10 Biggest Mistakes Germany Made In World War 2

Most countries' leaders, especially in times of crisis, tend to have their public image very sharply defined by the people around them, their population and their enemies alike. There is no room for the middle-of-the-road, live and let-live sentiments that can usually be found in society during stable times. When your country goes to war, every citizen is going to have a definite opinion regarding it. Germany was no different during the war.

Still smarting from the sanctions imposed in the wake of the first World War, Adolf Hitler tapped into a very raw emotional vein that appealed to the German population: the idea not only of national pride and superiority. But he also voiced what a lot of them must have felt, that they didn’t deserve such harsh conditions enforced on them.

As with almost all awful things, it didn’t start out anywhere near as sinister as it was to become. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your heritage. Then, there is nothing wrong with loving your country. Soon, there is nothing wrong with feeling anger at what “others” have done to you. The problem is that Hitler was an extremely charismatic man, a great talker and an expert at phrasing his dangerous ideology in a way that made it seem not only safe but reasonable at the start.

Membership of the Nazi Party was almost required to be successful in many lines of business. People greeted each other with “Heil Hitler”. The man was no longer just a person, he was a figurehead. The embodiment of an idea and a plan that would restore Germany to its rightful place at the forefront of the world stage.

The problem with this is the same as it has always been. People are flawed. People fail and disappoint. They become old, they become weak. They are rife with contradictions and shortcomings that can be writ large by those that disagree with them. Even at the time it must have been noticed that Hitler hardly embodied the “Übermensch” that he so keenly touted. As the years wore on, the stress of war and the change from initial victories to defeats and losses took a great toll on Hitler and he became a physical wreck. With a noticeable tremor, pumped full of amphetamines to keep him going and gradually going to pieces, it was unthinkable that he could step down or step aside. The cult of personality that he had made around himself led people to believe that he couldn’t actually even lose or fail.

Despite the fact that this was exactly what was happening.