Why Hitler Slept Through D-Day

On the morning of June 6th, 1944, Hitler was sound asleep.

The Allies were landing. Tens of thousands of soldiers were pouring onto the beaches. The tide was turning, the war accelerating toward its violent, inevitable end. And the man leading the Reich was in bed, untouched.

His generals knew the crisis was unfolding. His inner circle knew. Everyone knew. But no one would wake him.

Because by that point, Hitler wasn’t running a government. He was running a cult of sycophants and suck ups, hanging on his every whim and tantrum, too scared to face the man and too weak to stand up to him.

His staff were no longer commanders. They were cowards who had learned that the most dangerous thing you could do in the Third Reich was tell the truth. So they waited. They stalled. They hoped someone else would say something first. They pretended history might hold off for a few more hours, just long enough for them to avoid being screamed at.

It wasn’t the first time. Two years earlier, in the frozen ruin of Stalingrad, the same sickness played out. The Sixth Army was surrounded — encircled in a Kessel, a cauldron of fire and steel — and Hitler refused to believe it. His commanders begged for a breakout. His officers pleaded for tactical retreat. But reality was unwelcome in the Führer’s war room. So…