Transcript World War II - Cloudfront.net

World War II
Lightning War
The Non Aggression Pact
August 23, 1939
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Deal between Germany and the USSR
Promised not to fight each other
Divided up Poland
USSR also gets Finland and the Baltics
Sept. 1, 1939
• Germany invades Poland
• Blitzkrieg
– “Lightning War”
– All out attack led by planes and tanks,
then a massive amount of infantry
(soldiers)
• Sept. 3, 1939 Britain and France declare
war
• Poland overrun within weeks, before
others can help
• USSR takes the east, Germany the west
The Phony War
• “Sitzkrieg”
– 7 months of silence after declaration of war
– Both sides sit at the Maginot Line and wait for
the other to do something
• April 1940 Germany attacks again
• Denmark falls in four hours
• Norway two months later
1940
The Battle Begins
• (April) Germans invade Denmark and Norway
• Neville Chamberlain replaced by Winston
Churchill
• (May) Germans invade Netherlands, Belgium,
and Luxembourg to gain attention north.
• Send massive force through the Ardennes
– Forrest area of Rhineland
– Thought to be difficult to send mass numbers
– North of the Maginot Line in the south
• Combine with forces in Belgium
• Easily push back allies to the sea
Dunkirk
May 1940
Operation Dynamo
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Germany had the Allied forces surrounded
Allies use all types of boats to evacuate
Save 338,226 French and British soldiers
Miracle that becomes legend and brings
hope to the fight.
The Fall of France
• June 1940 Germany walks into Paris
• Northern France under direct German
control
• Charles DeGaulle leader of the Free
French movement against the Germans
• Vichy Government
– Puppet government in Southern France
controlled by Germany
– Henri Petain leader of the Vichy Government
Battle of Britain
(Summer of 1940 until May of 1941)
•Germany
•Britain
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RAF (Royal Air Force)
2900 planes
Well trained pilots
Enigma machine
RADAR
VS.
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Luftwaffe
Operation Sea Lion
4500 planes
Pound airstrips and
then civilians
• Plans to invade with
250,000 soldiers
North Africa
• Italy made a play for Egypt
• Britain hammered the Italians, capturing
130,000 troops
• Germany sent in Erwin Rommel “The
Desert Fox”
– Afrika Korps
– Fought with the British and Americans for the
next few years
Operation
Barbarossa
• June 1941
– Hitler backstabs Stalin and
invades the USSR
– 3 million German soldiers
• Within weeks, Germans 500
miles into USSR
• Russians use same old
“Scorched Earth Policy”
Leningrad
– Germany quickly surround the
city
– People hold out, eating
anything to survive
– One million of the 2.5 million
Russians die
– Hold out long enough for
Hitler to turn away
Moscow
• Germany get to outskirts of city
• USSR general Zhukov
counterattacks
• Germans in summertime gear
• Hitler refuses to surrender
• Germany loses 500,000 troops
Where’s America
• Americans wanted to stay out of the war
• President Roosevelt felt America must begin to
support the Allies
• Lend Lease Act (1941)
– Allowed allies to buy weapons and supplies from the
U. S.
– Loan $50 billion
• Atlantic Charter
– U. S. and Britain support free trade
– Later used to create United Nations
• September 4, 1941 Germany shoots at a
U. S. destroyer
• Roosevelt gives the order to shoot any
German sub on site.
• December 7, 1941……….