You have failed to prove how this is to be the case. Or more to the point: failed to prove how this is to be the case in Hitler's mind. Hitler's priority is achieving his ideological goals as quickly as possible, as he was quite afraid of dying before they were since he believed that his successors would not have the where-with-all to properly follow the course, not defeating his enemies one at a time.
I must have missed the part where Hitler transferred his army east in June 1940 and then launched the invasion of Russia in September 1940.
I think Hitler's original plan was to win the war in the west first, then use that victory to carve a German empire in Russia second. It was the fall of France with Britain refusing to give up that was the joker in the deck - the surrender of Paris so quickly was totally unexpected, the decision of Britain to continue on perhaps even more so. The reason why the final decision between Sealion and Barbarossa took so long to resolve (July-December 1940) was because the decision was based solely on which move was most likely to win the war, not which would carve an empire in the east.
No, this is exactly backwards. The question in Hitler's mind was whether it was too dangerous to attack Russia next, with an undefeated Anglo-American combination to his rear, or whether it was too dangerous to leave an intact Russia in his rear while pursuing an extended war in the west. Must Britain be defeated before a war in Russia, or must Russia be defeated before the Americans weighed in?it's because he thinks it has a chance at knocking the British out without upsetting his plans to invade the Soviet Union afterwards.
Of course not, because Hitler knew he could not entertain a concrete plan of attack against the USSR (as opposed to fantasies) until the French had been dealt with. The British could be dealt with once kicked off the continent (assuming that alone didn't bring them to terms) when convenient.
The decision for the Z-Plan in 1939 was to defeat the Anglo-French first, then war with Russia later. The Z-Plan was superceeded soon, but its order of wars was not overturned. In June 1940 the question arose whether the original strategic priority held with the French out and the British in, or whether the order could reverse. The peril of Sealion to the British is strategic - that the decision would be the original order of wars would be adhered to, and no war with Russia contemplated until Britain was defeated.
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