If this was accurate. it would have indeed been a big mistake. In fact the British made signficant increases in military expenditures in the years leading up to the war. The problems were: the earlier reductions, that they didn't start rebuilding soon enough, and relied on a policy of appeasement too long.

Not surrendering sooner

Actually he managed to conquer Caucasus oil pretty easily, but that was because the russian destroyed their oil well and went back to Moscow/stalingrad.

There comes Hitler's mistake, the country was running out of oil, winter was coming and he rushed stalingrad instead of getting back home bombing the french and british.

Once in stalingrad, they couldn't retreat because of the flooded/snowy road and oil shortage.

He'd already defeated the French.

Mussolini attacked Greece without Hitler's prior approval or knowledge. The Italians were quickly repulsed, but Hitler's hand was forced as he had to come to the aid of his ally.

1. Perhaps the biggest mistake was not being able to appreciate the importance of the Suez Canal and thus not giving Rommel the support he requested to do the job in Africa. This mistake was there from the outset, but consistently manifested itself each time Rommel requested support and was denied.

2. Invading Crete was also a big mistake: it's strategic value was vastly overestimated and to take it, Hilter basically expended his entire paratroops force.

3. Barbarossa. Even though the idea seems absurd; it could have been pulled off (even without the taking of the Suez Canal, first) if there was a more coherent plan and a plan that was actually followed. Instead, (as everyone knows) Hitler attacked in three army groups which diminished their effect. A better plan would have seen the Germans go directly for Moscow and then on to the Caucuses (and bypassing Stalingrad itself, except to take control of its river traffic). Also, once Barbarossa started to unfold and Russia began to provide some substantive defenses, Hitler allowed the Russians to dictate his tactics. He switched over from employing mobile tactics to frontal assault - leading to a war of attrition that he could not win.

4. Related to 3. Hitler could have also used Japan better as an ally. As long as Japan kept up a force in numbers on the Russian's Eastern front, Stalin would have had to keep his troops there. However, Japan moved them out thus freeing up much-needed (and significant) reinforcements to defend Moscow. If Japan held off on their troop movements for a few months, Moscow probably would have fallen.

Of course, a lot of the other suggestions in this thread are quite valid, especially those criticizing Hitler for constantly overriding his field commanders - especially those that called for strategic withdrawals at certain points.

How to win a world war in the 1940s:

1. Focus all your energy on removing the enemies closest to you and controlling their territory
2. Go after territories further away

Hitler succeeded admirably at step one, but didn't finish the job. He let a gigantic world superpower and declared, motivated enemy remain functional just 100 miles of his shores, while he went after a distant powerful unmotivated enemy he had a truce with.

Everything that went wrong for Hitler went wrong because of Britain. With Britain gone there was no credible threat, no counterattack he could not repel and no European country he could not take once he consolidated his hold.

3.Dont get parkinson's

Posted by oski . "Related to 3. Hitler could have also used Japan better as an ally. As long as Japan kept up a force in numbers on the Russian's Eastern front, Stalin would have had to keep his troops there. However, Japan moved them out thus freeing up much-needed (and significant) reinforcements to defend Moscow. If Japan held off on their troop movements for a few months, Moscow probably would have fallen"


It should be noted Japan was not interested in any substantial joint military or even economic actions with Germany. The alliance was limited between Japan and Germany. During the war leaders of both sides decieved each other by saying they were winning there respective battles. In fact when Germany surrenderd to the allies in the summer of 1945, Japan denounced the surrender as treason and imprisoned all Germans in Japan and confiscated there land.

Hitler wanted Japan to attack the Soviet Far east but Richard Sorge (former USSR Spy) revealed Japan's unwillingness to cooperate with Hitler against the USSR in September 1941

From wiki- "Sorge advised the Red Army on September 14, 1941, that the Japanese were not going to attack the Soviet Union until:

1. Moscow was captured
2. the size of the Kwantung Army was three times that of the Soviet Union's Far Eastern forces
3. a civil war had started in Siberia

"Toward the end of September 1941, Sorge transmitted information that Japan would not initiate hostilities against the USSR in the East, thereby freeing Red Army divisions stationed in Siberia for the defence of Moscow"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sorge

Yes, quite understood. However, my point had nothing to do with asking Japan to participate by invading Russia. I was merely suggesting that Hitler could have perhaps finessed Japan into keeping a military presence in northeast Asia for a few months longer to hold the Russian troops in place.

