What was the craziest/stupidest thing Hitler did

Another funny post. Awesome!  I love how you put it…lol

@Imperious:

It’s the classic failure in any play or movie where the villain tells you his ultimate plan before he actually carries it out. That allows anybody on the sidelines to choose to go against him.

It’s even funnier when you remember that he reveals his plans even before the war started, it’s all there in Mein Kampf.

Declaring war on america, splitting at stalingrad, not invading malta, attacking at kursk, not equipping his allies with good stuff.

All of these could make a difference if he had chosen to do it. (or not do it)

Quit artschool?

@Kreuzfeld:

Quit artschool?

Probably a good career move, since he wasn’t much of an artist.  As I recall, he didn’t actually get admitted to the art academy (I think in Vienna) to which he applied.

yea, if the measure of the greatness of a man is by how many remember him, then he is one of histories greatest men :P

It’s good to see genocide is the winner. My god who voted for any thing else are they ok with genocide . That’s insane it didn’t get every vote

@General:

It’s good to see genocide is the winner. My god who voted for any thing else are they ok with genocide . That’s insane it didn’t get every vote

I think a lot of people (including myself) took the question as asking about military decisions.

@BJCard:

While I agree that Hitler shouldn’t have declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor, and if he waited he may have gained some time;  however- the Western Allies didn’t actually invade Europe until June 1944- something they may have done anyway if Hitler waited until 1942.

The only problem is this fails to account for how America’s growing presence in the European theater drew German manpower, leaders, equipment, and supplies away from the Russian front at a time when the Germans were arguably close to victory. Germany could probably have thrown another 20-30 divisions, including some top units, if they hadn’t been forced to garrison France, Italy, and the Balkans against a US-led invasion. Throw in dubious troops from their lesser allies, that also would’ve otherwise been on invasion watch, and that could have been the difference in the Eastern front.

And I haven’t touched what the US bombing campaign did to Germany’s economy. Yes, UK was conducting their own bombing campaign. But the addition of the US fighters & bombers was really telling. No bombing alone would not have forced Germany to it’s knees like some contemporary proponents espoused, but it did hurt quite a bit and it tied up resources, men, etc that could have been put to better use besides trying to shoot down US bombers and clean up the damage.

My answer to the question is one that I’m somewhat surprised I haven’t seen thus far. I think one of Hitler’s biggest military mistakes was failing to plan for after his forces blitzed France. It’s not exactly like the channel suddenly appeared or that the Brits dug it out overnight.  :roll:

He may not have wanted to fight the Brits and maybe he was hoping they could reach an agreement once France was done with. But I feel it was very shortsighted of him not to plan for an invasion across the channel. This was exacerbated by the failure to capture all the Soldiers at Dunkirk, allowing them to live to fight another day. But better planning for the invasion and maybe some work on designing purpose-built invasion craft would’ve been huge. Instead what happened was something akin in Nemo when the fish escape the dentist and one asks, ‘Now what?’

Knocking UK out of the war would’ve prevented Germany from having to fight a two front war and would’ve deprived future US forces of a major base and all that infrastructure for their eventual invasion.

The 2nd worst decision IMO is something others have already mentioned multiple times. Lord knows how many more people Germany could’ve added to their manpower total had they kept the truth about what their plans were hidden during the invasion of Russia. Instead of being welcomed as liberators and aided by the locals; they drove thousands into various insurgent/freedom groups, thousands more straight into the Russian army, and worsened their logistics problems by having to travel so far into ‘hostile’ territory.

@axisandalliesplayer:

My answer to the question is one that I’m somewhat surprised I haven’t seen thus far. I think one of Hitler’s biggest military mistakes was failing to plan for after his forces blitzed France. It’s not exactly like the channel suddenly appeared or that the Brits dug it out overnight.

He may not have wanted to fight the Brits and maybe he was hoping they could reach an agreement once France was done with. But I feel it was very shortsighted of him not to plan for an invasion across the channel. This was exacerbated by the failure to capture all the Soldiers at Dunkirk, allowing them to live to fight another day. But better planning for the invasion and maybe some work on designing purpose-built invasion craft would’ve been huge. Instead what happened was something akin in Nemo when the fish escape the dentist and one asks, ‘Now what?’

