Only Serious answers. What do you think was Hitlers biggest mistake in WW2.?

Question

I personally think that his biggest mistake was taking on the Soviet Union before the west was secure. They werent just going to plow through the Russians like they did in WW1. Do you concur.

To answer what some of you are saying, yes he did make many mistakes. I am just pointing out the first major mistake he made that in my opinion(and many others I'm sure) that if avoided could have alterd the war entirely. I'm also talking about purely when he began to attack the Soviet union, not so necescarily when he invaded during winter.
To respond to another question, yes I do know about Hitlers past. He was born in Austria-Hungary in 1889. He moved to Germany and fell in love with it. He tried to become an artist and enroll in a special art school but was rejected. He fought in WW1. In his book Mein Kampf he told of how in the trenchs on the western front he heard a voice that told him to go about 20 meters south through the trenchs. He did so, and so he claimed in his book he wasnt 21 meters away when a shell hit the trench were he was and took out all the remaining soldiers their. I do not beleive Hitler actualy hated the Jews. Germany was on Hard times and he needed a scape.

Answer 1

Not finishing off the British at Dunkirk. Not faking the Spanish and Russians that they (the Germans) could not fight:and being on two fronts either they could quit or really fight. God Bless you Our Southern Friends and Our friends in the Field.

Answer 2

The biggest mistakes occurred in Belarus and the Ukraine in 1941.

First, sending Army Group Center south to assist in securing control of the Ukraine, diverting them from their drive toward Moscow. They did not resume the advance toward Moscow until late September. If they had not been diverted, the Germans could have taken Moscow before winter.

Second, not making use of the local population in the fight against the Soviets. Much of the population in the Western USSR was on the verge of rebellion (or already there) at the time of the German invasion and many initially greeted the Germans as liberators. Rather than using these partisan and even quasi-regular local forces to secure the rear, the Nazis commenced with killings and deportations which put the rebels firmly back into the Soviet camp.

Answer 3

Actually the Germans did not PLOW THROUGH in WWI. They succeeded well enough for there to be a mutiny of Russians and bring down the Czar but they did not reach the gates of Moscow and lay Leningrad to siege as in WWII.

But yes, Hitler did err when he invaded the Soviet Union late in the summer and had not provided his army with winter gear such as water proof insulated boots, warm clothing etc. His major enemy was the Russian Winter just as it had been for Napoleon.

Further the German armies treated all the Russian villages with contempt as they passed through on the way East. People were brutalized, property destroyed. When the retreat began they had to pass through these self same villages where the peasants had destroyed food stuffs and anything else the Germans might need. Had they not been so brutal many of these peasants would surely have greeted them as saviors to get them out from under the brute Stalin.

Answer 4

A two-front war was not a reality in June 1941. Operation Barbarossa came to within a hair's breath from victory for the Germans. The single monumental mistake was the dropping of the blitzkrieg tactics on the Soviet city of Stalingrad.

Answer 5

Taking on the Soviet Union while simultaneously fighting in the west was indeed a major mistake, but that mistake would not have occurred had he not made a prior mistake -- failing to listen to his military advisers.

Although Hitler had some of the best qualified generals and military advisers available to him, he preferred to devise his own strategy and expected them to follow it rather than listening to the very men whose responsibility it was to win the war.

Answer 6

Hitler made so many mistakes it's hard to say where to start. Starting a war he couldn't win being the biggest. Not building up his submarine fleet, surrounding himself with evil-minded gangsters, bombing London rather than the airfields and factories, mistreating and squandering resources of civilian populations in general, and particularly while invading Russia, invading Russia before England was subdued, emulating Napoleon's winter outside Moscow, building bombers instead of fighters...What did he do right?

Answer 7

Hitler severely underestimated the Russian people and the Russian winters. Stalingrad was far too costly.
In addition, he split his forces into two fronts when he attacked Russia. Every military commander knows that is a grave mistake. His staff warned him against it. Hitler fancied himself a master tactician to the dismay of his staff and ultimately the German people.
It is exactly as you say. He should have finished England first.

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Answer 8

Hitler did not make one mistake - he made several. In my view, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was just the icing on the cake - the final product of a flawed foreign and domestic policy.
Germany's fear of encirclement - that France, Russia and England would encircle it - always dominated Germany psyche.

The invasion of Russia has always been a part of a flawed German foreign policy to secure its eastern borders and establish German hegemony in central europe - look at Frederick the Great and the division of Poland - that removed the buffer between two very large powers and two different enemies. German foreign policy has always held Russia with barely concealed contempt. Hitler was just following a long line of tradition of German hatred of Russia.

Nazi nationalism and German nationalism followed this long tradition of contempt for Russia - and the fear of Communism.

As for personal flaws, Hitler was a gambler, a leader willing to push the boundaries. But Hitler also held the opinions of his generals with complete contempt. Hitler's success with the annexation of the Rhine, his success at Munich, with Austria just reinforced Hitler's confidence in his own views of Western weakness and his contempt for everyone who said his policies would fail.

But Hitler not only underestimated Russia, but also he believed that his allies Japan and Italy would stay firm. Hitler's confidence that if he declared war on the United States, that Japan would attack from the East, allowed the Russians complete freedom on their eastern side. Mussolini's failure to control the south led to Hitler's southern flank exposed which allowed the allies to also attack from the South.

But if there was one mistake that Hitler made - it was his attack on the Jews. The one people that Hitler could have turned to for financial support and labour - Hitler devoted thousands of troops to the Holocaust and the Labour camps. Hitler's insane belief that the Jews were evil and needed to be exterminated - again part of a long tradition of German nationalism from the 19th Century.

In summary - there are alot of books on the subject. But i think to explain Hitler's failed policies, you have to go much deeper into explaining German policies, traditions, and what shaped Germans to follow Hitler's policies to the tragic end....

Answer 9

biggest mistake was that he underestimated the booming war technology that his brilliant scientists where working on since mid 30's and he preferred the usual weapons of war at least in the first years of WWII. Later when he realised his mistake was too late to win the war.If Messerschmitt Me 262 and generally jet planes, V1's ,V2's, remote guided air to ground missiles, Radars, Sonars and many more inventions where developed sooner and in great numbers they could have change everything.Even the RnD on the German Atom bomb.But he refused to give founds on them in time.

Answer 10

Invading Russia without supplying his troops with winter uniforms. The invasion actually began in mid summer, and they advanced quite far until they were finally slowed down - and winter rolled in. His soldiers froze to death because they did not have the necessary clothing to keep warm.