Talk:Blitzkrieg/Archive 4

Main picture
Is the current main picture in the article a fitting one? It is set in 1943 depicts Panzergrenadiers and a heavy Tiger I tank. I suppose a heavy tank and the year 1943 are not exactly classic with Blitzkrieg, even a Stuka wing would represent the subject better. Any ideas? --Pudeo' 20:52, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. The ideal picture would be one of German armoured formations massing to attack in Poland, 1939 or France, 1940.  I have looked around but have not yet found a good one in the commons.  I think the picutre chosen is attempting to illustrate a combined arms assault, which is part of a blitzkrieg assault, certainly, but not the most important part. Kursk, though, is definitly not a good choice to depict a blitzkrieg. Gunbirddriver (talk) 05:41, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

On the use of the term Blitzkrieg
The term was used during the war in German publications http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GTw4AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT317&lpg=PT317&dq=Milit%C3%A4r-Wochenblatt+1938+blitzkrieg&source=bl&ots=8_4-ZWK8gr&sig=T0gLX4vPYaw2xY7aVmmTipnHBuU&hl=es&sa=X&ei=1OXNUrfUFpKihgf4z4GIBQ&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false --Bentaguayre (talk) 00:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

American Civil War and Blitzkrieg?
Notable recent additions by User:Harold Knudsen assert Blitzkrieg had origins in the American Civil War during the Battle of Chickamauga. Interesting, but it's not as much stated in the Chickamauga article, just the following:


 * "Historian Harold Knudsen has described this deployment on a narrow front as similar to the style of the German Schwerpunkt in World War II, achieving an attacker/defender ratio of 8:1."

I would think most of what's been added to Blitzkrieg would belong there, but apparently it was added there, but reduced to just this by other Wikipedians.

As brilliant as Longstreet actions may have been, I don't see this as recognized as leading to Blitzkrieg, even by a minority of historians, other than Knudsen.

Until these ideas become echoed by other notable historians, I don't think Longstreet belongs in this Blitzkrieg article. --A D Monroe III (talk) 16:31, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * We are really talking about maneuver warfare, where Blitzkrieg as practiced by the Germans in 1939-41 was a type. It seems to me the term Blitzkrieg should not be used in conjunction with the Civil War, as that is rather far afield from the Panzerwaffe and those men that developed its methods, which I believe is where this article should be focused. The maneuver warfare material would be better placed in its own article, where mentioning Longstreet's effort to disrupt and collapse a defensive position and exploit a breakthrough would not be out of place.Gunbirddriver (talk) 16:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Mr. Monroe, I agree with you that Longstreet's use of a schwerpunkt at Chickamauga did not lead to "Blitzkrieg" and I say that clearly in the addition I made in that section. But Blitzkrieg is really a slang term that probably encompasses a lot of aspects of combined arms warfare 1939-1941. As a military professional that trained with combined arms maneuver warfare for two decades, I would say many things since WWII would probably be labeled Blitzkrieg if the word was applied more liberally after WWII. American combined arms warfare of the 1970-90s is an updated version of many things often considered Blitzkrieg. I don’t see any real connection between the American Civil war and the word Blitzkrieg, but there are modern aspects of the American Civil war that carried forward in maneuver warfare, which are or were loosely termed Blitzkrieg. One such is Sherman’s March to the sea, and how his corps moved on spread out axis of advance. This is similar to how the German armies moved in their wheel into France in 1914, and also 1870. Cavalry tactics evolved from the Civil War into modern missions for the cavalry arm once it changed into a motorized arm – the missions of guard, screen, and reconnaissance are distinct roles for cavalry evolved in the Civil War. Aspects of these things were part of German operations 1939-1941 as well, and so fell under this larger label.

I am referring to Longstreet having arranged an attack formation that is similar to what transpired in the tactical level in the 20th century. That is a fact simply through comparison of where the units were placed, how by doing so created a force ratio advantage, which is what a schwerpunkt does, and so there is great similarity.

If there are sections, such as schwerpunkt, that provide some detail of parts of what came under the term, I think it is appropriate to show this 1863 comparison of a schwerpunkt in the schwerpunkt section of the article, because it is a large scale example of one from the 19th century. There were followers of the American Civil war in later decades that paid attention to successful tactics, operations, and strategies which were brought forward and tried at later times. I do not know if there is a thread we can connect from Longstreet to other military thinkers in Europe that eventually arrived in the minds of Hutier and Guderian for example, but aside from a link, it is still significant and worth showing this early one happened. I think this article of Blitzkrieg should include the maneuver warfare trends of the time and where they came from in earlier periods, as part of the organization of the article. It’s a slang word that was not a hard fast doctrinal word in the German military, as the author of the Blitzkrieg Legend argues, so encompassing aspects that could fall under it as not too much of a stretch. I too have had the opportunity in my life to discuss with German WWII vets about the word, and they told me there was no such thing in military terminology in their training. It was something the media created.Harold Knudsen (talk) 13:55, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Blitzkreig is not not only maneuver warfare, it is a slang word for offensive armored warfare mostly. It is an operational level type thinking mostly that harnesses the mobility and range of tanks, and supports tanks with fire support from air and artillery, and also motorized infantry to take distant objectives. It uses maneuver warfare, schwerpunkt, and other components, and all the components have earlier origins. In my opinion, it might be a good thing to have examples of the components.Harold Knudsen (talk) 14:26, 21 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I am in no way criticizing your connection between Longstreet and Blitzkrieg; I'm not a qualified authority; it doesn't matter if I like your rationalization or not, or even if I understand it or not. It doesn't matter if anyone else on this talk page likes or understands it.  Such debates belong in proper peer-reviewed publications on military science and history, not here.


