The Dunkirk Halt Order: An Alternative Hypothesis
The debate continues over why the German Panzer Divisions were ordered to halt outside Dunkirk, allowing the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to evacuate from Dunkirk. The Halt Order has been viewed as one of the "most critical mistakes" of the war... and yet, the jury is out on the reasons behind it. Was the Halt Order issued without clear reasoning? Or has the reason simply eluded us because we weren't looking at the bigger picture? Let's find out.
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📚 BIBLIOGRAPHY / SOURCES 📚
Atkin, R. “Pillar of Fire: Dunkirk, 1940.” Thistle Publishing, Kindle 2013.
Forczyk, R. “Case Red: The Collapse of France.” Ospery Publishing, Kindle, 2017.
Fritz, S. “Ostkrieg: Hitler’s War of Extermination in the East.” University Press of Kentucky. 2011.
Halder, F. “The Halder War Diary 1939-1942.” Presidio Press, 1988.
Harris, J. & Wilbourn, R. “Rudolf Hess: Truth at Last.” Uniform Publishing Group LLP, Kindle 2019.
Guderian, H. “Panzer Leader.” Penguin Books, 2000.
Kershaw, I. “Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-41..” Penguin Books, Kindle 2008.
Moorhouse, R. "The Devil's Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941." Random House Group, Ebook (Google Play) 2014.
Ricks, T. “Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom.” Duckworth Overlook, 2017.
Sebag-Montefiore, H. “Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man.” Penguin Books, Kindle 2007.
Shirer, W. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” Pan Books, 1964.
Military History Visualized. "Why did Hitler halt the Advance on Dunkirk?" • Why did Hitler halt th...
Military History not Visualized. "Did Hitler spare the British at Dunkirk?" • Did Hitler spare the B...
“Sir Oswald Mosley Interviewed on Thames Television in 1975.” • Sir Oswald Mosley Inte... (timestamp 03:00)
Hitler, A. “The political testament of Adolf Hitler.” www.slideshare...
Full list of all my sources: docs.google.co...
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ABOUT TIK 📝
History isn’t as boring as some people think, and my goal is to get people talking about it. I also want to dispel the myths and distortions that ruin our perception of the past by asking a simple question - “But is this really the case?”. I have a 2:1 Degree in History and a passion for early 20th Century conflicts (mainly WW2). I’m therefore approaching this like I would an academic essay. Lots of sources, quotes, references and so on. Only the truth will do.
This video is discussing events or concepts that are academic, educational and historical in nature. This video is for informational purposes and was created so we may better understand the past and learn from the mistakes others have made.
Пікірлер: 1 600
Halder: *Opens his mouth* Me: Press X to doubt
@kieranh2005
4 жыл бұрын
X
@The_New_IKB
4 жыл бұрын
X
@randomname2159
4 жыл бұрын
X
@internetstrangerstrangerofweb
4 жыл бұрын
X
@Blazcowitz1943
4 жыл бұрын
(Correct answer chime)
Occam's razor: At the moment of Dunkirk France was not yet defeated. To annihilate the British pocket at Dunkirk would have meant committing forces that were needed in the anticipated battle of Paris. Hitler could not have known that France was about to collapse.
@yw1971
3 жыл бұрын
He had enough panzers south of Dunkirk & No french attack threatened the siege. Also No panzer divisions were diverted from the siege southward *until* the pocket was run
@stevewatson6839
3 жыл бұрын
@@yw1971 Look at the French performance in the initial week of Case Red. They fought a hell of a lot better than they had up to that point. You don't win wars relying on your enemies being perpetually stupid. The BEF was going home without its heavy equipment and just as the Wehrmacht had no conceivable way of crossing the Channel, we had no conceivable way of re-entering Europe. A.H. didn't know Musso would be silly enough to enter the war at this point either.
@j.f.fisher5318
3 жыл бұрын
@@stevewatson6839 It is true that you don't win wars by relying on your enemies to be perpetually stupid. However, the end-state of the war does not contradict the proposal that Hitler may in fact have expected this.
This is why I love your video's. You ask the questions that so many people dare to ignore. Finding the truth means stepping into territory most will ignore or follow the narrative we are all accustomed to. Keep digging and continue to show evidence of an alternative narrative.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
Yes, you have to be willing to consider alternative or unpopular ideas. This actually shows why historians should read widely; I was reading about the Hess flight, when I stumbled upon the idea that Hitler didn't want peace with Britain because it would tell Stalin he was coming, which then linked in with Dunkirk.
@ragupasta
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight Keep doing what you are doing sir. You are solely changing the way that we (the people) are looking at history, and you back it up with all your sources. We need more people like you who question rather than follow.
@hjalmar4565
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight Then I will take it even further. Were the Germans already informed about the Japanese war plans for pacific at this time? Continue the war meant that Great Britain had to fight a war on 2 fronts too.
@hash1624
3 жыл бұрын
There are some events he refuses to investigate though..
RE: letter to Stalin - "My troops are merely passing by." - Adolf Hitler. +30 Diplomatic Favor
@freckleheckler6311
3 жыл бұрын
@Įvykių Horizontas that is a debatable speech of validity but he DID want lebensraum to the east.
Paris fell AFTER Dunkirk. The French Army was on its heels, and trying to stabilize its lines. War is chaotic and with many unknowns. It would have made sense to keep units available for the attack on Paris, just in case. -- Even if this is not the main reason; it could have been a factor.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
Absolutely. This is one of the currently agreed-upon arguments in the books - that Hitler was thinking about Case Red
@thomasgerber1472
4 жыл бұрын
The strategic goal was the defeat of france and not the destruction of the BEF. If part of the enemy left wing gets the opportunity to leave the field, let them leave. It is actually a step to win the campaign and politically lay the seeds to destroy the enemy alliance. The allies still had opportunities after Sedan. SEDA
@scottwillie6389
4 жыл бұрын
@@thomasgerber1472 Yeah, you have to remember that everyone is thinking once France surrenders the war would presumably be over. Britain maintaining a state of war after France signed an armistice is something that would have been viewed as utterly insane by all the participants at the time. So if the Brits want to leave let them leave. It makes finishing the war that much easier.
@sparkyfromel
4 жыл бұрын
Yes , Big time , Dunkirk was less mentioned than the fall of Verdun with no casualties , this created pure exaltation in Germany France had to be broken , preventing any survival of the government or the creation of resistance lines
@RangaTurk
4 жыл бұрын
France still had 65 divisions in the field not to mention the unsuitable ground before Dunkirk outlined by Von Rundstedt. Cecil R (ed) (1976). Hitler's War Machine, London: Hamlyn Publishing Group distributed by Salamander Books page 240.
"It's the perfect plan. So inspired, so devious yet so simple."
"I hate Halder." ~ TIK, 2020
Hitler to Stalin: "I continue to hope for our meeting in July" ... to accept your surrender....
@ilkkarautio2449
4 жыл бұрын
While youre beaten and naked in a cage... 😳
@leroyhovatter7051
4 жыл бұрын
😂
@thepewplace1370
4 жыл бұрын
remember, this is in 1940, still 13 months off from the Barbarossa campaign. A meeting in July of 1940 would have been pre war
@jerard1979
3 жыл бұрын
@@thepewplace1370 He is referencing the letter Hitler supposedly sent to Stalin after Hess flew to Scotland in May 1941.
@iDeathMaximuMII
3 жыл бұрын
Melville Capps Does that Quote mean that Hitler & Stalin would’ve met in person had the meeting actually happened if Barbarossa didn’t go on?
It is an interesting theory, and does fit in with the way Hitler seemed to make strategic gambles, such as the Ardennes Offensive. And also in that he (correctly) thought that the only Soviet whose opinion really mattered was Stalin, so to pull off Barbarossa he needed to play Stalin. The Soviets had mountains of evidence that Barbarossa was about to happen, but since Stalin didn't believe it none of it was acted upon. If true it does raise some serious questions regarding the Battle of Britain and operation Sealion. Was the former a real attempt to batter Britain into submission? If not, why even attempt it given the losses to men and equipment that could then not be used in Barbarossa? And though we now know that Sealion had about a 0% chance of success, was it ever actually on the table? Or was it just a great bluff? And who was he trying to bluff - Churchill or Stalin?
@xJavelin1
4 жыл бұрын
@Wally S I don't know, I've always thought of Hitler as more of a poker player. Playing the guy opposite from him (Stalin) instead of his hand... Also being unafraid to go all-in to win the whole pot (Barbarossa). And to bluff big when he senses weakness (Munich).
@Ulani101
4 жыл бұрын
Did it have to be one or the other. He could have been trying to bluff both of them.
@xJavelin1
4 жыл бұрын
@@Ulani101 Good point. Though in fairness Churchill had only been PM for a couple of weeks by Dunkirk, so it's unlikely Hitler had a good grasp of how he would react at this time.
@jez5192
4 жыл бұрын
Are we forgetting that the evacuation of Dunkirk was a complete surprise to the Germans. No one, not even the British expected to evacuate as many troops as they did. The logical reason why the Germans didn't storm Dunkirk was because they expected the vast majority of the surrounded troops to surrender.
@nottoday3817
4 жыл бұрын
Never assume that something has 100% or 0% chance of success when you are talking about something on the grand scale. We now know Hitler mopped the floor with France, but at the time, I assure you, nobody, absolutely nobody, expected German troops to even set foot on French soil. RAF and the French air force had superiority over the Luftwaffe. French and Britain had more and better tanks. They had rough parity in terms of soldiers. And they had the Maginot line. And Germany was expecting for a long war in France. And we now know that the French victory was achieved by idiotic French generals, and German officers and generals ignoring the orders and plans to deal even heavier blows which led to a morale collapse. This means that even if someone had prior knowledge of the German plan, they could not have 100% stopped them. So, Sealion? They could have attempted the invasion as a joke and the British surrender as soon as German troops were on their soil. Or at least give in enough land to establish a solid bridgehead. U-Boats could have blocked the Royal Navy from entering the channel and stopping supplies comming in. etc. So no, 100%, doubt it.
