WW2

By kendrabrindley

  • Hitler threatens Jews during Reichstag speech.

    Appearing before the Nazi Reichstag (Parliament) on the sixth anniversary of his coming to power, Adolf Hitler made a speech commemorating that event and also made a public threat against the Jews

  • Nazis take Czechoslovakia.

  • Period: to

    World War 2 Timeline

  • Nazis sign 'Pact of Steel' with Italy.

    The Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, more commonly known as "The Pact of Steel"

  • Nazis and Soviets sign Pact.

    Soviet Russia' Foreign Minister Molotov signs the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact while German Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop and Soviet leader Josef Stalin

  • Britain and Poland sign a Mutual Assistance Treaty.

  • Nazis invade Poland.

    WW2 has officially started

  • Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.

  • United States proclaims its neutrality

    German troops cross the Vistula River in Poland.

  • Canada declares war on Germany

    Battle of the Atlantic begins.

  • Nazis and Soviets divide up Poland.

  • Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany.

    In October of 1939 amid the turmoil of the outbreak of war Hitler ordered widespread "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled.

  • Assassination attempt on Hitler fails.

  • Soviets attack Finland.

  • Soviet Union expelled from the League of Nations.

  • Rationing begins in Britain.

  • Finland signs a peace treaty with Soviets.

  • Nazis invade Denmark and Norway.

  • Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister.

    At this time Winston Churchill becomes prime minister

  • Evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk begins.

  • Germans bomb Paris

    British soldiers captured by the Germans at Dunkirk, France, in June 1940. The Dunkirk evacuation ends

  • Norway surrenders to the Nazis; Italy declares war on Britain and France.

  • Germans enter Paris

    June 14, 1940, beginning a four-year occupation of the 'City of Lights.'

  • Hitler and Mussolini meet in Munich

    At this time Soviets begin occupation of the Baltic States.

  • Hitler tours Paris

    One day after France signed an armistice with Germany in June 1940, Adolf Hitler celebrated the German victory over France with a tour of Paris.

  • Nazi SS-Einsatzgruppen begin mass murder.

    Four men with SS-Einsatzgruppe A execute four Jews in the vicinity of Kovno, Lithuania, as spectators watch.

  • Battle of Britain begins.

  • Hitler plans Operation Sea Lion (the invasion of Britain).

  • German Blitz against Britain begins.

    The first mass air raid on London, September 7 , 1940, showing the scene in London's dock area as Tower Bridge stands out

  • Massive German air raids on London, Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester.

  • Tripartite (Axis) Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.

  • Hitler declares war on the United States.

  • Massive air raid on London

    Saint Paul's Cathedral wreckage caused by the German fire-bombing of London. Sunday, December 29, 1940.

  • President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act.

  • Heavy German bombing of London

  • Germany attacks Soviet Union as Operation Barbarossa begins.

    German soldiers battle the Russians after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia.

  • Roosevelt and Churchill announce the Atlantic Charter.

    British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard a warship off the coast of Newfoundland during the Atlantic Conference. The conference took place from August 9-12, 1941, and resulted in the Atlantic Charter, a joint proclamation by the United States and Britain declaring that they were fighting the Axis powers to "ensure life, liberty, independence and religious freedom and to preserve the rights of man and justice."

  • Nazis order Jews to wear yellow stars.

    The policy of requiring Jews to wear the stars was also extended to occupied areas, including Jewish ghettos

  • First experimental use of gas chambers at Auschwitz.

  • Operation Typhoon begins

    At this time the Germans advance on Moscow

  • Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor

  • Hitler takes complete control of the German Army.

  • Declaration of the United Nations signed by 26 Allied nations.

  • SS Leader Heydrich holds the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

    On January 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's second in command of the SS organization, convened a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. At the meeting, 15 top Nazi bureaucrats and members of the SS met to coordinate the "Final Solution" in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the 11 million Jews of Europe and the Soviet Union.

  • Waffen-SS murder 81 U.S. POWs at Malmedy.

    The bodies of 81 American soldiers from Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, killed by Waffen-SS troops on December 17, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge near the Belgian town of Malmedy.

  • First thousand-bomber British air raid against Cologne

  • Mass murder of Jews by gassing begins at Auschwitz.

  • Nazis liquidate Lidice in reprisal for Heydrich's assassination.

