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Why did Hitler make so many militarily terrible decisions?
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This map shows Germany at the heighth of it's territorial gains. Not shown is large parts of Northern Africa and South Eastern Russia (near Stalingrad) that the Germans controlled.
When the war started going bad after losing the battle of Stalingrad in early 43 almost all of Hitler's generals wanted him to make a tactical withdrawl behind the line of the most eastern river shown on the map (Dnieper) in order to better stabilize the front. I think this is known as a static defense.
But to do so would have been meant admiting that he had "bitten off more than he could chew" and would result in a lose of prestige. He also instintively felt that attack was the best way to deal with any problem. Der Angriff!
I believe one of the French generals from WW1 Foch I believe said 'Attack! Always attack.' Hitler lived by this motto militarily. Even though defensively Germany was inflicting about 2.5 times the amount of casualties upon the Russians than when attacking to retreat behind the Dnieper would still have meant sacrificing large swaths of territory and the resources that lied within.
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Are you kidding me?
The German only suffered a debacle at Stalingrad because Hitler refused to let Paulos break out. In fact they should never should have been attacking at Stalingrad in the first place, and the Nazi's sacrificed the whole 6th army because of Hitlers hysterical and irrational obsession with the Symbolic nature of the Citys name.
This is just one of the terrible disasters inflicted on the wermacht by Hitler. Delaying the attack at Kursk for months so they could use the terribly unreliable Panther As and ferdinands, holding up for months the me282 so it could be used as an attack bomber effectively condemning German industry to be bombed into dust, obsession with resource wasting heavy battle tanks like the King Tiger, delaying the development of the worlds first assault rifle, catastrophic hold fast orders on the ost front and seige city tactics. The Ardenne offensive.
This is only a partial list.
Mostly Hitlers Fault.