TIK, i would like to thank you. You have helped my discover my interest in the second world war and completly renewed my perspective on the eastern front with your countless hours of content, and teached me to do my own research and look at the sources and their origins to better understand the war. Keep doing what your doing, its absolutely wonderfull! (Excuse for any grammar errors english is not my first language)
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
Fantastic! Glad to hear it! Especially that you're doing your own research and not just believing what I (or anyone else) is saying :)
@spicytuna421
4 жыл бұрын
Your English is pretty good.
@ilkkarautio2449
4 жыл бұрын
Diglett dig diglett dig TRIO TRIO TRIO! 🎵🎵❤️
Stalin, "There's no way Hitler could be crazy or stupid enough to start a war on two fronts." Hitler, "Hold mien beer."
@Nightdare
2 жыл бұрын
*Pilsner
Another possibility is the French Army: With the Germans having driven a wedge between the French and British Armies, the notion of a French counterattack from the south was easy to imagine (the Germans not realizing the French had no reserves). So waiting to ensure the French Army isn't coming makes sense before closing for the kill, particularly if the British Army isn't going anywhere soon.
@philipmoores4094
3 жыл бұрын
IMO the halt order is actually quite straight forward. The Germans all remember the "Miracle of the Marne" in September 1914 when they thought France was defeated and even sent reserves to the east before the Allied counter-attack ruined it for them. Hitler wasn't going to make that mistake again, so he rested and refreshed his strike force for the real battle to defeat France, "Case Red". The "sickle cut/Case Yellow" was just a preliminary operation before the main event, "Case Red". This time there was going to be no miracle. The French actually fought more effectively during the post Dunkirk battles but the German panzer force was rested and crushed the French regardless.
@kristoferbath
11 ай бұрын
Hitler still could have allowed 3-4 of his armoured divisions to attack at the beaches (without risk) so that makes no sense. They would soon be backed up if necessary.
Always a must watch. Great passion for your content.
12:00 a big factor in Stalin's thinking was simply his political education: Marxist-Leninism. At that stage of the war, he simply thought it was a war between competing capitalist/imperialist powers and simply thought they would tear each other to shreds. Eg. the correlation of forces dictated Soviet foreign and military policy throughout the war.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
Yes, absolutely
@nottoday3817
4 жыл бұрын
I think it was not his political education, but his experience. Russia fought against Germany along UK and France in WW1 and suffered some of the worst casualities. What was the result? When things did not go as the capitalists wanted, they brought the worlds strongest nations (UK, US, France, Japan) agaist Russia at their weakest point and agreed to the carving of their territory. And the 1930s were far from the ideal period we are being taught. France and UK were shaking hands with Hitler wherever they could. Hitler was invading Spain and he was hosting the Olympics at the same time. Then came Austria and Munich. How would those look for the Soviets? Could Stalin, having the experience of many wars, really belive that fighting against Hitler would not result in a war which USSR could not win and would be attacked by his 'former allies'?
@BlitzOfTheReich
4 жыл бұрын
@@nottoday3817 ^ That is a massive oversimplification of the WW1 era. The Bolsheviks agreed to the carving via Brest Litvosk whilst the Socialist revolutionaries did not. The US, UK, and French expeditions were small even though they did send a lot of arms to the Whites, but it was a civil war. Not the same thing at all.
@nottoday3817
4 жыл бұрын
@@BlitzOfTheReich The West interfered with boots on the ground nonetheless. And they also sabotaged the Russian fleet in Sevastopol and many other things which had long lasting effects. 'The Bolsheviks agreed to the carving via Brest Litvosk whilst the Socialist revolutionaries did not. ' Agree, but The Bolsheviks and their afilliated factions (since there were multiple republican-socialist factions there ) were campaigning against war with Germany since the population was fighting against it. Meanwhile, when the Red Army was restructured and Germany began to fall, the bolsheviks pushed back to regain their grounds. And now the West interfered and blocked them. What I meant is that for the Soviets it was clear the West could not be trusted and would try to get rid of them as soon as possible.
@BlackMan614
4 жыл бұрын
@@nottoday3817 You do realize Stalin supported the PRA with "boots on the ground" during the Spanish Civil War, right? Defense of Madrid was almost solely USSR led..
Are we forgetting that the evacuation of Dunkirk was a complete surprise to the Germans. No one, not even the British expected to evacuate as many troops as they did. The logical reason why the Germans didn't storm Dunkirk was because they expected the vast majority of the surrounded troops to surrender.
@tedarcher9120
4 жыл бұрын
They've tried to storm it tho, but weren't successfull
@vadimpm1290
4 жыл бұрын
@@tedarcher9120 really?
@paranaut23
3 жыл бұрын
By that time the germans would have been able to sink many vessels in that area if needed.. but they didn't for some reason
@tedarcher9120
3 жыл бұрын
@@paranaut23 they couldn't
@MrCarlGW
2 жыл бұрын
Correct answer. If you look at the pre-evacuation estimates, even the Brits did not know they could evacuate that many. Hitler's people, in their estimates, likely did not imagine the Brits would leave that much equipment behind. By using every private boat and focusing on getting people, not cannon, out they really did achieve a miracle.
Allow me to advance another theory. In May 1940, Hitler's main goal was to win the battle of France. The battle starts with relative parity of infantry forces between Germany and the Anglo-French armies, and numerical superiority in tanks by the French. German victory is by no means certain at this point in time, but as the Manstein plan succeeds, part of the French army as well as the entire BEF end up trapped and surrounded near Dunkirk. It is irrelevant whether they are destroyed or allowed to retreat accross the Channel. The main thing is that they no longer represent an effective fighting force and that Germany now has a clear advantage over the Allies in the form of numerical superiority, which will allow her to conquer all of France or force an Armistice on the French. Now, with regards to your theory, that Hitler wanted to keep Britain in the war in order to induce a false sense of security on Stalin, I find it compelling and original, but very unlikely. The war on Britain was not a simulated war that cost Germany nothing and allowed the preparations for Barbarossa to procceed unnoticed. The war was costly. Hundreds of planes were lost in the Battle of Britain. Operation Sea Lion had to be cancelled due to Britain's victory in the air, and due to the fact that the RAF managed to sink 10% of the German invasion fleet even before it was given a green light. Think about the other theaters of war, especially North Afrika. These forces could have proven useful (if not decisive) in the upcoming confrontation with the USSR, and yet, they were wasted in the Libyan desert, where they ultimately faced defeat at the hands of the Brits.
@sandornyemcsok4168
3 жыл бұрын
This argument still does not necessary mean that TIK's hypothesis is wrong. The Battle of Britain can be considered as a concealment operation (to convince Stalin that it is important for Hitler to knock out Britain) that went wrong and resulted higher losses than planned.
@S.Hunter279
3 жыл бұрын
@@sandornyemcsok4168 Well, then the Brits surely misinterpreted Hitler's actions and failed to grasp that the bombs falling on their capital and many other cities were indeed a message of peace. Churchill must have been a very dumb man to consider this operation as a hostile move by the German Reich, just as dumb as Stalin, who apparently believed that the German tanks and armies amassed along the Soviet border in June 1941 were about to invade Britain, not the USSR.
@sandornyemcsok4168
3 жыл бұрын
@@S.Hunter279 LOL
Dont forget, that 20k allied troops died defending the dunkirk pocket, they have maybe stopped the tanks, but they still tried to destroy the pocket.
@jamesb4789
4 жыл бұрын
tactical doctrine of Blitzkrieg called for the infantry to reduce the pockets, not the tanks whose job was to create them.
@darklysm8345
4 жыл бұрын
tanks were the main pushforce. With them the british cant survive
@darklysm8345
4 жыл бұрын
@@jamesb4789 uhumm but dunkirk was not a closed pocket. It has a beatch.
@ofekeshet2943
4 жыл бұрын
@@darklysm8345 tanks are unefficent at destoying pockets. Morever the german tanks at this state were not quite tip top
@darklysm8345
4 жыл бұрын
@@ofekeshet2943 they were tip top compared to their counterparts. At least in organisation and in skill.
"I HATE HALDER" hahaha, Halder is such a clown
@commissarkordoshky219
4 жыл бұрын
*Clown car music in the distance*
@InterestedAmerican
4 жыл бұрын
@@commissarkordoshky219 Halder is a typical CYA (cover your ass) general.
@rabidmidgeecosse1336
4 жыл бұрын
yeah that brought a chuckle
@Raskolnikov70
4 жыл бұрын
Here, you dropped these: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@MrRjh63
4 жыл бұрын
TIk has some good deadpan humor moments in his vids and this is one of them.
My 'hobbyist historian' theory on Dunkirk is that the majority of the reason for halting was internal politics and tactical considerations and the political reasonings between nations came as a result of hindsight thinking for Hitler and friends. The Nazis were set up to create and exploit opportunities, but in return they had to fall back to 'hindsight thinking' like chucking Hess at the Brits when they failed to either create or exploit those opportunities such as Dunkirk. When it comes to Dunkirk, I'd argue the Royal Navy was the inescapable and largely unstoppable force on every Nazis mind when dealing with the BEF. If they concentrated their forces to annihilate the pocket they'd have to deal with the possibility of Churchill bringing battleships to a panzer fight. So how do they force the pocket to surrender without getting savaged by naval gunnery providing close artillery support? In comes Goering with his massive ego saying he and the Luftwaffe can get it done no sweat with the land forces remaining in a dispersed cordon difficult to impossible to target to move in when the BEF officially surrenders and the threat of the RN has passed. Or put another way, if the BEF had been pocketed inland the Nazis would've absolutely forced them to surrender rather than, say, letting them escape. But since they were on the coast and France was won, the Nazis saw a huge amount of risk trying to destroy the BEF with ground forces for not much gain since before Churchill it's not like the British had been tough political opponents.
