Why Hitler Lost the War: German Strategic Mistakes in WWII

[aranthus]

5. Germany lost the war because it had almost no chance to win it.

"Winning" would have meant conquering or causing the Allies to agree to a peace on German terms. Germany had virtually no chance to conquer Britain given the size of the Royal Navy, and very little chance to conquer the USSR. The Soviets would have had to have been as foolish as the British and French leaders before Churchill, and they clearly weren't. A quick comparison of the huge disparity between the Allies and the Axis in war fighting ability shows why the Germans were doomed almost from the start. Population, finances, productive capacity, and even technology favored the Allies. Yes, Hitler's ideological fixation helped Germany lose, but some of his intuitive strategy (along with massive allied leadership incompetence) also helped put Germany in a position to conquer Europe. The real reason that Germany lost was that it started a war that it couldn't win.