Blitzkrieg under fire: German rearmament, total economic mobilization, and the myth of the 'Blitzkrieg Strategy', 1933--1942

The "Blitzkrieg Strategy" as an historical theory has framed the debate for the last five decades concerning the nature, extent, and purpose of German rearmament during the 1930s, and the performance of the Third Reich's military forces and war economy between 1939 and 1941. It argues that Germany deliberately planned for a series of short, predatory wars requiring only limited military and economic mobilization; conversion to full-war production came only after the first German defeats in late-1941. Documentary evidence and the work of revisionist historians, however, demonstrates that pre-war rearmament and economic mobilization in wartime were as extensive as possible given the Reich's economic and financial limitations. Furthermore, Germany planned to fight a large war in the mid-1940s once its major rearmament programs and heavy industrial and raw material projects had been completed.