WORLD WAR 2: THE
EARLY YEARS
The Germans dominated the first
three years of the war.
• The German blitzkrieg tactic was highly successful in the
early years of the war
• Poland defeated in four weeks in the fall of 1939
• Spring 1940 Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium fell
quickly to German forces
• British forces retreated to Dunkirk and soon after
evacuated the continent
• France falls in May 1940
• German forces by passed the French Maginot Line by
going through Holland and Belgium
• Germans divided France into two parts, the north under
German occupation directed from Paris and the south
under a puppet regime in Vichy lead by Philippe Petain
• Italy enter the war following the fall of France
• From May 1940 to June 1941, Britain was the only nation
at war with Germany
• Britain was able to with the Battle of Britain, avoiding a
German invasion
• Spring 1941 Germany invades the Balkans
• June 22, 1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union
• The Germans ruled from the Atlantic to deep inside of the
Soviet Union by 1942