World War II in Europe, 1939–1945: Who Held What

Timeline

Layers

German-occupied territory (North Africa) · German-occupied territory (Balkans) · German-occupied territory (Central Europe) · German-occupied territory (East) · German-occupied territory (Italy) · German-occupied territory (Scandinavia) · German-occupied territory (West) · German Reich · Italian-occupied territory · Kingdom of Italy · Italian Social Republic · Hungarian-occupied territory · Hungary · Romanian-occupied territory · Romania · Bulgarian-occupied territory · Bulgaria · Finnish-occupied territory · Finland · Slovakia (occupied/administered) · Slovakia · Independent State of Croatia · Albania · Vichy France (occupied/administered) · Vichy France · Carpatho-Ukraine (occupied/administered) · British-occupied territory · British Empire · French-occupied territory · France · Soviet-occupied territory · Soviet Union · Soviet Union · US-occupied territory · Western Allied occupation · Polish-administered territory · Poland · Czechoslovakia · Yugoslavia (occupied/administered) · Yugoslavia · Yugoslav Partisans (occupied/administered) · Yugoslav Partisans · Kingdom of Italy (co-belligerent) · Greece (occupied/administered) · Greece · Norway (occupied/administered) · Norway · Netherlands · Belgium · Luxembourg · Denmark · Austria · Spain (occupied/administered) · Spain · Spanish Republic · Portugal · Switzerland · Liechtenstein · Sweden · Ireland · Iceland · Turkey · Estonia · Latvia · Lithuania · Andorra · Monaco · San Marino · Free City of Danzig · State of Hatay · Tangier International Zone (occupied/administered) · Egypt · Iraq · Iran · Saudi Arabia · Syria · Lebanon · Greek resistance · Slovak National Uprising · Italian partisans (occupied/administered) · Italian partisans · Soviet partisans · Allied joint administration (occupied/administered)

Events

• 14 Mar 1939, Slovak State proclaims independence: After Hitler received Jozef Tiso in Berlin on 13 March and threatened to leave Slovakia to Hungary, the Slovak Diet in Bratislava proclaimed an independent Slovak State on 14 March. A treaty of protection signed on 18 and 23 March gave Germany control of Slovak foreign and military policy and a garr…
• 15 Mar 1939, Carpatho-Ukraine declares independence; Hungary overruns it: The Carpatho-Ukrainian diet in Khust declared independence on 15 March and elected Avgustyn Voloshyn president, while Hungarian troops were already crossing the border. Poorly armed Carpathian Sich units resisted, but Hungary occupied the whole territory by 18 March and reached a common border with…
• 15 Mar 1939, German troops occupy Bohemia and Moravia: President Emil Hácha, summoned to Berlin and threatened with the bombing of Prague, signed a declaration placing the Czech people under the protection of the Reich at about 4 a.m. German troops crossed the border at 6 a.m. and Hitler spent the night at Prague Castle. The occupation broke the Munich…
• 23 Mar 1939, Germany annexes the Memel Territory: Under a German ultimatum of 20 March, Lithuania signed a treaty ceding the Klaipėda (Memel) Territory in Berlin shortly after midnight on 22/23 March. Hitler arrived by warship on 23 March and the territory was incorporated into East Prussia. It was Germany's last annexation before the war.
• 28 Mar 1939, Madrid falls; Franco declares the Spanish Civil War over: After Colonel Casado's coup against the Negrín government, Republican resistance collapsed and Nationalist troops entered Madrid on 28 March. The last Republican provinces surrendered over the following days. Franco's final communiqué on 1 April declared the war over.
• 7 Apr 1939, Italy invades Albania: On Good Friday Italian forces landed at Durrës, Vlorë, Shëngjin and Sarandë; Albanian gendarmes and volunteers resisted briefly at Durrës. King Zog fled to Greece and Tirana was occupied on 8 April. The whole country was in Italian hands within days.
• 22 May 1939, Pact of Steel: Germany and Italy form a military alliance: Foreign ministers Ribbentrop and Ciano signed an offensive and defensive alliance at the Reich Chancellery. Italy nevertheless declared itself "non-belligerent" when war broke out in September.
• 29 Jun 1939, Hatay State votes to join Turkey: Under a Franco-Turkish agreement signed in Ankara on 23 June, France ceded the Sanjak of Alexandretta, its part of the Syrian mandate, to Turkey. The Hatay assembly voted on 29 June to dissolve the state and join Turkey, and the last French troops left on 23 July.
