Adolf Hitler was an idiot. And that’s a good thing because it led him to make some really
bad strategic decisions during World War II. If Hitler had been a little smarter,
we might very well be living in a messed up Nazi-controlled world full of Hitler Youth today.
Luckily, that’s not how history played out. As we progress through some of Hitler’s worst
decisions during World War II, you may be surprised to find that it was his ego,
the name of an enemy, and his belief in the occult that partially cost him the war.
Let’s start at the beginning. When you’re a genocidal maniac like Hitler,
your choice of allies can end up being pretty slim. One of the main reasons that Hitler’s Nazi
Germany allied itself with Italy was because no one else was crazy enough to join him but
Benito Mussolini. Most historians argue that Italy wasn’t Hitler's first choice for an ally,
or even his second or third choice. But when your entire platform is predicated on mass genocide and
ruling the world in your own deranged way, not many people can be convinced to get on board.
It was Mussolini's authoritarian rule and his dislike for the Jewish people that made him the
perfect ally for Hitler. However, allying himself with Benito was the first mistake
Hitler would make that would eventually lead to him losing World War II. During wartime,
you want strong and independent Allies who will have your back when things get tough
and can bring something meaningful to the table. Mussolini’s Italy was none of those things.
Time and time again, Germany would have to bail out Italian forces as they continually
became pinned down or surrounded by the Allies. This would cost Hitler greatly,
as Germany would lose valuable resources and men whenever Italy failed in its missions.
Choosing the wrong ally was definitely one decision that cost Hitler in the long run.
But it would not be the only one. The way he handled the
North African Campaign starting in 1940 ended up being a disaster to his cause.
World War II started in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
Axis forces swept across the continent, securing strategic positions and decimating anyone who
stood in their way. However, the same cannot be said about their campaign in North Africa,
as it was brought to a grinding halt by an unexpected force.
The main objective of the North African Campaign was to secure the Suez Canal,
which would allow Nazi forces to have better access to oil coming from the Middle East. The
Nazis had some of the best tanks, aircraft, and naval vessels in the world, which gave them the
upper hand in many battles. However, without oil to fuel these vehicles, they were useless.
Originally Hitler left Italy in charge of securing North Africa while he focused on
decimating Western Europe. This was his first mistake. Italy had trouble defeating Allied
forces in the region from the beginning, and Hitler had to send men and tanks down to bail
them out. The distance between Germany and North Africa meant this would take
time, but it had to be done if the Axis powers were going to control the region.
Eventually, Hitler decided to send General Erwin Rommel to the region to command the German tank
forces in North Africa. His mission was to sweep across the continent from Morroco to the Middle
East. Once there, he would be in charge of maintaining control of the vast oil reserves
in the region. This was a wise strategic move for Hitler, but the execution was performed poorly.
After some initial success, things started to fall apart in North Africa. The main problem was
that Rommel just didn’t have the resources or tanks necessary to get the job done.
Rommel made it as far as Tobruk in Libya before he ran into some issues. He was able to capture
the seaport of Tobruk, but once the Nazis forces began their advance further east,
they were stopped by British general Bernard Montgomery at El Alamein. For
twelve days Nazi and Italian forces tried to break the British line without success.
Hitler was furious with the lack of progress in North Africa. After a second defeat at El Alamein,
Rommel returned to Europe. He complained that he should have been left with the tank battalions
in North Africa, where he was sure he could eventually defeat the Allied forces. However,
whether it was Hitler’s direct orders or his influence over the Nazi’s military,
Rommel was forced to stay in Germany while his forces in North Africa were defeated.
The Allies had secretly landed more troops in Morroco and Algeria. They charged across the
region and eventually trapped the retreating Axis forces. Altogether around 250,000 German
and Italian troops were captured. This would be a definitive turning point in the war to control
North Africa and led to a huge disruption in the oil supply that fueled the Nazi war machine.
