strong> Military genius or military dilettante? A brilliant commander or an amateur at the head of an army of millions? What kind of commander was Adolf Hitler? Some of his decisions surprised the generals with an unconventional approach, others were even stupid. There were definitely more of the latter. Here are the 10 really worst.
Tanks stopped in front of Dunkirk
On May 24, 1940, the German armored units approached 30 kilometers to Dunkirk. It was the only English Channel port in northern France that was still in Allied hands. There were no larger units between the German fields and the city that could stop the tanks. It took only a few hours for 450,000 French, British and Belgian soldiers, locked in a huge cauldron, to be pushed into the sea. Meanwhile, Hitler personally gave the order ... to stop the armored attack and let only the air force operate.
Thanks to this incomprehensible decision, 330,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated from the beaches in the area of Dunkirk and Calais over the next few days. It is recognized that the Führer did not want to destroy British troops, hoping to make peace with London. It was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill, showing that he was not seeking conflict with the British Empire. "This first military error of Hitler had a significant impact on the further fate of the war," wrote historian Alan Bullock in his book "Hitler. A study of tyranny. ”
Attack on Yugoslavia and Greece
On October 28, 1940, Mussolini's Italy attacked Greece without consulting Germany. It seemed to be a simple and easy campaign. Meanwhile, the successfully defending Greeks went on the counter-offensive and pushed the Italians to Albania. In addition, the Greek government asked for military help from Great Britain, offering it bases in Crete. To save the Italian ally and prevent the English from settling in Greece, Hitler decided to intervene in the Balkans.
Adolf Hitler had to help his reckless ally from Italy several times. In the photo Benito Mussolini with Hitler.
On April 6, 1941, the Wehrmacht attacked Yugoslavia, and shortly thereafter Greece. Both of these countries were defeated at the cost of minor losses. The campaign turned out to be a great success. But it delayed Hitler's planned attack on the USSR by at least two months. Those two months later were not enough for the Wehrmacht to capture Moscow before the onset of the harsh Russian winter. “This is one of the key moments of the war. This decision by Hitler had enormous consequences, "said historian Professor Paweł Wieczorkiewicz about the attack on Yugoslavia and Greece.
Landing to Crete
On May 20, 1941, German parachute units made a landing in Crete, defended by British and Greek troops. Despite the fact that the Germans dropped over 20,000 soldiers there, fierce fighting for its control lasted until June 1, and German forces suffered heavy losses. Meanwhile, the attack on Crete was irrational and did not take into account the current situation. The decision to attack Crete was taken by Hitler against the objections of Admiral Erich Raeder's fleet commander and some members of the Wehrmacht High Command.
The island was important in the eastern Mediterranean, but Malta was strategically more important than it. It is located on the sea route between Italy and African Libya. As it turned out later, the possession of Malta was the key to victory during the operations in North Africa, because it allowed to control the sea routes leading to North Africa, primarily Libya and Egypt. "If Hitler sent troops to Libya just to appease Mussolini, without linking it with long-range strategic plans, the attack on Crete was a senseless waste of strength, time and equipment," stated US military historian Benin Alexander.
Attack on the Soviet Union
The German attack on Western Europe in the summer of 1940 was, in fact, merely preparing a base for another military purpose. From the very beginning, idée fixe Hitler was to conquer the Soviet Union, destroy communism and gain new living space for the Germans. The anti-Soviet obsession obscured the Führer's ability to think rationally. Only defeating the Soviets mattered. That is why the as yet unbeaten Great Britain quickly moved to the background of Hitler.
Unmindful of the German experiences of World War I, the Führer, to the despair of his generals and marshals, intended to start a war on two fronts and attack the USSR in the spring of 1941. The translations, analyzes and arguments cited by, among others, the commander of the fleet, Admiral Raeder and the chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht operations, General Alfred Jodl, did not help. The decision was made - the Wehrmacht went to Russia and found his grave there.
Operation Barbarossa
The strategic assumptions of the attack on the Soviet Union from above were doomed to failure. As early as 1941, Hitler intended to reach the Arkhangelsk-Caspian Sea line with his troops, 500 kilometers east of Moscow and 720 kilometers from the Urals. Meanwhile, the Wehrmacht did not have the necessary forces to achieve these goals in one year. At best, only one of them could have realized.
Destroyed Soviet T-35 tank, captured by the South Army.
Hitler did not care about these realities. He divided his forces into three parts:Army Group North was to capture Leningrad, Army Group Middle Moscow, and Army Group South was to capture Ukraine. Forces and resources had to be distributed among the three directions, and therefore no decisive advantage could be obtained on either of them. “Hitler set an almost unimaginable goal for the German army. He hoped to take over 1,500,000 square kilometers of the Soviet Union in 1941, the size of the United States east of the Mississippi, "wrote Bevin Alexander.
