World War II
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World War II
Clockwise from top: Allied landing on Normandy beaches on D-Day, the gate of a Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, Red Army soldiers raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin, the Nagasaki atom bomb, and the Nazi Rally at Nuremberg 1934.
Date September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945
Location Europe, Pacific, South-East Asia, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa
Result Allied victory. Creation of the United Nations. Emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers. Creation of First World and Second World spheres of influence in Europe leading to the Cold War. Decolonization of the Allied empires.
Combatants
Allied powers:
United Kingdom
Soviet Union
United States
China
and others Axis powers:
Germany
Italy
Japan
and others
Commanders
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Clement Attlee
Joseph Stalin
Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman
Chiang Kai-shek Adolf Hitler
Benito Mussolini
Fumimaro Konoe
Hideki Tōjō
Kuniaki Koiso
Kantaro Suzuki
Casualties
Military dead:
17,000,000
Civilian dead:
33,000,000
Total dead:
50,000,000 Military dead:
8,000,000
Civilian dead:
4,000,000
Total dead
12,000,000
Theatres of World War II
Europe – Eastern Europe – Africa – Middle East – Mediterranean – Asia & Pacific – Atlantic
World War II (abbreviated WWII), or the Second World War, was a worldwide conflict fought between the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, from 1939 until 1945. Armed forces from over seventy nations engaged in aerial, naval, and ground-based combat. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted in the deaths of over sixty million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. The war ended with an Allied victory.
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
1.1 War in Europe
1.2 War in Asia and the Pacific
1.3 Aftermath
2 Causes
2.1 Cause of war in Europe
2.2 Cause of war in Asia
3 Chronology
3.1 War breaks out in Asia (July 1937 – September 1939)
3.2 War breaks out in Europe (September 1939 – May 1940)
3.3 The Western Front (May 1940 – September 1940)
3.4 Mediterranean (April 1940 – May 1943)
3.5 The Eastern Front (April 1941 – January 1942)
3.6 The Pacific (April 1941 – June 1943)
3.7 China and Southeast Asia (September 1941 – March 1944)
3.8 The Atlantic (September 1939 - May 1945)
3.9 The Eastern Front (January 1942 - February 1943)
3.10 The Western Front (September 1940 – June 1944)
3.11 The Mediterranean (May 1943 – March 1945)
3.12 The Eastern Front (February 1943 – January 1945)
3.13 The Pacific (June 1943 – July 1945)
3.14 China and Southeast Asia (March 1944 – June 1945)
3.15 The Western Front (June 1944 – January 1945)
3.16 The Eastern Front (January 1945 – April 1945)
3.17 War ends in Europe
3.18 War ends in Asia
4 Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities
5 Resistance and collaboration
6 Home fronts
7 Technology
8 Aftermath
8.1 Aftermath of World War II in Europe
8.2 Aftermath of World War II in Asia
9 Media
10 Notes
11 Bibliography
12 External links
12.1 Directories
12.2 General
12.3 Media
12.4 Stories
12.5 Documentaries
13 See also
Overview
War in Europe
Main article: European Theatre of World War II
On September 1, 1939, Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, invaded Poland according to a secret agreement with the Soviet Union.
On September 3 at 11.15 GMT, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, followed six hours later by France, responded by declaring war on Germany, initiating a widespread naval war. South Africa (September 6) and Canada (September 10) followed suit.
The Soviet Union joined the invasion of Poland on September 17.
Germany rapidly overwhelmed Poland, then Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France in 1940, and Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941. Italian, and later German, troops attacked British forces in North Africa. By summer of 1941, Germany had conquered France and most of Western Europe, but it failed to subdue the United Kingdom due to the resistance of the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.
Adolf Hitler then turned on the Soviet Union, launching a surprise attack (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) on June 22, 1941. Despite enormous gains, the invasion bogged down outside of Moscow in late 1941 as winter set in and made further advances difficult. The Germans launched another attack in the Soviet Union the following summer, but the attack bogged down in vicious urban fighting in Stalingrad. The Soviets later launched a massive counterattack encircling and then forcing the surrender of the German Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad (1942–43), decisively defeated the Axis during the Battle of Kursk, and broke the Siege of Leningrad. The Red Army then pursued the retreating Wehrmacht all the way to Berlin, and won the street-by-street Battle of Berlin, as Hitler committed suicide in his Underground Bunker on April 30, 1945.
Meanwhile, the Western Allies successfully defended North Africa (1940–43), invaded Italy (1943), and then liberated France (1944), following amphibious landings in Normandy. Repulsing a German counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge in December, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine and linked up with their Soviet counterparts at the Elbe in central Germany.
During the war in Europe, six million Jews, as well as another five to six million Roma (Gypsies), Slavs, Communists, homosexuals, the disabled and several other groups, were murdered by Germany in a state-sponsored genocide that has come to be known as The Holocaust.
War in Asia and the Pacific
Main article: Pacific War
Territory of the Empire of Japan at its peakThe Empire of Japan invaded China on July 7, 1937. Australia and then the United States, in 1940, responded with embargoes on the export of iron to Japan. On September 27, 1940 Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy. After unfruitful negotiations with USA about withdrawal from China, excluding Manchukuo, Japan attacked Vichy French-controlled Indochina on July 24, 1941. This caused the United States, United Kingdom and Netherlands to block Japan's access to oil, such as that in the Dutch East Indies and British colonies in Borneo.
