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After the rising to power of the National Socialist Workers Party, Adolf Hitler the group's leader was elected chancellor of Germany. Immediately he eliminated the republic and formed the Third Reich, a dictatorship controlled by Hitler and his party.
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Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp, opened by Heinrich Himmler. Its original purpose was to hold political prisoners, but soon came to become an extermination camp for Jews.
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A referendum merged the positions of chancellor and president passed. So directly following Hindenburg's death(the president of Germany) Hitler assumed all powers of the government.
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Hitler ordered the marching of 3,000 troops into the Rhineland. A violation of the Versailles Treaty.
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A coalition formed in 1936 between Italy and Germany. It informally created a military alliance between them.
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Hitler made clear to his military advisers his intent to absorb Austria and Czechoslovakia. He states that military means are the only solution.
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Most of Austria population were Germans who supported reunification with Germany. Thus German troops marched on Austria without opposition. There was no response from any world powers.
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In Czechoslovakia lived three million Germans. Hitler wished to take control of the nation's resources and to increase the available land for the German people. Claiming that the Czechoslovakian government was discriminating and harming the Sudeten Germans, the gathering of the German military on the country's border began. French Minister Edouard Daladier and English Minister Neville Chamberlain signed with him the Munich agreement transfiguring the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia to Germany.
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As Churchill had warned appeasing Hitler with the Sudetenland did not satisfy his desire for expansion. Hitler ordered the invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Wehrmacht encountered very little resistance as after Germany's absorption of the Sudetenland the country was left weak.
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A neutrality pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR. It allows secretly allowed for Germany's invasion of Poland without Russian intervention.
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Germany tested a new style of warfare in the invasion of Poland, the blitzkrieg. It is characterized by taking the enemy by surprise and quickly destroying them with overwhelming force. Under secret terms of the Nazi- USSR pact, the USSR invaded Poland on September 17, taking the eastern half of the country. Two days after the invasion France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II. Within a month major fighting had ended.
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Hitler surprise attacked Denmark and Norway. He wished to construct naval bases here to support the attack of Britain. Following the success in Denmark and Norway, the German army invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands
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The German army rapidly conquered France after bypassing and surprising the French forces by crossing through Belgium over the Ardene mountain range. A weak and poorly organized French military failed to put up much defense against Germany's blitzkrieg. Six weeks after the beginning of the invasion the French government had fallen with all of the country's land under Axis control. Germany occupied of the country specifically along the Atlantic coasts while Vichy France constituted the rest.
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In August and September of 1940, German air forces made huge efforts to bomb the United Kingdom into capitulation. The Battle of Britain ended when Germany’s Luftwaffe or air force failed to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force
