Winston Churchill leaning over a wall map of Europe in the underground Cabinet War Rooms.

WW2 map of Europe, 1939–1945

In August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a pact that split Eastern Europe between them. About a week later Germany invaded Poland, and within a year it controlled most of western Europe.

This map shows the war in Europe stage by stage, with the borders and front lines of each: the fall of France, Britain alone, the invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalingrad, D-Day and the race to Berlin.

Open the mapSee the timeline

Interactive map · 1939–45

WW2 in Europe, step by step

Use Earlier and Later, or tap the bar, to move through 12 moments. Borders and labels change with each one.

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August 1939

The Devil's Bargain

This is the same 3D map, built from real terrain, that the Steel & Sovereigns app uses in every lesson.

Timeline

WW2 in Europe timeline

Six years, three great powers against one, and a continent redrawn by fire.

  1. 1 Sept 1939

    Germany invades Poland

    Poland falls. The West waits.

    Hitler and Stalin split Poland in five weeks. Britain and France declared war, then sat still for eight months. People called it the Phoney War.

    In the app: lesson “The Devil's Bargain”

    Neville Chamberlain speaking into a BBC microphone in a wood-panelled room in Downing Street

  2. 10 May 1940

    Germany attacks in the west

    The sickle cut.

    Germany didn't beat the Maginot Line. It went around it, through a forest no one guarded properly. Now nearly 400,000 Allied soldiers are trapped against the sea.

    In the app: lesson “Through the Forest”

    Churchill and General Gamelin facing each other in a Paris ministry office, smoke from burning papers outside the window

  3. 22 June 1940

    France signs the armistice

    France falls.

    How did Germany win so fast? Surprise, speed, and tanks massed where no one was looking. Dunkirk saved Britain's army, but now Britain stands alone.

    In the app: lesson “The Beaches and the Carriage”

    A forest clearing with an old wooden railway dining car, ranks of soldiers and parked staff cars around it

  4. 15 Sept 1940

    Battle of Britain Day

    So much owed to so few.

    Radar, a clever network, and pilots from Britain, Poland, Canada, Czechoslovakia and beyond won the sky. Churchill: never was so much owed by so many to so few. But Germany wasn't finished with Britain.

    In the app: lesson “The Few”

    RAF fighters dive into a large formation of German bombers high above London and the Thames.

  5. 7 Sept 1940

    The Blitz begins

    Bombed, but not beaten.

    Britain was bombed and nearly starved, but it held, through shelters, convoys, American help and broken codes. Meanwhile, the war spreads to the desert.

    In the app: lesson “Fire and Water”

    Two codebreakers, a man and a woman, working at a desk covered in papers beside a bulky cipher machine in a wooden hut

  6. 4 Nov 1942

    Rommel retreats from El Alamein

    The end of the beginning.

    How did Britain survive alone? Radar and the Few, convoys and codebreakers, and outlasting Rommel, until America and the Soviet Union joined the fight.

    In the app: lesson “The Desert Fox”

    Dwight Eisenhower at a desk in a rock-walled tunnel lit by electric bulbs, reading signals

  7. 22 June 1941

    Operation Barbarossa

    The invasion of the century.

    In three months Germany took Minsk, Smolensk and Kiev, and besieged Leningrad. Behind its armies, the Holocaust had begun. But summer is ending, and Moscow still stands.

    In the app: lesson “Barbarossa”

    Stalin speaking into a radio microphone, a glass of water beside him

  8. 5 Dec 1941

    The Moscow counter-offensive

    Moscow holds.

    For the first time, the German army had been stopped and thrown back. Hitler sacked his top generals and took command himself. In 1942 he would try again, further south.

    In the app: lesson “The Gates of Moscow”

    German trucks and wagons stuck in deep mud on a Russian road as the first snow falls.

  9. 2 Feb 1943

    The last Germans surrender at Stalingrad

    The turning point.

    Why did Hitler's invasion fail? He bet on a quick win and didn't get one. The Soviet Union took enormous losses, out-built Germany and learned to strike back. After Stalingrad and Kursk, the Red Army kept moving west.

    In the app: lesson “Stalingrad”

    Hundreds of tanks clash in dust and smoke across wheat fields cut by deep trench lines.

  10. 6 June 1944

    D-Day

    The longest day.

    By nightfall the Allies are ashore in France, at a cost of around 10,000 casualties (estimates vary). The second front is open. Germany is now squeezed from the west, the south and the east.

    In the app: lesson “The Longest Day”

    Rommel at home holding a telephone receiver, a wrapped birthday present on the table behind him.

  11. 16 Dec 1944

    The Battle of the Bulge

    The ring tightens.

    By February 1945, Germany is surrounded: the Western Allies near the Rhine, the Red Army on the Oder, less than 100 km from Berlin. One question is left: who will get there first?

    In the app: lesson “The Same Forest Twice”

    Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin seated side by side on chairs in a palace courtyard, with officers standing behind

  12. 8 May 1945

    Victory in Europe

    Victory in Europe.

    How did the Allies beat Hitler? By closing a ring: the Red Army from the east, Britain and America from the sea and the south, and factories Germany could never match. A cold war is about to begin.

    In the app: lesson “The Fall of Berlin”

    Churchill on a stone balcony in Whitehall making a V sign above a huge cheering crowd

Learn it in the app

World War II: The War for Europe

Twelve five-minute lessons in four units, each with the map, hand-painted scenes, British narration and a few quick questions. Steel & Sovereigns is a history learning app for iPhone, built like Duolingo.

Unit 1

Blitzkrieg

  1. The Devil's Bargain
  2. Through the Forest
  3. The Beaches and the Carriage

Unit 2

Britain Alone

  1. The Few
  2. Fire and Water
  3. The Desert Fox

Unit 3

The Eastern Front

  1. Barbarossa
  2. The Gates of Moscow
  3. Stalingrad

Unit 4

The Ring Closes

  1. The Longest Day
  2. The Same Forest Twice
  3. The Fall of Berlin
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