IMHO Hitler knew they would lose the war. I think he was just prolonging it as long as possible in hopes he could get a truce with the Allies and keep his dictatorship and part of what he had captured.
It was all about him and his ideas. He cared nothing about anyone else.
Just make the war as long as possible, kill as many Allies as possible and hope the Allies would get tired of the war and be happy to stop before invading Germany.
Yes but Hitler’s constant strategic blundering and over-ruling his generals advice most likely succeeded in shoertening the war, not prolonging it. Imagine if Hitler had permitted FM Paulus to break out of the Stalingrad pocket or had withdrawn FM Rommel’s Afrika Corp from Tunisia. These armies would have been able to regroup and fight again and therefore prolong the war. Hitler’s blundering was so obvious that the Allies eventually gave up their plots to assassinate him, they figured he was more valuable alive than dead. Meanwhile, many high ranking officers in the German Wehrmacht took precisely the opposite view which of course lead to the July 20th 1944 Bomb Plot, almost entirely instigated by high ranking German military officers.
IMHO Hitler wanted to prolong the war so he could complete the “Endlosung der Judenfrage.” The eternal enemy in his warped mind had to be destroyed, no matter how many German soldiers had to die.