Andreas Posted March 17, 2004 Share Posted March 17, 2004 Just thought that instead of burying this in the end of the Panzergrenadier thread, I give it its own topic. Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andreas: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Determinant: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: "Blitzkrieg"? Talk about much hyped. Considering that's not a German military word, what is it you are actually referring to? Well you couldn't be more right old bean. It's a British journalists' description of what the Nazi war machine did to Poland, France and the Soviet Union (in the first few years of the War in Russia). </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V Posted March 17, 2004 Share Posted March 17, 2004 FWIW, I had always been taught that it was a term first coined by the Germans and made famous by the British reporter in question, though I fail to remember his name. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted March 17, 2004 Author Share Posted March 17, 2004 Frieser just quotes Addington, who gives an article in Time Magazine on the war in Poland as the first occurance. 25th Sept. 1939, but no author. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 Excellent. I think. But thanks! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 Funny, and I always thought it referred to warfare directed against Santa's eighth reindeer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firefly Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 Well Rudolftherednosereindeerkrieg doesn't exactly trip off the tounge. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John D Salt Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 Originally posted by Firefly: Well Rudolftherednosereindeerkrieg doesn't exactly trip off the tounge. True, but some of the others might be useful. I'm not sure whether "Dancerkrieg" or "Prancerkrieg" would be a better synonym or "manoeuvre warfare". I was under the impression that the Italians were the ones who first talked about "lightning war" ("Guerra lampo"). I believe that the Italian title of the Marx Brother's film "Duck Soup" is "La Guerra Lampo", so the term must have achieved popular recognition by the early thirties. All the best, John. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amedeo Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 Originally posted by John D Salt: I was under the impression that the Italians were the ones who first talked about "lightning war" ("Guerra lampo"). I believe that the Italian title of the Marx Brother's film "Duck Soup" is "La Guerra Lampo", so the term must have achieved popular recognition by the early thirties. John, the Italian tite of "Duck Soup" was actually "La guerra lampo dei fratelli Marx" ("Marx Brothers' lightning war") but since the movie was prohibited in Italy and Germany in the '30s, I'm almost sure it was a post war (i.e. when the term Blitzkrieg was in widespread use) translation. Regards, Amedeo 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John D Salt Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 Originally posted by Amedeo: [snips]John, the Italian tite of "Duck Soup" was actually "La guerra lampo dei fratelli Marx" ("Marx Brothers' lightning war") but since the movie was prohibited in Italy and Germany in the '30s, I'm almost sure it was a post war (i.e. when the term Blitzkrieg was in widespread use) translation. That explodes that theory, then. Nonetheless I am fairly sure that "Guerra Lampo" was in Italian usage before 1939; in Sebastian Kelly's excellent "Amedeo" (good title for a book, eh?) he mentions, speaking of events in 1941, that Mussolini had been talking about "lightning war" for many years. Given the part played by Italian Arditi in pioneering infiltration tactics during WW1, I would not be surprised if the idea had some doctrinal substance in Italian military thought beyond mere Fascist rhetoric. All the best, John. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 Originally posted by John D Salt: ... Sebastian Kelly's excellent "Amedeo" (good title for a book, eh?) ...The best. But what's it about? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 Hitler is quoted as saying that "Lightning War" was an Italian term - I think Cooper mentions this. So perhaps there is something to what John is saying. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted March 19, 2004 Author Share Posted March 19, 2004 That quote is from January 1942 (Reinhard Stumpf "Hitler's Monologe", quoted in Frieser), so should not concern us here as much, since it falls after the slight mishaps on the eastern front. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John D Salt Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 Originally posted by JonS: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt: ... Sebastian Kelly's excellent "Amedeo" (good title for a book, eh?) ...The best. But what's it about? </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 Still no consensus on where the phrase 'Blitzkrieg' originated, I see? I wonder if the pre-war theoretical papers of Britain's Liddel-Hart or maybe Guderian were the source. The Germans were particularly good at attractive turns of phrase back in the first half of the century. Especially phrases of the Chauvanist militaristic zenophobic kind. The first half of this century, other states have picked up that particular torch. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s3333cr333tz Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 Did you know all the reindeer are females? Rudolph is in fact a girl. For those of you saying "LIEZ". The proof is that boy reindeer drop their antlers in the winter the girls do not. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 Originally posted by John D Salt: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JonS: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt: ... Sebastian Kelly's excellent "Amedeo" (good title for a book, eh?) ...The best. But what's it about? </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted March 22, 2004 Author Share Posted March 22, 2004 Originally posted by JonS: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JonS: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt: ... Sebastian Kelly's excellent "Amedeo" (good title for a book, eh?) ...The best. But what's it about? </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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