O-LEVEL HISTORY 

Weakness and Miscalculations of Germany 

• Ineffective command structure Apart from Hitler , no one had power to make desicions or had access to all information . Hitler insisted on making decisions that should have been made by the military and he had often ignored the advice of his experienced generals .Under Hitler's leadership , Germany made tactical errors . When a German plane accidentally bombed civilian area , Hitler shifted his focus to attacking Britain's cities instead of the British Royal Air Force(RAF) . This gave the RAF time to recover and rebuild its airfields and radar systems and retaliate . Hitler had also shifted troops from Moscow to other areas in the initial months of the invasion of USSR . This illustrated Hitler's naivety in military tactics and as a result , this prolonged the invasion and drove the Germans into the bitter Russians winters of 1941 - 1942 , which they were unprepared for , and which the USSR took advantage of to reorganise its troops , rebuild its economy and turned the tide against Germany . Tactical miscalculations led caused Germany to lose their prior advantage in war as the fought the war in an increasingly inefficent manner . 

Hitler's Decision to fight the war on two fronts 

• Germany could not concentrate its efforts on a single theatre of war, in addition , the entry and help of the USA to both fonts ensured the Hitler constantly faced pressured from both fronts,especially in terms of material aid , alongside with resilience of the British and fierce resistance from the Soviets . This overstretched and strained Germany of her resources and military equipment on both fronts , giving allied forces the advantage to defeat Germany .And placed Germany in the middle of  two opposing forces , this nesscessitated a split in the German forces and military resources to engage fighting on both sides. 

Inappropiate use of resources and military funds 

• Germany's use of military funds and resources had also weakened his military production and effectiveness during the war . To make things worse , the entry of USSR and USA greatly boosted the Allies resources and military funds . For example , there was a lack of adequate personnel for armament production andand factories were staffed by starving slave labourers , which slowed down the production .In addition , the German women also stayed home instead of contributing to war efforts . Because of Hitler's constant demand for the most up-to-date weaponary , some types of weapons were mass produced before they were tested on the battlefield. As a result , this caused shortage of proven weapons and essential equipment such as trucks , suitable clothing and equipmemt to cope with the Russian Winter . This posed a serious problem in sustaining the German war efforts and it could not keep up with the USA and the Allies military production . 

Heavy reliance on Petroleum 

• Although Germany had very little natural petroleum , petroleum was the main resource to power the German's war machineries . To overcome the lack of petroleum , the Germans invented synthetic oil by using their most abundant resource , Coal . As Germany continued to use their invention to replace petroleum in products and had also seized oilfields in Nazi-occupied areas , This made their weakness known to the Allies and  thus its heavy reliance on petroleum made its war machines and  war efforts vulnerable . It also led to the bombing of the Germany's synthetic oil plants and oilfields by the Allied . 

As such , Germany became increasingly vulnerable to the Allied counter attack when USA and USSR exploited the mistakes Germany made and Captitalised on these weaknesses , ensuring the defeat of Germany . 

Entry of the USA 

• With USA's financial might , they were able to supply the Allied powers with $50 billion worth of weapons and food which boosted the strength of the Allied powers . Also , the USA was the world's largest producer of goods at the time , it was able to convert its factories for military production at a faster rate than the Axis Powers . As a result of these contributions made by the USA ,  it not only solved the Allied military shortages , it had also bolstered the Allied war machines . Thus the entry of the USA greatly paved the way for the Allied victory as it gave the Allied power advantage over Germany 

Collaboration with Allies on military stategies 

• USA also collaborated with the Allies in military stragtegies against the Axis powers . American participation in the planning and execution of the Allied military strengths was invaluble , especially in helping the Allies to achieve control of the air and sea . These not only prevented essential resources from reaching Germany , but also gave the Allies greater opportunites and success at bombing German cities and Axis military sites , such as their synthetic oil plants and oilfields.  This gave the Allies greater opportunites to demoralise the German population and as a result ,hindered German production of war materials and forced Germany to focus on production on anti-aircraft guns instead of tanks and in addition , the Luftwaffe was never fully recovered . Thus the collaboration greatly helped the Allies to fight against Germany .