Part 3/13:
Historian and military analyst Ned Hulton emphasizes that Germany's strategic failures, especially the failure of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, were primarily due to these resource deficits. The Germans aimed to seize the Caucasus oil fields in 1942 during Fall Blau to alleviate their fuel shortages, which had become critical by autumn 1941. Had they succeeded, it might have prolonged their campaign and perhaps altered the outcome of the war.