Customer Reviews

Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk

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This book is now some twenty years old. Len Deighton is mainly famous for writing novels about espionage. This book and a companion book were written for his own private interest in an attempt to understand the Second World War.

The book is basically an attempt to explain Hitler's victory in 1940 in the Western Campaign. Deighton was one of the first to highlight the fact that force levels favored the allies. The balance of forces not only favored the them but the quality of some German weapons were also inferior. For instance the French produced the best tank in the early part of the war.

Deighton goes back to the First World War and looks at the sorts of strategic dilemmas that led to that war being bloody. He then looks at the role of the tank and the German doctrines developed by Guederian who he credits with the development of Blitzkrieg. Deighton sees the essence of Blitzkrieg not so much in the use of air power and armor to achieve a breach of an enemy line but rather what comes after it. The book is divided into four sections. Only one section and that is about sixty pages describes the initial part of the campaign against the Western allies in 1940. What happened was that the Germans initially moved into the Netherlands and Belgium. This led them to move the British Expeditionary Force north. The reason being that the allies expected a Schieflen like attack wheeling behind Paris as occurred in the First War. Instead the Germans moved their Panzer Divisions through the Ardennes and cut off the British Army and Units of the French and Belgium Army from the main mass of the French Army. The British and French units were either forced of the continent or surrendered. This then meant that the Germans had a massive material superiority and were able to win the battle for France which occurred some time after the expulsion of the British.

Deighton defines Blitzkrieg as the movement of the Panzer Divisions around after the initial break through. The allies reaction was one of confusion and inactivity. Later in the war narrow penetrations such as this would be subject to massive flanking attacks seeking to encircle the attacking forces. Blitzkrieg to Deighton was the use of rapid movement to create a sense of paralysis and hopelessness in the other side.

At the conclusion of the book Deighton goes on to say that in his view, the campaign in the West was the only time that Blitzkrieg was successfully executed. The character of the Russian campaign was different. Narrow based penetrations failed on numerous occasions such as the Russian attacks at Kharkov in 1942 and the Russian attacks on Army Group Centre in Operation Mars.

Deighton is a novelist and his books are easy to read. This book is good as it has thousands of line drawings of the types of weapons used by all sides. It has tables of the performance of all weapons and graphs explaining the performance of aircraft. It is an extremely interesting and readable book. At the current price it is good value.

This is a well researched, heavily illustrated and easy to read book on the subject of Blitzkrieg or 'Lightning War'. The specific area of interest is it's application by the Germans in their invasion of Holland, Belgium and France in the summer of 1940. The meat of the book is in the middle. Part 3 (Blitzkrieg: Weapons & Methods) looks at the development of the Blitzkrieg concept, originating, Deighton says with Prussian military doctrines. Ideas by English Tank experts such as J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddel Hart were added later. This section of the book naturally spends a fair amount of time on the emergence of the Tank and it's use as one of the principal weapons of Blitzkrieg.

Blitzkrieg is defined as 'a swift, sudden military offensive, usually by combined air and land forces'. Deighton adds - 'and as evolved by Heinz Guderian and used by his forces', giving credit to the man who perfected the concept. Indeed, the German breakthrough at Sedan in May 1940 (see Part 4 'The Battle of The Meuse') and the subsequent routing of the French army is a spectacular example of the use of Blitzkrieg. Offcourse any discussion about battles in France in 1940 must conclude with the Germans surrounding and trapping over 250,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the French coast near Dunkerque.

It is to do with Dunkerque that the most startling supposition emerges from the book. The introduction was written by Gen. Walther Nehring, who in 1940 was Guderians' Chief of Staff and was with him at Sedan. Nehring writes with conviction, and Deighton's arguments seem to support the view, that if not for a precipitous Halt Order by Hitler, the German forces could have captured the entire BEF. It is argued that the prospect of a 'Disaster at Dunkerque', rather than the miracle that we have come to know of, would have been too much for the British to stomach. The opportunity for sueing for peace and of obtaining an end to the war by May 1940, would have been a real possibility in such circumstances.

I read this book in 1980 not long after it was first published in 1979 and I found it to be a very easy to read account of Hitler and the German Army during the early period of World War Two. As mentioned in the earlier review, the author offers a general overview of this period but covers such things as Hitler and his relationship with the German Army and its commanders, Hitlers 'style' of warfare, the concept of 'Blitzkrieg' and the weapons & tactics involved and finally the camapign in France. The book is well researched and is very easy to read with 20 maps, 59 B&W photos and a number of line drawings and charts to assist the reader. I do not think that the book or any of its ideas has aged since it was first published in 1979 and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to understand how the German Army conquered all before it in 1940.

