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Hitler
On this day Hitler became president of Germany, which gave him control of the army. Hitler fought in WWI and was angry at the old German government leaders for accepting the treaty of versailles. He then wanted to get revenge on the allied forces since they beat Germany in the war. He also blamed most of the worlds problems on the Jews so he wanted to eradicate them and create the perfect Arian race. -
Anschluss
On this day, Adolf Hitler announces an "Anschluss" (union) between Germany and Austria, in fact annexing the smaller nation into a greater Germany. Annexing Austria into Germany made Germany even more powerful and made Hitler able to place troops into Austria which made the army bigger. -
Munich Conference
On 29 September 1938 the Munich Conference was called. Here Hitler met with representatives of the heads of state from France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. An agreement was reached that Hitler could annex the Sudetenland provided he promised not to invade anywhere else. All four countries signed the agreement: Adolf Hitler (Germany), Neville Chamberlain (UK), Edouard Daladier (France), and Benito Mussolini (Italy). -
German occupation of Czechoslovakia
Following the Anschluss of Nazi Germany and Austria, in March 1938, the conquest of Czechoslovakia became Hitler's next ambition. The incorporation of the Sudetenland into Nazi Germany left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak and it became powerless to resist subsequent occupation. On 16 March 1939, the German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia and, from Prague Castle, Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. -
Danzig
A month after the Munich Conference, Hitler demanded that the city of Danzig be returned to German control. Hitler's new demands convinced Britain and France that war was inevitable. On March 31, 1939, Britian announced that if Poland went to war to defend its territory, Britain and France would come to its aid. This encouraged Poland to refuse Hitler's demands. -
Nazi-Soviet Pact
When German Officials proposed a non aggression treaty to the soviets, Stalin agreed. He believed if the treaty worked Germany would go to war against Britain and France and the USSR would be safe. -
Poland, Britain, France Sept 1, 1939
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. Since Britain and France promised to help Poland, Germany was now at war with Britain and France. -
Blitzkrieg
The German Army assaulted Polan with a new type of warfare called blitzkrieg, or "lightning war." Blitzkrieg used large numbers of massed tanks to break through and rapidly encircle enemy positions. To support the tanks, waves of aircraft bombed enemy positions and dropped paratroopers to cut their supply lines. -
Phony War
The British had sent troops to France, and both countries remained on the defensive waiting for the Germans to attack. After WWI, the French had created the Maginot Line which was a line of concrete bunkers on the boarder of Germany and France. Sitting in defensive positions was a bad idea for France because Germany just focused on taking over Poland and then they went to France. The Maginot Line was also ineffective because the Germans just went around it, -
Poland Falls to Germany
The Polish army could not repel the German attacks. Warsaw, the Polish capital, fell to the Germans on September 27th. By October 5th, 1939, the Germans had defeated the Polish Army -
German invasion of France
On this day the German Invasion of France occured. This invasion was fairly successful for the Germans. In the invasion the Germans successfully defeated primarily French forces, flanked around the Maginot line, and took Paris. -
Evacuation of Dunkirk
The evacuation of Dunkirk is the evacuation of allied soldiers from the harbour of Dunkirk. Since the Germans were pushing the allies so far back almost into the sea an evacuation was called. After nine days there was a total of 338,226 successfully evacuated soldiers. -
Fall of France
On 22 June, an armistice was signed between France and Germany, which resulted in a division of France whereby Germany would occupy the north and west (and also keep nearly two million French soldiers as prisoners in Germany), Italy would control a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast, and an unoccupied zone, the zone libre, would be governed by the newly formed Vichy government led by Marshal Pétain. -
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date. From July 1940, coastal shipping convoys and shipping centres, such as Portsmouth, were the main targets; one month later the Luftwaffe shifted its attacks to RAF airfields and infrastructure. However Germany failed at successfully destroying Britain's airforce. This was considered Germany's first great defeat.
