Misplaced Pages

#125874

103-817: In 1940, confronted with the successful Blitzkrieg of Nazi Germany against Poland and France , and the German Panzer divisions lined up along their border, the Swiss government found itself in an awkward position. The Germans even demanded apologies for the destruction of German planes which had been shot down by the Swiss after violating the Swiss airspace and the Armistice of 22 June 1940 between France and Germany made it likely that German invasion plans of Switzerland would be implemented. There were strong trends within Switzerland which advocated submission to

206-627: A Christian point of view. After the Second World War, he promoted European federalism . He studied at the University of Neuchâtel and in Vienna, and then moved to Paris in 1930. There he wrote for and edited various publications, associating with the personalist groupings and the non-conformists of the 1930s : with Emmanuel Mounier and Arnaud Dandieu, he founded the magazines Esprit and L'Ordre Nouveau , and he also co-founded

309-483: A battlefield. That theory of war also emphasised consolidation and recommended caution against overconfidence and ruthless exploitation. During the Sinai and Palestine campaign , operations involved some aspects of what would later be called blitzkrieg. The decisive Battle of Megiddo included concentration, surprise and speed. Success depended on attacking only in terrain favouring the movement of large formations around

412-508: A breakthrough of the enemy's line, units comprising the Schwerpunkt were not supposed to become decisively engaged with enemy front line units to the right and the left of the breakthrough area. Units pouring through the hole were to drive upon set objectives behind the enemy front line. During the Second World War, German Panzer forces used their motorized mobility to paralyze the opponent's ability to react. Fast-moving mobile forces seized

515-407: A federal structure, local teams being part of a federation, which itself was headed by a governing body ( directoire ) in charge of coordination the initiatives of the local groups. In 1951, activities were focalised on the national level. The main post-war issues were dealt with through over 300 « open letters » advocating solutions to the Swiss society’s new challenges. The Gotthard League

618-405: A few dozen tanks. As the end of the war approached, Germany also experienced critical shortages in fuel and ammunition stocks as a result of Anglo-American strategic bombing and blockade. Although the production of Luftwaffe fighter aircraft continued, they could not fly because of lack of fuel. What fuel there was went to panzer divisions, and even then, they could not operate normally. Of

721-641: A great hope, dissipating some of the defeatist mists.”. The Gotthard League also helped military officers who had been deeply unsettled by the Swiss President Pilet-Golaz’ public address on 25 June and who were considering a coup , to stay within the limits of the law; one of them, captain Alfred Ernst, even donated 50’000 Swiss Francs (an inheritance) to the Gotthard League, so that the resistance message could be brought to

824-445: A letter dated 6 August 1940, Denis de Rougemont mentions « the 200 articles written against us » and he goes on to add « we are being accused with utmost assurance to be Nazis, Marxists, Catholics, Oxfordians, a daughter company of Duttweiler, utopians, fixers, etc. etc. » In 2001, Swiss historian Michel Perdrizat declared that the Gotthard League had led an ambiguous policy by trying to combine resistance spirit with

927-480: A magazine, with Roland de Pury , on existential theology , Hic et Nunc . In June 1940, fearing that defeatism and the pressure of Nazi propaganda (and armies) would lead the federal government to submit to the Germans and give up the traditional democratic values of Switzerland, he led with Zurich University Professor Theophil Spoerri a group of young people which created a civil society organisation called

1030-683: A manager from the Migros groceries firm. Charles-F. Ducommun, a trade-unionist , and Julien Lescaze, communication officer at the ICRC soon joined the signatories and worked efficiently to spread the League's message. Among the most notable supporters of the Gotthard League are Gottlieb Duttweiler , founder of the Migros chain of grocery stores, Protestant theologian Emil Brunner , conservative historian Gonzague de Reynold and socialist philosopher and psychologist Philippe Müller. It must be added that

1133-653: A massive strategic air attack might hold out better prospects, but the topic was not explored in detail. A third relatively early use of the term in German occurred in Die Deutsche Kriegsstärke (German War Strength) by Fritz Sternberg , a Jewish Marxist political economist and refugee from Nazi Germany, published in 1938 in Paris and in London as Germany and a Lightning War . Sternberg wrote that Germany

SECTION 10

#1732787619126

1236-617: A military doctrine or handbook of the German Army or Air Force, and no "coherent doctrine" or "unifying concept of blitzkrieg" existed; German High Command mostly referred to the group of tactics as "Bewegungskrieg" (Maneuver Warfare). The term seems to have been rarely used in the German military press before 1939, and recent research at the German Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt , at Potsdam , found it in only two military articles from

