Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "Tackling the 5 Most Common Counter-Arguments to my Dunkirk Halt Order Hypothesis" video.

I think you are right in your assessment. Hitler admired the British Empire, and wanted to copy it in a sense in mainland Europe. One of his major miscalculations was that, although he somewhat understood the mentality of the British aristocracy and elites, he completely misread the mentality of the British people. That is why he always blamed Churchill for the war, not recognizing that Churchill was more representative of the British population as a whole than Chamberlain ever was.
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This video still does not address one crucial point. Even if you are going to fake attacking Britain throughout 1940-1941, why are you not increasing your war production? It makes no sense. Was this part of the ruse as well? That seems counterproductive to me (no pun intended). After all, if you are still fighting the British Empire, wouldn't you need more men and equipment to successfully prosecute this war, and which could be rapidly redeployed to the Russian Front? I think the halt order and everything else can be summed up in one word: Arrogance. The Germans figured they had the army at Dunkirk surrounded, so of course the trapped soldiers would surrender. Britain is alone and isolated by the great Third Reich, so of course they will come to the peace table. The Russian campaign would only last 6-8 weeks, because you only had to kick in the door and the whole rotten mess would come crashing down (let's ignore Paulus' war games that suggest otherwise).
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Yes, I have the series and watched it several times. However, it must be remembered this conversation took place in 1941, and is Hitler explaining why he continued the "Blitz" through the winter of 1940-1941. The Wehrmacht is already getting into position to attack Russia. Had this conversation taken place in the summer or fall of 1940, it would support TIK's hypothesis. But since the conversation takes place in 1941, it is merely telling Galland why they are being transferred away from the Channel Coast.
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@Ensign_Nemo Yes, definitely. Once you have an ongoing campaign or your opponent has a preconceived notion, it is easy to "repurpose" it to act as camouflage for a surprise attack or another operation (although feeding into your opponent's preconceptions is the more common approach). Perhaps the best example of using an ongoing campaign as a smokescreen is the 9th Army offensive to the Rhine in 1945, where the Germans were so preoccupied with Montgomery's attack through the Reichwald they completely overlooked Simpson's 9th Army until it was too late. General Slim pulled off the same tactic in Burma in 1944 at Meiktila. The principle difference between this and Operation Barbarossa is scale - the 9th Army attack was at the operational level, while Barbarossa was at the strategic level. But I don't think this makes Hitler some 200 IQ wunderkind, he's just using an ongoing campaign to camouflage preparations for another (i.e., this was not pre-planned way back in June 1940). Let's face it, with the vagaries of war, even the Allies and the Russians in 1944 with their overwhelming superiority in the field and in the air had no idea how things would turn out even 1-2 months down the road. To think Hitler was prescient enough to see a year into the future is ridiculous. To look at it any other way is, in my opinion, putting the cart WAY before the horse.
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