World War II (HM6)

World War II started in 1939 on the 1st of September, when invaded without declaration of war. There is an overlap with several other conflicts happening in the same era, e.g. the Finno-Soviet Winter War (1939/40) and the Second Sino-Japanese War (since 1937). At the moment (June 1940), there's no end of it in sight.
See also:
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== First successes of the Wehrmacht ==
Thanks to the Blitzkrieg strategy, their new Stuka Bombers, help from , and a muddled defense plan of the Polish Army leadership, the Wehrmacht quickly advanced deep into Poland. After 's attacked Poland's back, the valiantly fighting Poles had no more chance, and the country was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union. Only the "" under control of remained of it.
At the Western front of Germany, initially there was almost no fighting, which puzzled many people, although the and had declared war on 3rd of September already. Despite the fact that about 110 Allied Divisions stood against 23 German ones. This situation was called "Sitzkrieg" or "phoney war" (drôle de guerre).
On the 9th of April 1940, the German invasion of and started, disguised as "Operation Weserübung". Only in the North near , there was more of Allied resistance, thanks to having landed British troops. Because of his failure in Norway, British Prime Minister had to step back on May 10th and was exchanged for .
On the 10th of May, the Wehrmacht then invaded the neutral states of the , , and . They had barely a chance against the much more numerous Wehrmacht: Luxembourg immediately capitulated, the Netherlands after four days.
At the same time, the execution of the "Scythe Plan" by surprised the Western Allies completely - they had expected that the Ardennes were impassible terrain for panzers. As a result of this, about 400,000 Allied soldiers around were cut off from the rest of France.
== First new Six ==
During the Night from 24th to 25th of May, on Wattenberg Heights near Wormhoudt an initially insignificant firefight started, which however had the result of diverse German Troops crossing the Aa canal - despite this being against their halting orders - and occupying Dunkirk during the same day, before the Allied Troops were able to do the same. As a consequence, the cut-off Allied troops had lost their last chance to escape via the sea, and had to fight a last stand, so the happened. The big battle of encirclement turned out to be an overwhelming victory for the Germans: Several hundred thousand Allied soldiers and many competent commanders became prisoners, only a few thousand had been able to save themselves. Belgium already capitulated on May 27th, the BEF on June 2nd. On the same day, "Case Red" started, the offensive against weakened France. On June 9th, the Wehrmacht had reached the Seine. In the rushed , about 10,000 Allied soldiers could be evacuated from Le Havre. Meanwhile, the Allies also had retreated from Narvik, and the last Norwegians capitulated. These successes encouraged to declare war on France and Britain on June 8th too. While his army wasn't very successful, the advancing Wehrmacht forced France to make an armistice on June 19th, and also occupied the on June 30th. proclaimed in on June 14th.
Meanwhile, Stalin had the Red Army occupy the Baltic States during 10th to 12th June, and n Bessarabia on June 22nd.
Category:Wars (HM6)
Category:World War II
 
de:Zweiter Weltkrieg (W6)