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The Austrian Anschluss
Adolf Hitler announces an “Anschluss” (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany. -
The Munich Conference
An agreement signed by Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany that ceded the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany. The resolution was signed in an attempt to avoid war. -
Hitler Demands Danzig
Hitler was determined to overturn the military and territorial provisions of the Versailles treaty and include ethnic Germans in the Reich. In preparation for war with Poland, in the spring of 1939 Hitler demanded the annexation of the Free City of Danzig to Germany and extraterritorial rail access for Germany across the "Polish Corridor," the Polish frontier to East Prussia. -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact
two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years. With Europe on the brink of another major war, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet military. he pact also contained a secret agreement in which the Soviets and Germans agreed how they would later divide up Eastern Europe. -
The Invasion of Poland
German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun. -
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The Fall of France
German victory in Holland, Belgium and France, leading to an occupation that would last over four years and a desperate British evacuation from Dunkirk that left the UK facing invasion. -
The Evacuation of Dunkirk
the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk on the Belgian coast ends as German forces capture the beach port. The nine-day evacuation, the largest of its kind in history and an unexpected success, saved 338,000 Allied troops from capture by the Nazis. -
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The Battle of Britan
German and British air forces clashed in the skies over the United Kingdom, locked in the largest sustained bombing campaign to that date. A significant turning point of World War II, the Battle of Britain ended when Germany’s Luftwaffe failed to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force despite months of targeting Britain’s air bases, military posts and, ultimately, its civilian population.