I think it’s quite likely that was hoping that Britain would be (from his perspective) sensible in the face of Germany’s (from his perspective) obvious military superiority, and that the British would either capitulate or work out some sort of mutual non-interference pact (“Leave continental Europe to me and I’ll leave your overseas empire to you”).  It would have been very convenient for him if Britain had done so, so he may have deluded himself into thinking that this would be the likely outcome of a German victory in France.  Good strategists, however, don’t build their plans around wishful thinking, and they don’t make the mistake of focusing on probable enemy intentions without taking enemy capabilities into account.

Notwithstanding Hitler’s high opinion of himself as a military genius, his understanding of warfare was shaped by his experiences as a corporal on the Western Front in WWI and he never progressed very far beyond that perspective even when he was nominally commanding entire army groups.  He had a fair grasp of tactics roughly up to the regimental level, and he loved to study the technical specifications of weapons, but at the operational and strategic levels he was quite out of his depth.  He didn’t have the professional rigour of a trained senior officer, and I don’t think he could even be called a gifted amateur.  His reliance on instinct and intuition did serve him well on some occasions, in the sense that it allowed him to think out-of-the-box, but his impulsiveness, his lack of an eye for detail and his weak sense of focus also got him into serious trouble.  On the specific issue of failing to plan for an invasion of Britain, an additional factor was that, by his own admission, naval warfare was something he neither liked nor understood.  An amphibious campaign was probably something he wanted to avoid, so he would have had little trouble convincing himself (until it was too late) that such a campaign wasn’t going to be necessary.

I voted for “other.”

A number of eloquent and persuasive arguments have been raised about going to war against the United States. However, there are two points worth bearing in mind:

1. The pro-war faction in America would have succeeded eventually, just as it did in WWI.

2. Even while the U.S. was still technically neutral, it was sending vast quantities of aid to the Soviet Union, Britain, and Germany’s other enemies. America’s most threatening aspect was its industrial potential; and this had already been turned against Germany long before war had been declared.

Cogent arguments have also been raised about the Germans making more of an effort to seem like liberators to those oppressed by the horror of Stalin’s rule. However, there are some points worth bearing in mind:

1. The Allied food blockage meant that Germany could not feed the people within its own borders. It’s hard to seem like a liberator when the people in conquered sections of the Soviet Union are starving.
2. The people in communist controlled sections of the Soviet Union did not necessarily have accurate information about how the Germans acted. For example, Soviet pilots were told the Germans did not take prisoners. The most accomplished pilot in history–Erich Hartmann–told a story about a captured Soviet pilot’s surprise at being treated humanely by the Germans and fed a good meal. These things bore no relation to the claims of Soviet propagandists.
3. The Soviet government was not above shooting the families of soldiers who would not fight; or soldiers who sided with the Germans.
4. When the German army was forced west, a large number of Soviet civilians fled west with it. The Germans were considered less bad than the Red Army–at least by those familiar with the situation.

My vote was for “other” because I think Germany should have invaded Britain in 1940–with von Manstein in charge of the invasion plan. Von Manstein believed an invasion would have succeeded, if launched at the right moment, and in the right way. Assuming his view is accurate, Germany squandered a golden opportunity. Taking Britain out of the equation would have solved a multitude of Hitler’s problems. It might even have created a possible basis for lasting peace; though this is far from certain.

Hitler should have declared war on JAPAN.

That way he could have been America’s ALLY!

@wittmann:

Declaring war on the US.
It was an arrogant and unnecessary act and brought about the early fall of his European ally, Italy. The 60000 infantry who landed in North Africa in late 42 made all the difference in unbalancing the African situation, as inevitably numbers increased.  After North Africa came Sicily and Salerno. The Germans found themselves in the unenviable position of fighting a three front war with all the complications that involved.
The resources sent to the European theatre in 42 could not have been used in the same way against Japan in the Pacific and we know how quickly the Americans in Africa learnt from their experiences of fighting an experienced German Army. All lessons learnt were put to good use later.

what he said…hitler did not need to declare war on the US so early.

Kill his dog…

Yes never touch the dog B I !  :x

We all look back and the 20 / 20 history that shows us “of course !”, and how obvious it was after the fact.

Hitler planned for, and then invaded France.

Most of the Western powers and the Russians would have thought such a plan was a way out long shot.

It stunned the world that a superpower such as France (at the time) would fall to a crazy person like Hitler.

