Transcript The Years of Axis Triumph Section 21.106 Nazi Europe, 1939-1940

The Years
of Axis
Triumph
Section
21.106
Nazi Europe, 1939-1940: Poland and the Fall
of France
Nazi Europe, 1939-1940: Poland and the Fall
of France
Germans
• 1 million German soldiers invaded Poland on 9/1/1939
• Blitzkrieg (lightning war)
– Utilized rapidly moving armored divisions, infantry, and a
massive air assault (Luftwaffe)
• Quickly overran Polish forces
Soviets
• Soviet Union invaded from east on 9/17 (secret agreement)
• Established fortified bases in Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lith)
• Attacked Finland (11/39)
• Fins were supplied by GB and French
• Soviets expelled from League of Nations
• USSR won by March 1940
The Phony War
The Phony War
• Deceptively quiet in the West
• French felt protected by the Maginot
Line
• Germans did not cross the Siegfried
Line (West Wall) of the Rhineland
• Little military action took place
• West rejected Hitler peace overtures
but kept their peacetime outlook
• Still hoped that conflict could be
averted
• German forces trained throughout
bitter winter for the spring
Spring of 1940
• 4/9 German attacked/overran Norway and
Denmark (under pretext that GB was
blocking iron flow from Sweden)
• Invaded Low Countries (Netherlands,
Belgium, Luxembourg (5/10)
• British Expeditionary Force and French
forces gathered at Belgian border
• Hitler bypassed Maginot Line and invaded
France via Luxembourg and the Ardennes
• Raced to channel ports to cut off retreating
armies
• German army captured large section of
French army
• BEF cut off at Dunkirk in Belgium
• Miracle of Dunkirk
• 330 thousand BEF evacuated with motley of
The Fall of France
• Occupied Paris 6/13/40
– Given without a fight
• France surrendered on June 22, 1940
• French mindset geared for defensive war
• Caught totally off guard by Blitzkrieg
• Mussolini invaded (June, 1940)
• Also attacked Greece and N. Africa (Brits)
• Divided population were led by defeatist
leaders
• Fall shocked the world (fell in 1 month)
• Free France movement under General
Charles de Gaulle fled to GB
• British forced to scuttle French fleet in
Algerian harbor of Oran rather than allow
it to fall to Germans
Vichy France
Vichy France
• Northern 2/3rd occupied by Germany
• 3rd Republic now held capital in Vichy
• Stunned parliament voted for an
authoritarian regime headed by Marshal
Petain and Pierre Laval
• Republic is dead!
• Slogan “liberty, equality, and fraternity”
were officially banned
• French fascists and the new leaders
claimed that they were trying to protect
France from more suffering
Vichy France
• Collaborated with the
Nazis
• Sent hundreds of
thousands of French
workers as slave
laborers to Germany
• Identified and deported
thousands of French
Jews to death camps
• Some collaborated, a
few joined
Underground
Resistance
• Most of population
tried to go on with dayto-day life
Festung Europa
Festung Europa
• Does history repeat?
• Germans controlled almost same territory as
Napoleon
• Created a new “continental system” to govern,
exploit and coordinate resources, industry and
labor
• Impressed millions, prisoners of war and
civilians as slave labor
• Festung Europa (Fortress Europe)
• Soldiers were garrisoned throughout Europe
• Found sympathizers, collaborators or quislings
• Vidkun Quisling was organizer of Norwegian
Fascist party in 1933 and premier from 1942-45
• ½ million non-Germans fought in Waffen SS
• AND only foe was Great Britain!!!!!!!!
The Battle of Britain and American Aid
• Brits anticipated an invasion after Dunkirk
• Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM in
May 1940
• Promised people nothing but “blood, toil,
tears, and sweat” and war against “a
monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the
dark, lamentable catalogue of human
crime.”
