according to the present state of scholarly knowledge and opinion, Hitler's Blitzkrieg strategy was a concept which transformed itself almost directly into an initially successful process of conquest. That is to say, the course of the war until the middle or end of 1941 corresponded to, and at the same time justified, an original, well thought out and long-premeditated strategic concept. Reduced to its essentials, the argument runs approximately as follows. Hitler very soon realized that Germany's economic resources were insufficient for a European war. What the Four Year Plan dubbed a ‘policy of autarky’ was so called for purely propagandist reasons, while the real aim was simply forced rearmament–not economic independence from possibly unfriendly powers, which was generally acknowledged to be impossible within Germany's existing frontiers. The conditions for a policy of autarky could be produced only by a step-by-step expansion of the area of Central Europe under German control. Only the economic potential of a Greater German Reich, enlarged by annexations and by the creation of satellite states, could support the decisive struggle, a war against France and the USSR. And only the conquest of the Ukraine could create the basis for a world war against Britain, which would then no longer be in a position to reduce Germany to submission by blockade.

In the light of this hypothesis, the phase of annexations and Blitzkrieg appears as the means to an end, the end being to create the preconditions for waging a war for world conquest. Timing was of the essence for this strategic concept.