List and explain 3 mistakes that Hitler made in the conduct of the Second World War. ?

Question

Why were they considered to be mistakes and what negative consequences did they have?

Answer 1

1) Letting the trapped British army escape at Dunkirk

2) Invading Russia during the winter time

3) Not listening to his generals and just being a n**i a$$clown in general

Answer 2

As far as Hitler, one must understand his mentality towards warfare in relation to his nations war capabilities.

There are many mistakes but the 3 most major ones would be:

1) The failure to focus on airfields in the Battle of Britain and outsourcing strategic decisions to Air Marshall Goering...the true IDIOT.  

Hitler correctly understood that an invasion of England would require complete air superiority over the Channel as well as enough dominance over the channel to support an invasion.  The German Navy could not guarantee anything without the Air Force and it became clear that Germany could not secure it without the full weight of the GB Navy coming to play.  All of this became irrelevant when Goering swtiched to terror bombing London instead of focusing on GB airfields.  Hitler gave Goering too much influence and it was at a great cost.

2) The failure to focus all resources on the North and Central fronts in the Soviet invasion.  Diverting south and dividing his troops before reaching the Gorki junction meant a prolonged war in Russia.

Leningrad and Moscow as communication hubs were vital and the moment forces were diverted from those objectives meant that Germany would be in for a long war.  Had those objectives been taken in earnest, the Soviets would have been forced out of their main industrial centers and pushed south and east.  From their on the Germans could simply maintain their lines through the Baltic while slowly destroying the disorganized Soviet armies.

3) As mentioned above, his own misconceptions of nations capabilities.

Hitler was in charge of an army capable of quick strikes into enemy areas instead of one in which it could systematically capture and hold seige postions.  Hitler had a seige mentality.  Though the strategic plans were based on quick capture of key areas and quick powerfull demoralizing victories, Hitler himself doubted that they would actually really work.  Even during Poland and France, Hitler saw it as the weakness of his enemies rather than the advatages of his own troops tactics.  The evidence of his seige mentality was in the invasion of Norway to secure the Iron Ore deposits and prevent GB from possibly seiging the Reich out of the North and Baltic seas.  His drive south towards the Caususus was also in line with creating seige lines from which the war with Russia could be waged while gathering resouces for the Reich.  

The irony being that by his own intentions of seige and his own inability to see quick victory as a possibility made the advantages of his forces less useful then could have been.

Answer 3

Make a deal with the russians, who turned on him later. Giving a wink and a nod to the Japanese attack on the USA. Attacking Poland, he got greedy. negative consequences- lost war.

Answer 4

1. Attacking Russia, as most of the war's fighting took place on the eastern front.

2. Attacking Russia overly late in the year (happened in June, but should have expected that the campaign would last into winter)

3. Not bringing adequate insulating clothing for his troops into Russia.

Also, 2 more:

1. The Holocaust - not only nasty, but diverted resources from main task, created an awful legacy.

2. Helping out Mussolini whenever he needed it, which again, diverted H. from main task

Answer 5

In my opinion, one of Hitler's biggest and most overlooked blunders was his failure to adequately resupply Rommel's North African forces. Rommel had been beating the Allied forces in North Africa very badly, but his resources were limited. Not only did he not receive reinforcements, but he also did not receive enough fuel for his tanks. He consistently requested more supplies but was told he had enough already. He did very well with what he had, but once Operation Torch began there was no way he could hold back a multi-pronged attack from the Americans and British. Hitler's failure to resupply Rommel cost him North Africa. This meant not only the loss of valuable resources, such as oil fields and shipping lanes, but it also opened the way for the Allied invasion of Crete and subsequently Italy.

Answer 6

Ahh this is where I always get a thumbs down - - - - HITLER WAS AN IDIOT!!!!!!!!

That said the very fact that Hitler tried to conduct the war was a mistake in and of itself.  Hitler thought he was a military genius.  He was not.  Hitler was an IDIOT!!!

