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[[File:looking at map eastern fron october 1941.jpg|thumbnail|250px300px|Adolph Hitler studying a map of the Eastern Front, 1941.]]

On May 10, 1940 the German invasion of France began. After penetrating Belgium, the German Army forged its way through the Ardennes. The Allies became trapped between the German tanks of Heinz Guderian and infantry troops of Fedor von Bock. On May 23, as they retreated into western Belgium and became encircled, British commander General Lord Gort ordered his troops to fall back toward the English Channel and began rescue operations from the beaches of Dunkirk. Meanwhile, Guderian’s armor had reached the coast and turned north toward Dunkirk. On May 24, with the full support of Adolph Hitler, General Gerard von Rundstedt ordered Guderian to halt his forces just fifteen miles away from Dunkirk. Compounding this tactically atrocious decision, Hitler and von Rundstedt ordered Bock’s infantry, rather than the tanks of Guderian, to capture the troops on the beaches.<ref>Lyons, 80. For an in depth study of the importance of Dunkirk, see Norman Gelb, ''Dunkirk: The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler'' (New York: Morrow, 1989).</ref> By opting for this slower moving tactic, the Allies were afforded the precious gift of time and were able to begin evacuation maneuvers. With the aid of ordinary British citizens from all walks of life and in all types of water crafts, between May 27 and June 4, 1940, 338,000 Allied soldiers managed to escape Dunkirk, 224,000 of which were British.<ref>Lyons, 81.</ref>This was a tremendous morale boost for Allied soldiers and citizens alike. Additionally, the men who escaped were reincorporated into the British fighting forces. If Hitler had pursued his attack and decimated the troops at Dunkirk, he may have been able to force Churchill into peace negotiations in the early summer of 1940 while the Non-Aggression Pact was still in effect; at the same time that Paris fell to Germany, and before the U.S. entered the war. He instead fought an air war (The Battle of Britain) over England from July through October 1940 and the following year turned his attentions toward the east. == Operation Barbarossa ==[[File:barbarossa map.jpg|thumbnail|250px|Map of Operation Barbarossa.]]June 22, 1941 marked the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. For this intricate attack, German troops were split into three divisions: Army Group North, under von Leeb; Army Group South, commanded by von Rundstedt; and Army Group Center, led by von Bock. Army Group North was destined for Leningrad, the troops under von Rundstedt in the south were to proceed through Ukraine to secure the plentiful natural resources of that country, and von Bock’s men in the Center Group were ordered through the Soviet portion of Poland to Belorussia and on to Moscow.<ref>Lyons, 107. For two excellent, in-depth accounts of the invasion, see John Erickson and David Dilks, eds., ''Barbarossa: The Axis and the Allies'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994) and David Glanz, ''Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia, 1941'' (Charleston, SC: Tempus, 2004).</ref>  The initial advance was awesome in scope and execution; the German Army covered in excess of two hundred miles in one week. As of August 5, Army Group Center was two-thirds of the way to Moscow. The advance was halted; however, on August 20, when Hitler made another, and perhaps his most fatal, tactical mistake. He ordered the diversion of armor from the Center Group to the groups in the north and south. By doing so, he left the Center Group with only infantry divisions. This delay in attacking Moscow afforded Stalin the time necessary to move his industrial facilities out of Moscow to the east. When the redeployment of armor was complete, the German Army began its siege of Leningrad.<ref>Lyons, 109.</ref> The battle for Leningrad began on September 8, 1941. The Germans dismantled the Russian railroad, which cut supplies to the city. Hitler’s plan was to starve Leningrad into submission. More than 200,000 Russians died of starvation or starvation related diseases. The valiant efforts of the citizens of Leningrad, who fought with any weapon they were able to fashion (even going so far as to throw pans of boiling water into the faces of German soldiers), allowed the Russian industrial plants the opportunity to produce armaments and supplies.<ref>Toth, November 3, 2011.</ref>[[File:women digging anti tank ditches moscow.