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>>Amazing how close and easily the Germans could have defeated Britain but the armies were told to stop, curtail, or divert their forces elsewhere when within another week they could have claimed complete victory.

Not hardly. Three little problems: RAF, Royal Navy and the English Channel. Hitler was unable to gain air superiority over Britain. Without it any attempt to cross the Channel would have resulted in a massive slaughter by the RN and RAF.

Now he could have put his massive new resources from France, Belgium, Poland, Netherlands, etc. into production of planes and ships and within a year or two have had enough to overwhelm the Brits. To that extent I agree with you. But any attempt to cross the Channel or launch an airborne invasion in 1940 would have resulted in a catastrophic German defeat.

Perhaps, however, you were talking about the German failure to destroy the British Army at Dunkirk, which they could easily have done. Hitler didn't do this primarily because he assumed the British would reach an accomodation with him as the French were in the process of doing. He didn't really hate the British in the same way he hated the French, in fact he admired them immensely.

The boatlift of Dunkirk is one of them and so is capturing the oilfields in North Africa along with others. From what I have read, the failure of the Russian blitzkrieg from primarily winter conditions which was due to Hitler's postponement of Operation Barbarossa, laid the seeds of Hitler's downfall. This failure in 1941 led to Hitler purging his Generals and becoming totally in control of the Army. Whereas before he had still listened to his Generals and allowed them to execute most of the time leading to stunning victories, now he made all the decisions from top to bottom, turning him from a brilliant strategist to a blunderer. Good thing meglomania set in with Hitler at this stage for the Allies. This led to stretching German armies pretty thin and in getting good support late around 1941. Rommel's loss at El-Alamein was the first significant victory by the Allies over the Germans but it could have been otherwise if Hitler had listened and allowed Malta to be taken when they had the chance.