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Hitler’s Lightning War
By: Alli Adams
Amy Ayala
Madeleine Bennett
Esteban Alvarado
Setting the Stage: Around the 1930’s, Hitler seized many territories
and after seizing them he would proclaim he was finished with doing it.
Then for a while he kept his word, but things became disastrous when
he began to expand his lands again.
Germany Sparks a New War in Europe
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Germany Sparks a New War in Europe
April 28, 1939: Hitler spoke before the Reichstag
demanding that Polish Corridor and Danzig be returned to
Germany.
– Great Britain and France resisted Hitler’s threat.
August 23: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin signed a ten-year
nonaggression pact with Hitler.
– Publicly, Germany and the Soviet Union promised not to
attack each other.
– Secretly, they agreed to divide Poland between them.
 They also agreed that the USSR could take over
Finland and the Baltic countries.
Germany’s Lightning Attack on Poland
September 1, 1939: Hitler launches a surprise attack on
Poland.
– German soldiers, tanks, and aircrafts attacked Poland’s
capital, Warsaw.
– The city crumbled under the assault and unleashed the
beginning of World War II.
Germany Sparks a New War in Europe
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September 3: France and Great Britain
declared war on Germany.
– Poland had fallen three weeks
before those countries could have
made any military response.
– Germany’s invasion of Poland was
the first test of Germany’s newest
military strategy: blitzkrieg
(“lightening war”).
 Blitzkrieg involved using fastmoving airplanes and tanks,
followed by massive infantry
forces, to take the enemy by
surprise.
The Soviets Make Their Move
September 17: Stalin sends Soviet
troops to occupy the eastern half of
Poland.
November 1939: 1 million troops are
sent into Finland for a quick victory.
– But the Finland winter caught
Stalin and his troops by surprise
and by March 1940 he
surrendered.
The Battle for France and Great Britain
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The Battle For France and Great Britain:
May 1940: Hitler began a massive sweep trough Holland, Belgium,
and Luxembourg in an attempt to strike at France.
– Hitler sent a large force of tanks and troops to the Ardennes, a
heavily wooded area in Northeastern France and Luxembourg.
– German forces reached France’s northern coast in 10 days.
In France, they rejoined forces with the German troops in Belgium.
– May 26, 1940: Germans trap Allied forces in Lille, France.
 Belgium surrenders.
 Allies escape to the beaches of Dunkirk the French port
city in the English Channel; they were trapped.
 Britain sends out to rescue the army at Dunkirk with some
850 ships; including Royal Navy ships as well as civilian
boats such as yachts, paddle steamers, and lifeboats.
 From May 26 to June 4, British sailed back and forth
carrying 338,000 people to safety.
June 10, 1940: Italy’s Benito Mussolini joins forces with Hitler and
declared war on France and Britain.
– Italy attacked France from the south.
– By June 14: Paris had fallen to Germany.
Two days later, France senses defeat.
– French Parliament asks Marshal Henri Pétain to become prime
minister.
– June 22, 1940: France surrenders.
The Battle for France and Great Britain
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After France fell, French general Charles de Gaulle fled to London.
– There he set a government-in-exile devoted to reconquering France.
– June 18, 1940: Charles delivers a broadcast from England telling the
French people to resist.
 He organized the Free French military that fought the Nazis until
France’s liberation in 1944.
Britain stands alone against the Nazis.
– Winston Churchill, the British prime minister declared that they
would never give in.
– Hitler then planned on an invasion of Great Britain.
 Operation Sea Lion- Hitler’s plan to knock out the Royal Air Force
and then land 250,000 soldiers on England’s shores.
 Summer 1940: Germany’s air force, Luftwaffe, began bombing
Britain.
 September 7, 1940: Germany’s air force focused on Britain’s cities
especially London. Despite all of the Destruction, the British
continued to fight.
– The Royal Air force hit back hard.
 British had two secret weapons:
– An electronic tracking system known as radar.
– And a German code-making machine called the Enigma that
was smuggled into Britain in 1930. It allowed them to
receive secret German messages.
 October 1940: Germans give up daylight raids in favor of night
bombings.
– This Battle of Britain continued until May 10, 1941.
 Hitler decided to call off his attacks, stunned by British resistance.
 He then turned his attention to Eastern Europe and the
Mediterranean.
The Eastern Front and the Mediterranean
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Germany and Italy
– The first objective of Germany was North Africa
because of Hitler’s partner Mussolini.
– September 1940, Mussolini ordered Italy’s North
African army to move east from Libya.
– His goal was to seize British-controlled Egypt.
– Italian troops had pushed 60 miles inside Egypt,
forcing British units back.
Great Britain Strikes Back
– -In December, British decided to strike back.
– -British took 130,000 Italian prisoners.
– -Hitler stepped in to help
– -In February 1941, he sent General Erwin
Rommel to Libya.
– - His mission was to command a newly formed
tank corps, Africa Korps.
– -Rommel attacked the British at Aghelia.
– -In January 1942, British drove Rommel back.
– -Rommel regrouped and seized Tobruk.
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The Eastern Front and the Mediterranean
The War in the Balkans
– Hitler began planning to attack his ally, the USSR.
– He wanted to build bases in south eastern Europe for the attack on the Soviet
Union.
– Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary joined Axis powers in 1941.
– April 6,1941- Hitler invaded Yugoslavia and Greece.
– Yugoslavia fell and Greece surrendered.
Hitler invades the Soviet Union
– Hitler called his plan to invade the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa.
– June 22, 1941 the blitzkrieg invasion began.
– The Red army had 5 million men, but they were not well equipped or trained.
– By September 8 Germans had surrounded Leningrad and isolated the city from
tants.
– Over 1 million people died.
– The city refused to fall.
– A Nazi drive in Moscow began on October 2, 1941.
– Germans gad advanced to the outskirts of Moscow and the Soviet Union counter
attacked.
– Germans retreated because of cold weather and fuel oil froze, which made tanks
and weapons useless.
The United States Aids its Allies
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Due to War World I memories, the U.S. did not want to get
involved in the war.
– Congress passed series of Neutrality Acts from 1935-1937
 They made it illegal to sell weapons or give money to
other nations at war.
But in Sept.1939, President Roosevelt changed the law so that
Allies could buy American weapons as long as they paid cash
and carried their goods on their own ships.
Then the Lend-Lease Act was passed in March 1941 and it
allowed the president to lend or lease weapons and other war
supplies to any county that was important to the U.S.
By the summer, The U.S. was escorting ships that were
carrying supplies that came from that Lend-Lease Act.
On August 9, Roosevelt and Churchill met on a battleship off
of Newfoundland and issued the Atlantic Charter.
– It was a declaration that upheld free trade among nations
and the right of people to choose their own government.
On Sept. 4th a German U-Boat fired on a U.S. destroyer and so
Roosevelt ordered the U.S. to fight back.
– But the attack that drew the U.S. into the war did not
come from Germany, it came from Japan.
Test Questions
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What was the new German military strategy and how did it work?
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What did the nonaggression pact secretly state?
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What is the name of the French General that fled to London and set up a
government-in-exile devoted to taking back France?
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A. Winston Churchill
B. Charles de Gaulle
C. Adolf Hitler.
D. Benito Mussolini
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What was the result of the invasion of the Soviet Union?
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Name two ways in which the United States supported the Allies.