Transcript Norway, Dunkirk, and the Fall of France

Swastika Over Norway
Why Norway
 Germany needed bases
 Wanted coastline for submarine bases
 Needed to beat Britain to it.
Norway
 Britain had no intention of violating
Norway’s neutrality
 Hitler did not respect neutrality- “might
makes right”
Altmark Affair
 Altmark, a German ship, had taken
British prisoners.
 Altmark was in Norweigian waters when
sited by British ship, Cossack
 Hitler considered this a violation of
Norwegian neutrality
Germany Invades Norway
 The invasion came without warning
 Denmark, which was included as a
victim, fell in almost 24
 Norway did put up some resistance and
caused the Germans to suffer heavy
naval losses, which would handicap
them later
Fall of Norway
 Vidkun Quisling proclaimed himself
Prime Minister of Norway
Assault on the Low Countries
 May 10, 1940- Nazis cross neutral
borders of Belgium, the Netherlands,
and Luxumberg
 Says he is protecting them from an
invasion planned by Great Britain and
France
Change in British Government
 Chamberlain resigns as Prime Minister
of Britain
 Winston Churchill is the new Prime
Minister
 “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil,
tears, and sweat”
Change In British Government
 Churchill brought a policy of victory
 Parliament voted unanimously
Overtaking the Netherlands
 Germans mass bomb Rotterdam even
though negotiations for surrender were
under way
 After defeat came oppression
Disaster in Belgium
 Nazi swept through Belgium at the
same moment they struck Holland.
 Britain and France send troops
 Germans tanks break through the
Ardennes Forest.
 King Leopold III of Belgium surrenders
Disaster in Belgium
 German panzers push Allied forces to
the North
 Allies retreat to the one remaining port
at Dunkirk
Dunkirk
 Called Operation Dynamo
 British Royal Air Force (RAF) kept the
Luftwaffe fighting for days
 Every available English ship was used
in the evacuation
 Civilian
ships
 Yachts
 Fishing
boats
Why Dunkirk Was Successful
 German bombing of troops did little damage
 Bad weather grounded the Luftwaffe part of
the time
 Supreme effort of the RAF to win superiority
in the sky over the evacuation area
 Hitler gives order to halt his panzers short of
Dunkirk
The Debacle of France
 While men were evacuating from
Dunkirk, France was falling
 It was as though France had lost the
power to resist.
 They scattered their tanks instead of
massing them.
The Debacle of France
 One French officer who committed
suicide wrote:
 “I am killing myself, Mr. Premier, to let
you know that all my men were brave,
but one cannot send men to fight tanks
with rifles.”
Italy Enters the War
 Just when France is almost defeated,
Mussolini declares war on France and
Italy
 They
invade southern France
 French Government fled to Tours
 Charles DeGuall, a colonel, seemed to
be the only French leader that did not
have a spirit of defeat.
The Fall of France
 June 14, 1940- Germans enter Paris
and find a deserted city
 June 17th- Marshal Petain announces “It
is with heavy heart that I say we must
cease the fight.”
 June 21- Adolf Hitler arrives in
Compiegne
The Fall of France
 France was cut in two
 North
occupied by Germany
 South run by Marshall Petain with a capital
at Vichy- called the Vichy government
 Germany now looks towards England.