Introduction

Adolf Hitler was a German leader who ruled it as its chancellor from 1933. He was born in Austria but grew up in Germany. His leadership nature and characteristics made him get involved in many endeavours where he was in charge. One such example is his involvement in the National Socialist Germany Workers Party. Within this party, his performance was outstanding, and he was promoted to the party leader position. His leadership position within this party is what drove him to national leadership. As the leader of this party, he served the members well and as a result became a darling to many. As such, many people supported the move to make him the chancellor of Germany. As explained by Haugen (2006), Hitler was a staunch believer in the German race (Haugen, 2006). He believed that the German race was more superior to the rest. As a result, he felt that Germans deserve better treatment than the rest. In addition, he felt a lot of resentment towards the British and the French for fighting the Germans in World War I. Some scholars argue that these negative attributes of Adolf Hitler are what led to the eruption of World War II. Trouble emerged when Hitler made a move and invaded Poland in the quest for obtaining more land and space for his nation. Once other nations such as Britain and French reacted, he also retaliated in a bid to engage them in war and conquer them. Before and during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler invaded several European nations. It is within this context that the paper gives a detailed exposition on the nations invaded by Adolf Hitler and the reasons behind the invasion with the aim of finding out whether the invasions were conducted with a reason behind them or aimlessly.

During his tenure as the leader of Germany, Hitler’s first invasion was in Czechoslovakia. By invading this nation, he occupied the border regions of Sudetenland. This was after the Czech government in an attempt to prevent a war conceded to his demands (Vander, 2011). Some scholars have argued that this was a great move by the Czech government while others differ. Those who concur argue that the Czech government was wise not to cause friction with Hitler as this could only have resulted in a devastating war. On the contrary, those who differ with these sentiments argue that the move by the Czech government to concede only boosted Hitler’s ego and pride. Hitler was a strong believer in the German race and considered it a superior race than the rest. This move gave him more confidence of this belief. In his part, Hitler had two objectives for this invasion. The first was to unite the German-speaking people in the Sudetenland region with the rest of German (Haugen, 2006). As explained earlier, he was a staunch believer of the German race. As such, he had a vision of developing a united German nation. The reason was to test how far he could push other European nations. In the process, he invaded most European nations to test his military strength and capability (Haugen, 2006).

Another nation Invaded by Hitler was Austria. According to Vander (2011), the driving force that made Hitler make this move was the fact that he learnt Austria was initially part of German Confederation. However, this aspect changed in 1866 during the Austro-Russian war when Russia forced it out of this confederation. In 1918, there was an attempt to restore Austria back to Germany, but it was not successful. Therefore, Hitler felt that the Austrians were part of the German people and it was his duty to liberate them. To him, the Austrians were his fellow Germans who were being held captive by a different regime. By doing so, his intention was to continue uniting the Germans. In the process, he would also expand the German borders. The move to invade Austria was referred to as Anschluss, which meant restoration. It aimed at restoring Germany to its initial borders. After, invading Czechoslovakia, Hitler had a lot of faith in his army. In addition, this move together with the invasion of Austria meant that Germany had a greater population to satisfy.

The increase in population resulted in the need for more land to settle this population. Hitler believed that Germans being more superior required more space. This space would come from other nations. Therefore, he hatched a plan to invade Poland to obtain extra land space to accommodate its growing population. This plan was referred to as Lebensraum, which meant living space (Vander, 2011). This plan was executed on 1 September 1939 when the Nazi troops marched into Poland. However, this move was against the opinion of the troop generals. They had advised Hitler that it was not wise to invade at the moment. They felt that the troops were not in the prime of their strength and that the economy did not favor the invasion. However, Hitler could not hear any of it and went ahead to execute his plan (Vander, 2011). He believed that there was no way the Poland army could defeat the Germans force. He also operated with the assumption that France and Britain will not cause him much trouble, as they would opt for a peace treaty (Darman, 2013). Apart from being a neighboring nation, Poland was a suitable target since it has a vast and fertile land, which would sustain Germany’s increasing population.

Hitler also invaded Denmark in 1940. In Southern Denmark, there were a lot of German speaking people. In line with his ideology, Hitler intended to invade Denmark so as to unite these people in southern Denmark with the rest of Germany in his quest for building a stronger united Germany. However, his invasion of Denmark was more of a strategic approach than an ideological one. It was a strategic move in that, Hitler knew that invading Denmark would enable him to invade Norway which to him was a more resourceful target (Darman, 2013). This invasion would enable Germany to secure the iron ore shipping which would enable it to control the airfield in northern Jutland. As a result, Britain would not be able to use it against them. It also enabled them to have excellent bases for their submarines, which they intended to use in the attacks.

