Blink of an eye Poland, the war broke out.
1In the early morning of September, 939, the Battle of Poland broke out. Under the cover of night, the German army launched a surprise attack on Poland with the support of more than 2,300 planes. The Bode War and the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in China mean a world war-the full-scale outbreak of World War II. The aviation and armored forces became one, and the world first learned "Blitzkrieg". On September 3rd, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Although Britain and France promised to ensure Poland's security before, the Polish army's struggling resistance did not receive any effective military support from Britain and France. In the end, the Polish army was defeated by well-equipped Germans. On September 6, the Polish government fled Warsaw. /kloc-in September of 0/7, the Warsaw Defence War started, and almost on the same day, the Soviet Red Army entered eastern Poland. On September 27th, the Germans occupied Warsaw. Poland was carved up again. Poland disappeared again after 20 years of restoration.
At the same time, the French-German border on the western front was silent. Britain, France and other countries violated the promise that "if the German Empire dares to invade Poland, the British and French allied forces will go straight to the Ruhr Valley", but they hid behind the reinforced concrete fortifications and watched helplessly as a Don Quixote-style small country resisted the aggression of a powerful neighbor. On the contrary, this is just a diplomatic condemnation. From1September 1939 when the war broke out to1May 1940 1940, a formal conflict broke out between the German Empire and Britain and France. This peacetime is called "sit-in war" by Germans and "fake war" by the West. After Hitler occupied Poland, he hit the nail on the head to the appeasement of the west: "Poles should thank their friends in Britain and France for this ending."
Invasion of northern Europe
1940 on April 9th, Germany launched "wiesel exercise" to attack Denmark and Norway. The Germans claimed that this was to prevent Britain and France from occupying Norway, an originally neutral country, first, thus cutting off the road for Germany to import minerals from Sweden. The British navy successfully blocked the Norwegian port and landed in Norway. The Germans retreated to the hinterland of Norway and held their ground. The British army could not destroy the Germans. With the outbreak of the war on the western front and subsequent retreat, Norway was occupied by Germany.
Conquer western Europe with sickle
1940 10 in may, the Germans decided to adopt the improved schrieffen plan (also known as the manstein plan), which was divided into three army groups: a, b and c, bypassing maginot line and invading Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.
The first stage of operation: On May 13, German Group A entered France through Ardennes, where France's defensive strength was weak, according to manstein's intention. Due to the sudden attack of the Germans, the allies could not organize effective resistance in the Ardennes. German tank divisions crossed the Maas River and captured Sedan, a strategic place in southern France, on May 13. At the same time, German Army B invaded the Netherlands and Belgium with the cooperation of airborne troops, so as to attract and contain the main force of the Anglo-French Coalition forces in the Belgian plain, and enable Army A to pass through the flank of the main force of the Anglo-French Coalition forces from northern France more smoothly, forming a big encirclement in manstein's plan. By May 19, 2009, the German Armored Division had arrived only 50 miles from the English Channel. On May 24th, German armored forces approached the northern French port of Dunkirk, but they were ordered to stop. This order proved to be a fatal mistake, and the besieged allies began to implement the "generator plan", that is, the Dunkirk retreat. A fleet of 850 ships of various models, power engines and sizes crossed the sea and concentrated in Dunkirk. On May 27th, the first batch of soldiers were evacuated. By June 4, more than 330,000 people had successfully escaped, of which 230,000 were British expeditionary forces. Although this retreat avoided the tragedy of total annihilation for Britain, it also lost a lot of materials and weapons and equipment, and morale was once low.
The second stage of the battle: On June 1940, the Germans began to formally invade France. Because most of its military strength was lost in low-lying countries, German armored forces held racing competitions one after another and soon went deep into the center of France. /kloc-in June of 0/7, the capital Paris was captured. On June 25, in order to humiliate the French, according to this regulation, two-thirds of the territory in central and northern France was actually occupied by German armed forces, while the Vichy government, a vassal regime ruled by Petain, was established in the southern region.
It took only six weeks from Germany's attack on the western front to France's defeat, and the power of blitzkrieg made France realize the shame of national subjugation. The defeat of France forced Britain to face Germany alone.
After the occupation of France, the German Air Force concentrated in northern France to prepare for the possible landing in Britain (Sea Lion Project). Germany decided to destroy the Royal Air Force by air combat first, that is, the Battle of Britain. But in fact, many people think that the landing war is simply unrealistic, because even if the German Air Force can drive the Royal Air Force out of southern England, the remaining British Air Force may still pose a threat to the German landing in central and northern England, and the German landing troops are likely to be cut off by the British naval and air forces and then destroyed one by one.
