Hitler, of course, was not crazy.

There were several reasons why he chose to attack the Soviet Union at this time.

The first is Hitler's miscalculation of the Soviet Union.

This was largely based on the fact that the Soviet Union had invaded Finland two years earlier and had won only a crushing victory, so Hitler believed that the Soviet Union, despite its large military strength, was extremely corrupt internally and its commanders were inexperienced...... Seventy-five percent of its officers are officers with no command experience who have served for less than a year, and many officers are simply unable to do their jobs well, and the reason why they can become officers is simply because of their political stance.

Hitler then decided that if he gathered a large number of troops and launched a surprise attack, he would be able to defeat the Soviet Union and end the war in a few months.

The second is the need for resources.

In the final analysis, this aspect is the German army's mode of operation of "fighting to feed war...... A large number of German laborers carried guns to the front, which made the war machine seriously short of labor, so it was necessary to occupy other countries to obtain a large number of laborers by enslaving the people of other countries.

However, the invasion of other countries was met with strong resistance from other countries, so the scale of the war became larger and larger, and the expansion of the scale required more materials, and more materials required more labor, which in turn required the launching of new wars to meet the demand for labor......

At this time, Germany was caught in a vicious circle: because of the lack of labor in the war, the war had to be expanded in order to make the labor force.

The German invasion of the USSR at this time would have at least the following benefits: Ukraine could provide a large amount of cheap food. The occupation of the USSR would have made it possible to have a large number of slave laborers. Defeating the Soviet Union would further isolate the British Empire. The German war machine was in dire need of more oil, and this could only be achieved after the capture of the Soviet Union's oil-producing region of Baku.

More importantly, according to Hitler's plan, the German army would defeat the Soviet Union in a few months, and then there would be no need for the German army to maintain an army of three million.

Finally, there is Hitler's hubris.

Prior to this, many German generals had already warned Hitler to deal with Britain before attacking the Soviet Union, and that fighting on two fronts would not be a good thing for Germany in any case.

But Hitler simply did not heed these suggestions...... The series of victories that had preceded him had led Hitler to think that he was a political and military genius, and that was the ability to stand on his own path despite public opinion.

The impact of this on the North African battlefield is the further dilution of North African air power...... The German air power in the North African direction originally had two air wings, the 24th Air Wing in Sicily, Italy, and the 27th Air Wing, based in Tobruk.

The former was mainly responsible for the bombing of the island of Malta and the protection of the sea route from Italy to Africa, while the latter was mainly responsible for providing the necessary air support to the Afrika Korps.

However, in order to be able to gather enough forces in the Soviet direction, Hitler transferred the 24th Wing in Sicily to the Eastern Front...... This was almost the complete exposure of the Afrika Korps supply lines to the blows of the British Navy and Air Force.

Rommel strongly opposed this, because at this time the Afrika Korps war in North Africa had entered the final critical stage, and it can be said that the situation was very good, especially after the capture of Alexandria, which only needed more force to drive the British out of the sea......

The most important thing at this time was air power, because Alexander's strategic significance was that he could bomb and blockade Port Said and the Suez Canal, thereby cutting off the supply lines of the British army.

But without this advantage of air power, it is impossible to talk about it, and even the German army did not dare to deploy fighters and bombers in Alexandria...... Port Said was so close to Alexandria that it took only half an hour for the British Air Force to reach the airfield and carry out indiscriminate bombardment.

In this way, the capture of Alexandria by the Germans did not make much strategic sense.

But Hitler, of course, was not going to weaken the offensive against the Soviet Union because of an Africa that was considered a secondary theater of war, so Rommel's opposition was completely set aside.

And the British on the other side are actually not having a good time.

The difficulty was mainly in the air force, the British army in North Africa originally had more than 500 fighters, but in the battle lost more than 100 and only 360 remained.

The 24th wing of the Luftwaffe turned to the Soviet Union and was indeed a good thing for the British army, but the British Air Force was in a dilemma...... Whether to redeploy the Air Force on the island of Malta.

Strategically, the answer is yes, and the placement of warplanes on the island of Malta can effectively hit the German supply lines and even turn the tide of the war.

But......

The quality of the British Air Force's fighters and pilots was generally inferior to that of the Germans, and they needed to maintain their air supremacy over North Africa with numerical superiority.

If even a small part of the aircraft were to be sent to Malta, the Luftwaffe would be able to gain air supremacy in North Africa and blockade the Suez Canal and Port Said with Alexandria as an air base...... It was also fatal to the British.

However, if the Germans had not been well supplied on the island of Malta, the Germans would have been equally fatal to the British.

So Churchill asked the United States for help.

At this time, Britain and the United States used a means of cheating.

At this time, the United States had not yet entered the war, and although the United States signed the Lend-Lease Act with Britain, the Soviet Union and other countries, this law even stipulated that American merchant ships would not be used for transportation...... Because if American merchant ships were used for transportation, Germany would have the right to destroy American merchant ships, and the United States would inevitably be dragged into the war.

In other words, the United States used American merchant ships to help Britain transport supplies in the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal, which was actually a breach of contract and could not be said to be a neutral country.

But that's only second......

In order to be able to quickly deploy fighter planes on the island of Malta, Churchill actually borrowed aircraft carriers from the United States, and the United States actually agreed.

You must know that the United States is a neutral country that has not entered the war, and the German army cannot attack the US warship, and of course the US warship cannot have any military action against the German army.

U.S. warships, on the other hand, were helping Britain transport warplanes through the narrow Strait of Gibraltar as neutrals...... If it is in a state of war, it is impossible for an aircraft carrier to enter the narrow strait, it is almost self-defeating.

As a result, 126 British planes arrived safely on the island of Malta under the transport of the US aircraft carriers USS Wasp and HMS Eagle.

The supply lines over Malta, the Afrika Korps, were cut off almost overnight.