Don't think it was seen as the beginning of the end. Remember the Wehrmacht went to the Balkans and made short work of Greece, Yugoslavia and the British Expeditionary Forces there. And then they even captured Crete ... and then there was, of course, Rommel and his Afrika Korps.
The main result was, however, a beginning crisis of trust between the frontline and the leadership back in Berlin in the person of Göring and his closest cronies. Before the jokes about his considerable girth and his pompous manners were said with some kind of amused goodwill, but now they took on a decidedly acidic tone and grew more cutting than before. Especially among the fighter pilots who felt they'd been hung out to dry and then made scapegoats for the bomber losses (when it was apparent that Göring's own Intelligence section was better suited for writing fairy tales).
09-18-2011, 06:43 AM
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