LAURENCE REES: And the single most mistaken decision?

DAVID CESARANI: I think it has to be Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. It wasn’t decisive in and of itself but it was such a gamble that a few bad throws of the dice and it would be irredeemable. Now, it could have gone the other way, but it was on such a knife edge that there wasn’t room for too many setbacks. There were no reserves. And this is where Adam Tooze has a point. The whole operation of Barbarossa was an all or nothing thing. Everything was thrown in, there was no elasticity. And certainly once a two front war had developed the Nazis were lost because any setback cannot be redeemed by the readjustment of their positions or the reallocation of forces. They just didn’t have enough resources.