Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany's March to Global War

by Brendan Simms

Unlike the United States and Britain, though, the Third Reich never developed a worked-out strategy with its partners.125 The Japanese constantly pressed for closer coordination, but Hitler showed little interest. The reasons for this were simple. Hitler hesitated to support Tokyo’s demand for an all-out attack on British India because he still hoped for a negotiated settlement with London.126 Hitler also largely ignored Japanese suggestions of a compromise peace between him and Stalin in order to focus on the Anglo-Americans, because he did not think that one could be had without giving up the Ukraine, which in his eyes was a vital counterbalance to Britain and the United States. The Japanese, for their part, did not respond to Hitler’s attempt to mediate between Tokyo and Chiang Kai-shek, for the related reason that control of China was central to their conception of an empire large enough to stand up to the Anglo-Saxons.