21.3: The Early War

The Nazis claimed that ethnic Germans were being abused and mistreated in Poland. In addition, Nazi propagandists fabricated a number of supposed atrocities that had been perpetrated against Germans. Using this excuse, the German army invaded in September 1939. Finally, France and Britain faced the hard truth that there was no appeasing Hitler, and declared war on Germany. As part of the pre-war agreement with Germany, the Soviet Union invaded Poland in the name of both territorial expansion for its own sake and to provide a buffer from Germany and the west.

German strategists had learned from World War I how to overcome trench warfare. Military technology advanced rapidly between the wars, equipping the major nations with fast-moving, heavily armored tanks and heavy bombers supported by fighter planes. It would be possible to strike much more quickly and much harder than had the ragged lines of charging soldiers “going over the top” twenty years earlier.

Likewise, as U.S. intervention had proved in World War I, all of the combatants in the Second World War recognized the key role of industrial production. In addition to military strength, the potential winner would need to continue to churn out weapons and equipment at the highest rates for the longest time. In that sense, industrial capacity was as important as fighting ability. As a result, the German army - the Wehrmacht - struck with overwhelming force, backed by an industrial base designed to support a lengthy war.

In September 1939, the Wehrmacht unleashed what the Allies called "Blitzkrieg", a lightning war consisting of fast-moving armored divisions supported by overwhelming air support. Behind those armored divisions, the main body of German infantry neutralized the remaining resistance and, typically, succeeded in taking thousands of prisoners of war. Ironically, Blitzkrieg was originally conceived by a French officer, Charles de Gaulle, but was rejected by the French General Staff. De Gaulle would go on to become the leader of the anti-Nazi Free French forces after France surrendered.

The first stage of the war resulted in a complete German victory. The Polish army put up a valiant defense but was swiftly crushed. Its government fled to exile in London. While the region's smaller nations warily watched their own borders, most global attention shifted to France, the obvious next stage in the plans for German conquest.

While France had declared war on Germany, it did not actually attack. French plans revolved around defense, meaning awaiting a German attack. After WWI, the French built a huge series of bunkers and fortresses along the French-German border known as the Maginot Line. There, from September of 1939 until May of 1940, the French military essentially waited for Germany to invade. The French came to refer to this period as the "drôle de guerre,” or “joke war”. (The British called it the “phony war,” and the Germans sitzkrieg or “sitting war”). Many people thought the heavy fortifications would hold Germany back. As a result, the French army simply had no plans, or intentions, to attack Germany in the meantime.

Instead, the Germans decided to go around the Maginot Line. In April, German forces invaded and swiftly defeated Denmark and Norway, despite valiant resistance by the Norwegians. Then, on the 10th of May, they attacked the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, sending the bulk of their forces through a forest on the French - Belgian border that the French had, wrongly, thought was impassable to an army. The Germans proved far more effective than the French or British at using tanks and artillery, and they immediately began driving the French and British forces back. Meanwhile, the Maginot Line went unused, with the German invasion bypassing it with the Belgian invasion.

Figure 21.2.1: German forces invaded France through southern Belgium, bypassing the Maginot Line’s “strong fortifications” entirely.

In late May, when over 300,000 British and French soldiers retreating from the Germans were pinned down on the coast of the English Channel near the French town of Dunkirk. A flotilla of navy and fishing vessels managed to evacuate them back to England while the British Royal Air Force held off the opposing German Luftwaffe (air force). This retreat counted as a success by the standards of the Allies at the time. However, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill reminded his countrymen that successful retreats were not how wars were won.

The combined Allied forces were more numerous than their German enemies. However, the French sent their armored forces toward Holland while the Germans smashed into France. Further, the British and French proved inept at working together, and Allied morale collapsed completely. The French did not realize the potential of tank warfare: they treated tanks more as mobile artillery platforms than as weapons in their own right, and they had no armored divisions, just tanks interspersed with infantry divisions.

In the end, France surrendered to Germany on June 22. Germany occupied France's central and northern parts, but allowed a group of right-wing French politicians and generals to create a Nazi-allied puppet state in the south known as the Vichy Regime. There, the Vichy government rapidly set up a distinctly French fascist state, complete with concentration camps, anti-Semitic laws, and a state of war with Britain.

Thus, as of June 1940, no major powers remained to oppose Germany, but Britain and the United States, which remained neutral. Hitler had initially hoped that the British would agree to surrender the continent while he consolidated his victory and turned against the USSR. Instead, Britain handed over power to an emergency government headed by the new prime minister, Winston Churchill. Starting in July of 1940, the German Luftwaffe began a campaign to utterly destroy Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) and terrify the British into surrendering. The resulting months of combat in the skies became known as The Battle of Britain. Lasting from July through September of 1940, thousands of planes battled in the skies every day and night.

The British were quite well prepared. They had the newly-created technology of radar, as well as numerous batteries of anti-aircraft guns that inflicted significant losses on the Luftwaffe. Many British pilots survived crashes and were rescued, whereas German pilots who were shot down either died or were captured. Most importantly, British factories churned out twice as many new planes as German ones over the course of the war. Thus, the RAF countered German attacks with new, effective fighters and increasingly seasoned pilots. By the end of September, much to Hitler’s fury, Germany had to abandon the immediate goal of invading Britain.

Meanwhile, the United States stayed out of the war through a policy known as “isolationism”. In part because of the heroism of the British defense, the U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act (1941), which authorized unlimited support for Britain, mostly through food and military supplies provided on credit. As a result, Britain relied on both U.S. supplies and complete governmental control of its own economy to survive in the coming years. With German blockades preventing the importation of most goods, every aspect of the British economy (especially agriculture and other forms of food production) was directed by emergency wartime ministries to keep the British population from starving.

In September 1941, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact. The Pact stipulated that any of the three powers would declare war on a neutral country that declared war on one of the others. Practically speaking, Germany hoped that the Pact would make American politicians think twice about joining Britain in the war effort. In hindsight, it backfired against Germany. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, Germany was obliged to declare war on the US. (Hitler was urged not to by his advisors, but gleefully claimed that Japan had never lost a war and now victory was assured for the Axis).

Figure 21.2.2: The sinking of the USS Arizona battleship during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In the meantime, the focus of the war shifted to North Africa, Greece, and the Balkans. Mussolini had ordered the Italian army to invade British territories in Africa (most importantly Egypt) and attack Yugoslavia and Greece in 1940. The Italians were largely ineffective. However, their attacks did inspire a spirited British counter-offensive and a strong anti-Italian resistance movement in the Balkans. However, the Germans needed supplies from the Balkans and southeastern Europe, including both foodstuffs and natural resources like oil. It would be literally unable to continue the war if the Allies managed to take over these regions.

Thus, Germany sent forces to the Balkans and Africa to support their Italian allies. By the spring of 1941, the Germans held all of southeastern Europe and had pushed the British back in Africa. Yet, there were delays in the Nazi's plans. Hitler’s attempt to get the Spanish to join the war fell flat, when the Spanish dictator Franco indicated that Spain was simply too poor and weak, despite the obvious political affinity between fascist Spain and Nazi Germany.