 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, reporting the current, prevailing sourced information, not championing new theories. My only concern is about the prominence of this asserted connection between Longstreet and Blitzkrieg in this article.  I don't see that it appears in any historical references beyond the single source.  Unless new sources are given that echo this, showing it is at least a notable minority view, I don't think it belongs in the article, or at least not at such length and emphasis.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 16:55, 21 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm looking for some consensus on the status of this CW/Blitzkrieg section — Remove, reduce, ignore, counter, expand? Thoughts? A D Monroe III (talk)


 * Remove. The term Blitzkrieg does not conjure up images of James Longstreet and the Civil War. Mobile warfare, or maneuver warfare, is a broad subject. IMO, Blitzkrieg should not be nearly so broad. Gunbirddriver (talk) 00:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * After several months, no sources beyond the single one supporting this viewpoint have been provided. Per what consensus we have, and per WP:UNDUE, I will now removing the stated American Civil War connection with Blitzkreig.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Need for editing
Currently, the section on General Longstreet and the Battle of Chickamauga contains this sentence fragment: "Demonstrating a level of operational thinking in selecting a target in the rear area of the Union Army with further pursuit that would effect both Union wings." This sentence no verb. Alas, I'm not sure just how to fix it, unless it started, "General Longstreet demonstrated..." If anybody knows just what the author intended, please make the correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JDZeff (talk • contribs) 01:35, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The note about Fanning (from my article "The Origin of the Term 'Blitzkrieg': Another View,' Journal of Military History) has the following, somewhat inaccurate statement. "He asserts it was not used by German military theorists or by the German army prior to 1939."  I mentioned in my article two separate instances:  In the December 1938 issue of Militaerwochenblatt, Lt.Col. Viktor Braun contributed the article "Der strategische Ueberfall."  The opening sentence reads as follows:  "Nach den Zeitungsnachrichten hatten die diesjaehrigen franzoesischen Manoever den Zweck, die Bedeutung des strategischen Ueberfalls--auch 'Blitzkrieg' genannt--zu pruefen."  The other was an address by General Georg Thomas, head of the War Economy and Armaments Office of the High Command of the Armed Forces, to members of the German foreign service on 24 May 1939.  Thomas said: "Es ist nicht meine Aufgabe Ihnen Ausführungen zu machen über die Möglichkeiten und das Gelingen oder Nichtgelingen eines solchen Blitzkrieges. Ich persönlich glaube nicht daran, dass eine Auseinandersetzung zwischen den Achsenstaaten und den Westmächten eine Frage des Blitzkrieges—also eine Frage von Tagen und Wochen sein wird." This comes from the Nuremberg Documents (IMT, vol. 36 No. 122 (Doc. 028-EC).

I have actually found more than forty instances of the use of "Blitzkrieg" prior to WW II, but only the two above in a German context.71.14.151.210 (talk) 21:02, 6 May 2015 (UTC)William J. Fanning, Jr. ("The Origin of the Term 'Blitzkrieg': Another View," The Journal of Military History 61 (April 1997): 283-302.

Edit in picture description
Under the section "Use of Air Power" in the description for the image of the Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers, I edited the link to read as 'Ju 87 "Stuka"', as the previous link only read '"Stuka"', which I felt could be better expressed as the designation of the aircraft in addition to the "nickname" of the craft; is this appropriate? It is my first edit of an article and I don't yet have a feel for what is appropriate and what isn't, even after reading the editing guidelines. If my explanation wasn't clear I can expand on it, if needed. SygerrikJenrys (talk) 12:20, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

CE
Did some more copy-editing and realised that I've interpolated British spellings; sorry, I'll take them out. How about this, add a brief section on German military thinking 1815-1914 Clausewitz, Moltke, Schlieffen, Von der Goltz on bewegungskrieg and ermattungskrieg. Follow this with the "Post war" section, then the Operations 1939-45 section, then wartime and post-war views about blitzkrieg as an idea and myth and the effect of motorisation, wireless and air power on WWII independent of any theory of war?Keith-264 (talk) 07:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Tried to address a problem in the Notes section and made it worse so have blanked for the moment.Keith-264 (talk) 14:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Blitzkrieg
Capital B or not or depending on circumstances?Keith-264 (talk) 14:33, 12 August 2015 (UTC)


