Mar. 26th - Mar. 28th

[6Hannah]

Monday
• How did the world react to the Pact?
o Shock
o Poland was stuck “between a rock and a hard place”
o Hitler thought it would force Great Britain and France to back out of their promise
• German/USSR invasion of Poland-Blitzkrieg
o Map
• Cartoon
• Blitzkrieg/ Lightening War
o Air Force attacks enemy front-line and rear positions, main roads, airfields and communication centers. At the same time, infantry attacks on the entire frontline and engages enemy.
o Tank (panzer) units breakthrough main lines of defense and advance deeper into enemy territory.
o Infantry attacks enemy flanks in order to link up with other groups to complete the attack and eventually encircle the enemy.
o Mechanized groups go deeper
o Main force links up with other units encircling and cutting off the enemy.
o Goal was to achieve victory as quickly as possible.
• Pictures
• Sitzkrieg-The Phony War- Winter 1939/40
• The Phony War Ends: Spring, 1940
o Maps
• French and German Plans for the Battle of France 1940
• France’s “Impenetrable” Maginot Line
o Picture
o Germany surrendered France in a month
• Miracle of Dunkirk
• Dunkirk-340,000 Allied Troops Evacuated
• France Surrenders, June 1940
• A Divided France- The Vichy Government
o Henri Petain
• The French Resistance
o The French Underground
o The Maquis
o General Charles DeGaulle
• Cartoons
• Axis Invasion of the Balkan (Yugoslavia) 1941
• Winston Churchill
o “Let us go forward together”
o Famous speech
Tuesday
• Nazi Goals for Battle of Britain
o Destroy the Royal Air Force (before invasion was possible-hopefully by 9/15/1940)
o Attack and destroy the British Navy
o Attack British troops
o One air control was gained, the invasion of Great Britain would begin
o Germany never succeeded in achieving #1
o German bombers did so poorly against the RAF that they started bombing at night only
o Great Britain was aided heavily by the radar and Ultra
• Operation Sea Lion
• Cartoon
• Battle of Britain- The Blitz- September 1940-May 1941
o Map
• Royal Air Force
• Luftwaffe
o Messerschmitt
• Air Raid Shelters During the Blitz
o Pictures
• Results
o In May 1941, Germany decided to focus on attacking British ships and ports and thus stopped attacking cities
o British losses- around 40,000 civilians dead
 46,000-139,000 injured
 German losses- 3,363 aircrew and 2,265 aircraft
 Britain won by the fact that Germany didn’t achieved their goals
Wednesday
• German Invasion of USSR- June 1941
o Final Plan for Operation Barbarossa
• Cartoon
• Scorched Earth Policy
o Stalin demanded this of the Soviet troops as they retreated
o Pictures
• Battle for Moscow
o The Soviet Winter Counteroffensive December 6, 1941- April 30, 1942
o The Russian winter sets in and makes a huge turning point in the war
• Cartoon
• Battle of Stalingrad: August 19420 February 1943
o Results:
 More than 1,830,000 killed and wounded
 More than 11,400 casualties each day
 The biggest defeat in the history of the German Army
 The turning point not only on the Eastern Front, but also the turning point of the whole of WW2
• Pictures
• Cartoons
• Video
• Siege of Leningrad
o On August 30th, 1941, the Germans took over Leningrad’s railroads, cutting them off from the rest of Russia and the world.
o Unlike the Battle of Stalingrad, the Germans surrounded the city to starve the city into submission
o Between November 1941 and October 1942, 641,000 p[people died of starvation
o People resorted to eating rats, wallpaper paste and some resorted to cannibalism
o A successful Russian counter-offensive at Stalingrad forced the Germans to move troops there and eventually, the siege failed
o The German never took Leningrad, but it was one of the costliest conflicts Russia had ever faced
• Pictures
• Cartoons
• The North Africa Campaign: June 1940-May 1943
o Gen. Bernard Montgomery (“Monty”)
o Gen. Erwin Rommel (“Dessert Fox”)
• Map of North Africa
• Operation Torch
o US and British forces invade North Africa
o By May 1943, Axis forces surrendered in North Africa
o The campaign would now shift to the islands in the Mediterranean Sea and Italy
• Picture
• Battles with Italy
• The Allies Liberate Rome
• The Atlantic Wall
o Belgium gates, teller mines, ramps, hedgehogs, walls of barbed wire, pillboxes, concrete bunkers