1. War Begins in Europe

2. Hitler Starts Making Moves.
Austria was a country that had been established in the Treaty of Versailles, and was a former part Austria- Hungary.
The country was overwhelmingly German speaking, and they wanted to be united with Germany.
In March of 1938, Hitler rolls his army into Austria, unopposed, and brings it into the “Third Reich.”
This is a violation of the Treaty of Versailles, however, America, Britain, and France do nothing.

3. Sudetenland
This was the Western edge of Czechoslovakia, and was predominately made up of German speaking peoples.
Hitler begins a “fake news” movement that says Czechoslovakia is mistreating the German speaking people of the Sudetenland.
This gets the German people angry and they want to do something.

4. The Munich Conference
Hitler invites Chamberlain (England) and Dalidier (France) to Munich (Germany) for a “peace” conference.
He tells them that he aims to take back the Sudetenland, but that’s it, no more expansion. Promise.
Chamberlain and Dalidier agree, and begin a policy of “appeasement,” which means giving into an aggressive country to keep them happy.

5. Hitler’s next move.
5 months after the Munich Agreement Hitler invades the rest of Czechoslovakia and takes it into the “Third Reich.”

6. Poland and the Nonaggression Pact.
Poland was next on Hitler’s list and it too had a sizeable German speaking population.
He again spreads fake news that the Polish are mistreating the German speaking people.
He signs a pact with Stalin in which both countries, Germany and Soviet Union pledge not to attack each other.
They also secretly agree to split up Poland once Germany invades.

7. Poland and Blitzkrieg
On September 1, 1939 the German Luftwaffe, air force, begins a serious bombing of Poland’s railways and military bases.
At the same time German tanks rolled into the country side.
This is Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, and it was Germany’s tactic of overwhelming its enemy with force and speed.
It worked well, and Poland fell before France and Britain could come to their aid.

8. Next…
In April of 1940 Hitler invades Denmark and Norway in order to “protect their freedom,” but actually just so he could use their land as a base from which to attack Britain.
After that, he advances his troops into the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg.

9. Hitler takes France.
Next Hitler’s troops marched into Northern France and pushed back 400,000 French and British troops to Dunkirk, on the French side of the English Channel.
400 boats came down from England to rescue the soldiers and it was actually quite successful.
France had fallen, however, and Hitler controlled the Northern part of France, and an “independent” government was set up in Vichy, France, which was in the South.
In reality though, the Vichy government was run by Nazi’s, but gave the appearance of Hitler looking like he could make compromises.

10. Battle of Britain
In the summer of 1940 Hitler launched his invasion of Britain.
The British Navy was superior to Germany’s, so the Germans focused on air raids instead.
For two months they bomb British cities, hoping to pound the British into submission.
The Royal Air Force (Britain) began using Radar (new invention) to identify the flight paths of the German Luftwaffe, and they score many air victories.
At the end of the summer Hitler gave up and called off the invasion.

11. Map!
Use the map in section 16.2 of the online textbook to complete your map at the end of your packet.