As a side note, Rommel was later accused and convicted for playing a role in the 20
July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. This led to the general being given two options:
execution by the State or death by suicide. On October 14, 1944, Rommel bit down on a cyanide
capsule and ended his life and career as a Nazi General. There is no clear evidence that Rommel
actually played a role in the assassination attempt on Hitler’s life. This may mean that
rather than having a traitor killed, Hitler made the mistake of eliminating one of his
best generals, as Rommel is traditionally seen as a brilliant commander in the field.
And Hitler’s mistakes would keep on coming. The United States played a major role in securing
victory for Allied forces in Europe. However, one of the main reasons that the U.S.A. sent troops
to Europe was because Hitler made the mistake of declaring war on the United States first.
The U.S. was sending supplies and resources to the Allies in Europe from
very early on in the war. However, they had adopted somewhat of an isolationist
policy and had no plans of directly intervening in Europe until December 11,
1941. That is when Hitler made another decision that would cost him the war.
Early on in 1941, the United States had not sent or had plans to send, troops to Europe.
Then Pearl Harbor happened. Hitler had no idea that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor,
but he had hoped from the beginning that Japan would pull the U.S. into a war in the Pacific.
This would cause them to focus their attention on the other side of the world,
likely reducing the amount of supplies they were sending to Britain.
Instead of letting these events play out,
Hitler did something really dumb. He started attacking American supply ships in the Atlantic
and immediately declared war on the U.S. Hitler was delusional and thought even if
he destroyed American convoys and declared war on the country, the U.S. would still be too
preoccupied with Japan to retaliate. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
The United States’ economy was incredibly strong and had already begun ramping up
wartime production. They had the men, resources, and now the motive to fight a war on two fronts.
At the time, President Franklin Delano Rosevelt was still on the fence about
whether troops should be sent to Europe or if the United States should solely focus on Japan.
But Hitler’s decision to declare war on the U.S. prematurely made the decision easy for him.
America would go to war with Nazi Germany and kick their ass. And Hitler only had himself to blame.
Just to put it into perspective on how big of a mistake this was, every year of the war,
the United States constructed twice as many planes and war vehicles as Nazi Germany did.
The United States also had immense resources and a huge labor pool to pull from. With
everyone now united under the declaration of war against the United States by Adolf Hitler,
the whole country put everything they had into the war effort to defeat Nazi Germany.
In the summer of 1941, Hitler would make a decision that would cost him
enormous amounts of men, resources, and pretty much the war itself.
On June 22, the Nazis launched Operation Barbarossa. At the beginning of the war,
Hitler was smart enough to have Soviet Russia sign a nonaggression pact, which ensured that
they wouldn’t attack Germany from the east. This allowed him to focus his attention on western
Europe and defeating Great Britain. However, Hitler was not smart enough not to break his
own pact. He launched an invasion into Russia, which meant Germany now had to fight countries
to its east and its west, defeating the purpose of preventing a two-front war.
This decision was a huge mistake and one of the critical factors that cost him the war.
At first, Nazi Germany seemed to have the upper hand. Stalin was delusional and
thought there was no way Hitler would break his promise and invade Russia,
but this was Adolf Hitler we are talking about, and he obviously could not be trusted.
The Germans amassed forces along the Russian border. In fact,
they weren’t even very discrete about it. Hitler had always planned to invade the Soviet Union;
he just wanted to wait until all of Europe was under his control first. However, with resources
running low and the need for a new source of labor, Hitler launched his invasion early.
He fully committed to this decision even though many of his military advisors warned him that
conquering the Soviet Union and fighting a two-front war would be incredibly difficult,
if not impossible. He ignored them and launched the offensive into Russia anyways.
At the beginning of the invasion, the Nazis were winning almost every battle.
Hitler patted himself on the back for a job well done and scoffed at anyone who was still
warry of sending troops deep into Russian territory. History had shown that trying
to take over Russia never worked out well for the invading force.