This poll mainly highlights the crazy things Hitler did that failed, and not the key crazy thing done that actually succeeded beyond belief.

After France falls to the German armies, the rest of the listed military items seem rather pedestrian and mundane.

The paradigm has shifted for them.

It took the many of of the listed poll items to shift the paradigm for an Allied victory.

Such is hubris.

@Linkon:

We all look back and the 20 / 20 history that shows us “of course !”, and how obvious it was after the fact.
Hitler planned for, and then invaded France.
Most of the Western powers and the Russians would have thought such a plan was a way out long shot.
It stunned the world that a superpower such as France (at the time) would fall to a crazy person like Hitler.
This poll mainly highlights the crazy things Hitler did that failed, and not the key crazy thing done that actually succeeded beyond belief.

This is indeed an interesting question to consider: whether Hitler’s planning and invasion of France is something that would have looked crazy at the time (as opposed to how it looks now in retrospect).  My feeling is that the answer depends on what is meant by “at the time.”  If someone had suggested in 1937 or 1938 or even as late as September 1, 1939 that Germany would conquer France in a campaign lasting just six weeks, and with very acceptable casualty figures on the German side, he would quite plausibly been regarded as a lunatic…or at least as a wild optimist (if he was German) or pessimist (if he was French).  By April of 1940, however, the basic concept that a German attack against France might succeed could (and should) have been taken very seriously by well-informed observers.  Eight months of wartime experience had shown that:

• Armoured forces, operating aggressively in mass formations at key points of the front, closely supported by aircraft, motorized/mechanized infantry and self-propelled artillery, could achieve strategically decisive results in a short amount of time.

• France appeared wedded to a purely defensive strategy, hinging on the static position of the Maginot Line, hence completely surrendering the strategic initiative to Germany and giving Hitler the priceless luxury of attacking at whatever time, in whatever location and in whatever manner he chose.

• The French Army suffered from poor morale and poor political and leadership.  General Gamelin, in the words of one French official, “had no guts at all” and seemed to consider the French government to be more of an enemy than the Germans.  The French Army had made a token advance of a few kilometers into the Saar region, then had quietly withdrawn.  French soldiers were poorly paid, which often led them to use their infrequent leave time to earn some money on the side, and they tended to get so drunk when they were about to rejoin their regiments that special rooms were reserved by the military authorities in train stations to allow the men to recover.  The French general mobilization had pulled many trained men away from vital war industries, and it was only after much confusion that they were released from military service.  There was much political bickering among politicians and social/political disunity among the population at large.

In other words: by April 1940, France was militarily much more vulnerable than it may have looked at the start of the war.  Many of these problems (such as the lack of any French offensive worthy of the name) were plain for the Germans to see, and others would have been discernable by the Germans without too much trouble.  The eventual German campaign against France succeeded to a degree that was probably beyond anything that Germany could have hoped for, but by April 1940 it was not unrealistic for Germany to think that it at least had a decent shot at waging a successful campaign against France.

I think that’s a pretty good observation Marc. I’ve always felt though, that France with a dash of hindsight and blessing from the gods of fate, could have held out a bit and change the way the war in Europe turned out.

@Linkon:

It stunned the world that a superpower such as France (at the time) would fall to a crazy person like Hitler.

I guess the French soldier did not want to die for Danzig. Poland was not a nice guy in the 30s, it was a Dictatorship that stole land from all its neighbors, a bit of Ukraine, a bit of Belorussia, a bit of the Baltic, a bit from Slovakia, from Rumenia, and a big slice of Germany. And now, Germany wanted to take Danzig back, and the French government forgot to ask the Frenchmen if they would like to die for this. Now if your government send you to the meat grinder for a cause you don’t agree with, I bet you stick em up pretty quick.

@CWO:

@Linkon:

We all look back and the 20 / 20 history that shows us “of course !”, and how obvious it was after the fact.
Hitler planned for, and then invaded France.
Most of the Western powers and the Russians would have thought such a plan was a way out long shot.
It stunned the world that a superpower such as France (at the time) would fall to a crazy person like Hitler.
This poll mainly highlights the crazy things Hitler did that failed, and not the key crazy thing done that actually succeeded beyond belief.

