Adolf Hitler had a warning for Donald Trump on the eve of his launching airstrikes against Iran.
A warning Trump should have heeded—but didn’t.
It all started on June 22, 1941.
On that date, Hitler ordered his powerful Wehrmacht o invade the Soviet Union.
Less than two years earlier, on August 23, 1939, he had signed a “non-aggression” pact with his longtime arch-enemy, Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union.
Since then, his army had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France.
Adolf Hitler with his generals
Now, he believed, it was time to “settle accounts” with the Soviet Union.
Only there could Germany obtain the “living space” it “needed” for its expanding population.
So at 3 a.m. on June 22, 1941, Hitler once again launched an invasion.
At first, Hitler felt giddy with excitement.
Turning to Alfred Jodl, his chief of operations for the Wehrmacht, he said: “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
German soldiers marching through Russia
But soon afterward—almost as if he had just looked into the future and seen that he had none—he told an aide: “At the beginning of each campaign, one pushes a door into a dark, unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
That certainly proved true for Hitler.
Within four years, he was dead and the Red Army occupied Berlin.
And now the law of unintended consequences may be coming true for President Donald Trump and the United States.
On February 28, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched a series of devastating, unprovoked airstrikes against Iran. Since then, Trump and his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, have been all over the map with rosy predictions.
Donald Trump
- February 28: Trump posted on Truth Social that the bombing would continue “throughout the week or as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
- March 1: In a video Trump declared that the war would continue “until all of our objectives are achieved.”
- March 2: Trump: “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.”
- March 5: Hegseth to Pentagon reporters: “You can say four weeks [how long the war might last] but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three. Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo.”
- March 6: Trump: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
- March 8: Hegseth: “We’re willing to go as far as we need to in order to be successful.”
- March 9: Trump: “No, but soon. I think so. Very soon” when asked by a reporter if the war would be over that week.
- March 11: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.”
Hitler had been similarly optimistic about how long it would take to conquer the Soviet Union: Six to eight weeks, at the longest. And during the first three months of the war—July through September, 1941—that optimism seemed well-placed.
The Wehrmacht repeatedly lured Soviet armies into huge “cauldron battles,” then surrounded them, killing thousands and taking thousands of prisoners. By the end of September, German forces had captured or killed over 650,000 Russian troops in the Battle of Kiev alone, with total Soviet casualties reaching millions.
But then Hitler—and the Wehrmacht—paid a fatal price for their misplaced optimism.
The best—and most lethal—example of this hubris: The Wehrmacht went to war in summer uniforms on June 22—and were still wearing them in December.
Hitler placed infinite faith in the power of will to overcome all obstacles. When his soldiers were literally freezing to death before the gates of Moscow, Hitler believed that with “just one more push” the Soviet capital would fall.
When Heinz Guderian, his foremost expert on tank warfare, informed Hitler that German soldiers had no defense against the bitter cold, Hitler replied: They should dig foxholes.
Guderian replied that the icy ground was too solid to be punctured with spades.
Hitler’s reply: They should fire artillery shells into the ground to build foxholes.
This totally ignored the reality that, by December, 1941, the German army was dangerously short on munitions of all kinds.
Like Hitler, Trump seemed to consider himself omnipotent. Asked by a reporter how long the war would last, the President replied: “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
Yet by the third week of the war, he began demanding—not asking—the assistance of NATO countries: We’ve had your back, now it’s our turn.
This totally ignored the fact that NATO exists to aid any of its members if it is attacked. After 9/11, NATO air force planes screened American airspace to prevent a repeat of similar carnage.
But NATO members are not obligated to join any nation in igniting a war. And that was precisely what Trump did on February 28—without consulting or even informing NATO of his plans to attack.
The only country that had known his intentions was Israel.
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ONCE MORE, INTO A DARK, UNSEEN ROOM: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on July 31, 2026 at 12:05 amDonald Trump’s unprovoked attack on Iran is separated from Adolf Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union by a span of 84 years. Yet despite differences in geography and history, eerie similarities exist between the two.
