ABSTRACT
The victory of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy would have ended Western civilization and returned Europe, Asia and the world to the Dark Ages of bloodshed, brutality, fascism and militarism. Leading German commanders and staff officers urged a Mediterranean focus on Adolph Hitler. But, Hitler saw the Mediterranean not as the key to victory but as the space for Italian lebensraum, just as the East formed Germany’s lebensraum. In the spring of 1941 Nazi Germany was on the verge of global domination with all of Europe in the hands of Hitler and his allies in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the Balkans, and the Soviet Union. Hitler lacked the goal oriented, purposive pragmatism that animated his enemies and even the Soviet Union, which dropped communism for nationalism, religion, and the Tsars. Hitler, with his racist Aryan mythology, could not conceive of equality among allies, especially non-Aryans.
