“Even when German U-boats lay in a favourable position near the battleship Dunkerque, he [Hitler] refused to order an attack,” wrote Albert Speer.31 Other strategic decisions make sense only if Hitler’s true ambitions lay in the east. After overrunning France, Hitler stopped at the Pyrenees. He asked Franco for passage through Spain to attack Gibraltar. Denied, he abandoned the idea. He did not demand that France turn over its battle fleet, the fourth largest in the world, as Germany had been forced to do in 1918. He did not demand France’s North African colonies. He did not demand access to
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