The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West [Hardcover]

Oberst Karl-Heinz Frieser, an officer in the Bundeswehr and military historian, delivers a detailed and thought-provoking analysis of the Wehrmacht's 1940 campaign in the west in The Blitzkrieg Legend. Frieser sets out to strip away the hype and wartime-era propaganda about Blitzkrieg in order to establish what the Wehrmacht intended to accomplish and how it achieved one of the greatest operational-level victories in military history. The book's main focus is on Panzer Group Kleist and Guderian's corps during the crossing of the Meuse; German operations in Belgium and Holland, as well as the follow-up "Case Red" offensive into the French heartland are addressed in passing. Overall, Colonel Frieser's analysis of the decisive elements of the German campaign is first-rate, as well as his discussion of the related military theory behind the German success.

The author's main thesis is strategic in nature, namely that the Wehrmacht did not plan Case Yellow as a Blitzkrieg, but expected a long, drawn-out attritional struggle against the Anglo-French powers. While the author cites Hitler's directives before May 1940 to suggest that the campaign merely sought to achieve "a favorable position" in northeast France and Belgium, this is less than convincing. Since the author makes little effort to examine German industrial mobilization other than eschewing the notion of a "Blitzkrieg economy", he does not really examine whether Germany was in fact, preparing for a long war. Based upon German production of tanks, artillery, aircraft and U-Boats, it does not appear that the Third Reich was preparing for an attritional war with the Allies. Although Hitler's deal with Stalin and his invasion of Norway do suggest that Hitler was protecting Germany's access to raw materials, the level of military mobilization in 1940 was far below what Germany was capable of achieving. The author also concludes that the campaign was decided by military factors, not social or ideological factors. He says that French generals later tried to use problems of the Third Republic to conceal their own ineptitude, but the poor morale of French troops in May 1940 was clearly widespread. Thus, the author's strategic-level hypothesis is rather weak.

The author is on much surer ground on his assessment of the operational-level factors behind the campaign. Colonel Freiser cites three developments in operational art that laid the foundations for Blitzkrieg: the overcoming of linear thinking of the First World War and the willingness to embrace risky, non-linear operations; the refinement of the stosstruppen tactics of 1917-18 and their adoption by mechanized forces; and the emphasis on schwerpunkt, breakthrough, encirclement and pursuit. The Blitzkrieg outcome in 1940 was a fortuitous result of the convergence of three factors in Germany's favor: better use of technology (communications and mechanization), air superiority and the superior German Auftragstsktik methods. Three specific factors added to the scale of the German victory: the abysmal state of French command and control deprived them of any chance of seizing the initiative; Gamelin's faulty Dyle-Breda plan wasted the French reserves on an useless effort to link up with the Dutch; and German commanders like Rommel committed unauthorized advances that were unpredictable and hence, led to a catastrophic French collapse.

The campaign narrative on the critical period of 10-25 May 1940 is superb and well supported by 48 color maps. This volume clearly surpasses works like Horne's To Lose a Battle in terms of detail and tactical insight. The description of the assault crossing of the Meuse, Guderian's decision to exploit westward and the subsequent destruction of the French armored reserves is superb. Although the author's viewpoint is German, there is still a great deal of new information presented about French operations. For example, the author notes how the French Air Force was underutilized, with one fighter wing sitting in reserve for virtually the entire campaign. In the final stages of the campaign, the author discusses the panzer halt order at great length, concluding that von Rundstedt and not Hitler, was primarily to blame. Throughout the book, the author notes the clash between the conservatives like Halder, Kluge and von Rundstedt who wanted to slow the panzers and the extremists like Guderian and Rommel, who ignored risks. I think the author's easy dismissal of the "flank psychosis" that caused the panzer halt is a bit retrospective, because it certainly must have been very hard to believe that one million Allied soldiers would simply sit there and allow themselves to be surrounded.

The author also discusses the various factors that led to the German failure to close the trap at Dunkirk, thereby allowing the BEF to escape. He then concludes that the escape of the BEF transformed the success of `sickle cut' into an "ordinary operational victory." He concludes that despite victory in France, Germany could not win against the superior economic resources of the Allies and that, "the panzer operations of the German blitzkrieg were very much like jousting against the windmills of superior industrial potentials." This is a bit much to swallow. I suppose that it is now politically incorrect for a German author to even suggest that the Third Reich might have achieved victory if Hitler had only been able to settle for something less than world domination, but the fact of the matter is that England alone could not possibly have defeated Germany. The quick German victory in the West cut the Allied powers down from 4 to only 1 and while Britain had significant air and sea potential, it had no ability on its own to contest Germany's continental power. Even with US involvement, all that industrial potential could only come ashore in France a few divisions at a time, and as long as Hitler kept the war confined to only England, Germany had hope for a win or draw. It was the invasion of the Soviet Union that changed the equation against Germany.

At last this important work on the 1940 German conquest of France is available in English!! (I got so tired of waiting that I actually bought the French edition.)

This book is revisionism at its best. The author has an impressive command of the huge literature on Case Yellow, and has done considerable original research in the archives. He systematically destroys many myths and illuminates some obscure aspects of this pivotal campaign. For instance:

-- Germany was actually preparing (badly) for a long war of attrition and did not have a "Blitzkreig Economy".

-- German tanks were inferior in numbers, armor, and gun power to French tanks.

-- Most German infantry divisions were composed of overaged WWI veterans or "reservists" with no prewar training.

-- Most German generals opposed the whole campaign and expected it to fail. Even Hitler was shocked by his victory.

Most of these points have been made before by other authors, but nobody else has assembled all of them in a single short and readable book.

But the best part of the book is the maps. They aren't translated into English and they have been shrunk down a little too much for easy reading, but they are still the best maps available for the key battles of 1940. Keep a magnifier handy and study them frequently.

I can't give this book five stars because Freiser is sometimes a little careless with the facts. For instance, he treats all of the French light tanks as effective anti-Panzer vehicles because they had 37mm guns. In fact there were two very different models of French 37s, and the most common one was a short gun salvaged from scrapped WWI tanks. This weapon was far less effective at piercing armor than the long 37s mounted in German and Czech tanks. I also think he exaggerates the performance of most French aircraft.

The common wisdom as expressed in dozens of World War II histories was that the German army developed 'Blitzkrieg' tactics of mast moving armor using air power as front line artillery between the wars, field tested the concept in Poland and then put it to it's full us in France.

Dr. Frieser, is an infantry officer in the Military History Research Institute of the Bundeswehr in Potsdam. He analyzed the French campaign -- called 'Case Yellow' by the German Army and says, 'No.'

He presents some excellent arguments that the Germans were as surprised as the rest of the world at how fast the Allied armies collapsed.

This book is likely to become one of the standard references on the German campaign in France. First it is written from the German side - not all that common in the available literature. Second it is extensively researched and references point to a huge array of material not commonly seen. Third, it illustrates that there was no magic on the part of the German officers, just good leadership, especially at the middle levels.

Highly recommended.

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