What was 'blitzreig'?when did it star and ended?

Question

what are the lands occupied by the Nazi's during this war?
i have to do a paper presentation on 'blitzreig' in our class....
so i need a more detailed answer(hopefully)...

Answer 1

Blitzkrieg is a war tactic that drew upon some things learned near the end of WWI and extended into the broader German economy.

Important elements of blitzkrieg (or lightning war):
1) concentration of forces at the attacking points
2) coordinated assaults by tactical aircraft (like the dive-bombing stuka) and armor
3) fast encircling movements after initial breaks through the defending lines and infiltration by infantry with leaders trained to take the initiative

4) the economic part that make up the German blitzkrieg economy: production of war materiel to build up before the major campaign, but returning to regular production between campaigns - basically a way for the Germans to not have to ration so much

Answer 2

BDunn covered this very well. Blitzkrieg was a set of GROUND war tactics using combined arms (air, armor, infantry). It was NOT, as some have suggested, in any way related to "The Blitz", which was a term used for the Battle of Britain. Blitzkrieg does not equal "The Blitz".

BTW - Carrliadiere got the year wrong. The Battle of Britain was in 1940, not 1944.

Answer 3

Blitzkrieg is German for "lightning war".
It was first practiced by the Germans in the invasion of Poland in September 1939.

The deinition: an offensive operational-level military doctrine which involves an initial bombardment followed by the employment of mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense.

That reminds me of something else. Probably just a coincidence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe

Answer 4

Blitzkrieg?
I believe it means something like 'thunder attack', and refers to the heavy bombing strategies of the Germans during World War 2.
At this point in the war, which was 1944 onwards (the time during which Germany began aerial bombardment of Britain), Germany occupied Austria, France, Belgium and Poland.

That said, my source is an A-Level history course five years ago, so my memory could be failing me...

Answer 5

the blitzkrieg was a military stratagy developed by the germans during the first world war, and improved upon in the second.basically it involves overwhelming your enemy with land and air forces. kind of a precuurser to our "shock and awe". make sure to put that in your report.

Answer 6

blitz = lightning
krieg = attack, conflict

The Germans bombed Britain in 1940 when the French had abandoned the fight, and America had not yet come in, so Britain was alone in fighting the Nazis. Hitler thought he could finish them off fast and announced his blitzkrieg. The word "blitz" entered the English language to refer to the ceaseless bombing which took place every evening for months. It did not end until the British proved that they could not be intimidated by it, and the Royal Air Force started shooting down more and more Luftwaffe airplanes, largely by adopting the practice of not trying to shoot them down before they bombed the city but letting them come in and then pointing all their searchlights inward over the city so that the aircraft was brilliantly lit up by a cone of light and could be targeted by antiaircraft fire.