    The bodies of the men and boys over age 16 of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, murdered by the Nazis on June 10, 1942, in reprisal for the assassination of SS Leader Reinhard Heydrich

  • First Battle of El Alamein.

  • First deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to concentration camps

    At this time the Treblinka extermination camp opened.

  • Battle of Stalingrad begins.

  • Operation Supercharge

    At this time, Allies break Axis lines at El Alamein

  • Operation Torch begins

    At this time, the U.S. invasion of North Africa).

  • British Foreign Secretary Eden tells the British House of Commons of mass executions of Jews by Nazis

  • Battle of the Barents Sea between German and British ships.

  • Casablanca conference between Churchill and Roosevelt.

    During the conference, Roosevelt announces the war can end only with "unconditional German surrender."

  • Battle of Kasserine Pass between the U.S. 1st Armored Division and German Panzers in North Africa.

  • Waffen-SS attacks Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto.

    n Monday, April 19, 1943, the Jewish feast of Passover, over 2000 Waffen SS soldiers under the command of SS General Jürgen Stroop attacked with tanks, artillery and flame throwers. A fierce battle erupted between the heavily armed Germans and 1200 Jews armed with smuggled in pistols, rifles, a few machine guns, grenades and Molotov cocktails.

  • British bombing raid on Hamburg.

    The attack during the last week of July 1943, Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II, killing 42,600 civilians and wounding 37,000 in Hamburg and virtually destroying most of the city

  • Mussolini re-establishes a Fascist government.

    After the Germans rescue Mussolini he bring fascism into government again.

  • Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin meet at Teheran.

    In Teheran, Iran, the first meeting of the 'Big Three.'Topics during the four-day conference included: Confirmation of the decision to invade Western Europe in the Spring of 1944; Plans for the invasion of Southern France; and a promise by Stalin to join in the war against Japan when Germany was defeated.

  • Leningrad relieved after a 900-day siege.

  • Allies bomb the monastery at Monte Cassino.

  • Soviet troops begin an offensive on the Belorussian front

    At this time, the First major daylight bombing raid on Berlin by the Allies.

  • British drop 3000 tons of bombs during an air raid on Hamburg, Germany.

  • Germans withdraw to the Adolf Hitler Line.

  • D-Day landings on the northern coast of France.

    General Eisenhower gives the order of the day "Full victory - Nothing else" to paratroopers in England just before they board airplanes in the first D-Day assault.

  • Nazis liquidate the town of Oradour-sur-Glane in France.

    They were told by the Nazi commandant they were suspected of hiding explosives and as a result there would be a search and a check of identity papers. The entire population was then locked up, the men in barns, women and children in the church. Then set the barns and the church on fire, burning the men, women and children alive, and shooting anyone who survived. A total of 642 townspeople -- 245 women, 207 children, and 190 men were massacred.

  • Battle of the Hedgerows' in Normandy

  • Anne Frank and family arrested by the Gestapo in Amsterdam, Holland.

  • Resistance uprising in Paris.

  • Liberation of Paris.

    The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) was a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944.

  • Warsaw Uprising ends as the Polish Home Army surrenders to the Germans.

  • Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes.

  • Germans withdraw from the Ardennes.

  • Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz.

  • Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin meet at Yalta.

    British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, along with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet Leader Josef Stalin, attend the conference at Yalta. February 1945.

  • Last German offensive of the war begins to defend oil fields in Hungary.

  • Allies liberate Buchenwald and Belsen concentration camps

    At this time President Roosevelt dies and Harry Truman becomes President.

  • Mussolini is captured and hanged by Italian partisans

  • Adolf Hitler commits suicide.

  • Unconditional surrender of all German forces to Allies.

    General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff in the German High Command, signs the document of unconditional German surrender at General Eisenhower's Headquarters in Reims, France, May 7, 1945.

  • V-E (Victory in Europe) Day.

    Celebration of Germans unconditional surrender

  • Hermann Göring is captured by members of the U.S. 7th Army.

  • Allies divide up Germany and Berlin and take over the government.

  • United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.

  • First U.S. atomic bomb test;

  • First atomic bomb dropped, on Hiroshima, Japan.

  • Second atomic bomb dropped, on Nagasaki, Japan.

  • Japanese agree to unconditional surrender.

  • Japanese sign the surrender agreement; V-J (Victory over Japan) Day.

  • United Nations is born.

  • Hermann Göring commits suicide two hours before his scheduled execution.