Hitler’s stand and defend orders
As the German campaign in the Soviet Union shifted into one of defending their positions against the ever growing strength of the Russians, Hitler on many occasions refused to give his generals permission to withdraw to better positions and to correct the battle lines. Hitler became obsessed with his new wonder weapons under development, the V-1, the V-2, the massive Panzer Mark VIII Maus, jet aircraft, and more. Hitler was convinced that the new weapons would change the course of the war, the V-1 and V-2 would finish what the Luftwaffe could not in 1940 and bring England to its knees, after which the massive new tanks and jet fighters would crush the western and Soviet armies.
So he refused to allow his armies to give ground, fighting on all fronts to retain his conquests and the slave labor and important materials to his Third Reich. The policy led to his armies being destroyed in the fields while the round-the-clock Allied bombing destroyed the German cities and demoralized the German people. Following the German winter offensive in the Ardennes in 1944 the German resistance collapsed quickly in east and west and the ability to produce the wonder weapons he fantasized would save him and his cronies was lost. Fanatical elements of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS continued to resist until informed that Hitler was dead.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, by William Shirer, 2011
“Hitler and Mussolini: The Secret Meetings”, by Santi Corvaja, 2008
“Hitler’s New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia”, by Stevan K. Pavlowitch, 2008
“The Second World War”, by Anthony Beevor, 2012
“War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay”, by Harry A. Gailey, 1997
“How Hitler Could Have Won World War II”, by Alexander Bevin, 2000
“The Burning Blue: A New History of the Battle of Britain”, by Paul Addison and Jeremy Crang, 2000
“Germany and the Second World War”, by Wilhelm Deist, Klaus A. Maier, et al, 1990
“Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II”, by Stephen Budiansky, 2000
“Moscow 1941: A City and its People at War”, by Rodic Braithewaite, 2010
“The Attack on Taranto: Blueprint for Pearl Harbor”, by Thomas P. Lowry and John W. G. Wellham, 1995
“Battle of the Atlantic”, by Bernard Ireland, 2003
“The Franco Regime: 1936-1975”, by Stanley G. Payne, 1987
“The Third Reich: A New History”, by Michael Burleigh, 2001
“Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940-1943”, by James Holland, 2003
“Turkish Foreign Policy During the Second World War: An Active Neutrality”, by Selim Deringil, 2004
“Inside the Third Reich”, by Albert Speer, 1970
“Imperial Japan’s World War Two: 1931-1945”, by Werner Gruhl, 2011
“The Wages of Destruction: The Making and the Breaking of the Nazi Economy”, by Adam Tooze, 2007