The Years of Axis Triumph

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The Years of Axis Triumph

• Section 21.106

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Nazi Europe, 1939-1940 Poland and the Fall of
France
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Nazi Europe, 1939-1940 Poland and the Fall of
France

• Germans
• 1 million German soldiers invaded Poland on
  9/1/1939
• Blitzkrieg (lightning war)
• Utilized rapidly moving armored divisions,
  infantry, and a massive air assault (Luftwaffe)
• Quickly overran Polish forces
• Soviets
• Soviet Union invaded from east on 9/17 (secret
  agreement)
• Established fortified bases in Baltic states
  (Estonia, Latvia, Lith)
• Attacked Finland (11/39)
• Fins were supplied by GB and French
• Soviets expelled from League of Nations
• USSR won by March 1940

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The Phony War
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The Phony War

• Deceptively quiet in the West
• French felt protected by the Maginot Line
• Germans did not cross the Siegfried Line (West
  Wall) of the Rhineland
• Little military action took place
• West rejected Hitler peace overtures but kept
  their peacetime outlook
• Still hoped that conflict could be averted
• German forces trained throughout bitter winter
  for the spring

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Spring of 1940

• 4/9 German attacked/overran Norway and Denmark
  (under pretext that GB was blocking iron flow
  from Sweden)
• Invaded Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium,
  Luxembourg (5/10)
• British Expeditionary Force and French forces
  gathered at Belgian border
• Hitler bypassed Maginot Line and invaded France
  via Luxembourg and the Ardennes
• Raced to channel ports to cut off retreating
  armies
• German army captured large section of French army
• BEF cut off at Dunkirk in Belgium
• Miracle of Dunkirk
• 330 thousand BEF evacuated with motley of boats

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The Fall of France

• Occupied Paris 6/13/40
• Given without a fight
• France surrendered on June 22, 1940
• French mindset geared for defensive war
• Caught totally off guard by Blitzkrieg
• Mussolini invaded (June, 1940)
• Also attacked Greece and N. Africa (Brits)
• Divided population were led by defeatist leaders
• Fall shocked the world (fell in 1 month)
• Free France movement under General Charles de
  Gaulle fled to GB
• British forced to scuttle French fleet in
  Algerian harbor of Oran rather than allow it to
  fall to Germans

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Vichy France
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Vichy France

• Northern 2/3rd occupied by Germany
• 3rd Republic now held capital in Vichy
• Stunned parliament voted for an authoritarian
  regime headed by Marshal Petain and Pierre Laval
• Republic is dead!
• Slogan liberty, equality, and fraternity were
  officially banned
• French fascists and the new leaders claimed that
  they were trying to protect France from more
  suffering

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Vichy France

• Collaborated with the Nazis
• Sent hundreds of thousands of French workers as
  slave laborers to Germany
• Identified and deported thousands of French Jews
  to death camps
• Some collaborated, a few joined Underground
  Resistance
• Most of population tried to go on with day-to-day
  life

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Festung Europa
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Festung Europa

• Does history repeat?
• Germans controlled almost same territory as
  Napoleon
• Created a new continental system to govern,
  exploit and coordinate resources, industry and
  labor
• Impressed millions, prisoners of war and
  civilians as slave labor
• Festung Europa (Fortress Europe)
• Soldiers were garrisoned throughout Europe
• Found sympathizers, collaborators or quislings
• Vidkun Quisling was organizer of Norwegian
  Fascist party in 1933 and premier from 1942-45
• ½ million non-Germans fought in Waffen SS
• AND only foe was Great Britain!!!!!!!!

