Historical+Background

__HISTORICAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION__ __Appeasement of Hitler__  World War II was started by many countries appeasing to **Adolf** **Hitler** in order to preserve peace. Appeasement of Hitler allowed him to gain military strength and determination. For example, since Hitler was trying to regain land that Germany lost after World War I, he forced his neighboring country, Austria, to sign a pact of friendship. This pact, also known as, //Anschluss//, led Hitler to send his troops into Austria and occupied the country in March 1938. Another example is when Hitler signed the //Munich Agreement// with Great Britain and France on September 30, 1938. This allowed him to take over the Sudetenland (an area of Czechoslovakia that was home to many Germans). Approximately six months after he signed the pact, Germany took control of all of Czechoslovakia (“World War II”). __German Alliances__ Since many countries wanted to stay in a state of isolationism, multiple alliances were created. One of the most critical, but short-lived, alliances was between the U.S.S.R and Germany. The //Nonagression Pact//, signed in August, 1939, was an agreement between these two countries to not attack one another. This pact let Hitler only fight a “one front war”. Shortly after the pact was signed, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939. Not long after, on September 17th, the U.S.S.R attacked Poland. Poland was soon overrun and divided between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Nazi //Invasion of Poland// started WWII. A few years later, the pack was broken when Hitler invaded Stalingrad to try to capture the Soviet oil fields. However, Germany was not victorious and Russia joined the Allies (“World War II”). __Hitler’s Blitzkrieg__ Hitler continued on his course to France. On June 14th, 1940, Germany entered Paris. Later, on June 22, Germany and France signed a peace agreement, which allowed Germany to occupy Northern France and start a new government called Vichy. This separation led to the //Fall of France// to the Germans (“World War II”). While Germany was in France, an operation was in the works in the United Kingdom. //Operation Double-Cross// was set up to gather-up German spies. All two-dozen of the the spies were forced to send Hitler new and original information to keep him from learning information that he shouldn’t find out about. The plan stated that they wanted to make Hitler think that the spies were telling the truth, so that the Battle of D-Day was a complete surprise (Ambrose 64). From 1942 to 1945, the Allies invaded North Africa and Italy which was controlled by the Nazi forces. This was known as //Operation Torch//. Allied leaders, **Franklin D. Roosevelt** and **Winston Churchill**, decided to send troops to North Africa and Italy because they didn’t think that they had enough troops to attack mainland Europe. First, the Allies captured the Southern Italian island of Sicily. This led to forcing **Mussolini**, the Axis fascist leader of Italy, to resign. The Axis powers came back with a counterattack. The counterattack made the Allies back-off the invasion a little bit (Spiller 1-2). //Operation Overlord// was next for the Allies. __Preparing for Normandy__  The planning for D-Day was very extensive and required a large amount of strategic planning. The Allied forces had to be exceptionally tricky to convince Adolf Hitler and the German forces that the battle was going to take place at a certain location when it was really going to be somewhere else. Most plans of attack include information about how the enemy was weak and brittle. The D-Day plan was to convince Hitler and his forces that the U.S. invasion force for the battle was huge and very strong. Then, all that **General Dwight D. Eisenhower** had to do was trick Hitler about the location. Normandy had many advantages. One of “Normandy’s greatest advantage[s], however, was that the Germans were certain to consider an attack there highly unlikely, because it would be an attack in the wrong direction: Instead of heading east, toward the German heartland, the Allies would be heading south into central France” (Ambrose 64). The first part of the trap was to make the German forces think that the attack was coming at the Pas de Calais, which was north of the site they were planning to really attack (Normandy). The Germans thought that they knew what was going on because they knew that one of their biggest ports, Antwerp, was close to there and the Allies would love to control it. Predicting that the Allies would attack at Calais, the Germans put their strongest defenses there along with their Fifteenth Army and panzer divisions (Ambrose 64). The second part of the trap was to create a plan, with the code-named Fortitude. This plan used “fake armies, radio traffic, and elaborate security precautions” (Ambrose 64). The whole plan was issued to make Hitler think that the Allies were planning another attack in Norway. The Allies knew that the Germans had intercepted radio wires so they lied through the radio signals that “the British Fourth Army... [was] scheduled to invade Norway in mid July...” (Ambrose 64). They also made-up an Eightieth Division and a Seventh Corps. By the end of the miraculous plan, Hitler had about 130,000 army men, 90,000 navy men and 60,000 Luftwaffe men in Norway (Ambrose 64).  <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However, Hitler's Field Marshall, **Erwin Rommel**, had other plans. He wanted "Hitler to move five infantry divisions from Norway to France" (Ambrose 64). Hitler had to make a huge decision. Click on the link below to see what Hitler's options were.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 200%; text-align: center;">Decision Page