German Victories in WW2

Operation White: Poland

• The attack on Poland occurred on 1st September 1939, in which Germany used Blitzkrieg to tear through the Polish defenses seeing Poland surrender by the end of the month.
• The new German mentality and tactics helped them win many battles during the war, due to countries like Poland maintain a WW1 mentality.
• Following and during the campaign in Poland, the Einzatgruppen killed over 1.3 million Jews, which followed the 2 million Jews already obtained by the invasion. 
• Ghettos were built in places such as Warsaw to contain the Jews, in which conditions were terrible leading to disease, starvation and death. 

The Soviet-German War

• The war which was meant to last a few months but eventually became a few years, saw the death of 27 million Soviet men.
• In 1940, the German felt confident in their previous victories leading to Operation Barbarossa taking place ahead of schedule.
• The decision by Hitler to go to war with the Soviet Union was down the fact that it was the heart of Communist and Jewish power. In the following weeks after invasion, the firing squad of the SS had killed over 500,000 people. At this time, there were Jews starving in ghettos in Poland and other areas and alongside victories in the West, the Germans obtained a lot more Jews. In May-June 1940, the German army conquered France and most of western Europe, bringing more Jews under the control of the Nazis.However, the fall of France offered a new solution in the eyes of the Madagascar Plan, where they would deport the Jews to the island off the coast of Eastern Africa.Eichmann grew this by including all the Jews in Europe.
• This was a radical new step, based on a barbaric vision of uprooting millions of people and sending them off to an island under the control of the SS. This was almost another version of genocide. In the end, no one was sent off to the island due to the control of the seas from the British, leading to a newer plan to be made.
• In the Autumn of 1941, the first death camp was formed in Belzec. This was followed by the gas vans that were created for the further annihilation of the Jewish colony in Europe.