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German-occupied Europe (or Nazi-occupied Europe) refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet governments, by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during World War II, administered by the Nazi regime under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.
The use of foreign forced labour and slavery in Germany and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. [68] It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in German-occupied Europe.
[1] [3] In a major conference on 16 July 1941, where chief aspects of German rule in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe were laid out, Hitler emphasised to the attendees (Martin Bormann, Hermann Göring, Alfred Rosenberg, and Hans Lammers) that "the Europe of today was nothing but a geographical term; in reality Asia extended up to our ...
The line continued to form as American, British, French and Soviet forces took control of, or defeated, Nazi forces, up until the time of the May 8 unconditional surrender of Germany and beyond. This line of contact did not conform to the agreed-upon occupation zones, as stipulated in the Yalta Conference .
Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until the capitulation of German forces in Europe on 8 May 1945. Throughout this period, a pro-German government named Den nasjonale regjering ('the National Government') ruled Norway, while the Norwegian king Haakon VII and the prewar ...
Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. [85] Honouring their treaty obligations, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. [86] Poland fell quickly, as the Soviet Union attacked from the east on 17 September. [87]
German forces in North West Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrender: On 4 May 1945, the British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery took the unconditional military surrender at Lüneburg from Generaladmiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, and General Eberhard Kinzel, of all German forces "in Holland [sic], in northwest Germany including the ...
During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period, Reichsdeutsche (German citizens) and Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans living outside the Nazi state) fled and were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries, including Czechoslovakia, and from the former German provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and the eastern parts of Brandenburg and Pomerania ...