Did Germany Lose WWII Due Mainly To Hitler's Mistakes

        In 1938 what many suspected was a weak Germany started a small invasion of parts of the Sudetenland, in no time at all Germany had control these areas. Even though this was a minor invasion it caused unrest for the Allies. The British Prime minister (Neville Chamberlain) had a meeting with Hitler agreeing if he was allowed to keep this area of the Sudetanland he could not take anymore. However 3 days later Hitler’s demands had changed, He wanted all of the Sudetenland, Neville Chamberlain rejected these proposals and a meeting was held including Mussuloni to decide what the allies should do, without consulting the Czechs, France and Britain decided to give Hitler what he wanted on the grounds he signed an agreement to leave it at that, Hitler signed this agreement (Munich agreement) and promised not to take anymore. For a very little while Neville Chamberlain was a hero and Peace bringer to Europe but Hitler’s confidence had been growing and within a matter of months Hitler broke the agreement and started the invasion of Czechoslovakia and then Poland. War was declared. Hitler, using Blitzkreig (Hitler’s favoured tactic at war) breezed through France’s ‘impenetrable’ defences and forced Britain and France to retreat to Dunkirk and Eventually to Britain. Hitler was now in a very powerful position, there were few honest men who could say Germany where going to lose. Hitler’s confidence and possibly arrogance was growing.  Now the battle in the air begun and so did Hitler’s first mistake. Hitler’s main priority was to win the Battle of Britain but due to British strengths it was not an easy battle. And Hitler continued this battle and also turned his forces to his Allies Russia. He was now fighting on two separate fronts on the opposite side of Europe. This is often referred to as the turning point in the war; it is likely that if Hitler had focused all his power on Britain and won the Battle of Britain that Germany would have turned out victorious. Not only did Hitler make the mistake of leaving Britain but his arrogance lead him to believe he could defeat Russia within a few days with a three pronged attack, loosely sent into Russia. Hitler was wrong, the attack started well and many major Russian cities were taken but it ending in a few days was very unrealistic, Russia was vast and Hitler had left his troops unequipped for the Russian winter and his troops were running low on supplies. A weakened Germany failed to take the Russia leaders city, Stalingrad. This was Germany’s first major defeat and it is often said that Germany’s defeat was inevitable from this point thus Hitler’s mistakes would have caused the downfall of Germany.

        Now Germany was weak the war could have gone either way. But in December of 1941, Hitler’s allies, the Japanese sealed Hitler’s fate by bombing Pearl Harbour and giving America reason to join the war. This was out of Hitler’s control and a weakened Germany stood little chance against the Americans. However had Hitler not made the crucial errors with Russia Germany would have stood a good chance of fending off the Americans and wining the war.

The allies had made many advancements at this point and with America on their side where ready to end the war. After these events Hitler suffered yet more defeats but this time for the German navy not the army. The battle of the Atlantic involved German U-Boats sinking allied supply ships and it raged on for the best part of the war. Churchill put the U-Boat problem at the top of his priority list. Much like the invasion of Russia it started off well for Germany but the Allies had superior technology compared to the Germans, they had the use of radars to detect German U-Boats so they were always ahead of the game. Also the allies had very efficient and cheap manufacturing of Boats and Tanks compared to Germany so were able to keep supplying their navy with more and more boats as the number of Germany U-Boats was decreasing rapidly. In 1944 the U-boat campaign was called off. The Battle of the Atlantic had been won.