LIGHTNING WAR: Blitzkrieg in the West, 1940
By Ronald E. Powaski, Ph.D.
John Wiley & Sons (2002)
This a dramatically-told yet authoritative popular history of the crushing German victory over the Western allies in May and June, 1940. While the book will discuss strategy and tactics, its emphasis will be on the characters who fought the conflict—from politicians and generals to foot soldiers, sailors, and airmen – and the events they shaped and witnessed.
Written by Ronald E. Powaski, a professor of history at Cleveland State University, LIGHTNING WAR: Blitzkrieg in the West, 1940 will be both a scholarly achievement – incorporating the latest research – and a highly readable narrative of one of the significant and audacious military campaigns of the 20th Century, a campaign that included many acts of valor, as well as stupidity, on both sides of the conflict. It will raise and answer such questions as: How did the crash of a German aircraft in Belgium trigger a change in German strategy that made possible Hitler's greatest military triumph? Why was France, with one of the most powerful military machines in Europe, defeated in only six weeks? How was it possible for the entrapped British Expeditionary Force to escape from Hitler's panzers? Did Hitler allow the British to escape? Did the British betray their French ally, thereby contributing to their decision to surrender? Why was Hitler's victory in the West destined to be his last?
While there a number of books on the "Fall of France" and Dunkirk, surprisingly the military campaign itself and as a whole has received scant attention except in obscure scholarly tomes. Books such as Alistair Horne's classic, To Lose a Battle: France 1940 focus on one side of the conflict and more on politics than the fighting. Moreover, this and comparable books were written more than 30 years ago, long before many research archives were opened to scrutiny.
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