1339-474: A political renovation of Switzerland, going into the direction of a conservative, antidemocratic state; he regards the leaders of the Gotthard League as naïve. In 2009 however, historian Daniel Bourgeois warned that it is difficult to judge with hindsight. Whereas sympathy for French Maréchal Philippe Pétain was widespread in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and could explain the resurgence of

1442-491: A politician within the Radical-Democratic Party (PRD); Robert Eibel  [ de ] , from the conservative-liberal movement Redressement national; Christian Gasser, from the liberal “Ligue des Non-Subventionnés”; René Leyvraz  [ fr ] , a social-democrat Christian trade-unionist ; Philippe Mottu , from Moral Rearmament ; Paul Schäfer, also from Moral Rearmament ; Heinrich Schnyder,

1545-472: A swift knockout to its enemies, which would lead to a long war. In the second article (1938), launching a swift strategic knockout was described as an attractive idea for Germany but difficult to achieve on land under modern conditions (especially against systems of fortification like the Maginot Line ) unless an exceptionally high degree of surprise could be achieved. The author vaguely suggested that

1648-580: Is a coordinated military effort by tanks, motorized infantry, artillery and aircraft, to create an overwhelming local superiority in combat power, to defeat the opponent and break through its defences. Blitzkrieg as used by Germany had considerable psychological or "terror" elements, such as the Jericho Trompete , a noise-making siren on the Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber, to affect the morale of enemy forces. The devices were largely removed when

1751-473: Is especially true if the attacking formation lacks the reserve to keep funnelling forces into the spearhead or the mobility to provide infantry, artillery and supplies into the attack. If the defender can hold the shoulders of the breach, it has the opportunity to counter-attack into the flank of the attacker and potentially to cut it off the van, as what happened to Kampfgruppe Peiper in the Ardennes. During

1854-482: Is hardly surprising since both Denis de Rougemont and Philippe Mottu worked for the "Army and Home" section at the Swiss Army's headquarters, an internal propaganda department which General Guisan strongly developed during the war years. However, the Gotthard League slowly shifted towards structures inspired by past regimes. The federal assembly representing the cantons was for instance named "Diète" ( Diet ) as in

1957-439: Is what I want – and that is what I will have". Guderian summarized combined-arms tactics as the way to get the mobile and motorized armored divisions to work together and support each other to achieve decisive success. In his 1950 book, Panzer Leader , he wrote: In this year, 1929, I became convinced that tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance. My historical studies,

2060-645: The Condor Legion . Guderian said that the tank deployment was "on too small a scale to allow accurate assessments to be made". (The true test of his "armored idea" would have to wait for the Second World War.) However, the Luftwaffe also provided volunteers to Spain to test both tactics and aircraft in combat, including the first combat use of the Stuka . During the war, the Condor Legion undertook

2163-567: The Ancien Régime of Switzerland (prior to the 1798 French invasion). In the same spirit the Gotthard League decided in November 1940 to base its principles exclusively on Christianity ; therefore, somewhat surprisingly albeit with chosen words, it kept Jews and Freemasons at bay: "The Gotthard League holds that emotional campaigns against Jews or Freemasons are not desirable. It believes that this country’s Christian traditions will remain

SECTION 20

#1732787619126

2266-565: The Battle of Kursk , the Red Army used a combination of defence in great depth, extensive minefields and tenacious defense of breakthrough shoulders. In that way, they depleted German combat power even as German forces advanced. The reverse can be seen in the Russian summer offensive of 1944, Operation Bagration , which resulted in the destruction of Army Group Center. German attempts to weather

2369-540: The Battles of Sharon and Nablus (Battle of Megiddo). The British methods induced "strategic paralysis" among the Ottomans and led to their rapid and complete collapse. In an advance of 65 miles (105 km), captures were estimated to be "at least 25,000 prisoners and 260 guns". Liddell Hart considered that important aspects of the operation had been the extent to which Ottoman commanders were denied intelligence on

2472-627: The Brusilov Offensive . Later, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893–1937), Georgii Isserson  [ ru ] (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. Those concepts would guide the Red Army doctrine throughout the Second World War. Realising the limitations of infantry and cavalry, Tukhachevsky advocated mechanized formations and

2575-477: The French Resistance movement. Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with artillery , air assault , and close air support . The intent is to break through an opponent's lines of defense, dislocate

