Why did Hitler drop Battle of Britain for Operation Barbarossa?

Question

My history teacher did post the question, as a clueless but not lazy student, i am suppose to find the answer before she skins me... The question refers to that in Battle of Britain, Hitler dropped it in faovur of Barbarossa. But why the sudden descision, Hitler was famous for being a careful planner, the move is unlike his style. So what was the motivation? i did search the internet but the answer is like a drop in the ocean...

Answer 1

Hitler, as an avid anti-communist, had always planned to deal with the Soviet Union. Ideologically he also saw Slaws as racially inferior, which meant for him that they had no right to exist.

On the other hand, Hitler was also an avid Anglophile who deeply admired the British and their Empire. This is a widely overlooked fact in Hitler's psyche and personality.
Hitler never intended a war with Britain, and as late as 1936 he had told Admiral Raeder, the C-in-C of his Navy, that he should not worry about the Royal Navy, as she would "not be the enemy you have to fight".
When Britain declared war on Germany two days after Germany had started the invasion of Poland, it came to Hitler as a shock. He had not planned for this and was not really prepared for it. But a man like Hitler, who saw betrayal and conspiracy against him and his nation almost everywhere, was not willing to give in. And within a few months the General Staff had devised an attack and invasion plan for Britain, code-named "Sea Lion". This would get executed after the succuessful invasion and occupation of the Netherlands, Belgium and France, as especially the Channel ports and airfields in Northern France were essential for the plan.

The first part of "Sea Lion" was the winning of air superiority over the Channel and over Britain itself, and this lead to what later became known as the "Battle of Britain". At first the Germans did a devastating job to the RAF, and their precision bombardement of airfields, depots, magazines and radar installations almost put the RAF out of commission. Had these bombardements, which concentrated exclusively on military targets, continued for a few more weeks, there would have been no RAF left to resist a German air and sea landing.
Desperate for a miracle, Churchill ordered a high profile air raid on the inner city of Berlin, hoping to outrage Hitler and Göring, the C-in-C of the German Airforce. Because Göring had sworn that "no bombs will ever fall on Berlin". (And if they would, he had added, his name would be Meyer.)
The RAF night bombing raid was paid for with extremely high casualties, but some British bombs did hit the centre of Berlin. And as Churchill had hoped, both Hitler and Göring were deeply shocked, outraged and foaming for revenge. So German bomber squadrons were ordered to attack British cities as well. London in particular, but also other cities (especially industrial centres) were subjected to what became known as the "Blitz". Thousands of houses were destroyed, and hundreds of British civilians died as a result. But Churchill and the RAF got the break they needed. When the Germans realised their mistake, it was too late and the RAF began to win the upper hand. Having stretched their aircraft and personnel resources already, the German war economy of 1940 was not able to match the losses the Airforce began to encounter over Britain after the death blow against the RAF had been stopped by Hitler. So his decision to abandon "Sea Lion" in the late summer of 1940 was simply as a result of changed facts and circumstances.

At about the same time the Allies also had a great success on the shady front of the intelligence war. A team of French agents, supported by Britain's MI-6, managed to play forged documents into the hands of the German "Abwehr", who took them for real. Those documents indicated widespread activities of Comintern, the Communist International organisation, within Germany and the occupied European countries. They indicated plans for sabotage, propaganda and underground activities against German interests, at a time when Germany was officially allied with the Soviet Union, whose international agency Comintern was. Once again Hitler fell for the deception and decided that he had to beat Stalin to the starting line. He wanted to strike the USSR before she was ready to strike Germany.
Ironically Stalin never had any plans to wage war against the Germans and was quite comfortable with the arrangement of having Hitler as his ally.
Overall one can say that Hitler's anglophile preferences made him blind for the reality of Britain, which he had never visited. And so the devious British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who would have sold his mother for a political miracle in 1940 (after suffering a series of devastating military defeats), played Hitler almost at will. Again, this element of the German dictator is widely overlooked and under-analysed in many of our history books.

