Dilletant

A “dabbler” rather than an expert. In Inside the Third Reich Albert Speer wrote that Adolf Hitler was often a dilletant when he would demand that a specific thing be done while he really did not know the specifics of what he was asking. During Hitler's years of ruling Germany the nation imported its oil from Iran via a pipeline that ran some 1800 miles from Iran to Germany, much of it passing across Soviet territory in which Soviet partisans frequently destroyed (by bombing, etc) a point in the line. In a meeting with his generals Hitler went on a tirade demanding that German forces “defend the pipeline” and totally ignored (silenced) those who tried to explain to him some of the difficulties.