The European War - Saratoga High School

The European War
World War 2
in the
European
Theater
Initial Victories
Poland and the War in the North
• Poland
– Blitzkreig
– French/British Response
• Norway & Denmark
– 5th columnist
– April 9
Quisling
Luftwaffe
Stuka
Wehrmacht
Initial Victories
Invasion of the West
• Battle of France
– Maginot Line
• Erich von Manstein (Case Yellow)
• Ardennes Forest: German Army Group B attacked through the Ardennes
– such an attack was believed to be impossible by the French. One million men
and 1,500 tanks crossed the seemingly impenetrable forests in the Ardennes
– Degaulle’s Last ditch attempts
– Failure - Why?
– Results
Video Clip
Hitler’s Blunders
• Dunquerque
Hermann Gohring
Hanz Guderian
– Operation Dynamo.
– Dunkirk, 1940, 26 May to 3 June
• General Weygand
– Final fall of France
– Now What for Britain?
Marshall Petain
Luftwaffe Panzer Wehrmacht
June-July 1940
•
Britain surrender?
Hitler’s Blunders
England, Balkans, North Africa
Operation Sea Lion
– Strategy 3 part attack
• English Channel
• Air Force: 17 September 1940 cancelled,
• Invasion
– Battle of Britain (Blitz)
• Balkans and North Africa
range 745 miles
North Africa and the Balkans
•
•
•
•
Mussolini enters the war
Invasion of Greece
Invasion of Egypt: Goals
Hitler to the Rescue:
•
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/animations/wwtwo_map_n_africa/index.shtml
Hitler’s Blunders
• Operation Barbarossa
– Phase 1: June 22 -Dec ‘41
• Initial Victories
– German Plan
– Russian stupidity
Hanz Guderian
• Blunders
– Turning Center into Pincers
– Ukranian Resistance
– Demobilization
– Moscow or Bust?
– Plea to Japan
• War on USA
Partisan
The Tide Turns: U.S.S.R. 1942
• The Russian Campaign (Phase 2)
– Soviet Counterattack
• Phase 3: (May 1942-Nov 1942)
– Invasion of The Caucus
• Stalingrad
Zhukov
The Tide Turns: 1942
• War in the Desert
– Fighting since Rommel’s arrival
– El Alamein *(Nov 1942)
• Troubles at Home
– War of Production
– Partisan Warfare
The Tide Turns: 1943
• North Africa
•
– Sicily
– Invasion of Italy
• Geographic Issues
– Monte Cassino
– (Gustav Line)
– Kesselring
– Bloody Anzio
Kesselring's chief of staff, was astonished that the Anzio forces had not exploited
their unopposed landing with an immediate thrust into the virtually undefended Alban
Eastern Front
Hills on 23-24 January. As Westphal later recounted, there were no significant
German units between Anzio and Rome, and he speculated that an imaginative, bold
– Small Axis attacks
strike by enterprising forces could easily have penetrated into the interior or sped
Summer 43-Spring 44 straight up Highways 6 and 7 to Rome.
Eisenhower
Patton
Montgomery
Allied Counterattacks:1944
•
Dieppe. 8/19/42
The raid was generally considered to be an
unmitigated tactical disaster, with no
major objectives accomplished. 4,384 of
the 6,086 men who made it ashore were
either killed, wounded, or captured.
•
D-Day (D-Day 6min, Sv Prvt. 5min)
– Calais? Normandy
– Hedgerows
– Operation Dragoon
•
Eastern Front
–
Break
out
of
Normandy
Allies Recapture France
Liberation of Paris
– Race to Berlin
– Rhine River
• Operation Market Garden
– Battle of the Bulge
– Vichy France - Marshall Petain
– Free France - Charles Degaulle
The Reich’s final Days
Hitler’s Last Gasps: ★Remagen 6min
-Battle of the Bulge
-superweapons
- Final Solution
Allied Planning
- Bombing
- Crossing the Rhine
- Jewish Question: Buchenwald
The War in Europe Ends
The Final Days of Reich
– Bombing Campaign 5min
– Dresden Was the bombing a war crime?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
– Hitler’s priorities
'... up to two
• Hitler’s Death 4/30/45 million German
women were raped
VE Day May 8, 1945
during the last six
months of World
War Two ...'
Casualties from WW2
•
•
•
•
Civilian toll: 46 million,
Military toll 26 million.
Allies lost around 61 million
Axis lost 11 million.