation of the defenses.

In the Battle of Malaya in early 1942, Japanese forces with air superiority and spearheaded by a tank regiment, rapidly drove British Commonwealth forces back down the length of the peninsula, aided by outflanking operations launched from the sea. The rapid Japanese offensive into Burma spearheaded by tanks and motorised forces in the same year also caused the Allied defense to collapse, although disunity of Allied command was also a factor.

In the Battle of Central Burma in 1945, the British Fourteenth Army (enjoying air supremacy) launched an armored and mechanised offensive which captured the major communication center of Meiktila behind the Japanese lines by surprise. There was no strategic collapse, but the attempted Japanese counter-attack was made at a strategic and tactical disadvantage. The Japanese were forced to break off the battle and withdraw from most of Burma.

In Operation August Storm, the Soviet invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, the Russians made their major attack via a route the Japanese had thought impossible for armored forces to traverse. The Russians very rapidly overran vast areas, and surrounded most Japanese forces in besieged towns. The Japanese were thinly stretched in static garrisons, and had very few resources with which to counter the Russian attacks.

Countermeasures and limitations


The concepts associated with the term "Blitzkrieg"—deep penetrations by armor, large encirclements, and combined arms attacks—were largely dependent upon terrain and weather conditions. Where the ability for rapid movement across "tank country" was not possible, armored penetrations were often avoided or resulted in failure. Terrain would ideally be flat, firm, unobstructed by natural barriers or fortifications, and interspersed with roads and railways. If it was instead hilly, wooded, marshy, or urban, armor would be vulnerable to infantry in close-quarters combat and unable to break out at full speed. Additionally, units could be halted by thawing mud or extreme snow. Artillery observation and aerial support was also naturally dependent on weather.

It should however be noted that the disadvantages of such terrain could be nullified if surprise was achieved over the enemy by an attack through such terrain. During the Battle of France, the German Bitzkrieg-style attack on France went through the Ardennes. There is little doubt that the hilly, heavily-wooded Ardennes could have been relatively easily defended by the Allies, even against the bulk of the German armored units. However, precisely because the French thought the Ardennes as unsuitable for massive troop movement, particularly for tanks, they were left with only light defenses which were quickly overrun by the Wehrmacht. The Germans quickly advanced through the forest, knocking down the trees the French thought would impede this tactic.

Air superiority

Ilyushin Il-2, formidable Soviet ground attack aircraft that specialized in destroying German armor



General Stanisław Maczek, one of the early developers of anti-blitzkrieg tactics

Blitzkrieg was very effective against static defense doctrines that most countries developed in the aftermath of the First World War. Early attempts to defeat the blitzkrieg can be dated to the Invasion of Poland in 1939, where Polish general Stanisław Maczek, commander of 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade, prepared a detailed report of blitzkrieg tactics and effectiveness with possible precautions for the French military based on his experiences. However, the French staff disregarded this report (it was captured, unopened, by the German army). Later, Maczek would become one of the most successful Allied armored forces commanders in the war.

During the Battle of France in 1940, De Gaulle's 4th Armor Division and elements of the British 1st Army Tank Brigade in the British Expeditionary Force both made probing attacks on the German flank, actually pushing into the rear of the advancing armored columns at times (See Battle of Arras (1940)). This may have been a reason for Hitler to call a halt to the German advance. Those attacks combined with Maxime Weygand's Hedgehog tactic would become the major basis for responding to blitzkrieg attacks in the future: deployment in depth, permitting enemy forces to bypass defensive concentrations, reliance on anti-tank guns, strong force employment on the flanks of the enemy attack, followed by counter-attacks at the base to destroy the enemy advance in detail. Holding the flanks or "shoulders" of a penetration was essential to channeling the enemy attack, and artillery, properly employed at the shoulders, could take a heavy toll of attackers. While Allied forces in 1940 lacked the experience to successfully develop these strategies, resulting in France's capitulation with heavy losses, they characterized later Allied operations. For example, at the Battle of Kursk the Red Army employed a combination of defense in great depth, extensive minefields, and tenacious defense of breakthrough shoulders. In this way they depleted German combat power even as German forces advanced. In August 1944, at Mortain, stout defense and counterattacks by the U.S. and Canadian armies closed the Falaise Gap. In the Ardennes, a combination of hedgehog defense at Bastogne, St Vith and other locations, and a counterattack by the U.S. 3rd Army were employed.

The U.S. doctrine of massing high-speed tank destroyers was not generally employed in combat because few massed German armor attacks occurred by 1944.





Blitzkrieg also has had some influence on subsequent militaries and doctrines. The Israel Defense Forces may have been influenced by blitzkrieg in creating a military of flexible armored spearheads and close air support.[25] The 1990s' United States theorists of "Shock and awe" claim blitzkrieg as a subset of strategies which they term "rapid dominance."


Changing interpretation

Beginning in the 1970s, the interpretation of Blitzkrieg, particularly with respect to the Second World War, has undergone a shift in the historical community. John Ellis described the shift:




  1. K.H. Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West.
  2. Time, Blitzkrieger. Retrieved February 2, 2009.
  3. James S. Corum, The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 37.
  4. Corum, op. cit., 23.
  5. Corum, op. cit., 7.
  6. Corum, Edwards, and House.
  7. The Roots of Blitzkrieg, (James Corum, 1992), 39.
  8. Roger Edwards, Panzer: A Revolution in Warfare, 1939-1945 (London: Brockhampton Press, 1998), 23.
  9. Winston Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918, Vol. 2 (Odhams Press).
  10. Panzer Leader, 39-46.
  11. Heinz Guderian (trans.) and Constantine Fitzgibbon, Panzer Leader (New York: De Capo Press, 2002), 46.
  12. Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader, 13.
  13. Panzer Leader, 20.
  14. Edwards, op. cit., 145.
  15. Edwards, op. cit., 25.
  16. Barrie Pitt, The Second World War (BPC Publishing 1966).
  17. Matthew Cooper, The German Army 1939-1945: Its Political and Military Failure (1976).
  18. Cooper, Ibid.
  19. John Ellis, Brute Force (Viking Penguin, 1990).
  20. Steven Zaloga and Majej, The Polish Campaign 1939 (Hippocrene Books, 1985).
  21. Panzer Leader, 94.
  22. Alan Clark, Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-45 (New York: Quill, 1965), 78.
  23. Richard Simpkin, Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-First Century Warfare (London: Brassey's, 2000), 34
  24. Charles Winchester, The Demodernization of the German Army in World War 2 (Osprey Publishing).
  25. Jonathan M. House, Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th-Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization (U.S. Army Command General Staff College, 1984).
  26. John Ellis, Brute Force (1990).


  • Chrisp, Peter. Blitzkrieg! 1990.
  • Condell, Bruce, and David T. Zabecki (eds.). On the German Art of War: Truppenführung (Literal Trans: "Troop Leading"). Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2001.
  • Corum, James S. The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform. University Press of Kansas, 1994.
  • Deighton, Len. Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk. 1981.
  • Edwards, Roger. Panzer: A Revolution in Warfare, 1939-1945. London: Brockhampton Press, 1998.
  • Guderian, Heinz. Panzer Leader. New York: Da Capo Press, 2001. ISBN 0-306-81101-4.
  • House, Jonathan M. Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th-Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization. U.S. Army Command General Staff College, 1984.
  • Manstein, Erich von. Lost Victories. Trans. Anthony G. Powell. Presidio, 1994.
  • Sinesi, Michael P. Modern Bewegungskrieg. German Battle Doctrine, 1920-1940. Thesis submitted to Columbian School of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University, May 2001.




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