No, not at all; it wasn’t even his idea. Rapid, shock attacks using armored forces and close air support were just a variation of the same sort of thing they’d been doing with cavalry and artillery for centuries. The modern incarnation was created by 1930s military thinkers like Manstein, Liddell Hart, and de Gaulle.
Actually, Manstein had little to do with the concept of blitzkrieg. It was Heinz Guderian who wrote the book Achtung Panzer! that first advocated the use of pure armor divisions as first strikers, with artillery and infantry following behind, in Germany. I say “in Germany” because deGaulle certainly did anticipate Guderian by arguing for elite, professional armor units comprising their own divisions, etc. The difference was, because of the Versaille agreement limiting the German officer corps, the Germans did not have such an entrenched hierarchy and Guderian was able to have much more influence than de Gaulle ever did in the French military. Hitler’s role in the whole thing was basically to approve of Guderian’s ideas and ensure they were used. Manstein had little to do with it. You might be including him because of his role in formulating Plan Yellow (the French invasion plan), but he was not a major contributor to the idea of fast, mobile armored units leading invasions…as was Hart, de Gaulle and Guderian.
Hitler’s main strength was his political acumen. He really was a brilliant politician and was able to read the public mood, even in foreign countries, quite accurately, given the fact that there weren’t too many public opinion polls going on at the time.
I don’t know if this counts as something good about Hitler. Are we talking about things Hitler did well, or are we talking about character qualities that might somehow counterbalance (even very slightly) the fact that he was an evil psychotic that killed millions?
Wasn’t meant to be a joke. The History Channel had interviews with a former driver who used to take him to his Niece’s flat as well as an interview with a confidant of hers.
He supposedly liked to be “trampled” by women, on some occasions enjoyed coprophilia, and of course since this info comes from a niece if you are to believe it then he was incestious as well. I suppose it could seem funny if you thought I was joking, but clinically speaking most of these things are symptomatic of other issues with his psyche and certainly not entirely out of charachter for a power monger.
The Volkswagen, definately. (Hitler and his Nazi friends did have a hand in designing the VW Beetle. The Anti-Defamation League confirms this, as they used this as a complaint over a Beetle ad with the phrase “It’s got chutzpah.”)
He also reiterated what Napoleon taught us-you can’t take over Europe singlehandedly.
Please note that even the German hierarchy had a hard time swallowing Blitzkrieg. Guderian was repeatedly halted by his superiors whom were greatly concerned by his dashing penetrations into the Allied forces in France. He actually had panzers on the beach at Dunkirk, but was recalled (under protest) by worried superiors.
George Patton was the first commander to have the resources, opportunity, and balls to execute Blitzkrieg, and he stunned the Germans with it. Read-up on the 3rd Armored’s dash across France (note:If you’re blitzing actroos the enemy countryside make sure the forces on your flanks can and will keep up, or you can cause major problems within your own side)
Sparc, by refusing to acknowledge that even a consumately evil bastard like Adolph Hitler had some (limited) redeeming qualities, you’re falling into an old, old trap. When you dehumanize evil, you make it harder to recognize in your fellow man.
You say to yourself: Evil has no good qualities, therefore this man (or woman) can’t be evil, because they’re {insert redeeming quality here}.
John Wayne Gacy used to make little kids laugh at their birthday parties. Ted Bundy was a charming and skilled conversationalist. Timothy McVeigh served the US honorably in the Army. Jim Jones was a brilliant orator. Each of these persons are evil, but this got overlooked, or ignored, by people that only wanted to see the good.
Hitler demonstrated personal physical courage, was an artist (albeit fairly limited), was capable of compasion, was a brilliant orator, and had many other attributes that in another person would be admired. In what way does Hitler possesing these traits make them any less admirable? Or shall we now forevermore despise brilliant orators, personal courage, mild artistic tallent, and so on…?
I think not.
It’s Hitler’s redeeming qualities (limited though they may be) that highlight the sheer, putrid, abysmal depth of his evil. No one would be surprised to find an utter reprobate to be evil. It’s when you find an otherwise normal person that has descended to the nadir of blackest evil that we truly understand of what evil mankind is capable.
Never demonize your enemy… That allows him to surprise you.
Blitzkrieg is just another type of Geurilla warfare. Geurilla warfare dates back to 1500’s during the reign of Shivaji in India(an expert ion Geurilla Warfare)
But Blitzkrieg includes the use of the aircrafts to mop up…
JeDi 0nLiNe
I also heard that his niece killed herself because she was in love with a Jewish man and her uncle wouldn’t leave her alone. Or in love with someone-and she wanted to get away, and Uncle Adolf was too demanding.
I also heard he hated cats.
And perhaps maybe-yes, the Soviet Union might have fallen sooner. But a lot of people said Stalin and Hitler were sort -polar opposites of evil, and kind of played off one another.
