Blitzkrieg

We have just celebrated May 8^th, VE Day, the day that Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies in 1945, 80 years ago this month. But let us wind the clock five more years further back, to May 1940, when western Europe’s five-year Nazi nightmare began, 85 years ago this month.

Blitzkrieg, literally ‘lightning war’ in German, was the term used to describe Germany’s explosive invasion of its western neighbors. It remains one of the most dramatic and complete victories in military history.

Germany’s campaign had two phases: the first, launched in April, attacked Norway and Denmark, established German control over the Baltic, and challenged British naval control over the Norwegian Sea, the Denmark Strait, and the North Sea. The second phase, launched in May, resulted in German victories over Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland and France. By the end of June all continental European countries were either in Germany hands or neutral. Britain was the only European country still capable of offering resistance against Hitler—and after Dunkirk, not much.

The following chart indicates how long the various countries were able to resist the onslaught. The shortest was Denmark, which surrendered in 6 hours. The longest was Norway, which required several German naval task forces to capture its long, sparsely occupied coastline (Norway is 1,100 miles long from north to south with a jagged coastline of 82,000 miles!) but was mostly under German control within three weeks, by the end of April, when British troops began to withdraw.

As the maps show, the attacks on Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France were indeed lightning advances and, on the defenders’ side, successive abrupt collapses.

Fall Gelb—Case Yellow

Germany’s conquest of Poland, which began World War II in September 1939, was followed by several months without further action, known as the ‘Phony War’ in Britain, the ‘Sitting War’ in Germany and the ‘Joke War’ in France. During this period Hitler was offering peace to France and Britain and simultaneously preparing to invade western Europe under a plan codenamed Fall Gelb or Case Yellow.

Fall Gelb called for simultaneous attacks toward Holland in the north, Belgium in the center, and southward toward France.

Fall Gelb

The breakout through the Ardennes was achieved in large part by Heinz Guderian in command of the 2^nd Panzer Division, and Erwin Rommel in command of the 7^th. They were both commanded to pause their attack, in accordance with the preset Fall Gelb timetable, but continued forward, claiming to be conducting a ‘reconnaissance in force.’ They raced from the Meuse all the way to the French coast and reached it by May 21^st, cutting off the French and Belgium armies and the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium. This made the defense of Paris hopeless and ensured Allied defeat.

Hitler foolishly halted his attacks short of Dunkirk, where the British and some of the French army had been isolated, allowing over 300,000 men to retreat across the Channel in perhaps the greatest escape in military history. The evacuation of Dunkirk, known as Operation Dynamo, conducted by a wide variety of civilian craft as well as naval ships, began on May 30^th and ended on June 3^rd.

Winners and Losers

The keys to Germany’s victory were, I think:

• Attacks led by Panzer battlegroups consisting of massed, fast-moving tanks, with mechanized infantry in armored troop transports, which could punch through relatively static Allied defensive lines.
• An integrated bombing campaign, using medium bombers and dive bombers, which softened up Allied defensive positions and terrified civilian population centers.
• Speed: it took the German forces only five days to conquer Holland and only eleven days to race from Germany to the French coast, a distance of over 200 miles.
• On the Allied side, poor planning, poor intelligence, and poor generalship. (It is interesting to note that five years later the Germans surprised the Allies again in the same place when they launched the Battle of the Bulge.)

The imbalance between the forces, both in terms of quality and quantity, remains remarkable. As the following table illustrates, the Allies had numerical advantages in all categories except in aircraft. Both sides fielded over 3,000,000 men, but I estimate that only half of those, at best, were sufficiently trained and equipped to fight. All numbers are approximate.

In terms of quality, although the Germans had Panzer IIIs and IVs, many of the armored battalions were still equipped with the older, lighter, Panzer Is and IIs. The Allies had more heavily-gunned, better-armored tanks, particularly the British Matilda and the French Cha B1.

The German forces also relied on horse-drawn transportation for their supplies, a weakness that would dog them throughout the war. (They took 600,000 horses into Russia in Operation Barbarossa, for example.)

The only area of clear German numerical superiority and qualitative equality was in the air, where the Luftwaffe had the superb Bf 109 fighter and the highly effective Junkers 87 Stuka dive bomber. The British deployed Hurricanes but kept their Spitfires in reserve—an inspired decision because the Blitzkrieg was followed immediately by the Battle of Britain.

Despite their relative weaknesses, the German victory was complete, as illustrated by each side’s losses. The French lost a staggering 8% of their male population as prisoners of war.

Paris fell on June 14^th, 35 days after the launch of Fell Gelb, and Hitler came to inspect his trophy on June 23^rd. Paris would remain in his hands until August, 1944.