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Hitler did not want war and did not want to occupy France. He did so because the British invaded France, intending to invade Germany from the West. This was a follow-up to their naval blockade earlier that year.

A very long quote below follows, which references a few people and a couple of books on the subject of Dunkirk. The overall quote is from "The Myth of German Villainy" by Benton Bradberry:

"The real story is that Adolf Hitler halted the German panzers just at the point where they could have swept down and either destroyed or captured what amounted to the bulk of the entire British army as they were stranded indefensibly on the beaches of Dunkirk. If they had done so, Britain would thereafter have been defenseless against a German invasion and World War II would have been over in the West.

"But Hitler did not want to destroy the British army. He wanted only peace and friendship with Britain. In his book, The “Other Side of the Hill,” published in1948, which deals with the invasion of France and the Dunkirk event, British military historian Sir Basil Liddell Hart quotes the German General von Blumentritt concerning Hitler’s halt order:


"The “miracle at Dunkirk” was in fact an extraordinary peace overture to England.

"Louis Kilzer quoted Hitler, in his book “Churchill’s Deception,” 1994:


"According to Kilzer, Hitler was trying to convince the British to make peace. Hitler even offered to pull out of France, retreat from the Low Countries, retreat from Norway and Denmark and to give up much of Poland in exchange for peace with Britain. Hitler wanted an alliance with Britain in order to fight Bolshevik Russia."

Hitler's order to cease hostilities wasn't a miscalculation or an error in judgement. It was obviously intentional. Hitler wasn't interested in becoming a major mass murderer or in maintaining an enormous prison population in huge camps in France. He just didn't want to engage in war with Britain.

This is a big reason why I never watch Nolan's film "Dunkirk", because it's nothing but British propaganda. Well, that, and because Nolan is a shit filmmaker.