What was Hitler's largest strategic mistake in WWII?

>>130607043
the war was inevitable no matter what he did

>>130607043
Not killing himself sooner

>>130607043
Initiating the war against Poland. If he was smart he would've divided up Poland with the Soviet, and agree to invade simultaneously. But instead merely wait at the border and let the Slavs invade.

So the West would have to either back the Nazis against Russia, or reveal that they're Jew puppets who don't actually care about the Poles.

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>>130607043

He didn't actually holocaust the jews.

> bombing London instead of destroying the RAF when he had the chance
> Dunkirk
> delaying Barbarossa to save italys ass in the Balkans
> obsessing over encirclement rather than attacking and defending in depth
> overextending while saving italys ass in North africa

>>130607043
The red stuff kind of looks like Australia
>the eternal emu strikes again

>>130607043
Invading France/ Denmark/ Belgium/ Nederland was a huge ass mistake.

If the sitskreig had lasted longer a reluctant peace may have actually been possible

>>130607186
If he just would have stopped after Czhechland he would have been fine. Poland and Norway sealed his fate.

>>130607043
Invade Russia

Probably not the biggest but the way he invaded Stalingrad (blitzkrieg) wasn't the smartest idea

>>130607297
They still would only attack Germany - the guarantee of Poland specifically was a guarantee against Germany not Russia

>>130607462
Why was it a mistake? The world believed the British Empire was done for at this point and Germany's prestige and economic potential were at an all-time high because of it.

>>130607495
>Norway sealed his fate.
lawl how so?

>>130607495
>>130607462
>>130607297

I think this sums it up.

>>130607643
france and belgium were necessary after france declared war

>>130607631
I just realized I misspoke haha. I know Norway was vital after the allies declared war after Poland. I'll shut the fuck up now.

relying on romania as a main source of oil and fuel

>>130607043
Don't forget that some of the "small" countries on the map commanded entire empires overseas.

Also, several of the countries were under subjugation and resisted underground.

>>130607043
Invading Poland. He should have kept it as a buffer state.

>>130607512
>>130607581
>I've only read about WW2 in high school: the posts
He needed their oil, pure and simple. He had to keep the war on their land after that, but couldn't keep his logistics in check.
Go on /his/ for once in your life plbeb\\eerre

>>130607043
doing drugs

Durrrr he should have killed all the british at dunkirk

marne 2.0 people

>>130607581
Yeah, but having your best troops out of position, while your flanks are defended by your worst troops, is a pretty shitty idea... And reserves completely spent or too far away to offer assistance to the encirclement.

And the airforce saying they can supply an entire army? Even if they could, what was their end game? Capture a city that had some destroyed industry in a hostile land?

>>130607979
Not invading Poland would've entirely invalidated his ideology. Read Mein Kampf or any of the state memos or diaries - the Nazi's sought lebensraum in the East, and in the East alone

>>130607462
How would not invading France have been beneficial? Just holding the line and giving France time to get its shit organised would have been a horrible idea.
>>130607979
Why would you want a buffer state with a nation you plan on invading?

>>130607043
Allying with Mussolini
got sucked into wasting troops bailing out the italians when they repeatedly fucked up

>>130608066
Did I say he shouldn't have invaded Stalingrad?

>>130607370
This is what I've looking for years.

>>130608066
He didn't need to take Stalingrad, the Germans already had a gateway into the Crimea, they captured, Rostov. They could have sent the Hungarians and the Romainian armies with a mechanized division south to capture the caucus and garrison it. The Germans in defense were fucking fierce at that time. A few 88's held off several Soviet mechanized divisions only a few months later under Mannstein.

Imagine that but with infantry support in the caucus. Then again, longer supply lines, but with fewer partisans and trying to maintain a longer front. Eh. Maybe they were right.

>>130608511
>>130608512
The ideology was flawed. Germany had plenty of living space and it's advances in fertilizer made the food problems of WW1 no longer as pressing of an issue without a war.

>>130609058
into the Caucus*

>>130607043
Declaring war on Poland. To put it simply Germany had zero chance to win WW2. The main reasons are the USSR was a threat, North Africa was a lost cause, he couldn't defeat Britain meaningfully and allied industry>German industry.

Too lazy to go into too much detail, but to explain the first point Germany had to declare war on the USSR, if they didn't the USSR simply would have invaded Germany in 1943 or 1945 and steamrolled Germany. Hell even the initial success of the German invasion was a fucking miracle considering the German led coalition had a tiny advantage in total manpower but the Soviets had over a 3:1 advantage in both tanks and aircraft and Soviet tanks were leagues better than German tanks with the T-34 being nearly immune to German anti-tank guns along the frontal arc and the KV-1 and KV-2 being completely immune to conventional German anti-tank weapons from all angles. To make matters worse for Germany the Soviets simply outproduced them in materiel on a massive scale. For comparison Germany's most produced tank in WW2 was the Pz IV of which 8,500 were made, the Soviet T-34 had a combined 84,000 made.

