New Order (Nazism) - End of The New Order Project

End of The New Order Project

After the decisive German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad on February 2, 1943, Germany was forced onto the defensive and was no longer able to actively pursue implementation of the New Order in the Soviet Union, although the genocide against Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities continued. Following the subsequent failure of the 1943 summer offensive to regain the territories lost to the Soviets earlier that year the Wehrmacht was no longer able to mount an effective large-scale counter-attack on the Eastern Front. In a discussion with Joseph Goebbels on October 26, 1943 Hitler expressed that Germany should conclude a temporary armistice with the Soviet Union and return to its 1941 border in the east. This would then give Germany the opportunity to defeat the British forces in the west first (no mention was made of America's part in the Allied alliance) before resuming a new war for Lebensraum against the Soviet Union at a later point in time. Hitler thought that his future successor might have to carry out this later war, as he believed himself to be too old by then.

By this late point in the war, after the failure of the final Ardennes offensive and the Allied crossing of the Rhine into Germany itself, Hitler hoped that a decisive victory on the Eastern Front might still preserve the Nazi regime, resulting in Operation Spring Awakening. He believed that with the conclusion of a separate peace-treaty with the Soviet Union a division of Poland might still be realized and leave Hungary and Croatia (both still under German occupation at the time) under German control. Hitler only acknowledged Germany's imminent defeat mere days prior to his suicide.