ABSTRACT
The joint invasion of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in September 1939 vindicated the interwar reforms of the German army. At the same time, it made the Soviet Union vulnerable to German aggression, if and when Hitler betrayed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Thereafter, German victories in Western Europe, climaxing in the defeat of Anglo-French forces in France in June 1940, accomplished in weeks what German armies had failed to do in four years of fighting in WW I. The German victory was the result of the application of a new form of combined-arms warfare, set against the ineptness of the French and British commands in dealing with it. The appearance of German invincibility was then dispelled by the rout of German air power over Southern England by Britain’s integrated air defence system. Just as Germany had made astute reforms to land warfare between the wars, Britain had developed air defence capabilities that answered the challenge of 1940. Fighting Germany alone, Britain sought to dilute German strength in Western Europe by engaging it in the Mediterranean and Northern Africa. However, the great test of Nazi Germany’s way of war came with its invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
