"If I'd been commanding the German forces, I would have moved heaven and Earth to take Malta, and I would have started doing so in 1940, not in '41. And I would NOT have attacked Soviet Russia at all. I would have continued peacefully trading with the Soviets until the conflict in the West had been brought to an armistace between England and Germany...however long that took."

Not an option, Little Hawk,in 1940 the German Army had far more important and immediately pressing things to concentrate on. The Axis at this time deemed the Mediterranean to be an Italian theatre of operations. The Germans did not put in an appearance there until after the Italians had been routed in North Africa and needed to be rescued in Greece, which takes you to the summer of 1941 as the earliest you could have acted, and even then you would not have had the naval strength to do anything. Mussolini's Navy was considered to have served its purpose purely by existing, "a Fleet in being", a presence that required a great deal in terms of ships and manpower to counter the threat it posed. While it existed it tied down allied resources that could have been used far more effectively elsewhere, the same was true of the capital ships of the German Fleet.

To anyone who had read "Mein Kampf" at the time, war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia was inevitable. In 1936, Hitler was told that if he was going to attack Soviet Russia he had to do so BEFORE 1944 in order to have any chance of success. Hitler never believed that he would have to fight in the west, so firm was his belief in the power and attraction offered by the appeasement lobby. Staff's cover all contingencies, Hitler was told that if he had to fight in the West that had to done BY 1938 at the latest to have any chance of avoiding having to fight on two fronts.