Anniversary of misery
Seventy-five years ago on June 22, Germany had conquered France.
After just over a month of fighting, from May 10 to June 21, 1940, the Battle of France concluded with Nazi Germany as the clear victor.
The Armistice of June 22,1940 was signed near Compiègne, France, by the top military officials of Nazi Germany and more junior representatives from the French Third Republic.
This armistice established a German occupation zone in northern and western France that encompassed all English Channel and Atlantic Ocean ports and left the remainder “free” to be governed by the French.
Adolf Hitler deliberately chose Compiègne Forest as the site to sign the armistice due to its symbolic role as the site of the 1918 Armistice between the Allies and Germany, which signalled the end of World War One with Germany’s surrender.
France was the last state to fall after Germany had launched their Blitzkrieg (lightning warfare) campaign on Europe less than a year earlier.
After invading Poland on September 1, 1939, it took the Germans only 10 months to conquer Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
After their invasion of Poland, Britain and France had declared war against Germany, initiating World War Two.
Although Blitzkrieg had won Hitler most of Europe, he never invaded England and made the mistake of invading the unconquered Soviet Union in 1941.
The UK and Soviet Union held out and on June 6, 1944, the Allies (incorporating the USA) launched their own invasion against Nazi occupied Europe.
This time it was the Allies who conquered Germany less than a year later.
