The Germans dominated the first three years of the war.

WORLD WAR 2: THE EARLY YEARS

• The German blitzkrieg tactic was highly successful in the early years of the war

• Poland defeated in four weeks in the fall of 1939

• Spring 1940 Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium fell quickly to German forces

• British forces retreated to Dunkirk and soon after evacuated the continent

• France falls in May 1940

• German forces by passed the French Maginot Line by going through Holland and Belgium

• Germans divided France into two parts, the north under German occupation directed from Paris and the south under a puppet regime in Vichy lead by Philippe Petain

• Italy enter the war following the fall of France

• From May 1940 to June 1941, Britain was the only nation at war with Germany

• Britain was able to with the Battle of Britain, avoiding a German invasion

• Spring 1941 Germany invades the Balkans

• June 22, 1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union

• The Germans ruled from the Atlantic to deep inside of the Soviet Union by 1942