Tripoli was the main Axis supply port for forces operating in North Africa. However, Hitler, in an odd twist for him, decided that it wouldn't be right to invade Turkey without a cause. Some sources indicate that he was presented with some plans for this. The winning strategy may well have been to have secured the Middle Eastern oil fields by invading through Turkey and into Vichy French Lebanon and Syria and into Iraq and Iran, then push up from the south into the USSR and perhaps further east into British India. He had little interest in pursuing total victory in North Africa beyond securing his Southern flank against attack. War." (from Andrew Nagorski The Greatest Battle) The Ukraine so that they can't starve us out, as happened in the last Their defeat turn against the Soviet Union with all my forces. Is too stupid and blind to grasp this, then I shall be compelled toĬome to an agreement with the Russians, beat the West and then after "Everything I undertake is directed against the Russians. In spite of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact he was quoted as saying in 1939. In Mein Kampf his concept for Lebensraum encompassed much of European Russia. In Hitler's mind, defeating the Soviet Union was the most important thing. Were any political attempts made to get Turkey to join the war on the Axis side, thus allowing a second front to be opened in the Middle East and Russia?Ĭould the DAK have been activated sooner and with greater resources including more Luftwaffe support?īy staging a more aggressive campaign sooner, could the Germans have won in North Africa thus gaining sufficient oil in order to not have to worry about it when Barbarossa was launched? Hitler had helped Franco in the Spanish Civil War, why not get the Spanish to capture Gibraltar thus tipping the balance of power in the Mediterranean decisively towards the Axis? Why is this, and why were the following not considered to help: The Germans committed hundreds of divisions in their attempts to take the Russian oil but mere fractions of this to the African front, which was less well defended. The main oil-producing regions at the time that might be captured were the Caucasus region of southern Russia and the Middle East. The Germans knew that oil would be crucial to the war and that they would likely need to capture new sources for the war effort.
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