Why did Germany lost the war, the vision of general Raus

Despite Russia and the Russian soldier, despite cold and mud, despite inadequate equipment and a virtually rediculous numerical inferiority the German soldier actually had a victory over the Soviet Union within his grasp.

But, why than did Germany lose the war?

The dynamic offensives executed by the German army during the firts two years of the campaign ground to a halt in front of Moscow and at Stalingrad.
During the following months of bitter struggle against a tenacious enemy who cleverly exploited the vast space and climatic conditions of his homeland, our strength declined so far that the subsequent Russian counteroffensives could no longer be repulsed. It was Hitlers worst mistake not to have recognized the impending disaster in time or- if he did recognize it- to have dismissed it in his peremptory manner. This obstinate denial of the obvious forced the German army to fight a series of defensive actions against breakthroughs along overextended frontlines during the final years of the campaign.
Each time our troops succeeded, after extreme sacrifices, in closing one gap, the line gave way at another point.The disintegration of our forces then speeded up up as individual corps, and even entire armies, under orders to hold critical cities andareas, were cut off from the main front.
The perfection of defensive tactics and the superhuman efforts of the fieldforces were insufficient to turn the tide as long as we were unable to restore the balance of strength essential for an eventual victory over the Red Army.Under the prevailing circumstances an equilibrium in the fields of manpower and equipment was beyond expectation, but it was within the realms of possibility that our overall military performance would first equal and than outdistance that of the Russians.
As a prerequisite German potential should have been brought into the proper relationship with the elements of time and space to compensate for the Soviet superiority in manpower and equipment, allowing victory to be achieved through the application of superior strategy.
At no time should the German army have expended its strength as recklessly as Hitler required it to do in front of Moscow and at Stalingrad.
Contrary to Hitlers concepts, a timely halt in the offensive or a temperorary withdrwal would have not undermined the confidence of the field forces but would have led to additional successes, the sum total of which might have brought the war against the Soviet Union to a favorable conclusion.
After Stalingrad we fought delaying actions along a 1600 km front for four months.
Even then under the leadership of Von Manstein we succeeded in sealing off the wide gaps and stabilizing the front enough to enable a decisive defensive victory in march 1943.
The enemy had broken through the German front, but eleven panzerdivisions assembled in the Kharkow-Poltava area were able to frustrate the Russian intentions by a determined counterattack.
Even so the time had not come to seize the initiative.The Red army still had to suffer heavy casualties- if neccesary we should have abandoned more terrain and shortened our lines to establish a balance  of strenght to prevent other breakthroughs. Only than could a decisive counterattack have ensured a victory in Russia before the allies  landed in France in 1944.
Defeat of the western powers was contingent upon the Soviet Union being driven out of the war.
Thus in 1943 the German army in Russia almost succeeded in putting an end to Soviet breakthroughs by adroithly combining various defensive tactics.
Victory was once again in the offing, but it turned into a Russian one.
Our eleven panzerdivisions -reconstruated during a 3 month lul in the fighting- could not come to grip with the Red Army's reserves to annihilate them because Hitler threw all of the German armor into operation Citadel in july 1943 and bled it white upon running into a fortified system of hitherto unknown strength and depth.
Hitler thereby fullfilled Stalins hopes and presented him with the palm of victory.
The subsequent Russian counteroffensive, conducted with powerful reserves that were fully intact, broke through our lines.
The enemy not only broke through in army group centre but in all other sectors as well where in most places no additional reserves were present.
At best, skillfull defensive tactics andsupreme personal sacrifices were instrumental in producing local, temperorary relief. The magnitude of our losses prohibited the possibility of stabilizing the front along a line that by than had been forcibly shortened in the course of events.Finally a suggestion to shift all German forces from the west to the east to stop the the Red army's invasion of Germany and orevent a territorial expansion of communism was turned down by Hitler. While he believed the principal enemies to be in the west, Germany's military leaders, for all their antogonism toward the western powers, considered Russia their irreconcilable enemy.

Source, panzeroperations, by general Raus.