@philipowen6375
2 ай бұрын
Bravo. Good comment
I think the halt order probably needs Occam's Razor taken to it. I think it most likely that the halt order was given, like the halt order for Army Group Centre at Smolensk, because the panzers had outrun the infantry. Apart from Guderian and the other panzer enthusiasts, the bulk of the German commanders were concerned about Allied counterattacks (such as at Arras). They also needed to rest the troops and perform maintenance on the tanks after something like 8 days of intense fighting and charging over 200 km across the countryside. The German commanders were already looking at finishing off France, so they needed to get their units back into shape (rested, rearmed and resupplied) for the offensive towards Paris and all points south. Also, if the (possibly unsubstantiated) stories that some German soldiers had been given a mild form of methamphetamine, they would be coming off their "high" right around this point (since this would have been the first time the Wehrmacht tried it, they would only now be finding out the down side of combat drugs). Lastly, the German generals figured, much as the British High Command and Admiralty, that only around 30,000 troops could be evacuated out of Dunkirk, not the 338,000 that were eventually taken off the beaches. It is likely they considered this just a "mopping up operation", only to discover a couple of days later that they still had a major fight on their hands. In other words, they forgot the old adage that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Even so, the overall thesis that Hitler wanted to continue fighting Britain is not bad, but he could have done this even after annihilating the British Army at Dunkirk. As long as the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force existed, forcing a crossing of the Channel would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. The Wehrmacht would not have put so much effort into waterproofing tanks and collecting barges for the invasion had they not been seriously planning to attack England (even though some of the planning was carried out in a sort of malaise). Even if it was a smokescreen, leaving the British with sizeable forces at their disposal would be asking for trouble. Would you really want someone snapping around your heels while you are planning an invasion the size and scope of Barbarossa? Lastly, I think the thesis makes it seem like Hitler was trying to play chess 3-4 moves ahead of his opponents. Given the number of major blunders he made during the war, I find this quite unlikely. If he was that smart, why didn't he ensure his army has enough spares for all their equipment? Why did it take until 1943 for the Germans to start increasing production of tanks, aircraft and artillery? Why was there a chronic shortage of replacements at the front? Surely if you were gearing up for an attack on the Soviet Union you would have included this in your planning. So, in summary, although it is an interesting thesis, I think the idea comes up a bit short. I do agree that there are dots here that should and do need to be connected, but I will have to disagree with how you have connected them.
@TheNoonish
4 жыл бұрын
Absolutely this. I don't think the annihilation of the BEF would lead Churchill to surrender. It would be a massive blow to morale, both to the British army and the civilian population, but without defeating the RAF and especially the Royal Navy, the British aren't going to peace out. The fact that they'd abandoned a massive amount of military equipment in order to get the troops home still made this a massive defeat, but they fought on. They even landed a second BEF despite knowing it was futile gesture, and had to evacuate them as well a short time later. Plus, if Hitler was brilliant enough to play this chess game so many moves ahead, the commitment of so many resources to maintain the Battle of the Atlantic was costly. Submarines aren't cheap. They may have been an efficient trade when preying on British commerce, but if your objective is the East, it's better if you're saving the oil and steel for the tanks and half-tracks. Plus, keeping British as a belligerent means committing to the defense of thousands of miles worth of coastline.
Halder is mentioned in first 2 minutes? This is going to be interesting
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
I hate Halder
@rcvisee74
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight What did Halder do?
@fieldmarshalbaltimore1329
4 жыл бұрын
@@rcvisee74 he's a moron
@mixererunio1757
4 жыл бұрын
@@rcvisee74 After the war he went to USA where he wrote history of Wehrmacht. He created myth of "madman Hitler" ™TIK and tried to clean Wehrmacht's war crimes. We hate him so much.
@IndSovU
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight For good and meritorious reasons. js
This is both the stupidest and smartest theory I have ever heard of in my life
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
I'll take it
@scratchy996
4 жыл бұрын
Sums up Hitler nicely.
@AFGuidesHD
4 жыл бұрын
a plan is only smart if it works, or is only stupid if it fails
@primuspilusfellatus6501
4 жыл бұрын
@@scratchy996 which is why this theory seems plausible. I'd really see hitler doing this and thinking "my genius, it frightens me sometimes"
@leonardwei3914
4 жыл бұрын
@@AFGuidesHD "Victory is claimed by all, failure to one alone" -Tacitus, Agricola
18:42 Absolutely brilliant, to give your enemy an exact date of invasion, yet to make him think that you are instead withdrawing troops and that any military engagement is just a provocation by generals who have "forgotten their duties". As I understood, Soviet frontline units were given an exact that order not to react to "provocation" without an explanation how to differ a provocation from full scale attack
Makes perfect sense to me. The bombing operations in England seem to be the perfect screen to fool Stalin into thinking Hitler was committed to fighting Britain. Had the British troops been 'wiped out' at Dunkirk, Britain might've even given up from the start, not giving Hitler the chance to catch Stalin by surprise. We'd have to look more closely at the bombing operations of the Luftwaffe. If the operations themselves don't show much of a degree of effectiveness then that would be a strong indicator that it was all a sleight of hand to catch the Soviet Union unprepared.
@Philistine47
4 жыл бұрын
Ahem. If Luftwaffe bombing operations weren't that effective, it might _also_ mean simply that the technology of the time wasn't up to bringing Douhet's vision to life - or even just that the Luftwaffe wasn't really built to fight that kind of war.
@SmallPotato2313
3 жыл бұрын
@CK Lim well u are assuming that all countries like usa or venezuela would trade oil to germany which seems unlikely cuz of their agression perfect example is japan after taking indochina usa stopped trading the oil with them completely something similar could happen to germany too
It's so perplexing because elements of all of these theories can be somewhat true. Stalin himself was an avid reader of Mein Kampf, thank you for mentioning the timing. Uncle Joe thought he had a few more years and not before Britain surrendered.
Very intresting, combined with the fact that Hitler thought Russian would collapse inside 2 months. The pieces certainly fit.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
That is a good point. It all seems to have gone wrong for Hitler during Barbarossa
@Toxked
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight Dad tough me something many years ago. "Everything works out on paper "
@petriew2018
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight i think he really underestimated how a massive invasion by an outside force not hiding the fact they wanted to wipe all Russia off the map would temporarily put a halt to all Russia's internal issues... I'm not entirely sure pre-war opinions of Russia were that far off, i just think they failed to realize what happens when they so radically changed the political dynamic that way... though that seems to me to be a pretty obvious oversight.
Another alternative history for a different situations where german tanks in reality did not come out on top at a beach, at Sicily, Salerno and Anzio the Allied Landings were rapidly crushed and driven into the sea at the Sicilian beaches and Salerno where full Panzer divisions with PKW IV (and a handful of Tigers) and at Anzio where a full armor division and 3 infantry at day 4 took on 2 Allied infantry divisions . This is an alternative history because in all 3 cases the Germans tried very hard to do this and failed with the destruction of half of their tanks. In the first 2 cases the air battle was contested with neither side dominant and the naval advantage to the Allies was no more than 2 cruisers and a dozen destroyers. At Sicily there were battleships available but these never fired on the panzers. At Dunkirk the British employed 39 destroyers, most tof the Home Fleet cruisers were within hours of the beach. There was 2 and probably 4 times as much naval fire power available at Dunkirk as was available at any of the Mediterranean blandings. Fire control wuld have been poor but I would take 4 cruisers with 8 6" guns over a couple hundred pew II's and III's. The elephant in the room at Dunkirk was the RN just at sea. In WWI the remnants of the Belgium Army was similarly evacuated by walking down the coast. . It was the Belgium Army which spelled walk over, isn't it? The German Army chose not to challenge the RN and let them walk.
@Userext47
4 жыл бұрын
"most tof the Home Fleet cruisers were within hours of the beach" I doubt this was the case, any citation for this claim? I agree german panzers would have done poorly attacking dunkirk but I don't remember the home fleet being anywhere close hence why the allied infantry wasn't supported by carriers but instead with planes from airstrips on britain itself.
Decisions are made for multiple reasons, rarely just one reason. To me it seems that there were numerous good reasons to pause and see what happens.
That is a very interesting episode. I am not a historian but was digging in the Dunkirk affair without getting any satisfying answer. Thanks for putting this idea on the table.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
You're welcome! No idea if it will stand up in the long-term, and there's already been some counters, but it's worth thinking about :)
@super20dan
4 жыл бұрын
he is dead wrong as usual
@iVETAnsolini
4 жыл бұрын
Who is?