 * In German, all nouns are capitalized. So, if Blitzkrieg is used as German language, then it would be capitalized, and usually italicized as a foreign word.  But I think it long ago went beyond being just German, and is used in English as a loanword (like "kindergarten"), and should be lower-case, unless quoting something in German.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:42, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * So lower case [and no italics] except where it is being cited from a German source [from] the time then?Keith-264 (talk) 05:50, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That's what I believe, but MOS:FOREIGN isn't clear on the subject. It gives one example, "Gestapo", with caps, but states no actual policy.  I favor making it more English than that, since (as carefully noted in the article over the past couple of years), the term, as used in the West, wasn't really German to start with.  RS's tend to use it either way, but I think the lower-case version is more common recently.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:01, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I asked about this over at MOSCAPS, and it was pointed out that "Gestapo" is only capitalized because it is a proper noun (sorry for not noticing that). Thus MOS and WP usage apparently agrees with the lower case blitzkrieg in English.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:05, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Conversion to sfns
Complete except for Taylor 1974, haven't a clue which Taylor sadly. Some bibliographical details still missing.Keith-264 (talk) 11:46, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It was added with THIS EDIT, and the editor that added it didn't provide further details in subsequent or proceeding edits. EyeTruth (talk) 20:41, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems odd to have a notes section and then put some back into the references section, is it really necessary?Keith-264 (talk) 06:40, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Those are direct quotes specifically from the citations they are attached to. I've seen it done like that in a number of articles. All of the older notes in the article elaborate on narrow subtopics while citing several sources. For the excerpts, it would look like an unnecessary repetition to repeat a citation twice for exactly the same thing (one for the main text and again for the quoted excerpt). Also if the quoted excerpts are separated from their in-text citations, they are surely bound to eventually get orphaned or comprehensively misplaced in future edits (I've seen this happen before several times). What do you think? EyeTruth (talk) 22:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd put the quotes into the text if they're that important or into the notes with the rest if they aren't. Is it because of the wide variation of opinion among editors on the validity of the term, that the article is somewhat over-cited (to my eyes)?Keith-264 (talk) 05:48, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * over-cited is fine provided the host of citations is made to look neat enough. But separating quotes from citations will eventually lead to some of them getting orphaned. However, many of those quoted excerpts are not even necessary. EyeTruth (talk) 20:55, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What's the difference between {{harv| and {{sfn| ?Keith-264 (talk) 06:03, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There are a few differences in their technical limitations. The main difference relevant to this article is that harv (and its variants like harvnb, harvs, harvtxt, etc) can handle nesting (i.e. a reference-markup within a reference-markup), but sfn can't. Sfn markups are same as ref tags but are coded to link inline citations to their full bibliographic citations. I tried to make the notes cleaner by nesting the harv markups with ref tags, which should have produced neat square brackets, but since all were already nested within efn markups (which are just a variant of refn), even harv couldn't handle the double nesting and the whole thing broke. The only way I know to get the citations in the notes into neat square brackets is to move the content of the notes back into the main text, which would mean only one nest is required, but that severely clutters the markups in the main text. One way around it, would be to make the citations in the notes look like APA style with parenthesis.EyeTruth (talk) 20:55, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I get by with sfns and efn but then I have rarely had to cite lists of names; I put sfns in after the full stop, a crude but serviceable method. I'd thought that was a way of using the sfn form in an article which used the ref . I thought something had gone wrong, when I looked at the overnight edits, then managed to make it worse in note B.Keith-264 (talk) 21:16, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Many editors use nested harv for that too. But Sfn can always substitute harv nested in ref tags without any hassle, so there is absolutely never a need for harv nested in ref tags, unless when trying to bypass the limitations of nesting sfn or ref tags. So yes, sfn and efn (or refn) together are more than sufficient for most tasks. I'll see what I can do for the notes section later. EyeTruth (talk) 21:45, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

CE
@ EyeTruth ?Keith-264 (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry that my response of undoing much of your copyedit came off as a bit too heavy handed. It was just that trying to correct the issues at that moment looked like a lot of work. One of the major issues is that some of the new statements are not quite correct. It's not just "some historians" that consider Blitzkrieg not to be a formal doctrine or concept of the Wehrmacht; but to put it more correctly, anyone will have a very hard time finding any works authored by a reputable historian within the past two or three decades that claims otherwise. Also there were some orphaned wiki-markups and long chains of square brackets that rather interfered with the read. In deed, all of these could have been fixed without the need for an undo, but it would have required a copyedit that is at least half as intense as the one you did. EyeTruth (talk) 04:24, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Dispute the details by all means but most of the changes were of grammar and punctuation. Let's go through them and separate the ones you didn't agree with from the ones that you did, that way the improvements won't be lost. RegardsKeith-264 (talk) 06:40, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * True. Your copyedit made the lead cleaner. I admit fault for acting lazily. I'll restore it and then fix any issues. EyeTruth (talk) 06:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I only saw one citation with red on (I have a few add ons User:Keith-264/common.js) but sometimes they don't show up straight away and I'm useless at harvnb notations. It's a rather good article and it won't take much to reach B class, perhaps we could do that? Keith-264 (talk) 07:25, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Ahem! It's already B class.... (sheepish grin).Keith-264 (talk) 07:27, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Does anyone know who Taylor 1974 is?Keith-264 (talk) 07:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've altered a few citations which had red on them but found 17 which I fear I created inadvertently and don't know why they're showing up at the bottom of the page. Does anyone else? RegardsKeith-264 (talk) 00:55, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed. EyeTruth (talk) 06:10, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks babe, has there been a discussion here about agreeing a common system of citation? There are <> harvnb and sfn at the moment and I'm only really sure about sfn, which may have bearing on me causing more problems than I've solved.Keith-264 (talk) 07:45, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * CE the Operations section, which seems to be a cross between a narrative and a case study of Blitzkrieg without any criteria. It seems to me that this is an inherent problem when combining a concept and a description of events in an article, particularly when the concept is vague and has changed since the term was coined. Tooze called Barbarossa the only Blitzkrieg of the war if it is understood to be a "synthesis of campaign plan, military technology and industrial armaments programme all premised on the assumption of lightning battlefield success. No such grand synthesis had been conceivable prior to the campaign in France...." p. 430 Tooze Wages of Destruction (2006)Keith-264 (talk) 09:35, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I missed this response, and didn't notice it until now. Different authors hold different views on what the nuts and bolts of blitzkrieg entails, and within their own premises they are almost all correct, because blitzkrieg was never official nor did it ever have a formal structure. Some authors argue that by their own definition of blitzkrieg, it began in Poland in 1939. Others will insist it only began in 1940 (France) or 1941 (USSR). The article will need to convey that nebulosity, assuming it already doesn't. EyeTruth (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've half a mind to complicate things by adding Foley's demolition of the view that German strategists only thought in decisive Clausewitzian terms before 1914. A reference to the Schlieffen Plan (sic) as a plan for decisive victory, rather than a deployment plan, which was expected to create a conquered hinterland, useful in a war of exhaustion (ermattungsstrategie), needs qualification because it sheds light on the blitzkrieg myth. As you point out, myth makes definitions tautological.Keith-264 (talk) 21:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It occurs that a history of the idea of Blitzkrieg might come first and that the uses of such ideas by writers might be done chronologically by campaign, it could look a bit like case-studies if the writers referred to are put in order, to show the rise and fall of the idea.Keith-264 (talk) 21:32, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Good order. It would be more comprehensive that way for a reader. EyeTruth (talk) 05:05, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * How many editors have an interest in the article? I'd be interested to hear their views about structure.Keith-264 (talk) 06:42, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The article looks good, and the context is important, but the Military change, 1919–1939 section looks a little bit excessive, especially the Britain-France-URSS pieces. The doctrine of the Germany army is important too, but it looks much connected to the "blitzkrieg" term for something that had existed for a century before. That's almost half of the article. AdjectivesAreBad (talk) 02:31, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