2678-527: The Gotthard League in order to defend both Christian values and the independence of Switzerland. De Rougemont wrote the movement's manifesto and on 22 July an "Appeal to the Swiss People" which was widely published in the Swiss press to rally support for the movement. Later in 1940, after having authored a sharp column in a Swiss newspaper which infuriated the German government, he was sent to

2781-479: The Luftwaffe chose a method of carpet bombing , resulting in heavy civilian casualties. Denis de Rougemont Denys Louis de Rougemont (September 8, 1906 – December 6, 1985), known as Denis de Rougemont ( French: [dəni də ʁuʒmɔ̃] ), was a Swiss writer and cultural theorist who wrote in French . One of the non-conformists of the 1930s , he addressed the perils of totalitarianism from

2884-555: The Luftwaffe flew some 300 sorties on 6 June. Though German fighter presence over Normandy increased over the next days and weeks, it never approached the numbers that the Allies commanded. Fighter-bomber attacks on German formations made movement during daylight almost impossible. Subsequently, shortages soon developed in food, fuel and ammunition and severely hampered the German defenders. German vehicle crews and even flak units experienced great difficulty moving during daylight. Indeed,

2987-635: The Tiger tanks lost against the US Army, nearly half of them were abandoned for lack of fuel. German volunteers first used armor in live field-conditions during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Armor commitment consisted of Panzer Battalion 88, a force built around three companies of Panzer I tanks that functioned as a training cadre for Spain's Nationalists. The Luftwaffe deployed squadrons of fighters , dive-bombers and transport aircraft as

3090-580: The 1930s. Both used the term to mean a swift strategic knockout, rather than a radically new military doctrine or approach to war. The first article (1935) dealt primarily with supplies of food and materiel in wartime. The term blitzkrieg was used in reference to German efforts to win a quick victory in the First World War but was not associated with the use of armored, mechanized or air forces. It argued that Germany must develop self-sufficiency in food because it might again prove impossible to deal

3193-539: The 1937 bombing of Guernica , which had a tremendous psychological effect on the populations of Europe. The results were exaggerated, and the Western Allies concluded that the "city-busting" techniques were now part of the German way in war. The targets of the German aircraft were actually the rail lines and bridges, but lacking the ability to hit them with accuracy (only three or four Ju 87s saw action in Spain),

Gotthard League - Misplaced Pages Continue

3296-437: The 19th century with the military technology of the interwar period. Modern historians use the term casually as a generic description for the style of maneuver warfare practised by Germany during the early part of World War II, rather than as an explanation. According to Frieser, in the context of the thinking of Heinz Guderian on mobile combined arms formations, blitzkrieg can be used as a synonym for modern maneuver warfare on

3399-468: The Allies' 600 sorties, the Luftwaffe on average flew 1,500 sorties a day. On 13 May, Fliegerkorps VIII flew 1,000 sorties in support of the crossing of the Meuse. The following day the Allies made repeated attempts to destroy the German pontoon bridges, but German fighter aircraft, ground fire and Luftwaffe flak batteries with the panzer forces destroyed 56 percent of the attacking Allied aircraft, and

3502-526: The Ardennes. Since the French thought that the Ardennes unsuitable for massive troop movement, particularly for tanks, the area was left with only light defences, which were quickly overrun by the Wehrmacht . The Germans quickly advanced through the forest and knocked down the trees that the French had thought would impede them. The influence of air forces over forces on the ground changed significantly over

3605-482: The Battle of France in 1940, the 4th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles de Gaulle) and elements of the 1st Army Tank Brigade (British Expeditionary Force) made probing attacks on the German flank and pushed into the rear of the advancing armored columns at times. That 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

3708-624: The British preparations for the attack through British air superiority and air attacks on their headquarters and telephone exchanges, which paralyzed attempts to react to the rapidly-deteriorating situation. Norman Stone detects early blitzkrieg operations in offensives by French Generals Charles Mangin and Marie-Eugène Debeney in 1918. However, French doctrine in the interwar years became defence-oriented. Colonel Charles de Gaulle advocated concentration of armor and airplanes. His opinions appeared in his 1934 book Vers l'Armée de métier ("Towards

3811-601: The Combined Arms)", known as Das Fug (1921–1923) and Truppenführung (1933–1934), containing standard procedures for combined-arms warfare. The Reichswehr was influenced by its analysis of pre-war German military thought, particularly infiltration tactics since at the end of the war, they had seen some breakthroughs on the Western Front and the maneuver warfare which dominated the Eastern Front . On

