German expansion dates

Washington Naval Conference

1921-1922

Japanese invasion of Manchuria

1931

London Naval Conference

1930

Geneva Disarmament Conference

1932-1934

Germany withdrew from the Geneva Disarmament Conference and League of Nations

October 1933

Hitler announced that he reintroduced conscription and re-established the Luftwaffe

1935

Formation of ‘the Stress Front’

April 1935

France started to build the Maginot Line

1929

Attempt at Anschluss

1934

Saarland plebiscite

13 January 1935

German troops entered the Rhineland

March 7 1936

Hitler instructed Goring that the army must be operational and the economy fit for war within four years

October 1936

Hitler met with military chiefs to outline his plan to acquire Lebensraum

5 November 1937

Spanish Civil War

1936-1939

Spanish city of Guernica was heavily bombed by German planes

1937

Rome-Berlin Axis

1936

Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan

1936

Mussolini joined the Anti-Comintern Pact

1937

Rome-Tokyo-Berlin Axis

1937

Hitler summoned Schuschnigg to force him to give Austrian Nazis a considerable share in government

12 February 1938

Anschluss proclaimed

13 March 1938

Beginning of the appeasement policy

1937

Sudeten German Party began to riot and demand independence for the Sudetenland

April 1938

Czech Premier Benes agreed to self-government for the Sudetenlanders

5 September 1938

Munich Conference

29 September 1938

German troops marched into the Sudetenland

1 October 1938

Germany took Bohemia and Moravia in Czechoslovakia

by 15 March 1939

British and French appeasement ended

By the end of 1938

‘Pact of Steel’ between Hitler and Mussolini

May 1939

Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact revealed to the world

August 1939

Britain and France pledged to help Poland if it was attacked

31 March 1939

Hitler ordered the Germany army to be ready to invade Poland by 1 September 1939

March 1939

German troops invaded Poland

1 September 1939

Britain and France declared war on Germany

3 September 1939