Answer 2

The answer to this is quite simple. Hitler didn't just arbitrarily decide to drop his attack on the British and move against the Russians. Quite frankly, the Brits (namely the RAF with a tiny bit of assistance from a little known outfit of American flyers called the American Eagle Squadron) had kicked Hitlers Nazi butt back into the stone age during the Battle of Britain and Hitler didn't want to pay the price for invading the United Kingdom. So, like the coward and complete jerk-off he (Hitler) was, he formulated Operation Barbarossa, also known as the invasion of the Soviet Union, because he could invade Russia with complete surprise since there was a treaty of non-aggression in force between Germany and the Soviet Union at the time. Hitler ALWAYS intended to attack the Russians. In fact, he intended to treat the Russians (and all Salvic peoples of Europe) the same as he'd treated the Jews; extinction.

Hitler was no great strategist. He was a corporal in the German Army in World War I, for crying out loud. He knew about as much about military tactics as Bart the Wonder-Dog. That's not to impugn the abilities of some of his general staff, however. People like Rommel, Von Rundstehdt and Kesselring were all great tacticians. Thank the living God that Hilter was too obsessed with himself than to listen to these men; the war may have turned out quite differently.

Answer 3

Up until the last weeks of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe was focusing on the airfields and radar facilities in southern England. Earlier in the battle, cities were bombed except for London. The first bombs fell on Berlin at this time, which saved Britain in the end as the Fuhrer made the knee-jerk decision to 'take an eye for an eye' and started the bombing of London, thus giving Fighter Command some respite.

The real nordic enemy was not the anglo-saxons of britain but the slavs from the east. It was always Hitler's intention to attack in the east. Goering could not ensure victory from the air and an invasion over water was not to Hitler's liking.

He was drawn eastward, ever eastward toward the boundless country of Mother Russia, the same way Napoleon was drawn to the east when he was left chomping at the bit on the English Channel.

Answer 4

You got some good info here and some real bad, First as a Historian I would pick the following to research: Battle of Britain, 2) Battle of Midway, 3) D-Day June 6th, 4)Atomic Bomb. Reasons" Battle of Britain, Europe m stopped Hitler in his tracks. first time Germans stopped in the war. Became the beginning of the end. Without control of the air they could not invade UK., Battle of Midway, Pacific, Stopped 6-month advance of Japan. allowed America to begin advance in Guadalcanal and start drive into Japan. The turning point of the Pacific in many historian's minds. D-Day, opened the second front demanded by Stalin, made the Germans fight both the Russians and Western Allies at the same time on the ground, and liberated France and the Low Lands taken in 1940. Allowed the establishment of Western Germany after the war. The Atomic Bomb, Not only ended the war fast, prevented invasion of Japan and 1/2 to 1 million US and up to 10-million Japanese deaths. It also set the stage for most all major world events up to this present day, look at what is happening between Israel and Iran over the bomb. that makes it an important turning point,plus 60 plus years of protesters, now you need to use the Internet and do some background research, run the spell grammar check, and turn in a good paper. Good Luck.

Answer 5

Britain is an island. In order to invade it, Hitler had to be able to get his ships across the English Channel, something that was impossible as long as the British planes (the RAF) were able to destroy German ships from the skies while they were crossing the channel. So Hitler embarked on the Battle of Britain to bomb the British air force, airports, etc. to pave the way for his planned invasion of England (called Operation Sea Lion). However, when British pilots dropped bombs on Berlin, Hitler (who had promised that Berlin would never be bombed), bombed, flew into a rage and made a major mistake. He switched his bombing from the airports and military targets to terrorist bombing of civilian cities (especially London). This allowed the RAF to survive, making an invasion of Britain impossible. So Hitler moved on to Russia...

Answer 6

The German Airforce was unable to win the Battle of Britain, and by switching fronts Hitler avoided losing his face and exposing his Chief of the Airforce, Goring, as a failure.

Answer 7

T be honest no one actually knows. the the most possible option is that he believed he was done with Britain and they wouldnt an obstale for world domination so then he put his eyes on his hated eastern europe to terminate the slavs.

Answer 8

He was a mad dog dictator military genius full of evil. He slipped a cog. Went off the rails. Messed up on his plans. Changed his plans. Forgot his plans. Got lost in Eva Brown's eyes and danced the war away. Tripped and fell down the stairs. Messed in his pants . fell over board on the voyage to find his sanity. Lost his rattle. Got his &^%$ cought in the door.Lost his military mind set. Set his military mind on a set. Set forth on the right course. Oh heck I donno. I am so sorry. Thanks for the points though