IbnSinaAcademy.com

TheSecondWorldWar(orWorldWarII3 ) is an armed conflict on a global scale, which lasted from September 1939 to September 1945 .
Caused by the unsatisfactory resolution of the First World War and the expansionist and hegemonic ambitions of the three major nations of the Axis ( Nazi Germany , Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan ), it consisted of convergence, from 3 September 1939 , a set of regional conflicts, respectively initiated on 18 July 1936 in Spain (the Spanish Civil War ), the 7 July 1937 in China (the Sino-Japanese War ), and 1 st September 1939 in Poland ( Polish campaign ) then by the official entry into the war of all great powers of the time: France , UK and empires from the 3 September 1939 , the USSR from the German invasion of June 1941, United States on 7 December 1941 in a dispute involving the majority of nations of the world on almost all continents.
The global conflict and committed opposed schematically two camps – the Allies and the Axis. It ended in Europe on 8 May 1945 by the unconditional surrender of the III e Reich , and ended in Asia and the world on 2 September 1945 by the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan , the last nation of Axe to know defeat.
The Second World War is the conflict the largest that the humanity has known, involving over 100 million soldiers from 61 nations, spreading the war on approximately 22 million km ² 4 , and killing about 62 million people, including a most of them civilians. Just was not between nations, World War II was the first great ideological war of history, which explains that the forces of cooperation in Europe and Asia may have been occupied in solidarity with countries invaders or enemies, or that a resistance may have existed until the heart of Nazi Germany at war.
Total war , it almost completely gomma the separation between civil and military space and lives Relevant Life Policy in both camps, not only pushed the mobilization of material resources – economic, human and scientific – but also moral and political engagement in whole societies .
The sum of the damage could never be quantified reliably, but it certainly exceeds the cumulative destruction of all known conflicts of the human race since its inception. The moral trauma was no less significant, the violence has taken unprecedented proportions.
She underwent multiple war crimes , which were the prerogative of any camp, crimes fitting into a military and police violence of an intensity and depth unmatched. It also saw the emergence on a scale previously unknown mass of particularly heinous crimes and some unprecedented, especially at the instigation of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
The crimes include the deportation to concentration camps , labor camps and death camps , including gas chambers for the purpose of exterminating people whole ( Jews , Slavs , Gypsies ), or specific categories of individuals ( homosexuals , disabled , etc..) controlled by the regime Nazi .
The plan Showa was not left in Asia, to his credit, 10 million Chinese civilians forcibly conscripted by the Koa-in to Manchukuo , about 200,000 ” comfort women “enlisted in Korea and throughout the Far East , and the systematic annihilation of civilians, mainly China and especially during the Nanjing Massacre .
There are the murders of systematic resistance and political opponents, and reprisals against civilians by the Nazis ; experiments on human beings which indulged the Nazi doctors, such as the SS Josef Mengele and the Japanese unit 731 , the aerial bombardment of civilians massive first by the Axis in Europe ( Coventry , England, Rotterdam in the Netherlands) and Asia ( Shanghai , Guangzhou , Chongqing , the latter being the most bombed city of Sino- Japanese), then by the Allies: Dresden and Hamburg in Germany, Tokyo with napalm in Japan. For the first time, the atomic bomb was used against a country: two bombs dropped on civilian targets by the U.S. exploded three days apart, to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
World War II propel the United States and the USSR , the main winners, as the two superpowers competing destined to rule the world together to experience a strong ideological and political rivalry for nearly 40 years later. It seals the decline of electronic cigarettes the imperial powers of Europe, and opens the process of decolonization that will only accelerate post-war Asia, the Arab world and Africa , to the year 1960 .
Finally the last conflict of scale on the European continent, will mark the beginning of its end in Western Europe a period of unprecedented prosperity in the wake of Reconstruction, and the gradual emergence of a project ‘peaceful political unification.
Origins of the conflict in Europe
Territories of the Axis:
Axis Powers
occupied territories and colonies of the Axis
Allies Territories:
Western Allies
of the Western Allies Dominions
and Colonies occupied territories of the Western Allies
Allies Eastern (USSR and satellite states)
Other:
Empire Japan and satellite states (before joining the Axis)
USSR and satellite states (before joining the Allies)
Vichy France and its colonies (officially neutral, but the Axis collaborator)
Neutral Country
(Moving Image, click to view evolution)
The treaties of Versailles , St. Germain , Trianon and Neuilly had aroused resentment and frustration and desire to win back the people in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.
The 1929 crisis led several states to adopt protectionist measures and to place themselves in a position of rivalry against each other. While the aggressiveness of democracies is economic, the fascist dictatorships will adopt a strict self-sufficiency and, of course, think their defense and their expansion in military terms. But everywhere, weapons policies are implemented effectively out of the economic slump 5 .
This could explain a war in a context where the policy of Germany was inspired by the traditional ruling classes. The war in Europe, however, directly following the expansionist ambitions of the Nazi party to power in Germany, and expressed in 1924 by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf . In these ambitions to rebuild a vital space for the Germanic people were added the expansionist ambitions of the regime fascist Italian who tried as best they could to build a colonial empire in Ethiopia and southern Europe.
Origins of the conflict in Asia
Main articles: payment protection insurance Japanese expansionism Showa and Showa era (1926-1989) .
Embittered by the treatment imposed on the Empire of Japan by the Western powers at the Versailles Treaty and the naval treaties of Washington and London , many Japanese politicians and military, as Fumimaro Konoe and Sadao Araki reactualize doctrine Hakko ichi ‘ u (the eight corners of the world under one roof) and set up an ideology of supremacy of the Japanese race and its right to dominate Asia. This racist ideology has Japan as the center of the world and is seated on the payment protection insurance imperial institution and the Emperor, to be divine descendant of the goddess Amaterasu Omikami . It gives rise to an attempt to restore show.
Buoyed by the influence of military factions, Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and then the rest of China in 1937 . Japan’s refusal to withdraw from the French Indochina , invaded in 1941, and China, excluding Manchukuo , leading to the summer of that year to the imposition by the United States of oil embargo. In response, Hirohito then launched the War of Greater East Asia ( Dai Senso-A Te ) and authorizes the attack on Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Southeast Asia.
Belligerents

Main article: Countries involved in World War II , Axis Rome-Berlin-Tokyo and Allies of World War II .
It is customary to call the signatories to the Tripartite Pact and its allies, “the Axis Forces,” and their opponents, “Allies.” It may not be possible to unambiguously classify a belligerent country in either camp, as alliances have changed throughout the conflict.
The members of the Axis
Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler , respectively Minister of Air and head of state of Nazi Germany .
Benito Mussolini , leader of the Government of the Kingdom of Italy .
The march to war in Europe was punctuated manner by the German initiatives. In the words of Yves Durand: “The responsibility for the outbreak of World War II undoubtedly rests with the Nazi Germany 6 ” . When Germany invaded Poland, the Empire of Japan is already at war against China since 1937 but, despite the Anti-Comintern Pact signed by Germany and Japan in 1936, relations between the two countries remain remote, and Germany does not support Japan against China. The Empire of Japan , mired in a war originally scheduled for three months, faces the difficulty of occupying an area too large and has engaged in numerous abuses against civilians ( Nanjing Massacre ), and more to use repeatedly to chemical weapons and biological weapons produced by the 731 unit 7 .
On 27 September 1940 in Berlin was the signing of the Tripartite Pact by which Japan recognizes the dominance of Germany and Italy in Europe and the latter two States, the supremacy of Japan in Asia. The three countries signed a mutual assistance pact. As for Italy, nominally allied with Germany since 1936, it has declared war on France and the UK that the 10 June 1940 and attacked the Kingdom of Greece without consulting the Germans on 28 October 1940 .
Hideki Tojo , prime minister of the Empire of Japan from 1941 to 1944.
The alliance of the Kingdom of Hungary with Germany in 1938 earned him make territorial aggrandizement at the expense of Czechoslovakia and Romania. However, when it joined the pact in November 1940 , it is not belligerent. Hungary intervened militarily in the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, then in the attack against the USSR.
When the Kingdom of Romania joined the pact in November 1940 , German troops are already present on its territory. A few months later, Romania is committed to a very determined side of Germany during the invasion of the USSR in June 1941 . The Romanian army did not hesitate therefore to participate not only in military operations, but also to the Nazi atrocities in the USSR: mass extermination of Jews in Transnistria, or of the civilian population of Odessa .
Hungary and Romania have sent hundreds of thousands of men fighting alongside Germany in the USSR. The foreign volunteer forces engaged on the Russian front in the name of anti-Bolshevism, as Division Azul , Spanish or the Legion Phen375 Reviews of French Volunteers have much smaller numbers.
The regent of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia signed an alliance with Germany in March 1941 . It follows immediately a military coup anti-German when the new king imposed by the coup denounced the alliance, Germany and Italy invade and dismantle Yugoslavia. The Independent State of Croatia becomes a satellite of Nazi Germany. Another satellite of Germany, Slovakia , which joined the Tripartite Pact in November 1940, declared war on the USSR on 23 June 1941 .
The Kingdom of Bulgaria officially became a member of the Tripartite Pact 1 st March 1941 and leaves the Wehrmacht across its territory to invade Greece. Bulgaria benefits from its alliance to make some territorial aggrandizement. It does not take part in the invasion of the USSR, but must declare war on England and the United States in late 1941. It is at war against the Soviet Union for twenty-four hours, on 5-6 September 1944 .
After being attacked by the USSR in November 1939 during the Winter War , the Finnish approaches the Reich declared war on the USSR on 26 June 1941 . However, Marshal Mannerheim explicitly limited its objectives to the resumption of land by the Soviets pulled two years ago.
By destroying part of the fleet of the United States to Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and invading Malaysia, British possession, Japan resolutely between the war against the United States and Great Britain.
Japan and the USSR are in turn faced in 1939 ( Battle of Halhin Gol ), but will not reopen hostilities before 8 August 1945 . On 21 December 1941 , the Thailand signed a defense pact with Japan and declared war on the U.S. and the UK. The 100 day loans fall of the government Plaek Pibulsonggram in July 1944 officially does not break the covenant, but Thailand withdraws from the conflict by evacuating the territories taken from the British and contacts are made ​​with the Allies.
On 8 September 1943 , Badoglio , who replaced Mussolini, broke the alliance with Germany signed an armistice with the Allies . Hitler invaded the peninsula once he held until Naples. In October, Italy declared war on his former partner.
From late 1943, Hungary is considering a reversal of alliances. Informed of these preparations, Hitler ordered the occupation of Hungary on 19 March 1944 . Invaded by the Red Army, Romania broke the alliance with Germany on 23 August 1944 . On the night of 8 to 9 September 1944 , Bulgaria changed sides and declared war on Germany. Finland signs an armistice with the USSR in September 1944 and returned in arms against Germany in December 1944 .
The opponents of the Axis
Winston Churchill , Prime Minister of UK and Charles de Gaulle , leader of Free France .
