Blitzkrieg! Hitler's Lightning War

Blitzkrieg—Hitler’s “lightning war” tactic—combined devastating air attacks with swiftly moving ground forces. The Germans tested their theories of air-ground coordination in the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War, a proving ground for German and Soviet weapons and tactics. In September 1939, Hitler launched his first blitzkrieg in Poland and captured the Polish capital of Warsaw in twenty-seven days, igniting World War II.

Hitler’s blitzkrieg tactics lost their magic in the sand of North Africa and in the mud and snow of the Soviet Union from 1942 to 1945. Allied forces took the final measure of Hitler’s lightning war in the Ardennes Forest, during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.