Chapter 16Section 2

War in Europe

HITLER BEGINS HIS MARCH TO WORLD CONQUEST LEADING TO WWII

• 1935: Reintroduced conscription of men into the armed forces.

• 1935: declares Germany will rearm • 1936: marched 22,000 troops into the

Rhineland• March 1938: – Takes over Austria

• Sept 1938: demands and is given strategic Czechoslovakian Sudetenland

*meets with French premier, Edouard Dladier and British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain to declare that the Sudetenland was the last of his territorial demand• Winston Churchill said they had adopted the

policy of appeasement (giving up principles to pacify an aggressor)

• March 1939: Hitler takes the rest of Czechoslovakia

The rest of the world does nothing

REACTIONS OF GERMANS LIVING IN THE SUDETENLAND TO HITLER’S TAKEOVER

The German Offensive Begins

• Nonaggression pact: Hitler and Stalin on August 23, 1939 commit never to attack each other and agreed to divide Poland between the two countries

• Hitler invades Poland on September 1, 1939• Stalin invades Poland on September 17, 1939

Blitzkrieg

• German air force, Luftwaffe, rain bombs down on Poland

• German tanks race across Polish countryside• Blitzkrieg – Germany’s military strategy– Lightning war designed to take enemy by surprise– Fighting over in three weeks in Poland

September 3, 1939: Great Britain and

France declare war on Germany

The Phony War• Maginot Line – system of underground

fortifications along France’s eastern border• After fall of Poland, for the next several months French and German

soldiers sit and wait for something to happen

• April 9, 1940, Hitler invades – Denmark and Norway, then the – Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg

France Falls

• June 22, 1940: France surrenders to Germany– French General Charles de Gaulle flees to England

– Battle of Britain: Germany launches air war over Britain against Royal Air Force• Raged through summer and fall of 1940

*RADAR invented and could track German planes even in the dark

*September 15, 1940 - RAF shot down over 185 German planes. RAF lost 22

*Hitler calls off invasion

THE LONDON BLITZ: GERMANS TURN THEIR BOMBERS AGAINST LONDON AND OTHER BRITISH CITIES

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/londons-biggest-blitz