Reddit mentions of Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France

You seem very interested by this historical event. So, perhaps, you should actually learn about it. I recommend a book called Strange Victory by Ernest May.

You would realize that nobody rolled over for the Nazis.

Or, you can chose to stay completely ignorant and cling to overcooked cliches. Your choice.

> France's defeat within mere weeks was unprecedented and shocked the world. However this stands more as evidence of Germany's sheer military power, and not as any nation's inherent 'weakness'.

Actually, depending on how you define "military power," it's not hard to argue that France was militarily more powerful than Germany in 1940. Two highly recommended books (links to reviews):

• Ernest May, 2000. Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France. (Amazon; some useful reviews there too.)
  
• Karl-Heinz Frieser, 2005. The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West. (Amazon; also useful reviews there.)
  
  A choice quote from the first review:
  
  > Ernest R. May, a professor of history at Harvard and the author of ''Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France,'' will have none of this. Panzer-like, he sweeps it aside as myth. France and its Allies, he points out, had more trained men, more guns, more and better tanks and more bombers and fighters than did Germany.
  
  And from the second:
  
  > Frieser argues persuasively that Germany took several huge risks by attacking France, Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands (the Western Allies) on May 10, 1940. Germany was unprepared for anything more than a very short war and chose a strategy (thrusting through the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes, crossing the Meuse, and driving to the Atlantic Coast) that could have been frustrated in a half-dozen ways by the Western Allies, especially France. [...] Frieser's narration of Sichelschnitt is buttressed by extensive data--including production numbers, weapon comparisons and useful logistical information in addition to troop numbers and dispositions. The data and discussion serve to underline both the numerical and the marginal qualitative equipment inferiority of the Wehrmacht in 1940 relative to its Allied opponents.
  
  In these arguments, the Germans were materially inferior to the French, and a big part of their victory was due to luck. The Germans' surprise attack through the Ardennes was a huge gamble; if the French had caught on to it earlier, the Germans would have lost catastrophically.
  
  This isn't to take credit away from the Germans—luck smiles on those prepared to seize it, and they sure did seize it in those six weeks. But even though the Germans' military skill was higher than the French, it's hard to argue that that was enough to guarantee a crushing victory like they achieved.