Those people, who want to improve own lives and achieve success in present and future, have to pay much attention to such issue like their history and be able to learn on the mistakes, made by other people from the past.
The German nation is considered to be one of the most remarkable ones due to its abilities to stir up rebellions and wars in order to demonstrate their desire to power and recognition.
Within short periods of time, this nation achieved unbelievable success and enthralled many people; however, German people did not have much time to enjoy their victories and hold their positions.
My passion to history and the role of the German nation and Hitler in particular makes me pay attention to the book by Pr. John Mosier The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread The Strategic Realities of World War II and get an opportunity to learn more about the strategies, used by the Germans, and clear up what promoted their failure.
The title of this book promises to discover the reasons of why Hitler did not succeed with the chosen tactics and what strategic realities of World War II were.
The main topic of the book under discussion is the analysis of the strategy, known as Blitzkrieg or Breakthrough, as Pr. Mosier called it, its errors, and the outcomes, which led to German loss of the war. John Mosier tells about the peculiarities of armoured warfare and the strategies, connected to air bombing.
The peculiar feature of this author is his readiness to face with the sources, he may both agree and disagree with. In order to present a clear picture of German participation in the war and the reasons, which provoked these people to fight and kill, it is necessary to concentrate on various sources and perspectives and find out strengths and weaknesses of the chosen positions.
The idea of the Blitzkrieg myth was connected to the innovations in tank and airplane technologies. These innovations should cause considerable changes and rapid breakthroughs that would be able to demoralize the enemy within several days.
Mosier gives the reader a chance to rethink the events of World War II and to evaluate Hitler’s attitude to the military doctrine. He, as no one else, believed in success of that breakthrough and used it for two times, in France and in Belgium. However, those two times were feeble attempts to gain victory.
John Mosier is one of the most fascinating American current academics, who prefer to deal with history, films, and English. Such preferences of this author demonstrate his variety of tastes and abilities to analyze the case from different perspectives.
Mr. Mosier got his Ph.D. in Tulane University in 1968 and presented a splendid dissertation that discovered the topic of historiography. Nowadays, he worked at the University of New Orleans and has access to numerous historical sources. His skills in editing and writing also promise that this book is written in clear and comprehensible English.
This person is not afraid of challenges and changes; his desire to investigate our history, use own points of view, and share them with the reader make him one of the most powerful writers about history and warfare.
It is not necessary to accept his standpoints and use his book as the only reliable source. The Blitzkrieg Myth is one of those secondary sources, which allow to study German strategies and to evaluate their mistakes to improve personal actions.
John Mosier’s background in military and history provides him with a good chance to study World War II, German strategies and mistakes, and the environment that affected war’s development.
This is why his personal approach to the subject, described in the book, lies in the idea to demonstrate own ideas and understanding of the situation concerning the place of the German nation in the war.
“To understand what happened in this war, one must begin with an explanation that embraces the facts as they are known to exist, not as several generations of analysts have wished them to be” (Mosier 2003, 2-3).
This approach to forget about past investigations and use own conjectures is not frequent in history and literature, this is why it should cause respect and attention of the reader.
His teaching abilities and interests in history support him and promote the development of one of the most captivating and provoking pieces of work about history and German war.
After the book by John Mosier is analysed, it turns out to be very hard to define one sentence as a strong thesis of his ideas. From the very beginning, the author admits that this work differs considerably from many other historian writings and provokes its reader to think and present own suggestions as for the events of the World War Second.
“The purpose here is not a reevaluation of their careers but to suggest how our perceptions have been so decisively shaped by the blind acceptance of the breakthrough theory of military operations” (Mosier 2003, 11).
These words introduce the reader a new way to perceive information and may serve as a good and strong thesis of the whole work. The Blitzkrieg Myth has many sides and controversies, and it is better to present several sources for the reader’s analysis and allow him/her study the material and come to certain conclusions independently.
In spite of the fact that such shortages as support of one of the most disliked generals like Montgomery and attention to Western front only can weaken the book, Mosier’s notations and ideas that were not inherent to other writers strengthen it and show the reader another way to comprehend past events.
In order to support own ideas and thoughts, John Mosier uses different kinds of evidence. First of all, Mosier adds extensive notes to each chapter and leave some comments on them. He presents both types of notes: which he could agree with, and which he could argue.
All these notes are arranged properly and help to comprehend the essence of each chapter. Secondly, the author makes considerable use of numbers in order to clear up the situation and analyse the outcomes of the Blitzkrieg. The reader faces no difficulty to comprehend the material and the notes, which support author’s point of view.
Even if the reader cannot comprehend why the author chooses this or that idea as the major one in the chapter, the notes and the numbers prove that the author’s choice is great indeed and the reader has to re-evaluate his/her position and analyze the author’s one.
Reading this book is probably one of the most fascinating events in my current education. Many books present rather different ideas as for the evaluation of the war actions and Hitler attitude to the events.
However, Mosier’s The Blitzkrieg Myth presents an absolutely different position and provokes the reader to think and re-organize background knowledge about this topic.
John Mosier shows how wrong our attitude to German military doctrine can be: he tells that the Germans did not plan to use armoured spearheads in order to frighten the Allied but did prefer the broad-front strategy that implied numerous attacks to different places simultaneously.
The idea that numerous casualties prevented German success in the chosen strategy was a new one, and I got a wonderful chance to study this issue from a new perspective and a new approach.
In general, the theme of history becomes more interesting and more educative if a person makes an opportunity to evaluate the events from own perspective. Even if the chosen way contradicts the already established facts and numbers, it is not the reason to drop it.
John Mosier proves that a new approach concerning German military doctrine, the Blitzkrieg Myth, and Hitler errors is worthy of attention. The approach, taken in the book, and the material, we learnt about the Blitzkrieg Myth from other textbooks and lectures, differ considerably.
Mosier admits that it is not obligatory to regard Hitler as pure negative character as well as it is not necessary to search for some points to support Hitler’s actions.
In order to study history and comprehend the essence of blitzkrieg, it is better to evaluate, analyse, and use own points of view to clear up what cause German failure and why the Blitzkrieg Myth remains to be a myth.
Reference List
Mosier, John. 2003. The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread The Strategic Realities of World War II. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.