Why did Hitler declare war on the United States in December 1941? The Red Army was counter-attacking on the Eastern Front, the treaty with the Japanese did not require him to declare war and previously he avoided hostilities with the United States repeatedly and instructed particularly the Kriegsmarine to "stand down". So why did Hitler declare war now? This video features Dr. Klaus Schmider from the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst who researched this topics over the last few years. Cover Images: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13774 / Unknown Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-13774,_Adolf_Hitler.jpg modified by vonKickass. Noah Wulf, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Flag_Waving_on_a_Flag_Pole.jpg »» GET OUR BOOKS «« » Stukabook - Doctrine of the German Dive-Bomber - http://stukabook.com » The Assault Platoon of the Grenadier-Company November 1944 (StG 44) - http://sturmzug.com » Army Regulation Medium Panzer Company 1941 - http://www.hdv470-7.com » Achtung Panzer? Zur Panzerwaffe der Wehrmacht - http://panzerkonferenz.de »» SUPPORT MHV «« » patreon - see videos early (adfree) - https://www.patreon.com/join/mhv » subscribe star - https://www.subscribestar.com/mhv » paypal donation - https://paypal.me/mhvis » YouTube Membership - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK09g6gYGMvU-0x1VCF1hgA/join »» MERCHANDISE «« » teespring - https://teespring.com/stores/military-history-visualized »» SOURCES «« Schmider, Klaus: Hitler’s Fatal Miscalculation: Why Germany declared War on the United States. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2021. Boog, Horst u. a.: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg 6: Der Globale Krieg. Bd. 6. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt: Stuttgart, Germany, 1990 (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg 6). Mawdsley, Evan: The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II. Yale University Press: New Haven, Connecticut, USA, 2019. Garzke, William H./Dulin Jr, Robert O./Jurens, William: Battleship Bismarck: A Design and Operational History. Seaforth Publishing: Barnsley, UK, 2019. Hitler, Adolf: Hitler, Mein Kampf: Eine kritische Edition. hg. von Hartmann, Christian u. a. Institut für Zeitgeschichte: München, 2016. Jacobsen, H.A.: 1939-1945. Der Zweite Weltkrieg in Chronik und Dokumenten. Dritte durchgesehene und ergänzte Auflage, Wehr und Wissen Verlagsgesellschaft: Darmstadt, Germany, 1960. Glantz, David M./House, Jonathan M.: When Titans clashed: How the Red Army stopped Hitler. Revised and expanded edition, University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, Kansas, USA, 2015 (Modern war studies). Drea, Edward J.: Japan’s Imperial Army. Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945. Kansas University Press, USA: 2009. Stahel, David: Retreat from Moscow: A new History of Germany’s Winter Campaign, 1941-1942. First edition, Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, USA, 2019. Wagner, Gerhard/Arbeitskreis für Wehrforschung: Lagevorträge der Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine vor Hitler 1939 - 1945. Lehmann: München, 1972. Johnson, Danny M.: The Persian Gulf Command and the Lend-Lease Mission to the Soviet Union during World War II https://armyhistory.org/the-persian-gulf-command-and-the-lend-lease-mission-to-the-soviet-union-during-world-war-ii/ 00:00 Intro 00:45 Three main Areas 01:04 Hitler about Amerika 04:42 Situation Ostfront 08:19 Japan 13:05 US Policy Changes & Incident 1941 19:30 Gutting of Neutrality Act, November 1941 24:06 Pulling the Strings together 25:40 Window of Opportunity #Hitler,#ww2 ,#WhyHitlerCeclaredWar