Quote:
Originally posted by Vermillion:
In fact, only the unpredictable (and arguably, colossaly stupid) move of Hitler declaring war on the US freed the US to act in Europe. Congress and the people were no more willing to get in a war in Europe before PH then after it. Nobody could have predicted the German declaration of war.
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To Hitler, the declaration of war made strategically sense.
All one needs to understand is that to him (and maybe he was right, see Roosevelts escalating policy "short of war" against the Nazis) the U.S. joining the war on the British side was ineviatable and just a matter of time.
Now with the Japanese atttack, his declaration of war divided U.S. ressources on two theaters. In Dec. 1941, Hitler needed two more years (1942 for SU, 1943 for GB) to fight his war in Europe. His calaculation was that a U.S. fighting the Japanese with 100% commitment will soon succeed (Nazi as he was he considered the Japanese race somehow lower than the white race anyway), so soon will be able to concentrate full on the ETO.
So Hitler's war declaration was basically done to divert the U.S. war efforts to an extent enabeling him to buy time until he crushed the SU and GB.
Actually his "strategy" was right (D-Day only in 1944) with the critical exception that the Russkies didn't fold down in 1941, and didn't fold down in 1942, but instead kicked Germans ass beginning from end of 1942. At least from that time on, Hitler had no more strategic options than either capitulation or fighting to the bitter end hoping for miracles.
Just think about IF the SU would have surrendered in 1942: Germany sharing a common land connection with the Japanese-rules Pacific theater, the Axis exploiting Soviet ressources and industrial power, Germans heading back westwards to deal with the Brits in 1943, D-Day 1944 impossible.
Cheers,