World War II

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World War II
Nazi Expansion
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What We will Cover Today Nazi Expansion
Re-occupation of the Rhineland Austrian
Anschluss Annexation of the Sudetenland The
Polish Corridor Appeasement What is
Appeasement? Why Appease Hitler? Who Appeased
Hitler?
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What We will Cover American
Neutrality. Why? Nye Commision. Nazi Soviet
Non-Aggression Pact. Why? War Begins
Blitzkrieg in Poland Sitzkriegin
France Fall of France Dunkirk
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What We will Cover The Battle Of Britain How
did the out numbered Brits win? What technology
helped them? Were there any secrets? A Battle
of Britain Hero Douglas Bader An example of
Bulldog tenacity.
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Re-Occupation of the Rhineland
1. Soon after Hitler consolidated power, he began
to violate conditions of the Treaty of Versailles
by building up the military. 2. The next logical
step was to re-occupy the Rhineland. Hitler
guessed, and was right, that the French would not
fight. The Rhineland was re-occupied by Germany
in March, 1936. 3. Each violation that he got
away with, emboldened Hitler.
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The Austrian Anschluss.
In 1937, Hitler called for unification of all
German speaking peoples. Including those in
Austria and Czechoslovakia. In 1938, after
forcing the Austrian government to install
Austrian Nazis into important government posts.
(Sound vaguely Familiar?) March 1938, after the
Chancellor of Austria tried to put unification to
a vote, Hitler sent in his Armies and announced
the unification. (Note they did not use the words
invade, or take over. This is only one of many
Nazi euphemisms you will see the Nazis use.)
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The Munich Crisis and Appeasement.
September 29th, 1938, at a conference in Munich,
British Prime Minister Chamberlain makes an
agreement basically sacrificing the Sudetenland.
(in Czechoslovakia) Chamberlain thought that if
they gave Hitler what he wanted this time, they
could avoid war and have Peace in Our
Time. This policy of giving in is known as
Appeasement. Why do you think this policy was
not successful?
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Danzig and the Polish Corridor.
At the end of WWII, Poland was given access to
the Baltic Sea, separating the German State of
East Prussia and the port city of Danzig from
Germany. Hitler demanded Poland return Danzig
and requested a road and railroad across the
Polish Corridor. This was used as a
trigger/Justification to Invade Poland.
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American Neutrality.
Why Neutral? In the wake of a costly World War
I, America was put off by the rise of fascism in
Europe. After one seemingly pointless war,
Isolationism seems like a good idea to many.
Why? The Nye Committee. After many countries
announced in the 1930s that they would no longer
continue to pay their war debts, the Nye
committee documented profits from Arms factories
and gave the impression these businesses
influenced the U.S. to go to war, further
influencing people that isolationism was the
answer. Congress passed the Neutrality Act of
1935 amid fears that German and italian
aggression would drag the U.S. into another war.
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Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.

• On August 23, 1939, Germany and the USSR signed a
  non-aggression pact.
• They agreed not to attack each other and to
  divide Poland between them.
• Germany gained the assurance that they could
  fight the west without fighting the USSR at the
  same time.
• The USSR gained territory, and hoped to protect
  the USSR by having the western countries fight
  themselves.

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Blitzkrieg Invasion of Poland.

• September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland.
• Polands military could not cope with the highly
  mechanized German military. In a coordinated
  attack utilizing airpower, tanks and infantry
  (including paratroopers), Germany captured Warsaw
  on 27 September and defeated the Polish Army on 5
  October 1939.
• Polands Horse Calvary was not match for the
  mechanized units, they were still fighting the
  last war in terms of equipment and tactics.
• Poland is flat. Perfect for mobile mechanized
  forces.
• The roads, ditches and rail lines funneled
  refugees, and clogged the advance of Polish
  reinforcements.

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SitzKreig British Troops Arrive and Wait.

• French and British troops (Bound by treaty to
  come tp Polands aid) sit behind the French
  Maginot Line, waiting for the Germans to Attack.
• April 9th, 1940, the Germans turn north, invading
  Denmark and Norway.

AKA The Phony War
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The Maginot Line
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The Maginot Line
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The Maginot Line
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The Maginot Line
Fortress Douaumont
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The Maginot Line
Top of Fortress
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The Maginot Line
Inside
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The Sigfried Line
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The Sigfried Line
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The Sigfried Line
As it looks in places today.
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Fall of France.