Japan launched virtually simultaneous surprise attacks against the major U. S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor, on Thailand and on the British territories of Malaya and Hong Kong. These attacks were on December 7, 1941 in western international time zones and on December 8 in the east. Later on December 8, Japan attacked The Philippines, which was controlled politically by the U.S. at the time and quickly fell to Japanese forces. On December 11, Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States. Japanese forces began their assaults on British and Dutch territory in Borneo on December 15. From their major pre-war base at Truk, in the South Pacific, Japanese forces began to attack and occupy neighboring Allied territories.
Japan's campaign in China lasted from 1937 to the end of the war, during which the Republic of China faced 80% of Japanese troops and prevented the Soviet Union under Stalin from fighting a two-fronts-war. In the war against Japan, China lost more than 3 million soldiers and more than 17 million civilians..
Japan won victory after victory in South East Asia and the Pacific, including the capture of 130,000 Allied prisoners in Malaya and at the fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942. Much of Burma, the Netherlands East Indies, the Australian Territory of New Guinea, and the British Solomon Islands also fell to Japanese forces.
The Japanese advance was checked at the Battle of the Coral Sea and their invasion fleet turned away from New Guinea after Allied naval forces clashed in the first battle in which the opposing fleets never made visual contact. A month later a Japanese invasion fleet was decisively defeated at the Battle of Midway in which they lost four fleet aircraft carriers attempting to engage U.S. Navy forces (the U.S. Navy lost one carrier). On land they were defeated at the Battle of Milne Bay and finally withdrew from Battle of Guadalcanal as the Allies took the initiative in the Solomon Islands and began an "Island Hopping" campaign to push back Japanese holdings in the Pacific. U.S. and Australian forces then isolated Japan's major base at Rabaul before advancing from one island to another in the Central Pacific invading some and isolating others. The Japanese were defeated in a series of great naval battles, at the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944 in which the Allies further advanced towards the Japanese homeland by invading the Marianas and then the Philippines, setting up bases from which Japan could be bombed by strategic bombers like the B-29. 1945 saw invasions of key islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In the meantime, Allied submarines gradually cut off the supply of oil and other raw materials to Japan.
In the last year of the war U.S. air forces conducted a strategic firebombing campaign against the Japanese homeland. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and on August 9 another was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945.
Aftermath
About 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world population, died in the war, though estimates vary greatly (see World War II casualties). Large swaths of Europe and Asia were devastated and took years to recover. The war had political, sociological, economic and technological consequences that last to this day.
Causes
Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy (left) and Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany.Main articles: Causes of World War II, Events preceding World War II in Europe, and Events preceding World War II in Asia
The immediate causes of World War II are generally held to be the German invasion of Poland, and the Japanese attacks on China, the United States, and the British and Dutch colonies. In each of these cases, the attacks were the result of a decision made by authoritarian ruling elites in Germany and Japan. World War II started after these aggressive actions were met with an official declaration of war, armed resistance or both.
The chief stated aim of the German policy at the time was the reacquisition of German territories taken by the Treaty of Versailles, and the addition of ethnic German regions of former Austria-Hungary to form a Greater Germany.
Cause of war in Europe
German foreign policy professed concern for the rights of ethnic Germans living in portions of Poland and Czechoslovakia which had been taken from Germany and Austria respectively. During his negotiations with Chamberlain, Hitler mentioned their plight as one of his key reasons for asserting claims to portions of these countries.
During one session with UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Hitler's aides brought him multiple reports alleging atrocities against ethnic Germans in nearby countries, which Hitler invoked in support of Germany's claims to its former territory.
Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow. Behind him are Shaposhnikov, Ribbentrop, and Stalin.When Hitler annexed parts of Czechoslovakia and France, he was welcomed enthusiastically by these ethnic Germans. When the war ended, many of these communities were forcibly expelled.[1]
Another of the main reasons that German society moved towards war was due to the perceived inequities of the Versailles Treaty. (More than anything else, this treaty, coupled with the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s, enabled the Nazis to originally ride a wave of mass public discontent to power, and to set in place their fascist forms of dictatorship and re-militarization.) The Nazis claimed that only they could free Germany from international subjugation. Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland and the Ruhr, and overturned several territorial dispositions which were enacted by the treaty.
As stated in Mein Kampf, Hitler's real underlying goal was to acquire what he believed to be Germany's rightful living space and resources, by invading and dominating lands to the east, mainly in Russia. He also sought to attack various ethnic and political groups, to target what he claimed were leftist influences, and other groups outside of the Nazi world-view. By starting with the real grievances of the Versailles Treaty, the Nazis were able to stoke a sense of grievance throughout Germany to redress perceived wrongs, and to present militarism and adherence to fascism as a means of taking aggressive action against the established political order.
In the hands of the Nazis, this issue is used to rationalize brutal persecution of entire ethnic minorities and political groups. This effort against existing international settlements enabled a convergence of their political programs, war aims, and racist ideologies.
The British and French governments followed a policy of appeasement in order to avoid a new European war. This was partially due to doubts about the willingness of their populations to fight another war so soon after the huge death tolls of the first World War. This policy culminated in the Munich Agreement in 1938, in which the seemingly inevitable outbreak of the war was averted when the United Kingdom and France agreed to Germany's annexation and immediate occupation of the German-speaking regions of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain declared that the agreement represented "peace in our time". In March 1939, Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, effectively killing appeasement. Less than a year after the Munich agreement, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany.
