WW2 begins

• Invasion of Poland


  September 1 1939
• Invasion of Poland


  • Generals Bock and Guderian led 56 German divisions to invade Poland from the west
  • Russia invaded from the East
  • Germany and Russia met 3 weeks later
  • England sent a telegram saying they would declare war if Germany did not pull out of Poland
• Declaration of war


  September 3 1939
• England and France declared war on Germany
• Poland surrendered to Germany 3 weeks later
• The people were sad that Europe was at war again
• Quiet


  September 1939- April 1940
• 7 months after the declaration of war there was silence over Europe
• Germany still had a lot of territory and no one did anything about it
• Germany Attacks Denmark and Norway

  April 1940
• Germany attacked Denmark and Norway


  • To stop a British naval blockade in the north sea
  • Germany surprised the British by using Norway's fjords to attack them
  • Norway fell in 8 weeks
  • Denmark fell in one day, they surrendered w/o fighting
• Germany invades the Low Countries


  May 10 - May 27 1940
• Germany invaded the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg)


  • Hitler created a hole in the Ardennes Forest to invade
  • Belgium surrendered in 18 days
  • He was on his way to France
• The Battle of Dunkirk


  May 30 - June 6 1940
• The Battle of Dunkirk


  • Germany trapped 338,000 allied soldiers on the beach
  • Allied troops lost their equipment
  • Hitler could have won, he had the allied troops pinned against the ocean with no cover
  • The germans could not advance because of the weather (could not use aerial assault)
  • 1,000 civilian ships/ merchant vessels rescued the soldiers, taking them to England
• The Fall of France


  June 22, 1940
• The Fall of France


  • 73 year old Marshall Weygand surrendered to the Germans
  • A good portion of the troops were off the island
  • In Vichy (southern France) a puppet gov't was created, French Marshal Pétain created it (he supported the n@zi's)
  • The allied french troops continued to fight in exile led by Charles de Gaulle
• The Battle of Great Britain


  July - November 1940
• The Battle of Great Britain


  • Hitler wanted to conquer Britain, he lost
  • He needed to control the seas to get to Britain but he would've been bombed by their airforce
  • Hitler tried to control the air w/ the German Luftwaffe
  • Hitler tried bombing airports and factories
  • For every plane Britain lost Hitler lost 3
  • Britain bombed Berlin, Hitler bombed London
  • Britain lost 915 aircrafts Hitler lost 2698 aircrafts
  • The battle reached its peak in August
• The invasion of Russia


  June 1941
• The invasion of Russia

  • Named Operation Barbarossa
  • He invaded for oil and wheat
  • He thought if Russia surrendered so would Britain
  • Invading Russia was harder than expected
• U.S. Involvement Through 1941

  • The U.S. tried to be neutral in the beginning
  • Many legislation was passed so the U.S. wouldn't fight in the war
  • The first neutrality act 1935 in response to Italy and Ethiopia
  • The second Neutrality Act 1936
  • The Third Neutrality Act 1937
  • The Fourth Neutrality Act 1939
  • The Fifth Neutrality Act eventually repealed all of the previous pieces of legislation, allowing the United States to help the Allies without restriction
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt: 'This nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.'
• The destroyer deal


  • When the U.S. came out of its isolation, they gave Britain fifty US naval destroyers in exchange for the use of British bases in Canada and the West Indies
• Lend-Lease act 1941


  • FDR announced that the United States would lend or lease military equipment to the Allies fighting against the Germans and the Italians
• Events in 1941 and after

  • FDR has U.S. forces to occupy Greenland for fear of Germany taking it
  • August 1941 FDR meets w/ Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister) @ the Atlantic conference on a ship (coast of Newfoundland) they agreed to support each other against Germany
  • September 1941 US warships begin patrolling the North Atlantic and reporting German U-boats to the British Navy
  • German U-boats begin attacking U.S. warships
  • FDR said, "When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him. These Nazi submarines and raiders are the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic."
  • The US would attack Germany if necessary
  • December 1941 the US and Germany in undeclared war
  • FDR said the country would not go to war unless the nation was attacked