As the Czechoslovak army had no resistance during the invasion of Bohemia and Moravia on 15 March 1939 , we can consider that Poland is the first opponent of Germany belligerent from a st September 1939 if it resists invasion by Germany. The invasion of Poland leads the declarations of war by Britain and France on 3 September 1939 , respectively 13 h and 17 h. With Great Britain, the Australian and New Zealand also declare war on Germany. Throughout the war, all dominions ( Canada , South Africa , Newfoundland ) and all scholarships for seniors colonies ( India , Nigeria , Kenya , etc.). of the British Empire eventually become a party to the conflict unless the Southern Ireland remains officially neutral under the direction of Éamon de Valera .
In April 1940 , when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, Norway offers armed resistance while Denmark, too weak militarily, trying several unsuccessful attacks.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , President of the United States .
When Germany established its dominance over continental Europe, the United Kingdom and British Empire are alone in the camp of the opponents of Germany, but it hosts a number of governments in exile dissidents or chiropractic marketing governments that put armed forces, including Polish, Czech and French, more or less important alongside the United Kingdom. The Dutch East Indies remained under the control of the Dutch government in exile in London.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 , the United States entered the war against Japan, and in fact against Germany and Italy, since Germany and Italy declared war on the States United on December 11 as a support shown in the Japanese diet.
The Republic of China , at war with Japan since 1937, is found in the camp of the allied powers. Many Latin American countries declare war on Germany: Brazil in January 1942 8 and Mexico in May 1942 .
After the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942 , the majority of the French colonial empire can be found on the Allied side.
Vyacheslav Molotov and Joseph Stalin , respectively foreign minister and political leader of the Soviet Union .
Chiang Kai-shek , leader of the Republic of China .
In 1945, the Allies warn all those States vps hosting that have declared war on Germany will be admitted to the founding conference of the United Nations . Which results in spring 1945, a cascade of new declarations of war in III e Reich, most of which remain strong platonic: these South American countries such as Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, or the Middle East such as Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, etc..
On 8 May 1945 , the German surrender, the last Nazi diplomatic delegations were expelled the last neutral states: Switzerland, Southern Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Afghanistan and Chile. In all, 52 states have found themselves at war with Nazi Germany, state that no peace treaty after 1945 never came to formally end.
The USSR
When the Soviet Union attacked Poland on 17 September 1939 , according to the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact , it is a Polish point of view, in the same camp as Germany, without being at war declared with France and the United Kingdom. When the Soviet Union attacks Finland in November 1939 , Finland is rather on the side of France and the United Kingdom. This attack is also the USSR to be expelled from the League late 1939. During the term of the pact, Stalin delivered promptly and credit of oil, raw materials and grain to the Reich partially bypass the blockade of the Allies. It also delivers dozens of refugee German Communists in the USSR.
As of 22 June 1941 , the USSR attacked by Germany, is found in the Allied camp. It benefits from the lend-lease in exchange for U.S. gold reserves of the State Bank of USSR. Failing to open the second front before 1944 strongly demanded by Moscow, the Allies to the Soviet Union provide significant assistance, including transiting the dangerous Arctic route.
According to Raymond Cartier and John Keegan , between October 1941 and June 1942 , the United States engaged 1,285 aircraft, 2,249 tanks, 81,287 guns, 56,500 field telephones, 380,000 international miles of telephone wire. In 1943, 427 000 of 665 000 trucks of the Red Army come from across the Pacific. America also provides 13 million of boots, five million tons of food or 2000 locomotives, 11,000 wagons, 54,000 tons of rail. Three quarters of the Soviet copper come from the United States, but also much of the high oil without which it is impossible to make fuel for aircraft.
The German defeat is unthinkable without the Red Army, which sets in June 1944 two-thirds of the Wehrmacht – usually forces the younger and better equipped – and put out of action 85% of its soldiers.
Summary
Numbers of hosts of the main belligerents 9 .
The figures for Germany are given in May 31 of each year
Years 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
III E Reich 5.6 million 7.2 million 8.6 million 9.5 million 9.5 million
Japan 1723000 2411000 2829400 3808200 5365000 7193200
United Kingdom 2212000 3278000 3784000 4.3 million 4.5 million 4653000
United States 458 000 1795000 3844000 8918000 11240000 11858000
USSR 500 000 4027000 9000000 10 million 12.4 million 10.8 million
France 10 5000000 25 000 50 000 100 000 150 000 500 000
Canada 11 92 296 260 553 454 418 692 953 747 475 761 041
Summary of military operations

Main article: Chronology of World War II .
The success of the Axis Forces (1939-1942)
The success of the Axis Forces in Europe (August 31, 1939 – June 21, 1941).
Most historians 12 are the start of World War II on 3 September 1939 , when after the invasion of Poland by Germany, France and the United Kingdom declared war on the Germany under a Treaty of February 1921, linking them to Poland.
The historian Eric Hobsbawm , in his book The Age of Extremes (1994), cautions that the British and French governments were inclined to negotiate despite the invasion of Poland and it is under pressure from their people that they were forced not to back down 13 .
Eastern Front (1939-1940)
Photo showing the composition of the Wehrmacht tanks at the time of the Polish campaign: a column of Panzer I and II , overtaken by a transport SdKfz 251 used as a reconnaissance vehicle (en) .
After an operation known as the provocation of Gleiwitz incident , German troops invade Poland on all fronts, the 1 st September 1939 , 45 am to 4 in the morning.
Main articles: Operation Himmler and Polish Campaign (1939) .
On 17 September 1939 , on the terms of the secret Nazi-Soviet Pact , the Soviet Union invaded Poland in turn from the east. Largely outclassed, the Polish army was crushed by the end of September.
After the rejection of Finland to exchange territory for the defense of Leningrad against the land to the north, the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 . Despite the disparity of forces, Finnish resistance is particularly strong, the Soviet Union suffered heavy losses and the Winter War lasted until 13 March 1940 . It ends with the Moscow Treaty of 12 March 1940 , puts a temporary end to hostilities between the two countries. The Soviet Union obtained the annexation of the Karelian isthmus which protects access to Leningrad and several islands in the Gulf of Finland.
Article: Winter War .
Still under the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the USSR occupies in June 1940 and annex the Baltic states .
Western Front (1940)
On the Western Front, one last time after the demonstration without Gamelin in Saarland Germany (6-13 September 1939 ), the British and French troops under French command, do not take any military initiative and do not engage in offensive operations for several months .
Main article: Phony War .
In spring 1940, the Allies are preparing to cut off the supply of iron from Germany, which safety defensive driving passes from the Swedish to the Reich by Norway, but the operation turned into a fiasco: it is the incident of Narvik . Germany invaded then Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940 . A majority of the expeditionary force in the UK and France should embark suddenly, causing the fall of Chamberlain and his replacement by Churchill on 10 May 1940 , the same day that Belgium was invaded. On 27 May 1940 , the French Bethouart seize Narvik , but they must abandon it for a few days later in France itself the German victory is practically acquired.
Main article: Campaign in Norway .
Indeed, in May-June 1940, the German army is carrying out the lightning invasion of the Netherlands , of Luxembourg , in Belgium and France . In this campaign the Germans explosive implement their doctrine of breakthrough and advance through the coordinated use of armored, mechanized and air: the Blitzkrieg or lightning war.
The Belgian King Leopold III surrendered on 28 May 1940 . The United Kingdom was forced to evacuate his troops surrounded at Dunkirk, passing from 27 May to 3 June to save 300,000 soldiers [ref. needed] in the largest operation of embarkation in military history.
On June 5, Hitler resumed the offensive in France and pierces the defense lines of the new chief Weygand on the Somme and Aisne. Italy then joined Germany and declared war on France on June 10 Then, in France, the new government Petain asked the armistice on 17 and 22 the accepted conditions. After the Franco-Italian armistice following the 24th, the fighting ceased on June 25 To everyone’s surprise, the French army, known since 1918 the best in the world [Ref. required] , collapsed within weeks.
Main articles: Battle of France , Battle of Dunkirk and Armistice of June 22, 1940 .
Pending against the makers of the French generals and Nazis defeated, the United Kingdom successfully resisted the German air force, because, despite the weakness of his army, it has a powerful fleet (which does not seem threatened by a German seizure of the French fleet, with the terms of the armistice and after the destruction of some of its units at Mers El Kebir ) and a well-organized aviation. In addition, Prime Minister Churchill , who replaced Chamberlain manages to galvanize the country. Subject first air strikes on strategic targets, the UK faces from September 1940 to May 1941 terrorist bombings in its cities: the ” Blitz ” , which destroyed including City of London and the City of Coventry , or fails to enter the British resolution or compensate for the losses of the Luftwaffe from Göring , overcome by the pilots of the Royal Air Force .
Main article: Battle of Britain .
To stand alone against Hitler, the UK has with First Economic United States , since the latter, although officially neutral, the supply of arms and supplies. Roosevelt gets congressional March 1941 , the passing of the ” Lend-Lease Act , “which allows it to provide material support unlimited in the UK and its allies.
Front in North Africa (1940)
In September 1940, Italian forces had attacked Egypt, a country then under British influence. But as early as December, the British, supported by Commonwealth forces, against the pass attack, and the Germans have to send what is called the Afrika Korps as reinforcements to help their Italian allies. In July 1942, the Afrika Korps of Rommel is only a few tens of kilometers from Alexandria
Main article: War of the desert .
Balkan Front (1941)
Hitler, desperate to take the UK and get Jewish Wedding Gifts them to make peace, erects a powerful chain of fortifications, known as the ” Atlantic Wall “, on the shores of the Atlantic and the Channel, and decides to attack the USSR. But Fascist Italy itself comes to assault, from the Albanian , the Greek belief that it defenseless. Now it is the Greek forces of nationalist dictator Metaxas are victorious: having content attack troops Mussolini , the Greek army and the British Expeditionary Force, Australia, New Zealand, Indian and South African repels and invades turn the Italian Albania .
Main articles: Greek-Italian War and Battle of Greece .
Then, to lend a hand to the Italians, Hitler rejected several weeks its operation against the USSR and sent in April 1941 his troops to Greece, through Hungary supporter and after the passage invaded Yugoslavia . The Nazis beat the Yugoslav and Greek armies, allowing them to occupy the entire southern Europe . But at the same time, they just created an additional front in Yugoslavia, where the resistance monarchist Draza Mihailovic ( Chetniks ) and Communist Tito ( Partisans ) would stop 13 to 20 German divisions until the end of the war . Moreover, the invasion of the USSR is delayed from May 15 to June 22
Main articles: Balkans Campaign and Campaign of Yugoslavia (1941-1945) .
Eastern Front (1941)
On 22 June 1941 , the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union as part of Barbarossa . It mobilizes February 3 million German soldiers, and 600 000 soldiers of the allied states of Hungary, Romania, Finland, Slovakia and Italy. It is to date the largest military offensive in history 14 .
Despite a lightning advance and the capture or killing of millions of Soviets, the Wehrmacht was halted in December 1941 , about thirty miles from Moscow in the freezing cold without proper equipment. For the second time since the Russian campaign of 1812 , the Russians are saved by the rigor of winter, and also t shirt design an urgent appeal to the patriotism and sacrifice in the face of very bloody battles. The Germans are also blocked at Leningrad , Hitler deliberately subjected to a siege of 900 days, which will perish of hunger 700 000.