BRD on is blitzkrieg "war" or "warfare"?
It may seem trivial, but a nascent edit-war has started over whether to describe blitzkrieg in the lede as a type of war, or a type of warfare. Per WP:BRD, I'm asking for opinions and a discussion to reach consensus.

I think it's warfare, not war. Currently, our article stresses the association of blitzkrieg with armored warfare, and that it's operational/tactical, not strategic. Also, as it notes, the Germans did not apply any kind of "blitz" (quickness) for the war in total; they instead stressed the long-term aspects of a war of industry/resources for the long term, specifically opposed to the short-term war strategy planning by Germany when starting WWI. Plus, having one nation apply blitzkrieg at the start of WWII did not make the entire war blitzkrieg; a lot of WWI-style frontal assaults continued to be employed by other nations, only some of which later started applying the new style of warfare to some of their specific war operations. --A D Monroe III (talk) 19:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's a method of warfare. WWII, and most modern wars, are too vast to have any single method. Blitzkrieg was once considered to be strategic by some historians, but that perspective is now largely obsolete. Also, while some German officials and senior officers stressed the need to prepare for a long war, the German leadership as whole still did little to prepare for a total war until 1943. EyeTruth (talk) 21:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm neutral in this warfare. The article is dealing with a thing which didn't exist, except as a rhetorical category, so arguing about it being tactical or strategic is pointless. If the passage is using the term in the sense of the obsolete view that Blitzkrieg existed, it's indubitably strategic, since it was supposed to be a way round German resource constraints. We know that it is a spurious term and we also know that some of the changes to war brought about by internal combustion engines, wireless and aircraft can be mistaken for it. As for 1914, that the Schlieffen Plan as a blueprint for a quick victory, was just as spurious. (Hence me mulling over a short section on 1870-1914 and the post-war fabrications by the Reichsarchiv).Keith-264 (talk) 21:05, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Bliztkrieg, while embellished with a lot of mythology, did exist in retrospect. It's true that it wasn't part of any military doctrine, and over the years its definition has strolled all over the place, but there was a loose pattern to the German style of manoeuvre warfare which observers came to refer to as blitzkrieg. There was indeed a pattern to the German style of manoeuvre warfare, albeit it wasn't a very consistent one. But because there are no formal or institutional constraints on the term, it becomes easy to shove all sort of things into it. Even the First Gilf War has been called a blitzkrieg. EyeTruth (talk) 21:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Gilf? Is there something I should know? ;O) That the Germans pulled off some quick wins is indisputable but consider the opposition, apart from the Franco-British, the Germans didn't fight formidable opponents until the Red Army. I follow the Tooze view that Barbarossa was an attempt at an industrial, strategic synthesis for a quick war and that it too was determined by dearth against plenty, to create the resource base necessary for a long war against the Anglo-Americans. I think that the article reflects your point about the word becoming a portmanteau term, since there is commentary on the history of the word, its use as a heuristic device, chicanery by the likes of Liddell Hart and the relatively recent knowledge in English language scholarship about the reality of the German war economy.Keith-264 (talk) 21:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant "Gulf". Proofreading what I type hurts my head sometimes, so I skip it sometimes. France and Britain were both very formidable opponents in terms of quantity and quality of war equipment. In those same terms, the Soviet Armed Forces was vastly far superior to the Wehrmacht. As a German military doctrine, concept or strategic plan, blitzkrieg did not exist. There were a set of military methods and styles that characterized the Heer during the first half of WWII, and observers decided to shove all these various bits into a single term blitzkrieg. But the term was just a good buzz word for the media, because those set of methods and styles were never viewed or executed as a cohesive concept by those who practised it (unlike something like the Soviet deep battle), nor did they even give it a name. The myth that was perpetuated for a long time was that blitzkrieg was all these things that it wasn't. As a retrospectively defined style of warfare though, blitzkrieg has a place. EyeTruth (talk) 22:58, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps as a historical artefact, during a period when the term was adopted by the English-language press to explain German success in non-systemic terms and then by wartime and post-war commentators and hack writers but not as an adequate description of how it really was. The section on the responses of the armies to the lessons of the Great War could be better but it does show that adaptation to the machine-isation of war continued after 1918 and the case-study section shows how this was revealed in Spain, Manchuria and then western Europe; it was a generic phenomenon with variations determined by the objective circumstances of the various societies, economies, geographies and ecologies. Using blitzkrieg as a generic term for those developments will saddle it with all those obsolete connotations the article presents so well.Keith-264 (talk) 07:08, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree. On a side note, the term is still used ubiquitously by historians, including many of those who have written on its origins and misconceptions. EyeTruth (talk) 08:06, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (ec) This discussion isn't on whether blitzkrieg exists; it at least exists as an article, like aether (classical element), so must be described in some matter. The question is here a minor detail on how.
 * , you're neutral on this? So calling "warfare" is okay?  --A D Monroe III (talk) 21:45, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It isn't a minor detail, it's the essence of the article. I think you're being a bit touchy but I'm not climbing onto a barricade about it. If your heart's set on it go ahead.Keith-264 (talk) 22:17, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm just trying to keep the talk/article text ratio below 1000:1. ;)  --A D Monroe III (talk) 22:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Frieser
Somewhat curious about J. T. Greenwood appearing in the sfn, if he's an editor, shouldn't he be cited as such in the long reference not in the sfn? I thought that was for co-authors.Keith-264 (talk) 07:44, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * He is a translator. Frieser is a German historian and his work was originally written in German. EyeTruth (talk) 10:12, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it seems laborious to add his name to the sfn, is it an American usage?Keith-264 (talk) 10:39, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It’s more of a technical limitation. The cite book template doesn’t have a parameter dedicated to rendering “translator”. The parameter “other” can fill in that role though. EyeTruth (talk) 21:50, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Iv'e been putting things like that in edition or others too.Keith-264 (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

