First off the Red army was in no position to attack anyone. Stalin was doing a fine job of destroying a fine army on his own. By 1941 there was absolutely no independent thought or strategic genius in the Red army as it was all sitting in the gulags. To think that 1942 would have brought a dramatically different Red army is something that keeps coming up in these forums and it is mostly based in fantasy.
I would consider my Med sea theatre statements separate from my eastern front statements. Truly the Med sea was within Germanys reach and they really blew it by not giving it its proper importance. They had the troops, materials, and supplies to give Rommel but they dint do it. To Hitler the theatre was an afterthought. The reality is victory in the Med would have been a crushing blow to the Brits, with or without Barbarossa.
Oh man, I had all this typed out and accidentally erased it. In a nutshell a victory in the Mediterranean theatre would have chased the Brits out of Egypt and the Suez would be under Germans control. From there they could secure the oil in Iraq, Persia, Syria, and the Arabian peninsula, and Turkey would have been under heavy pressure to join the axis. Now Hitler would be in position to threaten the oil of the caucuses, of which the Soviets depended on. An attack in this fashion, while one army group center drove on Moscow, would have given the Germans the only two Russian targets that really mattered. The oil and Moscow. With the added bonus of neutralizing Britain.
The Germans only had one shot. There was no way to win a protracted war. Hitler split his armies into three for frontal assaults, which was bad enough. But then he weakened the center several times by sending forces north and south to drive on targets that simple weren't important enough. In communist Russia of 1941/'42 everything about the country was centralized in Moscow. Communism by definition is heavy centralized. Moscow was the center of industry/communications/roads/rails/politics/economy and it meant everything. It was the one target that simply had to be captured in the first summer.
Instead Hitler showed he couldn't stick to a strategic idea, instead he reacted to day to day events, which were unfolding north and south. He became "reactionary" instead of "controlling". Often his opinion changed from day to day.
I'm sorry, I had much more typed out but erased it by mistake. I'll try to conclude all my thoughts in the coming days but just cant type all that out again right now.
Why North Africa
Sorry to get back on track, but one of the reasons why Hitler intervened in North Africa is that the Germans decided that British air attacks on Italian coastal shipping could crippled the Italian war economy and bring Italy to chaos unless something was done to keep the British away from suitable airbases.
That means holding on to Tripoli as a minimum, and preferably Benghazi as well. Between that and the political game - of which Hitler was very conscious - Rommel's brief was not to win the war but to prevent Italy from losing it. All in all, I think he was fairly successful. When Hitler wanted to focus in the Med, all of his putative allies (including Mussolini) turned him down. They all said in essence: "give us fuel, equipment, money and everything, and WE will win that campaign and gain all the credit as well as the spoils. Nice deal, huh ?". Hitler was unimpressed - and rightly so.
Then he settled for taking out the Soviet Union, which was supposed to solve all of Germany's economic problems at a stroke, make Hitler's dream come true, and gain Germany a sufficient resource base from which to fight the coming war against the Anglo-Saxon alliance (since the USA was evolving toward an increasingly hostile stance). In that context, an economy of force operation like Rommel's made sense.
With hindsight, I would fault him for not using the second half of 1940 to kick the British out of the Mediterranean. By twisting Mussolini's arm and making promises to Franco which he didn't intend to keep, he might possibly have captured Malta and/or shut the RN out of the Mediterranean, in time to launch Barbarossa the next year. But this requires a hefty amount of hindsight to work, as well as ignoring political realities. Hitler didn't know, as we do, that his vassals - including Vichy - were more loyal than he feared.
That means holding on to Tripoli as a minimum, and preferably Benghazi as well. Between that and the political game - of which Hitler was very conscious - Rommel's brief was not to win the war but to prevent Italy from losing it. All in all, I think he was fairly successful. When Hitler wanted to focus in the Med, all of his putative allies (including Mussolini) turned him down. They all said in essence: "give us fuel, equipment, money and everything, and WE will win that campaign and gain all the credit as well as the spoils. Nice deal, huh ?". Hitler was unimpressed - and rightly so.
Then he settled for taking out the Soviet Union, which was supposed to solve all of Germany's economic problems at a stroke, make Hitler's dream come true, and gain Germany a sufficient resource base from which to fight the coming war against the Anglo-Saxon alliance (since the USA was evolving toward an increasingly hostile stance). In that context, an economy of force operation like Rommel's made sense.
With hindsight, I would fault him for not using the second half of 1940 to kick the British out of the Mediterranean. By twisting Mussolini's arm and making promises to Franco which he didn't intend to keep, he might possibly have captured Malta and/or shut the RN out of the Mediterranean, in time to launch Barbarossa the next year. But this requires a hefty amount of hindsight to work, as well as ignoring political realities. Hitler didn't know, as we do, that his vassals - including Vichy - were more loyal than he feared.