Main articles: Operation Barbarossa , the siege of Leningrad and Eastern Front (WWII) .
German conquests (blue) during the Second World War.
Therefore, the Russian campaign will mobilize most of the German military effort. Despite their huge losses, the Soviets were able to withdraw their industrial potential in the order, more than 10 million workers and thousands of factories being dismantled relocated to the east of the Urals. The reintegration of the USSR in the Allied camp also allows him to receive a strong support in US-British-quality materials and supplies. Stalin proclaims the sacred union weight loss pills and galvanizes energies, while maintaining intact the terror against the soldiers failed or defeated officers. Finally, the Soviets still have reservations. During the winter of 1941, their troops against Siberian Strike in front of Moscow, forcing the invaders to retreat.
Front of the Far East and Pacific (1941)
Eager to avenge the insult iPhone Unlock by France to the kingdom of Siam in 1893 and 1904, Thailand enjoys the invasion of it by Germany and launched in January 1941 in a series of attacks against the Indochina French , triggering the Franco-Thai . Neither side being able to pursue the dispute shall be settled by Japan, this north of Indochina since September 1940 and which grants a part of Thailand Laos and Cambodia.
On 7 December 1941 , the Empire of Japan , an ally of Germany since 1936 and been at war since 1937 with the Republic of China , attacks the United States remained far out of the war. It kills by surprise most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor . At the same time place the invasion of British Malaya . The Japanese Imperial Army invaded the then Commonwealth of the Philippines and Dutch East Indies .
Main articles: Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) , Attack on Pearl Harbor , Battle of Malaysia , Battle of the Philippines (1941-1942) , Dutch East Indies Campaign and Battle of Singapore .
The turning point of 1942
The attack on Pearl Harbor caused the outbreak of war the United States, soon followed by Mexico and other Latin American states. Weakened by the Japanese attack, the U.S. put all their industrial power in the service of war and were soon able to blows. In early June 1942 , the naval battle of the islands Midway costs four aircraft carriers in Japan, now placed on the defensive in the Pacific. The United States began the reconquest of the Pacific, island by island.
Main articles: Battle of Midway , the Solomon Islands Campaign and Campaign for New Guinea .
German soldiers equipped with an MG34 machine gun on the Russian front in 1942 .
In Europe, the Soviet Union supports almost only the war effort against Nazi Germany. From June 1942 , the Germans resumed their offensive eastward towards the Volga and the oil of the Caucasus . But the German troops at Stalingrad remain blocked.
Main article: Battle of Stalingrad .
In North Africa, the British seized the initiative from September 1942 . They won a decisive victory at El Alamein and begin to push the Afrika Korps to the west.
Main article: Second Battle of El Alamein .
Stalin press its allies to open a second front in the west. After some hesitation, Churchill and Roosevelt decide to North Africa. This is the Operation Torch , resulting in the landing of Allied forces in Morocco and Algeria on 8 November 1942 . November 11, Admiral Darlan in Algiers commits Africa to resume fighting alongside the Allies. It is officially disavowed by Marshal Petain. But the Germans believe that the armistice of June 1940 is broken and then invade the 11 November 1942 the southern part of France that the armistice had planned unoccupied. The French army in Africa joined the Allies. In North Africa, the Germans are then caught between the British in the east and the Franco-Americans in the west.
Main articles: Operation Torch and Tunisia Campaign .
During 1942, entered the war the U.S. had led to any extension of the Atlantic Ocean in the fight of German submarines against Allied ships that supply the United Kingdom. Allied convoys suffered heavy losses throughout the year, but from the end of 1942 and more in early 1943, new technical means – deciphering enemy communications, radar, sonar – allow the Allies to destroy more and more German submarines and Allied losses decrease inexorably.
Main article: Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945) .
The victories of the Allies (1943-1944)
In the Pacific as in Europe or Africa, the Allied air forces is a key to safety defensive driving victory against the Axis forces.
In early 1943, the Germans suffered on the Eastern front a heavy defeat at Stalingrad. After the capitulation of 30 January and 2 February 1943 , the Soviets are 91,000 prisoners, including Marshal Paulus , the first German military captured this rank since 1806 . Previously, the number of victims has been considerable: between one and two million dead of both sides [ref. needed] . The Soviets then tried to free the Ukraine as the Germans and their allies are out of breath, but against a German attack on Kharkov (Ukraine East) manages to halt the Red Army. The Germans lead an offensive was limited to Kursk (Russia, north of Kharkov ), compensating for their lack of infantry after Stalingrad by a strong deployment of tanks with new material. Expected by the Soviets that strengthen the region and raise large amounts of armor, the Germans were again defeated. Without delay, the Soviets deployed their tanks and resume their offensive for the liberation of Ukraine.
Main articles: Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk .
With the capture of Tunis on 7 May 1943 and the surrender of German and Italian troops, the Allies were masters of all North Africa. On July 10, they landed in Sicily and take up the Italian peninsula in September, the same day Badoglio , the successor to Mussolini , ousted, announced an armistice, which foreshadows a reversal of alliances. The Germans invaded the territory of their former partner and block many wedding ring months the allied troops of all nationalities to Monte Cassino . Rome will be released as 4 June 1944 , the Tuscany in August 1944 . The plain of the Po is not reached in April 1945 .
Main article: Italian Campaign (World War II) , Battle of Monte Cassino and Naples four days .
For the first time since the war began, the three Allied leaders, Churchill , Roosevelt and Stalin meet in Tehran at the end of November 1943 to outline what will be the world after the war.
Main article: Tehran Conference .
On the Eastern Front, the Red Army continues to move towards the west. It comes in Kiev , Ukraine, November 1943 , Leningrad released in January 1944 . On June 22, while a front to the west was opened in Normandy, she launched the largest offensive in its history, Operation Bagration , which allows to resume Belarus in a few weeks to get in East Prussia and to arrive at the gates of Warsaw . Tired by the attacks against German, and not wishing to help the Polish non-communist Red Army crushed leaves without reacting the Warsaw Uprising ( 1 st August – October 2, 1944). In August 1944 , at the approach of Soviet troops, the Romanian and Bulgarian change sides. But by taking 19 March 1944 in Hungary while Germany’s ally, Hitler prevents the Regent Horthy also combine his country to the USSR, the Soviets captured Budapest after a long siege in February 1945 , opening the road to Vienna . In Yugoslavia, the supporters of Tito liberate much of the country and go into Belgrade in September 1944 without the help of the Red Army.
Main articles: Operation Bagration , Warsaw Uprising , Battle of Budapest and campaign of Yugoslavia (1941-1945) .
Canadian soldiers on Juno Beach, Normandy invasion of June 6, 1944
On 6 June 1944 , 4,126 Allied ships successfully landed the largest in history on the beaches of Normandy , taking the Germans by surprise and finally opening the second front. Despite the logistical feat, Hitler’s army managed to contain the Anglo-Saxons in Normandy for more than ten weeks in a long battle of attrition ( Hedges battle , battle of Caen ), until the breakthrough of Avranches (July 31, 1944) opens the way to Britain and take the German troops in the rear by circling in the Falaise pocket . Insurgent Paris was liberated on 25 August 1944 . Earlier, on August 15 , the American and French troops had landed in Provence on the Mediterranean coast.
Main articles: Battle of Normandy , Operation Anvil Dragoon and Liberation of Paris .
The progression is then quickly and mid-September, most of France and Belgium are released. But as the Allies hoped to one end of the conflict before the end of 1944, the German resistance will intensify. The airborne operation to try to break through to Germany by the Netherlands fails ( September 1944 ). The shortage of fuel and logistical problems forced a battle on the outskirts of the Scheldt (November 1944) conducted by the Canadian maritime access to free the port of Antwerp . In eastern France, the Americans and French, first run out of fuel, moving only slowly to face a German defense has improved. The cons-attack in the Ardennes (Christmas 1944) but surprise the Americans completely run out of steam after about ten days. However, it helps to delay the passage of the Rhine until the end of March 1945 .
Main articles: Operation Market Garden , Battle of the Scheldt , and Battle of the Bulge .
The Allied victory and the surrender of the Axis forces (1945)
The Reichstag destroyed after the Battle of Berlin .
Poster 9 May 1945 by General de Lattre Storage Bins de Tassigny announcing the victory (photographed in 1979 in Strasbourg).
Crushed under the free ipad bombs, beset on all sides, the Nazi Germany sees its capital invested Berlin April 30 by the Soviets. It kills Hitler in his bunker on the same day. On 7 May 1945 in Reims SHAEF HQ, Colonel General Alfred Jodl signs the act of unconditional surrender of German armed forces. The next day in Berlin, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signs it with representatives of the Allies the capitulation of the Third Reich. It’s officially 8 May 1945 that Germany surrendered, thus ending the war in Europe.
Main article: Battle of Berlin .
In Asia, if the Empire of Japan no longer has the initiative, he defended every inch of his conquered territories that Americans take for the price of heavy losses. They take well to Iwo Jima and of Okinawa Honto , the nearby islands of the Japanese archipelago allowing direct Allied air attacks on Japan and massive as the successive bombing Tokyo . On 15 August 1945 , after the drop, by the United States the first two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the invasion of Manchuria and Korea by the USSR, Emperor Hirohito announced personally surrender of Japan . The act of unconditional surrender of Japan have signed on September 2 .
Main articles: Battle of Okinawa , Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria .
Different theaters of operation

Main article: List of operations during World War II .
European theater
Main article: Western Front (World War II) , Eastern Front (WWII) and the Balkan Campaign .
Europe in 1 st September 1939
After making sure not to risk a war with the USSR signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact , Hitler launched his armies on Poland on 1 st September 1939 , without declaring war (see: Gleiwitz incident ). Pursuant to the alliance, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 . In particular, France has since 1918 guaranteed by treaties of mutual assistance the existence of most of the newly created Central Europe (with the ulterior motive of creating a cordon sanitaire around Germany and the Bolshevik Russia) [ref. needed] . However, despite pressure from Chamberlain, nor has it fulfilled its commitments to the previous victims of Hitler, France is in breach of its obligations to Poland: they predicted that France would attack Germany 15 days after the start of the general mobilization 15 . But aside from a brief limited offensive in Saarland ‘s September 6 to 13, the French remain grounded arms, while Poland is only against the Soviet and German aggression. The Germans use for the first time their innovative tactics, commonly called “blitzkrieg” ( Blitzkrieg ), which provide the Wehrmacht a quick victory, since it removes essential to the risk of auctions online having to fight a war on two fronts . Accordance with the terms of the pact is signed, the USSR has its share of Poland by attacking the 17 September 1939 .
On 30 November 1939 , still following that pact, the Soviet Union attacks Finland to take his border region of Karelia , near Leningrad , despite the protests of the Franco-British forces that threaten to intervene. The Finns fought five months, then finally relented. In the summer of 1940, the USSR will integrate the Baltic states and Moldova without fighting.
After his first successful campaign, Hitler turned to the west, but nothing happens on that front for several months. Entrenched behind the Maginot Line , part of the French soldiers await the German assault to contain it. This is what the French call the Phony War . The Generalissimo Gamelin , expecting a repetition of 1914, the Germans had passed through neutral Belgium, part of the French army is preparing to advance into Belgium, Holland and possibly, if the Germans attacked them.