• 23 Aug 1939, Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact: German–Soviet non-aggression treaty: Ribbentrop and Molotov signed a ten-year non-aggression treaty in the Kremlin late on 23 August. A secret protocol divided Eastern Europe into spheres of interest: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, eastern Poland and Bessarabia to the USSR; western Poland and Lithuania to Germany. The pact freed Hitler to a…
• 31 Aug 1939, Gleiwitz incident: SS stages an attack on a German radio station: SS men under Alfred Naujocks, posing as Polish insurgents, seized the Gleiwitz transmitter on the evening of 31 August and broadcast an anti-German message. A murdered prisoner was left at the scene as "evidence". Hitler cited this and other staged incidents to justify the invasion the next morning.
• 1 Sep 1939, War begins: German attack on Poland; siege of Westerplatte: At 04:45 the German training battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish Military Transit Depot at Westerplatte in Danzig harbour, as German armies crossed the Polish border from Germany, East Prussia and Slovakia. The garrison of about 200 held out until 7 September.
• 1 Sep 1939, Danzig annexed to the Reich; defence of the Polish Post Office: Gauleiter Albert Forster proclaimed the Free City part of the Reich on 1 September, confirmed by a Reich law the same day. Polish postal workers defended their post office for about 15 hours; most survivors were sentenced as irregular combatants and shot on 5 October.
• 3 Sep 1939, Britain declares war on Germany: Germany did not answer the British ultimatum to withdraw from Poland, which expired at 11:00; Chamberlain announced by radio that Britain was at war. Australia and New Zealand declared war the same day, South Africa on 6 September and Canada on 10 September.
• 3 Sep 1939, France declares war on Germany: The French ultimatum expired at 17:00 and France entered the war. France had begun general mobilisation on 2 September, but its army gave Poland no real relief beyond the limited Saar offensive.
• 8 Sep 1939, Siege of Warsaw: German armour first attacked the Ochota district on 8–9 September and was repulsed. The city was encircled from 15 September and heavily bombed and shelled, particularly on 25 September. General Rómmel signed the capitulation on 27 September, effective on the 28th; German troops entered on 1 October…
• 9 Sep 1939, Battle of the Bzura: The Polish Poznań and Pomorze armies attacked southwards across the Bzura into the flank of the German Eighth Army on 9 September, the largest battle of the campaign. After initial success they were encircled around Kutno and destroyed by German counter-attacks and air strikes; some units broke thro…
• 12 Sep 1939, Siege of Lwów: German mountain troops reached the western outskirts on 12 September. The Red Army arrived from the east on 19 September, and the Polish commander, General Langner, surrendered the city to the Soviets on 22 September; the Germans withdrew behind the agreed demarcation line.
• 17 Sep 1939, Soviet Union invades eastern Poland: Invoking the "collapse" of the Polish state, the Red Army crossed the whole eastern border of Poland before dawn. The Polish commander-in-chief ordered troops not to fight the Soviets except in self-defence, but the Border Protection Corps and other units resisted at Grodno, Szack and elsewhere.
• 17 Sep 1939, Polish government crosses into Romania: President Mościcki, the government and Marshal Rydz-Śmigły crossed the Czeremosz bridge at Kuty during the night of 17–18 September and were interned by Romania. A government-in-exile under President Raczkiewicz and Prime Minister Sikorski was formed in Paris on 30 September.
• 28 Sep 1939, German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty: Ribbentrop and Molotov fixed the partition line in Poland along the Pisa, Narew, Bug and San rivers. Lithuania was transferred to the Soviet sphere in exchange for the Lublin and eastern Warsaw regions. On the same day Estonia was forced to sign a mutual-assistance pact granting the USSR military ba…
• 2 Oct 1939, Battle of Kock: last battle of the Polish campaign: The Independent Operational Group Polesie under General Kleeberg fought German motorised divisions near Kock from 2 October. Out of ammunition, it capitulated on 6 October, the last regular Polish formation to lay down arms.
• 8 Oct 1939, Hitler annexes western Poland to the Reich: A decree of 8 October, in force from 26 October, incorporated western Poland into the Reich as Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Reichsgau Posen (renamed Wartheland in January 1940), and added East Upper Silesia to Silesia and the Zichenau and Sudauen districts to East Prussia. Mass expulsions of Po…
• 12 Oct 1939, Generalgouvernement established under Hans Frank: A decree of 12 October created the Generalgouvernement for the occupied Polish territories not annexed by Germany, in force from 26 October with Kraków as its seat. It was divided into the districts of Kraków, Radom, Warsaw and Lublin; Galicia was added in August 1941.
• 14 Oct 1939, U-47 sinks the battleship Royal Oak in Scapa Flow: Günther Prien's U-47 slipped through Kirk Sound into the Home Fleet's anchorage and torpedoed the battleship at anchor; 835 of her crew died. The sinking led to the building of the Churchill Barriers.
