Inactivity during the Phoney War prompts Neville Chamberlain to assure the House of Commons that Hitler has 'missed the bus'

German ships and marines occupy the harbours of neutral Denmark and Norway

The German invasion of Norway includes the world's first airborne assault, with troops arriving by plane to attack the airports of Oslo and Stavanger

German tanks reach the French coast at Abbeville, nine days after crossing the border from Germany

Marshal Pétain, as the new premier of France, immediately asks Germany for an armistice

A delegation from France, defeated and partly occupied by Germany, signs in Rome an armistice with Mussolini's Italy

Germany takes control of Romania, to secure the country's rich oil fields

Hitler orders preparations for the invasion of England, under the codename Operation Sea Lion

Germany, Italy and Japan form a Tripartite Pact as a military alliance

After the summer's losses in the air, Hitler orders the effective cancellation of operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Britain

The castle at Colditz, adapted as a high-security prisoner-of-war camp, receives 140 Polish officers as its first inmates

Adolf Hitler orders preparations to be made for Operation Barbarossa, his planned invasion of the Soviet Union

German armies cross the border to invade Russia on a front from the Baltic to southern Poland

German troops invade and rapidly overrun Yugoslavia

German troops move on from Yugoslavia into Greece, driving a small British force from the mainland across the sea to Crete

In preparation for the invasion of Russia, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler set up Special Task Commandos (Einsatzkommando) to exterminate Communists and Jews

Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy in the Nazi party, flies to Britain on a bizarre secret mission

Germany's latest battleship, the Bismarck, is sunk in the Atlantic with the loss of nearly all her 2222 crew

The systematic shooting of Russian Jews by German Einsatzgruppen is the first step in the development of the Holocaust

Goering orders Reinhard Heydrich to prepare plans for the 'final solution of the Jewish queston'

Nazi experiments are carried out on Jews and Soviet prisoners of war to find effective means of murder by gas

A week or two after reaching Leningrad a Germany army establishes a siege that will last 900 days

Adolf Eichmann, in an official letter about policy in relation to the Jews, uses the phrase 'the final solution'

Bulgaria signs the Anti-Comintern Pact and joins the war on Germany's side

Reinhard Heydrich convenes a meeting at Wannsee to discuss the practical details of the 'final solution'