Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands, which I’ve been meaning to read, reviews Andrew Roberts’ The Storm of War, which describes How Hitler Could Have Won — largely by doing things he would never do:
Hitler, he says, should have begun the war three years later than he did, in 1942 rather than 1939. He should not have allowed the British to escape at Dunkirk as France fell. He should have arranged for the Japanese to help in the invasion of the Soviet Union. Once on Soviet territory German forces should have recruited the non-Russian populations rather than repressing them, and returned farmland to peasants rather than exploiting their labor and taking their food. In September 1941, Army Group Center of the Wehrmacht should have pushed forward to Moscow rather than detouring to Kiev. Army Group South should have fought a war of maneuver rather than concentrating on Stalingrad.
I’ve read several times that the area around Dunkirk was marshland unsuitable for tanks. Without tanks could the Germans have stopped the British at Dunkirk?
Why so much dispute over apparently elementary facts after so many years?
After a little reading, it appears to me that, yes, Dunkirk was surrounded by marshy terrain, which was bad for tanks, and, yes, the poor weather kept the Luftwaffe grounded — but Hitler also ordered a halt to consolidate their gains. So, it sounds like conditions were bad for an attack, but the rewards could have been enormous if nothing went too terribly wrong. In retrospect, Hitler appears too cautious.