Hideki Tojo of Imperial JapanThe failure of the Munich Agreement showed that deals made with Hitler at the negotiating table could not be trusted and that his aspirations for power and dominance in Europe went beyond anything that the United Kingdom and France would tolerate. Poland and France pledged on May 19, 1939, to provide each other with military assistance in the event either was attacked. The British had already offered support to Poland in March. On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Pact included a secret protocol that would divide Central Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest, including a provision to partition Poland. Each country agreed to allow the other a free hand in its area of influence, including military occupation. The deal provided for sales of oil and food from the Soviets to Germany, thus reducing the danger of a UK blockade such as the one that had nearly starved Germany in World War I. Hitler was then ready to go to war with Poland and, if necessary, with the United Kingdom and France. He claimed there were German grievances relating to the issues of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, but he planned to conquer all Polish territory and incorporate it into the German Reich. The signing of a new alliance between the United Kingdom and Poland on August 25 did not significantly alter his plans.
Cause of war in Asia
Imperial Japan in the 1930s was largely ruled by a militarist clique of Army and Navy leaders, who aimed to make Japan a great colonial power. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937 to bolster its meager stock of natural resources, to relieve Japan from population pressures and to extend its colonial control over a wider area. The United States and the United Kingdom reacted by making loans to China, providing covert military assistance, pilots and fighter aircraft to Kuomintang China and instituting increasingly broad embargoes of raw materials and oil against Japan. These embargoes would potentially have eventually forced Japan to give up its newly conquered possessions in China or find new sources of oil and other materials to run their economy. Japan was faced with the choice of withdrawing from China, negotiating some compromise, developing new sources of supply, buying what they needed somewhere else, or going to war to conquer the territories that contained oil, bauxite and other resources in the Dutch East Indies, Malay and the Philippines. Believing the French, Dutch and British governments more than occupied with the war in Europe, the Soviets reeling from German attacks and that the United States could not be organized for war for years and would seek a compromise before waging full scale war, they chose the latter, and went ahead with plans for the Greater East Asia War in the Pacific.[2]
The direct cause of the United States' entry into the war with Japan was the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941.
Chronology
Main article: Timeline of World War II
War breaks out in Asia (July 1937 – September 1939)
Main articles: Second Sino-Japanese War, Battle of Lake Khasan, and Battle of Khalkhin Gol
The Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, when Japan attacked deep into China from its foothold in Manchuria. On July 7, 1937, Japan, after occupying Manchuria since 1931, launched another attack against China near Beijing. The Japanese made initial advances but were stalled in the Battle of Shanghai. The city eventually fell to the Japanese in December 1937, and the capital city Nanjing also fell. As a result, the Chinese Nationalist government moved its seat to Chongqing for the remainder of the war. The Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Rape of Nanking, slaughtering as many as 300,000 civilians within a month. Neither Japan or China officially declared war, for a similar reason—fearing declaration of war would alienate Europe and the USA.
In Spring 1939, Soviet and Japanese forces clashed in Mongolia. On May 8, 700 Mongol horsemen crossed the Khalka river, which the Japanese considered to be the Manchurian border. The Soviet and Mongolian governments believed the border was twenty miles to the east. Mongol and Manchu forces began to shoot at each other, and within days their Soviet and Japanese patrons had sent large military contingents, which almost immediately joined in the clash, which led to a full-scale war which lasted well into September. The growing Japanese presence in the Far East was seen as a major strategic threat by the Soviet Union, and Soviet fear of having to fight a two front war was a primary reason for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Nazis. In the end, the Japanese were decisively defeated by Soviet units under General Georgiy Zhukov. Following this battle, the Soviet Union and Japan were at peace until 1945. Japan looked south to expand its empire, leading to conflict with the United States over the Philippines and control of shipping lanes to the Dutch East Indies. The Soviet Union focused on the west, leaving only minimal troops to guard the frontier with Japan.
War breaks out in Europe (September 1939 – May 1940)
Main articles: Invasion of Poland (1939), Winter War, and Occupation of Baltic Republics
Polish infantry during the Invasion of Poland, September 1939.On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, using the false pretext of a faked "Polish attack" on a German border post. The United Kingdom and France gave Germany two days to withdraw from Poland. Once the deadline passed on September 3, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany, followed quickly by France, South Africa and Canada.
The French mobilized slowly and then mounted only a token offensive in the Saar, which they soon abandoned, while the British could not take any direct action in support of the Poles in the time available (see Western betrayal). Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses.
On September 17, the Soviet Union, pursuant to its secret agreement with Germany, invaded Poland from the east, throwing Polish defenses into chaos by opening the second front. A day later, both the Polish president and commander-in-chief fled to Romania. On October 1, hostile forces, after a one-month siege of Warsaw, entered the city. The last Polish units surrendered on October 6. Poland, however, never officially surrendered to the Germans. Some Polish troops evacuated to neighboring countries. In the aftermath of the September Campaign, occupied Poland managed to create a powerful resistance movement and contributed significant military forces to the Allies for the duration of World War II.
