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I think it is safe to say that Hitler was a brilliant man, and also very evil. Most people don't realize that if not for a few key bad decisions, it could be a very different world. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, here is a partial list. It has been a few years since I did any reading on this topic, so if I am missing something, let me know,
1: Pact with Japan. If he could have kept the US out of it longer, Britain may have fallen. Without this pact, the US would have focused on the Pacific post Dec 7, instead of Europe.
2: Invading the USSR in general was a bad idea, but there were a couple other bad decisions that compounded it:
2a: treating the Soviet people horribly. At first many welcomed the Germans as liberators from Stalin. If Hitler would have played up that role, resistance would likely have been much less, and Stalin may have even been removed by whatever was left of the Red Army (post purges) and the people. The Russian people got rid of one government not too long before this.
2b: Spending a month screwing around in the Balkans and Greece bailing out Mussolini, and diverting troops to these areas as well as Africa. Had the invasion of Russia started a month earlier as initially planned, Moscow may have fallen before winter hit.
3: At the beginning of the war, forbiding any long term weapons development. Hitler believed that any research that would not produce a workable weapon within 12 months(IIRC) was a waste of effort, as the war would be over by then. The ME 262 jet fighter had been in development a year when the war started, but didn't enter service for another 6 years. Other inovations like guided anti-ship missiles also came too late to have any effect on the outcome.
4: Changing the focus of air attacks in the Battle of Britain from RAF airfileds to civilian centers. The happened largely by accident, some German bombers dropped their bombs over a darkened London. Attacks on civilian centers were something which had been specifically banned by Hitler. After Nazi bombs hit London the RAF (who didn't know it wasn't planed) retaliated by attacking Berlin. Hitler ordered a change of targets to Industry and cities, and gave the RAF the break they needed to repair airfileds and radar stations. The rest is as they say, History.
If any of these things had been done differently the outcome may have been entirely different, and the world would be a much different, much uglier place.
Something to think about.
Tom
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