German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during and shortly before World War II, generally administered by the Nazi regime, under the

dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...

of Adolf Hitler.Encyclopædia Britannica
German occupied Europe.
World War II. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from the Internet Archive. The German Wehrmacht occupied European territory: * as far east as the town of Mozdok in the North Caucasus in the Soviet Union (1942–1943) * as far north as the settlement of Barentsburg in

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

in the Kingdom of Norway * as far south as the island of Gavdos in the Kingdom of Greece * as far west as the island of Ushant in the

French Republic France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Outside of Europe proper, German forces effectively controlled areas of North Africa in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

, Libya, and Tunisia at times between 1941 and 1943. German military scientists established the Schatzgräber weather station base (1941–1944) as far north as Alexandra Land in Franz Josef Land – arguably part of Asia. Manned German weather stations also operated in North America ( Greenland: Holzauge, , – 1942–1944). Additionally, German

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

vessels operated in all of the world's oceans throughout the war.

Background

Several German-occupied countries initially entered World War II as Allies of the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union. Some were forced to surrender before the outbreak of the war such as Czechoslovakia; others like Poland (invaded on 1 September 1939) were conquered in battle and then occupied. In some cases, the legitimate governments went into exile, in other cases the

governments-in-exile A government in exile (abbreviated as GiE) is a political group that claims to be a country or semi-sovereign state's legitimate government, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile ...

were formed by their citizens in other Allied countries. Some countries occupied by Nazi Germany were officially neutral. Others were former members of the Axis powers that were subsequently occupied by German forces.

Occupied countries

The countries occupied included all, or most of the following:

Governments in exile

Allied governments in exile

Axis governments in exile

Neutral governments in exile

References

Bibliography

* Bank, Jan. ''Churches and Religion in the Second World War'' (Occupation in Europe) (2016) * Gildea, Robert and Olivier Wieviorka. ''Surviving Hitler and Mussolini: Daily Life in Occupied Europe'' (2007). * Klemann, Hein A.M. and Sergei Kudryashov, eds. ''Occupied Economies: An Economic History of Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1939–1945'' (2011). * Lagrou, Pieter. ''The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe, 1945–1965'' (1999) * * Scheck, Raffael; Fabien Théofilakis; and Julia S. Torrie, eds. ''German-occupied Europe in the Second World War'' (Routledge, 2019). 276 pp
online review
* Snyder, Timothy. ''Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin'' (2010), on Eastern Europe * Toynbee, Arnold, ed. ''Survey of International Affairs, 1939–1946: Hitler's Europe'' (Oxford University Press. 1954) 730pp.
online review

full text online free

Primary sources

* Carlyle Margaret, ed. ''Documents on International Affairs, 1939–1946. Volume II, Hitler's Europe'' (Oxford University Press. 1954) 362pp.)

External links

BBC - History - Germany advances through Europe (pictures, video, facts & news)

{{WWII history by nation World War II occupied territories

Axis powers Former empires