The decision to stop the onset of the German army near the French city of Dunkirk at the beginning of World War II was the fatal mistake of the Fuhrer of the Third Reich Adolf Hitler. This was told by the historian James Holland in the documentary film “48 hours to victory” (48 hours to victory), his words leads Daily Express.
According to the specialist, the forces of the Wehrmacht in May 1940 could survive the Allied troops in France, in fact, putting the end of the war. However, on May 24, Hitler gave the commanders of his tank divisions, who moved to Dunkirk, order to stop the offensive. Holland called such a step of the Fuhrer “absolutely catastrophic and potentially fatal mistake”, which probably cost him victory in the second world.
As the historian noted, many of those who were in advanced German commanders critically reacted to the order of the Fuhrera, but were forced to obey. Later, the command of the German army realized his mistake, and in the evening of May 26 of the same year, Hitler canceled his decision. However, the situation by that time managed to radically change – in a few days of the resulting respite, the Allied troops managed to prepare for evacuation, during which in the future they were able to take over 338 thousand people from the region.
In early December, the telegram was put in Spain, which the leader of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler wrote the Spanish commanders, the commander of the Blue Division, who fought against the USSR on the Soviet-German front, General Munoza Grandez. According to the researchers, in this message dated January 2, 1942, the Führer expressed the first “grain of doubt” in the possibility of his victory over the Soviet Union.