What was the first country invaded by Germany was called?

Answer 1

Poland. Before the invasion there were political solutions which denoted that Germany gained other territories, but Poland was the first country invaded.

The invasion of Poland indeed started World War II, but previously, Germany had in fact invaded Another Country. It started with the Munich Agreement, in which Britain and France gave Germany permission to take parts of Czechoslovakia- Germany sent troops in to enforce the "agreement". But even if you don't consider that to be an "invasion", about six months later in March 1939, Germany caused the Slovakia part to break away, and the Germany Army invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia (Hitler caused the President of Czechoslovakia to have a heart attack by inviting him to Berlin and then infoming him that Germany was invading); the Nazi Germany absorbed big chunks of this remainder, and then folded the rest into a "protectorate", which they controlled. This invasion was met by little resistance, since Germany had taken advantage of the Munich Agreement to severely weaken the Czechoslovakian government and military.

The lack of any real response to Hitler's aggression emboldened him, leading him to believe nobody would resist if he continued attacking his neighbors. Six months after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Germany invaded Poland. That time, Britain and France declared war on Germany (although they notably did little for the first six months or so, a period sometimes called the "Phoney War" or "Sitzkrieg" ["sitting war"]).

Additionally, many Austrians still contend that they were "Hitler's first victim". In March 1938, Nazis were trying to get Austria to join Germany- in 1934 they had even assassinated Chancellor Dollfuss (who, coincidentally, was also a right-wing dictator somewhat similar to Hitler) in an attempted coup d'etat. However, many Austrians were resisting, including Chancellor Schuschnigg, who scheduled a referendum to maintain independence. Since Austrian Nazis considered Schuschnigg's referendum unfair (it was worded strangely, and young Austrian Nazis were not allowed to vote), German troops invaded on the day before the referendum and stopped it from happening. There was some enthusiasm for the invasion in Austria, and the troops were largely met by supportive crowds (for which, the Nazis referred to the invasion as the "Blumenkrieg" or "Flower War"). Austrian officials were arrested (including Schuschnigg, who was eventually sent to a concentration camp-he survived the war though), as was anyone else who openly resisted the German annexation plans. In April 1938, Hitler held a rigged election (over 99% of Austrians supposedly voted in favor- generally a good sign of a rigged election) which formally approved Germany's "Anschluss" ("annexation") of Austria.