On 9 April 1940 , Germany captured simultaneously in Denmark and Norway to secure its imports of iron from Narvik , in northern Norway , where most of the main Franco-British reaction , which ends with the embarkation of these the 7 June 1940 despite local success met.
Finally, on 10 May 1940 , Germany launched suspension lift kits Operation Fall Gelb , a major offensive on the Netherlands , the Belgian and Luxembourg , violating the neutrality of those States. An important part of the French army is then deployed to Belgium and Holland, but pro flight simulator they are taken from behind by the German tanks that go through the Ardennes – the breakthrough at Sedan – deemed impassable by the French. German tanks then reach the English Channel on 20 May 1940 and then rises to the north, encircling the Belgians and the Franco – British back to the sea
The Belgians surrendered on 28 May 1940 , the Dutch do so with the 15 May 1940 . In France, the Generalissimo Gamelin was replaced on May 19 by General Maxime Weygand .
Without sufficient reserves, the Franco – British fail to carry out offensive against satisfactory, and are pushed into a pocket around Dunkirk . The Royal Navy and British yachts managed to evacuate their troops and part of the French forces at Dunkirk ( Operation Dynamo ) by abandoning their heavy equipment. Having lost all of northern France, the Franco-British undertaking to establish a defense line along the Somme , the Aisne , to the Maginot Line. Having lost much of their resources in the battle that preceded it, the Allies can not prevent a German breakthrough in early June. The German army then spreads throughout France, taking Paris on 14 June 1940 . Council President Paul Reynaud resigned and the new government of Marshal Philippe Petain chose to seek the armistice on June 17, against the advice of the British allies. It was signed on 22 June 1940 : Germany occupies the northern and western France.
Petain in France establishes a regime authoritarian and collaborator , known as the official of the French state , said most commonly “Vichy regime” .
Seeing the success of Germany, Mussolini also wanted to run his country into conquest. He had already occupied Albania in early 1939 and, 10 June 1940 , it also attacks France, but grew by only a few kilometers.
Having failed to obtain peace with Great Britain, Hitler launched an air offensive on this one, preparing a landing . But Germany is not able to overcome the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain . Thus, it can not achieve air superiority needed to invade the British Isles. To push the British to peace, Hitler began in September a bombing campaign on British cities (known as the Blitz , lightning ), mainly in London and intensify its blockade (called Battle of the Atlantic ), mainly in submarines , to weaken the United Kingdom. But it failed, Germany can not quickly break British resistance.
On 28 October 1940 , without consulting his German ally, Mussolini decided to attack Greece . But the Greek resistance to the army of the dictator Metaxas managed to stop the Italians and to pass to the offensive against successfully: The Greeks then occupy the southeast quarter of Albania in Italy. To lend a hand to the Italians, Hitler rejects the operation of several weeks against the USSR, and in April 1941 sent troops to Greece , through its ally Hungary , and Yugoslavia , invaded for refusing to leave the passage, and where the Germans were helped by the Ustasha , Croat nationalists of Ante Pavelic . Yugoslav and Greek armies were crushed in three weeks, allowing Hitler to occupy all of southern Europe. Resistance Army in Yugoslavia will be stronger than elsewhere in Europe: the nationalist resistance Draza Mihailovic ( Chetniks ) and Communist Tito ( Partisans ), will stop many troops from late 1942 until the end of the war.
Operations in the Balkans have delayed the invasion of the USSR known to Operation Barbarossa . It only begins June 22 1941 . Germany, by surprise by attacking the Soviet Union seized large portions of territory and capture of many soldiers.
They do it all the more easily that Stalin chose to trust Hitler when he receives for months accurate and consistent of its agents abroad. “For political reasons, Stalin refrained from using their information. Until the last moment, he expected to reopen negotiations with the Germans … The Soviet generals often share this view … 16 “In addition, in the early hours of the attack, Stalin, in the hope of fix things with Hitler banned even the Soviet forces to cross the border in case of attack against victorious, and initially they do not dare open fire while being pounded by German bombs.
Uniform Soviet World War II.
However, for the first time, an army does not collapse before the Wehrmacht : despite its heavy losses, the Red Army continues from day to multiply against attacks, to the surprise of German officers. The considerable advance of Hitler’s troops at the same time is proving slower than expected, the number of divisions of Soviet tanks and well above estimates of intelligence. The Soviets move their manufacturing base in the Urals , are assisted by allied arctic ports still in their hands, and in 1942 produced more weapons than Germany, while the Red Army between a heroic defense that aided by a challenging winter, allowing them to defend particular Moscow and Leningrad .
Stalin was also able to awaken the nationalist Russian and organize a united front against the aggressor: it is supported by the churches, puts on hold the agrarian collectivism and part of police control on society, and replaces references to patriotic those of Communism, from his speech of July 3 1941 o ù he skillfully directed his “brothers and sisters” Soviet. He does not neglect to keep a real terror against his officers and generals, many of which were shot for “incompetence” in the first months of the war, while millions of prisoners were officially denied and considered traitors (and their families with them), and soldiers exposed to faulty execution or deportation to the Gulag : the front, the task of NKVD take care even in 1941 as Stalingrad , to strafe the soldiers who fell back to the rear .
In spring 1942 , the German army resumed the offensive by concentrating it into the oil fields of the Caucasus in the south. At the end of the VI th army, with more than 300,000 men, was destroyed at Stalingrad which is a lock for the control of the Caucasus. In 1943 , the Wehrmacht takes initiative in the third battle of Kharkov , but is broken in the great Battle of Kursk .
In 1943 , after the landing in Sicily , and another in the Italian peninsula, the Allies begin the campaign in Italy . Mussolini expelled, and surrendered the country is on the side of the Allies . However, Germany may hold a line of defense in the mountains which slows the increase in the peninsula. It was not until early 1945 that the Nazis are completely driven from Italy.
Allies gain a foothold in Normandy with the Operation Overlord from 6 June 1944 . Allied soldiers who landed mainly American, British and Canadian. Another landing is held in August (from 15) in Provence with the operation Anvil Dragoon , to liberate the south of France and open a second front in France. Germany attempts a desperate offensive against-the Battle of the Bulge in December, where it loses its last military reserves. The last defenders of the III e Reich are often civilians, old men and children of the Volkssturm , a militia set up by Martin Bormann.
German soldiers thrown into the operation Wacht am Rhein , on a Sonderkraftfahrzeug 250 in December 1944. After bleeding the human eastern front , the Reich has more than child soldiers to line troops.
End of March 1945 , the Allies are finally cross the Rhine and occupy large areas of Western and Southern Germany , while in the east, the Soviets grew steadily, releasing the central Europe and up Berlin . In the streets of Vienna and Berlin assaulted by the Red Army, SS squads are still in a reign of terror in public for those who refuse to continue a fight without hope. Hitler committed suicide on April 30 with a bullet in the head in the Führerbunker the Reich Chancellery . The same day, the Soviets planted their flag on the roof of the Reichstag , former seat of the German Parliament , in a Berlin in ruins. The Battle of Berlin continues until May 2 . The Germany surrendered unconditionally on 8 May 1945 . The Third Reich in which Hitler predicted a period of one millennium will eventually lasted just over 12 years.
Theatres African and Middle Eastern
Main article: Campaigns in Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean .
Women Iranian watching a convoy cna certification of ammunition U.S. bound for the USSR (1943).
The Italian army, starting from the colony of Libya , attacking British troops and the Commonwealth in Egypt , but is routed until Germany strengthens. Then followed the fighting in the desert car transport company of North Africa, between the Italian forces supported by the Afrika Korps of Erwin Rommel and the 8 th British Army.
In the Middle East , the British invaded in April 1941 the territory of the Kingdom of Iraq , the Nationalist government had approached the Axis. In June, authorities Vichy allowing the Germans to use the territories of Syria and Lebanon , then under French mandate , the Allies invaded the two countries and take control. In August, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union are jointly undertaking an invasion of the Imperial State of Iran to ensure the supply via the Persian Corridor and prevent tilting pro-German in the country.
In May 1942, Rommel launched a major offensive to the east to reach Suez, and challenges the British forces, but was arrested 14 days at Bir Hakeim by 1 st Free French Brigade of General Koenig , which gave time to the British failed to come together on the fortified line of El Alamein , Rommel can not cross. Then in October 1942 is the 8 th British army, commanded by Montgomery, who in turn attack the Axis forces and won the Second Battle of El Alamein . This ends the presence of Axis in Libya a few days after the successful Allied landings in North Africa .
On 5 May 1942 , held the operation Ironclad , an amphibious invasion of the French colony of Madagascar , on Diego Suarez , controlled by the Vichy government . .
On November 8, 1942, in effect, to relieve the Soviet Union alone in resisting the German assault, the U.S. and British forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, controlled by the Vichy government : it is the Operation Torch . Vichy French troops retaliated and oppose the allies landed until a negotiated agreement with the Admiral Darlan halt the fighting 17 .
The Allies eventually drove the Axis in Africa, with the help of the army returned from Africa and the Free French Forces . From North Africa, the Allies can then organize the landings in Sicily and Italy in 1943 , and in Provence in 1944 .
Asian Theatre
Main articles: Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) , Franco-Thai War and War in Asia and the Pacific .
Model of a U.S. aircraft carrier
Douglas MacArthur , chief of the allied forces in Asia, and John Curtin , Prime Minister of Australia .
Beginning in 1937 in China , the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist Party of Mao Zedong are common front against the Japanese but generally without cooperate.
Bogged down in China, the Japanese Imperial Army ‘s reliance, in 1937, the use of chemical weapons. According to historians Yoshimi and Matsuno, they were used 375 times including during the Battle of Wuhan in the fall of 1938 . The use of biological weapons is in turn authorized by the Imperial General Headquarters from 1940 but never against the West.
Submitted from 1941 to an embargo on oil from its occupation of Indochina, Japan can no longer achieve its expansionist policy without destroying the major threat can still oppose him in the Pacific Naval Force of United States based in Hawaii. Again using the strategy that was successful against Russia, Japan decided to bomb Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 by surprise. The fleet was badly damaged, but the carriers are at sea
Map of landings US in the Pacific Ocean from 1942 to 1945.
Simultaneously, the Japanese army occupied the British possessions, Dutch and U.S. Southeast Asia such as Hong Kong , Singapore (massacre of 10,000 civilians), the Philippines ( Death March of Bataan ) and takes the field Oil of British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies , even threatening the Australian . The French Indochina has already passed under its military control agreement with the Vichy regime . On 21 July 1941 . The coup of 9 March 1945 will complete the Japanese stranglehold on the peninsula: the political vacuum resulting from World War facilitate the seizure of power by the Viet Minh in Ho Chi Minh .
Douglas MacArthur landed the Philippines at the beginning of the reconquest of the islands .
The Doolittle Raid in April 1942 marked the beginning of the American response. In May 1942 , the battle between aircraft carriers in the Coral Sea turns to the advantage of the allies. A month later, it is compounded by that of Midway .