Further, Hitler invaded Norway. This invasion occurred in April 1940. Norway had managed to stay neutral for the better part of the Second World War. It had also done the same during the First World War. Norway was guided by the spirit of neutralism. As a nation, it felt that there was no need to bring the nation to war by supporting either side of the war. It felt that the best course of action was to remain neutral. However, the transpiring events had caused a lot of tension in Norway. There had also been rumors that Norway was planning on supporting the British and French. As earlier stated, to facilitate this attack, Nazi troops first invaded and occupied Denmark. This gave them a better strategic position to invade Norway. This invasion of Norway was for largely for economic reasons. With a growing population and increasing demand, Hitler had to do something to ensure the supply meets the demand. Invading Norway would provide German with control over its ice-free ports, which were essential for trade routes (Vander, 2011). As a result, German would control the trade in North Atlantic. This invasion would also provide them with access and control over the iron ore, which went through Narvik.

Later on in the same year, 1940, Germany invaded Belgium. This was a bold move by Hitler as part of his greater plan to concur Europe by overpowering the strongest nations such as France. The invasion of Belgium was a strategic technique. It was a well-calculated move to enable Nazi troops to be in a position to invade France. At the time, France had built a wall along its border referred to as the Maginot line. However, this wall did not extend to the Belgium border. France did not extend this border in fear of tarnishing the reputation they had with Belgium (Darman, 2013). As a result, Hitler saw this as a window of opportunity to easily invade France. In addition, the Belgians sided with the British and the French. Hitler viewed them as enemies hence giving him more motive to invade them. The invasion battle lasted for 18 days upon which the Belgium army surrendered.

While the German troops invaded Belgium, they also invaded Netherlands at the same time. This was part of its invasion of the Low Countries. Therefore, the aim of this invasion was also to have a better strategic position in fighting the war. Specifically, Hitler’s plan was to acquire Netherlands so as to use it as a base in the attack the Great Britain (Haugen, 2006). It also ensured the British did not use the same bases against them. Hitler realized that his move of invading Belgium violated the Dutch as a result of passing through the Maastricht Appendix. Therefore, Hitler feared that the Dutch would fill agitated and allow the British to use their air base to launch their attacks on Germany. Hitler could not take this risk, as such, he decides to act fast to prevent it from happening. On their part, the Dutch were not well prepared in defending themselves from an invasion.

After, the First World War, they had a very slow rate of re-arming, unlike other nations (Haugen, 2006). This made it easy for the German troops to overpower them. The battle lasted for seven days from 11th to 17th May. The final step of Hitler’s invasion on the Low Countries was an invasion on Luxembourg. Luxembourg was strategically located to be used by the French in launching attacks against Germany. Hitler realized this and had to act to prevent it. By invading this nation, Germany would have a better strategic position to launch its attacks (Haugen, 2006). Luxembourg was a small nation, smaller that Germany. As a result, Hitler felt that it would be easy to invade it. Luxembourg had managed to remain neutral. Its principles advocated for equality though its people seemed to sympathize with Britain and France. This nation also had some German-speaking people. As such, Hitler also aimed at uniting them with the rest of the German nation. At the time of the invasion, Luxembourg was not prepared to defend itself from external attacks. It was easy for the German troops to overpower the Luxembourg army. This battle is one of the shortest battles. It only lasted for a day until the government conceded defeat.

In April 1941, Germany led an attack on Yugoslavia. This was after Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to invade Yugoslavia. According to Haugen (2006), Hitler gave this order after receiving news on Yugoslavia’s coup d’état. Yugoslavia had refused to cooperate with the Germans. They had refused to allow the German troops to pass through their nation. These troops were on their way to invading Greece. This invasion was conducted with assistance from the axis powers. The Axis powers included Tokyo, Rome, and Berlin. From here, Hitler went ahead to invade Greece. As illustrated by Plowman (2013), invading Greece was, however, a bit challenging due to the great relations that existed between Greece and Germany. To accomplish this invasion, Hitler had to use the Italians (Plowman, 2013). Hitler was close to the Italian leader Mussolini. Hitler was always able to manipulate Mussolini to do what he wanted. In this case, he ordered Mussolini to invade Greece and Mussolini complied. In 1940, Hitler made an attempt on invading Britain. This was part of his long-term goals. He despised the Britons and was out to avenge. Hitler had always waited for a chance to invade Britain.

