Hitler did do some things well from a strategic standpoint in initially restoring Germany’s military might. Notably, the combination of Hitler’s gamblers instinct and the Allies inertia and reluctance for war did lead to a string of initial successes that most people are familiar with. Overall, however, he was a horrendous tactician, granted he was responsible for a few tactical successes.

Following the France and Britain’s declaration of war in 1939, Germany was faced with what seemed like a very grim military situation. For many months, there was quite a bit of debate over how to approach the military situation in France amongst OKW and German commanders. The initial plans proposed were very unimaginative and reminiscent of the Schlieffen plan, and they all seemed likely to bog down in a static war of attrition that would inevitably doom Germany. After his plan was rejected by Brauchitsch and OKH, Manstein eventually secured a lunch meeting with Hitler and presented his plan to the Fuhrer. Hitler did not particularly care for Manstein who he found obnoxiously arrogant, but the boldness of Manstein’s plan appealed to Hitler’s gamblers instinct and Hitler had himself earlier suggested an attack might be possible against the Allied center. Thus, its adoption was assured. Needless to say, this was a good decision on the part of Hitler. On the other hand, as soon as the attack started Hitler’s ineptitude consistently undermined all of the Wehrmacht’s success. He became frightened by his own success, and quickly began trying to slow the advance for fear of an Allied counterattack on the flank. But this fear was irrational as the Allies lacked a command structure capable of effectively executing such a feat and, regardless, still had its tanks deployed in an infantry support role. Heinz Guderian, the man leading the Panzers, very succinctly explains this:

In any case all the manoeuvres and large-scale exercises of which I had heard led to the conclusion that the French command wanted its troops to be trained in such a way that careful movement and planned measures for attack or for defence could be based on definite, pre-arranged circumstances. They wanted a complete picture of the enemy's order of battle and intentions before deciding on any undertaking. Once the decision was taken it would be carried out according to plan, one might almost say methodically, not only during the approach march and the deployment of troops, but also during the artillery preparation and the launching of the attack or the construction of the defence as the case might be. This mania for planned control, in which nothing should be left to chance, led to the organisation of the armoured forces within the army in a form that would not destroy the general scheme, that is to say their assignment in detail to the infantry divisions. Only a fraction of the French armour was organised for operational employment.

In criticism of Hitler’s stage freight, Guderian cited this quote from Moltke: “First weigh the considerations, then take the risks.” (which is to say you should weigh the risks ahead of time and execute with decisiveness instead of seconding guessing yourself once everything is already in motion).

Although Hitler’s initial undermining of the operation was overcome by his generals simply ignoring his orders, eventually Hitler’s lollygagging led to the calamity of Dunkirk.

In the Russian campaign, Hitler did have one tactical success in his order to stand fast following the repulse outside of Moscow. Although the order came at the cost of massive causalities, ultimately the front had held. Additionally, supplying the Demyansk Pocket by air bridge also proved to be a successful tactic, granted it would set the stage for trying to repeat the strategy at Stalingrad. Hitler’s refusal to give up ground would also spell disaster time and again for Germany later in the war. Manstein described it as an inability to reconcile psychological and political inhibitions with hard military fact. In this respect, the blunders Hitler was personally responsible for are simply too many to count and extended to every major theatre.

As far as Hitler’s decision to divert the Panzer thrust at Moscow in order to encircle the Soviets at Kiev, it is unclear whether or not this was the right decision. On the one hand, it led to a decisive German victory and resulted in over half a million Soviet causalities, and Hitler called it the greatest victory in history. However, the Soviets were able to replace these losses and ultimately it came at the cost of postponing the advanced towards Moscow until it was too late and resulted in the Panzers getting bogged down in the mud due to the Rasputitsa.