What was the biggest mistake made during WWII?

[Andrew Karpinski]

Put yourself in either the position of the axis or the allies. What do you feel was the biggest mistake made, on either side, during the course of the war? The scope of this question is intentionally broad.

My entry for the axis is the German decision to invade Russia. If they were able to focus simply on the battle of Britian it is quite possible that the war could have been won. Fighting a dual front battle made victory nearly impossible.

On the side of the allies I think the french's inability to adapt to modern warfare and inattention to Charles Degaules theories takes the cake.

[El Diablo]

AK,

You are really going out on a limb there with that dual-front choice!

I am going to have to go with the mass gassing of the Jews. That really turned a number of people against Hitler who otherwise might have turned more of a blind eye to things.

[kipin]

Axis: Getting the Americans actively involved in the war by bombing Pearl Harbor.

Allies: Americans diddling around in Africa waiting for the Germans to exhaust their resources in Russia.

[Utah]

Respectfully, who turned against germany for the mass gassing of the jews?

The biggest mistakes were:
Germans: battle of stalingrad
Germans: Fighting 2 fronts
Japan: Failing to surrender early and causing the needless death of millions
Germans: failure to advance at Dunkirk
Japan: Failing to seize the Pearl Harbor initiative
Germans: Failing to give up the beachheads in france and launch a counter attack instead.

[Andrew Karpinski]

El D : Is that true? While from a moral perspective, the holocost is unquestionably the worst and evilest thing that the Nazi regime did, I was under the impression that most of the details of the holocost didn't come out until after the war. Did it really have an effect on the sympathies for the war, while the war was occuring?

[El Diablo]

AK, Utah:

You are both correct, but I at least like to think that the underlying moral problems people had with some of Hitler's tactics had at least some impact on how things developed. Then again, you are both probably right and it really was just about protecting territories and reacting to Pearl Harbor.

[samjjones]

The U.S. not invading and conquering the U.K. while they had their collected forces in the European theater, thus preventing Prince Charles and that butch Spice Girl.

[in48092]

one could argue that the german mistake in russia was not going there, but not commiting enough rescources. if my limited knowledge is correct, early in the war the germans were on the outskirts of moscow while stalin was holed up in the city. if zee germans had rolled on moscow with more troops etc... taken the city, and killed stalin it is entirely conceivable that russia would have fallen. if this had happened the germans would have had far more rescources with which to fight the war. if russia had fallen zee germans could have controlled the oil fields in the caucases as well as possibly drawing from russian manpower.
in short, maybe the german mistake wasn't invading russia. maybe it was not throwing more rescourses into the eastern front.

[Andrew Karpinski]

I have heard, but am not familiar with the topic enough to comment on correctness, that the attack into Russia was neccessary due to diminished oil supplies.

[youtalkfunny]

I think the Germans really screwed up by not detecting the spies operating out of Stalag 13. They had tunnels everywhere, they had a coffee pot that doubled as a radio, and they left the prison camp to execute missions whenever they liked. How is that possible?