re: #91 Bass Reeves
Hitler was an irrational actor? German military at the time was amazeballs (to be technical).
From the point of view of German military doctrine of the time, he was. By invading the Soviet Union, Hitler was committing German forces to a two-front war, the stuff of nightmares for German generals. Britain was still very much in the war at that point, and Stalin reckoned that Hitler wouldn’t be so foolish as to attempt to invade the USSR while still fighting the British Empire.
Yet he did.