Aye I agree with doppleganger on the point that Hitler did take matters to much in his own hands.

I don't however agree that he was a decent strategist...a tactician is what I would have called him and besides he knew nothing about the meaning of the word strategic withdrawal.=>let your men live so that they can fight another day.
He was a piss poor economist too, other people did the rearming thing for him (Reichsbank president I believe) and when they told him that German economy can't take it for much longer he went straight to war.
In addition he was very deceitful, didn't hold his word, was incapable of a vocal confrontation without shouting, had distorted views about people (stronger has the right-to do anything)...
About the only really good quality about him was the ability to "read" people...that's why he got away with Austria, the Czechs etc...he knew(felt in his gut) England and France wouldn't intervene.
His other quality was his incredible passion with which he drawed people to the Party...for example Goebbels was very reluctant about joining with the Bavarian nazis until he met Hitler...
His biggest mistakes of the war were helping the Italians in Greece, not bombing the allied expeditionary forces at Dunquerque, to discontinue the bombing of RAF airfields and focus on the cities, dedicating the ME-262 to bombing runs when Germany needed air superiority and his inability to trust his generals.
Bottom line, he wasn't incompetent but he was a fool.

P.S.:I just read a very good book about the rise & fall of Hitler

He was most definately a brilliant madman. I blame his mental collapse on his drug abuse of methamphetamine's.

He was a sociopath. One of those people that, if you met them, you'd be like "Wow, what an amazing man!". Similar to the silver tongued man who beats his wife and molests his children, yet is so brilliant that he convinces everyone that his wife is deranged and his children have been brainwashed to hate him. Nobody ever depicts him accurately.

He had loads of charisma and was a politcal genius. Luckily, he was certainly not a military genius, but his rule encouraged new thinking in the military better than any other nation. He gave the green light to those trying to rethink military strategy and kept those steeped in obsolete tradition from having too strong a voice.

As to his crimes against humanity -- he was no more insane than Jeffrey Dahmer. He knew full well what he was doing. One might call him a product of WW1 trench warfare, but there is no excuses. He knowingly did what he did. That may make him a monster, but it does not make him a madman. An insane man could never have managed it. To call him mad is to make excuses for him where he deserves none. True that after the attempts on his life, he became completely irrational.

I sometimes wonder, did the world need the Holocaust to wake them from their own bigotry against the Jews? It should be hoped that something so horrible was not necessary, but sometimes I wonder.

I voted insane idiot because I personally believe that most of his strategic decisions were just luck. Would you say declaring war against the US as a move by a master of politics, especially when the U.S was full of German immigrants who had a powerful voice in state affairs and influenced public opinion? How about not letting Paulus break out? I could go on and on with this.

BTW: I've read that during the last couple of years of the war, Hitler had Parkinsons disease, and it had already advanced pretty far. And the Time man of the year award used to go to the man who most influenced news during a calendar year, so it's not exactly an award.

@ Hegario

Luck + intuition

He was so good at that from the rise up to power that in the end he stopped questioning his own decisions and that's what killed him and the Germans...

Originally Posted by Hegario

I voted insane idiot because I personally believe that most of his strategic decisions were just luck. Would you say declaring war against the US as a move by a master of politics, especially when the U.S was full of German immigrants who had a powerful voice in state affairs and influenced public opinion? How about not letting Paulus break out? I could go on and on with this.

BTW: I've read that during the last couple of years of the war, Hitler had Parkinsons disease, and it had already advanced pretty far. And the Time man of the year award used to go to the man who most influenced news during a calendar year, so it's not exactly an award.

No insane idiot ever gained control of one of the most important countries in Europe and almost lead it to total European domination.

I also tire of hearing that Hitler had no clue strategically speaking which is utter nonsense. It was Hitler who believed in Erich von Manstein's plan to invade France when most of the other generals didn't. You can call that luck but I call it the decision of a man who had some clue and command of the situation. Hitler's EGO and megalomaniac tendencies unfortunately meant that he would not listen to men who were better than him. That is different than saying he had no clue, which is utterly incorrect.

