Citation

Vardi G. War Hist. 2010; 17(2): 193-216.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0968344509356835

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

What was the nature of Joachim von Stülpnagel’s operational and strategic thought? Did the ideas of the man considered the most radical and revolutionary of Germany’s military thinkers in the 1920s present a substantial break with German military tradition? Were his concepts the result of groundbreaking strategic perception and analysis? This article aims to distil the elements of continuity and change in Stülpnagel’s writings, highlighting the values and axiomatic truths passed down from his predecessors that he embraced and then expounded in the operational alternative he proposed. Contrary to received wisdom, very little of Stülpnagel’s concepts was ‘radical’ or groundbreaking. Rather, his writings demonstrate a persistence of the same traditional operational assumptions that inhibited German military thought before and after the First World War.