I disagree. This narrative only works if you think Hitler had no idea America was joining the Western front. Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941, America entered the war in December 1941. However America pretty publicly started preparing for the entrance into war in 1939. Germany knew this, just as they knew America would be 100% on the allies side. That's why he smashed France so hard, to try and hamstring the allies in the west. He could have in 1939 used Poland as a launching point to invade the USSR, he didn't. He pushed up to the USSR in the early stage of the war hardening his army and proving tactics then tried to sweep the west so it was weak enough to turn towards Russia.
The two fronts he needed to worry about were always clear, Russia on his eastern side, America aiding the allies on his Western side. His strategy was to alter the timing of these two threats so he could mobilize against 1 at a time. I agree however he was overconfident in his campaign to Russia, and i agree it was aided by his easy wins in France, Poland, and elsewhere. I think he also likely thought the Japanese could hamper the soviets enough to give him an edge, but the moment the US joined the pacific theater that was all but done. The japanese having centuries long scores to settle in China and other islands didnt help.
That's revisionist history.
1. Hitler lost interest in the Western theatre of the war once he had conquered all of continental Western Europe and the Battle for Britain had failed. It was only once everything he had to do in the West was done that he turned to the East.
2. He couldn't know that the Japanese would foolishly drag the U.S. into the war as early as 1941 by their misguided attack on Pearl Harbor.
3. Ideologically and strategically, the Eastern Campaign was the centerpiece of this whole war; this is where their main long-term objectives could be achieved. Hitler and the Nazis were ideologically driven. For years, they had been harping about the German need for
Lebensraum, which they could only find in the east. For years, they had been slandering the Slavs as
Untermenschen who were to be subjugated or eradicated. For years, they had been consumed by their rampant, genocidal antisemitism; with the bulk of the European Jews living in Eastern Europe.
Simply put, all the main goals of the Nazis required them to go to the East. They only opened the war with the Western Campaign because those enemies were more economically and militarily developed and in closer proximity; they clearly had to be dealt with first before the longer, more thorough and long-term Eastern Campaign could be launched.
Those factors notwithstanding, the actual execution of the Eastern Campaign then turned out to be a rushed, overconfident disaster. But then again, the clock was ticking due to the rapid industrialization of the USSR and their inherent advantage in manpower. Who knows if things had gone better for Germany if they had had waited until the spring of 1942 before attacking the USSR.