32.1 - Hitler's Lightning War

Blitzkrieg

• “Lightning war”

• Fast-moving airplanes and tanks, followed by massive infantry forces, to take enemy defenders by surprise and quickly overwhelm them

• Example: Poland

The Phony War

• France and Britain declared war on Germany after the attack on Poland, and they stationed their troops on France’s border with Germany

• The two sides didn’t fight

• Then, in 1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion of Denmark and Norway, gaining this territory to have a place to launch strikes on Great Britain

Dunkirk

• The Germans moved through the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, preparing to strike France

• Germany trapped the Allied forces around the northern French city of Lille

• The Allies retreated to the beaches of Dunkirk and were trapped against the sea

• From Great Britain, British Navy ships and civilian boats rescued soldiers from Dunkirk, under heavy fire from the Germans, and brought them to safety in Britain

The Fall of France & Charles de Gaulle

• After Dunkirk, resistance in France crumbled, and French leaders surrendered to Germany

• The Germans took control of northern France and left the southern part to a puppet government: Vichy France

• Charles de Gaulle, a French general, set up a government in exile in Britain, hoping to eventually reconquer France

The Battle of Britain

• Winston Churchill was the new British prime minister

• Hitler planned to destroy Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) and then land soldiers on England’s shores

• Germany’s air force (the Luftwaffe) began bombing Britain

• The British RAF had an electronic tracking system called radar, and also a German code-breaking Enigma machine

• Stunned by British resistance, Hitler called off the German attacks

Axis Forces Attack on North Africa

• Mussolini, allied with Germany, decided to attack British-controlled Egypt (while Hitler was fighting Britain), which included the Suez Canal

• Britain struck back, leading to a disaster for the Italians — Hitler needed to help his ally

• Hitler sent a German tank force, the Afrika Korps, led by German General Erwin Rommel, who eventually pushed the British back and seized Tobruk (loss for the Allies)

German Invasion of the Soviet Union

• Hitler expanded his influence in the Balkans (wanted to build bases in southeastern Europe for the attack on the USSR) by persuading Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to join the Axis Powers, and then by invading Yugoslavia and Greece (pro-British)

• Operation Barbarossa — Hitler’s plan to invade the Soviet Union

• The Soviet Union was not prepared for this attack, and its troops were not well equipped nor well trained

• The Russians used a scorched-earth policy as they retreated, burning and destroying everything in the enemy’s path

• German forces completely cut off Leningrad from the rest of the Soviet Union, attempting to starve the city (but the city refused to fall and progress was slow)

• The Nazis pushed toward Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, but refused to retreat when winter came — the Germans gained nothing but lost many lives

The Atlantic Charter

• The United States Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts, making it illegal to sell arms or lend money to nations at war

  • President Roosevelt asked Congress to allow the Allies to buy American arms, paying cash and transporting them on their own ships

  • Lend-Lease Act: stated that the president could lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country vital to the United States

• Roosevelt and Churchill met secretly and issued a declaration called the Atlantic Charter, which upheld free trade among nations and the right of people to choose their own government — later served as the Allies’ peace plan at the end of WWII

• After an attack from a German U-boat, Roosevelt ordered navy commanders to shoot German submarines, involving the US in an undeclared naval war against Hitler