War in Europe

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War in Europe
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Germanys Lightning Attack

• New military strategy
• Blitzkrieg - lightning war
• fast moving planes and tanks
• Massive infantry forces
• Poland falls quickly
• Germany annexes western half

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Soviets move in

• Sept 17
• Stalin enters Eastern half of Poland
• Annexes Estonia, Lithuania, latvia
• Finland resists
• Winter battles
• March 1940 sheer force of numbers
• Finland surrenders

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Phony war

• French and British mobilize along Maginot line

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Maginot Line
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Phony War cont.

• April 9, 1940
• sitting war ends
• Hitler attacks Denmark and Norway
• Denmark falls in 4 hours
• Norway surrenders in 2 months
• Build bases to attack Britain

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Fall of France

• May 1940
• Germans sweep through
• Netherlands (Holland)
• Belgium
• Luxembourg

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• Germany attacks France through Ardennes forest
• Avoided Maginot line
• Pushed allied troops to port city of Dunkirk
• Germans stopped
• Why?

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Rescue at Dunkirk

• Great Britain sends fleet of ships to evacuate
  allied forces
• Every ship available
• Air support
• May 26 june 4
• Saved 338,000 soldiers

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France Falls

• June 14 Germans take Paris
• June 22, 1940 French leaders surrender
• Germans take control of Northern France
• Vichy government puppet
• Charles de Gaulle
• Sets up Free French army govt in London

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Battle of Britain

• Winston Churchill
• We shall never surrender
• Hitlers plan
• Knock out Royal air force
• Land 250,000 soldiers

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B. Of Br. Cont.

• Summer 1940
• Luftwaffe begins bombing British airfields and
  aircraft factories
• Sept 7 begin bombing London
• Break morale
• British never waver

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B. Of Br. Cont.

• RAf fights back
• Radar
• Enigma code breaking machine
• Germans turned to night bombings
• Continued to May 10, 1941
• Hitler decides to concentrate on Mediterranean
  and Middle east
• Nazis could be blocked

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Mediterranean

• Focus on Northern Africa
• Mussolini vs. British in Egypt
• Feb 1941, Br. Swept across N. Africa
• Taken 130,000 Italian prisoners
• Afrikan Corps
• Erwin Rommel Desert fox
• Defeats British

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Balkans

• Hitler plans to invade soviet union
• Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary join Axis powers (41)
• Yugoslavia, Greece resist
• April 1941 Hitler invades both
• Both fall within 3 weeks

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Soviet union

• Operation Barbarossa
• June 22, 1941 Hitler invades USSR
• Soviets not prepared
• Scorched earth
• Sept 8 reach Leningrad

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Leningrad

• By Nov. City cut off from rest of soviet union
• Hitler to starve entire city
• City refuses to fall
• 1,000,000 died

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Moscow

• Hitler impatient
• Turns to moscow
• Counterattacked by Soviets
• Hitler orders No retreat
• Lines dug in 125 miles west of moscow
• 1 ½ years

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Back to Africa

• British and Montgomery
• Americans and Eisenhower
• Operation Torch
• Catch rommels Afrikan Corps in between
• Defeated may 1943

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Battle of Stalingrad

• Aug 23, 1942
• Luftwaffe night bombings
• Stalin refused to surrender
• Germans controlled 90 of city
• Winter sets in
• Soviets outside city counterattack
• Feb 2, 1943
• Germans surrendered

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Italy

• Allied forces invade Sicily
• July 25 King Victor Emmanuel III orders Mussolini
  arrested
• Sept 3 Italy surrenders
• April 27, 1945
• Mussolini captured while trying to escape
• Shot and hung body in town square

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Victory in Europe

• Operation overlord
• Invasion of France
• Eisenhower commander
• Set-up dummy army to look like invasion at Calais
• Hitler convinced

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D-Day

• June 6, 1944
• Landed at Normandy
• Stormed fortified beaches
• 2700 Americans dies one day
• Held beaches
• 1,000,000 additional troops landed
• Led by Gen. George Patton allies reach paris in
  month

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Battle of the Bulge

• Finally German offensive
• Surprise attack at center of Allied lines Dec
  16, 1944
• Engulfed by allied army
• Forced to surrender

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Surrender

• Soviets surround Berlin
• Allies moving in from west
• April 30 Hitler commits suicide
• May 7, 1945
• Eisenhower accepts unconditional surrender
• V-E Day
• May 9, 1945