Until 1938, Hitler had been victorious in politics, but the man had become a political gambler, and he did not dare to take risks in the military sphere. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Perhaps the only bold military decision Hitler himself made was the occupation of Norway. Even its original plan was proposed by Marshal Raeder.

Especially when the situation in Narvik was unfavorable, Hitler almost ordered the withdrawal of the city, which was tantamount to sacrificing the basic objective of the whole operation - to open the routes for transporting iron ore.

Hitler did not dare to take military adventures, and in the final analysis, the decision to attack Russia was also an inevitable result of not daring to cross the sea to attack Britain. Hitler thought that the invasion of Britain was too dangerous, so he did not dare to try it.

Hitler's fear of taking risks in the campaign against Russia can also be seen in two ways. The first is that he refused to adopt a flexible mode of warfare after 1943.

At that time, the crisis could only be dealt with by automatically giving up the conquered lands temporarily. The second is that he does not dare to abandon the secondary battlefield and to draw as many troops as possible to cope with the main decisive battle, although failure to do so may cause great danger.

The reasons why Hitler did not dare to take risks in the military sphere may be divided into three points:

First, he may be implicitly aware of his own lack of military capacity to deal with these crises. Because of this, he even less believed that his generals had this ability.

Second, like all dictators, he fears that any setback will be enough to shake his prestige. In fact, such an attitude is enough to cause a military mistake and, even more, to lose its prestige.

3. Hitler had a greed for power, and he was unwilling to give up anything he had.

During Guderian's tenure as commander-in-chief of Army Group Don, Guderian and the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Zler, had spent unlimited energy correcting Hitler's erroneous thinking, but the result was in vain.

When he was faced with a decision that he was unwilling to face and could not avoid, Hitler would delay as long as he could.

Guderians often encountered this difficulty when they felt the urgency to immediately mobilize their forces to prevent the enemy's success in battle, or to halt its expansion.

The General Staff had to fight Hitler for several days before it was able to draw a small amount of troops from the less threatening areas to the rescue of the emergency sites.

In most cases, it was only when it was too late that he was willing to give too few troops - the end result was that he spent several times more troops than originally planned to achieve the original goal.

Arguments often go up for weeks to give up an undefended position, such as the Donets region in 1943 and the Dnieper Bay in 1944. Sometimes, when an unimportant prominence is given up in order to draw a little force, the result is the same, and a dispute is inevitable.

Hitler may have hoped that things would eventually turn out to be his ideals, so that he could avoid making decisions he was unwilling to make. Because he did not want his decision to adapt to the actions of the enemy.

He had great confidence in his own willpower, so he was reluctant to accept any adventure in mobile warfare, such as a roundabout offensive, the success of which could not be guaranteed in advance.

He is also not willing to give up anything automatically. Over time, these factors became increasingly influential in Hitler's military leadership.

The stubborn defense of every inch of land gradually became a formula, and this military leadership was finally cut off.

So, when the Germans had already won such excellent success in the early stages of the war by virtue of their operational mobility, Hitler's response to the first crisis on the Moscow front was Stalin's concept of holding any position.

In 1941, this policy nearly brought Russia to its knees, so when the Germans launched their 1942 offensive, they finally abandoned this notion as well.

Because the heroic resistance of Guderian's forces in the winter of 1941 finally repelled the Russian counteroffensive, Hitler was convinced that his ban on any voluntary retreat had saved the Germans from the same fate that befell Napoleon's Grand Army in 1812.

His praise was sufficient for his praise from his favourites and some of his commanders.

So when the German offensive in the autumn of 1942 had come to a halt in Stalingrad and the Caucasus, and a new crisis was emerging, Hitler immediately thought of his old method, believing that success would be guaranteed if he held on to what he had already obtained at all costs. From then on, there was no way to get him to give up this idea.

It seems to be accepted by now that defense is the stronger form of the two forms of combat.

However, this is conditional, and it only makes sense if the defense is relatively effective enough to cause the attacker to bleed too much and suffer a fatal blow when attacking the position. On the Eastern Front, however, this theory is inappropriate.

The Germans were simply not enough to organize such a strong defense. The enemy's forces were several times stronger than those of Guderian, and on such a wide front, it was possible to concentrate his forces at any selected point to achieve a breakthrough.

As a result, a large number of German troops could not avoid the fate of being encircled. Only in mobile operations could the superiority of German staff officers and combat units come into play, perhaps counteracting the numerical superiority of the Russian army.

Hitler's inclination to hold on to the ground at all costs is growing day by day, and the reason for his persistence may have to be discovered in the depths of his nature. His view of the battle noted only the extreme savage aspect.

His mind could only understand that standing still and letting the enemy run into Guderian's lines and bleed to death, but he could not understand that a skilled boxer would often take a step back in order to launch a decisive assault.

He did not know the art of war, but only brute force, and believed that willpower was sufficient to ensure his success.

Because Hitler valued brute force more than his mind, he reveled in the production figures of German industry, and even ignored the fact that the enemy's production figures were even higher.

He had forgotten that training and skill were necessary to make a new weapon work to its fullest potential, and that he was content as soon as the new weapon reached the front line. He paid no attention to whether the troops had learned how to use it, and whether such weapons had passed the test under combat conditions. (To be continued.) )