• 28 Oct 1939, Lithuanian army enters Vilnius: Under the Soviet–Lithuanian treaty of 10 October, the USSR handed Vilnius and part of its region to Lithuania in exchange for Soviet garrisons. Lithuanian troops entered the city on 28 October; anti-Jewish riots broke out days later and the Polish university was closed in December.
• 1 Nov 1939, USSR annexes eastern Poland: After rigged elections on 22 October, "People's Assemblies" in Lviv and Białystok asked for union with the USSR. The Supreme Soviet incorporated Western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR on 1 November and Western Belorussia into the Belorussian SSR on 2 November.
• 30 Nov 1939, Winter War: the Soviet Union invades Finland: Without a declaration of war, the Red Army crossed the Finnish border along its whole length and Soviet aircraft bombed Helsinki. On 1 December Moscow set up a puppet "Finnish Democratic Republic" under Otto Kuusinen at Terijoki. The League of Nations expelled the USSR on 14 December.
• 7 Dec 1939, Battle of Suomussalmi and the Raate road: Two Soviet divisions trying to cut Finland in two at its narrow waist were cut into isolated pockets ("motti") and destroyed in deep snow by much smaller Finnish forces under Hjalmar Siilasvuo. The victory became a symbol of Finnish resistance.
• 1 Feb 1940, Soviet breakthrough on the Mannerheim Line: After a massive artillery preparation from 1 February, the reorganised Red Army under Semyon Timoshenko broke into the main Finnish line at Lähde near Summa on 11 February. The Finns fell back to the intermediate and rear lines in front of Viipuri.
• 12 Mar 1940, Moscow Peace ends the Winter War: Finland signed the treaty on the night of 12 March and fighting stopped at 11:00 on 13 March. Finland ceded the Karelian Isthmus with Viipuri, the shores of Lake Ladoga, Salla and part of the Rybachy peninsula and leased Hanko to the USSR for 30 years; over 400,000 Karelians were evacuated.
• 3 Apr 1940, Katyn massacre: the NKVD kills Polish officers and officials: On a Politburo decision of 5 March 1940, the NKVD shot about 22,000 Polish prisoners in April and May 1940, mainly reserve and regular officers, policemen and officials. About 4,400 were killed in the Katyn forest, others at Kalinin (buried at Mednoye), Kharkiv and in prisons in the annexed territor…
• 9 Apr 1940, Germany occupies Denmark: German troops crossed the Jutland border and landed at Copenhagen and other ports at dawn. After brief fighting in which 16 Danish soldiers died, the government capitulated within hours and continued in office under German "protection".
• 9 Apr 1940, Oscarsborg fortress sinks the cruiser Blücher: Guns and torpedoes of the Oscarsborg fortress in the Drøbak narrows sank the heavy cruiser Blücher, which was carrying the troops and staff meant to seize Oslo. The delay let the royal family, government, parliament and gold reserves escape north.
• 9 Apr 1940, Operation Weserübung: Germany invades Norway: German forces landed simultaneously at Oslo (by air at Fornebu), Kristiansand, Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik. Vidkun Quisling proclaimed himself head of government by radio that evening, but King Haakon VII refused to recognise him and the government chose to fight.
• 10 Apr 1940, Naval battles of Narvik: British destroyers attacked the German flotilla that had landed mountain troops at Narvik on 10 April; the battleship Warspite and nine destroyers returned on 13 April. All ten German destroyers were lost, leaving General Dietl's force isolated.
• 10 May 1940, Britain invades Iceland: About 750 Royal Marines landed at Reykjavík to forestall a German occupation; the Icelandic government protested but did not resist. United States forces took over the defence of Iceland from July 1941.
• 10 May 1940, Churchill becomes Prime Minister: Neville Chamberlain resigned after losing the confidence of much of his party in the Norway debate. Winston Churchill formed an all-party coalition government on 10 May, the day Germany attacked in the West.
• 10 May 1940, Fall Gelb: glider troops seize Fort Eben-Emael: The German attack on the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg began at dawn on 10 May. About 80 German glider-borne pioneers landed on the roof of Belgium's most modern fortress and disabled its guns with shaped charges; it surrendered on 11 May, opening the Albert Canal bridges to the Sixth Army.
• 13 May 1940, Guderian crosses the Meuse at Sedan: After passing through the Ardennes, Guderian's XIX Panzer Corps forced the Meuse at Sedan on 13 May behind massive dive-bomber attacks, while Rommel crossed at Dinant and Reinhardt at Monthermé. French counter-attacks failed and by 15 May the panzers had broken into open country.
