Blitzkrieg.
The German military strategy of using of fast-moving tanks, with motorized infantry and artillery supported by dive-bombers, and concentrating on one part of the enemy sector, became known as Blitzkrieg (lightning war).
Blitzkrieg tactics and strategy are almost entirely developed with the idea of escaping from the trench deadlock that held the armies between August 1914, and March 1918. We can only grasp the essence of the Blitzkrieg if we realise that it is an opposite to, a reaction against, the war of trenches that otherwise condemns armies to practical uselessness.
Tom Wintringham – he wrote about German military tactics in his book New Ways of War (1940)
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Colonel John Fuller, the chief of staff of the British Tank Corps, first put the Blitzkrieg strategy forward. Fuller was disappointed with the way tanks were used during the First World War and afterwards produced Plan 1919. This included a call for long-range mass tank attacks with strong air, motorized and artillery support. These ideas were developed in more detail in his books produced in the 1920s.
Fuller's ideas were ignored by the British Army but were studied in Germany (!!!!) and in 1926 leaders of the German Army asked the government to commission the production of new tanks that would enable them to use Blitzkrieg tactics in any future conflicts.
As a result of the terms of the Versailles Treaty new experimental tanks were called tractors. The Light Tractor weighed ten tons and carried a 37mm gun and the Heavy Tractor was a 20-tonner with two turrets, one forward with a 77mm gun, and one at the rear carrying a machine-gun.
The Versailles Treaty limited the German Army to a strength of 100,000 men and General Hans von Seeckt as Chief of Army Command he had the difficult task of maintaining morale of the armed forces. Disliking traditional theories of mass armies and trench warfare, he remolded the army as a mobile high quality shock force of thirty-five divisions.
After Hitler obtained power in 1933, the German government was open about its tank production. In the spring of 1934 the German Army (Wehrmacht) began developing the Panzer tank.
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During the invasion of Poland in September 1939, it became clear that the Panzer I was insufficiently armed for battle conditions. Panzer II and Panzer III tanks were reliable but were outgunned. The outstanding performer was the Panzer IV as it had the perfect combination of speed, agility, firepower and reliability. Over the next few years it became the backbone of Blitzkrieg and over 9,000 of these tanks were produced.
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