After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter of 1939–1940 until April 1940, while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period was referred to by journalists as “the Phony War” or the “Sitzkrieg” because so little ground combat took place. During this period Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, which started the Winter War. Despite outnumbering Finnish troops by 4 to 1, the Red Army found the attack embarrassingly difficult, and the Finnish defence prevented an all-out invasion. Finally, however, the Soviets prevailed and the peace treaty saw Finland cede strategically important border areas near Leningrad.
Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940, in Operation Weserübung, in part to counter the threat of an impending Allied invasion of Norway. Denmark did not resist, but Norway fought back. The United Kingdom, whose own invasion was ready to launch, landed in the north. By late June, the Allies were defeated and withdrew, Germany controlled most of Norway, and the Norwegian Army had surrendered, while the Norwegian Royal Family escaped to London. Germany used Norway as a base for air and naval attacks on Arctic convoys headed to the Soviet Union. Norwegian partisans would continue to fight against the German occupation throughout the war.
The Western Front (May 1940 – September 1940)
Main articles: Battle of France and Battle of Britain
The Germans ended the Phony War on May 10, 1940 when they invaded Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. The Netherlands was quickly overwhelmed and the Dutch city of Rotterdam was destroyed in a bombing raid. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into northern Belgium and planned to fight a mobile war in the north, while maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. The Allied plans were immediately smashed by the most classic example in history of Blitzkrieg.
Germans parading in the deserted Champs-Élysées avenue, Paris, June 1940.In the first phase of the invasion, Fall Gelb, the Wehrmacht's Panzergruppe von Kleist, raced through the Ardennes, a heavily forested region which the Allies had thought impenetrable for a modern, mechanized army. The Germans broke the French line at Sedan, held by reservists rather than first-line troops, then drove west across northern France to the English Channel, splitting the Allies in two.
The BEF and French forces, encircled in the north, were evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. The operation was one of the biggest military evacuations in history, as 338,000 British and French troops were transported across the English Channel on warships and civilian boats.
On June 10, Italy joined the war, attacking France in the south. German forces then continued the conquest of France with Fall Rot (Case Red). France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, leading to the direct German occupation of Paris and two-thirds of France, and the establishment of a German puppet state headquartered in southeastern France known as Vichy France.
Heinkel He 111 bomber over London on 7 Sep. 1940Germany had begun preparations in the summer of 1940 to invade the United Kingdom in Operation Sea Lion. Most of the UK Army's heavy weapons and supplies had been lost at Dunkirk. The Germans had no hope of overpowering the Royal Navy, but they did think they had a chance of success, if they could gain air superiority. To do that, they first had to deal with the Royal Air Force (RAF). The ensuing contest in the late Summer of 1940 between the two air forces became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command aerodromes and radar stations. Hitler, angered by retaliatory UK bombing raids on Berlin, switched his attentions towards the bombing of London, in an operation known as The Blitz. The Luftwaffe was eventually beaten back by Hurricanes and Spitfires, while the Royal Navy remained in control of the English Channel. Thus, the invasion plans were postponed indefinitely.
After France had fallen in 1940, the United Kingdom was out of money. Franklin Roosevelt persuaded the U.S. Congress to pass the Lend-Lease act on March 11, 1941, which provided the United Kingdom and 37 other countries with US$50 billion dollars in military equipment and other supplies, US$31.4 billion of it going to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Canada operated a similar program that sent $4.7 billion in supplies to the United Kingdom.
Mediterranean (April 1940 – May 1943)
Main articles: Balkan Campaign, Battle of the Mediterranean, and North African campaign
Afrika Korps tanks advance during the North African campaign.Control of Southern Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa was important because the British Empire depended on shipping through the Suez Canal. If the canal fell into Axis hands or if the Royal Navy lost control of the Mediterranean, then transport between the United Kingdom, India, and Australia would have to go around the Cape of Good Hope, an increase of several thousand miles.
Following the French surrender, the British attacked the French Navy anchored in North Africa in July 1940, out of fear that it might fall into German hands. This contributed to a souring of British-French relations for the next few years. With the French fleet destroyed, the Royal Navy battled the Italian fleet for supremacy in the Mediterranean from their strong bases at Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria, Egypt. In Africa, Italian troops invaded and captured British Somaliland in August.
Italy invaded Greece on October 28, 1940, from Italian occupied Albania, but was quickly repulsed. By mid-December, the Greek army advanced into southern Albania, tying down 530,000 Italian troops. Meanwhile, in fulfillment of Britain's guarantee to Greece the Royal Navy struck the Italian fleet on November 11, 1940. Torpedo bombers from British aircraft carriers attacked the Italian fleet in the southern port of Taranto. One battleship was sunk and several other ships were put temporarily out of action. The success of aerial torpedoes at Taranto was noted with interest by Japan's naval chief, Yamamoto, who was considering ways of neutralizing the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Mainland Greece eventually fell to a German invasion from the East, through Bulgaria.
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, Commander of the British 8th ArmyItalian troops crossed into Egypt from Libya to attack British forces based there in September 1940 and thus beginning the North African Campaign. The aim was to capture the Suez Canal. UK, Indian, and Australian forces Counterattacked in Operation Compass, but this offensive stopped in 1941 when much of the Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) forces were transferred to Greece to defend it from German attack. German forces (known later as the Afrika Korps) under General Erwin Rommel, however, landed in Libya in February 1941 and renewed the assault on Egypt.
