The German Reichswehr - the military of the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933 - is far less well known than the Imperial German Army of the First World War or the Wehrmacht of the Second World War, but James S Corum's The Roots of Blitzkrieg goes a long way toward correcting that deficiency. This is not a popular history but rather, a scholarly analysis of how Germany rebuilt its army after defeat in the First World War and laid the groundwork for combat success in 1939-41. At the center of this account is General Hans von Seeckt, commander of the army from 1919-1926 and Corum focuses much of the book on the period of von Seeckt's reforms. After reading this book, readers may wake away with the impression that the harsh restrictions imposed upon Germany by the Allies in the Treaty of Versailles may actually have helped von Seeckt to build a better army than he might have if unrestricted. Not being allowed to keep a huge stock of outdated arms from the First World War forced von Seeckt to seek development of new and better weapons, including those developed in secret collaboration with the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the reduction of the German regular army officer corps from 60,000 to only 4,000 enabled von Seeckt to keep only the very best leaders. The author concludes: "this process of rebuilding the German Army is one of the most impressive and significant military accomplishments of the twentieth century."
The Roots of Blitzkrieg consists of eight chapters and an epilogue. Corum begins with von Seeckt's emphasis to study and learn from the mistakes of the First World War to build a new doctrine for the Reichswehr. As the author notes, the victorious Allies paid little attention to learning from the First World War while the defeated Germans assiduously scooped up all the essential lessons for their new war-fighting doctrine. Interestingly, von Seeckt attached great importance to both tanks and gas warfare, both of which he saw as war-winning tools. The second chapter covers von Seeckt's re-evaluation of German military doctrine. Von Seeckt saw "the key to future victory was mobility" and the answer to the enemy's superior numbers. Despite the demonstrated strength of the defense witnessed in trench warfare, he emphasized an offensive orientation for the Reichswehr. The result of von Seeckt's re-evaluation was the `Leadership in Battle' regulations, written in 1921, that had a strong influence on the development of German tactics up to 1940.
The third chapter deals with debate within the Reichswehr. To his credit, von Seeckt did not enforce orthodoxy but allowed serious professional debate within the Reichswehr about doctrinal development. There were three opposing schools of thought: the defensive school, the psychological school and the `People's War' school. The fourth chapter deals with training the Reichswehr. Since the Allies had limited the Reichswehr to only 4,000 officers but set no limit on NCOs, von Seeckt re-structured the Reichswehr so that more than half the army was composed of NCOs. He created a `Fuhrerheer' - an army of leaders - where NCOs were trained to be future officers and paving the way for future force expansion. Tactical training of officers and NCOs in the Reichswehr was superb. Chapter five covers the development of modern weaponry. The author discusses German covert development of new artillery and tanks using shadow companies abroad and secret training bases in the USSR. The author claims that Germany did not fall behind in any areas of technology but this is not entirely true, particularly in vital areas such as the development of a reliable diesel tank engine. He places considerable emphasis in this section on development of tanks and motorization.
Chapter six covers the development of German armor doctrine. Corum highlights the role of Ernst Volkheim in leading development of tanks. Far from opposing tanks, von Seeckt endorsed them and set the stage for organizing the first prototype tank battalion in 1927. The author points out how Guderian's role in German armor development has been exaggerated. Chapter seven covers the development of the Reichswehr aviation doctrine. Chapter eight covers the Reichswehr's development of war plans and mobilization plans, as well as its multi-division training exercises.
Overall, this is a very well done scholarly analysis. The level of research that went into this is evident in the footnotes and list of sources used. There are some areas that the author did not cover which might have shed more light on the relationship of the Reichswehr to Germany's performance in the Second World War. He does not discuss the Reichswehr's doctrine in regards to logistics or intelligence - two key areas of battlefield weakness. Also, he only compares Reichswehr doctrine to French, British and American doctrine which, considering the military laziness of the democracies during the interwar period, is not exactly fair. Since the real test in the Second World War would be German versus Soviet doctrine, it would have been worthwhile to compare the Reichswehr with its most likely opponent. The author also tends to skip over some of the problems in the early days of the Reichswehr - troops not getting paid for months, lack of discipline, political unrest - that paints perhaps too rosy a picture of von Seeckt's army in 1919-1923 (e.g. no mention of the Reichswehr's role in Hitler's Beer Hall putsch). Up front the author said that he wanted to avoid some of these political issues, but by omitting these complications, he presents a somewhat abstract version of the Reichswehr. Nevertheless, James Corum's The Roots of Blitzkrieg provides a superb examination of how Germany rebuilt its military in the interwar period and laid the doctrinal groundwork for one of the greatest war-making machines of all time.