No historian will tell you this - - - but the very FIRST MAJOR MISTAKE Hitler made once he decided to launch a European War with a Global Reach by attacking Poland was to decide to //

A)  Attack Norway and Denmark - - - both were mere sideshows that tied down resources and the subsequent occupation of Norway was a further drain on resources.  During the fight for Norway the German Navy lost most of its Destroyers, suffered great damage to its battle cruisers and gained little as a subsequent result of mistake number 2/B....

B)  Attacking the 'West.'  Hitler had written that he 'merely' wanted 'living room/space' for 'his' German People and that the room needed was in the EAST - - - - in Russia.  YES  Britain and France were Allies of Poland and swore they would aid Poland.  They DID NOT.  Aside from Naval skirmishes etc, Britain did nothing to threaten Germany and France despite its stupidity had the opportunity to attack Germany while Germany was busy demolishing Polnad  France did not!

THUS _ - - - Had Hitler ignored the West after Poland and had stuck to his own 'Bible,' and had attacked RUSSIA instead then Hitler may have actually squelched Russia while Britain and France sat on the sidelines doing nothing......

C)  Having committed the blunder of attacking the West, Hitler compounded his error by not invading and forcing Britain to some sort of peace - - - -one of the reasons that Hitler could not 'safely' invade England was because of those ships lost in Norway.  

D)  By being alligned with Italy, Hitler further weakened his resources by tying down troops and supplies in North Africa and then Greece and then the Balklans.... which led to

E)  At long last the one that everyone cites, Attacking Russia and attcking much to late in the Year--- yes Russia was fatal but trust me Hitler and Germany's Goose was already in the oven the day Hitler ordered the attack against Poland!!!

Just to be certain to get my daily quota of thumbs down, HITLER WAS AN IDIOT with no Strategic or Tactical Vison....

Peace///////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

PS  Toss in micromanaging the war - - - ignoring his admirals and generals, and for simply being an IDIOT!

Answer 7

1.invading Russia before securing total victory in the west i.e. defeating Britain 2.not giving Rommel total control over panzer units for being able to counter strike  the beachheads on d-day 3. a tie, not building a long range 4 engine bomber [they did have a long range 4 engine bomber the 'condor' however it was mainly used in naval recon not in bombing campaigns like the b17s, were these long range bombers were needed to strike at the Russian factories in eastern Russia ] the other part of this answer would be trying to make the me262 jet into more than just a fighter he wanted it to be a fighter bomber, after thought i have concluded that the 3rd mistake could be trying to manufacture to many experimental weapons and not concentrating on producing enough  regular easy to use practical working weapons take the Russian t34 tank ugly but simple to use and easy to make as opposed to the German tiger and king tiger advanced yes but hard to maintain in the field and difficult to manufacture as the saying goes quantity has a certain quality like the Sherman tank not very good but a lot of them could swarm the panzer's

Answer 8

Mom-she really has to know this stuff herself.

Basically - Hitler was an IDIOT and we (U.S., Britain/Commonwealth) had better commanders and strategies that were not f'd up by an IDIOT!

Bear - I guess I got some of your "thumbs down!" Hooray!

Answer 9

Looking back with hindsight is always easy. Especially if you're not involved.

My 3 biggest mistakes Hitler made:

1- Never keeping a promise. Makes people rather suspicious.

2- Attack the USSR too late. Either do it early in the season, or wait another year.

3- Personally taking command of the war effort. He was a corporal, and corporals make very bad generals.

Corporals can make great politicians, but you don't need a lot of training for that.

Answer 10

Attacking Russia before defeating England.

Not finishing off the British at Dunkirk.

Giving "Fight to the last man" orders in hopeless situations.

Answer 11

1) attacking russia in june ofcourse. The attack had to be done. Russia had to be taken out before the USA was geared up for war. The timing was poor though. That alone cost him the war. Then there was the harsh winter he hadn't prepared his troops for. And then there was the overextending in the next spring. (Stalingrad, and Leningrad to a lesser extent)

2) not giving rommel more support in north africa. He could have had all the oil he needed..

3) Ordening the Me262 to be converted into a light bomber. n**i-germany could have had jet-airplanes two years earlier, wich might have quelled the allied bombing raids on german factories  (and burning cities while people were asleep just to "break morale" and whatever)