American
I'm rather enjoying trying to spell everything wrong (er, in American English, that is) but I'm not as sure about usage. It's my experience that possessive apostrophes are deprecated and that when a military unit is first mentioned, the commander goes in brackets after it, rather than with a possessive apostrophe in front (except where there is a proprietary connotation in early modern armies, when colonels were subcontractors) and the surname only is used after the first mention. When referring to a writer, does the name really have to be prefaced by a noun like historian? When describing someone's work, it's a fact that he/she wrote but is it a fact that he/she "claimed", "concluded", "argued" or "contended" if they don't use the word like Slavoj Zizek does? Avoiding repetition of wrote is fine but I wonder if these synonyms are justified when they have connotations of commentary, which makes it OR?Keith-264 (talk) 11:37, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Characterising what an author writes as "claimed", "concluded", "argued" or "contended" depends on specifically what they wrote and how they wrote it. Of course, if the wrong or misleading characterization is used, that would be WP:OR or WP:SYN. EyeTruth (talk) 22:56, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * If they write "I claim" or "I argue" OK but if we describe something in those terms, not OK.Keith-264 (talk) 23:06, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * True indeed. Although someone can put up a whole argument without ever saying "I argue". EyeTruth (talk) 15:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes but that requires inference from us, even if it's an exercise in the bleeding obvious. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 16:02, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * While that's a reasonable point, WP policy says the opposite: "Source material should be carefully summarized or rephrased without changing its meaning or implication" (WP:NOR). If an author makes an argument explicitly (e.g. conspicuously pits their analysis against others that differ), then WP editors can rightly write "the author argued". EyeTruth (talk) 19:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Take care not to go beyond what is expressed in the sources: same source.Keith-264 (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In a paragraph talking about WWII events, the names of historians, when not clarified as such, can easily get mistaken for actual participants in those war-events. The same goes for the participants who often get their ranks mentioned as a means to clarify their role. I've seen these being done in copyedits for FAC or A-Class, almost unfailingly. But I'm ok with skipping those modifiers. I already started removing some of them. EyeTruth (talk) 21:49, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I prefer to add the year in brackets after the name, since the citation and reference make everything obvious to anyone who wants that information. I have the impression that adjectives, nouns and adverbs are common in American usage but I find them irrelevant at best. Interesting thing to explore though, thanks for answering.Keith-264 (talk) 22:08, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Edits being reverted for no reason
I made two very straightforward changes to the article. They were reverted without any proper explanation, but with some childish insults. The changes were:


 * 1) I removed the claim that the word is anglicized.  As the article itself says, it may have been coined by English speakers, in which case "anglicized" is obviously false.  Even if it was a German word originally, it has not been modified to appear more English, and thus has not been Anglicized.  "Cologne" is an Anglicized form of "Köln"; "Berlin" is not an anglicised form of "Berlin".
 * 2) I removed an extensive footnote appearing after "anglicized term", which interrupts the article to place important information outside the body of the text.  The information is entirely redundant with that presented in Blitzkrieg.

