An Axis Europe, 1939 – 1942
Overview
The War in Western Europe: 1940-2
In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. England and France quickly declared war on Germany for the act of aggression. Despite the war declarations, though, very little combat occurred between the Germans and the Allies for the first six months of World War II, aside from minor skirmishes on the border of France and Germany. For this reason, newspapers began to call World War II, the “Phoney War.” Then in the spring of 1940, Germany launched all-out blitzkrieg invasions of much of Western Europe, including Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. Between spring 1940 and early 1943, it looked as if Germany might indeed win World War II because of its superior technology, style of warfare, and military command. Despite the grim outlook, the Allies always hung on, determined to see the war to its bitter end.
Learning Objectives
- Examine the factors that led to Nazi Germany’s occupation of much of Western Europe in 1940
- Analyze the Allies’ responses to Nazi occupation of much of Western Europe
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Battle of Britain: aerial war between Britain and Germany from June – October, 1940 that resulted in a narrow British victory
Dunkirk evacuation: between May 26 and June 4, 1940, during World War II, the critical evacuation of over 300,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, France
Fall of France: French surrender to the Germans on June 22, 1940
Maginot Line: line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations that France constructed on the French side of its borders with Switzerland, Germany, and Luxembourg during the 1930s to deter German attack
RAF: Royal Air Force of Great Britain
The Blitz: the heavy bombing of London and other British civilian targets by the German air force in the fall of 1940
Vichy France: the French collaborationist government from 1940 – 44 in the southern half of France
“We Shall Fight on the Beaches”: powerful speech by Winston Churchill delivered after the evacuation of Dunkirk that committed Britain to see the war to its end
Nazi-Dominated Europe: 1940 – 1942
Background
During the 1930s, the French constructed the Maginot Line, a series of fortifications along their border with Germany. This line was designed to deter a German invasion across the Franco-German border and funnel an attack into Belgium, where it would be met by the best divisions of the French Army. The area immediately to the north of the Maginot Line was covered by the heavily wooded Ardennes region, which French General Philippe Pétain declared to be “impenetrable” as long as “special provisions” were taken. The French commander-in-chief, Maurice Gamelin, also believed the area to be of limited threat, noting that it “never favored large operations.” With this in mind, the French Ardennes area was left lightly defended.
The initial plan for the German invasion of France called for an encirclement attack through the Netherlands and Belgium, avoiding the Maginot Line. Erich von Manstein, then Chief of Staff of the German Army Group A, prepared the outline of a different plan and submitted it to the German High Command. His plan suggested that Panzer tank divisions should attack through the Ardennes, then establish bridges on the Meuse River and rapidly drive to the English Channel. The Germans would thus cut off the Allied armies in Belgium and Flanders. This part of the plan later became known as the Sichelschnitt (“sickle cut”). After meeting with him on February 17, Adolf Hitler approved a modified version of Manstein’s ideas, today known as the Manstein Plan. Rather than engaging the Maginot Line head-on, the German army simply went around it.
The Invasion of France and the Low Countries
In April 1940, Germany successfully conquered and occupied Denmark in a day. Norway also soon fell to the Nazis. On May 10, 1940, Germany attacked Belgium and the Netherlands. Using tanks, their Stuka airplanes, and troops, the Germans quickly defeated Belgium and the Netherlands, setting up occupational governments after they conquered the countries. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) sent troops to bolster the failing armies of Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. But the German blitzkrieg strategy, combined with superior military equipment, quickly overran the Allied armies. By mid-May, they had forced the Allies to the English Channel and encircled them. Defeat seemed imminent. The best course of action, the Allied commands determined, was an evacuation at the French port city of Dunkirk, located six miles south of the Belgian border.
The Dunkirk Evacuation
The Dunkirk evacuation was one of the most dramatic, and remarkable moments for the Allies on the Western Front. The operation occurred after most of the surviving Belgian, British, and French armies were cut off and surrounded by the German army during the Battle of France. With the Nazi occupation of much of Western Europe, the rescue of these troops was essential. They were almost all that remained of the Allied forces, and the only significant resistance to Nazi Germany and its allies. In a speech to the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the events in France “a colossal military disaster,” saying “the whole root and core and brain of the British Army” had been stranded at Dunkirk and seemed about to perish or be captured.
Beginning on May 26, 1940, the evacuation at Dunkirk began. Its goal was to rescue the 400,000 British, French, and Belgian soldiers trapped at the port. While the Allied soldiers waited, the German Stuka airplanes relentlessly bombed and strafed them, and bodies littered the beach. The British navy sent destroyers. The French sent additional destroyers, but neither country had enough ships to rescue the number of men awaiting them on the French coast. In a desperate plea, the British called on private sailors, fishermen, and anyone who owned a private boat to join the effort to rescue “the boys” trapped in France. More than 800 private vessels set sail between May 26 and June 4. Of the roughly 400,000 soldiers awaiting evacuation, nearly 340,000 were brought safely across the Channel to England. By luck, combined effort, and the ingenious, quick planning of the British, the Allied forces had been evacuated, but not defeated. Churchill commemorated the Dunkirk evacuation with a speech titled “We shall Fight on the Beaches”; his speech remains one of the strongest of the war because it presented strength and resignation at a point when the Allies were at their lowest.
