Hitler saw Russia as an unstable house, “kick the door in and the entire structure will come down with it.” This was mainly because he saw them as inferior sub-humans, as well as knowledge of their struggle against Finland in 1939. In 1941 when he invaded the Soviet Union he was so confident that it would be over in 6 weeks, he did not issue his troops with winter uniform, a disastrous mistake which meant that when winter did eventually arrive, men were dying, not just from the enemy, but also from pneumonia and hypothermia. On top of that, Hitler had not accounted for the stubborn mind of Winston Churchill, that rather than staying out of the war after the fall of France, fought on from the western front.
Hitler when he made himself Commander in chief of the Armed Forces made several mistakes and miscalculations, the biggest of which were declaring war on America. Due to the fact that America’s economy was so good, not only good they fight an effective war, they could also send large amounts of aid to their allies. Secondly he gave orders to his strong army of 250,000 men in Stalingrad to fight to the last man, despite being encircled by heavy infantry and artillery. This resulted in the death of 100,000 and the brutal capture of another 150,000 men. These mistakes meant that the ally armies were easily able to exploit the faulted ideology of Hitler and cause the death of more German men. Despite this Hitler’s view of Russia was the cause of this mistake and one of the reasons that Hitler made such risky and detrimental moves was that he felt that his “Aryan” army could not lose.
Another reason Germany lost World war two was due to its lack of economic resources. It’s failure to produce enough ersatz goods and become a fully autarkic nation was a failure, meaning that countries like America and Russia with colossal economies could use this to essentially overpower the German army no matter how well trained they were. However, if Germany had better prepared there armies for combat rather than Hitler’s view of Russian inferiority making him cocky, they would have certainly lost less men and had a better chance of success.
Finally, Britain and Russia were also very adaptable to the war. They identified the strong Blitzkrieg movements and changed their tactics accordingly, for example, the Russians hung on to the Germans belt in order to make their bombs less effective, and harder to put down artillery rounds without hitting their own men. This effective enemy fighting however was part of the reason Hitler’s underestimation of the allies was so detrimental, it was because they were able to use their own quick explosive force against them. Whilst Hitler had the view that they would keep as far back as possible.
Overall, Hitler underestimating the allies meant that the German army were not correctly prepared in more than one way. This meant that, despite the other factors that gave the allies a considerable advantage. Hitler did not see it as a problem and so sent his armies with the ideology that they were invincible which is why he gave so many men died and lost so spectacularly. The allied bombing raids did damage many buildings and cut factory production but, only gave a small advantage to the allied troops as Hitler was still had armies that could fight effectively despite the fact that they were held back by the ego of their Fuhrer.
by
britton_bros (student)
