Transcript 16.1 Hitler*s Lightning War

Ms. Bielefeld
Spring 2012
 Stalin signed 10 year
agreement: NonAggression Pact—with
Germany saying they
wouldn’t fight
 Using a sudden mass
attack, Germany overran
much of Europe & North
Africa
 Hitler’s actions began World
War II
Hitler calls for war against Poland.
 Surprise attack on September 1, 1939
 Blitzkrieg—lighting war
 Used planes, tanks, & massive amounts of troops
 Defeated Poland in 3 weeks
 France and Britain declare war on September 3
Fast moving tanks headed for Poland
 Sept. 17, 1939-Stalin sent Soviet
troops to occupy the
Eastern half of
Poland
 Stalin then attacked
Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, and
Finland (Finland
resisted)
 After Poland fell, there was a 7 month stop in fighting
 French & British stationed troops along the Maginot
Line—system of fortifications along France’s border
with Germany
 Nothing happened & referred to as a “phony war”
 April 9, 1940—Hitler launched a surprise attack
 Denmark fell in hours
 Norway fell in two months
 Germany began to build bases along the coast to
launch strikes on Britain
British troops on the
beaches of Dunkirk
 Hitler sends tanks through the Ardennes—heavily
wooded area in Northern France, Luxm., & Belgium
 Germans squeeze between the Maginot Line & moved
across France
 June 22, 1940—France surrenders
 Rescue at Dunkirk
 Germans trapped Allied forces around the Northern
French city of Lille
 Allies retreated to the beaches of Dunkirk, French Port
 Great Britain set out to rescue the Army
 Ships crossed the English Channel & carried 338,000
soldiers to safety
British soldiers aboard ship
during mass evacuation at
Dunkirk
 Resistance in France crumbles after Dunkirk
 Germans take Paris
 French leaders surrender
 Germans take N. France & leave S. France to a
puppet government called Vichy France
 Charles de Gaulle—French general set up exile gov’t
in London & commits to taking back France
 Will battle Nazi’s until France was liberated in 1944
German troops in Paris
 Britain stood alone against the Nazis
 Winston Churchill—new Prime Minister of Britain
 Hitler wanted to destroy R.A.F.—Royal Air Force, then
land troops
 Luftwaffe—German air force, began bombing
 British fight back
 Technological advances help Britain
 Radar—could tell #, speed, & direction of Luftwaffe
 Enigma—decoded German messages
 Stunned by British resistance, Hitler calls off the
attack
 Key to this battle: Hitler could be defeated
R.A.F. pilots
 Hitler turned attention to the Mediterranean,
Balkans, and USSR
 Axis forces attack N. Africa
 Mussolini orders attack on Egypt
 Suez Canal was key to oil in Middle East
 Britain strikes back
 Hitler sends in Afrika Korps—German tank forces
led by Erwin Rommel—later called the Desert Fox
for his success
German tanks move into Greece
German tanks roll into the USSR
 Hitler was planning to attack USSR from the
Balkans
 Hitler persuaded Bulgaria, Romania, & Hungary to
join the Axis
 June 22, 1941—Germany invades the USSR
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Operation Barbarossa—plan to invade the USSR
Tried to starve out Leningrad
Winter stopped them as they pushed toward Moscow
Germans retreat
Hitler will gain nothing but 500,000 German deaths
Tank headed to the Allies
 Despite isolation, Congress passed Lend-Lease
Act
 U.S. would sell goods & weapons to our allies
 Enriched U.S. economy
 U.S. called the “Arsenal of Democracy”
 German U-boats attacked ships
 FDR & Churchill passed the Atlantic Charter
 Upheld free trade, right to choose own gov’t
 U.S. in undeclared naval war with Hitler
 Post-WWII peace plan