• Asked US for the “tools” to finish the job
• US was officially neutral
• Isolationist opposed any involvement
– Charles Lindberg and the America First
Committee
• Interventionists wanted to provide aid to
Allies
– FDR
The Great Arsenal of Democracy
• FDR called GB “spearhead of
resistance to world democracy
• US would supply the Brits as the
“arsenal of democracy”
• Fights for Four Freedoms:
• Speech, worship, from want, from fear
• Began to supply GB soon after Dunkirk
• 50 overage destroyers in return for
bases in Newfoundland, Bermudas,
Caribbean
• Lend-Lease
• Policy of providing arms, raw
materials, food to Allies
• Introduced conscription
• Created hemispheric defense with
Latin American nations
Air war over Britain: The Blitz
• Germany rapid success was too fast for them to
devise a plan for invasion of GB
• Hoped GB might become an ally
• Began pre-invasion air war in summer of ’40
• The Blitz
• Reached climax in fall of ’40
• Bombed London for over 76 consecutive nights
• RAF
– used radar to detect approaching bombers
– Were highly skilled
– Combined P51 with Rolls Royce engine
• Ultra (British intelligence + Polish exiles) broke the
code of German encoding device (Enigma Machine)
• Coventry was wiped out
• 20 thousand killed in London alone
• Yet war capacity and morale remained strong
• Hitler began to plan for invasion of USSR in ‘41
The Blitz
The Nazi Invasion of Russia: The Russian
Front, 1941-42
• Nazi-Soviet Pact (1929) similar to
Napoleon-Alexander I
• Both were biding their time
• Soviets quietly sovietized 3 Baltic states into
USSR
• Baltic barons were returned to Germany
• Took Bessarabian province of Romania
• Hoped to win control of the Balkans and
Eastern Europe
• 1941 Hitler ‘convinced’ Romania, Bulgaria,
Hungary to join Axis powers (German
troops stationed there)
• Yugo and Greece also occupied
• Hitler desire the wheat fields of Ukraine,
the oil fields of Caucasus
Barbarossa 6/7/1941
The Nazi Invasion of Russia
• Operation Barbarosa began 6/22/1941
• Stalin (although warned) was completely caught off
guard
• 3 million German forces went along 2 thousand mile
front
• By autumn Germans controlled Ukraine and
Byelorussia and laid siege to Leningrad
• Took Crimea and laid siege to Sebastopol
• Were within 25 miles of Russia
• But were not prepared for early and bitter winter
• Resistance stiffened to save Mother Russia
• Counteroffensive of Red Army in winter saved
Moscow
• Hitler took control and pushed for attack in south
towards oil fields
• Laid siege to Stalingrad
• Albert Speer organized German economy for what
would now be a long war and tripled armaments
production
1942, The Year of Dismay: Russia, North
Africa, the Pacific
• Germans were within 100
miles of Caspian Sea
• Russians shifted industry
east of Urals
• Followed a “scorched earth”
policy
• Destroyed crops and
livestock
• Guerilla units destroyed
industrial and transportation
facilities
The Desert Campaigns
• Beginning in Sept 1940 under
Italian offensive from Libya
to Egypt seeking control of
Suez
• Outnumbered the Brits
ousted the Italians by early
41 and took Ethiopia from
Mussolini
• German Afrika Corps under
Rommel attacked and drove
Brits back to Egypt
• El Alamein British held the
German advance
Japan and the Pacific
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Had been at war with China since ‘31
Joined Axis in 1940
Signed neutrality treaty with Soviets in ’41
Took French possession in Indochina
US cut trade of vital war making material
in effort to halt Japanese advance
General Hideki Tojo, new Japanese prime
minister publicy stated that Japan would
eliminate US and GB influence in Asia
Sent representatives to Washington as he
launched attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/41)
2, 500 US forces killed
Fleet crippled
Attacked Philippines, Guam, Midway,
Hong Kong, Malaya
US and GB declared war on Japan 12/8
The Year of Dismay
• Japan took Singapore (supposedly
impregnable)
• Sunk battleship Prince of Wales
(supposedly unsinkable)
• Threatened invasion of Australia
and attacked Aleutians
• Seemed poised to invade India
• Under banner of anti imperialism
they formed Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere and found ready
cooperators
• George Marshall noted “how close
to complete domination of the
world” were Germany and Japan