3914-496: The Eastern Front regularly slowed both sides) or extreme snow. Operation Barbarossa helped confirm that armor effectiveness and the requisite aerial support depended on weather and terrain. The disadvantages of terrain could be nullified if surprise was achieved over the enemy by an attack in areas that had been considered natural obstacles, as occurred during the Battle of France in which the main German offensive went through

4017-538: The Eastern Front, the war did not bog down into trench warfare since the German and the Russian Armies fought a war of maneuver over thousands of miles, which gave the German leadership unique experience that was unavailable to the trench-bound Western Allies. Studies of operations in the East led to the conclusion that small and coordinated forces possessed more combat power than large uncoordinated forces. After

4120-478: The French Révolution nationale ideas or words in statements issued by movements such as the Gotthard League, there were other confusing words elsewhere in these tense and troubled times, like de Gaulle substituting "Honneur et Patrie" to "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" as the French national motto, or the "tragic Petainist illusion" harboured by Resistance hero Henri Frenay in the early moments of

4223-458: The French made attempts to reform defensive lines along rivers but were frustrated when German forces arrived first and pressed on. Despite being common in German and English-language journalism during World War II , the word Blitzkrieg was never used as an official military term by the Wehrmacht , except for propaganda, and it was never officially adopted it as a concept or doctrine. . According to David Reynolds , " Hitler himself called

Gotthard League - Misplaced Pages Continue

4326-452: The German Army to achieve superiority at the Schwerpunkt , whether attacking or defending, to turn local success at the Schwerpunkt into the progressive disorganisation of the opposing force and to create more opportunities to exploit that advantage even if the Germans were numerically and strategically inferior in general. In the 1930s, Guderian summarized that as Klotzen, nicht kleckern! (roughly "splash, don't spill") Having achieved

4429-523: The Germans' air parity or superiority allowed the unencumbered movement of ground forces, their unhindered assembly into concentrated attack formations, aerial reconnaissance, aerial resupply of fast moving formations and close air support at the point of attack. The Allied air forces had no close air support aircraft, training or doctrine. The Allies flew 434 French and 160 British sorties a day but methods of attacking ground targets had yet to be developed and so Allied aircraft caused negligible damage. Against

4532-699: The Germans. Sustained Nazi propaganda emanated from the 30,000-strong German community in Switzerland , the German embassy and consulates and from the extreme right Frontenbewegung  [ de ] ("Fronts Movement" or "Frontismus") which became amalgamated into the Swiss National Movement in June 1940. The then President of the Swiss Confederation and Foreign Minister , Marcel Pilet-Golaz delivered on 25 June 1940 an ambiguous speech where he made allusions to an "adaptation to

4635-460: The Gotthard League on 30 June 1940 in order to defend both these values and the independence of Switzerland. On 22 July an “Appeal to the Swiss People” written by de Rougemont was published in the Swiss press to rally support for the movement. Signatories were, besides de Rougemont and Spoerri, Walther Allgöwer  [ de ] , who was at the time a military instructor and later became

4738-418: The Gotthard League, facilitated by a personal gift of 50’000 Swiss francs, was a major event. The League’s manifesto was carried by no less than 74 Swiss newspapers and was followed by more publications in the following ten days, including one appeal signed by the respected Zurich professor Theo Spoerri, regarded as the leader of Moral Rearmament in Switzerland, who had been elected to lead the governing body of

4841-416: The Gotthard League. Denis de Rougemont wrote a 10-page manifesto entitled What Is the Gotthard League? ("Qu'est-ce que la Ligue du Gothard ?") explaining its principles: on one hand active neutrality and on the other hand faithfulness to the fundamental values of Switzerland such as federalism , in order to resist "at all costs" to totalitarianisms. It went on to add that the immediate means of action of

4944-478: The League rested entirely on its members' public expression. It appealed strongly in favour of the military defense of the réduit national around the Saint-Gotthard Massif – as advocated by General Guisan , of intelligence gathering, of a series of economic and political reforms and of a "struggle against defeatism and deceitful propaganda". The plea in favour of the country’s military defense

5047-544: The Polish campaign, the performance of armored troops, under the influence of Guderian's ideas, won over a number of skeptics who had initially expressed doubt about armored warfare, such as von Rundstedt and Rommel. According to David A. Grossman, by the Twelfth Battle of Isonzo (October–November 1917), while he was conducting a light-infantry operation, Rommel had perfected his maneuver-warfare principles, which were

