Following the invasion and subsequent occupation of France, the Nazis turned their attention towards Britain. The Nazis assumed that, due to the defeat of almost all of their allies, Britain would be willing to agree to a negotiated peace deal. In the face of this opposition, the Nazis began to step up planning for Operation Sealion — the code name for the invasion of Britain. The Luftwaffe initiated the first attack as part of the Battle of Britain on 10 July For the first six weeks the Luftwaffe concentrated on bombing strategic targets, such as air strips, on the south coast.

After a series of battles, it became clear that the Nazis were not going to enjoy a swift and easy victory. This decision marked an active switch to bombing civilian targets. Whilst devastating for London, the bombing raids on the East End allowed the RAF crucial time to recover from the raids on their own runways and airports. On 14 September , Hitler recognised that invading Britain was, at that moment, impossible.

Operation Sealion was postponed indefinitely. The bombing of London, which became known as the Blitz, continued until 11 May The British, who had troops stationed in Egypt which was a colony at the time , responded four days later by capturing the Italian Fort Capuzzo in Egypt. A series of counter offensives followed. The situation reached a head in the Second Battle of El Alamein in October , which became a key turning point in the war.

The German and Italian troops were expecting an attack, and sheltered behind a minefield. The Allied invasion took place in two parts: an intense bombing campaign followed by infantry attack which then cleared the way for armoured divisions to break through the German defences. The German and Italian troops were in a weak position, with their leader, Erwin Rommel, in hospital from 23 September onwards.

They also had little fuel or transport. Rommel returned from hospital to retake command on the 25 October By 2 November , the defences were near breaking point. Rommel withdrew his troops on 4 November By 11 November, the battle was over, leaving the Allied troops victorious. The battle marked a turning point in the North Africa campaign, reviving the morale of the Allied troops following the failure of the Battle of France.

After a winter stalemate in , with both sides building up reinforcements, the Allied troops advanced and surrounded the Axis troops. On 13 May , the Axis forces in North Africa surrendered. All Axis territory was captured along with , experienced troops. It represented a significant reduction of Axis power. By , the German Army had annexed or occupied large parts of Europe. This map shows these territories as well as the German advance into the Soviet Union.

This certificate was issued to thank German citizens for their donations of fur and winter clothes in response to a Christmas appeal for the troops on the Eastern Front. Following the failure of the Battle of Britain, the Nazis turned their focus towards their ideological enemy, the Soviet Union. Hitler had always envisioned that a successful war against the Soviet Union would be necessary to achieve two of the Nazis ideological aims: Lebensraum and the destruction of communism. Hitler had anticipated the attack being similar, if not easier, than that of France, lasting four or five months at most.

The Nazis viewed the Russian people as racially and ideologically inferior: no match for the German army. Hitler authorised preparations for the attack, known as Operation Barbarossa , on the 18 December The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June This broke the Nazi-Soviet aggression pact which had been signed just two years prior.

The Nazis aimed their attacks at three key targets, the Ukraine in the south, Moscow in the middle, and Leningrad in the north. The invasion took the Soviets by surprise. Initially, the Nazis managed to cover large territories and encircle masses of troops, who duly surrendered. By late September, the Nazis were on the edge of Leningrad, having covered hundreds of miles of Soviet territory.

Despite these tactical achievements, Soviet resistance hardened and the country did not surrender. Although less well trained than their German counterparts, the Soviet Army was extremely large and they were more used to the difficult terrain than German troops.

Having expected a quick victory, the German troops became more and more exhausted and they were unprepared for a Russian winter after months of warfare. Supply chains were slow, leaving troops short of key materials. In late , the Soviets launched a counterattack on the German troops outside Moscow, pushing the Germans back into a defensive battle. The mass murder of Soviet Jews by the Einsatzgruppen was an essential part of the planning that took place in the six months prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Their victims included, but were not limited to, Slavs, Jews, Roma and their political opponents. The Einsatzgruppen were made up approximately men. They were assisted by the Germany Army and local collaborators. In contrast to the extermination camp system which was used widely for Jews in Germany, Austria and occupied Poland, the Einsatzgruppen murdered their victims where they lived or nearby to where they lived.

Typically, the Einsatzgruppen murdered their victims in mass shootings, however there were also cases of the Einsatzgruppen using mobile gas vans. Einsatzgruppe A covered Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Einsatzgruppe B covered eastern Poland from Warsaw east and Belorussia. Einsatzgruppe C covered southeastern Poland from Krakow east and western Ukraine.

Einsatzgruppe D covered Romania, southern Ukraine and the Crimea. The following day, the United States declared war on Japan. Until the end of , the United States of America had remained a neutral country, not involved in the War. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, the most important naval base in America, on 7 December changed this.

The USA were caught by surprise by the attack. Over people were killed, and more than people were injured. A large majority of the military vehicles present were destroyed or broken.

The reaction to the sheer devastation caused was immediate. Hitler supported the Japanese attack, and shortly after, on 11 December , declared war on the USA. The USA immediately retaliated, and returned the declaration. The bombing of Pearl Harbour, which brought the United States into the war on the side of the Allies, had a huge impact on the final outcome of the war.

