Declaration of War on Germany by France and the United Kingdom

Luftwaffe's Schnellbomber Junker Ju-88 escorted by Jäger Messerschmitt Me-109's
Generalmajor Erwin Rommel's troops crossing the River Meuse in Belgium
Dutch civilians cheer arrival of Waffen-SS troops at Dam Square in Amsterdam
Volunteers of SS-Standarte Der Führer in front of the Haarlem Stadhuis
September 3 of 1939 was a lovely Sunday. It was the day that France and Britain declared war on the German Reich. They created world tension from a central European quarrel into which they drew forces from their colonies. On September 7 1939, France began the Saar Offensive with an advance from the Maginot Line 5 km into the Saar. France had mobilised 98 divisions and 2,500 tanks against a German force consisting of 43 divisions and no tanks. The French advanced until they met the then thin and undermanned Siegfried Line. Following the Saar Offensive, a period of inaction called the Phoney War, or the German Sitzkrieg, sitting war set in between the belligerents. Holland fought for their official neutrality, in hope of being spared this war, and at the same time played with fire. The Dutch General Staff sought military contact with the Allies and foreign Secret Service agents romped around Holland. This did not escape Germany's notice and they objected. They declared that France and Britain intended a military thrust to the Ruhr, using reconnoitered positions, not only in “neutral” Belgium, but in Holland as well. Not only that, French regiments had already received provisional operation orders, in April 1940, for their advance through Belgium and Holland. The open flank at the Siegfried Line offered itself as the area of concentration for the Allied Armed Forces. It was Duff Cooper, later Minister for information in Winston Churchill's cabinet, who said: We take any step necessary, and without consideration of the neutrality of the land. Neville Chamberlain declared: We British can distribute our attacks as and when we wish. Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler decided not to give his enemies the chance of any initiative. Top image: Luftwaffe's Junker Ju-88 heading towards its target escorted by fighter aircraft Messerschmitt Me-109's. The twin-engined multirole combat aircraft Ju 88 was the most modern of Germany's bombers in 1940. Credit: Alan Lathan. Propaganda-Postkarte of Carl Werner Reichenbach. Fair use. Second image: Generalmajor and commander of the 7.Panzer-Division Erwin Rommel paddles across the river Meuse in Belgium on May 13 1940. The 7th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht would become known as the Gespensterdivision (Ghost Division) because its whereabouts sometimes remained unknown to friend and foe alike during the Western campaign. Credit: Rui Manuel Candeias. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Third image: German Waffen-SS troops have arrived in the Netherlands as the result of the French and British war declarations against the German Reich. Adolf Hitler's personal photographer Hugo Jäger photographed the first German troops arriving in Amsterdam in May 1940. The people of Amsterdam poured out into the streets to welcome the victors. The troops belongs to the German-Austrian SS-Standarte Der Führer. Tens of thousands of men from the Low Countries would soon volunteer to become Waffen-SS soldiers themselves, while many more of its citizens would support the occupation and volunteer to serve the Nazi cause. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Bottom image: units of Der Führer in front of the Haarlem Stadhuis at the Grote Markt after the capitulation of Dutch forces on May 15 1940. Photo by the Amsterdamer Adrianus Peperkamp. Credit: Richard James Molloy. Noord-Hollands Archief. Fair use.

13 comments:

  1. I stumbled upon this website last evening while researching via Google "SS war graves." Without a doubt your site is the BEST such source of information on the SS I have ever encountered. Kudos to you. Not only for tackling a difficult subject, but doing so with outstanding, solid research, photos and links to other sources on the internet. Congratulations.

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    1. Stefan Flynn20/10/21

      I agree this website is great. It is unbiased and approaches the topic of the Waffen SS in a very reasonable sort of way. In a genre that is plagued by gross UN-objectivity and political correctness, this in itself is a miracle.

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  2. Anonymous28/1/20

    An interesting historical picture! The motorcycle troops are armed with MP-18 submachine guns and the man in the sidecar is wearing an old M16 helmet instead of the new M35 :)

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  3. MarkN23/9/20

    Britain declared war NOT Germany. And Hitler had offered numerous peace solutions prior to that declaration by Britain. A not widely known fact. Hitler even offered numerous generous peace terms for a plebescite on Danzig (Gdansk) and a corridor to East Prussia after defeating first Poland, then France then the BEF in the course of that war which he had not wanted. That most people do not know about those peace terms is exactly why the history we are all indoctrinated with is a lie-by-omission. Britain rejected those peace terms. And it was Churchill who started the deliberate mass-murdering of German civilians after his defeat culminating at Dunkirk, with his murderous carpet bombing of cities. Plus we chose to ally with Stalin the greatest peace-time mass-murder in known history. Face it, we have all been raised from childhood on deceitful victor-propaganda. The evil actions, war-crimes and white-man supremacist attitude of Churchill are monstrous. Yet we celebrate the man and are proud of him. The problem is that we have ALL been indoctrinated from early childhood with a deceptive history of that conflict.

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    1. Canada also declared war on Germany16/12/20

      On September 10, 1939, Canada declared war on Germany. 15 months later, they also declared war on Finland, Hungary, Romania, and Japan.

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  4. Jon Gadd31/1/21

    I am confused . . . when Stalin invaded and conquered eastern Poland, shouldn't the brits - on their high horse of chivalric morality - have declared war on Russia? It was all about Poland, right?

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    1. Jozef Pilsudski6/8/21

      Poland's allies, Britain and France, declared war on Germany in 1939, but not on the USSR. Therefore, they considered Germany the aggressor, they did not consider the USSR the aggressor.

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    2. Adam Svinhufvud15/6/22

      It is often forgotten by the Brits that the UK went to war in 1939 with an expressed war aim - to free Poland. But Poland was not freed until 1989. And certainly not by the Brits.

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  5. Chris Day6/10/21

    France had more tanks, guns and men than Germany in early 1940.

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  6. اگه لهستان تو دانزیگ قتل عام آلمانی هارو نمی‌کرد این جنگ هم شروع نمیشد

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  7. John Sarviss22/5/23

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. Anonymous13/7/23

    England certainly had a role in the creation of the conflict, by ruining Germany with the Versailles treaty, and then simply by trying to appease Nazi expansion in the 30s, but neither England nor France wanted another war.

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  9. leokim19/1/24

    Germany did not want war with Britain. But Britain wanted to take advantage of the situation to ensure their empire, and thus dragged the rest of the Anglo-sphere into it. I couldn't give a fart if Hitler defeated Stalin, and the Rhine to the Urals was under Axis control. Would've been no worse than the Cold War we got with the USSR.

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