By all accounts, Nazi Germany made serious errors in waging the Second World War that kept it from achieving much greater success, though whether it could have won the War remains open to doubt, given the American effort to develop nuclear weapons. Also, Japanese mistakes need to be taken into consideration. At any rate, asking “What if” questions about German strategy can help us better understand what actually happened.

Here is a list of key German mistakes that can guide our thinking about the many lessons we can learn from this greatest of wars (not included are significant errors at the battlefield level such as at Dunkirk and Stalingrad). Of course, this list assumes that Germany’s decision to go to war in the first place and with the goals it had for doing so made sense. I thank my students for their contributions to the list.


Economic
1.Did not completely mobilize war economy soon enough.
2.Did not draft women into economy until 1940s.
3.Starved and shot Soviet POWs instead of using them as slave labor.
4.Wasted resources to destroy Jews, who could have boosted economy in ordinary jobs or as slave laborers.
5.Diverted supplies from the Wehrmacht to SS and other units.

Political
1.Permitted endless bureaucratic infighting and duplication.
2.Alienated populations of occupied territories, especially in USSR, where many were initially against Stalin.


Military
1.Fought Battle of Britain vs high odds (stack of contingencies: RAF, Royal Navy, beachhead, British army, US support), yet failed to concentrate on greatest British vulnerabilities: fighter plane production, electrical grid, and sealanes that could have been cut by bombers from France and Norway.
2.Did not coordinate with Japan vs USSR.
3.Allowed Mussolini to foul things up instead of clamping down on him or removing him.
4.Chose to attack USSR instead of first driving British out of Mediterranean and Middle East, thus opting to fight a two-front war.
5.Delayed attack on USSR to handle Balkans sideshow, yet didn’t prepare for winter.
6.Put too much emphasis on north and south in 1941 attack on USSR, and delayed Fall offensive against Moscow by one month to focus on Kiev.
7.Did not attack Moscow and main Soviet forces in Spring 1942.
8.Underestimated Soviet resilience, defense production, and military prowess.
9.Underestimated American economic, technological, and fighting capabilities.
10.Declared war on US, sparing it dilemma over Europe First vs Pacific War.
11.Failed to comprehend and counteract Allies’ great superiority in intelligence and deception.
- See more at: http://www.scientiapress.com/key-ger....TFgnegrb.dpuf
Source

http://www.scientiapress.com/key-ger...n-world-war-ii