About this work of fiction
Blitzkrieg : from the rise of Hitler to the fall of Dunkirk by Len Deighton is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.
Deighton, author of SS-GB and other thrillers, turns to history again with this companion piece to his own, more dramatic Fighter (1977). Paralleling that chronicle of the Battle of Britain, Blitzkrieg works its way from Germany's defeat in 1918 to the application of ""lightning war"" strategy in the opening rounds of World War II. At first glance, there seems to be little new here, almost nothing that couldn't be gleaned from reading William Shirer. One possibility, however, is to take this as a warning: the debacle on the Continent in May 1940 resulted more from the psychological unpreparedness of the Allies than from the genius of Hitler's Blitzkrieg specialist, Heinz Guderian. Deighton repeats what we already know--that the Allies were actually stronger in terms of armor than the Germans, but had been trained for slow-motion, set-piece battles. This ""Maginot Line complex"" prevented the French and English from concentrating forces rapidly enough to blunt German thrusts in the Ardennes and, later, at Sedan. Deighton writes that Guderian, ""whose knowledge of mechanized warfare exceeded that of any man in the world,"" had welded the Wehrmacht into a highly mobile force that coul
It is typically read by readers looking for immersive, entertainment-first reading.
Common subject areas: fiction, literature, genre fiction.
- Author
- Len Deighton
- Publisher
- Ballantine Books
- Published
- 1982
- Language
- EN
- ISBN
- 9780345294265
- Category
- work of fiction
- Subjects
- History, Fiction, Humanities
- Rating
- 4.07 / 5 (1,098 ratings)
- Updated
- 2026-03-14