Hitler's devotion to the total war made the eventual collapse of Nazism.
All during 1939, Hitler had been spending more and more of his time for trying to figure things out. So far in his career, he had been the humbling and outmaneuvering all of his opponents. The problem was that nobody outside Germany believed him anymore. Hitler had lied once too often. And he had made the dreadful mistake of humbling and embarrassing the leaders of the British Empire. Britain would fight, they warned him and it could mean a new world war. But despite the repeated warnings, Hitler was still convinced Britain would back off at the last moment. The great problem for Hitler at this point in his career was that his own bloated ego was fogging up his formerly crystal clear insight into international politics. If he said such-and-such a thing was true, then indeed it must be true. He was suffering from a kind of creeping megalomania and it was clouding his judgment, blinding him to reality. However, there was nobody left in Germany willing to tell him he was wrong, no one willing to question anything he said, no matter how outlandish it seemed.