Germany also invaded Crete, which was a significant action because of the large scale use of German paratroopers. Crete was defended by about 11,000 Greek and 28,000 ANZAC troops, who had just escaped Greece without their artillery or vehicles. The Germans attacked the three main airfields of the island of Maleme, Rethimnon, and Heraklion. After one day of fighting, none of the objectives were reached and the Germans had suffered appalling casualties. German plans were in disarray and the German commander, General Kurt Student, was contemplating suicide. During the next day, through miscommunication and failure of Allied commanders to grasp the situation, Maleme airfield in western Crete fell to the Germans. The loss of Maleme enabled the Germans to fly in heavy reinforcements and overwhelm the Allied forces on the island. In light of the heavy casualties suffered by the parachutists, however, Hitler forbade further airborne operations.
In North Africa, Rommel's forces advanced rapidly eastward, laying siege to the vital seaport of Tobruk. Two Allied attempts to relieve Tobruk were defeated, but a larger offensive at the end of the year (Operation Crusader) drove Rommel back after heavy fighting.
The war between the Allied and Italian navies swung decisively in favor of the Allies on March 28, 1941, when Admiral Cunningham's ships encountered the main Italian fleet south of Cape Matapan, at the southern extremity of the Greek mainland. At the cost of a couple of aircraft shot down, the Allies sank five Italian cruisers and three destroyers, and damaged the modern battleship Vittorio Veneto. The Italian Navy was emasculated as a fighting force, and the Allied task of moving troops across the Mediterranean to Greece was eased.
In April-May 1941, there was a short war in Iraq that resulted in a renewal of UK occupation. In June, Allied forces invaded Syria and Lebanon, and captured Damascus on June 17. Later, in August, UK and Red Army troops occupied neutral Iran, securing its oil and a southern supply line to the Soviet Union.
British Infantry advance at the Second Battle of El AlameinAt the beginning of 1942, the Allied forces in North Africa were weakened by detachments to the Far East. Rommel once again attacked and recaptured Benghazi. Then, he defeated the Allies at the Battle of Gazala, and captured Tobruk along with several thousand prisoners and large quantities of supplies. Following up, he drove deep into Egypt.
The First Battle of El Alamein took place in July 1942. Allied forces had retreated to the last defensible point before Alexandria and the Suez Canal. The Afrika Korps, however, had outrun its supplies, and the defenders stopped its thrusts. The Second Battle of El Alamein occurred between October 23 and November 3. Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery was in command of Allied forces known as the Eighth Army. The Allies took the offensive and, despite initially stiff German resistance, were ultimately triumphant. After the German defeat at El Alamein, the Axis forces made a successful strategic withdrawal to Tunisia.
Operation Torch was launched by the U.S., British and Free French forces on November 8, 1942. It aimed to gain control of North Africa through simultaneous landings at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers, followed a few days later with a landing at Bône, the gateway to Tunisia. The local forces of Vichy France put up minimal resistance before submitting to the authority of Free French General Henri Giraud. In retaliation, Hitler invaded and occupied Vichy France. The German and Italian forces in Tunisia were caught in the pincers of Allied advances from Algeria in the west and Libya in the east. Rommel's tactical victory against inexperienced American forces at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass only postponed the eventual surrender of the Axis forces in North Africa in May 1943.
The Eastern Front (April 1941 – January 1942)
Main articles: Eastern Front (World War II), Invasion of Yugoslavia, Operation Barbarossa, and Battle of Moscow
On April 6, 1941, German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces invaded Yugoslavia, ending with the surrender of the Yugoslav army on April 17, and the creation of a puppet state in Croatia. Two rival resistance movements endured in Yugoslavia for the remainder of the war. The Communist group, AVNOJ, led by Tito finally prevailed over the Chetniks led by Draža Mihailović. Also on April 6, Germany invaded Greece from Bulgaria. The Greek army was outnumbered and collapsed. Athens fell on April 27, yet the United Kingdom managed to evacuate over 50,000 troops. The stubborn Greek resistance and the attack on Yugoslavia, however, delayed the German invasion of the Soviet Union by a critical six weeks.
The eastern front at the time of the Battle of Moscow:
██ Initial Wehrmacht advance - to 9 July 1941
██ Subsequent advances - to 1 September 1941
██ Encirclement and battle of Kiev - to 9 September 1941
██ Final Wehrmacht advance - to 5 December 1941Three German Army Groups along with various other Axis military units who in total numbered over 3.5 million men launched the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Army Group North was deployed in East Prussia and was composed of 18th and 16th infantry armies and a Panzer Army, the 4th. Its main objective was to secure the Baltic states and seize Leningrad. Opposite Army Group North were 2 Soviet Armies. The Germans threw their 600 Tanks at the junction of the two Soviet Armies in that sector. The 4th Panzer Army's objective was to cross the River Neman and River Dvina which were the two largest obstacles in route to Leningrad. On the first day, the Tanks crossed River Neman and penetrated 50 miles. Near Rasienai, the Panzers were counterattacked by 300 Soviet Tanks. It took 4 Days for the Germans to en-circle and destroy the Soviet Tanks. The Panzers then crossed the River Dvina near Dvinsk. The Germans were now in striking distance of Leningrad however Hitler ordered the Panzers to hold their position while the Infantry Armies catch up. The orders to hold would last over a week giving plenty of time to the Russians to shore up defenses around Leningrad.
