What an Idiot!/Other Media: Difference between revisions
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[Adolf Hitler]] was not exactly the sharpest knife in the military drawer. To be honest, despite his notoriety, he was one of the biggest idiots in military history.
** December 7, 1941: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile, [[Adolf Hitler]]'s rather busy trying to crush rebellious Great Britain, whose Royal Air Force has been giving his Luftwaffe what-for for the better part of two years.
*** '''You'd Expect''': Hitler to quietly rejoice that the second-largest, most powerful military force in the world is otherwise occupied, particularly since he has the world's ''largest'' military force also giving him what-for on the Eastern Front.
*** '''Instead''': He promptly declares war on the United States. This turns out to be a mistake.
** Aviation in World War II was still dominated by propeller driven aircraft. In response to this, the Germans invented the Me-262, the first jet engine, which could have had them ready for offensive maneuvers by 1943. The only problem was it was that early designs presented it as an interceptor, a fast-moving fighter. This made sense, as speed is the biggest advantage jets have over prop planes.
*** '''You would think:''' Hitler would not see this as a “problem” at all, recognize the Me-262’s potential, and back the project
*** '''Instead:''' Hitler didn’t want interceptors, he wanted fighter-bombers, as in, planes that could carry weapons that made '''''HUGE''''' explosions. So the Me-262 project was scrapped, at least until Hitler could get his fighter-bombers. Of course, there was no reason Hitler couldn’t have allowed Luftwaffe to build these jets while they were working on plans for the fighter-bombers, but Hitler wanted his way right now. And when his bombers saw the light of day in 1945, they were easily blown out of the sky by the Allied planes that now outnumbered them a thousand to one.
** At Stalingrad, Frederick Paulus requested permission to fight his way out of a Soviet encirclement while the Russian forces were still relatively weak.
*** '''You Would Think:''' Hitler would realize that was the best option and grant permission.
*** '''Instead:''' Hitler had a “no retreat, fight to the last man” policy that he enforced to ridiculous ends. He lived in some demented fantasy world where he believed the battlefield was like some sappy [[Lifetime]] movie where the honor and determination of soldiers would see you to victory, even when the enemy was just as determined and had more firepower backing them up. This is, of course, one of the reasons he flunked military school, As a result, he ordered Paulus to stay put, and as a result, the entire German 6th Panzer Army was lost.
*** '''To Make Things Worse:''' Hitler didn’t learn his lesson there. In 1945, his troops wanted to fall back and fortify the eastern bank of the Rhine River, blow up the bridges, and dare the Allied troops to cross. But again, Hitler ordered them not to retreat. The Allies were thus able to decimate most of the resistance there with ease, and the German troops who eventually did retreat had no plan or strategy towards doing so,
*** '''Worst of All:''' Hitler was still boasting his propagandic nonsense about determination and honor even during the Siege of Berlin, and forced his men to hold a helpless line against the Oder River, rather than pulling back and tightening the inner city’s defenses. When the Russian army reached the city mere days later, there were only about 80,000 Germans left to defend it, and half were civilians, not nearly enough to deal with the army of 1.6 million angry Russians.
** WWII: Hitler decides to invade Russia.
*** '''You'd Expect''': Hitler to analyze the geography and climate of his enemy, and realise that invading Russia successfully is only slightly more difficult than flying to Mars sans space shuttle. (Hint: Russia is enormous, has horrible climate, and is full of Russians. This makes it almost impossible to successfully invade, and therefore makes Hitler's decision only slightly less moronic than the aforementioned declaration of war on the USA.)
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