Hitler launched his assault on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941—after a series of quick military conquests: Poland (1939); Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France (1940); Greece and Yugoslavia (1941).
Similarly, before launching his assault on Iran on February 28, Trump had scored a number of triumphs–albeit of a non-military nature. A March 19, 2026 article in The New Republic offers a partial summary:
Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler
“In the first year since returning to power, Trump and his subordinates have pushed the country toward fascism and oligarchy. He has turned Washington into an orgy of corruption and self-dealing beyond even the most cynical observer’s imagination.
“He has transformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol into a lawless paramilitary force that has besieged American cities and killed at least five U.S. citizens and 22 foreign nationals. He has abused Americans and their immigrant neighbors alike simply because he can.”
In his attempt to conquer the Soviet Union, Hitler made the fatal mistake of trying to conquer too much territory all at once.
In August 1941, Hitler diverted forces from the central push on Moscow to surround Leningrad and industrial regions in the South, which delayed the attack on Moscow. By the time Hitler decided to capture Moscow, the weather had turned cold and the Germans were exhausted and freezing.
As in the case of Hitler, Trump assumed that Iran could be forced to quickly surrender. But that effort has been handicapped by a series of shifting and contradictory goals:
In the opening day of the war, American and Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. By March 17, Israel announced that it had killed two more top Iranian leaders in airstrikes. Still, Iranians chose new leaders to succeed dead ones and went on fighting.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
On March 19, Israeli airstrikes hit Iran’s largest gas field—South Pars, which is part of the world’s largest natural gas reserves. In retaliation, Iran launched drone and missile attacks against energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Kuwait.
Iran also targeted Israel and attacked U.S. military bases in the region, including in Bahrain and Jordan.
Hitler expected the Soviet Union to collapse in a matter of weeks. France, which supposedly had the strongest army in Europe, had collapsed in six weeks in 1940. Hitler believed that General Winter, which had defeated Napoleon in 1812, would not be a problem for the mechanized Wehrmacht.
Yet the Wehrmacht was far less mechanized than portrayed by German propagandists. It relied heavily on horses for approximately 80% of its transport needs throughout World War II. During the winter of 1941 – 1942, the Wehrmacht lost over 179,000 horses. In the Army Group Center sector, losses reached roughly 1,000 horses per day.
Panzer tank
In movies like “The Longest Day” and “Saving Private Ryan,” Americans celebrate the D-Day landings in France, on June 6, 1944. But for Nazi Germany, “the real war” was in the East. There the Wehrmacht concentrated the largest proportion of its forces—and suffered 85% of its casualties.
By March 19, the United States had spent $12 to over $12.7 billion on military operations against Iran. And the Pentagon was asking for an additional $200 billion for the war. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned “that number could move.”
On July 22, it moved—House Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027.
On April 7 the United States, Israel, and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, under which Iran would re-open the Strait of Hormuz. On April 11, Trump said that American ships had started “clearing” the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranian government threatened to attack the ships, accusing the United States of a ceasefire violation.
On July 8, Iran struck more targets in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump declared the Memorandum Of Understanding between the two countries was “over,” and that he didn’t want to deal any further with Iran’s leadership
Following an attack by Iranian forces on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, on July 13, the United States began 13 consecutive nights of airstrikes on Iran, ending on July 24.
On July 27 Trump said he was ready for “strong military action” if talks with Iran failed, saying there’s “not much time” left for diplomacy
Bombing, however, has never by itself ended a war. Hitler’s terror-bombing of England only stiffened British resolve to fight on.
Trump could launch a ground troop invasion—but Iran is more than twice the size of Texas, covering about 636,000 square miles. That would require tens of thousands of troops—and almost certainly lead to a highly unpopular draft.
Aside from that, his only other choice is the use of nuclear weapons.
Both would be highly unpopular—especially in a midterms election year.
Like Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union, by July 28, Trump’s “two week” war with Iran had lasted five months—with no end in sight.
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