Army Group Center was deployed in Poland and was composed of 9th and 4th Army and two Panzer Armies, the 3rd and 2nd. Its main objective was to capture Moscow. Opposite Army Group Center were 4 Soviet Armies. The Russians occupied a salient which jutted into German territory with its center at Bialystok. Beyond, Bialystok was Minsk which was a key railway junction. 3rd Panzer Army punched through the junction of the two Soviet Armies and crossed the River Neman and 2nd Panzer Army crossed the River Bug. While the Panzers attacked the Infantry armies struck at the Salient and encircling Russian troops at Bialystok. The Panzer's objectives was to meet at Minsk and prevent any Russian withdrawal. On June 27, 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies met up at Minsk advancing 200 miles into Soviet Territory. In the vast pocket between Minsk and the Polish border, 32 Soviet Infantry and 8 Tank Divisions were encircled and were mercilessly attacked. 290,000 Russian soldiers were captured but 250,000 Russians managed to escape.
Army Group South was deployed in Southern Poland and Romania and was composed of 6th, 11th, and 17th armies and a Panzer Army, the 1st along with two Romanian Armies and several Italian, Slovakian and Hungarian Divisions. Its objective was to secure the oil fields of the Caucasus. In the South, the Russian Commanders had quickly reacted to the German attack and whose Tank forces vastly outnumbered the Germans. Opposite the Germans in the South were 3 Soviet Armies. The German struck at the junctions of the 3 Soviet Armies but 1st Panzer Army struck right through the Soviet Army with the objective of capturing Brody. On June 26, 5 Soviet Mechanized Corps with over 1,000 Tanks mounted a massive counterattack on 1st Panzer Army. The Battle was among the fiercest of the invasion lasting over 4 days. In the end the Germans prevailed but the Russians inflicted heavy losses on the 1st Panzer Army. With the failure of the Soviet Armored offensive, the last substantial Soviet tank forces in the south were now spent.
The October Revolution military parade on November 7, 1941, in Red Square was not cancelled despite German troops on the outskirts of Moscow.On July 3, Hitler finally gave the go-ahead for the Panzers to resume their drive east after the infantry armies had caught up. The next objective of Army Group Center was the city of Smolensk which commanded the road to Moscow. Facing the Germans was an old Russian defensive line where the Soviets had deployed 6 Armies. On July 6, the Soviets launched an attack with 700 Tanks against the 3rd Panzer Army. The Germans, using their overwhelming air superiority, wiped out the Soviet tanks. The 2nd Panzer Army crossed the River Dneiper and closed on Smolensk from the south while 3rd Panzer Army after defeating the Soviet counter attack approached Smolensk from the North. Trapped between their pincers were 3 Soviet Armies. On July 26, the Panzers closed the gap and then began to eliminate the pocket which yielded over 300,000 Russian prisoners but 200,000 evaded capture. Hitler by now had lost faith in battles of encirclement and wanted to defeat the Soviets by inflicting severe economic damage which meant seizing the oil fields in the south and Leningrad in the North. Tanks from Army Group Center were diverted to Army Group North and South to aid them. Hitler's generals vehemently opposed this as Moscow was only 200 miles away from Army Group Center. 4th Panzer Army after being reinforced by tanks from Army Group Center broke through the Soviet defenses on August 8 and by the end of August was only 30 miles from Leningrad. Meanwhile the Finns had pushed South East on both sides of Lake Ladoga reaching the old Finnish Soviet frontier. On September 9, Army Group North was only 7 miles from Leningrad but Hitler ordered Leningrad to besieged. The Russians mounted attacks against Army Group Center but lacking its tanks, it was in no position to go on the offensive. Hitler changed his mind and decided that tanks will be send back to Army Group Center for its all out drive on Moscow.
In the South by mid-July below the Pinsk Marshes, the Germans had reached to a few miles of Kiev. The 1st Panzer Army then went South while the German 17th Army struck east and in between the Germans trapped 3 Soviet Armies near Uman. As the Germans eliminated the pocket, the tanks turned north and crossed the Dneiper meanwhile 2nd Panzer Army diverted from Army Group Center had crossed the River Desna with 2nd Army on its right flank. The two Panzer armies now trapped 4 Soviet Armies and parts of two others. The encirclement of Soviet forces in Kiev was achieved on September 16. The encircled Soviets did not give up easily, a savage battle now ensued lasting for 10 days after which the Germans claimed over 600,000 Russian soldiers captured. Hitler called it the greatest battle in history. After Kiev, the Red Army no longer outnumbered the Germans and there were no more reserves. To defend Moscow, Stalin had only 800,000 men left. Operation Typhoon, the drive on Moscow began on October 2. In front of Army Group Center was a series of elaborate defense lines. The Germans easily penetrated the first defense line as 2nd Panzer Army returning from the south took Orel which was 75 miles behind the Russian first defense line. The Germans then pushed in and the vast pocket yielded 663,000 Russian prisoners. The Russians now had only 90,000 men and 1,500 tanks left for the defense for Moscow.
