The real “hero” indirectly responsible for “The Miracle of Dunkirk” was - head of the Luftwaffe, Herman Goering.
It was Goering who convinced Hitler to halt his panzer divisions, which were poised to take the beachhead at Dunkirk and destroy the BEF, so as to allow his Luftwaffe to finish them off.
This monumental tactical blunder, borne out of both Goering’s ego and his overestimation of the capabilities of air power against ground forces, gave time for the ‘Miracle’ of the evacuation to succees.
Air power’s success against ground troops had been systematically overestimated practically since the beginning of the airplane. Even today, with all of our smart bombs and killer drones, which have taken our aerial war capability to a new level, there still is no aerial substitute for holding the ground.
I still think it’s fair to question if Hitler really wanted to destroy the BEF at the time.
I still believe he held out hope after the defeat of France, that he could have made a deal with Britain. Destroying the BEF, probably would have ruined any chance that the Brits would be accommodating towards such a deal, in Hitler’s mind.
It's obvious rulers make poor generals and combine that with a lack of discernment and logical plotting with generals let the idea of the invasion of Britain slip away.
No, but that wasn't the operational goal. Destroying the BEF was. That means drop a lot of bombs and execute a lot of strafing runs which means a lot of sorties which means a lot of aircraft given the number of BEF Soldiers and the limited number of munitions the aircraft could carry.
“It was Goering who convinced Hitler to halt his panzer divisions, which were poised to take the beachhead at Dunkirk and destroy the BEF, so as to allow his Luftwaffe to finish them off.”
Incorrect. The Panzers needed to stop and resupply anyway.
>>The real “hero” indirectly responsible for “The Miracle of Dunkirk” was - head of the Luftwaffe, Herman Goering.
The nasty secret of Dunkirk, a secret the British aristocracy has tried to sweep under the rug for almost 80 years, was the Nazi sympathizer British aristocrat the Duke of Hamilton. Hamilton was representative of those aristocrats such as the Duke of Windsor, who had no problem with a grand strategy of capitulating to Hitler and then having Britain join him on a march against bolshevism. Hitler saw the British as fellow Aryans with a common racial heritage, Britain having been nearly overrun in the past by Scandanavian Vikings and their spawn, the Normans. So Hitler halted his panzers while Hess made overtures to Hamilton & Co. The timing of the events alone is beyond coincidence.