• 14 May 1940, Luftwaffe bombs the centre of Rotterdam: During surrender negotiations for the city, German bombers destroyed the old city centre; the raid and the fires killed about 700-900 people (711 in the bombing itself according to an official list of 2022) and left some 85,000 homeless. Threatened with the bombing of Utrecht, the Dutch commander-in…
• 15 May 1940, The Netherlands capitulates: General Winkelman signed the capitulation of the Dutch army at a school in Rijsoord on 15 May. French and Dutch troops in Zeeland fought on until 17 May. The Netherlands was placed under Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart.
• 20 May 1940, Panzers reach the Channel at Abbeville: The 2nd Panzer Division reached Abbeville and the Somme estuary on the evening of 20 May, ten days after the offensive began. The Allied armies in Belgium and northern France were cut off from the forces south of the Somme.
• 26 May 1940, Operation Dynamo: the evacuation from Dunkirk: Warships and hundreds of civilian boats lifted 338,000 British and French soldiers from the harbour and beaches of Dunkirk while French rearguards held the perimeter. The remaining French troops, some 35,000–40,000, surrendered on 4 June. The BEF left almost all its equipment behind.
• 28 May 1940, Belgium capitulates: With his army pinned against the coast on the Lys, King Leopold III asked for terms; the capitulation was signed at Anvaing and took effect at 04:00 on 28 May. The King stayed in Belgium as a prisoner, while the Pierlot government continued the war from exile.
• 5 Jun 1940, Fall Rot: German offensive across the Somme and Aisne: The Germans attacked the Weygand Line on the Somme from 5 June and on the Aisne from 9 June. After stubborn resistance the French front broke, and the French armies fell back in disorder towards the Loire.
• 7 Jun 1940, King Haakon and the Norwegian government leave for Britain: The king and government left Tromsø aboard the cruiser Devonshire and continued the war from London. The Norwegian forces in the north capitulated on 10 June.
• 10 Jun 1940, Norwegian army capitulates: The capitulation of the Norwegian forces in Norway was signed in Trondheim after 62 days of fighting, the longest resistance of any country invaded in 1940 except the USSR. Norway remained at war through its government in London.
• 10 Jun 1940, Italy declares war on Britain and France: Mussolini announced the declaration from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia, with effect from 11 June. The first Italian air raids on Malta followed on 11 June.
• 11 Jun 1940, Siege of Malta: The British island base, astride the Axis supply route to Libya, was bombed continuously by the Italian and German air forces from 11 June 1940, most heavily in spring 1942, and nearly starved; King George VI awarded the island the George Cross in April 1942. The siege was lifted when a convoy arriv…
• 14 Jun 1940, German troops enter Paris: The French government had left for Tours on 10 June and declared Paris an open city. German troops entered unopposed on the morning of 14 June and paraded down the Champs-Élysées; the government moved on to Bordeaux.
• 14 Jun 1940, Spain occupies the Tangier International Zone: Spanish Moroccan troops occupied Tangier on the day Paris fell, officially to guarantee its neutrality. Spain abolished the international institutions of the zone on 3 November 1940 and attached it to the Spanish protectorate of Morocco on 23 November; the international regime was restored in Octobe…
• 14 Jun 1940, Auschwitz: from concentration camp to largest extermination camp: The camp opened with a transport of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów on 14 June 1940. From 1942 the gas chambers of Auschwitz II-Birkenau became the main site of the murder of European Jews; about 1.1 million people were killed there, about 1 million of them Jews, together with Poles, Roma…
• 15 Jun 1940, Soviet troops occupy Lithuania: After an ultimatum on 14 June demanding a new government and unlimited entry of troops, the Red Army occupied Lithuania on 15 June. President Smetona fled to Germany.
• 17 Jun 1940, Soviet troops occupy Latvia and Estonia: Ultimatums delivered on 16 June were followed by the entry of Soviet troops into Latvia and Estonia on 17 June. Pro-Soviet governments were installed within days and rigged elections were held on 14–15 July.
• 17 Jun 1940, Pétain asks Germany for an armistice: Paul Reynaud resigned on 16 June and Marshal Philippe Pétain formed a government in Bordeaux. On 17 June he announced by radio that the fighting must stop and asked Germany for terms.
• 18 Jun 1940, De Gaulle's appeal of 18 June: In a BBC broadcast from London, General Charles de Gaulle called on French soldiers and engineers to join him and continue the fight. It became the founding act of Free France.
