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Pilot Accidentally Lands in Enemy Airfield and Other Historic Mistakes

Khalid Elhassan October 5, 2020 31 min

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger - Focke-Wulf — Fw 190 dogfighting a Spitfire over the English Channel. Pintrest

10. The Fuhrer’s Bigness Fixation Serves His Foes

Ultimately, the Maus was symptomatic of Hitler’s irrational obsession with big things and superweapons. The Fuhrer was indifferent to, or unable to understand, the concept of relative cost-effectiveness.

Hitler was seemingly incapable of processing that it might be best to leave the superweapons alone, and focus on other “normal” weapons that could accomplish the same task at a fraction of the cost. Fortunately for mankind, Hitler’s obsession with big things and superweapons tied up scarce resources, that could otherwise have been more efficiently used to serve the German war effort and the Third Reich’s evil ends.

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Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.