5150-637: The Professional Army"). Like von Seeckt, de Gaulle concluded that France could no longer maintain the huge armies of conscripts and reservists that had fought the First World War, and he 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 endeared him little to the French high command, but, according to historian Henrik Bering, were studied with great interest by Heinz Guderian . In 1916, General Alexei Brusilov had used surprise and infiltration tactics during

5253-727: The Red Army began a secret collaboration in the Soviet Union to evade the Treaty of Versailles occupational agent, the Inter-Allied Commission . In 1926 war games and tests began at Kazan and Lipetsk , in the Soviet Russia . The centers served to field-test aircraft and armored vehicles up to the battalion level and housed aerial- and armoured-warfare schools through which officers rotated. After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Adolf Hitler ignored

SECTION 50

#1732787619126

5356-638: The United States and administered French broadcasting for the Voice of America . He likewise taught at the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York before returning to Europe in 1946. He founded in Geneva the "Centre Européen de la Culture" in 1950 and in 1963 the "Institut Universitaire d'Etudes Européennes" (IUEE, "Graduate Institute of European Studies", attached to the University of Geneva ). He

5459-561: The advance. The historian James Corum criticised the German leadership for failing to understand the technical advances of the First World War, conducting no studies of the machine gun prior to the war and giving tank production the lowest priority during the war. After Germany's defeat, the Treaty of Versailles limited the Reichswehr to a maximum of 100,000 men, which prevented the deployment of mass armies. The German General Staff

5562-599: The attacks relied on speed and surprise, rather than on weight of numbers. The 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. The German armies pushed on towards Amiens and then Paris and came within 120 kilometres (75 mi) before supply deficiencies and Allied reinforcements halted

5665-430: The basis of our political life and that, in the future, the greatest clarity and candour will need to be applied. Given these principles, people to whom Christian traditions are foreign or belonging to organisations subject to secret or foreign influence are not eligible as Gotthard League members." Working through press conferences, « patriotic evenings », meetings, courses, advertisements, posters and pamphlets,

5768-461: The battlefield and tactical improvements in the British artillery and infantry attack. General Edmund Allenby used infantry to attack the strong Ottoman front line in co-operation with supporting artillery, augmented by the guns of two destroyers. Through constant pressure by infantry and cavalry, two Ottoman armies in the Judean Hills were kept off-balance and virtually encircled during

5871-453: The best co-operation between all arms, emphasis was placed on detailed planning, rigid control and adherence to orders. Mechanization of the army, as part of a combined-arms theory of war, was considered a means to avoid mass casualties and the indecisive nature of offensives. The four editions of Field Service Regulations that were published after 1918 held that only combined-arms operations could create enough fire power to enable mobility on

5974-519: The bridges remained intact. Allied air superiority became a significant hindrance to German operations during the later years of the war. By June 1944, the Western Allies had the complete control of the air over the battlefield, and their fighter-bomber aircraft were very effective at attacking ground forces. On D-Day, the Allies flew 14,500 sorties over the battlefield area alone, not including sorties flown over Northwestern Europe. Against them

6077-575: The campaigns of 1939–1941, involving the invasions of Belgium , The Netherlands and France and, by 1940, the term blitzkrieg was being extensively used in Western media. Blitzkrieg operations capitalised on surprise penetrations, such as that in the Ardennes forest, the Allies' general lack of preparedness, and their inability to match the pace of the German attack. During the Battle of France ,

6180-413: The circa 8000 members of the League campaigned for collective social responsibility on matters such as agricultural development (to achieve food self-sufficiency , see fr:Plan Wahlen ), family protection, elderly care, and job creations. Their programme also included a revision of the political system introducing more authority in democracy and a corporatist organisation of the economy. The League adopted

6283-425: The command of Panzer divisions". Schwerpunktprinzip was a heuristic device (conceptual tool or thinking formula) that was used in the German Army from the nineteenth century to make decisions from tactics to strategy about priority. Schwerpunkt has been translated as center of gravity , crucial , focal point and point of main effort . None of those forms is sufficient to describe the universal importance of

SECTION 60

#1732787619126

6386-573: The conditions for a decisive battle ( Vernichtungsschlacht ). During the war, officers such as Willy Rohr developed tactics to restore maneuver on the battlefield. Specialist light infantry ( Stosstruppen , "storm troops") were to exploit weak spots to make gaps for larger infantry units to advance with heavier weapons, exploit the success and leave isolated strong points to the troops that were following up. Infiltration tactics were combined with short hurricane artillery bombardments , which used massed artillery. Devised by Colonel Georg Bruchmüller ,

