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German Expansion from 1937 to 1940.
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Hitler met secretly with his top military advisers. He declared that to grow and prosper Germany, they needed the land of its neighbors. (Austria and Czechoslovakia)
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Hitler began massing troops on the Czechoslovakia boarder, which was also called Sudetenland. This happened in the late summer of 1938.
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Germany announced that its anschluss, or union, with Austria was complete. The US and the rest of the world did nothing.
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Hitler invited French premier Eduard Daladier and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to meet with him and signed the Munich Agreement. This turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot. Chamberlain's satisfaction wasn't shared by Winston Churchill. Churchill viewed the agreement as a policy of appeasement - giving up principles to pacify an aggressor. Churchill said "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war."
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German troops poured into what remained of Czechoslovakia.
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Germany and Russia now committed to never attack each other.
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German Luftwaffe, or German air force roared over Poland, raining bombs on military bases, airfields, railroads and cities.
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The "sitting war" was between the French and British troops. It was on the Maginot Line. The troops sat staring into Germany, waiting for something to happen.
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German tanks raced across the Polish countryside, spreading terror and confusion. This invasion was the first test of Germany's newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lighting war.
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Hitler launched a surprise invasion of Denmark and Norway in order "to protect those countries" freedom and independence.
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The German offensive trapped almost 400,000 British and French soldiers as they fled to the beaches of Dunkirk on the French side of the English channel.
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At Compiegne, Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender. Germans would occupy the northern part of France. A Nazi-controlled puppet government would be set up in the south.
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The RAF, which was Britain's Air Force, shot down over 185 German planes; at the same time, they lost only 26 aircraft. This was in response to when the Luftwaffe began making bombing runs over Britain.
