>>513958126
He was correctly thinking they needed to take Leningrad to get access to the Soviet rail system for further operations, and to take the Caucasian oilfields in the south to deprive the Red Army of its fuel supply, with a just strong enough center force to hold back Soviet counteroffensives
The generals wanted to drive straight to Moscow because they wanted to have a parade in Moscow and they figured that'd be like Paris 1940 and Stalin would just give up, apparently not realizing that Moscow had only been the capital of the USSR for about 20 years at that point, and taking it without doing the other two things first risked a total disaster, basically creating Stalingrad times 3, in 1941 instead of 1942
There was a big argument between the two sides and Hitler finally agreed to the compromise of trying to do all 3 at once because the Soviets would probably collapse anyway, and by the time they had the horrible relalization the collapse was not happening it was too late. They tried to apply the correct strategy in 1942, but they'd suffered too many losses and given the Red Army too much time.