• 22 Jun 1940, Franco-German armistice signed at Compiègne: In the same railway carriage used in 1918, France signed an armistice that left German troops in occupation of northern and western France, about three-fifths of the country, while an unoccupied zone in the south remained under the French government. The fleet was to be demobilised in French ports.
• 28 Jun 1940, Soviet Union annexes Bessarabia and northern Bukovina: Under an ultimatum of 26 June, Romania evacuated Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region; the Red Army moved in from 28 June and completed the occupation on 3 July. The Moldavian SSR was created on 2 August.
• 3 Jul 1940, British fleet attacks the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir: To keep the French fleet out of German hands, a British squadron under Admiral Somerville opened fire when the French admiral rejected an ultimatum. The battleship Bretagne blew up and 1,297 French sailors were killed. Vichy France broke off relations with Britain.
• 10 Jul 1940, Vichy: the National Assembly gives Pétain full powers: Meeting in the spa town of Vichy, the National Assembly voted by 569 to 80 to give Marshal Pétain full powers to draw up a new constitution. On 11 July he made himself head of the French State, ending the Third Republic.
• 10 Jul 1940, Battle of Britain: The Luftwaffe attacked Channel convoys, then from 13 August ("Adlertag") RAF airfields and radar stations, to win air superiority for an invasion. Fighter Command held out; after heavy losses on 15 September Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely.
• 3 Aug 1940, USSR annexes Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia: The "People's Assemblies" elected in July proclaimed Soviet republics on 21 July and applied to join the USSR. The Supreme Soviet admitted Lithuania on 3 August, Latvia on 5 August and Estonia on 6 August. The United States and other states refused to recognise the annexation.
• 30 Aug 1940, Second Vienna Award divides Transylvania: German and Italian arbitration at the Belvedere Palace gave northern Transylvania, about 43,000 km² with Cluj, to Hungary. Hungarian troops moved in between 5 and 13 September; in the villages of Treznea (9 September) and Ip (13–14 September) Hungarian troops killed Romanian civilians.
• 6 Sep 1940, King Carol II abdicates; Antonescu takes power in Romania: Discredited by the loss of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and northern Transylvania, King Carol II abdicated in favour of his son Michael. General Ion Antonescu became Conducător and on 14 September proclaimed a "National Legionary State" with the Iron Guard.
• 7 Sep 1940, Treaty of Craiova: southern Dobruja to Bulgaria: Romania returned southern Dobruja, lost by Bulgaria in 1913, with a population exchange. Bulgarian troops took over the region between 21 September and 1 October 1940; it is the only territorial change of the period that outlasted the war.
• 7 Sep 1940, The Blitz on London and British cities: The Luftwaffe switched to bombing London on 7 September and attacked it on 57 consecutive nights, then extended the night offensive to Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast and other cities. The last heavy raid on London was on 10–11 May 1941. About 43,000 civilians were killed.
• 13 Sep 1940, Italy invades Egypt and halts at Sidi Barrani: Marshal Graziani's Tenth Army crossed the Libyan frontier on 13 September and advanced about 100 km, taking Sidi Barrani on 16 September. It then stopped to build a chain of fortified camps and to bring up supplies.
• 27 Sep 1940, Tripartite Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan: The three powers recognised each other's leadership in creating a "new order" in Europe and East Asia and pledged mutual assistance against any power not yet in the war, meaning the United States. Hungary, Romania and Slovakia joined in November.
• 28 Oct 1940, Italy invades Greece after Metaxas says "No": At 3 a.m. the Italian minister handed Ioannis Metaxas an ultimatum demanding free passage for Italian troops; Metaxas refused. Italian forces crossed from Albania at 5:30, and Britain landed troops on Crete and Lemnos to support Greece.
• 11 Nov 1940, Taranto: British carrier aircraft cripple the Italian fleet: Twenty-one Swordfish torpedo bombers from HMS Illustrious attacked the Italian battle fleet at anchor at night, sinking the Conte di Cavour and badly damaging Littorio and Caio Duilio. The Italian fleet moved north to Naples.
• 14 Nov 1940, Coventry destroyed in a night raid: More than 500 German bombers attacked Coventry for eleven hours on the night of 14–15 November. The raid destroyed the medieval cathedral, much of the city centre and many factories and killed about 570 people.
• 15 Nov 1940, Warsaw Ghetto sealed off: The ghetto created by an order of 2 October was closed with a wall on 15–16 November, confining more than 400,000 Jews to about 3.4 km². Some 80,000 died of hunger and disease before the mass deportations of 1942.
• 22 Nov 1940, Greek counter-offensive takes Korçë: The Greek army counter-attacked from 14 November and entered Korçë, the largest town in southern Albania, on 22 November. Pogradec, Sarandë (6 December) and Gjirokastër (8 December) followed, until a quarter of Albania was in Greek hands.
