World War II

Conflict

World War II (the Second World War)^[1]

Dates

1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945^[1]

Belligerents

Allies and Axis powers^[1]

Estimated deaths

60 to 75 million people, most of them civilians^[1]

Outbreak

Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939^[1][3]

End in Europe

Germany surrendered unconditionally in May 1945 (8 May according to Wikipedia; 7 May in the west and 9 May in the east according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)^[1][3]

End in the Pacific

Japan announced its surrender on 15 August 1945 and signed the surrender document on 2 September 1945^[1]

Major international outcome

The United Nations, formally established on 24 October 1945^[4]

Overview

World War II was a worldwide conflict fought between the Allies and the Axis powers from 1 September 1939 to 2 September 1945, and virtually every nation took part in it.^[1] Imperial War Museums calls the 1939 to 1945 conflict the most destructive in history.^[2]

Its origins included lingering resentment from World War I, the rise of fascism in Europe and growing militarism in Japan.^[1] Events leading up to the war included Japan's 1931 invasion of Manchuria, the Spanish Civil War, the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and Germany's annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland.^[1]

Course of the war

Outbreak and expansion of the Axis, 1939–1941

The war is widely seen as having begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler invaded Poland.^[1] The invasion was the peak of lingering international tensions and of the aggressive expansion pursued by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.^[2] Britain and France declared war on Germany in response.^[1][2]

8:15 Hitler and Stalin carve up Poland OverSimplified's account of the pact with Stalin and the invasion of Poland that began the war.

Britain entered the war on 3 September 1939.^[2] The Soviet Union invaded Poland in mid-September 1939, and under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact the country was partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union.^[1]

In 1940 Germany conquered Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.^[1] In May 1940 it turned Blitzkrieg tactics on Western Europe, attacking France and the Low Countries, and the German assault in France drove the British Expeditionary Force, along with French and Belgian troops, back toward the French port of Dunkirk.^[2] Germany captured France in June 1940.^[1]

10:50 Blitzkrieg and the fall of France OverSimplified's account of the German advance through the Ardennes, Dunkirk and the fall of France in 1940.

The Soviet Union also annexed parts of Finland and Romania in 1940.^[1] After the fall of France, the fighting was largely between Germany, supported by Fascist Italy, and the British Empire and Commonwealth: in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and East Africa, and in the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Battle of the Atlantic.^[1] The Battle of Britain, fought over southern England from 10 July to 31 October 1940, was a major air campaign and a decisive confrontation.^[2]

From September 1940 Hitler directed the Luftwaffe to bomb British cities, and over the next nine months the Blitz killed more than 43,500 civilians.^[2] By mid-1941 the Axis powers had conquered Yugoslavia and Greece.^[1] Germany overran and occupied Poland (September 1939), Denmark (April 1940), Norway (April 1940), Belgium (May 1940), the Netherlands (May 1940), Luxembourg (May 1940), France (May 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941) and Greece (April 1941).^[3]

Turning points, 1941–1943

On 22 June 1941 German forces invaded the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front.^[1][3] In December 1941 Japan attacked American and British territories across Asia and the Pacific, including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which brought the United States into the war against the Axis.^[1] The same December offensive struck British holdings in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma.^[2]

The attack on Pearl Harbor, on 7 December 1941, was a surprise air attack on the American naval base in Hawaii.^[2] On 15 February 1942 Lieutenant General Arthur Percival surrendered at Singapore with 85,000 troops to a Japanese force of 35,000, the largest surrender ever recorded in British military history.^[2] Japan's expansion across the Pacific was halted at the Battle of Midway in June 1942.^[1] By 1942 Nazi Germany had reached the peak of its territorial expansion.^[3]

Early in 1943 Axis forces suffered defeats in North Africa and at Stalingrad, in Soviet territory.^[1] An Allied landing in Italy in July 1943 brought down the country's fascist government, and through 1943 and 1944 Allied advances across the Pacific and in Soviet territory pushed Axis forces back on every front.^[1]