I read Len Deighton's work 'Blood, Tears, and Folly,' several years ago and found it to be an insightful and educational look at the early period of the Second World War. His other book, 'Blitzkrieg,' takes an even closer look at the development of German armor tactics during that same period. While the first hundred pages or so focuses more on the political situation in Germany during Hitler's reign, the bulk of the work, which explores the theories of such armoroed proponents as J.F.C. Fuller, B.H. Liddel Hart, and Heinz Guderian, makes for an account both unique and extremely helpful to those seeking to understand just how Germany conquered so much, so quickly, in the first years of the war. A great work!

Balanced/technical. Shows how Germany won at the start of the war. Boldness and some luck, but mainly how the English and French old guard were expecting WW I trench warfare to be the game while Germany took to heart one battle in WW I to show that if you broke through the front lines with armour the battle was won if you quickly consolidated. But for some "old guard" German decisons, England would have lost 1/4 million men at Dunkirk. This book really explains what happened. First one I've read that appears to have all of the story. Excellent writing by Deighton.

This book is the clearest precis of Hitler's rise that I have yet to read. From the end of WWI to the co-opting of the Center Party in Germany to the fall of France, this has it all. It is eminently readable, lucid and cogent.

In this book Deighton looks at the political social, and econmic factors, as well as German military history in the 1930's to show how this led to development of the panzer division, and Blitzkrieg. Much of this book is spent decribing Hitler's rise to power, terms of the 1918 treaty, and the political games that were played out in the 1930's giving Germany it's new empire. This is important, because it had such a large effect on how Germany proceeded for the rest of the war. The book then goes into the development of tank warfare, how the tatic evolved from the shock troops at the end of WWI, how Germany's leaders had found new better ways to fight, and why the allies were still so backward in their thinking.

Dieghton points out that in May 1940 the only real difference between the German and allied armies was their leadership and tatics. Deighton gives a clear and easy to understand analysis tank warfare, as well as giving very good backgroung into the sorounding political and social situations that many WWII history books lack.

Len Deighton is one of my favorite fiction writers; he is particularly at home writing novels about Germany in World War Two. Thus, when I came across a scholarly work by him on the same subject, I snapped it up and read it with great interest.

This is a very interesting book. It appears to be well-researched, although some reviewers have been critical of numerous details in the book. I am not in a position to judge how valid these criticisms are.

That aside, there is no doubt that this book takes a hard look at its subject: the Blitzkrieg method of warfare. I came away from the book with the conclusion that Blitzkrieg, at least in the 1940s, really only works when one side has a far greater degree of preparedness for war. In France, perhaps the purest example of the Blitzkrieg, the French were bereft of elan or enthusiasm for the war, and its Army was infected with defeatism, bad tactical doctrine (strictly defensive, with no thought of attack), and bad leadership (the elderly General Gamelin, the Commander-in-Chief, was holed up at a luxurious chateau that did not even have radio or landline contact with the rest of the Army!). The German Blitz succeeded because the Germans took chances such as wildly extending their flanks and supply lines--these chances worked against an enemy who was slow to react and burdened with bad tactics, intelligence, and leadership. In short-they worked against the French. It took the Russians, and later the Anglo-Americans, to show the Germans how to fight tank battles.

Deighton also makes a convincing case that the Wehrmacht, although inferior to the French as regards equipment, carried the day due in part to inspired tactical leadership by Guderian and other German commanders (Rommel was one) and much sounder tactical doctrine. No surprise here.

Overall, an interesting look at the early portion of World War Two on the Western front.

I found this book very enjoyable. It was full of interesting facts and moved as smoothly as the fiction the author writes. It starts with a good overview into what took place in Germany to lead them up to the 1939 attacks. It provided an easy to grasp view of the tactics that the German armor forces used to such devastating effect. I also think this work shows the benefit of training and strong leadership, many times the Germans did not have the type of numbers that are generally thought of as needed to attack fixed forces. The additional drawings and diagrams make the test easy easier to understand. This book moves as fast as the battle it describes, it is well worth the purchase price.

A brilliant analysis of the steps and missteps that led up to WWII and Hitler's rise. It is the best on the topic that I have read.