He had launched the attack on Poland, accepting the risk of British and French involvement. Now that Germany was at war with the Western powers and they were unwilling to come to terms, there was no alternative but to gamble again, this time in launching a spectacular assault on France. And Hitler was fully clear about the economic consequences that followed. He needed to force the Wehrmacht’s economic experts to abandon their caution and to press immediately for the expenditure of all available resources in preparation for the 1940 offensive, regardless of the long-term consequences for the
...more