Put simply the Soviet army in 1941 was the most heavily mechanized army on earth by a massive margin both per man and in sheer numbers of armoured vehicles. Here is Hitler talking about how fucking huge the Soviet army was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClR9tcpKZec relevant part starts around 0:20

Invading Russia before Britain was finished off.

>>130607043

Not forming closer relations with Britain and allowing the soviet union to attack Poland on its own.

They could then storm through the entire east on a "liberation mission" with support from the west and many more ostlander troops. Upon success the wehrmacht would have 20-30,000 captured tanks at their disposal plus huge oilfields.

They'd be unstoppable. A world conquering force. Instead they gambled with Poland and lost.

>>130609096
Why is it flawed to want more? Having a colony in the east would have only been a positive whether or not your idea is correct. I'm sure Hitler thought about this before planning this shit.

>>130607043
Thinking he could win against the USSR at the time.

>>130608512
France and Britain were planning for a protracted defence, the British public would probably look pretty negatively on an invasion. France had way superior armor to Germany, but Germany had the airforce, so I think any invasion of Germany would be short lived if France invaded anyway.

The whole idea is for Germany to seem like the good guy, then Germany can make peace and still hold onto Poland.

>>130609096
Oil was entirely dependent on trade with Romania and the USSR, and good lord food was still an issue - the British blockade following the war starved hundreds of thousands of Germans to death and was a leading cause for support of National Socialism amongst the populace.

>>130609136
Truly the only way the war could've been won was to make bitter peace with the British before a surprise attack on the USSR.

>>130607043
<3 you too

To be fair, be slaves to Germans and be treated like shit < be wageslaves to Jews and be treated mediocre

Stalin also wasn't a Jew but I get your point

>>130609449
well he could have, the USSR wasn't that good.
They had to recieve supplies from foreign nations because their infrastructure was shit, and they suffered huge losses in every battle because their soldiers and generals were of poor quality.

The mistake was letting the Brits survive and not realizing the brits were going to pull global ties and have their current/former commonwealth fuck you over from behind while you're busy elsewhere.

>>130609362
Do you think the Brits would have given a single shit about Poland if it didn't give them a chance to fight Germany?
>>130609512
Germany would have never been seen the good guy. The goys back then didn't have the internet and only received their information from Jewish media. Beside, it's much easier to defend a Coast than a land board and having access to French industry would have seemed like a bug plus.

>>130609551
Slavs are the nicest Europeans I've met. Ironic because you don't act nice... but you actually are.

>>130609449

He could have. The wehrmacht made it all the way to Moscow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moscow

He just made too many logistical fuckups to clinch it.

>>130607495
Absolutely, Hitler was lucky to get Czechoslovakia. At the time Czechoslovakia would have owned Germany. The German high command even had an assignation plot to go ahead at like 1:00pm the same day Hitler would have ordered the invasion at 2:00pm. But good ole Britannia jumped in to save the day.

All this from the history book Tragedy and Hope (Ch 13.) by Carroll Quigley.

>>130609859

They needed a hail Mary move to maintain their empire. In our universe that move was declaring war on Germany.

In an alternate universe if the soviet union invaded Poland and hitler had have remained close to Britain he could convince them that "Britain and Germany must always stand against the looming spectre of communism and liberate unfree peoples etc."

>>130609757
>>130609894

They had literally no chance of winning due to the overwhelming amount of manpower and labour of the USSR at the time. It was nothing but a matter of time and commitment and Stalin had no problem committing millions to die for victory. The fuck ups only sped up the inevitable.

>>130610387
War isn't just manpower, it's a combination of manpower, technology, tactics and strategy, leadership, and supply. The Wehrmacht had top-tier leadership and solid manpower - it lacked in technology when compared to the USSR's tanks, supply faltered during the Battle of Moscow, and the tactic of Blitzkrieg and Encircle did not work well in the large front after the initial battles. It's not right to say they lost entirely because the USSR had more manpower - just look at China v Japan.

>>130609888

Western europeans in Russia are as autistic socially as chinese in the US. Many such cases.

>>130609518
>Truly the only way the war could've been won was to make bitter peace with the British before a surprise attack on the USSR.
Even then Germany simply lacked the men and materiel to defeat the USSR. As I said Germany was outnumbered in both tanks and aircraft by over 3:1 when they launched their invasion. After 1941 that ratio would only shift further and further in favour of the Soviets. Combine that with the Soviet tanks largely being better, the larger Soviet manpower pool, and the fact that Hitler had no real way to defeat the Soviets and the war is a lost cause. How would Hitler defeat the USSR?
>Capture Moscow
That's what Napoleon tried, he got a burned out city and his army froze to death marching back to France
>Destroy their industry
The Soviets moved much of their industry east of the Urals and had the manpower to keep that industry running
>Occupy the entire USSR
Great now you have what the US was like in Iraq x100

Hitler's mistake was even giving a shit about Poland. He should have backed down about Poland and tried to warm up relations with France and the UK portraying Germany as the bulwark against communism. Honestly Hitler defeating France was a fucking miracle due to a mixture of dumb luck and massive incompetence on the part of the French. The French in 1940 did literally everything wrong.

