Notes 6: The Beginning of World War II in

Europe

Modern U.S. History

Unit 2-3 - WWII

April 23, 2010

The Fall of Poland• On September 1, 1939, Germany burst into

Poland with Hitler’s newest military strategy – the blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg means lightening war - it used fast tanks and more powerful aircraft to take the enemy by surprise and quickly crush all opposition. During the attack on Poland, Germany used newly developed tanks to race across the Polish countryside. The German air force, the Luftwaffe, dropped bombs on Polish military bases, railroads, and cities.

German Army’s Victory Parade through Warsaw

The Fall of Poland

• Major fighting in Poland was over in 3 weeks with a German victory. Even though Germany controlled Poland, Poland never surrendered, and many Poles contributed to the war effort on the Allied side – both with soldiers and through intelligence. Just two days after the German invasion, England and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939 – World War II had begun.

The Invasion of Poland - Map

The Fall of Poland

• France and England scrambled to organize their forces. They sat on the Maginot Line waiting for Germany’s attack. The Maginot Line was a line of defense that France built after WWI to protect themselves against future invasion by Germany. Germany was busy occupying Denmark and Norway while England and France waited on the Maginot Line from September 1939-May 1940. This time of waiting for Germany to invade was called the “Phony War.”

The Maginot Line

• Anti tank poles and a machine gun bunker on the Maginot Line

The Fall of France and the Dunkirk Evacuation

• The Phony War ended on May 10, 1940 when Hitler went around the Maginot Line and invaded France through Belgium, again. France had not guarded this area because they thought the German tanks could not get through the Ardennes Forest – wrong! The Germans quickly swept through France and the Italians began to invade southern France.

The Fall of France and the Dunkirk Evacuation

• Hundreds of thousands of British and French troops were forced to flee and retreated to the beaches of Dunkirk on the French side of the English Channel. The German troops hesitated on their attack of the fleeing Allied forces. As word of the endangered troops reached England, more than 800 vessels left England to help the escaping troops – ferries, tugboats, private ships, even fishing trawlers moved 330,000 English, French, and Belgian troops across the English Channel.

The Fall of France and The Dunkirk Evacuation

• Many of these troops would return to the continent to beat back the Germans in 1944. This was one of the many opportunities that Hitler had to win the war, but didn’t.

Dunkirk EvacuatedJune 4, 1940

The Dunkirk Evacuation• News Report on Dunkirk (2nd Audio Link )

The Fall of France and the Dunkirk Evacuation

• Germany had control of France by the end of June 1940. Germany directly occupied the northern part of France and installed a Nazi controlled puppet government in the southern part of France, which would be called Vichy France.

France Surrenders - June, 1940

Vichy France

The Fall of France and the Dunkirk Evacuation

• A French general named Charles de Gaulle fled to England and would lead the French resistance forces from there until the Allies returned to France. The battle known as the Fall of France caused 155,000 German casualties and 360,000 Allied casualties. Almost 2 million Allied troops were captured by the Axis powers.

The Free The Free FrenchFrench

General Charles General Charles DeGaulleDeGaulle

The MaquisThe Maquis

The French Resistance

Animated Map of the Fall of France

• Fall of France

The Major Players of World War II

Allies

• England

• France

• USSR (June 1941)

• USA (Dec 1941)

Axis• Germany• Italy• Japan

The Major Players of World War II

* Dark Green: Allies before the attack on Pearl Harbor, including colonies and occupied countries. * Light Green: Allied countries that entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.* Orange: Axis Powers* Gray: Neutral countries during WWII

o Dark green dots represent countries that initially were neutral but during the war were annexed by the USSRo Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies o Orange dots represent countries that after being conquered by the Axis Powers, became puppets of those (Vichy France and several French colonies, Croatia)

The Battle of Britain• By the summer of 1940, the Germans were

assembling an invasion force along the French coast. Germany’s naval power could not compete with that of England’s, and therefore Germany could not attempt an invasion of England right away. Instead, Germany sent the Luftwaffe to make bombing runs over England. The goal of this attack was to reduce England’s Royal Air Force (RAF).

Germany’s Junker dive bombers over England

The Battle of Britain

• The intense bombing of England raged for months. At first Germany attacked airfields and aircraft, but then they started to bomb cities like London. This terror bombing of British cities is known as “The Blitz.” Many children were evacuated to the countryside and people hid in bomb shelters during this time period.

The London “Tube”:Air Raid Shelters during the Blitz

The Blitz

• A building collapses during the Blitz on London (L)• St. Paul’s Cathedral in London during the Blitz (R)

The Battle of Britain• The RAF used the new technology of radar to

locate and shoot down German planes. The RAF also had two planes, the Hurricane and the Spitfire, that were superior to most of Germany’s planes.

• Germany’s lack of success in the Battle of Britain caused Hitler to call off the invasion of England in late 1940, but the Luftwaffe continued to bomb England through the war. Even though England had over 23,000 civilian deaths and over 30,000 civilians wounded in the Battle of Britain, the RAF’s victory over the Luftwaffe was a huge morale boost.