This is indeed an interesting question to consider: whether Hitler’s planning and invasion of France is something that would have looked crazy at the time (as opposed to how it looks now in retrospect).  My feeling is that the answer depends on what is meant by “at the time.”  If someone had suggested in 1937 or 1938 or even as late as September 1, 1939 that Germany would conquer France in a campaign lasting just six weeks, and with very acceptable casualty figures on the German side, he would quite plausibly been regarded as a lunatic…or at least as a wild optimist (if he was German) or pessimist (if he was French).  By April of 1940, however, the basic concept that a German attack against France might succeed could (and should) have been taken very seriously by well-informed observers.  Eight months of wartime experience had shown that:

• Armoured forces, operating aggressively in mass formations at key points of the front, closely supported by aircraft, motorized/mechanized infantry and self-propelled artillery, could achieve strategically decisive results in a short amount of time.

• France appeared wedded to a purely defensive strategy, hinging on the static position of the Maginot Line, hence completely surrendering the strategic initiative to Germany and giving Hitler the priceless luxury of attacking at whatever time, in whatever location and in whatever manner he chose.

• The French Army suffered from poor morale and poor political and leadership.  General Gamelin, in the words of one French official, “had no guts at all” and seemed to consider the French government to be more of an enemy than the Germans.  The French Army had made a token advance of a few kilometers into the Saar region, then had quietly withdrawn.  French soldiers were poorly paid, which often led them to use their infrequent leave time to earn some money on the side, and they tended to get so drunk when they were about to rejoin their regiments that special rooms were reserved by the military authorities in train stations to allow the men to recover.  The French general mobilization had pulled many trained men away from vital war industries, and it was only after much confusion that they were released from military service.  There was much political bickering among politicians and social/political disunity among the population at large.

In other words: by April 1940, France was militarily much more vulnerable than it may have looked at the start of the war.  Many of these problems (such as the lack of any French offensive worthy of the name) were plain for the Germans to see, and others would have been discernable by the Germans without too much trouble.  The eventual German campaign against France succeeded to a degree that was probably beyond anything that Germany could have hoped for, but by April 1940 it was not unrealistic for Germany to think that it at least had a decent shot at waging a successful campaign against France.

Good post.

Gamelin’s strategy for France was to fight a defensive war for the first few years. At that point, the Anglo-French production advantage over Germany would have given the Allies a large military advantage over Germany. Especially when weapons purchases or donations from the United States were taken into account. After the Allies had achieved a massive numerical advantage in artillery, tanks, planes, and anything else which could be built in factories, he’d launch his invasion.

The Allies discounted the effectiveness of Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics against Poland. Germany’s excellent performance merely served to reinforce preexisting Allied beliefs about Polish inferiority. The Allies had had a low opinion of Poland from the beginning, as shown by the false promises they made regarding a French general offensive. When Person A dupes Person B, Person A will normally convince himself Person B was an idiot who deserved to be duped. All con artists think that way, and the French and British political leaders of 1939 were no exception.

During the '39 conflict between Germany and Poland, the German generals outperformed their Polish counterparts. But, again, this was seen as largely a result of horrible Polish incompetence, and not necessarily evidence of superior German generalship. The one-sided nature of the Germano-Polish conflict of '39 did far more to increase the preexisting Anglo-French contempt for Poland, than it did to increase their respect for the competence of the German military.

Von Manstein was the best general of the war on either side; and one of the best generals in human history. He recognized that Germany would lose a long war against Britain and France. However, he saw an opportunity to use good tactics to even the strategic odds. It was he who devised the plan to invade France. Hitler adopted the plan, against the advice of many of his most senior generals.

But von Manstein’s plan to invade France was only the first in a two part plan to save Germany from the Allies. The second part would have been the invasion of Britain, launched in the summer of 1940. Von Manstein’s plans generally succeeded, and he was confident this plan would have succeeded too. However, Hitler rejected von Manstein’s plan–a decision which may have cost him the war.

The eventual German campaign against France succeeded to a degree that
was probably beyond anything that Germany could have hoped for

The invasion went mostly according to von Manstein’s plan. There were times when his plan was set aside or overruled. The overruling of parts of his plan led to the Dunkirk evacuation; as well as to a longer, more painful conquest of Paris than would otherwise have been the case. But other than those two things, events transpired largely as von Manstein had anticipated. That said, most Germans, including Hitler, were surprised by the sudden, favorable turn events had taken.