But the Germans don't seem to realize this. On August 5, they launched the "Eagle Project", that is, a large-scale air strike against Britain, thus clearing the way for the army to land. At the peak of the campaign, from August 24 to September 6, the Germans dispatched more than 1000 planes every day on average to attack the exhausted RAF pilots. Although Britain has advanced radar technology, they still lost a quarter of air force pilots.
The British Air Force also bombed the European continent at night from time to time. On the evening of August 25th, the Royal Air Force bombed Berlin for the first time. Germany decided to change its strategy at a critical moment. They began to bomb major cities in Britain, hoping to destroy the enemy's confidence and make the enemy surrender quickly. This provided British pilots with a breathing space. However, the explosion also had a serious impact on Britain. Almost all British industrial towns were attacked, and London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights from September 7 to1October 3. Other cities attacked include Coventry and Birmingham, as well as some ports and naval bases.
At that time, there was no major ground conflict on the European continent, so air combat became the main war. The final result of the Battle of Britain was that 17 September, Hitler ordered the "indefinite postponement" of the sea lion project, and Germany's attempt to land in Britain failed. Another main reason for Hitler's cancellation of the sea lion plan is that he shifted his strategic goal from Western Europe to the Soviet Union.
Balkan Peninsula
1April 7, 939, before the full-scale European War broke out, Italy began to invade Albania, and then attacked Greece on 19401October 28, but Italy failed to occupy Greece, and the Greeks invaded Albania instead on1October 28,1944. But then Germany began to intervene in the war. 1941April 6, the Germans began to fight the Greeks and attack yugoslavia at the same time. Although the British supported Greece, they could not win in the end. German troops entered Athens on April 27th. After that, Germany began to attack Crete. On June 1 day, the airborne battle in Crete ended, and German paratroopers successfully seized the island from the British. But this operation was not very smooth for Germany, and Germany never used paratroopers to attack again.
On June 1 day, the last armed forces of Britain and Greece retreated to Egypt. After the Balkans fell into Nazi hands, Hitler was finally able to attack the Soviet Union without any worries.
East Germany battlefield
★ Barbarossa
194 1 on June 22nd, Germany assembled an unprecedented large force, including 190 divisions, 37 12 tanks, 7 184 cannons, 600,000 transport vehicles and 4,950 planes, totaling 5.5 million. The Soviet Union called this war "the Great Patriotic War", also known as the Soviet Patriotic War.
In addition to Germany, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian troops also attacked the Soviet Union at Hitler's request. Another country involved in soviet strike is Finland. As the Soviet Union invaded Finland when establishing the "East Line" and occupied part of Finland's land, Finland announced on June 25th 194 1 that it would recover the land lost in the winter war two years ago. Finland stopped attacking after recovering the land occupied by the Soviet Union at the beginning of the war. In addition, the Finnish army also participated in the siege of Leningrad. This conflict, known as "continuing the war", lasted until 1944.
The first few weeks of the war were undoubtedly a disaster for the Soviet Red Army. Because Stalin's estimation of the time and direction of attacking Germany was seriously wrong, and many Red Army generals were killed or exiled in Stalin's counter-revolutionary actions, the Soviet Union was caught off guard by the blitzkrieg against the German Empire, which led to heavy losses in the early days of the war. The "East Line" established by the Soviet Union before the war was run over by German tanks, and a large area of land was lost. Major cities such as Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, were successively occupied by Germany, and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), the second largest city in the Soviet Union, was also surrounded, and German troops arrived at the gates of Moscow. It is worth mentioning that in the battle of defending Kiev in 194 1, the Soviet Southwest Army was besieged on a large scale in Kiev, and only 600,000 Soviet troops were captured. This battle was also the largest encirclement and annihilation war in human history, which led to the collapse of the Soviet southwest defense line.