From early 1942, the Japanese Imperial Army is trying to neutralize the communist resistance Chinese by launching the policy of the Three All ( 三光作戦 , Sanko Sakusen ? , “kill all, burn all, plunders everything” ) , a strategy of land burned in northern China, while repeated attacks are launched against the stronghold of the Chinese Nationalists.
Despite the determination of the Japanese army, the Allies resumed gradually as the Pacific Islands to Guadalcanal , the Solomon and the Philippines after the Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 1944), which remains the largest naval battle never occurred 18 . Subjected to blockade and gradually cut its supplies of raw materials, Japan is on the brink of economic strangulation in the summer of 1945.
The site of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing
The commitment in 1944 of the first suicide bombers in history – the suicide planes that flow of enemy ships – can not stop the American conquest, but demonstrates the determination of the Japanese. The capture of the nearby islands of Japan as Iwo Jima and Okinawa will launch direct air strikes. Tōkyō particular suffers firebombing March 10, 1945. Above all, Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on the 9th (it must have Kokura) undergo a nuclear attack .
Coupled with the declaration of war by the USSR and the invasion of Manchukuo by Soviet forces, eventually causing the atomic bombings of Japan’s surrender, announced by Hirohito on 15 August 1945, confirmed by the signature of the official acts Sept. 2 to aboard the USS Missouri .
Military resources of the belligerents

Arms
Main article: Weapons used during the Second World War .
” War of movement over large areas, the Second World War was a war of the engine 19 . ”
The widespread use of the tanks martial arts denver is a first illustration of this trend of motorization. While the French army made ​​the choice of a dispersion of tanks in the service of the infantry, the Germans by adopting a tactic based on the use of tanks grouped emerge victorious from the Battle of France electronic cigarette review . The design of the tank itself oscillates between two trends: the power and maneuverability. The experience of the Spanish Civil War showed that the shielding is less important than the low profile, less vulnerable, the mobile turret 360 degrees and the power of the gun. But during World War II, there has been growth in weight, armor and firepower. Thus, the German tank Tiger I is 57 tons . The American M4 Sherman and the Soviet T-34 , used until the end of the war remain in the range of 30 tonnes . The concentration of tanks in armored divisions can conduct lightning war ( Blitzkrieg ), such as the Battle of France in May-June 1940 won by the Germans. Nazi Germany made ​​the mistake of invading the Soviet Union by underestimating the actual number of tanks and the quality of their new tanks, like the T-34 . The largest concentration Containers of tanks took place during the battle Kursk [Ref. required] , Russia, July 1943 .
Progress tanks come with the progress of anti-tank weapon: the use of shaped charge can penetrate armor more and thicker. Rocket tubes as bazooka allows the soldier to have against the tanks of the power of a gunner 20 .
Alongside the use of tanks, there throughout the war to an increase in motor transport troops, to the detriment of the horses, still present on both the French and the German side at the Battle of France or on the eastern front , mainly for logistical reasons. The U.S. armored division in 1944, will it, fully motorized.
The tremendous progress made ​​in aviation between the wars will give a different war planes instead of the first importance. Improved structures of the aircraft allows fighter-bombers like the Stuka to operate the dive-bombing and thus take full part in ground combat. Heavy bombers like the Flying Fortress America, whose range reaches at the end of the war, 5,000 miles, are used in massive raids and more than a thousand planes, thus implementing the concept of Strategic Bombing . To counter the bomber, the belligerents make use of their fighter aircraft and air defense artillery (AAA). It is the effectiveness of the DCA that requires organizing the bombing operations at night. It requires fighters to ensure effective control of airspace over a battlefield or on a front gave 21 .
U.S. troops parachuted in the Netherlands during the Operation Market Garden , 1944
Dominated by Allied aircraft in the second part of the war, the payday loan Germans could find some benefit in the air battle, with the first construction in series jet aircraft by Messerschmitt . But Hitler waste this chance by requiring them into bombers, against the advice of his officers, not fighter jets, which would have been more appropriate 22 .
The DCA should increase its effectiveness in the technique of radar that can monitor and assist the sky. From 1942, Allied bombers are equipped with radar, night-fighters as well. With their growing skills, radars are also used in the Allied ships to the weight of fire. In general, telecommunications are an integral part of the military arsenal. The German tanks are connected by radio in 1939, while their French opponents are only very partially. The techniques of encryption and decryption follow the evolution of techniques. The Germans use the coding machine Enigma , but the decryption of Enigma by the Western allies is a crucial spa covers factor that allows them to turn the tide of the Battle of the Atlantic and to ensure their ultimate victory.
At sea, before the War, there has been an incessant building of battleships shields, but these superstructures and means of combat exposure on large piers remain highly vulnerable to damage, for example, by dive-bombing. The battleship ceases to be the king of the sea battles, while the aircraft carrier, which can carry 50 to 60 aircraft, taking a role more and more crucial, especially when the theater is from the land base, as is the case for the United States or Japan in the Pacific battles . The aircraft carrier became the centerpiece of a device or other vessels become his assistants 23 .
As in the First World War, submarines are widely used to block enemy supply, but the anti-submarine warfare has progressed through the sonar with the first developments date from World War I but become fully operational.
At the end of World War II, new weapons burst on the battlefield, as the plane-robot V1 launched for the first time by the Germans in England on the night of 13 to 14 June 1944 and the missile V2 launched for the first time in London on 8 September 1944 23 . Contrary to the fears of the allies, the Germans had no plans to bomb 24 . The Americans, however, were made ​​from December 1941 huge resources in the Manhattan Project which led on 16 July 1945, after the surrender of Germany, the first nuclear explosion in the desert of New Mexico and bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic 6 and August 9, 1945.
Statistics
The industrial war effort
Naval power of the various nations in 1939
Buildings Allies Axis
France United Kingdom Total Germany Italy Total
Aircraft carrier A 8 9
Battleships 7 12 19 5 2 7
Cruisers 19 50 69 6 22 28
Destroyers 70 94 164 17 59 76
Submarines 77 38 115 57 115 172
Escorts 87 87
Europe under Nazi domination

Main article: Europe under Nazi domination .
From the German victory over France, and more from 1941, with the invasion of the Balkans and the Soviet Union until the end of 1944, almost all of Europe is under German rule. Some countries and regions have been squarely linked to Reich , like Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , and western Poland. Other countries have voluntarily allied to Germany, it is the Bulgaria , in Romania and Hungary , but they are completely denver auto accident lawyer dependent on Germany. Some countries, Slovakia and Croatia , which owe their independence to Nazi Germany. Others are occupied as a result of German victories. This is the case of the Netherlands , of Belgium , of Norway , from Denmark , from France , of Serbia , in Greece 25 .
Economic domination and subjugation
German domination in Europe is a different character to the east and west. The countries of Eastern Europe, the Slavic peoples are regarded by the Nazis as a “living space” ( Lebensraum ) returning to the “master race”. In this immense space, it is both to implement German settlers, forcibly Germanized from populations that may be, to move, sterilize or kill millions of ” subhuman “Poles, Slavs Soviet or Gypsies, using survivors as slaves up to the final solution for Jews.
The West is not considered living space to empty so that Germans could take place. In the new European order, a country such as France keeps its place, but at a lower level than in Germany. If the German occupation terror has less he did not submit unless the resources of the conquered countries the systematic looting.
Indeed, economically, the continent is under the hegemony of the Reich . For Germany, it is first put all the resources and economic capacities of the continent for the Reich at war. On the other hand, milestones are laid for an integration of all national economies in a large economic space dominated by Germany 26 . In France the German soldiers called “beetles”, ravaging all 27 .
In practice, the different ways to put the economy of Europe in the service of Germany are pay day loan netting agreements with favorable exchange rates for countries allied with the massive looting for countries like Poland or the Soviet Union through the payment of compensation for a country like France. The employment of prisoners of war and displacement of millions of German workers represent an even more direct exploitation of resources.
Collaboration and Resistance in Europe
Main articles: Collaboration in Nazi-occupied Europe and Resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe .
For Yves Durand , “The occupations engender among the occupied behaviors ranging from collaboration to resistance through a range of attitudes that can not be reduced neither to one nor the other 28 . ”
The Montoire between Philippe Petain and Adolf Hitler .
Ante Pavelic .
All the defeated countries must accept at least a minimal form of collaboration that allows people to survive at least temporarily by accepting the terms of the winner. This is what Werner calls the Rings neutral collaboration that is typically practiced in the Netherlands and Belgium whose governments have left the country but the government take steps to enable people to survive and the economy to turn to service of the German war effort 29 . In some countries, like the Norway of Quisling in 1942, it is the supporters of the Nazis who rule the country directly. Historians generally call them “collaborationist.” In other countries, Germany prefers to promote conservative leaders like Petain in France or Nedic in Serbia who are presumed to better manage their government. Serbia, Croatia , or Montenegro , local separatism are encouraged to install governments favorable to Germany. In France, the Vichy various governments propose to themselves a collaboration that goes beyond what is provided by the armistice of June 1940, hoping to get the country a better place in German Europe. Under the terms of Paxton, “Hitler rejects the outstretched hand 30 . ” It is he who chooses his allies. In Poland, governed directly by the Germans to be completely looted and enslaved, there can be no collaborationist or employees.
Commitment to the “resistance” allows dominated peoples to continue to oppose the winner to participate in the Allied war effort and if possible the liberation of their country. Resistance was organized by the creation of movements, networks and maquis , comprising a minority of the population and often in conjunction with the governments in exile or intelligence Soviet or American English.
Genocide, deportations, concentration
Crematorium of Auschwitz
Main articles: Holocaust , Porajmos , Aktion T4 and Massacres of Odessa .
The war and the domination of Europe that resulted enabled the Nazis to push its extreme racist ideology. In the words of Goebbels : “War gives us all kinds of possibilities that peace we would not 31 ”
One such possibility a plan of ethnic cleansing targeting populations of Eastern Europe : the Master Plan for the East , its application in the conquered lands will result in the disruption in depth.
On the day of entry into the war in September 1939 , Hitler authorized the extermination of the mentally handicapped German and other terminally ill. Officially stopped in August 1941 with a movement of opinion, the Aktion T4 led to “euthanasia” by the gas of more than 150,000 disabled, number of technicians of the operation is then reallocated to the mass gassing of Jews in the death camps.
By 1939, Jews were forcibly concentrated in ghettos miserable, starving and deliberately overcrowded, especially in the General Government of Poland. Their extermination, which is designated as the Holocaust , was first implemented locksmith by mass executions carried out by the Wehrmacht and later by the Einsatzgruppen in the Soviet and Polish territories. In the USSR and a part of Poland, the “Holocaust by bullets” in 1942 gives way to the methodical use of gas vans . After the Wannsee Conference (January 20, 1942), the policy of extermination (the ” Final Solution of the Jewish question “in Nazi terminology) is the Jews in all occupied countries and takes a tour industry. The Jews were deported to extermination camps where the victims were gassed en masse, and their bodies burnt to ashes in the crematoria . In total, about three-quarters of the Jews of occupied Europe, totaling, according to Raul Hilberg , at least 5.1 million people were exterminated 32 .