>>130607043
Counting on Italy to do anything at all

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>>130607043

Alienating Slavs like Ukrainians who hated Stalin and wanted to fight against him. Instead he treated them like shit to the point where they became partisans.

>>130609894
The idea of Germany becoming close to old enemies of the Brits and France is retarded. And even if the Brits for some reason support Poland, would they even send troops to help? They didnt really do fuck all to help them against the Germans. Providing Germany did aid the Poles, they'd then be fighting a defensive war against the soviets without France's industry at a time suiting the soviets, who had enough industry and men to march over all the nation's of Europe all the way to Brittany.

>>130610706
Of which in virtually every category the USSR was vastly superior. You also can't assume that each is equally weighted. Unless one is vastly superior technologically, a slight advantage there does not make up for the ridiculous amount of manpower and supply that the USSR held. This isn't my idea, it's agreed upon by most historians that Germany simply couldn't win against the USSR under any circumstances.

No, evidently they did not have top tier leadership that had them fight a war on two fronts, one of which was Russia during the wintertime. History and war 101 show that these are often disastrous.

China vs Japan is a very poor example as they were nowhere near one another in any category. The Japanese has massive advantages in every sense aside from population. The Chinese were almost entirely farmers with little industry, equipment, or leadership. That engagement compared to USSR and Germany is apples and oranges.

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>>130607043
What would Germany be like today if Hitler never existed?

>>130611427
Would've fallen to the Soviets for sure.

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>>130610832

That's what Napoleon tried, he got a burned out city and his army froze to death marching back to France

>Thinking Moscow of Napoleon's day was anything comparable to Moscow in 1941

Capturing Moscow would have crippled the Soviet rail industry. It also would have plunged the entire country into chaos given how centralized everything was there. Leningrad would have fallen without supplies from Moscow.

>>130611427
I'd imagine that some other nationalist leader would have risen and done something similar. Otherwise it would be Jewish communist Weimar x100 with some 2050 sweden sprinkled in.

>>130611427
See weinmar republic and Rosa Luxembourg. Soviet union sexual playground.

>>130607043
Not allowing his generals to make more decisions. Hitler was a great speaker, but he knew jack-shit about commanding an army, (Dunkirk, Stalingrad, etc).

>>130611881
Retreating in Russia would have been the end of the war. The only advantage the Germans had was suprise and as soon as the push stopped it would have been all ogre

>>130607043
>agree to invade simultaneously
This level of trust could never have existed between Russia and Germany

>>130611881
He wasn't entirely inept regarding strategy and tactics - the generals even admit that his insistence that the troops hold rather than retreat during the failed attack on Moscow probably saved Germany from being entirely conquered and losing the war in early 1942. The generals also had an incredible lack of grand strategy and political awareness - they planned several opportunities to assassinate Hitler after his bloodlessland grabs would "inevitably fail", and they thought that a quick rush to Moscow would be entirely enough to defeat the USSR, rather than taking the oil fields in Stalingrad and linking with the Finns in Leningrad before encircling Moscow.

>>130608127
This. His decisions were clearly retarded (caused by drugs) post 1939 or so

>>130608127
he didnt do drugs faggot thats fake news

>>130607043
Gave up on bombing out the British airports and on Operation Sealion. Literally every single historian will tell you that the RAF was on the verge of complete death in the air war and if Hitler had kept pushing then all of Britain's air defenses would have crumbled, leaving it completely open to paratroopers and invasion.

With the British position compromised, and if Hitler played his cards right, he could have shown the allies that he had no interest in taking over all of Europe, and prevented a declaration of war by the US, allowing him to swing around to Russia and bumrush Moscow.

>>130607370

>tfw you will lose your job, have your reputation permanently ruined and even end up in prison for questioning the holocaust.

This world is fucking awful.

>>130611631
There was no strategic mistake, only a tactical one. He didn't get to Moscow fast enough. The key, for any aspiring twenty-first century Napoleons or Hitlers, is that you can conquer Russia if you take Moscow before it snows.

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>>130613125
Pic related.

>>130613169
You know how expensive is a Russian mile?

Everything went too smooth with Poland, then the smaller neighbors and then fucking France.
They thought it was a new paradigm shift in military history and their specific tactics seemed invincible even against superior numbers and odds.
Adding to that that Finland massacred Soviet troops against odds as well......Suddenly the whole elite believes in the meme that Russia is up for grabs and all you have to take it while it's hot.