World War II

Introduction World War II was the worst war in history and killed more people than any other war before. It lasted from 1939 to 1945 and starting out from Europe spread to nearly every part of the world About 17 million soldiers died during six years of the war. Even more civilians, men, women and children died from bomb attacks, illnesses or starvation. Millions of Jews died in German concentration camps. The war left many other people without jobs and homes. Many cities and industries in Europe and Asia were completely destroyed by bombs and large areas of land were devastated. Causes of World War II There are many causes of the war and some of them go back to the end of the First World War. The end of World War I and the peace that followed in 1919 changed the face of Europe and the borders of countries completely. New nations emerged. The countries that lost the war, especially Germany and Austria had to give up a lot of land. They also had to pay money to other countries for the damages that happened during the war. After the war many countries were in debt. The losers had problems

paying reparations and the winners borrowed a lot of money from the United States which they could not pay back. Inflation in many countries left people without any savings. In the 1930s the Great Depression, starting out in the USA, spread to Europe and stopped the continent's recovery. Millions of people were out of work and poverty rose. The Rise of Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria on April 20, 1889 and spent most of his childhood in Linz. He was not a very good student and dreamt of becoming a painter. In 1913 he moved to Munich and volunteered for the Germany Army when World War I broke out. Germany lost the war and the Treaty of Versailles punishedthe country very strictly . It lost its overseas colonies and had to give up its Saar coal region to France. It was only allowed to

have a small army and building ships was forbidden. The treaty also made Germany pay a lot of money to Great Britain and France for the damage caused by the war. Hitler was angry at the Allies because he thought they had treatedhis homeland in an unfair way. The Blitzkrieg On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. At the same time the Soviet Union attackedPoland from the east. It was divided up among the countries before the Allies were able to help. Germany's attack was carried out with fast tanks and troopsthat were supported by warplanes. Because the German army moved very quickly this phase of the war was called "Blitzkrieg". In the following spring Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. Both countries were occupied by the German army by June. On May 10, 1940 Hitler's troops invaded the Low Countries- Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and days later they surrendered. The Battle of Britain Hitler next wanted to invade the island of Great Britain. He attacked the British Air Force in order to control the skies over the island. It was history's first major air battle. In June 1940, the German Luftwaffe began bombing airfields and other targets in southern England. German warplanes attacked from airports in France. At the end of the battle the British had shot down about 1700 German planes. Hitler saw that he could not defeat England's air force so he gave up his idea of invading Britain. Instead he sent the Luftwaffe to bomb British cities and towns. In London alone, more than 12,000 civilians were killed. Battle of the Atlantic During the war Great Britain got most of its food , war materials and other supplies from North America.Through out the war Germany tried to destroy the ships that brought goods to the island. German U-boats or submarines were the biggest threat to the British navy . At first these

U-boats were very successful in tracking down British cargo ships and sinking them. They often attacked in groups called wolf packs . To survive such attacks British ships travelled in groups called convoys . They were protected by destroyers and also supported by planes. As time went on America gave British ships more and more protection . The Holocaust Under Adolf Hitler the National Socialist German Workers Partybecame very powerful in Germany from 1933 to 1945. The Nazis, as they were called, wanted to get rid of people who they thought were not as good as they were. They especiallyhated Jews and thought they were evil . At the beginning they made life hard for the Jews in Germany and all over Europe. Later on, they decided to kill them. This mass killing was called the Holocaust. After 1939 about 6 million Jews were killed in the countries that Hitler controlled. But Jewish people were not the only ones murdered by the Nazis. Gypsies ,

homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled people and others who were against Hitler were killed in the Holocaust. Hating Jews and treating them badly is called anti-Semitism. Hitler started this as soon as he became chancellor of Germany in 1933. Jews lost their jobs and their shops were closed and often destroyed . In 1935 the Nazis passed a new law . Jews were no longer citizens of Germany and they were not allowed to marry other Germans. They lost all of their rights . Every Jew had to wear a yellow Star of David. Many Jews were afraid of Hitler and tried to escape before World War II started. On November 9th and 10th, 1938 the Nazis destroyed all Jewish synagogues and other public places the Jews went to. This event was called the Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass. Pearl Harbour - America Enters the War When war broke out in Europe in 1939 Japan decided to start expanding its territory to the Asian mainland . The Japanese occupied parts of China and conquered Indochina as well.

