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Austria and Czechoslovakia Fall
-Hitler secretly met with top military advisors.
-Made plans to forcefully add Austria and Czechoslovakia.
-"'The German Question' can be solved only by means of force, and this is never without risk." -
Union with Austria
-German troops invade Austira, their first target.
-Paris Peace Conference: created the relatively small nation of Austria.
-The majority of the six million people were Germans who favored unification with Austria. -
Bargaining for Sudetenland
-The Munich Agreement was signed.
-Germany took Sudetenland.
-France and Britain promised to protect Czechoslavakia.
-Edouard Daladier(France) and Neville Chamberlain(Britain) wanted to avoid war.
-Hitler claimed this was his "last territorial demand".
-Appeasement- giving up princuples to pacify an aggressor. -
The German Offensive Begins
-German troops poured into the rest of Czechoslovakia.
-Winston Churchill had warned Daladier and Chamberlain of this.
-"Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist." -Hitler -
The Soviet Union Declares Neutrality
-Stalin signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler.
-Germany and Russia would never attack each other.
-Also signed a secret pact to divide Poland between them. -
Blietzkrieg in Poland
-The German Luftwafte (air force) dropped bombs over Poland.
-German tanks raced across the counrtyside.
-The newest military- blitzkrieg, is a lightning war to take enemy by surprise. -
Blitzkrieg in Poland Result
-Britain and Frace declared war on Germany.
-Major fighting was over in three weeks, before the allies could mount a defense.
-The portion of Poland annexed by Germany contained two-thirds of the population.
-Poland ceased to exist by the end of the month. -
The Phony War
-Hitler launched a surprise invasion on Denmark and Norway.
-Said he did this "to protect (those countries') freedom and independence."
-Actually planned to build bases along their coasts to strike at Great Britain. -
The Fall of France
-Germany invaded France from the south as Germans also cosed in on Paris from the north.
-Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender.
-Germans took the northern part of France.
-Charles de Gaulle fled to England to set up a government-in-exile. "France has lost a battle, but France has not lost a war." -
The Battle of Britain
-RAF (Britain's Royal Air Force) shot down over 185 German planes.
-Hitler called off the invasion of Britain.
-German bombers continued to pound Britain's cities.
-British pilots did the same.
-Civilians unrelentingly carried on.