It's an interesting Theory. I can buy this to the extent that Hitler had been studying Bismark and wanted to emulate him. It certainly has a very Bismark thing to do
@freckleheckler6311
3 жыл бұрын
This is mental gymnastics. It’s utterly ridiculous
Ok, I'm a 55 year old retired US Army Infantry NCO that served for 26 years and was in two wars as such. I'm using my wife's YT account to post this comment. Now, I am not a professional historian by any stretch but I do study military history as well as conducted small unit actions. Most of us leaders knew well about basic tactics from Art of War and know that "he who controls the tempo of the battle, controls the outcome" so I'm pretty sure the German Officers also read that same book and knew well that if you have an enemy on his heels, the last thing you do is halt to allow them to dig in, fortify, re-supply, consolidate equipment/ammunition, etc. looking at the distance remaining, it's clear it was a halt for a political intent aimed towards Britain. I've heard various theories that the Germans had just ran out of momentum and outran their supplies and could move not one more inch. Ok, got it. Some say that the German Soldiers were taking some sort of drug that gave them stamina, maybe something like speed or whatever and the men had been awake for over 3 days and many were starting to make serious mistakes. But to halt all units to include air assets for days doesn't add up. I've conducted extended ops many times where we didn't get much sleep for over 3 days but all we needed was 3-4 hours now and then to maintain alertness. And as you're defeating a unit, they compress into a smaller perimeter thus you don't need as many assets to push the enemy so that's when you put some units on rest for a few hours as others maintain the fight. And the British Forces were also lacking rest so their men were also making mistakes due to exhaustion so their effectiveness is cut at least by one third if not half. Soldiers don't aim very well as their vision is affected by exhaustion, fear becomes a rampant disease as their perimeter tightens so it's obvious that mistakes were made. So think of what was the main reason why hitler invaded the west? Think about recent events going on in Finland and Spain, the Communists wanted Finland and decided to invade and it cost Stalin nearly half of his newly gutted Army by a country that had a couple tanks but,mother did have skis and damn good marksmen! Every Sniper knows about the short Finnish man ( his name escapes me at the moment). Spain was also dealing with a communist insurgency on a grand scale. Along with all this, swaths of France thought socialism/communism is a great thing, similar issues in the Netherlands. So to ensure Russia had no open harbors, hitler felt he had to act because the weaker western countries would be under communist rule in short time and Germany would be trapped. The issue with Poland is a joke, if they had honored their agreement for the rail line to the port, things might have been more stable but it was clear that the Poles would also cave to the communists so they acted. Please note that my opinions are my own and I may be missing some key pieces but after a lot of good books, even a couple from Mr. Irving, we get the best picture we can but since history is always written by the victor, we all know there's always another part of the situation that got rubbed out of the history books. I was stationed at Baumholder, Germany from 2002-07 but was also stationed in Aschaffenburg, Germany in 1984-85 and I traveled my butt off when time permitted! Ive been to Bastogne a few times and talked directly with some of the Veterans of the battle and learned a lot. I spent a few years in the 2/502d so I knew about our heritage during the Battle of the Bulge but I didn't know how critical the 10th Armor Division task forces were in stopping the German advances, without them, Bastogne would just be a place where you can buy great furniture (lol, I'm guilty, I bought some from there.).
@iroscoe
4 жыл бұрын
Whatever books they'd read German officers had recent practical experience of the problems of dislodging Allied troops from places like Cassel , Dunkirk was larger surrounded by concentric rings of canals and promised to be exponentially harder to take why not leave them to wither on the vine and preserve your armor for the still substantial French forces below the Somme which were still being reinforced by Fresh British units even as Dunkirk was going on .
I always thought Hess was held in captivity his whole life for a reason. This is a solid thought! Tho.
@darkalan7736
4 жыл бұрын
agreed. also the documents not being released is suspicious
The last time I was this early to a TIK video, Stalin and Hitler were allies.
@stevej71393
4 жыл бұрын
So in other words, you were never early to a TIK video because Hitler and Stalin were never allies. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a non-aggression pact, not a treaty of alliance. Yes, I know, r/wooosh and all that.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
“It is worth clarifying that the Nazi-Soviet Pact was not an alliance as such, it was a treaty of non-aggression. Consequently, aside from the metaphorical title used here - The Devils’ Alliance - I generally refrain from referring to Hitler and Stalin as ‘allies’ or their collaboration as an ‘alliance’. However, that clarification should not blind us to the fact that the Nazi-Soviet relationship between 1939 and 1941 was a profoundly important one, which consisted of four further agreements after the pact of August 1939 and was, therefore, close to an alliance in many respects. Certainly it was far more vital and far more crucial to both sides than, for instance, Hitler’s alliance with Mussolini’s Italy. Hitler and Stalin were allies in all but name.” - Moorhouse, “The Devils’ Alliance,” P4. (Bearing in mind that this book is the only book specifically on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and the author notes that the Pact is often ignored or barely mentioned by a lot of other authors. And when it is mentioned, it's only a few sentences.)
@BlackpilledBuddha6476
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight Roger Moorhouse is British Anglo-Saxon British are Generally = Anti-German, biased, unreliable, one-sided. History is literally written by the victor.
@paduapeted49
4 жыл бұрын
Or was it an agreed "carve-up", just called a non-aggression pact?
@BlackpilledBuddha6476
4 жыл бұрын
@@paduapeted49 Without that agreement, Stalin would have attacked Germany. Rydz-Smigly caused Poland to be invaded by forming an alliance with the Allies and persecuting Germans in his side of Poland.
What a fantastic theory! We can never really know the full answer as to what the actual reasons were, but you have just defined a very reasonable possibility for the decision to not finish off the British forces at Dunkirk. Well done TIK! Keep up the good work.
So that was the “very personal letter to Stalin” that Indy mentioned in the WW2 Channel I’ll be dammed, I would’ve fell for that too at first!
@dongately2817
4 жыл бұрын
Indy has some inside info the rest of us aren’t privy to. He has to be an agent for one side or the other. I trust Spartacus, not Indy.
@iDeathMaximuMII
4 жыл бұрын
Don Gately 😱
@farqitol
4 жыл бұрын
iDeath MaximuM II Anna! 🥰🥰🥰
@j.f.fisher5318
3 жыл бұрын
ok, clearly I'm missing out. Who is Indy?
@louplibre9734
3 жыл бұрын
@@j.f.fisher5318 The WW2 guy
People say they were overstretched and needed rest etc. yet how does 2 days change anything in the grand scheme of things, especially that the panzers and infantry still had weeks more combat and distance to travel after dunkirk
@Pikkabuu
3 жыл бұрын
2 days of rest is a lot. Even one good nights rest was godsent in the field exercises when I was in the military.
@bik3r230
Жыл бұрын
When your troops have been awake for 240 of the last 260 hours it means alot actualy
My god, this video is so intresting!! It is just a gold mine for History Lovers like me! Thank you TIK! You work is awesome.
Hitler: *I'm gonna pull a 4D chess move*
@scratchy996
4 жыл бұрын
He often played chess, thinking 10 moves ahead, just to be surprised when his opponents won by having Four Aces...
@scratchy996
4 жыл бұрын
@Lovecraft I was saying there is no reason to think 10 chess moves ahead when you're actually not playing chess, but poker.
This ties in with the armchair historian’s description of the early stages of operation: Barbarossa. Stalin’s troops were reporting that they were under heavy fire and desperately begging for permission to defend themselves, and yet Stalin was astonishingly obtuse and refused to grant that permission in order to (apparently) “prevent an escalation”. It seems he bought Hitler’s story
Germany's defeat began at Dunkirk, this was Hitler's first fatal mistake. Had he not intervened 400,000 allied forces would have been killed or captured leaving Britain no choice but to surrender in 1940. MASSIVE MISTAKE
Tik amazing video as usual now you became more than a drug for me I’m literally watching all your videos , I have a question for you , I know you already talked about the Italian army sometimes but will you ever make a whole video dedicated to it ? Maybe looking more deeply why we failed in such a bad way , I think it would be very cool especially because here in Italy people really have no idea of what actually happened to us. Thank you
Interesting Theory, but it definitely raises a few questions. First of all if Hitler really wanted peace with Britain why would he bomb civilians? You could argue that the Battle of Britain was to Cripple their Air Force which could be a threat but I don't see why he would Target civilians if he wasn't trying to force Britain to accept a peace deal. Wouldn't the Lost airplanes and oil be of much better use against his real enemy, the Soviet Union? Also what would the point be in attacking British convoys with submarines if not to force them to surrender? Especially since it also escalated tensions with the USA which would also get in the way of invading the Soviet Union. Why bother using the resources and oil sinking Merchant ships if he wanted Britain to stay in the war? Also something that is unclear is if he wanted them to escape why would he send in the Air Force and submarines? You mentioned in the video that he might have wanted to Cripple the British but then why not send in the army? did he only want to partially attack them? Like the only thing that makes sense for your theory is that he didn't want to destroy the British, but he also didn't want them to escape, so he tried to do something in the middle? Like it sounds a little over complex especially when you could have just destroyed them, crippled the British even more, and just not accepted a peace offer, if he didn't want to be seen denying one he could also just demand unconditional surrender similar to The Americans and I doubt Britain would accept and even if it did unconditional surrender from Britain would be extremely beneficial so it's win-win. I'm not convinced.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
"First of all if Hitler really wanted peace with Britain why would he bomb civilians?" Good point. Maybe, if he just sat there and didn't do much of anything, it would seem suspicious to Stalin. So maybe he had to make it seem like he was genuinely going to invade or 'punish' the British Isles. "Wouldn't the Lost airplanes and oil be of much better use against his real enemy, the Soviet Union?" Absolutely, but then again, Hitler did think that the Soviet Union would collapse before the oil ran out. "Also what would the point be in attacking British convoys with submarines if not to force them to surrender?" To keep Britain weak. "Also something that is unclear is if he wanted them to escape why would he send in the Air Force and submarines? You mentioned in the video that he might have wanted to Cripple the British but then why not send in the army?" Well, I'd say that the army might have done a more thorough job. Alternatively, one of current Dunkirk theories is that Hitler kept back the tanks/troops in preparation for the next attack against France (Case Red). If that is true, it would make sense why he kept the tanks back. "Like it sounds a little over complex especially when you could have just destroyed them, crippled the British even more, and just not accepted a peace offer, if he didn't want to be seen denying one he could also just demand unconditional surrender similar to The Americans and I doubt Britain would accept and even if it did unconditional surrender from Britain would be extremely beneficial so it's win-win. I'm not convinced." Well, it seems to be a combination of tactical practicalities and strategic thinking. We already have the tactical argument for why he kept back the tanks, but the strategic element seems to be missing. I think this theory isn't too complex, and actually fits in. However, I can certainly see your point of view.
@scratchy996
4 жыл бұрын
"First of all if Hitler really wanted peace with Britain why would he bomb civilians? " - Hitler did not want to bomb civilians. It was the Churchill who ordered the bombing of civilian targets, which infuriated Hitler, and ordered a reply in kind. It's what Churchill wanted, in order to replenish the RAF. "Also something that is unclear is if he wanted them to escape why would he send in the Air Force and submarines?" - There is a theory that says that at that time tensions were high and cracks in the German High command. Hitler wasn't feeling fully confident in his generals' loyalty. The general who finishes off the British Army would have gained high esteem and glory from the German military and population, Hitler feared this would weaken his image. So he stopped the obvious logical course of action to show that he Could Do It, that he is in absolute control of the situation. Goering said the Luftwaffe can easily finish off the British troops, and he was one of the few who Hitler fully trusted, so he gave the task, and the associated glory to him.