Gypsies were also victims of Nazi racial policy. The extermination of the Gypsies is known as the Porajmos . In December 1942, Himmler took the decision to deport all Gypsies to Auschwitz from Europe, but quickly loses interest in the subject that is not a strategic issue of prime importance. It is estimated that during the Second World War, between 50,000 and 80,000 Gypsies died as a result of Nazi persecution measures 33 .
In addition to the death camps whose purpose is the immediate elimination of Jews and other groups classified as “subhuman”, multiply the Nazi concentration camps and Kommandos to enclose, and generally kill by forced labor, real or perceived opponents, or common law. Particularly dehumanizing conditions of detention and brutal treatment of SS and Kapo will result in extremely high mortality (40% of French deportees do not survive). Initially, these are mobile units that are responsible to exterminate the Jews – and Gypsies, senior communists or the disabled and homosexuals.
The East Asia under Japanese rule

Main articles: Japanese expansionism Showa , the Co-Prosperity Sphere Greater East Asia and Japan’s war crimes Shōwa .
In Asia also, the Empire of Japan raises government employees and uses large-scale looting of raw materials and forced labor of prisoners of war and local people claimed that release of colonial servitude.
Wang Jingwei .
In China , the Japanese are divisions of local policies to ensure the support of Wang Jingwei , former prime minister and former head of the Kuomintang , who heads a government employee in Nanjing . To give a patriotic profile, the government puts an end to the regime of European concessions in Shanghai .
In several western colonies occupied Asia, the Japanese are dealing with local separatists, creating plans like the State of Burma , led by Ba Maw , or the Republic of the Philippines , led by José P. Laurel . The Empire of Japan uses the concept Chicago Criminal Attorney of Co-Prosperity Sphere of Greater East Asia to promote the idea of an Asian self-sufficient and justify its expansionist policies.
Invaded in 1931 , the Manchuria became the state of Manchukuo , where the ancient Chinese emperor Puyi has a facade of authority, and guarantees to Japan of important natural resources.
As part of the Burma campaign , the Japanese have the support of the Government of Thailand to Plaek Pibulsonggram independence leader and Indian Subhash Chandra Bose , who created the Indian National Army . The Dutch East Indies occupied, they provide very large reserves of oil , the Japanese government does not create, but spare the support of the separatist leaders like Sukarno (future president of Indonesia ).
Prison camps and slavery
Scattered throughout the Sphere, the Japanese prison camps experienced a high rate of death because most of them involved the forced labor of prisoners. According to the Tokyo Tribunal , the death rate of Western there was 27.1%, seven times that of the camp prisoners German or Italian 34 . The mortality rate of Chinese prisoners was much higher due to a directive ratified August 5th, 1937 by Hirohito that eliminated the safeguards of international law with regard to these prisoners 35 . Thus, if 37 583 British prisoners, 28,500 Dutch and 14,473 Americans were released after the surrender of Japan , the number of Chinese was only released 56 of 34 , 36 .
A study by the historian Zhifen Ju, more than 10 million Chinese were mobilized by the Japanese Imperial Army and turned into slaves by the Koa-in to Manchukuo and China North 37 . Documents found at the Library of Congress show that between 4 and 10 million romusha , Indonesian civilians were subjected to forced labor in Java by the Shōwa regime and that the mortality rate was 80% to 38 .
In North America, following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese and the entry into war against Germany and Italy, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the February 19 , 1942, the internment of tens of thousands of Americans of Japanese, Italian and German: enemy alien (in) . Canada, to a lesser extent, also detained citizens from these countries in camps.
Historical consequences

World War II contributes, through its balance sheet more or less damaging to the participants, the emergence of two superpowers who will share the world: United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Bankruptcy Soviet (USSR).
The League of Nations , which is charged with having failed to prevent war is replaced by the United Nations . The UN Charter was drafted at San Francisco in June 1945 .
The pre-war institutions, persist in a minority of states in Europe and Asia. All monarchies of Eastern Europe are swept by the rapid construction of communist regimes. A referendum abolished the monarchy in Italy (June 10, 1946), it remains in Greece at the cost of a civil war, and the ” royal question “directly after the controversial attitude Leopold III during the war, finds a solution in Belgium than in the abdication of King (1951). In Japan, Americans keep the Emperor Hirohito , yet always kept informed of the crimes committed by his armies, but require the abolition of the imperial cult that proclaimed divine. In France, III e Republic , blamed the defeat, giving way to a new constitution.
Governments everywhere are engaged in the construction of the welfare state or welfare state: nationalization, planning, state intervention, social protection laws are now on the agenda for three decades.
Germany is subject to many years of occupation . In 1949 , it is separated into two states, designated names of West Germany (liberal democracy in the area previously occupied by the Americans, British and French) and of East Germany (Communist regime in the area occupied by the Soviets). The German reunification will take place in 1990 .
In Central Europe and Eastern Europe , areas invested in 1944-1945 by the Red Army , the local Communist parties are in a strong position and take power between 1945 and 1948 . By March 1946 , Winston Churchill said “an iron curtain has descended across the continent ” . In Hungary , in Bulgaria , in Poland , in Czechoslovakia , in Romania , in Albania , under the influence of the communist regimes of the Soviet Union are established. The Eastern bloc was formed in Europe, signing the beginning of the Cold War . Only the Communist regime of Tito in Yugoslavia , maintains an independent position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, with which he broke in 1948 . In Greece , the various movements of the local resistance come into open conflict between them and the United Kingdom before the end of the war: the Greek civil war lasted until 1949 and lack of tip of Greece in the communist camp but monarchical government won the election.
West Germany and Japan demilitarized and democratized by the West. The principal officials of the Nazi hierarchy are considered, and most convicted for crimes against humanity (a new concept, the unprecedented horrors of the Nazis forced him to be defined) or for war crimes in an international trial Nuremberg . Japanese military leaders accountable for their abuses to the international tribunal in Tokyo. Emperor Hirohito , however, is protected from prosecution. War criminals as Shiro Ishii , a former head of Unit 731 , also benefit from impunity thanks to their cooperation with the United States. A number of former Nazi leaders avoid trial for war crimes through initiatives such as the U.S. ‘ Operation Paperclip and find the latest positions of responsibility.
The scientific and technical research, in general, receive a strong boost, especially for the control of the atom in the Manhattan Project and research on rockets that will allow space programs. The war also saw the first massive use of antibiotics including penicillin invented by the British, or of DDT , useful to the Americans in the marshes of the Pacific.
In China , the regime of Chiang Kai-shek is weakened by the war years. The Chinese civil war , interrupted by the war against the Japanese, again in 1946. In 1949, the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek were defeated by the Communists of Mao Zedong . It proclaims on the mainland of China , while Chiang fled to Taiwan .
Consequences in the UK
V for Victory , Churchill on the balcony of Whitehall , on May 8, 1945 (VE Day)
Other allies in fact, and except for the United Kingdom, have a minor role or are excluded from negotiations leading to the creation of two zones of influence, according to the agreements engagement ring Yalta and Potsdam . This situation, which carries within it the seeds of the Cold War lasted until 1989 .
The UK comes out of the war considerably weakened. This, in fact, devoted the decline of the colonial powers: the movement Quit India has developed during the conflict in British India , the independence of India and Burma have taken different forms at times violent. The Indian Independence Act takes effect in the summer of 1947 , immediately followed by the partition of India . The Burma gained independence in 1948. Subsequently, the British Isles are experiencing unprecedented crisis due to the rebuilding and restructuring of its economy.
Consequences in France
During the Battle of Normandy , General de Gaulle , welcomed as a liberator by the French, managed to get allies recognize the full authority of his government, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) (announced on June 3 in Algiers ), on the mainland. It ensures that France is recognized by the Allied camp as a winner. This recognition allows him to occupy a part of Germany, or to obtain a permanent seat on the Security Council of the UN .
The Liberation of France accompanied by the treatment of some of those suspected of collaborating . The Germans and their collaborators have stepped up atrocities during the occupation, then in retirement. Also in the territories liberated by the Resistance, and despite the efforts of most of their leaders and commissioners of the Republic to establish as soon as a legal and judicial treatment, many executions are not always preceded expeditious and judgments. Approximately 20,000 women are shorn for ‘horizontal collaboration 39 . ” As a result, mistakes are made ​​in this early release, and the innocent unjustly murdered. Historians estimate that about 11 000 executions took place, three-quarters during the fighting. The savage treatment could be even more brutal that people might want to avenge the atrocities of the militia and the Germans in their retreat, and the swelling numbers of the Resistance has allowed some resistance from the 24 th hours to clear customs and inexpensively. We observed the same phenomenon in the independence of Algeria.
In contrast, some employees are sometimes acquitted or convicted at low penalties (despite the seriousness of their crimes) by the regular courts, the majority of judges were sworn to Petain . Others were tried by the High Court composed of resistant, but the importance of convictions waned over time. Thus in 1949, the last defendant is acquitted considered: the Secretary of State for the Interior of Petain, René Bousquet (who put the French police and gendarmerie available to the occupants to hunt for resistance and deporting almost 60,000 Jews ) is acquitted. Note that the employees have been prosecuted for treason, and not for crimes against humanity.
De Gaulle prevents the development of a situation Insurgent Army (see History of France ), by combining the movements involved in the resistance to the regular army after the armistice army stationed in Africa (including number of frames were Vichy before joining in 1942). Not without difficulty, the resistance of the French Forces of the Interior ( FFI ) and snipers and partisans ( FTP ) are integrated into the regular army with little jerks. The integration of the militias of patriotic PCF is traded against their participation in government and the amnesty of Maurice Thorez .
On behalf of the country’s reconstruction and to allow France to take its place alongside the newly restored allies, the purification of the administration is limited. Some officials invoke the continuity of the state as an act of resistance. The police, part of which continued the resistance to dédouanent by an insurrection in Paris on the eve of the Liberation. Some employees are forgotten by integrating FFI regiments or engaging in the expeditionary force in the Far East (begun in Indochina ), which is later used by propaganda Việt Minh .
France forgets it was Anglophobe and Pétain after the bombing of Battle of Mers el-Kebir , the French gendarmes guarded the concentration camp at Drancy and convoyèrent convoys of deportees to the border. The proportion of pre-war Jewish survivors is not the most important of all the occupied countries, Jews were stateless said far less protected than the French Jews. For a time, French law held that only the Germans can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity . The trial failed to Bousquet and the late trial of Paul Touvier and Maurice Papon are emblematic of this policy.
Consequences in the U.S.
The United States of America take the initiative to have an attitude positive . They impose democracy, particularly in West Germany and Japan , through a treatment and control of the machinery of government and education. At the same time, they provide from a 1947 economic aid to rebuild Europe, known as the Marshall Plan . This allows rapid reconstruction of Denver Divorce Attorney Western economies, completed in early 1950, the casino population and avoids the temptation to surrender to communism or neo-fascism.
After the web hosting reviews Second World War, the United States with the Soviet Union one of the two greatest world powers. The U.S. has the largest fleet of war, the first commercial fleet, they hold 75% stocks of gold in the world (hence the motto ” dollar as good as gold “, the dollar is as safe as the gold).
16 million Americans were incorporated into the armed forces of the United States , 407,000 perished, including 292 000 on the battlefield.