Nazi morale was high as they marched further and further into the Soviet Union. The dirt
roads were passable in the summer months, and the Nazi uniforms provided enough warmth to stay
relatively comfortable even at night. Hitler was so convinced that the war in Russia would
be over quickly that he held off on sending more supplies and winter gear to the troops
who were advancing further into the Soviet Union. But as the winter months approached,
the weather began to change. The tide of the war in Russia was about to shift.
Operation Barbarossa was a massive offensive with three different attack forces spread out across
approximately 1,800 miles of land. As all three parts of the German army started to
reach their objectives, they were slowed down by terrible weather, lack of food,
and depletion of resources. The Russian people destroyed their own villages, farms,
and factories as they retreated further into the Soviet Union to get away from the Nazi invasion.
Hitler’s original plan had been to resupply his troops using Russian resources as they
made their way across the country. It was too long a distance to constantly be resupplying his forces
from Germany. Plus the whole point of invading the Soviet Union was to secure more resources.
However, the Russian people left very little of use behind due to their Scorched Earth Policy.
When the northern offensive reached Leningrad, they thought it would fall as quickly as the
rest of Russia, but this was not the case. The Germans couldn’t manage to secure Leningrad
from the Russians, and resources were running dangerously low. On top of that,
the Nazi forces in the south also ran into trouble. They were stopped dead in their
tracks by entrenched Russian soldiers and couldn't advance any further. Hitler was
furious. He ordered the middle offensive to send troops to the north and south, which
weakened the middle force while not improving the situation in the other regions by much.
The slowing down of the German advance allowed the Soviets to regroup.
Over a million troops and a thousand tanks were sent to Moscow to protect the capital. The Nazis
were now stopped on all fronts. They couldn’t manage to take Leningrad in the north and due
to the Soviet reinforcements in the middle of the country and the changing of the weather,
capturing Moscow was a lost cause as well.
It was becoming more and more clear that Hitler’s decision to invade Russia was a
huge mistake. The Germans had not brought enough winter supplies due to Hitlers overconfidence.
He also gravely underestimated the resilience of the Russian people,
and how many of them would join in the cause to stop Germany from taking their land.
Stalin had a huge population to fuel his war machine, and the resources contained
within the Soviet Union’s borders allowed them to quickly resupply
while the Germans struggled to get simple things such as food and warm clothes to their troops.
While the invasion of Soviet Russia was failing, Hitler seemed to lose his mind.
He started blaming everyone else for his bad decisions. This led to another huge mistake.
Rather than listening to his generals and advisors who knew more about war than he did,
Hitler decided to make himself Commander in Chief of the Nazi Army.
He couldn’t believe that his troops hadn’t yet secured Russia. They would have to double their
efforts, and anyone who even mentioned the word “retreat” would be executed.
Everyone who had been serving on the frontlines of the war knew that trying to subdue Russia and
take its capital was a lost cause, but Hitler would hear none of it. He wanted Moscow to fall,
and he wanted it bad. So, he put himself in charge of the military to make sure that no
one did anything rash like withdraw and come up with a better plan.
Hitler was going to take Russia or lose the war trying, which is exactly what he did. He
had put himself in an unwinnable position, fighting on two fronts while also bringing
the United States into the fray. And he was quickly running out of resources. Things were
about to go from bad to worse, and it all had to do with Hitler’s next few decisions.
Hitler often let his feelings get in the way of making good wartime decisions. And perhaps there
is no better example of this than the Battle of Stalingrad, which began in August of 1942 as part
of the Nazi’s southern advance into Russia. This city was a manufacturing hub for the Soviets,
which meant it had great strategic importance. The Nazis did not necessarily need to secure the
entire city in order to disrupt the Russian supply chain. Instead, all they really needed to do was
blockade Stalingrad to make sure nothing got in or out. However, Hitler had something else in mind.
