DESERT WAR AND RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN 1940

ERWIN ROMME

DESERT WAR  

The war spread to the Mediterranean and the Middle East when Italy entered the war in October 1940. Mussolini invaded Greece but was badly beaten.  Hitler came to his assistance in April 1941 and was attacking Yugoslavia. Hitler also sends aids to the Italians in North Africa.

In June 1942 under Erwin Rommel’s Africa Korps Tobruk was captured and it threatened the Suez 

Canal. General Bernard Montgomery, British 8^th Army, beaten the Germans and Italians at El Alamein and they surrendered May 1943 after a campaign in Tunisia.

BERNARD MONTGOMERY

The Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and when they landed on the mainland of Italy it was the first foothold in Europe.  By now the USA was also involved in the war.  Further advance into Europe was painfully slow since they faced stiff Germany opposition.

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The Germans had finally surrendered May 1945.  Mussolini was executed four days before that by Italian partisans.

RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN

In June 1941 Hitler invaded Russia. It was very successful but they came to a halt outside Moscow and Leningrad and were stopped by the Russian General Georgy Zhukov in December 1941.  Hitler commanded his army to go south to gain oil fields.

GEORGY ZHUKOV

In spring 1942 he attacks Caucasus. The German army was beaten at Stalingrad and 91,000 prisoners including Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus were captured in February 1943 and at Kursk June 1943.

FRIEDRICH PAULUS

The Red Army driven the Germans from Soviet soil but at a great cost.  The exact number will never be known but an estimate was made of 20 million deaths.

During the occupation the Nazis were ruthless and committed exploitations, repression and genocide.

Six millions Jews were murdered in gas chambers or shot as a result of Hitler’s Final Solution.

More than 3 million Poles were slaughtered and 3.5 million Russian prisoners of war perished.

Resistance to the Nazis increased. In Yugoslavia Josip Tito’s partisans captured whole German divisions. In Warsaw and other ghettos Jews took up arms.

JOSIP TITO