The basic problem with looking for some redeeming quality in Hitler is that all his adult life, and especially after the end of WWI, was dedicated to the establishment of German dominance of Central and Eastern Europe by the reduction of other people in the area to the level of actual slavery and later their elimination. His political agenda was simple tribalism and his instrument was the reestablishment of German (pan-German) militarism and good old fashion imperial despotism. Given that, it is hard to think that the autobahn, the Volkswagen, a love of Wagnerian opera, and a modest talent for watercolor cityscapes can in any way ameliorate the fundamental brutality of the man and his regime. It is a little like pointing out that Al Capone sent nice flowers to funerals, even though he had necessitated the occasion.
Hitler was fundamentally a gangster. The amazing thing is that a cultured and civilized society allowed its self to fall into the man’s control. It is not as if his objectives were not apparent from the beginning, although perhaps not the extremes to which he was willing to go to obtain them. His brilliance, if any, was a gift for bullying and demagoguery, combined with the talents of an educated, technically advanced and resentful society.
Not true, surely? Blitzkreig involves the use of aircraft in the spearhead, to smash enemy defences, not as a mopping-up tool. Guerilla warfare suggests to most the use of inferior forces to harass and delay enemy movements, through sabotage and hit and run raids. Blitzkreig was anything but; a massive concentration of armour, air power and mechanised/motorised infantry to smash through enemy lines.
See? Another good quality. 
Tranquilis, you are certainly correct. Both the Germans and the French were reluctant to completely embrace armor. However, my impression is that the French were FAR more reluctant than the Germans. While it is true that the Germans were more dependant on horses than the French at the beginning of the war, my impression was that Guderian was able to have more influence on military tactics than de Gaulle was in their respective armies.
The French had superior armor, and superior quantities of armor, to the Germans at the begining of the war. What they lacked was good doctrine. On the few occasions when French were able to fight according to their own doctrine, they bloodied the Germans fairly convincingly.
English doctrine was mediocre, and their armor was too slow and too few to seriously affect the outcome of the early war, save in one critical instance: A counter-attack by a column of British Matilda tanks mauled a German column, and the light tanks (mostly PZKW MkIIs) on scene got clobbered by the relatively heavily armored & gunned British tanks. This is the event that got Guderian pulled off the beaches of Dunkirk, allowing the escape to take place. Utterly critical to the war’s outcome.
Spavined Gelding has a good handle on the issue of Hitler’s humanity, save one point: By examining all of Hitler’s personality, we can finish examining him completely… Knowing all about him allows us to fill in the blanks, and get a real grasp on what made him tick. Understanding human nature is important to us all, and by examining in honest detail the extremes, we learn the most about the human condition. It sucks to have to look into that dark, vile place where Hitler dwelt, but if we don’t, how will we recognize the other denizens of that place…? Best we explore it thoroughly, that we may never be surprised again.
zen101 I’ll rephrase myself, when based on extremely vague evidence and hearsay there is always the risk that a seriously minded remark when dealing with fecal matter and what-not may come across as a joke in bad taste.
Tranquilis, your point is a good one and I fully agree in principle, but you fail to see my point. I’m not saying that even the most evil of evil beings cannot have any redeeming qualities. I’m not trying to dehumanize evil. I’ll even venture as far as to say that I know myself to be capable of evil like most other human beings are, but I compliment myself with plenty of nice and cozy qualities (I hope I am right). I’m saying that in the specific case Hitler, the more I look the less I see. For instance, I for one don’t agree with the four attributes you pin to him except on one account; he was indeed an incredible orator, but that’s so ambivalent due to the content that I forget it even if I listen to recordings of his speeches quite regularly and even recorded they are remarkable.
There is no reliable evidence of compassion that I have heard of except towards his dog, and I’ve heard quite a bit. There is much evidence of lack of compassion towards even the very people closest to him i.e. family, lovers and friends that I have heard.
His physical courage is perhaps debatable; it’s just as easy, if not easier to call it nihilism.
It’s of course an opinion, but it is my humble opinion that he sucked ass as an artist.
So I’ll rephrase: IMHO there was nothing good about Hitler, except that he was a good orator.
Take Stalin as a counter example, arguably as evil and despicable as Hitler. If not in any other way equal, he was at least on par in homicidal efficiency. In him I find it a lot easier to see a three-dimensional person with varied qualities, some even redeeming, like a sense of humor and love for his family for instance. He seems human, albeit utterly twisted, sick and evil human. Along your lines he helps me understand evil. So do many of the other ultra sick characters in the top level of the NSDAP, like Himmler, Goebles and Goering.
Hitler doesn’t let me understand him at all and therefore I am all the more fascinated.