I explained these changes very clearly in my edit summmary. They have been reverted four times now, of which two made some attempt (albeit incorrect) to justify the restoration of "anglicization" but none attempted to justify the restoration of redundant text. The final revert by "Keith-264" contained a deeply insulting personal attack. I received an insulting warning from "Hohum" after restoring my changes twice; I see that no-one has warned "Keith-264" about his three unexplained reverts. 46.37.55.80 (talk) 09:51, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I thought that you made a dogmatic assertion then got aggressive when it was questioned. I'm opting out, goodbye.Keith-264 (talk) 09:55, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Having reverted my edits three times with no clear explanation, and twice accused me of vandalism, you should at least try to explain your bad conduct. A withdrawal of your disgusting false accusations and an apology for them is necessary.  And then you should explain your position on the article content.  46.37.55.80 (talk) 10:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Long-term abuse/Best known for IP clearly this guy. WCM email 15:23, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * My warning wasn't insulting. It's the standard twinkle warning for edit warring. WP:BRD is the accepted way to deal with an edit that is reverted; i.e. using the article talk page to bring the issue to proper discussion; edit summaries are not for this.
 * Blitzkrieg is an anglicised loanword according to this from Websters Third New International Dictionary.
 * You are due no apology from me. ( Hohum  @ ) 18:58, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Revisiting the IP's changes
The IP has been making 2 changes: As to (1), the Webster's citation linked at the end of the section two above this is a misinterpretation: what it refers to is the word having been "naturalized" into English so that it is no longer capitalized following German usage (under which all nouns are capitalized, not just proper nouns). It's not saying anything about the form or meaning of the word having been modified (the usual meaning of "anglicized"), just about whether it has become familiar enough for the German convention on capitalization no longer to be appropriate in this case. As to (2), the IP editor has a point; the note repeats information that is also in the text of the section, and also partially contradicts it (the material about English newspapers is not in the text). It's also very repetitive, and takes a very essayistic approach: "This scholar says this but this other scholar wrote that and this third scholar once said this other thing." Accordingly, I propose to try my own rewrite: I plan to remove the "anglicized" and possibly insert something in the lede to the effect that the term was popularized in English-language sources, and to incorporate the material from the note into the section text, possibly as a second paragraph, either removing the note or using it to collect the bibliographic citations. Unfortunately it will take me a bit of time and concentration to do this, and someone is yammering at me elsenet, so it will be an indeterminate amount of time, but I'll do it in one edit so that the two versions are easy to compare. Declaring my reasoning in advance. My further thought is that the lede looks awfully long - possibly there is material there that should be sectioned off, put in a body section instead, or removed as unnecessarily detailed for the lede. But I'll focus on the origins question in my edit and leave that larger issue for others to evaluate. OK? Yngvadottir (talk) 01:46, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Removing the statement in the lede that the term is anglicized.
 * 2) Removing the long note on the origins of the term.
 * A source which gives the word as an example of being anglicized, versus editor opinion. Wikipedia uses the former. ( Hohum  @ ) 02:16, 16 February 2016 (UTC)


 * OK, I have made my edit. I have never been able to handle the "harv" and "sfn" reference systems, so unless I get totally reverted, the refs will need to be reformatted to all appear as footnotes. I left out Holmes' position because I could not figure out from the text what it is, and I note that there are several mentions of his work throughout the article that are blanked out as hidden messages because the reference to "Holmes 2001" is broken, but there is a 2001 Holmes work listed. Please can someone who understands the referencing system used in the article rescue these, and if possible, someone who has access to the source, add his position to the Origins section? As to "anglicised", the way it was mentioned in the lede was misleading, because the word usually means "changed to a more English form" - like the IP's example of Cologne rather than Köln, but here we have a word that has not been changed, but is simply used so commonly in English that it is no longer treated as a foreign word. That's what the dictionary cite is saying. I would call that "naturalised". I see that the lede already says, with a footnote, that it was popularised in English before becoming widespread in German, and that's the point that needs to be made, so I didn't make any other changes to the lede. Are there other sources, including those we are already citing, that refer to it as an anglicised word? Perhaps one or more use a different term that we can usefully use? As it is, "anglicised" is misleading and adds nothing, so I do not see it as an improvement to restore it just because a dictionary uses it as an example of a German noun that is not capitalised in English. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:59, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Is the article written in British English? I noticed that the article is a work of many hands and perhaps it could be improved by one person copy-editing it in one prose style. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:32, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It seemed to me it was, so that's what I went with. I agree, the article seems in need of an overall going-over. I just went ahead and reduced the repetition I saw in the lede by a tiny bit. I'm concerned that in the Origin of the term section, Sternberg's book, which we are using as an early incidence of the term, was represented as first published in both London and Paris in 2014 (correct according to Worldcat is 1938 in both places) - when did that error creep in and are there any others, I wonder? Also there's the Holmes reference that I mention above. Thanks very much,, for additional copyediting including showing me what needed to be done to change the format of the references from what was note text. But I did disagree on breaking up the paragraph - if it looks too long on the page, I think the solution is to further condense the text rather than to split up the instances that have been introduced at the start of the paragraph. And I now see what is now the first note as also in part repetitive. I am no military historian, so I'm leery of making further bold edits, but I wonder whether the article was leaner and meaner when it was an FA, and it's just tendeed to accrete changes over time as successive editors have worked on it, or whether newer scholarship has necessitated changes in its shape. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:39, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I've run my new dialect script over it but if anyone prefers AmEng let me know.Keith-264 (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Please consider trying to keep paragraph lengths roughly the same (taking into account the pics etc in the margin that squash some of them.Keith-264 (talk) 09:24, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Engvar?
This edit changed all the American English to British English and added a EngVarB tag that wasn't there before, citing WP:ENGVAR as the reason. But per WP:ENGVAR, we must not change the variety of English in an article, without an subject-specific reason for one variety. Here, the subject is German, not British. Am I missing something? --A D Monroe III (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Didn't I do that? At first I thought it was in AmEng then later BritEng, so when I added the EngVarB to various articles having added the script, I thought this was already BritEng with some AmEng inconsistencies. I don't have an opinion on it staying BritEng, only that by clicking script, the article was consistently spelled. If you want it changing to AmEng, I don't mind. RegardsKeith-264 (talk) 12:06, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I remembered this article as being Amer English, but I've checked, and it seems it's been a mix of Amer and Brit English for quite a long time. Several years back, it was mostly Amer but not completely; since then, more Brit bits than Amer were added, until it became more Brit at the point of this edit.  So, while it was technically wrong to invoke WP:ENGVAR to change it to all Brit, I also can't invoke it to change it to all Amer.  Sigh.  (I know many Brits will want to jump in and explain why this is actually a British subject; I can guess your arguments, and I'm not impressed.  But I know arguments for it being Amer won't be impressive either -- probably even slightly less so.)
 * The article is now consistent, which is a definite improvement. So, it's British English.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:06, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Cognitive Dissonance
Reading this article, it seems that a great deal of effort has been expended to "prove" that blitzkrieg was nothing special, that every element involved was actually old-school tactics merely updated by modern equipment, that Hitler was in fact a dunce, nothing here to see, move along, etc etc.

