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This is directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.
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The Polish government flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union divide Poland between them.
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Initiating the so-called Winter War, the Finns sue for an armistice and have to cede the northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline on the Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union.
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Denmark surrenders on the day of the attack; Norway holds out until June 9.
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Luxembourg is occupied on May 10; the Netherlands surrenders on May 14; and Belgium surrenders on May 28. On June 22, France signs an armistice agreement by which the Germans occupy the northern half of the country and the entire Atlantic coastline. In southern France, a collaborationist regime with its capital in Vichy is established.
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Engineering Communist coup d’états in each of them on July 14–15, and then annexing them as Soviet Republics on August 3–6.
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Italy invades southern France on June 21st.
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The air war ends in a defeat for Nazi Germany.
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Germany and Italy arbitrate a decision on the division of the disputed province of Transylvania between Romania and Hungary. The loss of northern Transylvania forces Romanian King Carol to abdicate in favor of his son, Michael, and brings to power a dictatorship under General Ion Antonescu.
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Yugoslavia surrenders on April 17. Germany and Bulgaria invade Greece in support of the Italians. Resistance in Greece ceases in early June 1941.
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Recognized immediately by Germany and Italy, the new state includes the province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Croatia joins the Axis powers formally on June 15, 1941.
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Finland, seeking redress for the territorial losses in the armistice concluding the Winter War, joins the Axis just before the invasion. The Germans quickly overrun the Baltic States and, joined by the Finns, lay siege to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) by September. In the center, the Germans capture Smolensk in early August and drive on Moscow by October. In the south, German and Romanian troops capture Kiev (Kyiv) in September and capture Rostov on the Don River in November.
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This brings the war home to Germany for the first time. Over the next three years, Anglo-American bombing reduces urban Germany to rubble.
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German troops fight their way into Stalingrad (Volgograd) on the Volga River by mid-September and penetrate deep into the Caucasus after securing the Crimean Peninsula.
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This sends the Axis forces in chaotic retreat across Libya to the eastern border of Tunisia.
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The failure of the Vichy French troops to defend against the invasion enables the Allies to move swiftly to the western border of Tunisia, and triggers the German occupation of southern France on November 11.
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They break through the Hungarian and Romanian lines northwest and southwest of Stalingrad and trap the German Sixth Army in the city. Forbidden by Hitler to retreat or try to break out of the Soviet ring, the survivors of the Sixth Army surrender on January 30 and February 2, 1943.
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Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation.
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This ends the North African campaign.
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Near Kursk in the Soviet Union, the Soviets blunt the attack within a week and begin an offensive initiative of their own.
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By mid-August, the Allies control Sicily.
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This allows Italian marshall Pietro Badoglio to form a new government.
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The Germans immediately seize control of Rome and northern Italy, establishing a puppet Fascist regime under Mussolini, who is freed from imprisonment by German commandos on September 12.
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Within six weeks, Anglo-American bombers could hit targets in eastern Germany for the first time.
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This opens a "Second Front" on the Germans.
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This destroys the German Army Group Center and allows the Soviets to move westward to the Vistula River across from Warsaw in central Poland by August 1.
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This is known as the Battle of the Bulge, in an attempt to re-conquer Belgium and split the Allied forces along the German border. By January 1, 1945, the Germans are in retreat.
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Liberating Warsaw and Krakow in January, capturing Budapest after a two-month siege on February 13, driving the Germans and their Hungarian collaborators out of Hungary in early April, forcing the surrender of Slovakia with the capture of Bratislava on April 4, and capturing Vienna on April 13.
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