• 10 May 1940, Hitler sends his armies West through
  the countries of Belgium and Luxembourg.
• The main tank forces poured through the Ardennes,
  and swung north to the Channel, cutting off the
  French and British forces.
• On 22 June, 1940, in the same rail car in the
  wood where the Germans had surrendered in 1918,
  the French surrendered to the Germans.
• With Northern France and the Atlantic coast in
  German hands,
• the Germans installed a puppet government at
  Vichy, under Marshal Philippe Petain.
• What was he thinking?

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1940
1918
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Dunkirk.
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Dunkirk.

• The Miracle of Dunkirk
• Those cut off French and British troops are
  driven North towards the English channel.
• Only the Port of Dunkirk was not in German hands.
• Hitler, stops his advance for 3 days, 330,000
  French and British troops escape to Britain.
• Why did Hitler stop?
• Maybe he thought the British would accept peace
  if they were not destroyed and humiliated?
• Maybe the head of the German airforce convinced
  Hitler air power alone could destroy the trapped
  forces?
• He valued and feared the loss of his tank corps,
  and possibly wanted to wait for the arrival of
  more infantry.
• The allies had to leave behind most of their
  equipment.

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The Battle of Britain
August 13 - September 17, 1940
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The Battle of Britain
In order to accomplish Hitlers Operation
Sealion, The invasion of Britain, the Germans
must eliminate Britains Air and Sea power. Why
would he want to invade? Much of the Battle of
Britain was fought in the skies over southern
England in what became known as the 'Spitfire
summer'. In June and July, 1940, Germany starts
bombing shipping in the English Channel, and
making raids on the ports of Dover and Plymouth.
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The Battle of Britain
The RAFs 700 or so Spitfire and Hurricane
fighters were outnumbered at the start but
Britain had several advantages. Its radar was
then the most advanced early warning system in
the world, the Spitfire was a very effective
fighter plane and British industry had the
ability to manufacture more planes at an
astonishing rate. And they were fighting mostly
over home turf, able to retrieve planes and
pilots shot down. Additionally, The British had
the Ultra Secret.
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The Ultra Secret
The Enigma Machine was used by the Germans to
encode and decode classified messages.
The British, working with the Polish before
Poland fell, broke the code. However, they had
to work hard to stay current with new codes and
new modifications.
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The Battle of Britain
Example of message encoded with Enigma
Being able to break the code created additional
problems. If they information from Ultra was used
too often, then the Germans would suspect a leak
and change the codes or machine. Sometimes,
choices had to be made. In the Battle of Britain,
many smaller raids were allowed to continue to
target, but fighters would intercept the larger
one. Some places, like Coventry, were sacrificed
to preserve the Ultra Secret and ultimately,
London.
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Bletchly Park, Home of the Code Breakers
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The Battle of Britain
In August the terrifying aerial battles
intensified - the Luftwaffe began launching
attacks of more than 1,000 aircraft in one day.
They focused on Britains airfield and radar
installations, which were vital in warning of the
approach of the German aircraft. By the end of
the first week in August, the RAF had lost nearly
100 fighters and the Germans more than 190
planes. A few days of bad weather in mid August
gave exhausted pilots on both sides a much-needed
reprieve - but soon the attacks began again.
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The Battle of Britain

• During the last two weeks of August the RAF
  sustained heavy losses but the German losses were
  greater.
• By the end of the month the Germans had lost more
  than 600 aircraft and the RAF about half that
  number. But the loss of experienced RAF pilots
  and the bombing damage done to the radar stations
  had left Britain very vulnerable.
• If the attacks on air installations had continued
  then the eventual outcome could have been very
  different - but Hitler soon shifted the focus of
  his attacks.

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The Battle of Britain

• At the beginning of September Britain launched
  air attacks on some of Germanys industrial areas
  - and Berlin itself. The air raids on Germany are
  said to have angered Hitler so much that on 7th
  September he ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb
  British cities.
• Whatever the reason, the Luftwaffe changed
  tactics and shifted their attacks away from
  Britains air defense installations. Under attack
  instead were major population centers, especially
  London and its docks.
• This was the beginning of the blitz.

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The Battle of Britain

• On the 15th September more than 1,000 enemy
  aircraft carried out a day and night attack on
  London - it was a day of very heavy fighting and
  later became commemorated as Battle of Britain
  day.
• The RAF announced that they had shot down 175
  enemy aircraft - the figure was wildly inaccurate
  - the real number that the Germans had lost was
  closer to 56 - but the inflated numbers were
  accepted at the time as both sides fought a
  propaganda battle as well as a military war.
• The Spitfire summer was nearing its end.

