Blitzkrieg
Born on this day, 70 years ago, in the invasion of Poland: The coordinated use of armor, infantry and air power to penetrate opposing lines with lightning speed to encircle and destroy targeted units. As significant as the tactics were, the strategic maneuvering was that much more so. Possibly the single most cynical, murderous act of modern history, when you consider all that ensued. The invasion of Poland by Germany followed the signing of the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact by a week. The Soviet Union jumped in for its agreed-upon share on Sept. 17.
Blitzkrieg. That’s like a bad joke. It turned out to be anything but, for all involved.
Stalin of course later learned that his secret dealings with Hitler had done nothing but strengthen Germany and the Wehrmacht with Russian wheat, oil, ore and other vital war materials, while his own paranoid decapitation of the Soviet military and ridiculous strategic planning, or lack thereof, cost literally millions of lives and very nearly destroyed the Red Army within a few months of Operation Barbarosa.
Before it was over in 1945, an estimated 60 million to 80 million people were dead.*
In Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War, Chris Bellamy’s exhaustive history, he estimates that the Russian population is down more than 100 million as a result of roughly 25 million losses in World War II. Which means there are something like 300 million worldwide who were not born. American losses at 400,000 mean we’re down about 1.5 million of your cousins.
All war is local, so here are a couple of books by authors who represent my own one degree of separation from the great men of that time. I interviewed Jan Karski and William Shirer in the 1980s. Shirer, a CBS correspondent, had met Hitler. Karski, a Polish army officer, was smuggled into concentration camps by Poland’s Jewish Underground to bear witness, prior to being dispatched by the Polish Underground to London and Washington, where he met with Churchill and Roosevelt. Shirer, about 83 when I spoke to him, was a little impatient. He’d done it quite a bit before. Karski, in his early 70s, was a pleasure to talk to. I stumbled on a first edition of Karski’s book within a week of his death in 2000. It is a great personal account of the invasion, his time in the resistance, and his mission. Which earned him ”Righteous Among The Nations” honors from Israel and kick-off position on this quick reading list.
Story of a Secret State Jan Karski
LIFE Magazine, Aug. 28, 1944: POLAND by Jan Karski; PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY: Saipan
Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust E. Thomas Wood
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany William Shirer
The Second World War Winston Churchill
A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II Gerhard Weinberg
The Second World War: A Complete History Sir Martin Gilbert
Quest for Decisive Victory: From Stalemate to Blitzkrieg in Europe, 1899-1940 Robert Citino
POLAND BETRAYED: The Nazi-Soviet Invasions of 1939 David Williamson
Path to Blitzkrieg: Doctrine and Training in the German Army, 1920-39 Robert Citino
Poland 1939: The Birth Of Blitzkrieg Steven Zaloga
Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, And Atrocity Alexander B. Rossino
BLITZKRIEG UNLEASHED: The German Invasion of Poland 1939 Richard Hargreaves
There’s your quick list. Your suggestions in comments or via the “contact” feature above.
A reader named Patton weighs in with The Second World War John Keegan, and Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe Robert Gellately
* The dead include my uncle, my boss’s two uncles, and the uncles of several other friends, all combatants. I’m alive, maybe, because my father got a job as an apprentice in a Melbourne shipyard as a teenager, repairing ships from the Pacific theatre, and when he was old enough they wouldn’t let him go. Vital industry. Plus entire non-combatant families, men, women and children, of several people I’ve known over the years. The rows upon rows of graves at the Kwai where we’d do the ceremonies for the dead when I was a Boy Scout. Then there are the ones we’ve all known who were left scarred, physically or emotionally, though they might not have shown it. My dad’s friend missing an eye from the Bulge, a journo professor who lost his leg as a POW after he bashed it going out his B-17’s bomb bay doors. The rough-edged but good-natured Russian tank commander I worked for pumping gas in San Francisco, with a couple of stumps where fingers were supposed to be. He taught me how to siphon gas, laughing when he said, “This is how we used to do it.” The old German friend of the family whose father went off to Stalingrad and didn’t come back.
Topics: Europe, history, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:30 pm on Tuesday, September 1, 2009
2 Responses to “Blitzkrieg”
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September 2nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Great List. I would add for WWII newbies - from the Time-Life Illustrated history of World War II, “Blitzkrieg” by Robert Wernick. Pretty easily available at your local library or used bookstores anywhere.
For a very poignant look (much in color) at what happened in Poland, go to Google’s Life Magazine image archives and google “Poland 1939″ (”courtesy” of Nazi photographer Hugo Jaeger). Click through all the way to get the full-size images. Very haunting.
September 4th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
“I’m alive, maybe, because my father got a job as an apprentice in a Melbourne shipyard as a teenager, repairing ships from the Pacific theatre, and when he was old enough they wouldn’t let him go. Vital industry.”
Jules, that’s like my grandfather on my mother’s side, who spent WWII in Mobile AL welding Liberty Ships. Reserved occupation. Of course, it might have been less dangerous at the front: the fumes from the welding in closed compartments and the asbestos applied as fireproofing to every surface laid the foundation for the mesothelioma and emphysema that killed him….. and my grandmother got enough fibers while washing his clothes to affect her too.
We owe them a debt we’ll never repay.