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The Occupation of Poland
By the end of September the Germans and Russians had occupied Poland. The Poles were defeated swiftly by the German Blitzkrieg (lightning war). Britain and France did little to help their ally because French mobilization procedure was slow. -
The 'Phoney War'
Very little happened in the west for the next five months. In the east the Russians took over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and invaded Finland . Meanwhile the French and Germans manned their respective defences - the Maginot and Siegfried Lines. Hitler seems to have hoped that the pause would weaken the resolve of Britain and France and encourage them to negotiate peace. This lack of action was described by American press as the 'phoney war'. -
Denmark and Norway invaded
Hitler's troops occupied Denmark and landed at the main Norwegian ports in April 1940. Control of Norway was important for the Germans because Narvik was the main outlet for Swedish iron-ore, which was vital for the German armaments industry. -
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Dunkirk
The British navy played the vital role in evacuating over 338.000 troops from Dunkirk between 27 May and 4 June. This was a remarkable achievement in the face of constant Luftwaffe attacks on the beaches. The events at Dunkirk were important: a third of a million Allied troops were rescued to fight again. Churchill used it for propaganda purposes to boost British morale with the 'Dunkirk spirit'. -
Hitler attacks Holland, Belgium and France
The attacks on Holland, Belgium and France were launched simultaneously on 10 May, and again Blitzkrieg methods brought swift victories. The Dutch, shaken by the bombing of Rotterdam, which killed almost a thousand people, surrendered after only four days. Belgium held out for longer, but her surrender at the end of May. German motorized divisions swept across northern France; only Dunkirk remained in Allied hands. -
Paris captured and France surrendered
Paris was captured on 14 June and France surrendered on 22 June. At Hitler's insistence the armistice was signed at Compiegne. The Germans occupied northern France and the Atlantic coast, giving them valuable submarine bases, and the French army was demobilized. France was under Marshal Petain's government , but it had no real independence and collaborated with the Germans. Britain's position was now very precarious. -
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The Battle of Britain
This was fought in the air, when Luftwaffe tried to destroy the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Germans bombed harbours, radar stations, aerodromes and munitions factories; in September they bombed London. The RAF caused heavy losses on the Luftwaffe, British air power was far from being destroyed, Hitler called off the invasion. This battle was probably the first major turning point of the war: for the first time the Germans had been defeated, showing that they were not invincible. -
Mussolini invades Egypt
Mussolini sent an army from the Italian colony of Libya which penetrated about 60 miles into Egypt. However, the British soon drove the Italians out of Egypt, pushed them back far into Libya and defeated them at Bedafomm. Mussolini was beginning to be an embarrassment to Hitler. -
Operation Barbarossa
The German invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa) began on
22 June 1941. Hitler's motives:
- He feared that the Russians might attack Germany while his forces were still occupied in the west.
- He hoped that the Japanese would attack Russia in the Far East.
- There was his hatred of communism and his desire for Lebensraum (living space). -
The USA enters the war
The USA was brought into the war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (a naval base in the Hawaiian Islands). Until then, the Americans had remained neutral. Japanese motives for the attack were tied up with economic problems. The government believed they would soon run short of raw materials. Pearl Harbor had important results:
- It gave the Japanese control of the Pacific, they captured
Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and Burma (all part of the British Empire).
- Hitler declared war on the USA -
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The Holocaust
Between December 1941, when the first Jews were killed at Chelmno in Poland, and May 1945 when the Germans surrendered, some 5.7 million Jews were murdered, along with hundreds of thousands of non-Jews - gypsies, socialists, communists, homosexuals and the mentally handicapped. -
The Axis forces were defeated: from summer 1942 to summer 1943
In separate areas of fighting, Axis forces were defeated:
• At Midway Island in the Pacific, the Americans beat off a Japanese attack in June 1942.
• El Alamein, October 1942: Allied air power was vital, constantly attacking the Axis forces and sinking their supply ships.
• Germans had reached Stalingrad at the end of August 1942, but the Russians refused to surrender. In November they counter-attacked ferociously, trapping the Germans. The German commander had to surrender with 94.000 men. -
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The Axis powers defeated: July 1943 to August 1945
•British and American troops landed in Sicily from the sea and air and quickly captured the whole island (10 July 1943). This caused the downfall of Mussolini. •Operation Overlord, 6 June 1944, the invasion of France (also known as the Second Front) - began on 'D-Day'. The landings took place from sea and air on a 60-mile stretch of Normandy beaches. There was strong German resistance, but most of northern France was lilberated (Paris on 25 August). -
The End of War in Europe
World War II ended with the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. On 8 May 1945, the Allies accepted Germany's surrender, about a week after Adolf Hitler had committed suicide. VE Day – Victory in Europe celebrates the end of the Second World War on 8 May 1945. -
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On 6 August 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing approximately 84.000 people and leaving thousands more slowly dying of radiation poisoning. Three days later, they dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, which killed another 40.000; after these events, the Japanese government surrendered. The dropping of these bombs was one of the most controversial actions of the entire war.