…We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…
The Fall of France
As Churchill noted, an evacuation is not a victory. The Allies had been saved from complete destruction by the success at Dunkirk, but the war still raged. Most of Western Europe, and much of Eastern Europe, was under Nazi authority. Not long after their arrival in England, the thousands of French troops who were evacuated at Dunkirk were refreshed and redeployed to fight against the Nazis. Even across the English Channel, it was easy to understand that France could not withstand the German onslaught. On June 18, the Germans claimed Paris—only a month after their invasion began. By June 22, the French government had lost the will to fight. Utterly defeated, they surrendered to the Nazis. In a cruel twist of fate, the cease-fire was signed by the French in the very same train car, in the very same corner of France, in which the Germans had been forced to sign the 1918 cease-fire with France that ended World War I. Hitler himself decided upon the location to demonstrate Germany’s triumph over France.
Vichy France
Following the cease-fire, France was divided into two zones. The northern half of France, including Paris, was occupied and administered by Nazi Germany. The southern half operated under an independent French government headed by World War I hero, Marshal Philippe Pétain. This government bartered for independence in exchange for cooperating with the Nazis. Commonly, the southern government became known as Vichy France, and widely despised by the Allies for its collaboration with the Nazis, which included the arrests and deportations of French Jews. The government operated until June 1944, when the Allies successfully occupied all of France. In addition to the southern half of the country, Vichy France also governed in the French colonies in North Africa and the Mediterranean—an important point when the Allies launched invasions of North Africa.
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was an air war that occurred when the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom against the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attacks from June to October 1940. It is described as the first major campaign fought entirely by air forces.
The primary objective of the Nazi German forces was to push Britain into a negotiated peace settlement. In July 1940, the air and sea blockade began with the Luftwaffe mainly targeting coastal shipping convoys, ports, and shipping centers, such as Portsmouth. On August 1, the Luftwaffe was directed to achieve air superiority over RAF with the aim of incapacitating RAF Fighter Command. Twelve days later, it shifted the attacks to RAF airfields and infrastructure. As the battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in aircraft production and strategic infrastructure, eventually deploying terror bombs on areas of political significance and civilians.
By preventing the Luftwaffe’s air superiority over the UK, the British forced Adolf Hitler to postpone and eventually cancel Operation Sea Lion, a proposed amphibious and airborne invasion of Britain. However, Nazi Germany continued bombing operations on Britain, which became known as The Blitz.
Beginning September 7, 1940, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, almost half of them in London. Ports and industrial centers outside London were also attacked. The main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was bombed, causing nearly 4,000 deaths. The North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found secondary target, was subjected to 86 raids; this resulted in a conservative estimate of 1,200 civilians killed and 95 percent of its housing stock destroyed or damaged. Other ports were also bombed, as were major British industrial cities.
The failure to destroy Britain’s air defenses to force an armistice (or even outright surrender) is considered the Nazis’ first major defeat in World War II and a crucial turning point in the conflict. Several reasons have been suggested for the failure of the German air offensive. The Luftwaffe’s High Command did not develop a strategy for destroying British war industry; instead of maintaining pressure on any of them, it frequently switched from one type of industry to another. Neither was the Luftwaffe equipped to carry out strategic bombing; the lack of a heavy bomber and poor intelligence on British industry denied it the ability to prevail.
By the end of 1940, much of Western and Northern Europe was under German occupation. And for the next two years, most of Europe remained either allied to or under control of the Nazis. England remained the sole member of the Allies to be free of the Nazi yoke, protected by its ocean borders and German interests in Eastern Europe. The fall and winter of 1940 were perhaps the bleakest for the Allies, but it also solidified their will to fight to the end. Little could they suspect that the “end” would not come until more than four years later, in 1945.