6489-433: The country by the Gotthard League rather than by the young revolted army officers, provided quick action was undertaken. The Gotthard League’s attempt to unite people from highly diverse backgrounds into a kind of union of opposites (Catholics and Protestants, French-speaking and German-speaking, political right and left, …) raised questions in many quarters of Swiss society and criticism was both sharp and immediate ; in

6592-439: The course of the Second World War. Early German successes were conducted when Allied aircraft could not make a significant impact on the battlefield. In May 1940, there was near parity in numbers of aircraft between the Luftwaffe and the Allies, but the Luftwaffe had been developed to support Germany's ground forces, had liaison officers with the mobile formations and operated a higher number of sorties per aircraft. In addition,

6695-501: The deep penetrations and the bypassing of enemy strong points to encircle and destroy opposing forces in a Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle/battle of encirclement). During the invasion of Poland , Western journalists adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe that form of armored warfare. The term had appeared in 1935, in the German military periodical Deutsche Wehr ("German Defence"), in connection to quick or lightning warfare. German maneuver operations were successful during

6798-400: The defenders, confuse the enemy by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht : a battle of annihilation . During the interwar period , aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with the systematic application of the traditional German tactic of Bewegungskrieg ( maneuver warfare ), involving

6901-478: The early war period. Seeckt, who believed in the Prussian tradition of mobility, developed the German army into a mobile force and advocated technical advances that would lead to a qualitative improvement of its forces and better coordination between motorized infantry, tanks, and planes. The British Army took lessons from the successful infantry and artillery offensives on the Western Front in late 1918. To obtain

7004-404: The enemy became used to the noise after the Battle of France in 1940, and instead, bombs sometimes had whistles attached. It is also common for historians and writers to include psychological warfare by using fifth columnists to spread rumours and lies among the civilian population in the theatre of operations. The origin of the term blitzkrieg is obscure. It was never used in the title of

7107-458: 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 the other 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 being subordinated to

7210-479: The existing circumstances" as a response to operational challenges. 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". Modern historians now understand blitzkrieg as the combination of traditional German military principles, methods and doctrines of

7313-443: The final German offensive operation in the west, Operation Wacht am Rhein , was planned to take place during poor weather to minimise interference by Allied aircraft. Under those conditions, it was difficult for German commanders to employ the "armored idea", if at all. Blitzkrieg is vulnerable to an enemy that is robust enough to weather the shock of the attack and does not panic at the idea of enemy formations in its rear area. That

7416-429: The high command that every tank in the German armored force must be equipped with a radio. At the start of World War II, only the German Army was thus prepared with all tanks being "radio-equipped". That proved critical in early tank battles in which German tank commanders exploited the organizational advantage over the Allies that radio communication gave them. All Allied armies would later copy that innovation. During

7519-554: The inherent danger of the attacking force overextending its supply lines and can be defeated by a determined foe who is willing and able to sacrifice territory for time in which to regroup and rearm, as the Soviets did on the Eastern Front, as opposed to, for example, the Dutch, who had no territory to sacrifice. Tank and vehicle production was a constant problem for Germany. Indeed, late in the war, many panzer "divisions" had no more than

7622-424: The initiative, exploited weaknesses and acted before the opposing forces could respond. Central to that was the decision cycle (tempo). Through superior mobility and faster decision-making cycles, mobile forces could act faster than the forces opposing them. Directive control was a fast and flexible method of command. Rather than receiving an explicit order, a commander would be told of his superior's intent and

7725-411: The large-scale industrialisation that they required. Robert Watt (2008) wrote that blitzkrieg has little in common with Soviet deep battle. In 2002, H. P. Willmott had noted that deep battle contained two important differences from blitzkrieg by being a doctrine of total war, not of limited operations, and rejecting decisive battle in favour of several large simultaneous offensives. The Reichswehr and

7828-484: The major basis for responding to blitzkrieg attacks in the future. Deployment in depth , or permitting enemy or "shoulders" of a penetration, was essential to channelling the enemy attack; artillery, properly employed at the shoulders, could take a heavy toll on attackers. Allied forces in 1940 lacked the experience to develop those strategies successfully, which resulted in the French armistice with heavy losses, but those strategies characterized later Allied operations. At

7931-448: The need of the ground forces. In fact, far from it being a specialist panzer spearhead arm, less than 15 percent of the Luftwaffe was intended for close support of the army in 1939. Methamphetamine , known as "pervitin," use is believed to have played a role in the speed of Germany's initial Blitzkrieg since military success with combined arms demanded long hours of continuous operations with minimal rest. The concepts associated with