• 9 Dec 1940, Operation Compass: British offensive in the Western Desert: The Western Desert Force under Richard O'Connor attacked the Italian camps at Nibeiwa and Tummar and took Sidi Barrani on 10 December, capturing some 38,000 prisoners in three days. By mid-December the Italians had been driven out of Egypt except for the Sollum area.
• 21 Jan 1941, Australians capture Tobruk: The 6th Australian Division broke into the Tobruk perimeter on 21 January and took the port the next day with some 25,000 prisoners. The capture gave the British a harbour close to the front.
• 5 Feb 1941, Battle of Beda Fomm: the Italian Tenth Army destroyed: A British force cut across the desert base of the Cyrenaican bulge and blocked the coast road south of Benghazi. The retreating Italian Tenth Army surrendered on 7 February; Operation Compass had taken about 130,000 prisoners since December.
• 12 Feb 1941, Rommel arrives in Tripoli: Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel arrived to command the German troops sent to rescue Italy's position in Libya (Operation Sonnenblume). The first units of the Afrika Korps landed on 14 February.
• 1 Mar 1941, Bulgaria joins the Axis; German troops enter: Prime Minister Bogdan Filov signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna on 1 March. The German Twelfth Army crossed the Danube from Romania into Bulgaria on 1–2 March to deploy against Greece.
• 27 Mar 1941, Coup d'état in Belgrade: Air force officers under General Dušan Simović overthrew the regency of Prince Paul and declared 17-year-old Peter II of age. Hitler ordered the destruction of Yugoslavia the same day.
• 27 Mar 1941, Battle of Cape Matapan: Forewarned by Ultra decrypts, the British Mediterranean Fleet under Admiral Cunningham damaged the battleship Vittorio Veneto. In a night action it sank the heavy cruisers Zara, Pola and Fiume and two destroyers; about 2,300 Italian sailors died.
• 31 Mar 1941, Rommel's first offensive retakes Cyrenaica: Rommel attacked at Mersa Brega on 31 March against orders to wait. Benghazi fell on 3–4 April and Generals O'Connor and Neame were captured; by 11 April the Axis had reached the Egyptian frontier and surrounded Tobruk.
• 6 Apr 1941, Operation Punishment: Luftwaffe bombs Belgrade: Without a declaration of war, German bombers attacked the Yugoslav capital at dawn on 6 April, destroying the city centre and the national library and killing thousands of civilians. German, Italian and Hungarian armies invaded Yugoslavia the same day.
• 6 Apr 1941, Germany invades Greece: battle of the Metaxas Line: The German Twelfth Army attacked Greece from Bulgaria on 6 April. The forts of the Metaxas Line, including Rupel, held out for four days, but German armour outflanked them through Yugoslav Macedonia; Thessaloniki fell on 9 April and the Greek East Macedonia Army surrendered.
• 10 Apr 1941, Independent State of Croatia proclaimed: As German troops entered Zagreb, the Ustaše leader Slavko Kvaternik proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Ante Pavelić arrived on 15 April; the new state, which included Bosnia and Herzegovina, began the persecution and mass murder of Serbs, Jews and Roma.
• 10 Apr 1941, Siege of Tobruk: The Australian 9th Division and British units, later replaced by British, Polish and Czechoslovak troops, held the fortress perimeter against Rommel's attacks from 10–11 April. Supplied by sea, Tobruk held for 241 days until relieved during Operation Crusader.
• 17 Apr 1941, Yugoslav army capitulates: Representatives of the Yugoslav High Command signed an unconditional surrender in Belgrade on 17 April, effective at noon on 18 April. King Peter and the government had already left for Greece and went on to London.
• 20 Apr 1941, Greek Army of Epirus surrenders: With its retreat cut off, General Tsolakoglou surrendered the Army of Epirus to the SS Leibstandarte at Votonosi near Metsovo on 20 April. A revised surrender including Italy was signed in Thessaloniki on 23 April, the day King George II and the government left for Crete.
• 27 Apr 1941, German troops enter Athens: German troops entered the undefended capital and raised the swastika over the Acropolis. Greece was divided into German, Italian and Bulgarian zones of occupation, with a collaborationist government under Tsolakoglou.
• 2 May 1941, Anglo-Iraqi War: Iraqi troops surrounding the RAF base at Habbaniya were attacked on 2 May. Reinforced by a column from Palestine and by Indian troops at Basra, the British took Fallujah on 19 May and reached Baghdad; an armistice on 31 May restored the regent. German aircraft sent via Vichy Syria arrived too late.
