1. Fighting a war on two fronts
Hitler’s main mistake here was to underestimate Britain’s resolve and aerial prowess. Hitler was led to believe that his Luftwaffe would easily win the Battle of Britain, but that didn’t happen, so the German leader ended up still battling Britain in the air as his invasion of the Soviet Union began. The situation was not helped by Hitler’s meddling in his own military affairs, commanding the German air force to focus on bombing British cities – giving the RAF valuable time to recover. As a result, Germany found itself under constant attack from British and American air forces while also feeling the might of the Soviet forces.
2. Not attacking Moscow
Hitler was presented with a real chance of winning the war during the initial invasion of the Soviet Union. Although risky, if Germany had managed to take Moscow before the winter of 1941, Russia’s main railroad system would have been cut off, causing great disruption to the movement of Soviet troops. However, due to initial success Hitler was so confident in his Soviet invasion that he diverted his troops to the Ukraine and Stalingrad, the delay this caused was disastrous to the war and forced an unprepared German army to fight in the unforgiving Russian winter.
3. Choosing the wrong allies
This mistake was down almost entirely to Hitler’s own ideologies and racist beliefs. Hitler chose to ally closely with Italy due to his and Mussolini’s shared beliefs, but this ended up being disastrous to his war effort. Germany had to step in to clean up Italy’s mess in North Africa, Greece and Yugoslavia. If Hitler had been able to disregard his racist beliefs (which we know is asking a lot) he would have fared better to ally closely with Japan and take full advantage of their advanced military might.
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