Consequences in the USSR
Stalin is no exception and was one of the big winners of the conflict. The Red Army has knocked out more than 85% of German soldiers and appears to be the main winner because of Hitler. Prestige and role of the Soviet Union out grown far beyond the few communist circles. Reintegrated into the community of nations, the USSR is a permanent member of the Security Council.
For the Russians, the Great Patriotic War carried on the Eastern Front invoked the survival of the nation. In a toast to the Russian people during the victory parade, June 24, 1945, Stalin confirmed the return of the Soviet Union to a more pronounced nationalist Great Russian chauvinism even at the expense of national minorities and, soon , Jews “cosmopolitan.”
The annexations of 1 939 – 1,940 are confirmed, and others came to be added to the victory. The Soviet Union has increased its area of 475 000 km 2 and a population of 24 million people, once subjected to a very brutal Sovietization by terror. Behind the Iron Curtain , the Stalinist system was gradually imposed for decades to a vast empire from East Berlin to North Korea, meanwhile switching from China and Vietnam into the Communist camp.
However, the USSR considerably impoverished fate of the war, which cost him more than 25 million deaths, destruction and the worst ever suffered by a belligerent in human history. In 1945, a commission official estimated that the cost of destruction is double the investments made ​​in the first two Five Year Plans of the 1930s. Finally, technologically, the Soviet Union lags behind America, which it does not break the nuclear monopoly until 1949.
Human costs by country

Main article: Results of the Second World War death toll # .
In total about 38 million civilians were killed by the Nazis and their allies.
In Europe: between 8.8 and 10.7 million Soviet military 40 , 5.3 million German soldiers 41 , 42 , six million Poles, including three million Jews and three million Catholics, three million Jews of other European countries, two million Gypsies, the handicapped, homosexuals and others.
About the only military casualties in Europe, estimated about 17,877,000 of soldiers died on the battlefields of Europe, of which 10.774 million on the Allied side and 7103000 on the side of the Axis forces. The Red Army killed up 53% of total military casualties known in Europe, those of the Wehrmacht 31%, those of the United Kingdom 1.8%, those of France 1.4% and those of the army North American 1.3%. Military losses of the Soviet Union account for 88% of total allied losses in Europe (UK 3%, France 2.3% U.S. 2.2%). The total military losses only from Germany and the Soviet Union together represent 84% of the total of all military casualties suffered in Europe. The military casualties of the conflict Germano-Russian are only 13,876,400 or 78% of total military casualties suffered in Europe.
Asia: historians estimate between 10 and 30 million deaths caused by Japanese atrocities, including 2.7 million for the single operation of the policy of all three ( 三光作戦 , Sanko Sakusen ? ) conducted in northern China by general Yasuji Okamura .
Abuses and war crimes

As shown in this graph, more than half the victims were civilians
The European theater of operations
Main article: War crimes of the Wehrmacht .
Many civilian massacres and war crimes were committed during the conflict, particularly by the Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front , but also more generally by the Wehrmacht and SS . From the 20 October 1943 , the Allies were implementing the ” War Crimes Commission United Nations “to investigate war crimes committed by the Axis. A week later, the Moscow Declaration stated the desire to hunt down Nazi war criminals “to the ends of the earth.” Unrelated to the UN (which was founded in 1945), this one was assisted from March 1945 by CROWCASS , commissioned by the SHAEF to establish a list of Nazi war criminals. This determination was responsible for establishing the Nuremberg tribunal , judging the most senior surviving Nazis. CROWCASS however, was quickly surpassed, the original intention of tracking down war criminals against the seller in 1945 to other priorities, especially marked by the outbreak of the Cold War in 1947.
Among the various war crimes, are:
pseudo-medical experiments of Nazi doctors in several concentration camps, including Dr. Mengele
France (massacres committed by the Nazis, having reached over 30 000 people)
execution of hostages by the Germans in Châteaubriant , Paris, Lyon, Limoges, etc.. From the fall of 1941. The historian Serge Klarsfeld has compiled a list of 1007 hostages and strong shot at Mont-Valerian near Paris, of which 117 were Jewish.
massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane , the largest with 654 victims, including women and children, executed by the SS Das Reich division . There were four survivors.
massacres Ascq in Tulle in Maille in Buchères to Etobon at Saint-Pierre-de-Clairac etc.. perpetrated by the SS.
torture and massacre of civilians and combatants of the maquis of Vercors , by units of the Wehrmacht and the militia of Joseph Darnand (July 1944)
Italy occupied:
massacre of 355 hostages Ardeatine near Rome in March 1944
massacre of the village of Marzabotto near Bologna in October 1944, which caused over 900 deaths
In the “Protectorate” of Bohemia and Moravia :
deportation of hundreds of students demonstrated against the occupation (November 1939)
massacre of the inhabitants of Lidice in retaliation for the attack that brought down the leader and SS “Butcher of Prague” Heydrich
Poland
starvation and deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto
“Cleaning” of the Warsaw ghetto by the SS after the revolution of the last survivors
extermination of 50,000 members of the Polish elite by the SS and Gestapo (priests, aristocrats, professors, officers). Secondary education, seminaries and universities were closed, as the theater for example, and only a remarkable system of course illegal – the komplety – the Poles were able to hear and save five classes age of graduates 43
5000 massacre of Polish officers at Katyn by the Soviet army (the Soviet Union acknowledged responsibility after several decades, have long accused the Nazis of being responsible for the massacre)
massacre of 10,000 other Polish officers in other places, or 15,000 people killed coldly shot in the neck by the NKVD , forerunner of the KGB
90% destruction of Warsaw by the German army after the uprising of the Armia Krajowa of 1 st August to 2 October 1944 . The repression of the uprising by Himmler made ​​from 150 000 to 200 000 deaths. Lacking the means to cross the Vistula and immobilized by order of Stalin for political reasons, the Red Army left the Germans crush the rebellion Polish and brought him no weapons or help.
in the Soviet Union
starvation and premeditated killing of Russian prisoners of war (2 million dead)
starvation of civilians in the city of Leningrad under siege (700,000 victims)
20 million Soviet citizens were killed, including a large number of prisoners of war executed by the Germans, and also civilians whose villages and towns are destroyed.
in Yugoslavia
deportation of tens of thousands of Serbs , Jews and Roma in the death camps (especially in the Jasenovac concentration camp ) by the Ustasha Croats. These are overall responsible for the massacre of 300 000-400 000 people, and many forced conversions to Catholicism.
We must also mention the summary execution of civilians and Allied soldiers in uniform (especially some paratroopers parachuted by SOE to guide the underground as well as some drivers, including Martin Bormann allowed and encouraged the lynching in 1944).
The bombing of cities
Some operations bombing of cities have caused many civilian casualties. The number of civilian casualties was sometimes a goal to weaken the “moral” of the opponent.
Germany
The bombing of the city of Hamburg , codenamed ” Operation Gomorrah “is estimated to have made ​​40,000 victims, the heaviest death toll in Europe for this type of operation.
The Bombing of Dresden is estimated to have been 35,000 victims according to the work of a commission of historians appointed by the city of Dresden. The historian Jörg Friedrich estimated the death toll at 40,000 44 .
in Britain
The bombing of British cities, and London in particular, code-named ” Blitz “is estimated to have made ​​14,500 victims.
On the Asian theater of operations
Main article: War crimes Shōwa Japan .
Corpses of Chinese children massacred in Nanking in December 1937 by the Japanese army
The decision in August 1937 by Hirohito to approve a directive to his staff removing the application of international treaties on the protection of prisoners of war resulted in the deaths of several million civilians in China. Extended from 1941 to other conquered countries, this caused the death of a tremendous amount of civilians and Allied prisoners held in appalling conditions (testimony of Roger Cyr Royal Rifles of 45 ).
Among the crimes of the Japanese Imperial Army during the Showa era (1926-1989) , the most notable are:
kidnapping for sexual purposes hcg diet by more than 200,000 ” comfort women “, mostly Koreans by Japanese soldiers.
China:
Nanjing Massacre in which Japanese troops looted the city yet away by Chinese troops and massacred between 150,000 and 300,000 civilians after committing various atrocities including mass rape.
Operations Policy All Three ( 三光作戦 , Sanko Sakusen ? ) , a strategy of scorched earth implementation from May 1942 in northern China and leading to death of about 2.7 million civilians 46 .
Massacre of about 250,000 civilian Zhejiang and Jiangxi , from April to August 1942, in retaliation for the Doolittle raid on Japanese soil on April 18.
testing of biological weapons on thousands of Chinese prisoners, Korean and Russian by the unit 731 .
in Singapore , massacre of 25 000-50 000 civilians during the “cleansing” ( Daikenshô or Sook Ching ), conducted from February 18 to March 4, 1942.
in Malaysia
performance of 161 Allied prisoners (Australian, British and Indian) at Parity Sulong in January 1942.
in Burma
massacre of 600 civilians in June 1945 to Kalagon .
the Philippines , the Tokyo Tribunal and the Court of Manila identified him 72 major massacres including:
The death march of Bataan (about 20 000 deaths) from April to May 1942 47
killing of an estimated 100,000 civilians in February 1945 in Manila , including 200 civilians in St. Paul College 48
2500 massacre of civilians in Calamba .
2500 massacre of civilians in Lippa , on the island of Luzon 49 .
massacre of 500 civilians in Dapdap , Province of Cebu 50 .
massacre of 328 civilians in Bauan , 320 to Taal , 300 to Cuenca , 107 in San Jose, 39 to Lucero, province of Batangas 51 .
to Laha
performance of 55 Australian prisoners and 30 prisoners the Dutch 9 February 1943 .
in Bangka
massacre of 65 Australian nurses on 14 February 1942 .
in Andaman
massacre of 2000 to 3 000 civilians in Port Blair of 23 March 1942 to August 1945 , including 800 on 14 August 1945 .
Cannibalism
Many written reports and testimonies collected by the Australian Section of the War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo and analyzed by the investigator William Webb (the future chief justice of the Court), show that Japanese soldiers committed acts pikalaina of cannibalism against of Allied prisoners. In many cases, these acts were motivated by starvation but according to historian Yuki Tanaka, “cannibalism was often a systematic activity conducted by whole squads and under the command of officers 52 . ”
According to the testimony of many prisoners as the Indian soldier Ali Hatam, victims were sometimes skinned alive. The highest-ranking known who practiced cannibalism are Lieutenant General Yoshio Tachibana, who with 11 staff members, was found to have beheaded an American aviator and eaten in August 1944 to Chichi Jima and Vice Admiral Mori for eating a prisoner at a reception held in February 1945 53 , 54 , 55 .
June 5, 1941, civilian victims of one of the 268 air raids Chongqing made ​​by the Air Service of free auto insurance quotes the Imperial Japanese Army and the Navy. More than 5,000 Chinese died during the first two days of bombing in 1939 56 .