• 20 May 1941, Battle of Crete: German paratroopers landed at Maleme, Chania, Rethymno and Heraklion; after taking Maleme airfield on 21 May they flew in mountain troops. The British, Commonwealth and Greek defenders were evacuated from Sfakia and Heraklion by 1 June at heavy naval cost. German airborne losses were so high that no…
• 27 May 1941, Battleship Bismarck sunk: Three days after sinking the battlecruiser Hood in the Denmark Strait (1,415 dead, 3 survivors), Bismarck was crippled by an aerial torpedo from a Swordfish. The Home Fleet sank her about 550 km west of Brest; over 2,000 of her crew died.
• 8 Jun 1941, Allied invasion of Vichy Syria and Lebanon: British, Australian, Indian and Free French forces invaded from Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq to stop German use of the Levant. After hard fighting against Vichy troops, Damascus fell on 21 June, and a ceasefire on 12 July was followed by the armistice of Saint-Jean d'Acre on 14 July.
• 22 Jun 1941, Operation Barbarossa: Germany invades the USSR; siege of Brest Fortress: At about 3:15 a.m. more than three million German and allied troops attacked along the whole Soviet border from the Baltic to the Black Sea; Romania joined at once and Italy declared war the same day. The garrison of the Brest fortress on the Bug held out in isolated pockets for weeks; the last defe…
• 23 Jun 1941, Tank battle of Dubno–Lutsk–Brody: Six Soviet mechanised corps with some 3,000 tanks counter-attacked the German First Panzer Group in western Ukraine. Poorly coordinated, they lost most of their tanks but delayed the German drive on Kiev by about a week.
• 25 Jun 1941, Continuation War: Soviet air raids and Finland at war: Soviet aircraft bombed Helsinki, Turku and other Finnish towns on 25 June, and the Finnish government declared that the country was at war. Finnish forces attacked in Ladoga Karelia from 10 July and on the Karelian Isthmus from the end of July.
• 26 Jun 1941, Bombing of Kassa: Hungary enters the war against the USSR: Unidentified aircraft bombed the Hungarian city of Kassa (Košice) on 26 June. The government blamed the USSR and declared a state of war on 27 June; the origin of the aircraft is still disputed.
• 28 Jun 1941, Minsk falls; Białystok–Minsk encirclement: The panzer groups of Hoth and Guderian met east of Minsk on 27–28 June, trapping most of the Soviet Western Front in pockets around Białystok, Navahrudak and Minsk. By 9 July the Germans counted about 324,000 prisoners.
• 29 Jun 1941, Iași pogrom: Romanian police and soldiers, German troops and local residents killed thousands of Jews in the city, and thousands more died in sealed "death trains" that circulated for days in the summer heat. Romanian authorities later put the dead at over 13,000.
• 30 Jun 1941, Germans take Lviv; NKVD prison massacres and pogroms: Before retreating, the NKVD shot thousands of prisoners in the city's jails. After German troops entered on 30 June, Ukrainian militia and crowds, encouraged by the Germans, killed thousands of Jews in pogroms on 30 June–2 July and again at the end of July. OUN-B leaders proclaimed a Ukrainian state…
• 10 Jul 1941, Battle of Smolensk: Army Group Centre crossed the Dnieper, took Smolensk on 16 July and encircled large Soviet forces west of the city by late July. Repeated Soviet counter-attacks, including the recapture of Yelnya on 6 September, cost both sides heavily and slowed the drive on Moscow for two months.
• 20 Jul 1941, Ponary massacre near Vilnius: In a forest outside Vilnius, German Einsatzgruppe and SD units and Lithuanian auxiliaries shot about 70,000 Jews and some 30,000 Poles, Soviet prisoners and others. The killings went on from July 1941 until the summer of 1944.
• 2 Aug 1941, Uman pocket: The First Panzer Group and Seventeenth Army encircled the Soviet 6th and 12th Armies near Uman and Podvysoke, closing the ring on 2 August. Some 100,000 soldiers, including both army commanders, were taken prisoner by 8 August.
• 8 Aug 1941, Siege of Odessa: The Romanian Fourth Army, with German support, besieged the port for 73 days at a cost of about 90,000 Romanian casualties. The Soviet Coastal Army was evacuated by sea to Sevastopol by 16 October, when Romanian troops entered the city.
• 21 Aug 1941, Jasenovac camp system of the Ustaše: The Ustaše regime ran a complex of camps at Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška from August 1941 until April 1945. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people were murdered there, mainly Serbs, Jews and Roma, as well as Croat and Bosniak opponents of the regime.
