The character of Hitler was a complexity such that you can not give a simple explanation for his order to halt the advance of Von Kleist's panzer near Dunkirk. Possibly, several different threads wove their decision.
It is clear that the Fuhrer was still afraid of the extreme ease of developments since that initiated the attack on France.
In this sense coincided with the prudent attitude of his generals Von Rundstedt, Jodl and Keitel to keep the Panzer forces for future operations and not expose them in the dangerous swamps of Flanders.
General Warlimont, operations chief of the OKW? Headquarters of the Wehrmacht? revealed another possible cause for this stop: To me they gave me another reason to account according to which the fuhrer Goering gave assurances that their air forces would complete the encirclement. And the very Guderian, the first major surprise by the decision, also noted: I think it was the vanity of the cause of fatal Goering Hitler's decision.
All this has resulted in the realms above is suspected that there was any political motive behind the Hitler's military reasons. Thus it was argued that by failing to escape the British betting a truce with Britain after the final fall of France. But Churchill refuted such an interpretation, again and again, considering that Hitler's decision was due simply to a military error.
The english version of this article will be available soon. In the meanwhile, the text above was the result of a Google translation from portuguese version to english.