Allied victory, 1944–1945

On 6 June 1944 Allied troops launched Operation Overlord, beginning the liberation of north-west Europe from German control;^[2] the Western Allies' landings at Normandy that year opened another front in France.^[1] Rome was liberated in June 1944.^[3] On 16 December 1944 Germany launched a large-scale attack on Allied troops in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg, creating the 'bulge' that gave the Battle of the Bulge its name.^[2] Meanwhile the Allies' systematic bombing of Germany, begun in 1942, continued until Germany's surrender in 1945.^[3]

Adolf Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945.^[3] Germany's unconditional surrender ended the war in Europe in May 1945, though sources date it differently: Wikipedia gives 8 May 1945,^[1] while the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum records that German forces surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies at Reims on 7 May and to the Soviets in Berlin on 9 May 1945.^[3]

On 6 and 9 August 1945 the United States detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and after the bombings the Soviet Union invaded Japanese-held Manchuria.^[1] Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August 1945 and formally signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September 1945.^[1]

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the state-directed, systematic persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.^[3] Driven by the aim of building a German 'master race', the Nazis persecuted and killed Jews and many others.^[3]

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi leadership envisioned a vast new empire of 'living space' (Lebensraum) for Germans in eastern Europe, to be won by displacing the people already living there.^[3] From 1941 to 1944 Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories and from Axis-allied states to ghettos and killing centers.^[3] Six million Jews died in the Holocaust.^[3] Roma, disabled people and Poles were also targeted for extermination, and millions of others, including homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war and political dissidents, suffered severe Nazi persecution.^[3]

Consequences

With an estimated 60 to 75 million deaths, most of them civilians, World War II was the deadliest conflict in recorded history.^[1] Many died in massacres, from starvation and disease, and in genocides such as the Holocaust.^[1]

After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.^[1] Delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco from 25 April to 26 June 1945 to draw up and sign the UN Charter.^[4] The United Nations was created to foster international cooperation and prevent future wars.^[1]

The United Nations was formally established on 24 October 1945, once China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and a majority of the other signatories had ratified its Charter.^[4] Those five countries became the permanent members of the UN Security Council.^[1]

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the war as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War.^[1] With Europe in ruins, its former great powers lost their standing, which set off decolonization across Africa and Asia.^[1] The war reshaped political, economic and social institutions worldwide and laid the groundwork for international relations for the rest of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.^[1]

Educational videos

1:19 WW2 - OverSimplified (Part 1) Recording by OverSimplified, from where the story begins, with the young Benito Mussolini, after the video's sponsor segment.

Timeline

1. 1931-09-18 According to Wikipedia contributors, Japan invades Manchuria, one of the events preceding the war.^[1]
2. 1937-07-07 According to Wikipedia contributors, Outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, another precursor to the global conflict.^[1]
3. 1939-09-01 Germany invades Poland, the generally accepted start of World War II.^[1][2][3]
4. 1939-09-03 Britain enters the war against Germany.^[2]
5. 1940-07-10 Start of the Battle of Britain air campaign, fought over southern England until 31 October 1940.^[2]
6. 1941-06-22 Germany invades the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front.^[1][3]
7. 1941-12-07 Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into the war.^[1][2]
8. 1942-02-15 Fall of Singapore and the largest surrender in British history.^[2]
9. 1944-06-06 Allied invasion of Normandy (Operation Overlord).^[1][2]
10. 1945-05-08 Germany's unconditional surrender ends the war in Europe (8 May per Wikipedia contributors; 7 May in the west and 9 May in the east per the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).^[1][3]
11. 1945-08-15 Japan announces its unconditional surrender.^[1]
12. 1945-09-02 Japan signs the surrender document, formally ending World War II.^[1]
13. 1945-10-24 The United Nations officially begins after ratification of its Charter.^[4]