Originally, Hitler's first cabinet was called the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation, which was a coalition of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP); it became an exclusively Nazi cabinet when the DNVP was intimidated into dissolving itself.
Reich (/ˈra?k/; German: [ˈ?a?ç] ( listen)) is a German word analogous in meaning to the English word "realm". The terms Kaiserreich (literally "realm of an emperor") and Königreich (literally "realm of a king") are used in German to refer to empires and kingdoms respectively.
Hitler became Führer: when Hindenburg died, Hitler declared himself jointly president, chancellor and head of the army. Members of the armed forces had to swear a personal oath of allegiance not to Germany, but to Hitler. This formally made Hitler the absolute ruler of Germany.
Why did Germany invade Poland? Germany invaded Poland to regain lost territory and ultimately rule their neighbor to the east. The German invasion of Poland was a primer on how Hitler intended to wage war–what would become the “blitzkrieg” strategy.
He defined the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the "First Reich", and the German Empire (1871–1918) as the "Second Reich", while the "Third Reich" was an ideal state including all German peoples, including Austria. In the modern context the term refers to Nazi Germany.
The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units within Nazi Germany's military.
France and Britain declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland in September 1939. Vichy France fought for control over the French overseas empire with the Free French forces, which were helped by Britain and the U.S. By 1943, all of the colonies, except for Indochina, had joined the Free French cause.
Although the war began with Nazi Germany's attack on Poland in September 1939, the United States did not enter the war until after the Japanese bombed the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The war ended with the Axis powers' unconditional surrender in 1945.
It is estimated that between 50,000 and 90,000 soldiers of the French army were killed in the fighting of May and June 1940. In addition to the casualties, 1.8m French soldiers, from metropolitan France and across the French empire, were captured during the Battle of France and made prisoners of war (POWs).
Military forces of France during World War II. These complex opposing forces were called, in a simplistic manner, Vichy French forces and Free French forces. They fought battles all over the world from 1940 to 1945, and sometimes fighting against each other.
Hitler's own objective towards France was to eliminate it permanently as a strategic threat to German security. The 1940 campaign in Western Europe was in fact carried out entirely so that its western flank could be secured before Germany would commit its armies to conquering Lebensraum in the Soviet Union.
The zone libre (French pronunciation: ?[zon lib?], free zone) was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during World War II, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on 22 June 1940.
Choltitz signed a formal surrender that afternoon, and on August 26, Free French General Charles de Gaulle led a joyous liberation march down the Champs d'Elysees. Paris fell to Nazi Germany on June 14, 1940, one month after the German Wehrmacht stormed into France.
Vichy France
| French State État Français |
|---|
| The French State in 1942: Unoccupied zone German military occupation zone French protectorates |
| The gradual loss of all Vichy territory to Free France and the Allied powers. |
| Status | Client state of Germany (1940–1942) Puppet state of Germany (1942–1944) Government-in-exile (1944–1945) |
Vichy is best known for being chosen after the German occupation in 1940 to house Marshal Pétain's puppet regime that collaborated with the Nazis and ensured the deportation of one quarter of France's Jewish population.
The French (and Belgian) name for the operation is Bataille des Ardennes (Battle of the Ardennes). The phrase Battle of the Bulge was coined by contemporary press to describe the way the Allied front line bulged inward on wartime news maps.
Germany defeated and occupied Poland (attacked in September 1939), Denmark (April 1940), Norway (April 1940), Belgium (May 1940), the Netherlands (May 1940), Luxembourg (May 1940), France (May 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941), and Greece (April 1941).
France was the leading proponent of harsh peace terms against Germany at the Paris Peace Conference. As the war had been fought on French soil, it had destroyed much of the infrastructure and industry in Northern France, and France had suffered the highest number of casualties proportionate to population.
France and Bavaria
Bavaria as the third-largest state in Germany after 1815 enjoyed much warmer relations with France than the larger Prussia or Austria. From 1670 onwards the two countries were allies for almost a century, primarily to counter Habsburg ambitions to incorporate Bavaria into Austria.Upper-Rhine (French-German-Swiss border) « transfrontier.
Great Britain entered World War I on 4 August 1914 when the king declared war after the expiration of an ultimatum to Germany. The official explanation focused on protecting Belgian neutrality; the main reason, however, was to prevent a French defeat that would have left Germany in control of Western Europe.
Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and France on 3 August. Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality and British fears of German domination in Europe brought Britain and its empire into the war on 4 August. These actions reflect the fears, anxieties and ambitions of the European powers.
Historically the heritage of the French people is mostly of Celtic or Gallic, Latin (Romans) and Germanic (Franks) origin, descending from the ancient and medieval populations of Gauls or Celts from the Atlantic to the Rhone Alps, Germanic tribes that settled France from east of the Rhine and Belgium after the fall of
The humiliating defeat of Louis Napoleon's Second Empire of France is made complete on May 10, 1871, when the Treaty of Frankfurt am Main is signed, ending the Franco-Prussian War and marking the decisive entry of a newly unified German state on the stage of European power politics, so long dominated by the great
Alsace-Lorraine was the name given to the 5,067 square miles (13,123 square km) of territory that was ceded by France to Germany in 1871 after the Franco-German War.
Germany is in Western and Central Europe, bordering Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Austria and Switzerland in the south, France and Luxembourg in the south-west, and Belgium and the Netherlands in the north-west.