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The Battle of Britain and American Aid

• Brits anticipated an invasion after Dunkirk
• Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM in May 1940
• Promised people nothing but blood, toil, tears,
  and sweat and war against a monstrous tyranny,
  never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue
  of human crime.
• Asked US for the tools to finish the job
• US was officially neutral
• Isolationist opposed any involvement
• Charles Lindberg and the America First Committee
• Interventionists wanted to provide aid to Allies
• FDR

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The Great Arsenal of Democracy

• FDR called GB spearhead of resistance to world
  democracy
• US would supply the Brits as the arsenal of
  democracy
• Fights for Four Freedoms
• Speech, worship, from want, from fear
• Began to supply GB soon after Dunkirk
• 50 overage destroyers in return for bases in
  Newfoundland, Bermudas, Caribbean
• Lend-Lease
• Policy of providing arms, raw materials, food to
  Allies
• Introduced conscription
• Created hemispheric defense with Latin American
  nations

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Air war over Britain The Blitz

• Germany rapid success was too fast for them to
  devise a plan for invasion of GB
• Hoped GB might become an ally
• Began pre-invasion air war in summer of 40
• The Blitz
• Reached climax in fall of 40
• Bombed London for over 76 consecutive nights
• RAF
• used radar to detect approaching bombers
• Were highly skilled
• Combined P51 with Rolls Royce engine
• Ultra (British intelligence Polish exiles)
  broke the code of German encoding device (Enigma
  Machine)
• Coventry was wiped out
• 20 thousand killed in London alone
• Yet war capacity and morale remained strong
• Hitler began to plan for invasion of USSR in 41

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The Blitz
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The Nazi Invasion of Russia The Russian Front,
1941-42

• Nazi-Soviet Pact (1929) similar to
  Napoleon-Alexander I
• Both were biding their time
• Soviets quietly Soviet-ized the three Baltic
  states into USSR
• Baltic barons were returned to Germany
• Took Bessarabian province of Romania
• Hoped to win control of the Balkans and Eastern
  Europe

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1941 Hitler convinced Romania, Bulgaria,
Hungary to join Axis powers (German troops
stationed there) Yugo and Greece also
occupied Hitler desire the wheat fields of
Ukraine, the oil fields of Caucasus
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Barbarossa 6/7/1941
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The Nazi Invasion of Russia

• Operation Barbarosa began 6/22/1941
• Stalin (although warned) was completely caught
  off guard
• 3 million German forces went along 2 thousand
  mile front
• By autumn Germans controlled Ukraine and
  Byelorussia and laid siege to Leningrad
• Took Crimea and laid siege to Sebastopol
• Were within 25 miles of Russia
• But were not prepared for early and bitter winter
• Resistance stiffened to save Mother Russia

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• Counteroffensive of Red Army in winter saved
  Moscow
• Hitler took control and pushed for attack in
  south towards oil fields
• Laid siege to Stalingrad

• Albert Speer organized German economy for what
  would now be a long war and tripled armaments
  production

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1942, The Year of Dismay Russia, North Africa,
the Pacific

• Germans were within 100 miles of Caspian Sea
• Russians shifted industry east of Urals
• Followed a scorched earth policy
• Destroyed crops and livestock
• Guerilla units destroyed industrial and
  transportation facilities

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The Desert Campaigns

• Beginning in Sept 1940 under Italian offensive
  from Libya to Egypt seeking control of Suez
• Outnumbered the Brits ousted the Italians by
  early 41 and took Ethiopia from Mussolini
• German Afrika Corps under Rommel attacked and
  drove Brits back to Egypt
• El Alamein British held the German advance

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Japan and the Pacific

• Had been at war with China since 31
• Joined Axis in 1940
• Signed neutrality treaty with Soviets in 41
• Took French possession in Indochina
• US cut trade of vital war making material in
  effort to halt Japanese advance
• General Hideki Tojo, new Japanese prime minister
  publicly stated that Japan would eliminate US and
  GB influence in Asia

Hideki Tojo
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• Tojo sent representatives to Washington even as
  he launched attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/41)
• 2, 500 US forces killed
• Fleet crippled
• Attacked Philippines, Guam, Midway, Hong Kong,
  Malaya
• US and GB declared war on Japan 12/8

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1942 The Year of Dismay

• Japan took Singapore (supposedly impregnable)
• Sunk battleship Prince of Wales (supposedly
  unsinkable)
• Threatened invasion of Australia and attacked
  Aleutians
• Seemed poised to invade India
• Under banner of anti imperialism they formed
  Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and found
  ready cooperators
• George Marshall noted how close to complete
  domination of the world were Germany and Japan