Blitzkrieg: The Lightning War

Poland invaded 1939, with the use of powerful archive film footage and highly detailed computer generated battle maps, charts the progress of a deprived post World War I Germany. We follow the rapid and spectacular military build-up, through to the largely horse-drawn invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland.

In September 1939, Nazi Germany unleashed a devastating new war fighting tactic that plunged Europe into the horror of World War Two. How is it possible for Adolf Hitler's recently created army to roam across Europe almost unchecked? What combination of events, new technology, strategy and personalities led to the series of rapid victories over unprepared and seemingly outclassed opponents?

By the late Summer of 1940 Nazi Germany controlled virtually all of Europe. Beginning in 1936 Germany employed a combination of political intimidation and a series of swift military attacks known as Blitzkrieg to overrun one country after another. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France all collapse before the onslaught of Hitler's seemingly invincible might.