This

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-and-eastern-europe/blitzkrieg/

shows quite a different view. Now, the following is not allowed on wikipedia - WP:Independent Thinking, WP:Application of Logic, WP:Use of the Brain, but it sure seems to me that the rapid defeats of Poland, France, Russia (Barbarossa), and almost England in the first two years of the war would indicate that in fact, the old-timers who were very well-versed in existing battle tactics were in fact  not ready for blitzkrieg. Which, to me and in violation of all the aforementioned Wikipedia policies, would indicate that a lot of this article is flat-out wrong. 210.22.142.82 (talk) 05:37, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * And you assume that the dozens of historians expounding the same information that is in this article, which is also the current accepted narrative, are all wrong, but you're right. Ok, sure! EyeTruth (talk) 05:54, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The Blitzkrieg theory needs a one-eyed view of the subject - the frailty of the opposition is downplayed. Historically, Germany invading Denmark or Belgium in 1940 is more akin to a war of colonial expansion like the Third Anglo-Ashanti War of 1873-1874 than a war between industrial states. The French collapse was the exception and is explained by local rather than structural factors. No doubt the learning site has some merit but it has to be considered in the context of the last thirty years of scholarship, from Cooper to Frieser. Keith-264 (talk) 07:41, 17 July 2016 (UTC)


 * It would be nice if blitzkrieg was a simple thing; we could shorten this long article down to a half-paragraph. But WP isn't a dictionary; it's an encyclopedia (and an incredibly massive one).  Like most important subjects, blitzkrieg is complicated, and doesn't have clear, tidy edges where it begins and ends.  WP reflects that.  --A D Monroe III (talk) 19:53, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

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Nomenclature
"Some senior officers, including Kurt Student, Franz Halder and Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg, even disputed the idea that it was a military concept." Was this after the war? If it was I'd begin the sentence with "After the war, some...."Keith-264 (talk) 10:42, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It doesn't specify when except for Halder (after the defeat of France). EyeTruth (talk) 20:30, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Usage
the word Blitzkrieg was rarely used as an official military term by the Wehrmacht during the war

The above statement in the article conveys purely the wrong message. "Rarely used" implied that it was used only very sparingly as an official military term, but that is completely wrong. The cited source makes it explicitly clear that the ONLY KNOWN USAGE were in propagandist settings. Granted, the absence of evidence doesn't equate to evidence of absence. But that's why it's more accurate to cast it as "practically never used" (i.e. the exact wordings of the cited source) or "rarely ever used". If you can't agree with "rarely ever used", then at least explain on what grounds you would reject the exact phrase ("practically never used") used by the cited source. EyeTruth (talk) 21:11, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a matter of plain English; practically never and rarely ever are fatuous examples of pleonasm. Notice that Frieser was translated into American not English, which means that it is in a dialect which should be treated with caution.

Despite its ubiquity in German and British journalism during World War II, the word Blitzkrieg was only used officially by the Wehrmacht for propaganda.

How about this? Keith-264 (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2017 (UTC)


 * There were non-official usage that weren't for publicity (e.g. Ludwig Beck talks about it in a lecture note and Franz Halder also after defeating France), because the simple fact is that it became a very common term in 1939/1940. But as far as official usage goes (e.g. directives, operational summaries, orders, etc.), there are no known usage. American English is English. The two phrases suggested above are fairly common ones and are in wide usage in published works (especially American). But I really do understand what you're saying, and I just wasn't able to come up with a better way to succinctly package that sentence and still convey the intended message without having to summarize several pages.

the word Blitzkrieg was never used by the Wehrmacht as an official military term, except for propaganda.

How about the above? If new material emerge, then that can be further updated. I know Robert Citino wrote a book on this subject, I think in 2010, which is much newer than Frieser's 20-yearold book, but I don't have access to it. EyeTruth (talk) 20:11, 21 February 2017 (UTC)


 * That suits me fine, now about those angels on a pinhead....;o) Regards Keith-264 (talk) 20:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The Myth and Reality of German Warfare: Operational Thinking from Moltke the Elder to Heusinger (2016) by Gerhard P. Gross looks tasty but it costs a bomb. Keith-264 (talk) 20:48, 21 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Quest for Decisive Victory: From Stalemate to Blitzkrieg in Europe, 1899–1940 (2002) R. M. Citino appears to be a poor effort if the look insides are representative. Keith-264 (talk) 21:24, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

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Operation Mike was on a wide front question?
We have a hidden comment in the article, at the end of the 1st paragraph of Blitzkrieg ("German" subsection):



The paragraph talks about infiltration tactics in Operation Michael. It was, indeed, on a wide front; how is this a problem? Since the first half of the paragraph talked about soldier-level tactics, and the second was about a wide operation, I guessed the question was about how could individual soldier tactics be done on a wide front. I removed the comment with my answer: successful tactics naturally lead to successful operations -- that's what they're for. The only reason to improve tactics is to have it affect larger operations. Tactics that don't do this are, by definition, a failure instead of an improvement. Infiltration tactics weren't a failure. QED, I thought.