Soviet Siberian soldiers fighting during the Battle of Moscow.Almost from the beginning of Operation Typhoon the weather had deteriorated steadily, slowing the German advance on Moscow to as little as 2 miles a day. On October 31, the Germany Army High Command ordered a halt on Operation Typhoon as the armies were re-organized. The pause gave the Soviets time to build up new armies and bring in the Soviet troops from the east as the neutrality pact signed by the Soviets and Japanese in April, 1941 assured Stalin that there was no longer a threat from the Japanese.
On November 15, the Germans once again began the attack on Moscow. Facing the Germans were 6 Soviet Armies. The Germans intended to let the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies cross the Moscow Canal and envelop Moscow from the North East. The 2nd Panzer Army would attack Tula and then close in on Moscow from the South and the 4th Army would smash in the center. However, on November 22, Soviet Siberian Troops were unleashed on the 2nd Panzer Army in the South which inflicted a shocking defeat on the Germans. The 4th Panzer Army succeeded in crossing the Moscow canal and on December 2 had penetrated to 15 miles of the Kremlin. But by then the first blizzards of the winter began and the Wehrmacht was not equipped for winter warfare. Frostbite and disease had caused more casualties than combat; dead and wounded had already reached 155,000 in 3 weeks and strength of divisions were now at 50% and the bitter cold had caused severe problems for guns and equipment. Weather conditions grounded the Luftwaffe. Newly built up Soviet troops near Moscow now numbered over 500,000 men and Zhukov on December 5 launched a massive counter attack which pushed the Germans back over 200 miles but no decisive breakthrough was achieved. The invasion of the Soviet Union had so far cost the Germans over 250,000 dead, 500,000 wounded and most of their tanks.
The Pacific (April 1941 – June 1943)
Main articles: Pacific Ocean theater of World War II and South West Pacific theatre of World War II
The American battleships West Virginia and Tennessee under attack at Pearl HarborHitler kept his plan to invade the USSR secret from the Japanese. The USSR, fearing a two-front war, decided to make peace with Japan. On April 13, 1941, the USSR and Japan signed the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, thus allowing the Japanese to concentrate their attention to the upcoming war in Asia-Pacific.
In the summer of 1941, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands began an oil embargo against Japan, threatening its ability to fight a major war at sea or in the air. However, Japanese forces continued to advance into China. Japan planned an attack on Pearl Harbor to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet, then seize oil fields in the Dutch East Indies.
On December 7, Japan launched virtually simultaneous surprise attacks against Pearl Harbor, Thailand and on the British territories of Malaya and Hong Kong. These attacks were on December 7, 1941 in western international time zones and on December 8 in the east. A Japanese carrier fleet launched an unexpected air attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid destroyed most of the American aircraft on the island and knocked the main American battle fleet out of action (three battleships were sunk, and five more were heavily damaged, though only USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma were permanently lost, the other six battleships were repaired and eventually returned to service). However, the four American aircraft carriers that had been the intended main target of the Japanese attack were off at sea. At Pearl Harbor, the main dock, supply, and repair facilities were quickly repaired. Furthermore, the base's fuel storage facilities, whose destruction could have crippled the Pacific fleet, were untouched. The attack united American public opinion to demand vengeance against Japan. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1939–43Simultaneously with the attack on Hawaii, the Japanese attacked Wake Island, an American territory in the central Pacific. The initial landing attempt was repulsed by the garrison of marines, and fierce resistance continued until December 23. The Japanese sent heavy reinforcements, and the garrison surrendered when it became clear that no American relief force was coming.
Japan also invaded the Philippines, a U.S. Commonwealth, on December 8. American and Filipino forces, under General Douglas MacArthur, were forced to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula. Dogged resistance continued until April, buying precious time for the Allies. Following their surrender, the survivors were led on the Bataan Death March. Allied resistance continued for an additional month on the island fortress of Corregidor, until it too surrendered. General MacArthur, who had been ordered to retreat to Australia, vowed, "I shall return."
Disaster struck the British on December 10, as they lost two major battleships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. Both ships had been attacked by 85 Japanese bombers and torpedo planes based in Saigon, and 840 UK sailors perished. Churchill was to say of the event, "In all of the war I have never received a more direct shock."
Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, even though it was not obliged to do so under the Tripartite Pact. Hitler hoped that Japan would support Germany by attacking the Soviet Union. Japan did not oblige because it had signed a non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union. Instead, Germany's declaration largely removed any significant opposition to the United States' joining the fight in the European Theater with full commitment.
U.S. Marines rest in the field on Guadalcanal, August-December 1942The Allies were officially formed in the Declaration by United Nations on January 1, 1942. Soon afterwards, the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) was formed to unite Allied forces in South East Asia. It was the first Allied supreme command of the war.
On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the internment of thousands of Japanese, Italians, German Americans, and some emigrants from Hawaii who fled after the bombing of Pearl Harbor for the duration of the war.
ABDACOM naval forces were all but destroyed in the Battle of the Java Sea—the largest naval battle of the war up that point—on February 28 through March 1. The joint command was wound up shortly afterwards, to be replaced by three Allied supreme commands in southern Asia and the Pacific.
In April, the Doolittle Raid, the first Allied air raid on Tokyo, boosted morale in the United States and caused Japan to shift resources to homeland defense, but did little physical damage.