For Hitler, there was almost nothing more important than taking the city
of Stalingrad. Not because of its importance but because it was named after Joseph Stalin,
the then leader of the Soviet Union. Hitler believed it would be a huge blow to Russian morale
and a huge boost to his own ego if the Nazis took the city bearing the leader’s name. To be fair,
Stalingrad would have provided the Nazis with desperately needed fuel and supplies,
but Hitler couldn’t help but let his feelings get involved in this wartime decision.
For three months, the Nazis tried to take the city. They were unsuccessful due to Hitler’s
obsession with conquering Russia on all fronts rather than focusing his troops on one location.
The Nazis had even taken much of the oilfields and resource-rich areas of Ukraine and Crimea,
but rather than holding the line and coming up with a better plan,
Hitler ordered his troops forward into the meatgrinder of Stalingrad.
This was a huge mistake because it left their rear flank vulnerable to counter-attack. Whether Hitler
realized this and just didn’t care or he was too focused on taking Stalingrad to notice is up for
debate. Regardless, Soviet generals did notice, and they sent a force to attack the rearguard
of the Nazi army. The Soviets managed to break through the Nazi defenses and surrounded them.
This allowed the Soviets to cut off desperately needed supplies by capturing military bases and
airfields as they tightened their hold on the region. Hitler ordered General Friedrich Paulus,
who was in charge of the Nazi forces in southern Russia, to continue fighting or
be court-martialed and let someone else take over. Paulus decided to take a third option
and save the lives of as many of his men as possible by surrendering to the Soviets instead.
Due to Hitler’s crazed attempt to take Stalingrad, which was done mostly because of its name,
the Nazis lost hundreds of thousands of men in southern Russia. After Stalingrad,
there was no hope of Hitler turning the war around.
The Nazi forces were now retreating back towards Germany. The Soviets captured anything left behind
and wiped out Nazi forces that got in their way. By the beginning of 1943, not only had Hitler lost
millions of troops and vehicles, but he was losing the confidence of his people. The low morale of
civilians and military personnel alike would cause the Nazi war machine to be less effective.
Early footage of Nazi rallies shows huge crowds of enthralled people hanging on Hitler’s every word.
However, after the Eastern front began to collapse and the threat of a Soviet invasion
loomed on the horizon, the German people started to panic and lose faith in their fearless leader.
The final nail in the coffin was the failed attempt to invade the Soviet Union and secure
Moscow and Stalingrad. This wiped out any remaining morale left in the German people.
To make matters worse, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt had just met in Casablanca
and decided it was time to commence bombing runs on German soil. This led to death and
destruction at home, which the German people had not experienced up to this point. It was
a real eye-opener that their Fuhrer might not be able to deliver on all of the promises he made,
and the war might in fact be a total loss.
At the end of the summer of 1943, incendiary bombs were dropped on Hamburg. The destruction
and fire they caused destroyed practically the entire city and killed around 40,000 people.
After the bombing run, approximately 900,000 Germans were left homeless. The war had now become
very real for the average German citizen. It also became clear that many in the military were losing
faith in their Fuhrer. Over 20,000 Nazi troops were court-martialed and executed for various
reasons, most of which stemmed from their lack of confidence in Adolf Hitler. Without the trust and
enthusiasm of his people and military personnel, there was no way that Hitler could win the war.
The only thing worse for Hitler than having the Russians closing in from the east,
Italy falling apart in the south, and military supplies running low on all fronts would be if the
British and Americans somehow managed to land in France and secure a foothold on mainland Europe.
On June 6, 1944, Hitler’s worst fear came to be. On top of being a crazy,
egotistical, power-hungry monster, Hitler was also gullible. He allowed the Allies to trick
him and his generals into deploying troops at the wrong locations along his Atlantic Wall
as D-Day was carried out. The Allies knew they would be landing at Normandy, but they
definitely didn’t want Hitler to know that, so they used false radio broadcasts, dummy aircraft,
and misinformation to trick Hitler into moving his forces away from the actual landing zones.
