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with a Soviet invasion from the east two weeks later, triggered World War II, as the Blitzkrieg tactics overwhelmed Poland, leading to its partition between the two powers under the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and marked the beginning of brutal Nazi occupation and the Holocaust.
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Nazi Germany invaded and defeated France, leading to an armistice dividing the country into a German-occupied north and a collaborationist Vichy France in the south, with Paris falling in June. This defeat allowed Germany to control much of France, imposing harsh economic conditions, implementing anti-Jewish laws, and sparking a widespread French Resistance movement, while a Free French government formed in exile under Charles de Gaulle.
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Was a massive WWII rescue from May 26–June 4, 1940, where over 338,000 Allied soldiers were saved from being trapped by German forces in northern France, using naval ships and hundreds of civilian boats, becoming a crucial morale boost and allowing Britain to continue fighting.