I don’t know that that’s a problem with World War II German tactics, though. The tactics worked fine against Poland and France. Germany didn’t lose the war against the Soviets because of tactical reasons, but because of strategic and logistical reasons.
Error #1 - Attacking Russia 
Actually, that’s a good question. Did the Germans need to attack Russia - was the falling out ineveitable, so get the first shot in and hope it settled things? I assume that was the logic for Pearl Harbor. (It didn’t work there either). Or was Hitler just stupid and egotistical enough to think he could win? I know the communism was supposedly the main antagonist of fascism in theoretical politics, but obviously it didn’t stop the original peace agreement.
Hilter’s main goal was always to destroy the Soviet Union, but he knew that if he initiated an attack in the east that Britain and France would attack in the west. Two front war= repeat of WW1. So the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact made a bizarre sort of sense, in that at that point in time it fit the plans of both Germany and the USSR. Each would get back the pieces of Poland that had been part of the German and Russian empires before WW1. Invading in September meant that the Polish campaign could be concluded by the onset of winter, during which the French and British would not want to conduct an offensive until after the spring thaw of the following year. For it’s part, the USSR got to reannex eastern Poland as well as the Baltics and eastern Finland. (And Germany could be reasonably certain that until the USSR had finished doing so it would present no threat.) If Germany got it’s butt kicked by France and Britain, that would be win-win for the USSR.
By the summer of 1940 the Pact had given Germany everything it wanted. France was crushed, Britain evacuated it’s expeditionary force and except for the air war against Britain, the Western front was secure. At that point Hitler would have gladly negotiated a truce with Britain, except that Churchill would have none of it; Churchill was determined to fight on until the Nazi regime was destroyed. After a year of trying to prepare an invasion force (which Germany couldn’t) or bomb Britain enough until they were prepared to negotiate (which Britain wouldn’t), figuring that a better time wouldn’t be forthcoming, Hitler gambled on trying to overrun the western USSR in a blitzkrieg that would smash the Soviet resistance as quickly as the West had fallen. In this, he badly miscalculated.
To destroy the Soviet Union, enslave or kill the native Slavs, and set up German colonies in the territory that was once the Soviet Union.
I agree with everything but the last line. Its often forgotten how close the Germans came. In November the 7th Panzer Division captured a bridgehead over the Moscow Volga Canal and they were beaten back by elemets of the 2nd Shock Soviet Army. If the Germans had managed to expand the bridgehead they would have taken Moscow and it would have been kaputski for the USSR.
Why? I mean, the Soviets had lost other cities to German encirclement. Why wouldn’t they have kept fighting after the fall of Moscow?
Are you sure about that? Historians are split on whether the fall of Moscow would have meant Russian surrender. Personally, I don’t think so. They were bringing in fresh troops from Siberia, and were prepared for a long, brutal campaign. Moscow was just a symbol, and I think it would have served as a rallying call to the Soviets. Germany just didn’t have the manpower to defeat and occupy the Soviet Union.
I can only presume that Hitler somehow believed that the war could be won without pushing to the Bering strait. Maybe based on the poor showing of Soviet forces during the Winter War with Finland, Hitler believed that the Soviet forces could be smashed so completely as to leave nothing but a disorganized rabble with no unified command structure or logistical support. This was almost the case in the early weeks of the war. If Hitler had been willing to settle for half a loaf, and offered a stunned and demoralized Stalin a truce in exchange for everything west of the Volga, history might have been a lot different.
A whole freaking LOT different. Any breathing room Germany got would have meant the successful completion of the V-2 program, and probably a rudimentary atomic bomb. Eventually Russia would attack, and that would be that for them. Two bombs would take out Britain for good as well. Ugly timeline all around.
Once you have paid the Tamerlanegeld, how will you get rid of the Tamerlane?
Moscow was the USSR’s center of gravity, the main place of the government and the Communist Party.
It was also the main rail hib, all major lines went through Moscow. If it had been captured, well the Soviets would not have been able to tansport troops.
Germany had actually signed “secret” trade deals with Russia (Soviet Union) so that it got wheat etc. To attack them was not only a military challenge: it also was very difficult economically to rationalise it.
It wasn’t really that much of a miscalculation. Germany almost did force a Russian surrender in 1941. Stalin and the Soviet command staff were wavering on the issue (at one point Stalin mostly locked himself in a room for several days and probably had a nervous breakdown of some sort). Had some sort of reasonable surrender been offered, they may have taken it - but since the Germans were so brutal to the Russians it inspired them to fight on rather than cave in. Germany gambled on a quick victory and almost achieved it.
The effect of the quick surrenders of the previous conquests of Germany were essentially psychological. Poland actually put up the biggest fight, but they were simply outmatched. Most of the other countries could’ve gone on fighting for much longer, and inflicted a higher toll on the Germans. It was clear early on though that the Germans were certainly in a superior position, and would’ve devastated the countries they were fighting against in a protracted war. France gave up early, under relatively benign terms, in order to avoid a repeat of WW1. But every country that Germany beat, excluding Poland, could’ve put up more of a fight rather than essentially saying “ok, you got me, I give up”.
Russia very could’ve easily been in the same boat. The shock of losing so many troops and so much land so early has a devastating psychological effect, but for the army and the men in charge. There was a perception of German invincibility and so much of the country and army had already been lost. Popular culture (and the history channel version of WW2) says that Germany was bound to lose from the moment they attacked Russia, but that’s quite untrue. Russia could’ve capitulated from the initial shock of blitzkrieg as the other countries had.