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Almost from the end of World War 2, historians have pointed out two major military blunders that German carried out that ultimately led to her defete in 1945. First, in 1940, Germany did not follow through their routing of the French and Belgiums by immediately invading Great Britain. Secondly, Hitler launched operation Barbarossa and split his forces by creating the dreaded war on two fronts, by attempting to invade the Soviet Union.

Although these arguments have been well used over the years, and certainly there is no doubt over their impact, I here want to propose other military blunders that are of equal if not greater importance.

First of all, when Germany's ally Italy went in to North Africa, Hitler did not give the expedition the same level of importance he gave other theaters of war. Crucial to so many subsequent Nazi policies, failure to complete the invasion of Egypt was a huge blunder. Without access to the vast oil reserves of the middle east, Hitler was forced to turn south in the Soviet Union and make a drive for the oil fields in the southern Caucuses. Clearly, this is the major blunder of the war.

Secondly, I would argue that the other big blunder related to The dropping of operation Sea Lion (the proposed invasion of the U.K). Accepted opinion would have us believe that this was simply a result of Goering's failure to destroy the R.A.F OVER THE SKYS OF Southern England during the summer of 1940. Clearly this was a big factor, but I contend a much more important blunder came with the decision not to follow through after the fall of Dunkirk. The reason for this has only recently become clear. The British secret service, the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.) was active in Europe before the fall of France. So successful were these early operations that the Adver and other elements of the Nazi state were convinced that Great Britain had many more weapons than was the case and that she also had vast quantities of poison gas at her disposal. Hitler was terrified of the use of poison gas, (he had been a casualty in the First World War) and believed it was inhumane to use it on soldiers. S.O.E was so successful, throughout the war, that the Nazis were never certain exactly what British strengths were. The end result of this was a partial policy, hemmed in by doubt and insecurity.

In conclusion, Hitler's blunders are not the most obvious to see. There are huge problems because much of the material we have to work with is still within the top secret realm. However, as more and more records become available for us to analyze, it becomes clear that there is a whole war of espionage and counter-espionage that we have yet to fully uncover

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