But the hidden question was reinstated by with Sometimes not always the point is that Mike was a wide-front offensive. Sorry, why is that a point again? Infiltration tactics had storm troopers, they were effective, and that made the operation successful (as far as it went -- stalled by poor logistics before any breakthrough). Unfortunately, whatever the obvious flaw in my logic is here, I don't see it. Please, can anyone explain? --A D Monroe III (talk) 00:51, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * There can be confusion between tactical, operational and strategic success. The point is that Michael was a wide-front offensive and failed (operationally and strategically). The trouble with that part of the article is that it is confused since it refers only to the German attack and not the Allied defence, which pretty much guaranteed that the Germans would advance in the area of they attacked, because the vital areas on either side were far better protected. The infiltration tactics used by the Germans began in 1915, when the French used them at the 2nd Battle of Artois. The source for the section follows an older and obsolete view that the Germans did something in early 1918 that the French and British hadn't been doing for several years and projects it into an equally obsolete view that the Germans went to war in 1939 with a blitzkrieg ideology. It's hard to put that in a nutshell and altering the text will challenge much of the rest of it.Keith-264 (talk) 01:02, 4 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Let's try this nutshell, then:
 * 1. Michael had advances only because they attacked a weak part of the line?
 * 2. Infiltration tactics were invented by the French and British?
 * 3. Since the Germans didn't create anything actually called "Blitzkrieg", they didn't create infiltration tactics either?
 * --A D Monroe III (talk) 16:36, 4 October 2017 (UTC)


 * We can't separate the consequences of German behaviour from the context of their opponents. It is indisputable that the British made sacrifices in the area opposite Michael to be strong elsewhere and the Germans did the same to be strong opposite the Fifth Army; weight of numbers had something to do with it. When the Germans attacked further north on 26 March they were shot to pieces by the Third Army, which suggests that German tactics were either not monolithic or were not a panacea.Keith-264 (talk) 16:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The French published But et conditions d'une action offensive d'ensemble on 16 April 1915 (the theory of trench to trench attacks) and its derivative Note 5779 which was used for training.Keith-264 (talk) 16:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)


 * 3 They aren't connected but no and no, except in older sources like Gudmundsson.Keith-264 (talk) 16:47, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

North Africa and/or Southern Europe
The article mentions Blitzkrieg in the context of Poland, France and Russia. What about in North Africa; is there anything Blitzkrieg related going on there? Or in the Balkans etc GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Pervitin detail seems tangential
Can we either relocate or remove the comment about Pervitin at the end of the Pursuit section? It seems a little out of place in given the surrounding context is more about the German MDMP/OODA loop. Balkanghost401 (talk) 14:12, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I removed it.  I didn't relocate as its not relevant to any part of this subject.  --A&#8239;D&#8239;Monroe&#8239;III(talk)  17:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal but agree it should be relocated to the section with analysis by various historians. Norman Ohler argues drug use was essential to blitzkrieg and an important component of overall German military strategy:

"Ohler, author of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, believes that the German invasion of France was made possible by Pervitin. “No drugs, no invasion,” Ohler told The Guardian in an interview.

When Hitler heard about the plan to invade through Ardennes, he loved it. But the high command said: it’s not possible, at night we have to rest, and they [the allies] will retreat and we will be stuck in the mountains. But then the stimulant decree was released, and that enabled them to stay awake for three days and three nights. Rommel and all those tank commanders were high – and without the tanks, they certainly wouldn’t have won.""

from: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/05/pervitin-wonder-drug-that-fueled-nazi.html?m=1

In addition to Ohler's book, further down the article references Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War, by historian Łukasz Kamieńsk, saying he writes that, "Toward the end of the war, Germany began testing a new stimulant—a pill code-named D-IX. It contained five milligrams of cocaine, three milligrams of Pervitin and five milligrams of Eukodal (a morphine-based painkiller). Łukasz Kamieńsk says that D-IX gave men an “almost machine-like endurance,” and Hitler’s dream of turning Wehrmacht soldiers into near-robots looked almost real. But before the wonder drug could go into mass production, Germany lost the war."

Descriptions from French troops of the almost superhuman relentlessness of drugged Germans adds weight to its significance to blitzkrieg. Likewise, it adds weight to the argument that Nazi Germany didn't imvent any new strategy, but just augmented it with modern technologies, which included drugs as well as weaponry, etc. Lastly, it adds another dimension as to why the strategy was ineffective against the Soviets, as chronic drug use led to troop burnout, and its effectiveness was proven only in the relatively limited geographic regions of western Europe, and ultimately counterproductive across the eastern expanses.

To omit discussion of drug use related to Blitzkrieg and German military strategy more generally would be like omitting discussion of blood doping in a Lance Armstrong article. Youngea (talk) 05:24, 14 December 2020 (UTC)