Curated playlist
World War II occupied territories
- German occupation of Estonia during World War IIEstonian partisans attacked Soviet trucks the day Germany invaded the USSR.
- German occupation of AlbaniaWhen Italy quit the war in September 1943, German troops crossed into Albania.
- Italian occupation of FranceThe Italian occupation of France ran from 1940 to 1943. It covered part of the south-east, together with Monaco, and it sat alongside the German occupation rather than inside it. The German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, took…
- Anglo-Soviet invasion of IranIn 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded neutral Iran. The Shah was gone within a month.
- Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet UnionThe Soviet takeover of eastern Poland was planned in secret before Germany attacked.
- BizoneOn January 1, 1947, the Americans and British merged their zones of occupied Germany.
- Allied-occupied GermanyOn the 5th of June 1945, the Berlin Declaration ended Germany as a sovereign state.
- Axis occupation of GreeceIn 1940, an Italian ambassador woke Greece's premier with an ultimatum, and he refused.
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945)Hitler gave Czechoslovakia's president two choices: cooperate or face armed destruction.
- Protectorate of Bohemia and MoraviaHitler modeled the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on India's princely states.
- SudetenlandThe name Sudetenland did not exist until the early 20th century. It later became the flashpoint of a crisis over Munich.
- Italian East AfricaIn 1936 Mussolini declared Ethiopia Italian, creating Italian East Africa. It lasted barely five years.
- Soviet occupation zone in GermanyIn April 1946, Soviet authorities forcibly merged two German parties into one. It became East Germany's governing party.
- Occupation of JapanMacArthur refused to put Emperor Hirohito on trial after Japan's surrender.
- Syria–Lebanon campaignIn 1941, Australian soldiers fought French troops in the mountains of Lebanon. They fought for Vichy France.
- Allied-occupied AustriaThe Americans secretly trained an underground Austrian army at 200 men a week.
- Battle of MadagascarBritish forces landed on Madagascar on the 5th of May 1942 to stop Japan from getting there first.
- General GovernmentGermany's General Government in occupied Poland rested on a lie that Poland's government had collapsed.
- Occupation of the Baltic statesIn August 1940, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were absorbed into the Soviet Union. Sham elections came first.
- World War II in YugoslaviaYugoslavia's army surrendered in eleven days in April 1941. The war that followed lasted four more years.
- German military administration in occupied France during World War IIWithin weeks of June 1940, a swastika flag flew above the Eiffel Tower. Germans then governed occupied France.
- Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern BukovinaIn June 1940, Molotov gave Romania four days to hand over Bessarabia and northern Bukovina.
- German-occupied EuropeAt its peak in 1941-1942, German-occupied Europe held more than half the continent's people.