Stalingrad was one of the largest and most brutal battles of the Second World War. Here, German troops run through a trench in the north of Stalingrad during battle. This pamphlet was published in July It circulated the details of a meeting of German resistance in , shortly after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The pamphlet helps to evidence the small but growing discontent from some groups against the Nazis in Germany by this stage in the war. The battle of the Atlantic was over. The most dramatic and most significant reversal of German fortunes came, however, on the eastern front. The sheer scale of the conflict between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army dwarfed anything seen anywhere else during the second world war.

From 22 June , the day of the German invasion, there was never a point at which less than two-thirds of the German armed forces were engaged on the eastern front. Deaths on the eastern front numbered more than in all the other theatres of war put together, including the Pacific. Hitler had expected the Soviet Union, which he regarded as an unstable state, ruled by a clique of "Jewish Bolsheviks" a bizarre idea, given the fact that Stalin himself was an antisemite , exploiting a vast mass of racially inferior and disorganised peasants, to crumble as soon as it was attacked.

But it did not. On the contrary, Stalin's patriotic appeals to his people helped rally them to fight in the "great patriotic war", spurred on by horror at the murderous brutality of the German occupation. More than three million Soviet prisoners of war were deliberately left to die of starvation and disease in makeshift camps. Civilians were drafted into forced labour, villages were burned to the ground, towns reduced to rubble. More than one million people died in the siege of Leningrad; but it did not fall.

Soviet reserves of manpower and resources were seemingly inexhaustible. In a vast effort, major arms and munitions factories had been dismantled and transported to safety east of the Urals. Here they began to pour out increasing quantities of military hardware, including the terrifying "Stalin organ", the Katyusha rocket-launcher. In the longer run, the Germans were unable to match any of this; even if some of their hardware, notably the Tiger and Panther tanks, was better than anything the Russians could produce, they simply could not get them off the production lines in sufficient quantities to make a decisive difference.

Already in December , Japan's entry into the war, and its consequent preoccupation with campaigns in the Pacific, allowed Stalin to move large quantities of men and equipment to the west, where they brought the German advance to a halt before Moscow. Unprepared for a winter war, poorly clad, and exhausted from months of rapid advance and bitter fighting, the German forces had to abandon the idea of taking the Russian capital.

A whole string of generals succumbed to heart attacks or nervous exhaustion, and were replaced; Hitler himself took over as commander-in-chief of the army. Hitler had already weakened the thrust towards Moscow by diverting forces to take the grainfields of the Ukraine and push on to the Crimea.

For much of , this tactic seemed to be succeeding. German forces took the Crimea and advanced towards the oilfields of the Caucasus. Here again, acquiring new supplies of fuel to replenish Germany's dwindling stocks was the imperative.

But Soviet generals had begun to learn how to co-ordinate tanks, infantry and air power and to avoid encirclement by tactical withdrawals. German losses mounted. The German forces were already dangerously short of reserves and supplies when they reached the city of Stalingrad on the river Volga, in August Three months later, they had still not taken the city.

Stalingrad became the object of a titanic struggle between the Germans and the Soviets, less because of its strategic importance than because of its name.

When the Germans moved their best troops into the city, leaving the rear to be guarded by weaker Romanian and Italian forces, the Soviet generals saw their chance, broke through the rearguard and surrounded the besieging forces.

Short of fuel and ammunition, the Germans under General Paulus were unable to break out. As one airfield after another was captured by the Red Army, supplies ran out and the German troops began to starve to death. On 31 January , refusing the invitation to commit suicide that came with Hitler's gift of a field marshal's baton, Paulus surrendered. Role of terror in keeping Germans fighting, along with fear of retribution esp. But most films and broadcasts are entertainment Wuhscnkonzert.

Popular songs raise morale; but Lili Marleen , by Lale Andersen, seen as a problem. By mid culture and entertainment collapsing as cinemas, concert halls etc.

End of the War V-weapons: Vergeltung revenge or retribution. V-1 pilotless flying bomb, of which 22, fired, V-2 rocket, of which 3, launched, killing 5, Nerve gases, e. Wunderwaffen propaganda exercise, but Nazi infighting makes prioritization impossible.

Failure brings massive retribution 1, killed, many more arrested and imprisoned and further power to Party and SS. Partly prompted by Allied invasion of Normandy; war on two fronts shrinks German resources and hastens defeat by early May Age range of recruits expanded Volkssturm — , killed , women brought into support roles in army and air force.

Dissolution of society from end of as bombing causes gas, electricity, water supplies to be interrupted, people live in cellars or flee to countryside, food rations fall rapidly for first time since April , black market takes over, with gangs roaming the streets, including pitched battles with police and Gestapo Edelweisspiraten.

All people can do is to try to stay alive. Himmler has prominent prisoners executed. Official Soviet dismantling of industrial plant, railways etc.. Suicides in Berlin in March , 3, in April, in May. Esp in east. All reflects Anomie Durkheim , lack of future perspective. The French army had the equipment and personnel — five million men, more than they had in — to really take the Germans on.

So the high command was far from inactive before the war. Both in France and internationally, the French army of is seen as lacking courage. Do you think this image is accurate? But for the most part French soldiers fought with courage and tenacity. Statistics show just how brutal the fighting was. Around 60, French soldiers were killed between May and June.

The German military lost 30 percent of its tanks and planes during the Battle of France. Its death toll is estimated at 27, killed and missing in June and 21, in May.

Well, as always, it was a multifaceted military campaign, and their degree of success was dependent on the terrain, the quality of leadership, the quality of the weaponry they had etc.