World War II was Adolf Hitlers war started at the time and place of his choosing After six years of dramatic relatively bloodless triumphs - his assumption of power the rearmament of Germany the reoccupation of the Rhineland the union forced upon Austria the seizure of Czechoslovakia - the Führer was determined to prove himself on the battlefield

On April 3 1939 Hitler issued written orders to his High Command authorizing the invasion of Poland any time after September 1 On May 23 he lectured his top officers for hours on his plans He argued that the solution to Germanys problems - arising as Hitler saw them from the need for more living space for the people of the Reich - was unattainable without invading other countries or attacking other peoples possessions

In his newly declared quest for military victory Hitlers primary strategy was blitzkrieg or lightning war in which coordinated forces of armored panzer divisions high-level bombers dive bombers and motorized infantry divisions would blast through enemy defenses in a sudden massive assault

Here from award winning journalist Robert Wernick is the story of Hitlers lightning war - from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of France