Hitler's Rise: Chosen to Conquer
Hitler was chosen to lead the German people because he was not a feudal monarch like Frederick, or an aristocratic land owner like Bismark, or an emperor like The Kaiser. He was chosen because he was just like the people of Germany: ordinary, fed-up and yearning to be superior once again. Between 1939 and 1940, Hitler started his conquest of Europe. His armies pushed through many countries and even invaded part of Africa. This was only the beginning of something much, much worse than anyone could have imagined. But beginning in 1936, with the Rhineland, Hitler progressively annexed Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938, and half of Czechoslovakia and Memel in 1939. |
US Army Signal Coprs Orientation film clip courtesy of Steven Spielberg Film & Video Archive/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org)
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"The campaign against the Low Countries and France lasted less than six weeks. Germany attacked in the west on May 10, 1940. Initially, British and French commanders had believed that German forces would attack through central Belgium as they had in World War I, and rushed forces to the Franco-Belgian border to meet the German attack. The main German attack however, went through the Ardennes Forest in southeastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. German tanks and infantry quickly broke through the French defensive lines and advanced to the coast."
[http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005181]
[http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005181]