Yes this and Japan's "go south" mentality after they lost the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 coupled with there ineffectiveness in Mongolia. After 1938 it was Japan's goal to focus just about everything on the war vs China, and of course allied occupations in the Pacific

Of course the neutrality pact of 1941 between the USSR and the Empire of Japan would later be denounced in 1945, when the USSR finally declared war on Japan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%...t#Denunciation

This action would be one of the reasons for the tension between the USA and USSR and the eventual Cold War imo as it acted in violation of the Yalta conference.

But in the end you are correct Oski. And imo if Japan would not have invaded China and instead used those forces to create a two prong attack on the USSR in conjuction with the Germans.... I believe the Axis powers would win the war. None the less Japans war with China was sort of inevitable and seemingly Japan had no choice but to invade China

Again, I was not saying anything about a two-pronged attack. I was talking about having Japan delaying their attack into China for a few months and just keep their troops in place at the Russian border while the attack on Moscow was ongoing.

No chance of that since Japan invaded China in 1937 - 4 years before Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

yes my mistake. I did notice you said Japan should have kept there Kwantung army on the border. My take on the issue was that Japan should have indeed invaded Russia.

But of course as expat pointed out the inevitability of war with China prevented this action.

For your scenario to work Japan would have had to delay the attack on Pearl Harbour.

The Imperial Navy wouldn't do that because their strategic reserves on oil were running low because of the US embargo and trade sanctions.
They believed they needed to go in 1941 or they wouldn't be able to wage war at all.

Expat: I was using the prior guy's term "Invading China." Prior to that I simply stated the troops were at the border. Read all the books you want about the invasion of Moscow and you will find out where Stalin's reinforcements came from, when they came, and why they came.

If those reinforcements were not pulled from the Russia/Japan border, Moscow probably falls.

Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like I totally disagreed with you.

It's true that if Japan had kept the Kwantung army threatening the Russian border then the Siberian divisions would not have been transferred to the Moscow front.
In that case, Moscow falls and with it the main strategic railway hubs. Given the Soviet railway system of the time (all main railroutes go via Moscow - much like the French rail system all goes via Paris) this would have severely disrupted the movement of supplies and troops.

My point was that given Japan's strategic imperative to secure oil supplies and other raw materials in the face of the US trade sanctions or risk surrender (not a Japanese characteristic), they viewed the US as the primary enemy so co-operation with Germany was not on their agenda.

Veering back to the thread main topic:
A major strategic mistake was Hitler declaring war on the US in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour.
If he hadn't done that, then Roosevelt was have had no choice politically but to focus most, if not all, his attention on the defeat of Japan. So potentially less aid to the UK, no US bombing offensive on Germany, no Arctic convoys providing supplies to Russia, no Torch invasion, no Overlord.

I think this was his biggest mistake too.

I totally agree with that point, however, my point is that Hitler did not even try to do something with Japan on this. That Japan would have been reluctant is a given, but it does not mean nothing could have been done about it.

3-He could have offered the British a carrot after destroying France so quickly.

Hitler had no way of crossing the English channel.

In a way the 40 campaign against France doomed Germany. Before France Hitler was a political genius. His ability to play the 3 way cold war(west, communist and fascist) to his advantage was amazing.
After France was defeat so quickly and easily Hitler assumed he had an unstoppable army and he didn't have to play politic so well. So much so that he assumed that his alliance could fight the other two simultaneously and win.

Other than the obvious, not treating that Ukrainians as allies was a huge mistake. Also getting sucked into Africa when he knew he was going into Russia was a disaster. There was no way he had the resources to occupy North Africa while Britain remained unconquered and the US could enter the war at any time.

Rommel requested 4 armor divisions; Hitler reluctantly gave him one as well as a light armor division.

I believe the facts suggest, with the 4 divisions, Rommel takes the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal was vitally important and should have been priority 1 for the axis

Please explain why the Suez Canal was so vitally important to the Axis, and how not capturing it contributed in large measure to their ultimate defeat.

I'm not so sure that giving Rommel the extra 2.5 armored divisions he requested would have helped nearly as much as another flotilla of submarines, a couple of wings of aircraft and a few more surface warships and cargo ships. What battles did Rommel lose because he didn't have more armour? I'd suggest his biggest problem was the logistical difficulty of supplying an army in Egypt from a base 1500 km away at Tripoli, when all the supplies had to first cross the Mediterranean from Europe. Most of the fuel shipped past Malta to the Afrika Korps was consumed trucking it to the front. Adding another 2.5 armoured divisions would have greatly increased his supply difficulties. There is reason to doubt that the Axis had enough shipping available in theatre to transport across the Med the supplies needed by 2.5 more armoured divisions, nor the trucks to move it down the roads once it arrived in Tripoli.