@jussim.konttinen4981
4 жыл бұрын
@@scratchy996 True. It's just one country among others. I'd say the war only escalated later, as if in a bar fight. This was just policing or Greco-Roman wrestling. The Kriegsmarine was instructed to avoid hostile acts against US ships so as not to give cause for a declaration of war. The British also left "Festung Norwegen" untouched. Big mistake? : )
@scratchy996
4 жыл бұрын
@@jussim.konttinen4981 I just say what I have gotten from other sources. Unfortunately I don't remember where I saw the "tensions inside the Wehrmacht command theory", I believe it was an old documentary on Discovery.
@liam5502
4 жыл бұрын
I have always wondered why the Luftwaffe changed their bombing targets during the Battle of Britain. It seems so logical to destroy the RAF then target industry/ defences finally leading to invasion. This theory could explain why the bombing of the RAF targets were switched to civilian targets just as the RAF were about to crack.
I appreciate that you're not sticking hard & fast to it! You've raised a good point and I have heard it said that it was Rommel who caused the problem at the Battle of Arras as he'd exaggerated the size of the force he was fighting and that initiated the halt order as the Germans did not want to have their supply lines cut and Rundstedt was a day from reaching Dunkirk the British realised what was going on and took the ports with reinforcements sent over from the U.K. A key point in the discussion is that the Admiralty under operation Dynamo only thought that Britain could withdraw 30,000 troops. Had the Germans also arrived at this estimate, they would have known we would have been technically knocked out of the war, it would certainly send the wrong signal to Stalin. Something other than the start of operation Dynamo was also happening on the 26th May 1940; it is not much talked about by historians and some dismiss it out of hand particularly with Scottish units being left behind. (However was that due to a change of mind by the French, who had decided that they were no longer going to give preference to the British in the evacuation and chose that they too could stay behind?) King George VI called the first of seven days of national prayer in the UK of the war and probably across the whole of the Empire. I am not one for saying God was on our side, however it is more a case of are we on His when you read Joshua chapter one! Particularly when we're fighting AH, who's trying to wipe out all of those in the East. The miracle of Dunkirk happened and we managed to pull 330,000 + men home, 10 times more than the admiralty estimate!
I believe the tanks were told to halt simply because they outran their infantry yet again and Germany didn't want to break all of its tanks at Dunkirk since they still had to deal with France afterwards. There was no hurry to smash Dunkirk since the air force and navy was going to make it very difficult to escape anyway. Even though the BEF did manage to escape, they were forced to leave behind all of their equipment. This means the troops could not simply be sent back around to help France, and by the time the equipment could be replaced... France was already conquered.
Rudolf Hess did fly to Britain for a final attempt at an alliance (or at least neutrality, which he seemed to think was plausible). B t w Hess introduced Hitler to the "living space" theory while helping him to write Mein Kampf in prison. Hess was a disciple of Haushofer's "geopolitics." Haushofer later denied any link between geopolitics and the "living space" concept.
"I assure you, on my honour as a chief of state" ROTFLMAO
@j.f.fisher5318
3 жыл бұрын
right? Seriously - how do you know that Hitler's going to attack you? Did he ask to sign a non-aggression pact? If yes, he plans to attack you!
@samgilley3160
3 жыл бұрын
"Pinky promise dude trust me"
@gumdeo
3 жыл бұрын
Stalin didn't think that Hitler was trustworthy, but he did think him predictable.
Decision making in the middle of a huge disaster can be complex and uncertain. Stalin allegedly obsessively studied Hitler’s writings and in his mind concluded Hitler would not attack. Further it seems Stalin did not trust the Army and worried they were a threat to him (why his political agents supervised the military at every level). Allegedly Stalin went to his rural estate in despair during the German invasion overwhelmed by events. Trying to apply logic to the human condition, especially in the middle of a disaster, assumes a rational world. Cheers.
I think it is actually far more complex. The original plan was to take France quickly, taking the Low Countries as well, denying the British the ability to bring more troops to the fight as quickly as possible. (Think race to the sea ww1). Letting the Brits go was a gesture of goodwill to the British in the hopes that both Britain and France could be brought to terms quickly. Britain, however not only denied any offer, they were bombing Germany. So it’s not so simple. The air war over Britain was meant to bring the British to their knees, completely devoid of clear focus (schwerpunkt), it failed quite miserably despite decent intel on air defense and radar installation locations. Hitler was navigating his options. He wanted peace with the west so he could end the blockade, and maybe to have more potential allies in the fight against the Soviets but more importantly to buy time. The German military simply wasn’t ready for the fight against the Soviet Union and the war with France highlighted many areas that needed improvement within the German armed forces (tank and anti tank armament just to name a few). Additionally, In Axis-Soviet negotiations late 1940-41, the Nazis wanted the Soviets to expand into Iran and then British territory, however, Stalin wanted to avoid clashes with the British so he could clean up all of Europe after the war between Germany and Britain was over. So Molotov demanded the Germans leave Finland and for influence in the Balkans. After realizing there was no hope of finishing Britain off, with the economic tank running low, Hitler uses the war with Britain to attempt a surprise invasion, hoping to knock them out of the fight by quickly seizing the Soviets food and oil. It’s much less a matter of genius long term planning and much more of a string of attempts to seize the perceived opportunities as they presented themselves. Peace with the west is far more advantageous and everyone knows it. Ironically, capturing the troops at Dunkirk would have been far more likely to bring Churchill to the table. Had Guderian simply ignored the order, he could have pressed the allied troops into surrender. Bam, war in the west potentially over. If Hitler wanted to keep the war with Britain going, all he had to do was not accept any peace offer. Very simple. No elaborate deception required. It’s not like Britain was just going to surrender. A negotiated peace involving both parties was required. Dunkirk was just a misguided blunder. Almost as bad as keeping Canaris in charge of the Abwehr or hoping for a “quick victory” in the Soviet Union. All of those decisions just helped kill off the Nazis.
I always thought about the Halt Order as a strategically sound idea (but with too much belief in the Luftwaffe) to force the British to evacuate, more or less in the same manor they did in Canakkale (Gallipoli), but with a lot more manpower to evacuate. The purely military lookout on the evacuation would be to use the mighty British fleet and if needed sacrifice a lot of it to get the men out. With only the Fleet evacuating the Army it would have taken maybe a week or more, with enormous damage that could have been inflicted by the Luftwaffe. That damage would have been very time and resource consuming to revert to starting numbers, as rebuilding a fleet could take years, and that was Hitler's goal. As long as the British fleet was on up and operational, a Seelowe could not be realistically mounted. Also the submarine warfare could not be truly devastating. All this said, an infantry army of 250.000 + 50.000 of other nations is more easily replaceable. I believe this was Hitler's main goal at that point. Of course, we all know how it went: Britain mobilized it's civilian navy up to smallest of boats and achieved a very swift evacuation thus saving the fleet from the incessant Luftwaffe air superiority. In regards to the theory that leaving Britain in battle was a gambit in order to keep Stalin in a false sense of security, I believe that this is not the case mostly because it would rely much too much on one personal opinion: that of Stalin. Sacrificing such a great victory and the capture of a whole British army in order to deceive one man, be it Stalin, with a very low chance of success, was not something I personally find believable.
@annescholey6546
4 жыл бұрын
Halt, in German 😄
@xa-12musk28
Жыл бұрын
Yeah you make sense. Also another interesting thing I feel is that if Hitler just planned to keep a crippled Britain’s corpse to deceive Stalin, then Soviet intel would’ve easily been able to tell Britain has been knocked out and no longer posed a threat to Germany- similar to Germany’s situation post Kursk and thus they would’ve started defensive preparations.
@xa-12musk28
Жыл бұрын
Adding to my previous comment, people may say that see this is why Hitler allowed a sizable, strong, intact British Army to escape, but imo it doesn’t make sense strategically as the British blockades, failure in Atlantic and Luftwaffe losses over Britain are too risky of gambles for a deception unlikely to work which ultimately cost their war?
Great video! I never thought of that, I was always wondering what might have led to the decision at Dunkirk
That is genius. Hess definitely flew to Britain as part of this quasiruse of “no peace with Britain”
He stopped because once again, he was offering peace. He sent peace terms to England many times with very favorable conditions all of which were denied.
This theory makes a lot of sense because it fits in with the way Hitler played politics up till his invasion of the Soviet Union. Can't wait for TIK's take on the Hess affair.
11:16 because everything was going so well until the Germans were a bit rude in not responding to his counter proposal of joining the Axis
Another miscalculation Hitler saw debecale Of Finland and assumed that soviet Union was weaker than it actually was
Glad to see you start to tackle the Hess Affair. More on that later. Regarding Dunkirk, however, Occam's razor might be an apt guide. The most parsimonious explanation might be that attempting to destroy the British and French forces in the Dunkirk pocket would have diverted them from attaining the primary strategic objective of the campaign, which was a rapid French surrender. The longer they delayed the conquest of France, the more likely it would have been that the French government would have taken actions - - such as re-deploying their navy to British or Canadian ports - - to help thwart the German efforts. Several European navies sent ships to fight alongside the British, and if the French navy had had sufficient planning time to execute this command, it would have severely hampered the efforts of the Kriegsmarine's U-boats to starve Britain into submission.
TIK when do you think you will finish your battlestorm series?
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
Battlestorm will never end! Stalingrad might at some point, but no idea when :)
@henleinkosh2613
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight I see for me, TIK at age 100, still doing videos on Stalingrad because he couldn't get all the details in during the first run, and because new material have been found that contradicts the original series, and he will have to rework the entire series for it to reflect the new information. :)
The rule of the simplest: von Rundstedt was afraid of a counterattack, it could end with the encirclement of his panzers.