The plan worked, and when allied forces stormed the beaches, they met much less
resistance than they would have otherwise. There is no doubt that the D-Day invasion was a gruesome
and terrible moment in World War II history that cost the lives of thousands of allied soldiers,
but it ended up being successful because of the allies' ability to trick Hitler.
With Allied troops now on mainland Europe, there was nowhere to run.
Nazi forces were recalled back to the Fatherland as an invasion of Germany was now imminent.
All of the key events mentioned so far were not the only reasons Hitler lost the war.
There were also some factors that Hitler handled poorly throughout the entire conflict that led
to his demise. These can’t be pinpointed to a specific event or battle but instead,
show how a bloodthirsty tyrant can let his vision for world domination get in his own way.
Perhaps the biggest mistake that Hitler made was overextending his forces.
This was such a problem because, throughout the war, maintaining supply lines was a
huge problem for the Nazis. They constantly found themselves in need of more resources,
the most important of which were fuel and food, to supply their vehicles and troops.
In the initial months of the war, Axis powers secured vast amounts of land across
Europe and North Africa. However, this meant that supplies and resources needed
to travel incredibly long distances to reach troops. Vehicles and ammunition
that were made in Germany could take weeks or months to reach the frontlines.
It may sound crazy, but Nazi Germany even had to rely pretty heavily on horses to
transport supplies to some regions due to a lack of vehicles and the landscape.
This meant that Hitler’s war machine moved quickly at first but then came to a grinding halt as
supplies took forever to get to where they needed to go. If he was somehow able to quickly move the
resources his troops needed throughout the entire war, it is very likely that Hitler could have won.
The German supply line also forced Hitler into one of his biggest mistakes in World War
II. Nazi forces needed oil, and they needed a lot of it. This was the main reason why Hitler
invaded the Soviet Union. If he had been able to secure oil, steel, and food from any other source,
he could have avoided starting a war with Russia, which would have meant Germany
wouldn’t have needed to fight a war on two fronts. Therefore, it was the lack of resources and supply
line issues that were the overarching cause that led to Adolf Hitler losing World War II.
Perhaps the most surprising factor that led to Hitler’s defeat wasn’t anything
to do with the military or supply chain at all. Instead, perhaps his obsession
with magic and the occult was a driving factor behind some of his worst decisions.
The Nazis’ fascination with the occult wasn’t just made up to create Indiana Jones movies. Instead,
mysticism played a pretty important role in Hitler’s decision-making policies.
For example, the Nazis were constantly on the search for the Holy Grail as the
promise of everlasting life was a huge draw for Hitler and his entourage of occultists.
Hitler and the rest of the Nazi leadership were not Christians,
but they still believed certain relics were imbued with mystical powers.
But the search for mystical relics was only one aspect of Hitler’s use of the occult. He
actually used pretty strange practices to help make some wartime decisions as well.
Some accounts report that the Hitler and Nazi military leaders frequently used a pendulum
and dowsing rod to determine the location of Allied warships on maps of the ocean.
These devices have no actual magical properties or any
measurable effect on determining the location of an object, including naval vessels. So,
any decisions made using these techniques would be as good as if Hitler had just closed his eyes
and randomly pointed to an area on a map with his finger to determine where Allied forces were.
Other important military decisions were made under the advisement of astrologers, magicians,
and tarot card readers. Again, there is no scientific basis that any of these practices
can have a positive effect on wartime decisions. Belief in the occult and mysticism definitely
played less of a role in Hitler losing World War II than the other factors discussed in this video,
but you can’t help but wonder how many of his bad decisions were actually the
result of following the advice of psychics or in pursuit of some magical artifact.
Now watch “Last 24 Hours of Hitler's Life.” Or check out
“Hitler's Actual Plan for Taking Over America.”