Why Didn't Hitler Surrender Before 1945?

Why didn't Adolf Hitler surrender WWII before 1945 when his generals and ministers repeatedly warned him that Nazi Germany had already lost? From the freezing snow outside Moscow in 1941 to the ruins of Stalingrad in 1943, Hitler was repeatedly told that victory was impossible. His armaments minister Fritz Todt said it to his face, so Hitler promptly declared war on the United States. When General Paulus lost the Sixth Army and failed to secure Soviet oil, Hitler answered with total war. Traumatized by Germany's 1918 surrender from his hospital bed in Pasewalk, he made sure there would never be another armistice. Even surviving Claus von Stauffenberg's briefcase bomb in July 1944 only made things worse, triggering executions and a stubborn wait for a miracle like Frederick the Great. By 1945, Albert Speer was handed the Nero Decree to destroy Germany's own infrastructure, while Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler launched clumsy bids for power. In the end, it took Hitler's suicide in the Berlin bunker for Karl Dönitz to finally do what should have been done years earlier. Chapters: 0:00 Why Germany Kept Fighting 1:18 Fritz Todt's 1941 Warning 3:17 Failing to Seize Soviet Oil 4:45 The 1918 Stab-in-the-Back Myth 6:17 The July 20 Bomb Plot 8:41 Hitler's 1945 Nero Decree 10:15 The Final Betrayals in Berlin 12:32 Why Hitler Never Surrendered Subscribe to Both Wars for more animated history, and tell us in the comments: when should Germany have stopped fighting? Music and sounds: Propeller plane: "Propeller-plane-flying-steady-01", Versatile Virtuoso, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons) Diesel engine: "WWS Bediadiesellocomotiveidling", Work With Sounds / Technical Museum of Slovenia, CC BY 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons) "Investigations" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... "Sneaky Snitch" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... #WW2 #Hitler #MilitaryHistory