In some parts of the USSR, the Nazis were accepted as liberators from the communist terror. The photo shows Latvians welcoming the German army.
And how it looked in practice is shown in the memoirs of General Wilhelm Adam, a close associate of General Friedrich Paulus, the commander of the German 6th Army, entitled “Difficult Decision. With Paulus at Stalingrad ":
In January 1942, North-east of Kharkiv, near Volchansky, the combat unions of the Red Army pushed the 294th Infantry Division out of their posts. The Soviet offensive from both sides of the city of Izjum caused a deep breach in our position at the junction of the 17th and 6th Army. Kharkiv, Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk were under threat. We did not have any guardians. Infantry battalions and artillery squadrons were drawn from the unattacked divisions and brought in from the south front to protect the right wing of the army. The insurance division hastily brought from the rear of the army, which had no heavy weapons, was to prevent the further advance of the Soviet attack east of Poltava. Emergency battalions composed of army supply units were intended for direct protection of endangered cities ...
Policy towards the inhabitants of the USSR
Hitler's ideological and racial blindness prevented him from taking the opportunity to enter the Soviet Union as a liberator. The aversion and even hatred towards the communist authorities was very strong in a large part of the country's inhabitants. The brutal Stalinist terror that had prevailed for years took its toll on everyone. So if the Wehrmacht entered the USSR with the promise of freedom, an end to persecution and the liquidation of communism, it would receive great support, as evidenced by the joy with which German soldiers were initially welcomed. Hitler, however, treated the Slavs as subhumans and did not intend to give them freedom, and bloody repression soon fell on Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians and Jews.
Declaration of war on the United States
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan, but not on the Third Reich. No treaty obligated the Germans to declare war on the United States. Hitler, however, was convinced that Washington would declare war on Germany sooner or later, and felt obliged to maintain the solidarity of the Axis states. From then on, it became clear that the Third Reich could not win this war, because the difference in population, economic and military potentials is too great. And President Roosevelt got an argument to get involved in Europe as well, and not just fight Japan.
Battle of Stalingrad
The capture of Stalingrad became another Hitler's obsession with fatal military decisions. The city that bears the name of Stalin was indeed an important industrial and communication center, but it was obvious foolishness to persistently conquer it at all costs. The German troops could bypass it without getting involved in protracted city fights and continue on towards the strategic Caucasus.
In Stalingrad, German soldiers lost to the Soviet army and the winter, which paralyzed General Paulus' army.
Meanwhile, Hitler's phobias made the entire army stuck at Stalingrad, and despite obvious necessity, the Führer never agreed to its withdrawal. This is what he writes about it in his memoirs entitled “Difficult decision. With Paulus at Stalingrad ”, the participant of those events, General Wilhelm Adam:
After a few seconds of reflection, Paulus continued, "You know, on November 21st, I applied for the withdrawal of the army for the Don." Shortly after my arrival at the boiler, I called the commanders of the corps for a conference. In full accordance with their opinion, I renewed my application to OKH on November 22 and in the following days. In the morning of November 24, the order to break through was to be issued. Nothing came of it. (…) The Führer decided to reject my application.
As a result, the Wehrmacht lost 250,000 people and huge amounts of equipment in this battle. He also lost his strategic initiative and never returned to his former power. This one fatal decision by Hitler influenced the fate of the Eastern Front.
Disregard for the Middle East
In February 1942, the commander of the Afrika Korps, General Erwin Rommel, showed up at Hitler's headquarters in Kętrzyn. There he asked the Führer to assign him three more divisions, which would double his forces in Africa. This, in turn, Rommel argued, would allow him to beat the British, occupy Egypt and Palestine, reach the oil fields of Iraq and Iran, and then link up with German troops in the Caucasus.
Taking control of North Africa and the Middle East would give Germany and its allies a huge advantage, if only through access to oil sources and control of the entire Mediterranean basin. This interesting plan, however, collapsed due to one Hitler decision. Well, he told Rommel that the priority was to destroy the Soviet Union and that all resources would be directed there. Only then will it be possible to pursue other directions. Therefore, the Afrika Korps cannot count on any reinforcement of any divisions…
Wrong use of armored divisions in Normandy
The force that was to repel the Allied landing on the coast of France were selected German armored divisions. Hitler reserved the decision to use them. And since he was deeply convinced that the landing would take place in the Pas-de-Calais area, he considered the operation in Normandy as a simulated strike. Therefore, he did not order the divisions - the 21st Panzer and SS Hitlerjugend Panzer Divisions - to move towards the coast. If, however, they had left as soon as news of the invasion arrived, they would probably have been able to destroy the landing forces or push them back into the sea. When Hitler finally understood the situation, it was too late.