Blitzkrieg and Bluff (1943)

Rare First Edition of Lessner's Blitzkrieg and Bluff, 1943

Lessner, Erwin. Blitzkrieg and Bluff. The Legend of Nazi Invincibility. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1943.

Octavo. Hardcover. 1st Edition.

First edition of this analysis of the failings of the German military machine, from their (winning) gamble in France to their all-out disaster in Russia, in wonderful original dust jacket. "A review of the record of the German Army in this war, in which the author shows that its early successes were due in no small part to its outbluffing the enemy--tactics it was not able to repeat in Russia" (Foreign Affairs). The book analyzes how the Nazi army managed to take over so much of the European continent, despite middling strategy and occasional poor decision-making, through a mix of its Total War Machine industrial production and its willingness to bluff when faced by resistance. Lessner was a publisher and veteran of the Austrian Army who fled after the Anschluss in 1938 and escaped across Russia to America. Book with only a few very faint spots to cloth, dust jacket with only light wear and very shallow chipping to extremities. An extremely good copy.