I am not fully convinced by this argument, but it is much more compelling than the normal narrative. Hitlers strategy, before being furher and even in his tremendous evil, was very willing to bet everything on double-zero. This pattern definately doesn't conflict with betting a year of war with Britain against suprise Barbarossa (but doesn't itself conflict with traditional Dunkirk-as-peace either, that one is just a much worse looking bet).
That's a nice theory - avoiding to defeat Britain so USSR didn't expect the invasion to come, as they believe that Germany would not risk the war on two fronts.
I had never heard this explanation before, but it makes a lot more sense than anything else I’d heard. Fascinating.
Well you have a point. On the other hand, even if the BEF would have been destroyed in Dunkirk, Hitler could have insisted on a unconditional surrender by Churchill. To keep the Illusion of a war going on in the west, he could just keep away from invading, which he did anyway. The Battle over Britain and the plans of Seelöwe wouldnt be affected by this theory and would be sufficient for the soviets to believe in the war in the west. Even by winning in Dunkirk, Hitler could have kept the war going on and would have MUCH better conditions to make peace after winning in the east.
@Gew219
4 жыл бұрын
Exactly. Why leaving the enemy unscathed while you can decimate him and then pretend the only way to end it is the total annihilation on his own soil? Maybe Hitler thought Stalin wouldn't fall for that and really wanted an unthinkable scenario?
Why are the Hess stories still sealed. What is Britain hiding? Might lead to a revision of history?
I like your theory-- but I wonder why Hitler didn't make really serious offers of peace to England after June 22, 1941. Once the panzers were on the move and Stalin was cowering in his dacha, the subterfuge was unnecessary and an armistice with GB would have made perfect sense, to prevent a war on two fronts (or three fronts including North Africa and the Middle East).
@anon_148
2 жыл бұрын
would've made 0 sense for Britain at any point which is why they didn't accept it, the Germans tried to sign a peace with them many many times.
How to solve this once and for all: Go back in time and ask Hitler himself almost directly afterwards (and give him no incentive to lie, etc.). Be sure to secretly record this. Unfortunately this is rather hard to do, so we may never know.
My Father was a young squaddie at Dunkirk. I now live in Russia , this alternative theory makes the most sense of any explanation I’ve heard especially taking into account the mentality of the two main characters. Once again , thank you very much for what you do .
The returning troops from Dunkirk well totally demoralized - tossing their rifles into the railway tracks shouting, 'its over the Germans will be here any day' - how do I know this. My father 21 at the time watched them. It was many years later that this information became public.
Isn't the simplest explanation that Hitler never thought in a million years the Brits would keep up their war against Germany after France's defeat? There was no reason to expect they would, so even the tiniest of tactical issues could have then justified not making more of an effort at Dunkirk. Remember, the Armistice the French would sign similarly operated on the assumption the British would end hostilities within a matter of weeks. That's why the French so readily agreed to the occupation of N. France as long as Brits were still in the war. Both Germany and France assumed the Germans would be gone by the end of the month. So it wasn't just the Germans. NOBODY anticipated Churchill's decision to remain at war with Germany. There has been this propaganda cult built up around that decision in the decades since, but when you look at it objectively, it was a truly bizarre decision. We are going to remain in this war, and bankrupt our treasury and sacrifice tens of thousands of lives, for no discernible reason whatsoever.
@timp3931
4 жыл бұрын
I have always had the opinion that Churchill was a tougher man than Hitler.
@scottwillie6389
4 жыл бұрын
@@timp3931 Crazier is probably the better word. Both got their respective country involved in a disastrous war. With Hitler you can at least kind of see the argument that Soviets were going to attack so we need to strike while we still can (which was wrong, but at least plausible). But what was Churchill's excuse? He destroyed the British Empire for no better reason than he was an overgrown man child who got off on fighting wars.
I remember reading somewhere that Hess would attempt peace negotiations on orders of Hitler, essentially buying time for the offensive to the east. My memory on it is a bit hazy, but from what I recall, Hess would end up negotiating on a phoney truce on the west front where Britain would pledge not to invade for a considerable amount of time in return to some concessions. That was the result of a peace deal being rejected on the first stage I'd guess. That would be far fetched however. As far as I know there were two sides in UK back then, one opting for peace, one not. The schism could have played a role in this hypothetical phoney truce, as a intermediary step, however its still dubious. If I wanted to solidify some truth, I'd look at certain factors. A) On a human level in the high command, how willing was Britain to opt for peace (leaving Churchill aside). B) How willing was Hitler on allowing Britain's empire to survive and to what extent. C) Supposedly that this was the case, the bombing raids should have gradually declined, at least till the point where peace was no longer an option. Charts would help indicating bombing between England and Germany in the few months till June 21 and the few following months that Hitler was committed east. D) When did the harsh crackdown of the Resistance in France started and when the resistance itself started forming substantially. I am pretty sure UK is not completely innocent, considering how they still keep the Hess files in the dark. What I would assume is that the option of peace existed and the British high command seriously considered it, to the point they would be scrutinized if it became known today since the whole rhetoric of the past 80 years has been "Democracy stood against Fascism without any doubt or shaking".
@The_New_IKB
4 жыл бұрын
something tells me that any documents about this that still exist in Britain will never see the light of day. they probably have already been burned.
@AFGuidesHD
4 жыл бұрын
>How willing was Hitler on allowing Britain's empire to survive and to what extent. Everything i've ever read is that Hitler wanted Britain to keep its empire "for if Britain lost india it wouldn't benefit us" and economists were planning to "at least make a breach in the Ottawa agreement". So even in a defeat Britain wouldn't actually lose as much as it did in "victory"
@nottoday3817
4 жыл бұрын
'Democracy stood against Fascism without any doubt or shaking".' Well, apart from shaking hands at the 1936 fascist Olimpics in Berlin, or Munich or things like that. And you can easily stand against something when it's barely looking at you. Not denying that this is the main propaganda line or your reasoning, but Hess files would bring nothing new.
@bezahltersystemtroll5055
4 жыл бұрын
@Blue Star Were Hess' suicide attempts in the 40s and 60s also conspiracies?
@bezahltersystemtroll5055
4 жыл бұрын
@Blue Star Not quite correct. Eugene Bird wrote a book about his talks with Hess in the 70s.
From the German perspective, I can't see any point in continuing the war with Great Britain after the fall of France. Let's assume Hitler was mad but not an idiot, he had a pretty detailed knowledge about his armed forces and could clearly see that there was no way of invading GB. Neither was GB able to invade the continent. But a peace with GB certainly would have alerted Stalin, so staying at war with GB to cover "Barbarossa" makes some sense. Since everybody thought the Soviet Union would collapse within months anyway, a peace with GB would/could/should still be possible after a successful war in the east. Which would also have strengthend the German position quite a bit. As for Dunkirk: not even the British thought they could get away with it. So it is quite understandable that German high command stopped the Panzers for a short period to consolidate their forces and to sort out the logistics, which were chaotic due to the unexpected successes. Not to mention that the mechanized units - men and material that is - hadn't had any rest for some 10 days and were walking on their teeth. As for Göring and his promise to destroy the British from above: well, the guy was on hard drugs continously. As for Rudolf Heß: as long as none of the facts are on the table, it is somewhat hard to argue about intentions. Too many mysteries. Fact is, he was Hitlers lieutenant (second in command) in the NSDAP. One and a half question that bother me: how strong was the opposition to Churchill in GB ? Was there any real chance for peace if it wasn't for Churchill ? Or are we victim to another propaganda on that matter ?
@waltermodel1481
4 жыл бұрын
but what would be the consequences of Stalin being alerted of a german offensive after a uk-german peace ? The Red army was in full build up in 1939-41 anyway. Thinking a german attack was more likely doesn't make the Red Army stronger
@ottovonbismarck2443
4 жыл бұрын
@@waltermodel1481 Maybe the Soviets would not have had half their air force destroyed on the ground ? Maybe tanks could have entered combat with full ammo and fuel loadout ?
@waltermodel1481
4 жыл бұрын
@@ottovonbismarck2443 the impreparation of the tank forces was not a problem that you could solve quickly, it was a structural problem. Like the lack of trained officers, NCO's, trucks etc... the result of the mismanaged soviet build up of 1939-41. Let's say the soviets are aware of an impending german attack in the spring of 1941. They pull their force away from the border to avoid encirclements ? but it contradicts the soviet defensive doctrine that is based on immediate counter-offensive. Furthermore, it lets the Germans progress quicker on land that the soviets actually need to defend.
@ottovonbismarck2443
4 жыл бұрын
@@waltermodel1481I'm not saying that the Soviets would have performed better on a higher tactical level, but they would not have been caught with their pants that far down. The late 1930s) purge certainly had a huge impact, lack of motorization another; soldiers being unfamiliar with their tanks or aircraft due to missing training not helping either. Put it like that: your door bell rings, you open the door. Would you open the door knowing there's an armed robber outside or would you prepare otherwise ?
@waltermodel1481
4 жыл бұрын
@@ottovonbismarck2443 Surprise did play a part, but I have a quote from Zhukov (from a french historian's book, Jean Lopez) saying that surprise was not the biggest factor of the big defeats of the early invasion, but that the biggest factor was that the Soviets simply greatly understimated the German's ability to launch such a massive offensive across the whole front. In the end both sides understimated each other.
7:20 fatal and almost childish thinking error. Making peace with Britain while the Brits and Germans barely fought one another would be possible. One side wasn't 'the winner' over the other and they could white peace without humiliation. Making peace while one side got a hundredthousand dead, woundend or captured would not have been possible. Britain would have surely fought till the end and not made a humiliating peace deal. The people wouldn't accept that. Hitler stopt at Dunkirk because it was the only and last possibility for peace in Europe. Churchill denied peace and made the UK lose its superpower status.