• 25 Aug 1941, Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran: British and Indian forces attacked at Abadan, Bandar Shahpur and Khorramshahr and from Iraq, while three Soviet armies advanced from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Iran accepted a ceasefire on 29-30 August and formally gave up on 31 August. The aim was to secure the oilfields and a supply route to t…
• 27 Aug 1941, Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre: SS and police units under Friedrich Jeckeln shot about 23,600 Jews at Kamianets-Podilskyi, many of them deported there by Hungary as "alien" Jews. It was the largest single massacre of Jews up to that date.
• 8 Sep 1941, Siege of Leningrad: With the capture of Shlisselburg on 8 September, German forces cut Leningrad's last land link; the Finns held the north. During the 872-day blockade about 800,000 to one million civilians died, most of them of starvation in the winter of 1941–42. An ice road across Lake Ladoga was the main lifeline.
• 14 Sep 1941, Battle of Kiev: the largest encirclement of the war: Guderian's Second Panzer Group from the north and Kleist's First Panzer Group from the Kremenchuk bridgehead met at Lokhvytsia on 14–15 September, trapping the Soviet Southwestern Front east of Kiev. The Germans entered Kiev on 19 September, and by 26 September claimed about 665,000 prisoners; front…
• 16 Sep 1941, Reza Shah abdicates; Allied troops enter Tehran: Reza Shah abdicated in favour of his son Mohammad Reza and went into exile; British and Soviet troops entered Tehran on 17 September. Iran was divided into a Soviet zone in the north and a British zone in the south.
• 24 Sep 1941, Republic of Užice: Partisans took Užice on 24 September and held a liberated territory in western Serbia with an arms factory, schools and its own newspaper. German offensives destroyed it by 29 November; Tito withdrew to the Sandžak and Bosnia.
• 29 Sep 1941, Babi Yar massacre: In a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, Sonderkommando 4a with German police battalions and Ukrainian auxiliaries shot 33,771 Jews in two days. Tens of thousands of Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners and others were killed there in the following two years.
• 1 Oct 1941, Majdanek concentration and extermination camp: The SS camp on the edge of Lublin, opened in October 1941 for Soviet prisoners, had gas chambers in use from autumn 1942. About 78,000 people were killed there, about 60,000 of them Jews. It was the first major camp reached by the Red Army, on 23 July 1944, largely intact.
• 2 Oct 1941, Operation Typhoon: Vyazma and Bryansk encirclements: The German drive on Moscow opened on 30 September–2 October; on 7 October panzer pincers closed around five Soviet armies at Vyazma, and two more pockets formed near Bryansk. By 20 October the Germans claimed about 670,000 prisoners, and the road to Moscow was briefly open.
• 15 Oct 1941, Moscow panic and state of siege: On 15 October the State Defence Committee ordered the evacuation of the government and the diplomatic corps to Kuibyshev. Panic and looting on 16 October led to the proclamation of a state of siege on 19 October; Stalin remained in the capital.
• 21 Oct 1941, Kragujevac massacre: Applying a quota of 100 hostages for every German soldier killed, the Wehrmacht shot about 2,800 men and boys of Kragujevac, including whole school classes. At Kraljevo more than 1,700 people had been shot in the previous days.
• 22 Oct 1941, Odessa massacre: After a bomb destroyed the Romanian military headquarters on 22 October, Romanian troops with German help took reprisals on the Jewish population. About 25,000–34,000 Jews were killed in the city and at Dalnyk, many of them burned alive in warehouses.
• 30 Oct 1941, Siege of Sevastopol: After breaking into the Crimea at Perekop and Ishun (18–28 October), Manstein's Eleventh Army besieged the Black Sea Fleet's base. Two assaults failed; the third, from 7 June 1942 with super-heavy artillery, took the city on 1 July, and the last defenders on the Chersonese peninsula surrendered on 4…
• 8 Nov 1941, Tikhvin taken and retaken: The Germans took Tikhvin on 8 November, cutting the railway that fed the Ladoga supply route to Leningrad. A Soviet counter-offensive retook the town on 9 December, and supplies could again reach the ice road.
• 18 Nov 1941, Operation Crusader: Tobruk relieved: The British Eighth Army attacked into Cyrenaica on 18 November; tank battles around Sidi Rezegh (21–23 November) and Rommel's "dash to the wire" nearly defeated it. The Tobruk garrison linked up on 27 November, and by the end of December Rommel had withdrawn to El Agheila.
• 21 Nov 1941, Rostov taken and lost: first major German retreat: The First Panzer Army took Rostov on 21 November but was driven out on 28–29 November by Soviet counter-attacks. Rundstedt was dismissed when he ordered a withdrawal to the Mius.

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