Transcript What are we looking at today?

We Shall Fight on the Beaches
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT TODAY?
• Battle for Britain
• Operation Sealion
• Battle of Britain
• Operation Barbarossa
FORTRESS EUROPE
…BRITAIN STANDS ALONE
BATTLE FOR BRITAIN:
BRITAIN PREPARES
• Winston Churchill delivers
his famous “Finest Hour”
speech
• France falls four days later
•Hitler assumed that England
would not continue fighting
•The British focus on
preparing the Royal Air Force
(RAF)
• Britain remains firm in her commitment to stopping Hitler
OPERATION SEALION:
GERMAN INVASION
• Codename given to the
German military plan to invade
Britain
• Surprise initiative
• Land 160,000 men on a fortyfive mile costal stretch of
south-east England
• Crossing of the English
Channel launched from
French ports
• 3 full armies including Panzer
divisions
• The only thing stopping the
Germans is...?
Royal Air Force
OPERATION SEALION:
DIRECTIVE 16
• 16 July 1940
• “Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation,
shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I
have decided to prepare a landing operation against England
and, if necessary, to carry it out. The aim of this operation will
be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the
prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to
occupy it completely.” -Adolf Hitler
• With this the Battle of Britain begins.
HERMANN GOERING
BATTLE OF BRITAIN:
AND THE WINNER SHOULD BE...
RAF- BRITISH
LUFTWAFFE- GERMAN
• Strengths:
• Strengths:
• Between 600-1000 planes
•
•
Spitfire
Hurricanes
• Familiar Territory
• Radar stations
• Weaknesses
• Lacked skilled pilots
• Between 1600-2000 planes
•
•
Messerschmitt
Stukka
• Skilled pilots
• Confidence
• Weaknesses
• Fighting in enemy territory
• Short range planes
Odds favour Luftwaffe
BATTLE OF BRITAIN:
PHASE ONE- CHANNEL BATTLES
• 10 July 1940
• Lasts one month
• German Luftwaffe focuses efforts on:
• Interrupting shipping
• Hit Ports
• Limited RAF bombings (Radar stations)
• 1 August 1940
• Directive 17
• “The attacks are to be directed primarily against flying units,
their ground installations, and their supply organizations, but
also against the aircraft industry, including that manufacturing
antiaircraft equipment.”- Adolf Hitler
BATTLE OF BRITAIN:
PHASE TWO- EAGLE ATTACK
• Objective: Destroy RAF
• Attacks on radar positions
• Precision attacks on the enemy airfield
• 13 August 1940
• Adlertag or Eagle Day
• Massive German offensive
• 1500 Luftwaffe vs. 700 RAF
• Target was radar stations in southern Britain
• 20 August 1940
• The Alderangriff (bombers) keep up attacks
• Churchill addresses the public
BATTLE OF BRITAIN:
AN ACCIDENT CHANGES A WAR
• Early Morning 25 August 1940
• A pilot gets lost on a mission and accidentally bombed central
London
• Directive 17- Luftwaffe ordered not to hit cities
• Night 25 August 1940
• Churchill orders attack on Berlin
• 80 RAF bomb Berlin
• Hit Hitler’s ego
“If the British bomb our cities, we will bury theirs”- Adolf Hitler
BATTLE OF BRITAIN:
PHASE THREE- THE BLITZ
• Standing order against civilian
targets is eliminated
•7 September 1940
• High point of battle- fierce fight
• Luftwaffe suffers huge losses
• Big push
•London is attacked day and
night
• Lasts 57 nights
London after bombing
CANADIAN WOMEN
• Jill Canucks
• Served as
firefighters
• Nurses, drivers
• Pregnancy
considered
grounds for
dismissal
BATTLE OF BRITAIN:
GERMAN RETREAT
• 17 September 1940
• The Blitz has produced little results
• Hitler postpones Operation Sealion until further notice
• Raids become smaller after this date
• 12 October 1940
• Hitler formally postpones the invasion until 1941
• Britain begins to rebuild and consolidate
Sign reads: “Dig for Victory”
BATTLE OF BRITAIN:
WHAT WENT WRONG?
• Tactics and fire power favoured Germany
•
•
•
•
Germans overestimation the damage caused
Changed their plans half way through
Luftwaffe did not replace fallen planes
Deplorable military intelligence
• German attention turns to
Soviet Union
• Luftwaffe bombed Britain
Theatre shifts eastward
until end of war
• RAF lost 1,000 planes
• Luftwaffe lost 1,900
OPERATION BARBAROSSA:
RUSSIAN INVASION
• Mein Kampf- made reference to conquering USSR
•Hitler called it Operation Barbarossa in reference to
Frederick Barbarossa
• Hitler used Lebensraum to justify attack
• German army at beginning:
“We have only to kick in the front door
• 3 million soldiers
and the whole rotten Russian edifice
• 3500 tanks
will come tumbling down.”
• 2000 planes
- Adolf Hitler
• 750,000 horses
• 22 June 1941- Operation Barbarossa begins
OPERATION BARBAROSSA:
TACTICS
•German Tactics:
•German Army wanted to push
only for MOSCOW
• Hitler changed their plan to a
three prong attack
• MOSCOW
• KIEV
• LENINGRAD
• Soviet Tactics
• Scorched Earth
• “Not a step back!”
• Winter
OPERATION BARBAROSSA:
PHASE ONE- GERMAN ADVANCE, 1941/42
• The Northern Army:
• Begin attack: Leningrad (1 Sept)
• Encircles: Leningrad (15 Sept 42)
• Ends: (27 Jan 44)
• The Centre Army:
• Take: Minsk (29 June)
• Take: Smolensk (15 July)
• Begin attack: Moscow (26 Sept)
• Lift siege: Moscow (5 Dec)
• The South Army:
• Begin attack: Kiev (11 July)
• Ends: Kiev (27 Sept)
• Advance: Stalingrad
• The three armies remain at
these positions until 1943/44
OPERATION BARBAROSSA:
SOVIET COUNTER-OFFENSIVE 1942/43
• The North Army:
• Operation Spark (1943)
• Siege at Leningrad cost
approximately 1,500,000 lives
• The Centre Army:
• Reinforcements arrive
• German army arrives at the town
in winter
• War of attrition
• The South Army
• Stalingrad: bloodiest battle
OPERATION BARBAROSSA:
STALINGRAD
• Ideologically important
• Battle begins: 23 Aug
• Fire bombing
• Fight outside city: 5 Sept
• Luftwaffe harass Soviet Army
• Soviets forced to withdraw to city
• “Not a step back”
• Three months of fighting
before encirclement occurs
• Soviet Operation Uranus
• 19-30 Nov 1942
• Trapped German army
• Pincer attack
• German Army Encircled
• 230,000 troops in city
• 2 Feb 1943
• German army surrenders
• 91,000 POW captured
OPERATION BARBAROSSA:
GERMANY AT HOME
Total War
REASONS WHY THE
GERMANS LOST