3. MAKE INFERENCES Why do you think defeat at the Battle of the Bulge made Hitler realize he might lose the war? 4. EVALUATE What did Stalin's actions after the Yalta Conference reveal about the Soviet leader?

Three

I think you need to go back and look at what happened at Stalingrad, Leningrad and Kursk.

Leningrad: This was the longest siege ever in the entire history of war. The siege lasted for some 900 days and in the end Russia prevailed at great cost. It was not that the Russians actually defeated Germany. It was the land and the weather that did that. It was not that the Russians were able to swoop down and savagely club the Germans to death. It was that thousands of Russians died of hunger and disease, but they would not surrender the city. The German Northern Army had to withdraw.

Stalingrad: Probably the greatest land battle of the Second World War. The German army was reduced to fighting one city block at a time and again the Russian character prevailed. They might concede a block, but the Germans paid dearly for each thing they took. They were not equipped to deal with the terrible Russian Winter. Hitler thought it unnecessary to supply his troops because he had always been successful using Blitzkrieg tactics. This time it didn't work. If I remember correctly 1000000 men surrendered. That was a monumental defeat.

Kursk was the largest mechanized battle ever fought. The two previous battles gave Russia an opportunity to get its factors going to produce planes and tanks. Kursk was a tank battle. Germany lost in that battle.

So Hitler was actually defeated before the Battle of the Bulge. But the battle showed that now the war had turned the corner. Now the allies were able to fighter Germany in her own back yard so to speak. She was caught in a giant pair pliers with the Allies coming from the north (in France) and the south (North Africa, Sicily and Italy). And winning. Hitler became delusional and started thinking he could use rockets (V2s) to win the war.

That didn't work effectively. If Hitler didn't know he was defeated, those around him did.