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Russian women digging anti-tank ditches around Moscow, 1941.]]At the end of September, German armor was deployed back to the Center Group and the advance on Moscow was renewed. The delay in attacking the city afforded Russian General Zhukov ample time to dispatch his reserve troops. By the end of November, the Russian soldiers under Zhukov’s command were successful in out-flanking German Army Group Center. Seeing that he was trapped and aware that the German soldiers were grossly ill-equipped to survive a Russian winter, von Bock requested permission from Hitler to retreat. His request was denied by the infuriated Hitler, who forbade retreat by any of his troops. Due to yet another tactical mistake made by the Führer, the Eastern Front was in a stalemate by March 1942.<ref>Lyons, 112-13.</ref> Hitler’s command of this attempted Blitzkrieg was an utter failure. By early spring 1942, his armies were fighting in Russia, Africa, and Italy, in addition to occupying France. Further, Germany was in a precarious geographic position from the outset of the war. This, combined with Hitler’s ineptitude as a military commander, were the primary reasons Germany was defeated in the Second World War. == Stalingrad ==His incompetence as a military leader was again proven when he ordered the siege of Stalingrad. The city had no real logistical significance to Germany, rather, Hitler wanted to capture the city that bore Stalin’s name as an expression of German dominance over the Soviet Union. This symbolic mission began on November 23, 1942; more than eleven months after the U.S. had entered the war on the side of the Allies. Roosevelt’s men were bolstering Allied troop numbers, and more importantly the U.S. was supplying great amounts of food, equipment, and munitions to the Allied war effort. Additionally, the Soviet industrial plants were producing tremendous amounts of the same and due to a massive conscription effort after the invasion of the previous year, the Soviet Army was now stronger and fresher. The battle was a hard fought, street-to-street, even room-to-room, conflict. Soviet snipers utilized the city’s sewers and demolished buildings to inflict a great number of casualties on the German troops. The German 6th Army, under the command of General Paulus, was encircled by the Soviet Army. Like von Bock, Paulus requested permission to abandon the city in order to save his fighting force. Again, Hitler refused the request and informed his generals that retreat or surrender was not an option. The Luftwaffe tried unsuccessfully to supply Paulus and his men. Medical supplies and food had been exhausted by the 6th Army and General Paulus resorted to taking food from the injured soldiers to feed his healthy troops.<ref>Lyons, 178-79.</ref>[[File:stalingrad dead soldiers.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Dead soldiers litter the streets of Stalingrad, 1942.]]On December 12, Field Marshall Manstein attempted to make contact with Paulus’s garrison inside Stalingrad, yet was unable to do so unless the 6th Army was allowed to evacuate the city. Meanwhile, the Soviets launched another offensive north of the city where the Italian 8th Army was positioned in support of its German allies. The Soviets broke through the Italian line and proceeded south in an attempt to completely surround Paulus. At this point, the German 6th Army was completely isolated in the city and on February 2, 1943, Paulus surrendered. In the battle, the German Army lost 200,000 troops; 90,000 of which were taken prisoner.<ref>Lyons, 179.</ref> Had Hitler allowed Paulus to withdraw from Stalingrad, the 6th Army would have been able to join with Manstein’s troops. They would have been able to reorganize, obtain food and munitions, and have retained a great number of soldiers. By forcing Paulus to remain surrounded in the city, Hitler caused the loss of manpower and a skilled leader.  == D-Day ==Germany’s final grave error came on June 6, 1944 during the Allied invasion of Normandy; Operation Overlord. Hitler was actually correct in believing the Allied invasion was to come at Normandy, whereas von Rundstedt and Rommel, among others, had been deceived into believing that the invasion across the English Channel would come at the port city of Calais. General George Patton’s 3rd Army was positioned in southern England, which was a strategically logical point from which to launch the invasion at Calais. Further, the Allied commanders issued false intelligence reports that they knew would be intercepted by the German spy network. Finally, Normandy was not a port city and therefore seemed unlikely as an invasion site. This choice created a great amount of additional work and challenges for the Allies; however, the deception was successful.<ref>Lyons, 248-49.</ref>