Home. Netball Australia - Papers - The Australian Women's Register. Home - The Australian Women's Register. Trove - Search results for 'adair, daryl' World War II in Europe. The Holocaust took place in the broader context of World War II. Still reeling from Germany's defeat in World War I, Hitler's government envisioned a vast, new empire of "living space" (Lebensraum) in eastern Europe. The realization of German dominance in Europe, its leaders calculated, would require war. 1939After securing the neutrality of the Soviet Union (through the August 1939 German-Soviet Pact of nonaggression), Germany started World War II by invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3.
Within a month, Poland was defeated by a combination of German and Soviet forces and was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. 1940The relative lull in fighting which followed the defeat of Poland ended on April 9, 1940, when German forces invaded Norway and Denmark. With German encouragement, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 and formally annexed them in August 1940.
Further Reading.