Bombing
The Air Service of the Imperial Japanese Army and of the Navy led from 1937 to 1945, a systematic campaign of bombings against civilian targets in the Far East and even against the city of Darwin in Australia. The areas most affected were the major Chinese cities like Shanghai and Chongqing . In the fall of 1937, the violence of bombing Nanjing and Guangzhou lead to a resolution of censure of the Advisory Committee of the Far East of the League of Nations against Japan. Lord Cranborne, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, issued his own statement of outrage. “Words can not express the deep feeling of horror with which the news of these raids was received by the civilized world. They are often directed against places far from the area of real hostility. The military objective, if any, seems to take second place. The main purpose seems to inspire terror by killing civilians … 57 ”
For the first time in the history of nuclear weapons is used by the United States for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The number of immediate victims is estimated at 70,000 in Hiroshima and 30,000 in Nagasaki . The number of casualties as a result of irradiation is unclear and contested, the mayor of Hiroshima suggests a total of 237,000 victims. Although most victims are civilians, some believe that this is not a war crime because of the attitude of the Imperial General Headquarters , which twice ignored the Potsdam ultimatum .
Chemical and biological weapons
In Europe, the poison gas was not used in the fighting between warring parties, but only against civilians deported in the Nazi extermination camps. Significant reserves of gas tabun and sarin were found in Germany in 1945, enough to kill millions of people. They were immersed in concrete caissons under the English Channel. There are concerns about their state of preservation today.
In Asia, however, the work of historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno 58 , show that Hirohito allowed from July 1937 the systematic use of poison gas against San Diego Homes For Rent the Chinese army and civilians. For fear of reprisals and to ensure that such weapons are never used against Western interests, each use was the subject of a specific directive approved by the emperor and sent by the Chief of Staff of the army, the prince Kotohito Kan’in (General Hajime Sugiyama as of 1940). By 1939, the chemical weapons were used in the USSR and Mongolia and the Philippines in 1942.
Mass grave of Unit 731 , bacteriological research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army
In 2004, however, Yoshimi discovered in the Australian national archives documents showing that toxic gases were tested on prisoners in Australia and the Netherlands in 1944 in Indonesia. [3]
In these chemical weapons, supplemented by biological weapons produced by the unit 731 and used repeatedly against civilians in China against the Soviet army at the Battle of Halhin Gol .
Rape of war
Related article: Comfort Women .
All the warring forces of World War had committed or allowed to commit widespread rape of war 59 . The phenomenon was repeated not as much in 1939-1945. [ref. needed] The historians Ian Kershaw and Rees reported that contrary to the propaganda of the Wehrmacht who defended the myth of a good army, the mass rapes were committed by the German Army 60 . Thousands of rapes during the campaign Italy by Tabors Moroccans were recognized and compensated by France after 1945. [ref. needed] The Red Army , especially, was explicitly encouraged, [ref. necessary] in retaliation for massive abuses of the Reich in the USSR , to terrorize the German populations by rape and looting on a large scale: according to Hanna Schissler, many East German invasion in 1945 have undergone the systematic violence of Soviet soldiers 61 . In Yugoslavia theoretically ally, Milovan Djilas, complained in person to Stalin of thousands of rapes, the Soviet dictator cynically answered him that the Red Army had suffered enough not to have to focus on what kind of complaints 62 .
According to historian Robert J. Lilly, about 14,000 women were raped by American troops in Normandy, France, Germany 63 . Some soldiers convicted were executed, mostly when they were black. [ref. required]
The historian Peter Schrijvers estimated that over 10,000 women were raped by American troops during the Battle of Okinawa 64 .
Other crimes
Main article: Death Marches , Selective Amnesia of war and behavioral disorders of war .
Deportation of Minorities Soviet Stalin
Main article: History of the USSR under Stalin .
Even before the war, Stalin considered border minorities as suspicious by definition, and in anticipation of the approaching conflict, orders during the Great Purges of 1937-1938 deportation trial of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Finns, Latvians, but also , which borders Asia, many Chinese and Koreans 170 000 are found in Central Asia. During the Nazi-Soviet Pact , the USSR break any resistance to the forced Sovietization of deporting 1939 to 1941 more than 300,000 newly annexed Polish, and many Moldovans, Baltic, etc..
Significant forces are then diverted from the front in full German offensive of the summer of 1941, to deport all of the Volga Germans and the rest of the USSR, descendants of the settlers two centuries. In spring 1944 , under the false accusation of collaboration, fourteen nations representing two million people, including the entire Chechen -Ingush, the Crimean Tatars , the Kalmyks , the Karachai, etc.. collectively were deported to Siberia and Central Asia. The deportation of 600,000 Chechens , women, children, communist militants and soldiers decorated understood, was accomplished in six days by the NKVD in March 1944, which to date remains the most intense deportation history [ref. needed] . The property of deported peoples were sold to Russian settlers, their autonomous republics and cities electronic cigarette often removed débaptisée, and in 1949, a decree of the Supreme Soviet declared that the people “punished” remain exiled in perpetuity. These measures were repealed only under Khrushchev and under Gorbachev .
Upon resumption of the Baltic States, Ukraine and Eastern Poland (1945), new mass deportations to the Gulag suspects struck the simple, local collaborators of the Nazis, but also resistant nationalist who fought both against the Germans and the Soviets and often refused to disarm, finally civilians wrongly accused or reason to support them. According to Anne Applebaum , and Jean-Jacques Marie , 6 to 10% of Moldova or the Baltic populations are thus in exile in the late 1940s. The mass roundups of suspects are also held as and when the advance of the Red Army in Eastern Europe: and disappeared for ever as thousands of others in February 1945 in Budapest, the hero of the rescue Jews Raoul Wallenberg .
They need to add hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers deported during the war to “failure” or critical, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn stopped on the front of Poland in February 1945 for having questioned the military genius of Stalin. Many former prisoners of war, remnants of the army Vlasov , voluntary or forced civilian workers in Germany, were also treated as guilty when they return home, and went to form the post-war generation of captive Gulag . As for the hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war and Japanese, the latter safety defensive driving were not released until the mid 1950′s .
Expulsion of German minorities in Central Europe and Japan in the Pacific
There was in Central Europe ( Prussia , Czechoslovakia , Poland and Baltic countries ) German settlements for many centuries.
The existence of these settlements had played a role in the engagement of the war. Thus the demand for reunion with Germany for the Sudeten Germans had used as a pretext to dismantle Czechoslovakia, granted by the Munich Agreement in 1938 . In the same way the Nazi government had relied on the geographic isolation of populations of East Prussia to demand the annexation of Danzig Corridor and prepare for war against Poland.
During the war, the rallying of the German minorities in the Nazi occupation and colonization of conquered areas to the east, combined with the atrocities attributed to Nazi troops, created or strengthened against German civilians a sense of rejection among indigenous populations. In addition, German civilians in the territories of the Reich, feared the abuses of Soviet troops in retaliation for atrocities committed in the USSR by Nazi troops.
Finally at the end of the war, the borders were redrawn, reducing the overall area of ​​Germany before the war.
All these elements led to the end of the war and in subsequent years in significant transfers of population from east to west, including many germanophones. A total of 8 million Germans were expelled in 1945 from Central and Eastern Europe, 2 million of the former territories of the Reich located east of the Oder-Neisse line, and ceded to Poland.
Main article: Expulsion of Germans after World War II .
A similar phenomenon occurred in Asia: 13 million Japanese were forced to leave Korea, China and the Pacific islands conquered in the xix th century by the Empire of the Rising Sun. This influx of refugees on a Japanese archipelago in ruins augmented in the immediate challenges of reconstruction. But the resolution of the problem ultimately denied propaganda before the war, which Japan felt “overcrowded” and that had been resolved within the territorial expansion.
Damage cultural

The Holocaust is also a cultural disaster irreparable. The yiddishland of Central and Eastern Europe is virtually destroyed, and it is estimated that three quarters of the speakers of Yiddish disappeared during the war. If France has lost “only” a quarter of its Jewish population, and the French Jewish world as such continues to exist, however, the brilliant Jewish communities in Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest or Vilnius have been eradicated for ever, over 90%. The Nazis also sought to erase all traces of the Jewish past centuries in robbing their victims of all their property and works of art ( Aryanization ), destroying synagogues, burning prayer books, turning the cemeteries.
In occupied countries, the Nazis stole countless Cell Phone Accessories works of art, Jewish collections in mind. This art is orchestrated looting especially by Hermann Goering and Alfred Rosenberg on the principle of Kunstschutz . According to historian Mark Mazower 65 , agents of Rosenberg, Western Europe Wire Cart Covers alone, plundered for 674 freight trains, furniture and items seized in the apartments of deported Jews. The Germans also took many private and public archives of all kinds, many of which have been lost, or recovered by the Russians who hid for half a century 66 . If some of the stolen treasures discovered by the Anglo-Saxons in the fall of the Reich and returned to the scrabble word finder rightful owners, the USSR and then Russia have refused to return certain masterpieces contained in the spoils of the Red Army in 1945, and the famous ” treasure of Priam 67 . ” The Nazis, too, here and there, destroyed canvas representative of what they described as ” degenerate art . ” For example, they organized the Tuileries Gardens, May 27, 1943, a bonfire of 500 works by Picasso, Leger, Klee and Ernst.
Number of old Japanese cities, especially made ​​of wood and paper, have soared in the bombing. Cities such as Kyoto , however, were spared by American bombers because of their prestigious heritage. In Europe, the Abbey of Monte Cassino , the cradle of Benedictine monasticism in the vi th century, served as a battlefield in 1944.
The historian Jörg Friedrich 68 has listed the property damage suffered by the German cities were completely devastated and cities like Berlin , Hamburg , Cologne , Dresden , Nuremberg , Breslau , or many medium-sized cities in the past very prestigious such Potsdam , Freiburg , Ulm , Würzburg , and Bayreuth . The 28 cities of the Ruhr were also bombed and badly flooded. In addition to various cathedrals, palaces and historic centers, for example, have blazed the birthplace of Goethe, Kleist, Martin Luther or the Brothers Grimm.
Jörg Friedrich also states that some 40% of total German archives were lost, and some 8 million books in public libraries, including thousands of irreplaceable theses, of incunabula and valuable manuscripts. For example, the Bavarian National Library in Munich lost 500,000 volumes, 650,000 that of Hamburg, the University of Münster 360 000. According to the historian, “had never burned so many books in the STD Test history of mankind.” However, the majority of books, documents and works of art removable, hidden in mines, bunkers or farms have been preserved.
John Keegan notes that the German destruction have caused the end of the Renaissance Center Rotterdam (destroyed in May 1940), the entire old town of Warsaw , the City of London, Tsarskoye Selo near Leningrad. Bordeaux is the only major port on the French Atlantic coast to emerge relatively unscathed from the war. The medieval center of Caen and Rouen was destroyed by American bombing and street fighting, Vienna and Budapest damaged during their conquest by the Russians. But is he, like jewels Oxford and Cambridge were never bombed or Athens or Venice. Paris has suffered little in its heritage, and the Germans blew up all bridges in Florence in August 1944, except the Ponte Vecchio , the oldest and most prestigious (in fact only too narrow for tanks).
After the war, many inner cities and monuments had to be reconstructed exactly. Some remained in the state as a memorial, as the Memorial Church on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. Bullet holes can still be seen on some facades of monuments in Paris and at the Military School , the School of Mines or the courthouse . Other cities were devastated after the war the laboratory of urban modern and the reconstruction of Le Havre by the architect Auguste Perret .