Hello Ask Historians. I'm working on a series of Anti-Wehraboo videos and I'm in the middle of a source that I'm not sure is entirely reliable.

The book is called The Blitzkrieg Myth by John Mosier. To be sure, I've known about the whole "Blitzkrieg was propaganda BS" since I can't remember when, and some of the author's basic arguments in the book's thesis certainly sync with what I've read elsewhere over the years.

The problem is that as I go on, I keep seeing red flags, things I 100% know are factually incorrect, and that makes me concerned about other arguments he makes that are more crucial to his thesis.

For those not familiar, his argument is that the myth of Blitzkrieg was manufactured mostly by Western theorists like JFC Fuller and Basil Lidell Hart, with the objective of making it seem like their pre-war theories, primarily in armored warfare, were correct all along, and that the early German victories proved them right.

Mosier argues against this by using things such as Germany's expenditure on building fortifications vs tank production prewar, and detailed accounts of the campaign in Poland, for example, to show that the Germans were in fact mostly practicing pretty conventional warfare using very infantry-heavy tactics rather than concentrating panzers to achieve "breakthroughs" a la Fuller's theories.

I will say that his descriptions of the Polish campaign in that light do sync with earlier research of mine, although I know how some historians will discount "blitzkrieg" yet say the Germans were practicing maneuver warfare and that they were in fact concentrating armored forces and achieving breakthroughs. If I could look directly at the same sources Mosier was looking at, perhaps it wouldn't be so confusing.

Also, he points out how the German panzers found themselves stopped by French armor in Belgium, but it seems one could argue that the Panzer thrust through the Ardennes is what proves this was "maneuver warfare," ie the attack through Belgium wasn't even meant to be the main effort and was just occupying the BEF and French while the maneuver element exploited a gap.

Essentially his thesis isn't just that Blitzkrieg was a myth, but that the whole "breakthrough"/maneuver warfare doctrine of the Wehrmacht was also a myth. To be honest I have some sympathy toward the idea given that much of doctrine the Wehrmacht did practice was based on old Prussian tradition and not some newfangled theory. My understanding is that the new thing they brought to the table was just really good combined arms coordination at the tactical level.

I'm sorry for the textwall but if anyone has any strong opinions about this guy's work, other sources to recommend, anything at all- I'd greatly appreciate it. I wouldn't be so skeptical were it not for the errors I found plus his academic background isn't exactly military or even historical.