As regards the Blitz Krieg what’s missing to make it Hitler’s and not Guderian’s alone is the addition of air strike and command organization that ranged all the way to the top. Guderian provided the idea of panzer strikes by independently operated units, supported by heavy artillery followed by mobile infantry, Hitler added the idea of independent higher command structures for the panzer units and the support of heavy air strikes directed at the ground. Without Hitler’s additions it wouldn’t have been Blitz Krieg.
Further, it is correct that there was opposition from the very start within the Wermacht, but to say that Blitz Krieg was not put into efficient use is negating the rather tremendous success they experienced on the field in Europe up until December 1941 and in Africa till late summer of 42. Even if it was a move in defeat the desperate counter strike that initiated the Bulge in 44 is a rather remarkable feat considering that they held back the allies temporarily with a one to one force ratio, the German strategists were the ones to first calculate a four to one ratio for certain success in a Blitz offensive before the war and a two to one for even remote chances.
Sparc
World Eater, you might be relieved to know that Hitler stole the idea for the Beetle from the Czechs. Hitler saw a prototype of the Tatra at the Berlin autoshow and pumped the designer Hans Ledwinka for information about the car, and then gave this info to Porsche who developed the Beetle. After the war, VW quietly paid Tatra an undisclosed sum of money for patent violations.
And Hitler’s “goodness” is dependant upon how you define “good.” Most of the modern warfare tactics and equipment in use today were pioneered by the Nazis under Hitler. Had Hitler not been quite the meglomaniac that he was, the outcome of WW II could very well have been different.
Hitler was also the only person to offer the Germans anything, when most Germans had little to nothing. One would hope that the world would never see the likes of him again, but, alas, that is not the case.
Nevermind wrote:
Don’t be dissin’ my feces!
It makes decent fertilizer, if nothing else.
I’ve thought about writing a very short, extremely controversial book called “Hitler’s Good Ideas”. They pale in light of his staggering blunders of tactics and morality, without question (not to mention unleashing the virus of world fascism/nazism/assholism that has yet to subside completely) but he did:
Come up with the Autobahn highway system that was the direct influence for America’s Eisenhower Interstate system Next time you’re taking a I-20 for a quick 4 lane to Cali insted of scenic Route 66, make sure and say a quick “thanks, Hitler!”
And of course, we hated everything he stood for, but even after the war we couldn’t deny the coolness of his…Olympic Flame. His personal idea for the 1936 Olympics in Germany, and used ever since. Nazis were big on flame. It stirred them up and made them think of Wagner and blood and such.
I think there might have been a few more, but I forgot them.
He gave us, in the Nazis, the one group of movie villian it’s really pretty much okay to stereotype and turn into cartoon cannon-fodder.
He also reiterated what Napoleon taught us-you can’t take over Europe singlehandedly.
Blitzkrieg is just another type of Geurilla warfare. Geurilla warfare dates back to 1500’s during the reign of Shivaji in India(an expert ion Geurilla Warfare)
But Blitzkrieg includes the use of the aircrafts to mop up…
Sorry about that last post, I was trying to collate all the points I’m about to address and accidently posted them:
No, both men taught us the opposite. Both men took over pretty much all of Europe. They just couldn’t keep it for very long.
I suspect guerrilla (or guerilla) warfare strechtes back far longer than that. Blitzkriegs have absolutely nothing to do with guerrilla tactics.
Guerrilla warfare is built around the idea of taking an inferior force and using terrain to dance around the enemy, trying to do as much damage as possiblewhile exposing your forces as little as possible. These tactics involve the avoidance of any real engagement, and require rough terrain where the superior force cannot be brought easily to bear on the lesser. The guerrilla forces are usually extremely light, and have little or no heavy iron.
Blitzkrieg involves massive shock attacks to crush the enemy before he can react effectively. The Germans did this by massive air power, armor, and mobile infantry to rapidly overwhelm the enemy. Their speed enambled them to find good battles where they wanted on the offense, and also attack the foe before he could regroup after a loss. Tacticly, they used infantry to open up a hole in the enemy lines through which their light armor rushed and rolled up the opposing force like a sardine can lid.
Note that Guerrilla fighting is a primarily a tactical consideration, while Blitzkrieg is more of a strategic one, though as with most military doctrines, involves a dash of the other side opf war.
Guerrilla warfare doesn’t count on having aircraft at all. Blitzkriegs use it to attack in the primary force, not as a mere mop-up tool.
What would Raiders of the Lost Ark be without villainous Nazis? 
Ummm… Not really:
He earned those Iron Crosses as a messenger. In the trenches, Messenger==Sniper-Bait. The fact that he survived, and survived while taking risks that were worthy of two Iron Crosses is rather impressive. He shoulda stayed in the army, where he’d probalbly retired as a senior NCO, and gone off to make a squalid living off his pension and paintings. We’d have never missed the SOB…