-
Spring of 1938
Germany charged Czechs by blocking them and invade Czecholsavakia -
March 12, 1938
On March 12, 1938, German troops march into Austria to annex the German-speaking nation for the Third Reich. In early 1938, Austrian Nazis conspired for the second time in four years to seize the Austrian government by force and unite their nation with Nazi Germany. -
September 30 1938
Sept. 30, 1938 | Hitler Granted the Sudentenland by Britain, France and Italy. German Federal ArchiveNeville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Galeazzo Ciano, as photographed before signing the Munich Agreement. -
March 15, 1939
On September 30, 1938, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact, which sealed the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Although the agreement was to give into Hitler’s hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia’s coal. -
April 9 1939
Germany and Hitler invade Czechslovakia -
August 23 1939
On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. But the dictators were, despite appearances, both playing to their own political needs. -
September 1 1939
On Sept. 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the act that started World War II. The day before, Nazi operatives had posed as Polish military officers to stage an attack on the radio station in the Silesian city of Gleiwitz. Germany used the event as the pretext for its invasion of Poland. -
Summer of 1940
The spring and summer of 1940 were a tumultuous time in Europe. The so-called Phony War ended, and German troops invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Once those countries had fallen under the might of German blitzkrieg, the Battle of Britain began almost immediately. -
June 21 1940
At about 3:15 p.m., peace negotiations between France and Germany began at the Glade of the Armistice in the Forest of Compiègne, using the same rail carriage that the Armistice of 11 November 1918 was signed in.
