5. He volunteered for the
Bavarian army the following
year and served during all
of World War I on the Western
Front. His experiences in the
fighting affected his thinking
about war thereafter.
6. After World War I, Hitler came to control
the National Socialist German Workers
Party, which he hoped to lead to power in
Germany.
When a coup attempt in 1923 failed, he
turned, after release from jail, to the
buildup of the party to seize power by
means that were at least outwardly legal.
9. The first would be a small and easy
war against Czechoslovakia, to be
followed by the really difficult one
against France and Britain.
Once Hitler had come to power in
1933, German military preparations
were made for these wars. The
emphasis in the short term was on
weapons for the war against the
western powers, and for the long
term, on the weapons for war against
the United States.
10. In 1938 Hitler drew back from war over
Czechoslovakia at the last minute but
came to look upon agreeing to a peaceful
settlement at Munich as his worst mistake.
When he turned to the war against
France and Britain, he could not persuade
Poland to subordinate itself to Germany to
ensure a quiet situation in the east; hence,
he decided to destroy that country before
heading west.
11. He was determined to have war and
initiated it on September 1, 1939.
To facilitate the quick conquest of
Poland and break any blockade, he
aligned Germany with the Soviet Union,
assuming that concessions made to that
country would be easily reclaimed when
Germany turned east.
16. The thrust southward in early June
1940 brought a swift collapse of
remaining French resistance, and this
complete victory gave Hitler an aura
of triumph, which assured him the
enthusiastic support of almost all of
Germanys military leaders, especially
as he systematically tied them to
himself by generous promotions and
a system of mass bribery.
20. A short campaign in the Balkans was to
secure what he believed might be a
vulnerable southern flank; the last step in
this, the airborne seizure of Crete, proved so
costly that the Germans attempted no major
airborne operation thereafter.
21. The German invasion of the Soviet Union,
begun on June 22, 1941, seemed at first
to work as planned but quickly ran into
trouble.
In this, Hitler was at times at odds with
some generals, but others always took his
position.
As the war turned increasingly against
Germany, disagreements became more
frequent.
24. As Hitler saw increasing danger from
the western Allies, he relied more on
Admiral Karl to hold them off by
submarine warfare.
When that effort was blunted in 1943,
he both supported the building of new
types of submarines and geared
strategy on the northern portion of
the Eastern Front to protection of the
Baltic area, where new submarines
and crews could be run in.
25. It was Hitlers hope that the Germans
could drive any Allied troops who
landed in the west into the sea and
then move substantial forces east in
the interval before any second
invasion. When this plan failed, Hitler
turned to holding all ports as long as
possible, to hamper Allied supply
lines and to prepare for a
counterstroke that would defeat the
western Allies.