8034-593: The new conditions", a "partial demobilization of the Army", a "national turnaround", a more authoritarian regime for Switzerland and to a " new order " in Europe, in short a lot of Petainist vocabulary mixed with consensual, religious-ringing rhetoric (which earned the speech the nickname of “sermon”). The German version of this originally French text was slightly adapted and contained quite a few words reminiscent of National Socialist speech. His calculated but ambiguous attitude

8137-451: The operational level. The traditional meaning of "blitzkrieg" is that of German tactical and operational methodology during the first half of the Second World War that is often hailed as a new method of warfare. The word, meaning "lightning war" or "lightning attack" in its strategic sense describes a series of quick and decisive short battles to deliver a knockout blow to an enemy state before it can fully mobilize. Tactically, blitzkrieg

8240-449: The opinion differences between Denis de Rougemont and Gonzague de Reynold did create serious difficulties which prevented the Gotthard League to communicate consistently and that the hurried departure of de Rougemont for a 5-year exile in the USA under pressure of the Germans probably helped tilt the balance towards the more conservative side of the Gotthard League. However the launching of

8343-671: The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Within the Wehrmacht, which was established in 1935, the command for motorized 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. Hitler strongly supported the new strategy. He read Guderian's 1937 book Achtung – Panzer! and upon observing armored field exercises at Kummersdorf , he remarked, "That

8446-441: The publications of Ferdinand Otto Miksche, first in the magazine "Army Quarterly", and in his 1941 book Blitzkrieg , in which he defined the concept. 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. J. P. Harris called

8549-431: 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 allow the tanks to fight with full effect. Guderian believed that developments in technology were required to support the theory, especially by equipping armored divisions, tanks foremost, with wireless communications. Guderian insisted in 1933 to

8652-474: The role that his unit was to fill in that concept. The method of execution was then a matter for the discretion of the subordinate commander. The staff burden was reduced at the top and spread among tiers of command with knowledge about their situation. Delegation and the encouragement of initiative aided implementation, and important decisions could be taken quickly and communicated verbally or with only brief written orders. The last part of an offensive operation

8755-434: The storm and fight out of encirclements failed because of the Soviets' ability to continue to feed armored units into the attack, maintain the mobility and strength of the offensive and arrive in force deep in the rear areas faster than the Germans could regroup. Although effective in quick campaigns against Poland and France, mobile operations could not be sustained by Germany in later years. Strategies based on maneuver have

8858-652: The term blitzkrieg (deep penetrations by armor, large encirclements, and combined arms attacks) were largely dependent upon terrain and weather conditions. Wherever the ability for rapid movement across "tank country" was not possible, armored penetrations often were avoided or resulted in failure. The terrain would ideally be flat, firm, unobstructed by natural barriers or fortifications, and interspersed with roads and railways. If it were 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 mud ( thawing along

8961-513: The term "a piece of journalistic sensationalism – a buzz-word with which to label the spectacular early successes of the Germans in the Second World War". The word was later applied to the bombing of Britain, particularly London, hence " The Blitz ". The German popular press followed suit nine months later, after the Fall of France in 1940; thus, although the word had first been used in Germany, it

9064-461: The term Blitzkrieg "a completely idiotic word" ( ein ganz blödsinniges Wort )". Some senior German officers, including Kurt Student , Franz Halder and Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg , even disputed the idea that it was a military concept. Kielmansegg asserted that what many regarded as blitzkrieg was nothing more than "ad hoc solutions that simply popped out of the prevailing situation". Kurt Student described it as ideas that "naturally emerged from

9167-480: The term and the concept of Schwerpunktprinzip . Every unit in the army, from the company to the supreme command, decided on a Schwerpunkt by schwerpunktbildung , as did the support services, which meant that commanders always knew what was the most important and why. The German army was trained to support the Schwerpunkt even when risks had to be taken elsewhere to support the point of main effort and to attack with overwhelming firepower. Schwerpunktbildung allowed

9270-646: The very same ones that were applied during the blitzkrieg against France in 1940 and were repeated in the Coalition ground offensive against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War . During the Battle of France and against his staff advisor's advice, Hitler ordered that everything should be completed in a few weeks. Fortunately for the Germans, Rommel and Guderian disobeyed the General Staff's orders (particularly those of General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist ) and forged ahead making quicker progress than anyone had expected, on

