Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation
Why Germany Declared War on the United States

Challenges long-held assumptions regarding the German declaration of war on the United States in December 1941.

Klaus H. Schmider (Author)

9781108834919, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 January 2021

610 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 3.2 cm, 1.1 kg

'Schmider should be congratulated on an impressive work that adds much to our discussion of German strategy. It deserves widespread attention.' Strategy Page

Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States has baffled generations of historians. In this revisionist new history of those fateful months, Klaus H. Schmider seeks to uncover the chain of events which would incite the German leader to declare war on the United States in December 1941. He provides new insights not just on the problems afflicting German strategy, foreign policy and war production but, crucially, how they were perceived at the time at the top levels of the Third Reich. Schmider sees the declaration of war on the United States not as an admission of defeat or a gesture of solidarity with Japan, but as an opportunistic gamble by the German leader. This move may have appeared an excellent bet at the time, but would ultimately doom the Third Reich.

List of Figures
List of Maps
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations and German Terms
Introduction
1. Hitler's Pre-war Assessment of the United States and Japan
2. Hitler's Physical Health in Autumn 1941
3. 'All measures short of war': the German Assessment of American Strategy, 1940/41
4. Forging an Unlikely Alliance: Germany and Japan, 1933–1941
5. Facing the Same Dilemma: The US and German Quest for Rubber
6. The Crisis of the German War Economy, 1940/41
7. The End of Blitzkrieg? Barbarossa and the Impact of Lend-Lease
8. The Battle of the Atlantic
9. The Luftwaffe on the Eve of Global War
10. The Holocaust
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW], History of the Americas [HBJK], European history [HBJD]