Nazi Germany declared war officially on only one nation--the United States. This declaration was issued on December 11, 1941--four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and over two years after World War II started on September 1, 1939. Germany's mutual defense treaty with Japan did not obligate Germany to declare war against America. The treaty required Germany to assist Japan only if Japan had been attacked--not when Japan was the aggressor.
Hitler was actually an admirer of the USA with its vast areas for living space and its massive industrial base. He believed that America normally was comprised of a Nordic master race largely in proper control of its "undesirable" minorities through racial segregation, eugenics laws, and Indian reservations. On the the other hand, he was convinced that this vision of a "pure" America had been corrupted by Roosevelt and his "Jewish ruling elite" (which is fairly ironic, considering that the Roosevelt administration was actually rather anti-Semitic).
Hitler also realized that America's entry into WWI was a pivotal element in the defeat of Germany, and he had no real desire to repeat the same scenario.
Hitler also realized that America's entry into WWI was a pivotal element in the defeat of Germany, and he had no real desire to repeat the same scenario.
Why then did Hitler declare war on the United States? Many theories abound, but one factor certainly was the fact that Roosevelt was already clearly supporting the Allies in the ongoing conflict in numerous ways, including sending millions of tons of materials through Lend-Lease and engaging German warships on the oceans. A formal declaration of war meant that the Germans were free to turn their U-boat wolfpacks loose on the Atlantic seaboard to disrupt totally the movement of supplies to Europe--a tactic which came dangerously close to succeeding. An additional popular theory is that Hitler naively believed that the Japanese would quickly defeat the Americans and would then open a second front against the Soviet Union in the Far East. Finally, there is simply the issue of Hitler's ego. If there was ultimately going to be war between American and Germany anyway, Hitler did not want Roosevelt to beat him to declaring it.
Many historians believe that Hitler originally had no territorial ambitions against the continental United States and that had America practiced strict non-interventionism, der Führer would have been content merely with sharing the Eastern Hemisphere with his Japanese and Italian allies (at least for a while).
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