BTW, recent thinking regarding the Paulus situation at Stalingrad is coming down on the side that it was actually the best thing NOT to ask Paulus to break out, although not for Hitler's reasons. In fact these are the reasons why breakout would have been a bad thing:

1) 6th Armee was tieing up an immense amount of Soviet formations, 61 to be precise, that otherwise would have been free to smash against the German lines with even more catastrophic results.

2) 4th Panzerarmee (von Kleist) was in the wrong location to assist in any breakout and lacked fuel. It was also in danger of being encircled itself.

3) The trapped 6th Armee units were in no real condition to fight out in the open. They were battered by weeks of amazingly intense fighting, lacked basic supplies like food, ammunition and did not have enough fuel for any kind of sustained operations. An attempted breakout in winter conditions would have been suicide.

Also remember that the Soviets suffered huge losses in the capture of Stalingrad, very much more than the Germans did.

Anyway back on topic. Hitler was no idiot.

Originally Posted by KAMIKAZI

Hitler was not mentally ill like a lot of people like to think, it really angers me when people say he is though. Hitler was a man with a vision for Germany and a greater Europe unfortunately for him and his evil Nazis most of the world disagreed with this. I think Hitler finally started loosing his marbles though after the famous July 20th 1944 bomb plot by Von Stauffenberg. If you see him in footage before the bomb he seems normal and healthy looking, when it is after the bomb he is very drained and thin and often shaking. He also starts to have very erratic behaviour this is also documented by certain officers around him. So no Hitler wasnt mental, maybe some of his officers were rather strange but he himself wasnt.

I didn't mean to directly say he was mad. I just meant it as in, if he hadn't gone a little freaky with his powers and ideas, then he might've become something. Now his name is known for evil mostly, but it could've been for good things if he steered along the right path.

I agree with KAMIKAZI in when people target Hitler as a bad strategist/evil man. As Kamakazi said, Hitler saw a vision for Germany that no one else saw. Germany was still war shaken from the first World War and was in debt incredibly. No one on this forum or anywhere can say that they would deny the idea of a greater America, UK, etc. if it was promised to them. And it WAS delivered for a short time. Germany was in tatters and Hitler brought it back together, I dont see how people can doubt his mentality... He was a tactical genious with war and politics, and many people here would agree with me if they have read his book Mein Kampf which is absolutely amazing. Many people here comment, not doubting people who actually do know what there talking about, but have no clue what there really saying. There simply resaying what American history books have taught us. America was right in our eyes, Germany was in theres. Also about the remark with Hitler being a idiot declaring war on America, well Japan attacked us and Hitler was there allie so what did you expect? Also some historians strongly argue that right after Pearl Harbor Hitler sent a telegram to the leader of Japan saying, ARE YOU NUTS?!

I worry that Russia will have its own Hitler sometime in the near future. They couldn't be better primed for it.

Hitler had several turn of events that cost him dearly, one of course he did not trust his officers and for this he would not listen to his officers and if he did we would be speaking German.

Another critical event was Deception planned by the US and it's allies.

During WWII, the US Army, along with other Allied countries, created a Phantom "Ghost" Army to deceive the Germans into believing that Allied Forces were as much as 65% to 75% stronger than they actually were.

This deception was called operation 'Quicksilver' (also known as operation 'Fortitude South')

The German's high level commanders were so convinced that Patton's 14th Army would invade near Calais, they kept the main body of their reserve forces there for about two months after the Normandy Invasion and still refused to relase troops from their defensive positions to prevent the Allied Forces from establishing their beachheads. Patton would soon be transferred to command the 3rd US Army and would be very instrumental in the push through France and later in stopping the German's Argonne Offensive in late 1944 with the aide of the Allied Forces.

The Army Group consist of some fake and some real units