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Hitler used a strategy called Blitzkrieg (Lighting war) to efficiently take land from Poland. On September 17th, 1939, the Soviet Union decided to make their move on Poland to gain more territory. The Polish military fought hard, but the bombings on Warsaw and the two huge armies fighting against them was too much. On October 6th, 1939, Poland surrendered to Germany and the Soviet Union to save their people from more fighting.
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Before the Invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler of Germany and Joseph Stalin from Russia met on August 23rd, 1939 to sign a nonaggression pact with each other. In this pact, they both agreed to attack Poland and split the land together. On September 1st, 1939, Hitler marched troops into Poland to take the territory. Britain and France had a treaty with Poland to protect them so they declared war on Germany. While war was declared, the allies or the League of Nations took no action against Germany.
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During the phony war (the time after Poland was captured) both the allies and Germany had a lot of time to perfect their military strategies. Hitler's plan was similar to WW1, defeating France and then turning back to face Russia. The German-French border was protected heavily by the Maginot Line, Hitler sent a tiny part of his army into Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg as a decoy.
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Seeing the German army sitting in Belgium, the allies moved their forces up to fight them in Belgium. Hitler's real army was moving through the Ardenne forest and were going to capture the allies from both sides. After they closed in on the allies, they fled to Dunkirk where hundreds of thousands troops were saved by British boats. Hitler's army marched into Paris after an agreement with France was made, and the head of the new French government signed a armistice and a treaty with Germany.
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The radar system helped Britain defend the attacks by letting them know where German pilots were and how the battle was going. The British were able to get a complete enigma machine from the Germans to help decode some of the hidden messages. Hitler was losing, so he stopped doing dayraids and only attacked at night as he went to go deal with other problems. On May 10th, 1941, Hitler stopped all attacks on the British as they were not working and the British resistance stayed strong.
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After France fell, Hitler turned to fight Great Britain who were still in the war. Hitler still wanted the people in Britain to join him as some of them were Aryans, but the new prime minister Winston Churchill was certain that they would never surrender. In July 1940, the German air force,the Luftwaffe, started to bomb Britain. The RAF, the British air force, worked around the clock to try and shoot down the huge German air force. With the use of the radar, they were able to defend the attacks.
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In October 1940, the US was able to crack the hidden code of Japan and found out their plans for Southwest Asia. Japan wanted to raid the islands they captured to get more natural resources and to expand their sphere of influence. Even with limited information of the attack, the US was caught off guard when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 1st 1941. The damage was sizable: 19 ships (including 8 battleships), 2,300 were killed, and another 1,100 were wounded.
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While the attack did succeed, it caused the US the be very angry. They immediately declared war on Japan and its allies, while setting up General MacArthur to lead the campaign against Japan. While Japan did carry out other attacks on Hong Kong, Guam, and the Wake Islands, these attacks were not as severe or influential as the attack on Pearl Harbor was.
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The battle of Midway was short, but it started a turning point in the war for the allies. Admiral Yamamoto's plan was to attack the island of Midway to draw the US navy out into the Pacific. US Admiral Chester Nimitz was able to decode a Japanese message and was able to predict the attack. The US let Japan start the attack, but then attacked with their planes and navy shortly after. Japan suffered a defeat they would never be able to come back from: 332 planes and 4 aircraft carriers.
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After the winter started, Soviet troops from outside the city helped encircle the German army inside the city. The German general pleaded with Hitler to surrender the troops but he insisted on keeping the city. On February 2nd, 1943, 90,000 German troops surrendered to the Soviet forces. While they did defend the city, they lost many things in the city aswell as 1 million soldiers.
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Hitler's plan for Russia was to take oil in the Caucuses while also capturing Stalingrad in the process. The battle started when Hitler's air force the Luftwaffe starting nightly bombing raids on the city and the houses within. Most of the city was turned to rubble, but Stalin insisted his troops keep fighting for the city that was named after him. By early November, the Germans had captured more then 90% of the city. Stalin needed a way to turn the battle so he started a counteroffensive.
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The D-Day invasion was the first time that allied troops were able to land in France after it fell in 1940. The beach that they landed on was a 60 mile stretch of beach near Normandy. The Germans were well equipped as they dug in with machine guns, rocket launchers, and cannons near the beach. The allies took heavy casualties on the initial attack, including 2,700 American troops. While the Germans fought back harshly, the allies still kept the beaches. This helped the allies take European land.
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The allied forces were moving in on the West while the Soviet Union was moving in on the east. Hitler had to choose an army to attack so he turned West to face the allies. He had one last plan to try and stop the attack: Break through the allied lines and break through their supply lines. This was the battle that decided if Hitler would keep fighting in the war, or if the war was already lost. He even quoted himself "“This battle is to decide whether we shall live or die"
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The German forces quickly defeated the American armies around the Ardennes and kept moving forward. While Hitler had caught the allies off guard, they quickly struck back pushing the Germans back to Germany. Hitler's forces had to retreat due to lack of reinforcements and no support. This was Hitler's last attempt, and it failed.
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The war with Japan was not coming to an end easily. The allies held the islands near Japan with fierce wins, but they feared what would happen if they sent troops to the mainland. President Truman advised General MacArthur to not approach the mainland as it could cost many American lives. President Truman and the army decided to test out the new atomic bomb that was created. 2 bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and around 150,000 were lost. The emperor had no choice but to surrender.