Battle of Britain Map

Planes of the Battle of Britain

• The Heinkel HE III over London and The RAF Spitfire

The Eastern Front, Africa, and Italy

Operation Barbarossa

• Even though Hitler had signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin, he always felt that it was Germany’s destiny to move east and conquer Soviet territory. While many of his advisors suggested to Hitler that it would be wise to wait until after Germany had a greater victory over England in the Battle of Britain, Hitler felt that the fall of the Soviet Union would quickly force England to surrender.

Operation Barbarossa

• In June of 1941, Hitler began Operation Barbarossa – the German invasion of the Soviet Union. This event brought the Soviet Union into the war on the Allied side. Hitler had expected that Operation Barbarossa would be another rapid, blitzkrieg attack. Instead, the Soviets retreated as the Germans advanced and the Germans found themselves hundreds of miles into Soviet territory when winter set in.

Operation Barbarossa

Soviet Troops in Winter

Germany’s Advances Jun-Dec 1941

The Battle of Stalingrad• After waiting out the winter

of 1941, the Germans moved their focus South to the city of Stalingrad. Hitler wanted to attack this region to capture Soviet oil fields nearby and to wipe out the industrial center that was the city of Stalingrad.

Germany’s Advances May-Nov 1942

The Battle of Stalingrad

• The Soviets used the arrival of this winter to surround Stalingrad and trap the German army inside without supplies. Even in the face of this hopeless situation, Hitler ordered that his army should, “Stay and fight! I won’t go back from the Volga.” The German troops just waited in the freezing conditions. Finally the German commander surrendered on January 31, 1943 and his troops surrendered two days later.

The Battle of Stalingrad

The Battle of Stalingrad• The Battle of Stalingrad was

probably the bloodiest battle in human history. Both sides totaled over 1.5 million casualties in this one battle. Even though this was a terrible loss of life for the Soviet Union, this marked the turning point on the Eastern Front. After the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet forces began to move west towards Germany.

By the End of 1944, the Soviet Border had been Restored

“Europe First”• Once the United States entered the war in

December of 1941, the Prime Minister of England, Winston Churchill, and the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, met to plan out their joint strategy. Churchill felt that Hitler was a greater threat than Japan and promised that once the Allies had gained the upper hand in Europe, they would assist America in fighting the Japanese in the Pacific.

The Battle of the Atlantic

• Germany tried to stop the U.S. from shipping food and war materials to Great Britain and the Soviet Union. To do this, the Germans attacked American ships in the Atlantic with German U-Boats. In the first four months of 1942, the Germans sank 87 ships off of the Atlantic coast. By the end of July, German wolf packs had destroyed a total of 681 Allied ships in the Atlantic.

The Battle of the Atlantic• To stop this attack, the Allies organized their

cargo ships into convoys. Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection. The convoys traveled with destroyers that were equipped with sonar to discover underwater submarines and airplanes that used radar to spot U-Boats on the ocean’s surface. With these new detection devices, the Allies were able to find and destroy German U-Boats faster than Germany could build them.

America Enters the War – Operation Torch

• While being attacked by the Germans, Stalin asked England and America to begin a second front in Western Europe to take some pressure off of the Soviet Union. Churchill and Roosevelt did not feel that they were ready to invade France yet so they decided to invade Axis-controlled North Africa instead.

America Enters the War – Operation Torch

• An American general named Dwight D. Eisenhower led the attack on North Africa, which was known as Operation Torch. In November 1942, over 100,000 Allied troops, mostly American, landed in North Africa.

• From there they fought against Germany’s Afrika Korps which was being led by General Erwin Rommel, “The Desert Fox.”

Animated Map of Operation Torch

• These American forces helped the English, who were already fighting the Afrika Korps. Fighting ended in May 1943 when the some of the Afrika Korps escaped to Italy and the rest surrendered.

• BBC Map of Operation Torch

2-3 Movie Clip 6 Operation Torch

13 min

Operation Husky and Italy

• The next logical move for the Allies was to pursue the Axis forces into Italy – this was known as Operation Husky. At first it seemed that the Allies would easily win this operation after swift victories in Sicily. After these great losses by the Italian army, the King of Italy required Mussolini to resign and had him arrested.

Operation Husky and Italy

• Many Italians were excited that the war was over for them, but the German forces were determined to hold their position in Italy instead of letting the Allied forces reach Germany. The rest of the fighting in Italy was slow and often deadly.

Ruins at Monte Cassino

Operation Husky and Italy

• Just 40 miles outside of Rome, the Allies fought one of their most difficult battles – “Bloody Anzio” during the Spring of 1944. This four-month battle caused 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. The rest of the fighting in Italy was difficult and the Allies did not occupy all of Italy until 1945 towards the end of the war.

Allies Liberate Rome June 4, 1944

Animated Map of the Italian Invasion

• BBC Map of Operation Husky