The Calm Before the Tempest
By the late 1930s, Adolf Hitler had transformed Germany. The economy revived, the people rallied under nationalism and fear, the military rearmed in secret and then, boldly, in public. The Treaty of Versailles, once Germany’s iron cage, was now kindling for Hitler’s fire.
In 1936, German troops marched into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone forbidden by the treaty. France and Britain protested but did nothing. And Hitler learned a dangerous lesson: Push hard enough, and the world might just step back.
Austria, Without a Shot
Two years later, in March 1938, German troops crossed the border into Austria. No gunfire, no resistance just crowds cheering. The Anschluss, the annexation of Austria was complete.
Germany now stretched wider, its army stronger and its ambitions bolder. Next in Hitler’s sights: the Sudetenland, a German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia.
Western powers met in Munich that September, rather than risk another world war, Neville Chamberlain of Britain and others gave in. They handed Hitler the Sudetenland in exchange for peace.
Hitler promised, “This is my last territorial demand.” He lied.
The World at War Again
On September 1, 1939, German forces invaded Poland from the west. They struck fast, hard, and without mercy. This was Blitzkrieg: the lightning war. Tanks, planes, and mechanized infantry moved like a fist through paper. Poland crumbled in weeks.
From the east, the Soviet Union invaded too, per a secret clause in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a chilling non-aggression deal between Hitler and Stalin. On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
World War II had begun.
Fall of France, Roar of the Reich
In 1940, Hitler turned west, Denmark and Norway fell swiftly. Then came Belgium, the Netherlands, and finally France. German tanks sliced through the Ardennes Forest, catching French defenses off guard.
In just six weeks, France, a mighty power of World War I, had collapsed. Paris was occupied and the Luftwaffe circled above like vultures. Only Britain remained but Hitler wasn’t done. The skies turned to smoke as the Battle of Britain began.
For the first time, Hitler met real resistance. British pilots, vastly outnumbered, held their ground. London burned but never bowed.
A Devil’s Pact
In 1941, Hitler broke his truce with Stalin and launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. It was the largest land invasion in history, millions of German troops crossed the border. Cities like Kiev, Minsk, and Smolensk fell but the Russian winter, underestimated by so many before him, closed in like a beast.
German tanks froze, soldiers starved and the Soviet counterattack would soon begin.
The World Burning
By the end of 1941, the war had become truly global. Japan, Hitler’s ally, bombed Pearl Harbor. The United States entered the war and Hitler, ever defiant, declared war on America too.
The stage was set for the bloodiest years the world had ever seen but behind the frontlines, hidden beneath the thunder of war, something even darker was unfolding.
Next Time: Adolf Hitler Part Four — The Holocaust and Hitler’s Madness
As cities burn and borders shift, Hitler builds camps, signs orders, and plunges Europe into horror. The Final Solution begins and a new phase of Nazi action is revealed.
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