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The Austrian Anschluss
In late 1937, Hit6ler again called for the unification of all German-speaking people, including those in Austria and Czechoslovakia. He believed that Germany could expand its territory only by to force with its attendant risks. Hitler threatened to invade German-speaking Austria unless Austrisn Nazis were given important government posts. Austrias chancellor gave in to this demand, but then tried to put the matter of unification with Germany to a democratic vote. -
Hitler Demands Danzig
A month after the Munich Conference, Hitler demanded that the city of Danzig be returned to German control. Although Danzig was more than 90% German, it had been part of Poland since WWI. Hitler also requested a highway and railroad across the Polish Corridor, an area that spereated western Germany from the German state of East Prussia. Britian announced that if Poland went to war to defend its territory, Britian and France would come to its aid. Hitler ordered the Germany army to invade Poland -
The Nazi-Soviet Pact
When German officials proposed a nonaghression treaty to the Soviets, Stalin agreed. He believed the best way to protect the USSR was to turn the capitalist nations against each other. Communism adnd Nazism were supposed to be totally opposed to eachother. They did not a that the treaty also contained a secret deal to divide Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union. -
The Invasion of Poland
WWII had begun. Poland bravery resisted Germanys onslaught, but its army was outdated. The polish army rode horses and carried lances against German tanks. Germans used a new type of warfare called Blitzkrieg or Lightning War. That used a large number of massed tanks to break through and rapidly encircle enemy positions. Waves of aircraft bombed enemypositions and dropped paratroopers to cut their supply lines. -
The Munich Conference
Britian and France agreed to Hitlers demands, a policy that came to be known as appeasement (they made concessions in exchange for peace) They felt that if they gave Hitler what he wanted, they could avoid war. Czechoslovakia was told to give up the Sudetenland or fight Germany on its own.
Slovakia became independent in name but it was actually under German control and the Czech lands became a German protectorate -
The Fall of France
In contrast to the war in Poland, western Europe remained eerily quiet. The Germans reffered to this situation as the Sitzkrieg or the Sitting War. The British called it the ¨Bore War" while America called it ¨Phony War¨ French had built a line of concrete bunkers and fortifications called Maginot Line along the German border. Rather than sink troops they waited being the line for Germans to apporach. 1st it allowed Germany to concentrate on Poland before turning west. -
The Evacuation of Dunkirk
After trapping the Allied forces in Belgium, The Germans began to drive them toward the English channel The only hope for Britian was to evacuate to port Dunkirk in Northern France near the Belgium boarder. Hitler ordered them to stop.Hitler needed a 3 day delay. 850 ships headed to Dunkirk from England, many of them making 48-mile trip multiple times. The British had hoped to rescue about 45,000 troops. Evacuation ended on June 4- 338,000 troops had been saved. -
The Battle of Britain
German bombers accidentally bombed London. The attack on the civilian enraged the British. For the 1st time in war bombs fell on the German capital. Hitlers goal was to terrorize the British people to surrendering.