WHAT: 70 Years ago today, World War II began. Hitler’s German Army overran an almost defenseless Poland. The war that ravaged Europe and would eventually spread around the world was now underway.
WHO: Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany had absorbed Austria in the Anschluss (annexation) in March 1938. Then Hitler demanded the return of the German Sudetenland, Czech territory since 1918, in September 1938.
WHEN: At a September 1938 conference in Munich, the prime ministers of Great Britain and France accepted Hitler’s demands and pressed the Czechs to turn over the land. That was simply Hitler’s prelude to a more ambitious conquest.
In early 1939, recognizing the paucity of resistance, Hitler simply took the rest of Czechoslovakia . Next he set his sights on Poland, demanding the city of Danzig (modern-day Gdansk).
In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a secret nonaggression pact, a prelude to a joint attack on Poland by Germany from the West and the Red Army from the East.
WHY: On the pretext of a Polish attack on Germany, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The Soviets moved into Poland on September 16.
Here is the New York times front page story of the German invasion:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0901.html#article
France and England could stand by no longer. Both countries declared war on Germany on September 3.
In America, Franklin D. Roosevelt lacked the votes to overturn the Neutrality Act that prevented him from arming France and Great Britain for the war that FDR knew was coming but was now a reality.
A complete overview of World War II can be found in Don’t Know Much About History
And here are a few selected books about the coming of the war and the early days of the war in Europe:
No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin (The great account of the epic relationship between FDR and Churchill)
The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans
Munich: The Price of Peace by Telford Taylor
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer (Grand daddy of them all but still great reporting!)
