On 23/24 May 1940 a final stop order was imposed on the panzers – the last one for the Operation Sickle Cut campaign before it was concluded. Time would reveal that the consequences of the various stop orders were disastrous for Adolf Hitler. But there’s always a silver lining in every cloud as they say and that was that the miracle at Dunkirk that these allowed were a blessing for Germany and the rest of the world.

One of the most intriguing questions about the very last halt order is, what was the motivation. Is it the extraordinary reason that Karl-Heinz Freiser suggests in his book Blitzkrieg Legend?

I believe that Hitler was such an extraordinary personality that Frieser’s idea about why Hitler did what he did in the last days of Operation Sickle Cut, can’t be ruled out.

Whatever else, the conduct of Hitler during the last few days of the Sickle Cut campaign set the tone for what was to come in all German military operations until his death in the final act of suicide in the Berlin bunker in April 1945.

Tag words: Karl-Heinz Freiser; Blitzkrieg Legend; Blitzkrieg; Operation Sickle Cut; Adolf Hitler; Dunkirk; Halt Order; Chief of the Imperial General Staff, CIGS; General Sir Edmund Ironside; Gerd von Runstedt; General Georg von Sodenstern; Franz Halder; Erich von Manstein; General Edvard von Kleist; British counter-attack at Arras; Hinez Guderian; von Kluge; aufschließen; close up; General Bock; Reinhardt; von Brauchitsch;