The United States was against the Japanese invasion of Asia. They thought they could stop them by halting the sales of petroleum and other raw materials which the Japanesedesperately needed. Japanese generals realized that only the United States had the power to stop them. The American Navy was so strong that it had to be destroyed . On the morning of December 7, 1941 Japanese war planes attacked U.S. warships at Pearl Harbour naval base in Hawaii. It came as a complete surprise to the Americans . Within hours bombs and torpedoes sank six American ships and killed more than 2,000 Americans. The Japanese had destroyed the heart of the American fleet . The next day the United States declared war on Japan and a few days later on the other Axis powers, Italy and Germany. The attack on Pearl Harbour was the beginning of the War in the Pacific. On the same day the Japanese also invaded the Philippines and attacked Hongkong .In the first few months the Japanese were very successful and captured many important islands But in June 1942 the tide turned . A strong fleet of Japanese warships wanted to capture Midway Island . American warplanes attacked from aircraft carriers and destroyed much of the Japanese fleet . D-Day The Germans had been expecting an Allied invasion of Northern France for long time. However , they were not sure where the invasion would take place . The Germans concentrated their troops near Calais because it was nearest to the British Isles. Early on June 6,1944 Operation Overlord, the code name of the invasion, began. Commanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower about 3,000 ships and 176,000 soldiers crossed the English Channel and landed , to the surprise of the Germans, on the beaches of Normandy, much farther to the west than Hitlers generals had expected. Paratroopers dropped behind the German defence lines and captured bridges and railroad tracks. Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Japan Surrenders In 1939 German born scientist Albert Einstein informed US president Roosevelt about the possibility of making a super bomb that would cause an explosion that nobody had ever seen before. Large amounts of energy could be released by splitting an atom. Einstein and other

scientists were afraid that the Germans could develop such a bomb first. In 1942 the Americans set up the Manhattan Project, a secret program to make such a bomb. The first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexican desert in July 1945. On August 6,1945 an American bomber called the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion killed about 70,000 to 100,000 people and destroyed about 13 square kilo metres of land. Three days later a much larger bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It killed about 40,000 people. Thousands of people died of injuries and radiation in the years that followed. On August 14, the

Japanese government agreed to surrender. Many officers committed suicide. On September 2, 1945 World War II officially ended.

The End of the War The final attack on Germany began in early 1945.Soviet soldiers reached the Oder River, about 65 km east of Berlin and Allied forces set themselves up along the Rhine River by March. By this time it was clear that Germany could not fight much longer, even though Hitler ordered his men to fight to their deaths. A large number of German soldiers surrendered to the Allies every day. The Allied leaders U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalinmet in Russia for the Yalta conference. There they planned Germanys defeat and the occupation of the country. Meanwhile the Soviet army pushed on through Germany and by April 25, 1945 they had surrounded Berlin.Adolf Hitler realized that the war was over and committed suicide in his bunker on April 30.Germanysurrendered on May 8, 1945. As they marched on through Germany Allied soldiers discovered terrifying evidence of Nazi brutality. Even though they freed death camps thousands died of starvation after Germany's surrender .

Key Figures of World War II Benito Mussolini Benito Mussolini founded Fascism and ruled Italy as a dictator for more than 21 years. He dreamed of making Italy into a great empire . He banned all other parties and took control of industry, schools, the police and the media . Il Duce joined an alliance with German dictator Adolf Hitler. Both countries sent soldiers to Spain to support General Franco in the Spanish Civil War . In 1943 Mussolini was arrested but soon later rescued by

German commandoes . In 1945 Italians who were against fascism captured Mussolini as he wanted to escape to Switzerland . The next day he was shot to death. Franklin D. Roosevelt FDR, as he was also called, was the only president elected four times. He served for more than 12 years, longer than any other person. Roosevelt became president during the Great Depression, which was a hard time for American economy . One out of four workers had lost their jobs and many families had no money to buy food or clothes. President Roosevelt created a programme called the New Deal in which the government helped poor people, gave them work and paid for food and shelter . President Roosevelt tried to keep America out of World War II, but when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour the United States entered the war. Roosevelt was a strong leader throughout the war . He died shortly before the war ended in 1945. Winston Churchill Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of Great Britain during the Second World War. He was a strong leader and a talented speaker, writer and painter. Churchill held speeches that gave the British people hope and courage during the horrible years of the war. After Germanys surrender in 1945 Churchill lost his job as Prime Minister but returned in 1951. In 1953 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Joseph Stalin Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the USSR from 1929 until 1953. During his rule, the Soviet Union became one of the worlds greatest powers. In the late 1800s Stalin joined a group of Marxist revolutionaries . Although Stalin had not played a big role during the Russian

Revolution he started gaining power. When Lenin died Stalin took control. He was a ruthless dictator , in many ways like Hitler, and had millions of people killed or exiled because they threatened his power or opposed his plans. After World War II the Soviet army stayed in the eastern part of Europe and Stalin set up communist governments there. Harry Truman Harry Truman became president in the spring of 1945, shortly before the war in Europe ended . In August of the same year Truman decided to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan. Results and Aftermath of World War II After the end of the war, a conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, to set up peace treaties . The countries that fought with Hitler lost territory and had to

pay reparations to the Allies . Germany and its capital Berlin were divided into four parts. The zones were to be controlled by Great Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union. The three western Allies and the Soviet Union disagreed on many things and as time went on Germany was divided into two separate countries : East Germany , which had a Communist government and West Germany, which was a democratic state. Berlin was also divided into East and West Berlin. Austria was also occupied by the four Allies from 1945 to 1955.