The War in Eastern Europe: Operation Barabarossa, 1941
In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. This act broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and it opened the largest land theater of war in history. It also resulted in the most brutal of the European campaigns with millions of military and civilian casualties.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the significance of Operation Barbarossa.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Operation Barbarossa: the codename for Nazi Germany’s World War II invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941
Hunger Plan: Nazi policy to seize food and agricultural products from the Soviets to feed German soldiers during their invasion of the Soviet Union
Einsatzgruppen: killing squad responsible for the execution of Jews, Poles, and Soviet POWs
Operation Typhoon: codename for the German plan to attack Moscow
Battle of Moscow: fierce battle for the Russian capital that ultimately resulted in a narrow Russian victory and a German stalemate
Setting the Stage for the Invasion
In the two years leading up to the invasion, Germany and Russia signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, on December 18, 1940, Hitler authorized an invasion of the Soviet Union. The invasion, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, began on June 22, 1941. Over the course of the operation, about four million Axis soldiers invaded the Soviet Union along the 1,800-mile front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Germans employed some 600,000 motor vehicles and between 600,000 and 700,000 horses. The operation transformed the perception of the Soviet Union from aggressor to victim and marked the beginning of the rapid escalation of the war, both geographically and in the formation of the Allied coalition.
The Germans did win resounding victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine, both inflicting and sustaining heavy casualties. However, despite their successes, the German offensive stalled on the outskirts of Moscow and was subsequently pushed back by a Soviet counteroffensive. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmacht’s strongest blows and forced the unprepared Germany into a war of attrition. The Germans would never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet-Axis front. The failure of the operation drove Hitler to demand further operations inside the USSR of increasingly limited scope.
The failure of Operation Barbarossa was a turning point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The Eastern Front became the site of some of the largest battles, most horrific atrocities, and highest casualties for Soviets and Germans alike, all of which influenced the course of both World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century. The German forces captured millions of Soviet prisoners of war who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions. A majority never returned. Germany deliberately starved the prisoners to death as part of a “Hunger Plan” that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe and then re-populate it with ethnic Germans. Over a million Soviet POWs and Jews were murdered by Einsatzgruppen death squads and gassing as part of the Holocaust.
Overview of the Battles
The initial phase of the German ground and air attack completely destroyed the Soviet organizational command and control within the first few hours, paralyzing every level of command from the infantry platoon to the Soviet High Command in Moscow. Therefore, Moscow failed to grasp the magnitude of the catastrophe that confronted the Soviet forces in the border area. Marshal Semyon Timoshenko called for a general counteroffensive on the entire front “without any regards for borders” that both men hoped would sweep the enemy from Soviet territory. Timoshenko’s order was not based on a realistic appraisal of the military situation at hand and resulted in devastating casualties.
Four weeks into the campaign, the Germans realized they had grossly underestimated Soviet strength. German operations were slowed to allow for resupply and adapt strategy to the new situation. Hitler had lost faith in battles of encirclement as large numbers of Soviet soldiers had escaped. He now believed he could defeat the Soviets by economic damage, depriving them of the industrial capacity to continue the war. That meant seizing the industrial center of Kharkov, the Donbass, and the oil fields of the Caucasus in the south, as well as the speedy capture of Leningrad, a major center of military production, in the north.
Operation Typhoon—the drive to Moscow—began on October 2. After a German victory in Kiev, the Red Army no longer outnumbered the Germans and no more trained reserves were available. The Germans initially won several important battles, and the German government now publicly predicted the imminent capture of Moscow and convinced foreign correspondents of a pending Soviet collapse. To defend Moscow, Stalin could field 800,000 men in 83 divisions, but no more than 25 divisions were fully effective. On December 2, the German army advanced to within 15 miles of Moscow and could see the spires of the Kremlin, but by then the first blizzards had already begun. A reconnaissance battalion also managed to reach the town of Khimki, about 5 miles away from the Soviet capital. It captured the bridge over the Moscow-Volga Canal as well as the railway station, which marked the farthest eastern advance of German forces. But in spite of the progress made, the Wehrmacht was not equipped for winter warfare, and the bitter cold caused severe problems for their guns and equipment. Further, weather conditions grounded the Luftwaffe from conducting large-scale operations. And newly created Soviet units near Moscow then numbered over 500,000 men; these newly formed units launched a massive counterattack on December 5 as part of the Battle of Moscow that pushed the Germans back over 200 miles. By late December 1941, the Germans had lost the Battle of Moscow, and the invasion had cost the German army over 830,000 casualties in killed, wounded, captured, or missing in action.
Operation Barbarossa was the largest military operation in human history—more men, tanks, guns, and aircraft were committed than had ever been deployed before in a single offensive. Seventy-five percent of the entire German military participated. The invasion opened the Eastern Front of World War II, the largest theater of war during that conflict, which witnessed titanic clashes of unprecedented violence and destruction for four years that resulted in the deaths of more than 26 million people. More people died fighting on the Eastern Front than in all other fighting across the globe during World War II. Damage to both the economy and landscape was enormous for the Soviets as approximately 1,710 towns and 70,000 villages were annihilated.
Attributions
All Images Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Boundless World History
“World War II: Axis Powers”
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-european-front/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Churchill, Winston. “We Shall Fight on the Beaches.” June1940. https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches/
“Operation Barbarossa”
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/operation-barbarossa/