In July 1940, Hitler delivered the following speach

"In this hour I feel it to be my duty before my own conscience to appeal once more to reason and common sense, in Great Britain as much as elsewhere. I consider myself in a position to make this appeal since I am not the vanquished begging favours, but the victor speaking in the name of reason. I can see no reason why this war must go on. Possibly Mr Churchill will again brush aside this statement of mine by saying that it is merely of fear and doubt in our final victory. In that case, I shall have relieved my conscience in regards to the things to come.”

He wanted peace with the British but was politically unable to do so. Indeed, the period after the fall of France saw a series of political and strategic failures that would have severe consequences in the near future.

Not only was he unable to find security in the west, he was unable to acheive any strategic cooperation and coordination with Italy and Japan.

Thus, the Germans would have to divert significant resources in secondary theatres (including 250 transport aircraft and 80,000 troops sent to North Africa immediately prior to encirclement at Stalingrad) while the Soviets, confident that Japan would not invade, were able to transfer troops from their east to repel the Germans in the west, effectively ending Germany's hopes of victory in the east.

Meanwhile they signally failed to put their economy on a war footing (the Luftwaffe had fewer aircraft in 1941 than they had in 1940), and preferred to pillage the industry of occupied western Europe, rather than capitalise on their potentially vast industrial capacity.