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The Battle of Britain

• Hitler needed summer weather for his invasion -
  so as winter approached with no breakthrough, the
  threat of invasion receded.
• About 1,700 Luftwaffe bombers and fighters had
  been shot down in just a few months.
• Britain had lost more than 900 fighter planes and
  nearly 500 pilots and aircrew had also been
  killed.
• The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
  memorably said
• "Never... was so much owed by so many to so
  few."

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The Battle of Britain
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The Battle of Britain
Douglas Bader Exemplifies the British Bulldog
Spirit. After having lost both legs in an
airplane crashbefore the war, He learns to walk
and fly using artificial ones. After a long
battle, he finally is allowed to join the RAF
flying Spitfires and quickly becomes an
ACE. Shot down over Germany, bailing out leaving
his right leg in the plane, he tried to escape
on foot. He met German Ace Adolf Galland. He
eventually was send to Colditz.
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Douglas Bader

• Colditz is located in Eastern Germany, not far
  from Dresden.
• It is a castle located on a high hill in the
  center of the Midevil town, considered excape
  proof.
• Only the most hard core POWs were sent there.
• There was a prerequisite of 3 attempt escapes
• required before a POW was transferred there.

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Colditz
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Colditz
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• 25 April 1945 Colditz Glider
• The greatest escape that never happened was ready
  to take flight -- literally -- when Allied troops
  occupied the castle a few weeks before the end of
  the war.
• Behind a dummy wall high in an attic above the
  chapel, British prisoners had spent months
  secretly cobbling together a glider. They built
  it in sections from wooden shutters, mattress
  covers, and mud fashioned out of attic dust.
• A German discovered the dummy wall at one point
  but was silenced with a bribe of 500 cigarettes.
  After the war, locals broke up the glider.
• As is chronicled in the NOVA program "Nazi Prison
  Escape," a replica of the glider recently built
  by ex-Colditz POWs flew successfully, proving
  that the inmates' most extraordinary escape
  vehicle ever may very well have worked, if only
  given the chance.

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Glider in the Chapel Attic of Colditz 1945
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Group Captain Douglas R S Bader CBE, DSO and bar,
DFC and bar, Legion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre,
whose dazzling success as a fighter pilot with
artificial legs made him a national hero, was a
legend in his own lifetime for the courage and
style with which he defied disablement. Bader had
an academic ability which won him a scholarship
to St Edward's School and a cadet ship at the
elite RAF College, Cranwell. Douglas Bader joined
No 23 Squadron at Kenley in July 1930 to fly
Gamecocks. Asked to give an aerobatic
demonstration in a Bulldog by pilots at a flying
club, he declined whereupon someone made a
comment he could not ignore and took-off.
Unfortunately the Bulldog's wingtip touched the
ground during a low pass and it crashed. Bader
lost both legs and was invalided out of the RAF.
When war came his perseverance got him accepted
back into the RAF for flying duties in Spitfire
1s in No 19 Squadron at Duxford.
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In June 1940, Bader was given command of No 242
Squadron. A Canadian unit, the only one in the
RAF at the time, No 242 had been badly mauled in
France, and its morale was low. Bader quickly
transformed No 242 into a tight, tough squadron
by his courage, leadership and uncompromising
attitude toward his pilots, ground crews and the
RAF high command, with whom he soon had a major
brush. After taking charge of No 242, Bader soon
discovered that the unit did not have the spare
parts or tools to keep its 18 Hurricane fighters
operational. After trying to sort out the
problem through official channels, Bader signaled
12th Group Headquarters "242 Squadron
operational as regards pilots but non-operational
as regards equipment." And he refused to announce
his squadron as operational until its lack of
tools and spares was rectified. It took a direct
meeting between Squadron Leader Bader and Fighter
Command's commander Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh
Dowding, to correct the mess. Within 24 hours, No
242 Squadron had all the tools and spares it
needed, and Bader signalled 12th Group "242
Squadron now fully operational."
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Early in 1941 he commanded the first Tangmere
Wing and his tactics then were carried on by
Fighter Command for some years. On 11th of August
he baled out of his Spitfire, leaving his 'tin'
right leg in the Spitfire, and became a prisoner
of war for 3½ years, ending it in Colditz Castle
after two attempted escapes. He retired from the
RAF in July 1946 and rejoined Shell Oil, later
being knighted. During only 15 months
operations his official score was 22½ enemy
aircraft destroyed, although his personal tally
was 30! His courage and determination in war and
his work for the handicapped in peace inspired
others until he passed away in 1983.