In 1941, the Germans under Hitler rule invaded the Soviet Union in an operation dubbed operation Barbarossa (Stockings & Hancock 2013). However, the attack was not successful and thus this was a defining moment of the Second World War. Initially, the German had made a pact with the Soviet Union to occupy Poland.  The Germans were to attack from the West while the Soviet would invade Poland from the East (Stockings & Hancock 2013). Regardless of the pact, Hitler had his own plans as he despised communism arguing that it was an invention of the Jews (Stockings & Hancock 2013). He further regarded it as the Jewish Bolshevism and thus due to his racial fantasies it was only a matter of time before he invaded the Soviet Union (Stockings & Hancock 2013). Anti-Bolshevism was the main driving force for the Russian invasion by the Germans. Additionally, the Soviet invasion and occupation of the Baltic States, which meant that the Soviets were strategically positioned to access the Romanian oil fields, furthered Germans interests in invading the Soviet Union. Initially, Hitler and his forces had planned to invade the Soviet Union in the early 1941; however, his desire to invade Greece and Yugoslavia led to the postponement of the Russian invasion (Stockings & Hancock 2013). As argued by Vander (2011), the delay of the invasion of the Soviet Union was to the detriment of the Germans since the timeline for their preparation was shortened.   However, Hitler was convinced of his victory and named the invasion after an ancient Roman Emperor.  Despite adopting a superior tactic that had proved effective in their past invasion, the Germans had hard attacking the Soviet since it had a much larger military force. In addition, their intelligence had underestimated the Soviet military force that Stalin would bring out.

After the battle of France, Hitler’s next target was Britain. Hitler began by invading the Channel Islands. These islands were Britain’s base of operations of the French Coast. These Islands were closer to France than the mainland Britain but were under British protectorate. Invading them disrupted the British operations (Stockings & Hancock 2013). After this, Hitler made an attempt at invading the mainland Britain. To achieve this, he formulated a plan, which involved launching air attack followed by a ground invasion. His plan was based on the assumption that the Royal Air Force was weak since they had attacked most of its bases (Darman, 2013). However, on the contrary, the RAF were able to fight back and defeat Hitler’s forces. Finally, Germany also invaded Italy in 1943.

Throughout the Second World War, Italy was a strong ally of Germany. This was mainly due to their leader Mussolini. However, many Italians were not happy with the nation’s involvement in the war. Mussolini being the leader of the nation is the one who was leading it into war contrary to the people’s desires. This led to a revolution in Italy. Mussolini was removed from power, and a new regime took over, one that advocates for peace. This disappointed Hitler as Mussolini was his puppet and the tool he used into steering what course of action Italy takes. He also could not allow Italy to surrender. Hitler, therefore, invaded Italy with the aim of restoring Mussolini back to power (Darman, 2013). The allied forces retaliated to this move by supporting the new regime to retain power. As a result, Italy was divided into two: the north which was under German’s rule and the South which was protected by the Allied forces.

Conclusion

During his tenure as the leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler invaded various nations. Based on the above discussion, it is evident that his traits of being a staunch believer in the German race and feeling that it is more superior to the rest played a role in his actions. His resentment for some nations such as Britain and France also played a role. His move to invade a nation had a reason behind it. He did not invade nations just for the sake of it.  The aspects mentioned above are the main reasons his invasions. His ideology on Germany made him want to unite all Germans even if they were currently under different jurisdictions. He intended to build a stronger united Germany. His resentment towards Britain and France made him make well calculated strategic moves in the aim of revenge. These tactics included invading nations to ensure protection from attacks, for economic gain necessary to facilitate the war and to be in a better position to launch attacks. As such, it is evident that there was a reason behind every invasion Hitler made. He did not go about the invasions aimlessly. They were all properly calculated moves.

References

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Haugen, B. 2006. Adolf Hitler dictator of Nazi Germany. Minneapolis, Minn, Compass Point

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Stockings, C. A. J., & Hancock, E. 2013. Swastika over the Acropolis: re-interpreting the Nazi

Vander Hook, S. 2011. Adolf Hitler: German dictator. Edina, Minn, ABDO Pub. Co.

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