Although the Germans played very well at first, there were major loopholes in the Barbarossa plan itself, the most serious of which was the logistics supply. The vast territory of the Soviet Union means that if the Germans move too fast, the logistics supply will not be able to keep up in time. Therefore, although the Kremlin was in sight in early June 194 1 1, and the Soviet government and foreign embassies had moved to kuibyshev (now Samara), 800 kilometers east of Moscow, Stalin still held the October Revolution Day in Red Square on June165438+1October 7 as usual. By19411February 5, when the German offensive stopped, their logistics supply line had reached its limit. Coupled with the continuous destruction of Soviet guerrillas in the rear of the front line, the offensive of the front line troops was unsustainable, and the myth that the German army was invincible was shattered. When the Barbarossa Plan was first formulated, it was thought that the Soviet Red Army would collapse before winter came, but the reality was that the Soviet army was always able to organize effective resistance. This wrong estimate seriously affected Germany's plan. In addition, when the Soviet army retreated, it took scorched earth and persisted all the time, which made the logistics problem of the German army more prominent. Winter came, and a large number of German soldiers died because of the Soviet winter and the Soviet counterattack.
Although the Germans finally had to stop the attack plan because of insufficient supplies and cold winter, they still occupied a large territory in the western part of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union did not completely recover its lost territory until the end of 1944.
When the Germans occupied most of the land in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the biggest tragedy of this war began: the siege of Leningrad. When the armies of the German Empire and Finland arrived at the periphery of Leningrad from the south and the north respectively, Hitler ordered that Leningrad must be "wiped out from the earth" and all the people in the city should be wiped out. The Germans began to surround Leningrad, cut off external relief supplies, and were bombarded and bombed by the Air Force. The siege lasted for 900 days, and in the atmosphere of hunger, cold and fear, about 1 10,000 civilians died-800,000 of them died of hunger; But Leningrad never gave in to the Nazis. Shostakovich, a famous musician, wrote the world-famous Seventh Symphony (also known as Leningrad Symphony) to show the heroic struggle of Soviet soldiers and civilians in the defense of Leningrad and the great sacrifices they made for it.
After enduring the cold winters at the end of 194 1 and the beginning of 0942, the Germans began to prepare for further offensive actions. Attack Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in Caucasus and Volgograd. The Germans never completely occupied the city and suffered heavy losses in the attack.
Hitler's indecision, the dissatisfaction of senior generals with changing plans, the long supply line and the tenacious resistance of the Soviet Union made the street fighting in Stalingrad a nightmare for German soldiers. When the Soviet Red Army launched a counterattack, 20 German divisions (and 2 Romanian divisions) were cut off from their retreat, and the German Sixth Army was completely besieged. With the consumption of food, fuel and ammunition, the German positions became smaller and smaller until the last part of the German army surrendered at the beginning of 1943. In order to ensure that front-line officers would not surrender, Hitler promoted friedrich paulus, commander of the Sixth Army, to field marshal (no German field marshal ever surrendered). Paulus didn't surrender, but he didn't "fight to the last single soldier, one shot and one bullet" and was captured by the Soviets. The Battle of Stalingrad goes down in history as the bloodiest battle in history. Both sides suffered heavy losses, with about 2 million people killed, including 500,000 civilians. This battle and the Midway naval battle became the most important turning point in World War II.
After the Battle of Stalingrad, the Germans gradually lost the initiative in the battlefield, while the Soviets did not form an effective offensive force because of the huge losses in the war. From 1943, the Soviet army gradually turned to counterattack on the battlefield. 1in the summer of 943, the Soviet and German armies assembled in Kursk, and the German army led by General manstein prepared to launch a large-scale attack, and the Battle of Kursk started. The Battle of Kursk was the last large-scale German attack on the Eastern Front and the biggest tank battle in history. Because the Soviet Union obtained the information in advance, it made a large-scale plan for the defense of Kursk salient. Under their resistance, the German armored forces only advanced 17 miles at most. After the battle ended with the victory of the Soviet Union, the Red Army always controlled the dominance of the war and launched a series of fierce offensives (known as ten assaults in Soviet history) until it occupied Berlin on June 2, 1945.
Battle for Atlantic transport lines
Whether the European war zone is fighting on the eastern front or the western front is closely related to whether Britain and the United States compete with Germany for the traffic arteries in the Atlantic.
The so-called transportation line refers to the maritime transportation route to transport goods from other regions to Britain or other parts of Europe, of which the part from the American continent to Britain and Europe is the most important. The transportation line from the American continent to Britain is responsible for maintaining the strength of Britain's continuous operations and accumulating all the resources it needs to return to the European continent. The transportation route from the American continent to Europe can be divided into two parts, the larger part is the transportation route to the Soviet Union, and the second part is the transportation route directly transported to the port by the Allied forces after landing in Europe.