9373-452: The war, the Reichswehr expanded and improved infiltration tactics. The commander in chief, Hans von Seeckt , argued that there had been an excessive focus on encirclement and emphasised speed instead. Seeckt inspired a revision of Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare) thinking and its associated Auftragstaktik in which the commander expressed his goals to subordinates and gave them discretion in how to achieve them. The governing principle

9476-496: The way "inventing the idea of Blitzkrieg". It was Rommel who created the new archetype of Blitzkrieg by leading his division far ahead of flanking divisions. MacGregor and Williamson remark that Rommel's version of blitzkrieg displayed a significantly better understanding of combined-arms warfare than that of Guderian. General Hermann Hoth submitted an official report in July 1940 which declared that Rommel had "explored new paths in

9579-487: The word Blitzkrieg , because it is a very silly word". In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". 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 maneuver, mass and envelopment to create

9682-409: Was "the higher the authority, the more general the orders were"; it was the responsibility of the lower echelons to fill in the details. Implementation of higher orders remained within limits that were determined by the training doctrine of an elite officer corps. Delegation of authority to local commanders increased the tempo of operations, which had great influence on the success of German armies in

9785-583: Was abolished by the treaty but continued covertly as the Truppenamt (Troop Office) and was disguised as an administrative body. Committees of veteran staff officers were formed within the Truppenamt to evaluate 57 issues of the war to revise German operational theories. By the time of the Second World War, their reports had led to doctrinal and training publications, including H. Dv. 487, Führung und Gefecht der verbundenen Waffen ("Command and Battle of

9888-511: Was confirmed and raise even more doubts within Switzerland when he received on the federal premises a delegation of the Swiss extreme right "frontists", on 10 and 14 September 1940. Fearing that defeatism and the effects of the Nazi propaganda would lead the federal government to submit to the Germans and give up the traditional democratic values of Switzerland, a group of young people led by Denis de Rougemont and Professor Theophil Spoerri founded

9991-475: Was dissolved in 1969. Professor Spoerri remained its president until the end. The Gotthard League’s influence in Switzerland during the war years was sizeable. Denis de Rougemont wrote that the Gotthard League’s influence on the Swiss morale was distinctly felt after only one month of campaigning: it created “a salutary shock on Swiss public opinion, restoring confidence in many a citizen and it gave birth to

10094-459: Was flexible and could carry out both operational-tactical, and strategic bombing. Flexibility was the strength of the Luftwaffe in 1939 to 1941. Paradoxically, that became its weakness. While Allied Air Forces were tied to the support of the Army, the Luftwaffe deployed its resources in a more general operational way. It switched from air superiority missions to medium-range interdiction, to strategic strikes to close support duties, depending on

10197-399: Was not prepared economically for a long war but might win a quick war ( "Blitzkrieg" ). He did not go into detail about tactics or suggest that the German armed forces had evolved a radically new operational method. His book offered scant clues as to how German lightning victories might be won. In English and other languages, the term had been used since the 1920s. The term was first used in

10300-602: Was popularized by British journalism. Heinz Guderian referred to it as a word coined by the Allies: "as a result of the successes of our rapid campaigns our enemies ... coined the word Blitzkrieg ". After the German failure in the Soviet Union in 1941, the use of the term began to be frowned upon in Nazi Germany, and Hitler then denied ever using the term and said in a speech in November 1941, "I have never used

10403-548: Was provided in the form of the dive bomber and medium bomber , which would support the focal point of attack from the air. German successes are closely related to the extent to which the German Luftwaffe could control the air war in early campaigns in Western and Central Europe and in the Soviet Union. However, the Luftwaffe was a broadly based force with no constricting central doctrine other than its resources should be used generally to support national strategy. It

10506-523: Was the destruction of unsubdued pockets of resistance, which had been enveloped earlier and bypassed by the fast-moving armored and motorized spearheads. The Kesselschlacht ("cauldron battle") was a concentric attack on such pockets. It was there that most losses were inflicted upon the enemy, primarily through the mass capture of prisoners and weapons. During Operation Barbarossa , huge encirclements in 1941 produced nearly 3.5 million Soviet prisoners, along with masses of equipment. Close air support

10609-604: Was totally in line with General Guisan ’s strategy. (On 25 July 1940, General Guisan had delivered a historic address to the entire Swiss Officer Corps assembled on the Rütli , a location identified as the site of the founding act of the Swiss confederation in 1291. He had taken every disposition so that Switzerland could resist Nazi invasion and had made it very clear there would never be any surrender; Swiss citizens had been instructed to disregard any surrender broadcast, as it would either be done under threat or be enemy propaganda.) This

#125874