Hi, TIK. I would like to say a few things about Dunkirk and the Halt Befehl. So the Halt Befehl stopped the Panzer Divisions from May 24 to May 26. Dunkirk was the only French port remaining in Allied hands on the 24th. However the Belgians still held the ports at Zeebrugge/Zeebruges, Oostende/Ostend and Nieuwpoort/Nieuport. The Halt Befehl was only for the Panzer divisions, not the German infantry divisions. The German infantry kept on attacking during this period. During this period the Belgians fought the Battle of the Lys river. This was the hardest battle fought by the Belgians during this campaign. +- 2500 out of the 7000 Belgians killed in 1940 died in this battle from the 24th till the 27th. The Germans attacked the Belgians allong the entire frontline. Around the 24th, the German infantry achieved a breakthrough at Kortrijk/Courtrai at the junction between the Belgian army and the BEF. They advanced forward from Kortrijk/Courtrai over Menen/Menin towards Ieper/Ypres. This is essentially towards dunkirk but from the east instead of the south. The Belgian HQ had to rush the 2nd Belgian Motorised Cavalry Division over to try and plug the gap between the Belgian right flank and the British. This stabilised the front by the 27th but this unit was severely understrength by this time and it remained a weak point. So my points are: 1) The Belgians only surrendered on May 28. Even if Dunkirk fell to the Panzers on the 24th, the British would still be able to move north behind the Belgians and evacuate from the three Belgian ports. Taking Dunkirk on the 24th or not taking it doesn't mean the end or salvation of the BEF since there are still three Belgian ports left. By the way, the French 60th infantry division was still in the area of Zeebrugge/Zeebruges on the 27th of May. The Belgian HQ loaded this French division in lorries and transported them to the Dunkirk area before the capitulation on the 28th. Also on the 27th of May the Allies still controlled two railway lines running from the Dunkirk area to Oostende/Ostend and Zeebrugge/Zeebruges and at least four major hardened roads between Dunkirk and the Belgian ports. 2) Why would the German infantry divisions keep attacking the Belgians (who were shielding of the Belgian ports) with such vigour if the plan was to let the British escape? 3) Why would the German infantry divisions concentrate the attack at Kortrijk/Courtrai and attack in the direction of Dunkirk if the plan was to let the British escape? Overall, I think that the point of the Halt Befehl really was just to let the Panzer Divisions get some rest and refitting and save their strenght for further actions against France. The Germans probably thought that the infantry and Luftwaffe would be sufficient to finish off the Allies.
Considering how much the Germans underestimated the Soviets, I don’t think catching them of guard would be considered an important advantage. I feel like the costs of not being able to trade with the west would be considered far more of a problem. I just think it’s far to contrived to be a viable plan
@Gew219
4 жыл бұрын
I think the arrogance towards the Soviets was mainly the trait of German generals and not Hitler himself. His reactions to Halder's plans of "decisive" drive to Moscow, "no step back" order in December 1941, Fall Blau and the cancellation of Operation Zitadelle show in my opinion that Hitler never underestimated USSR.
@nicolaiandersen7617
4 жыл бұрын
Super interesting theory. But I agree with you that it seems a bit far-fetched. The British WW1 embargo crippled Germany, and as TIK demonstrated in the food crisis video, the embargo was equally devastating in WW2. But then again: perhaps Hitler was not as completely rational and strategic, as we might make him? Not to go back to the raving lunatic argument, but he did obsess about Bolshevism. It was clearly his main ideological focus. The 'peace-out' theory, where Germany would avoid an embargo and secure the Western flank still seems more convincing to me, but who knows.. Interesting anyways.
He spared them because he took pity. He was a great human being and one day people will know his greatness.
The German empire, both Wilhelm the second and Hitler, never wanted war with the British empire. It was two times England declaring war on Germany. It is a historical tragedy, both countries were always natural allies against the French aggression.
You're missing something. The Allied leaders meeting and taking photos with Stalin made Germany nervous and forced their hand. Germany hated communism and never trusted Stalin; the Non-Agression Pact was a joke to Germany and the Soviet Union. They both knew they would go to war. Some think that Barbarosa was so quick, and the Soviets were so overwhelmed because they Soviets were in an offensive position; Germany just beat them to it.
Always love your videos Tik
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
First! And I'm glad to hear that!
@herpderps
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight same :)
@yousuck785why
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight I like your videos too. And I'm happy you do them. I like your style a lot.
Halder and Hitler engaged in revisionist history. It was a tactical imperative to hold. The German Army was at the end of a 6 week advance over hostile territory, the difficult supply problem along with maintenance issues gave the division and corps commanders pause. A cornered enemy is a dangerous thing. the country was not conducive to Armor and the infantry still needed to catch up. The Germans also had a hard fight ahead with the rest of France. It was just the inertia of war that caused the pause. Hitler was not subtle enough to continue to fight England to fool Stalin to thinking he would not be attack soon. He wanted to win over Britain, his old enemy in the trenches. He could have continued the battle with Britain even if he destroyed their army. Why all the preparation for a cross channel invasion if hitler wanted the battle to continue? The hitler plan to fool Stalin is just a castle build on a cloud. Didn’t happen. Charlie
We make a hypothesis about an occurrence. Then we study facts to prove or disprove our theory. What you have done today is a great service to critical thinking. It may not be 100% true, but it matches up more facts than we have done previously. Following facts is the only way of getting at the truth of a matter. Thank you.
This analysis falls short because peace with Britain would've meant OIL for germany (no more trade blockade). This was the main reason why the germans rushed into the soviet union ill equipped. Tik has said 1941 was perhaps the last chance for germany to stage an invasion due to their shortage of resources in earlier videos. So either this analysis needs to adress these facts or be discarded
I would be curious about your thoughts on why Hitler declared war on the US.
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
I believe that this is a Patreon question, so I will be answering this at some point :)
@morisco56
4 жыл бұрын
He was way to overconfident about japan distracting USA with their huge navy, plus(although not sure about this) he underestimated the readiness and industrial capabilities of the US
@NathanMulder
4 жыл бұрын
@@morisco56 Hm, from what I can gather, the US Navy already was firing on German shipping in the Atlantic. They were also supporting the USSR militarily and economically. They also supported the British Empire economically and militarily. It was basically war in all but name.
@petriew2018
4 жыл бұрын
because Japan declared war or both the US and britain, making them co-belligerents and all but inevitably allies against a nominal German ally, which would have forced Germany to either allow american to ship war material to Britain to support an ally or firing on american military vessels... So why beat around the bush? I mean, what other choice realistically did Germany have?
@k.c.8658
4 жыл бұрын
Petrie W Germany did not have to declare war against the US after Pearl Harbor, just as Japan did not declare war on the USSR after Germany’s invasion, June 22,1941. Admittedly, Germany had a tough choice, let the US continue to freely supply Britain/USSR or add the US military to its list of foes. It’s still difficult to fathom for me why Hitler chose the latter over the former.
"offered england humane peace terms" "received insulting replies" That would have been fun. Have any such diplomatic messages surfaced?
@NathanMulder
4 жыл бұрын
Well, from what I can tell, Hitler offered England a pretty generous peace offer. Including German military support for her Empire's colonies if they would revolt. However, the English replied by bombing Berlin...
@IrishCarney
4 жыл бұрын
It was not via diplomatic notes. Hitler made his peace offers publicly. A major one was made in a July 19, 1940 speech to the Reichstag. A BBC commenter (Sefton Delmer), said of the offer, "Herr Führer and Reichskanzler, we hurl it right back at you, right in your evil-smelling teeth." (I've seen another source that says "lying, stinking teeth."
4 жыл бұрын
@Rafael Resende so you just admitted that the Germans were bombing southern England before the bombing of Berlin?
@NathanMulder
4 жыл бұрын
@ Oh no. The bombing of German cities happened and continued for about 3-4 months before Hitler allowed residential areas to be bombed.
TIK, thank you for today's video. Because of you I have read's Hitler's Mein Kampf. I viewed the book as his road map. From everything that I have seen and read Stalin was moving "everything" to Ural Mountains. It would seem that Stalin may have read it as well. You provided me with two thoughts until today I over looked: Oil and where GB received a majority of their oil and England's stand alone after France's defeat. I now have some new items to read and discover. Everything that I read it was such a low possibility (USA-1939-40) that we USA would not join the war. To your viewers: You have published this video today and the amount of excellent comments and prospectives that your viewers have shared is simply amazing. Lastly, "NEVER" stick to "just tanks" and thanks the great work. Cheers
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
Yes, this video shows why "sticking to tanks" is a bad idea. I was reading about the Hess Flight (a non-tank subject) when I stumbled upon the idea that Hitler wanted to convince Stalin that he wouldn't start a war on two fronts, and that made me wonder if it could apply to Dunkirk.
