Talk:Vernichtungsgedanke

Old talk

And it is precisely here that we encounter one of the century’s great military myths. For a perfectly adequate recitation of this mistaken vision of the doctrinal revolution wrought by Germany in the Second World War, consult the article about “Blitzkrieg”.

These German military thinkers, chief among them General Heinz Guderian, did not invent anything called “Blitzkrieg”. They did, however, refine and perfect a concept called “The Armored Idea?”.

Well duh, the article in question does not claim that Guderian did anything of the sort, in fact his name does not appear once in the article. IIRC the term was actually a British invention. The key to the article appears in this statement:

The key to Blitzkrieg was to organize the troops into mobile forces with excellent communications and command, able to keep the momentum up while the battle unfolded. The basic concept was to concentrate all available forces at a single spot in front of the enemy lines, and then break a hole in it with artillery and infantry, easy enough to do even in World War I. Once the hole was opened, tanks could rush through and strike hundreds of miles to the rear.

Somehow I doubt that the use of tanks was included in vernichtungsgedanken.

It looks to me like it is obviously a PRECURSOR to Blitzkrieg (which wasn't invented from thin air, obviously). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 09:24, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Move

The current name is unpronoucable and not understandable in English. Unless it is the common name in the military science English books, I propose to move this article to 'annihilation thoughts doctrine' or at least to 'Vernichtungsgedanken military doctrine' (or something similar). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 09:24, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This name is more common than the alternatives. 119 05:43, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with any move, Piotrus. Vernichtungsgedanken (Phonetically: Fehr-neekt-oongs-geh-dahnk-ehn) is pronounceable, it is understandable and recognizable among those who know military theory, and simply there are no alternatives. Several German concepts (like Weltanschuung, and other words and concepts that just don't have equivalent translations) just are more recognizable when left untranslated. And continued study of the theories in politics and military texts offer a whole slew of these words. —ExplorerCDT 06:08, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Vernichtungsgedanke

The concept was of course that of the Vernichtungsgedanke, the "concept of annihilation". So it is singular, not plural!--MWAK 08:57, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

"Gedanken" is not necessarily a plural form. It was in use as a variant form of "Gedanke" at least up to the 18th century, so maybe it is the originally used term. (Cf. the german words "Glaube(n)", "Friede(n)", etc.) Hylas 09:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. I'll try to find out what was the original term.--MWAK 12:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe, as a german guy, I may help to solve this problem: The german nouns usually show different endings due to case (Kasus: Nom., Akk., Gen., Dat.) and/or number (singular/plural). So if the term Vernichtungsgedanke turns up as a singular, it still can vary its ending due to its function/use in the sentence. If you use the term as a lemma, you normally use the nominative singular and this surely is Vernichtungsgedanke. So, imho the lemma used is correct! --MWB (talk) 13:35, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

But that was exactly my point: The nominative singular is not necessarily without the "n". As you speak german you are certainly familiar with this dichotomy in words like "Friede(n)". "Gedanken" was used similarly as a variant of "Gedanke" but fell out of favour during the 19th century (see e.g. Grimm's dictionary). The question then is, what was the original term used, since that should be the one for the lemma (at least in the English wiki). Hylas (talk) 10:24, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Avoiding Anachronism

I think the idea of annihilation in (particularly German) military theory merits an article. At the same time, it might be best to be quite rigorous about the extent to which it was an explicitly stated, prevalent military doctrine. That is to say, the "excellence" of Cannae was long recognized; the battles of Frederick the Great were often bold and aggressive and, particularly at Rossbach and Leuthen, really crushing. Clausewitz and the "Clausewitzian" military ideas were a natural fit with the idea of annihilation tactics.

But, at any of these times: the era after 216 BC, the era of Frederick, the period in which Clausewitzian military theory became popular (surely more meaningfully after 1862 rather than 1832-1862?) can we really argue that this idea of annihilation was at all as explicit as it was after Moltke and Schlieffen? IMO, an article like this should at least strive to describe how an idea was popularized and adopted by significant numbers of people, in specific places and times. We certainly know that constant reference to Cannae and annihilation aims were ubiquitous after Schlieffen, with his staff-studied on Cannae around the turn of the century. We know that Hans Delbrück was deriving a lot of diachronic ideas about war from classical warfare at around the same time - but he's a different sort of figure than Schlieffen. I'm unclear of the extent to which Moltke had -talked- about annihilation as an aim, but obviously Sedan and Metz both resulted in 100% casualties for the opponent, inclusive of prisoners captured.

Do we look further in the past than Moltke? Between Clausewitz and Moltke, is the idea of annihilation present in the same form, or just implicit? An even bigger question, to my mind, is looking farther in the past than Clausewitz. Frederick (or for that matter Napoleon) clearly aimed for extremely decisive results, and on occasion achieved them. But even lopsided results like Rossbach and Leuthen were strictly victories of 'destruction' rather than 'annihilation' if one defines the latter strictly as one in which the entire opposing force is taken prisoner or otherwise made casualties.

So here's one theory: "The idea of annihilation became prevalent in Prussian-German military thought after the victories against Austria and France in 1866 and 1870. It offered a framework for understanding these decisive victories in terms of an eternal military ideal - 'Clausewitz' through the lens of 'Cannae.'" It'd then try to specifically date when this idea became A Really Big Idea that everyone in the Prussian military elite would have been familiar with: I'm not sure if this is a Moltke thing, a post-Moltke thing, a Delbrück thing, or an Alfred von Schlieffen thing - but my sense is that the timing is somewhere in that 1870-1910 period.

The victories of Frederick, the disaster at Jena, and Clausewitz are all meaningful in understanding how the idea was framed in the Prussian-German context, but the Moltke-Schlieffen impetus provided the idea of "encirclement" and "100% casualties," which to my mind are the two defining characteristics of Vernichtungsgedanke as opposed to, I dunno, some alternative "Zerstörungsgedanke" that would have combined a Clausewitzian emphasis on neutralizing the enemy with the idea of "great decisiveness" rather than that of "complete military neutralization through death or captivity." 99.192.48.185 (talk) 16:41, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Delbruck argued that Fred II didn't manoeuvre (to fight a war of vernichungskrieg) in the war of the Austrian Succession or the Seven Years' War but fought a war of exhaustion. Robert Foley gives a good exposition of this in 'German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich Von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1916' (2007). Ermattungsstrategie has as long a pedigree as bewegungskrieg.Keith-264 (talk) 00:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)