Did hitler show magnanimity and large heartedness by letting the BEF at dunkrik go unharmed ?
No. Hitler wanted the BEF destroyed in its entirety. The problem was that the only person who could insure this was General Heinz Guderian’s panzers, and Hitler was listening to Goering. Goering promised that the Luftwaffe could destroy the BEF before the Royal Navy and various fishing boats and yahcts could save it. Hitler listened to the Luftwaffe commander and directly ordered Guderian to halt to allow the Luftwaffe to have its shot. Now, the Luftwaffe did inflict damage, but the attacks were like the extensive use of heavy artillery in WWI. They killed and wounded some members of the BEF, but they couldn’t kill all of them. By the time that Hitler finally realized that th Luftwaffe had failed to produce the results that Goering promised, much of the BEF and several French units had been evacuated, insuring that there would be a British army in the future and Free French troops under De Gaulle.