Shirer was a journalist / war correspondent, not an "historian". No “long story short" either: it took TIK 25 minutes to present the 'story', but the 'long story short' (about the so called ‘stop order’) takes just a couple of minutes to read. The situation at Dunkirk was more complex than many of Adolph Hitler's critics allow., and there’s no direct evidence he intended the BEF to escape, despite any general views of wanting peace with Britain he may otherwise have had. On 20th May Kleist's tanks reached the mouth of the Somme (surrounding the bulk of the French forces) and then moved toward Calais and St Omer compressing the enemy (that is to say the BEF) bridgehead against the forces of Bock. The overall field commander (Rundstedt) could then see a confused situation arising and issued a ‘stop’ order, although this only applied to the formations of Kleist and List, which constituted his left wing. Bock’s forces continued to press their enemy, and it is a testimony to the courage and determination of Allied rearguards that Bock wasn’t able to close rapidly in on them and bar their way to the coast. Rearguards sustained huge casualties in that duty (being almost incessantly under vigorous attack by the Luftwaffe), and many soldiers refused to surrender until the last of their ammunition was expended. At that point, Hitler became concerned that he would need his Panzer forces intact for the second phase of the on-going war in central France, and concluded (wrongly) that the Flanders terrain (with its many canals, dikes and ditches) would prove difficult for Kleist's tanks (the breakdown rate was accelerating), and he then confirmed the 'stop order' already issued by Rundstedt. On 24th May, Hitler returned to his own 'Felsennest' headquarters in the Eifel, and Brauchitsch (Army C in C) could also see an confused situation arising and so was consequently also inclined to leave the final stages of the 'liquidation' of the B E F to Bock: he was finally swayed otherwise by his Chief of Staff: Halder. Meanwhile, Kleist's commanders began urging that they be allowed to cut off the beleaguered enemy from the sea, but it was not until the 25th May that they were supported by Rundstedt, who changed his mind when it became obvious that Allied forces were escaping northward. Both Halder and Bruachitsch then went to Hitler (who received them at midday) to press him (in turn) to change his mind. However, by that time, Hitler had taken the opinion Goering who (not for the last time during the War) told him that his Luftwaffe could do the job. Both field and staff commanders had therefore not been consistent in their advice, and Hitler was now also supported by his own chiefs of staff Keitel and Jodl. Consequently, when Lossberg protested to Hitler that the 'stop order' was allowing the withdrawal and escape of the BEF and a number of French formations, he received the following sharp rejoinder from Jodl: "The war is won and all we have to do is end it: it is not worth losing a single tank when the Luftwaffe can do the job better". This gives us an idea not only of Hitler's not initially unreasonable view, but also his mentality (easily swayed but once made up his mind couldn’t be changed) and that of the staff nearest him. In the event, the Luftwaffe did inflict very heavy losses on the British during Operation Dynamo. Of the 933 ships that took part, 236 were lost and 61 put out of action. Of 40 destroyers involved, only 13 were fit for further service after the evacuation. Three ships had to be re-commissioned, and on 28th May all modern destroyers were withdrawn from Dunkirk: losses that day (with very few survivors) included H.M.S Wakeful and Grafton both loaded with troops.
"because that would be a big red flag to Stalin". Methinks Stalin would have liked to see a big red flag, given that he was a communist. 😆😉
Holly cow This theory makes so much sense 😯
@tedarcher9120
4 жыл бұрын
It doesn't tho. Why did battle for britain happen then?
@diggydumbo9294
4 жыл бұрын
@@tedarcher9120 Well... Britain wasn´t just a distraction, it still was dangerous... AND Hitler needed to still be fighting Britain to ´´bait´´ Stalin.
@petriew2018
4 жыл бұрын
@@tedarcher9120 because leaving Britain alone during an active war to rebuild at their leisure is really, really dumb? And why would they ever even consider making peace if they're being left alone? They'd just (rightly) assume they could take another shot when and where they liked, so what pressure would Britain feel to leave the war? not saying i agree entirely with this theory, just that the Battle of Britain still makes sense in this scenario, if Germany's ultimate strategic goal was simply to convince them this wasn't a war worth continuing. u-boat blockades, constant aerial attacks, the looming threat of invasion (real or imagined)... good way to put pressure on politicians to just accept a peace deal that wouldn't require many, if any, concessions.
@tedarcher9120
4 жыл бұрын
@@petriew2018 but the idea was for britain to NOT LEAVE THE WAR! Did you even watch the video?
It's an interesting theory but this time I think you may be a wee bit off the mark. Firstly I seriously doubt if the destruction of the British Expeditionary Force would have forced Britain to sue for - or agree to - peace. Quite the opposite in fact, I suspect seeing their army being overrun by tanks would have filled the British with "a terrible resolve"; anyone who would have considered agreeing to terms with the Nazis at this point, would have been driven out of office - even No10. In addition, past experience had shown Mr. Hitler's promises weren't really worth an awful lot. Secondly, and as you point out in other videos, one of Hitler's biggest problems was his acute lack of oil. The Royal Navy was not helping this by blockading Germany, insuring no oil could reach the Reich from Venezuela or the USA. If Hitler could have secured a settlement with London, this would have instantly been resolved, the blockade lifted and his oil supplies once again restored. Yes, we know from Mein Kampf Hitler always wanted to invade the Soviet Union, and I can't see him turning down the chance to make peace with Britain first, avoiding a two front war and securing his oil supplies. Thirdly, and again related to oil, by keeping the war with the UK going was going to force Hitler to send his naval units into the North Atlantic. We must also remember that until the destruction of the Bismarck, this included his heavy surface ships, not just U-boats and armed merchant raiders (which largely sustained themselves at sea by taking the fuel they required from their victims in any case). Those heavy units consumed a lot of fuel, at full speed Bismarck went through about one ton for every half mile! A U-boat wouldn't go through anything like that, but even so, a wolfpack didn't run on water either. So I don't really think old Adolf would have kept the war with Britain going if he could find a way out of it. After Dunkirk, he spent time and resources trying to bomb RAF Fighter Command out of the war as a prelude to invasion, so he was clearly still hoping to avoid the two front scenario; having first failed to do so by peace, he now intended doing it by force (invasion). I realise some people say the whole BoB/Sea Lion thing was again to deceive the Soviets, but I find it hard to believe he would endure his airforce getting beaten, disrupt the very important trade on the Rhine by having the river barrages it required taken to French ports, and the loss of face the myth of invincibility would take when he had to tell the German people why he was now not going to invade "England" after all his promises. The attack the Luftwaffe launched on the RAF in August 1940 was no cheap exercise, the amount of fuel, munitions, aircraft, and not forgetting trained personnel lost in action, he didn't just find lying about on the streets of Berlin. Add to that the continuing war in the Atlantic, and I really can't believe he would have been happy to keep all this going if there was a peaceful way of getting Britain to just buzz off and leave him alone. Your video was really good however, and very thought provoking. Why did the old fraud stop his panzers..? Who knows, and maybe we never will have the definitive answer, and your idea is every bit as valid as anyone else's (and much more eloquently explained than my ramblings).
When we studied World War II, a history professor said^^Hitler's biggest mistake was allowing the British to escape at Dunkirk and opening two fronts was the reason for Germany's defeat ^^. I thought and concluded on my own that Hitler might have let the British flee in order to make his attack on the Soviet Union unpredictable, and he did not hide from a war on two fronts because he believed that dives alone could force Britain to lay down a weapon. The funny thing is that I didn't tell a professor about my hypothesis so that he wouldn't shout it, and I imagined that I would become a great historian and appear in National Geograph. Today I discovered that I am not the first to think of this hypothesis
Have you made a DNA test with Phil Collins lately?
TIKs channel is growing fast and getting famous even Isaev mentioned TIK about Kurland pocket series
The biggest issue I have with this is that there's no way Hitler would have known that the British would not surrender even if they kept their army. Halifax wanted to make peace with the Germans and Churchill was almost pressured into doing the same. There's not really a way that Hitler could have predicted the Churchill would remain Prime Minister and that he would keep fighting even after the evacuation. However, I do believe that after Britain refused to surrender, that Hitler used the idea that he didn't want a war on two fronts as ploy to fool Stalin.
Very interesting theory. But, the even if Germans had destroyed the BEF at Dunkirk, the British would not capitulate. Any attempt of a landing on the British isles would be suicidal, due the absolute superiority of the Royal Navy. On the other hand, German supply lines were overstretched, and the armored divisions were in need of resupplies and repairs. So they tried to let the Luftwaffe to finish off the BEF. Maybe Hitler truly believed that letting BEF escape could be seen as a gesture of peace. Great video TIK!
Ah, one of the mysteries of the 1940 campaign!
@danielhammersley2869
4 жыл бұрын
I must concur, a tactical halt for refueling is understandable. 72 hours? Hm. Possibly a deepfake towards Stalin, and in keeping Barbarossa hit time in the dark. AH's letter is powerful circumstantial evidence. He was a duplicitous SOB, AH that is.
This is an interesting idea, but i does not make sense. "Yep, yep, yep herr Benito not being able to defeat the English at Dunkirk was TOTALLY intentional. (Cough cough cough) It's ... a trap for the Soviet Union! -Alright Pinocchio." But despite that historiography is always changing, so maybe someday this idea may makes sense and be more accepted. It's totally possible he used that situation at his advantage, but i really doubt it was intentional. Still an interesting video.
“You wouldn’t dare fight a war on two fronts.” “You underestimate my masochism.”
The panzers were overextended and exhausted. with the infantry and supplies far behind and the French army that could come in their back and cut them off at any time. 3 days is not that much of a halt after the rush they had made. Especially if Fat Hermann had declared that he could keep things under control with the air force.
What’s your favourite ww2 film tik?
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
Good question! I'll give a heart to the first person to guess it correctly
@tijotypo5252
4 жыл бұрын
@@TheImperatorKnight A Bridge too far.
@joshjwillway1545
4 жыл бұрын
Enemy at the gates 😂
@juanpaz5124
4 жыл бұрын
Stalingrad 1993?
@TheImperatorKnight
4 жыл бұрын
A Bridge Too Far is a close second :)
I think the British knew they were trapped like rats so they accepted a peace offer from Germany and then recanted on the deal. Typical British move.
There are two other issues that should be considered: 1. The French were fighting a serious rear guard action for the English at Dunkirk. Plus it wasn't clear that England would have enough naval capacity to evacuate a significant number of troops from Dunkirk. It's possible the Germans felt they had time for their logistics to catch up so that they would have an overwhelming force to take Dunkirk and the Allied soldiers. 2. If Germany had made peace with England, there would no longer be a blockade for materials such as oil, iron, and food. They could then have stopped their dependency on the USSR for these things and would not be starved into submission like the previous war. And still have attacked the USSR for their "living space".
16:16 - I'm so, so skeptic about this letter.... To my knowledge there's no german nor russian version of it ever documented to exist, it's existence itself is highly debatable to this day. I wouldn't use it as a base for anything.