In early May, the Japanese implemented Mo Sakusen (Operation Mo), a plan to take Port Moresby, New Guinea. The first stage was thwarted by the U.S. and Australian navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This was both the first battle fought between aircraft carriers, and the first battle where the opposing fleets never made direct visual contact. The American aircraft carrier Lexington was sunk and the Yorktown was severely damaged, while the Japanese lost the light carrier Shōhō and the large carrier Shōkaku suffered moderate damage. Zuikaku lost half of her air complement, and along with Shōkaku, was unable to participate in the upcoming battle at Midway. The battle was a tactical victory for the Japanese, as they inflicted heavier losses on the American fleet, but it was a strategic American victory, as the Japanese attack on Port Moresby was deflected.
In the six months after Pearl Harbor the Japanese had achieved nearly all of their naval objectives. Their fleet of eleven battleships, ten carriers, eighteen heavy and twenty light cruisers remained relatively intact. They had seriously damaged or sunk all U.S. battleships in the Pacific. The British and Dutch Far Eastern fleets had been destroyed, and the Royal Australian Navy had been driven back to port.[3] Their ring of conquests settled on a defensive perimeter of their choosing, extending from the Central Pacific to New Guinea to Burma.
Opposing this, the only significant strategic force remaining to the Allies was the naval base at Pearl Harbor, including the U.S. Pacific Fleet's three aircraft carriers. Both sides viewed a decisive battle between aircraft carriers as inevitable, and the Japanese were confident in that they held a numerical advantage in heavy carriers of 10:3.[4] They also had an excellent carrier-based aircraft in the Zero. The Japanese sent a task force towards Midway Island, an outlier of the Hawaiian Islands, with the goal of drawing the remainder of the American fleet to battle. On June 5, American carrier-based dive-bombers sighted the Japanese force and sank four of Japan's best aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway, at the cost of the carrier Yorktown. This was a major victory for the United States, and marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific. American shipbuilding and aircraft production vastly outpaced the Japanese, and the Japanese fleet would never again enjoy such numerical superiority.
In July, the Japanese attempted to take Port Moresby by land, along the Kokoda Track, a rugged, single-file path through the jungle and mountains. An outnumbered, untrained and ill-equipped Australian battalion—awaiting the return of regular units from North Africa and the U.S. Army—waged a fighting retreat against a 5,000-strong Japanese force.
On August 7, U.S. Marines began the Battle of Guadalcanal. For the next six months, U.S. forces fought Japanese forces for control of the island. Meanwhile, several naval encounters raged in the nearby waters, including the Battle of Savo Island, Battle of Cape Esperance, Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and Battle of Tassafaronga.
In late August and early September, while battle raged on the Kokoda Track and Guadalcanal, an attack by Japanese marines at the eastern tip of New Guinea was defeated by Australian forces, in the Battle of Milne Bay. This was the first defeat for Japanese land forces during the Pacific War.
On January 22, after a bitter battle at Gona and Buna, Australian and U.S. forces took back the major Japanese beachheads in eastern New Guinea.
American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on February 9. U.S., New Zealand, Australian and Pacific Island forces undertook the prolonged campaign to retake the occupied parts of the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and the Dutch East Indies, experiencing some of the toughest resistance of the war. The rest of the Solomon Islands were retaken in 1943.
China and Southeast Asia (September 1941 – March 1944)
Main articles: Battle of Singapore and Battle of Changde
Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, led by a Japanese officer, marches under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on February 15, 1942. It was the worst defeat in British history.By 1940, the war had reached a stalemate with both sides making minimal gains. The United States provided heavy financial support for China and set up the Flying Tigers air unit to bolster Chinese air forces.
Japanese forces invaded northern parts of French Indo-China on September 22. The move was not unexpected, and followed a demand for bases in the region made two months earlier. Japanese relations with the west had deteriorated steadily in recent years and United States, having renounced the U.S.-Japanese trade treaty of 1911, placed embargoes on exports to Japan of war and other materials.
Less than 24 hours after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded Hong Kong. The Philippines and the British colonies of Malaya, Borneo, and Burma soon followed, with Japan's intention of seizing the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies. Despite fierce resistance by Philippine, Australian, New Zealand, British, Canadian, Indian, and American forces, all these territories capitulated to the Japanese in a matter of months. Singapore fell to the Japanese on February 15. Approximately 80,000 British Commonwealth personnel (along with 50,000 taken in Malaya), went into Japanese POW camps, representing the largest-ever surrender of British-led personnel. Churchill considered the British defeat at Singapore as one of the most humiliating British defeats of all time.
The Battle of Changde, called the Stalingrad of the East. China and Japan lost a combined total of 100,000 men in this battle.Japan launched a major offensive in China following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The aim of the offensive was to take the strategically important city of Changsha, which the Japanese had failed to capture on two previous occasions. For the attack, the Japanese massed 120,000 soldiers under four divisions. The Chinese responded with 300,000 men, and soon the Japanese army was encircled and had to retreat.
The Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang Army, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Chinese Army, under Mao Zedong, both opposed the Japanese occupation of China, but never truly allied against the Japanese. Conflict between Nationalist and Communist forces emerged long before the war; it continued after and, to an extent, even during the war, though less openly.
The Japanese had captured most of Burma, severing the Burma Road by which the Western Allies had been supplying the Chinese Nationalists. This loss forced the Allies to create a large sustained airlift from India, known as "flying the Hump". Under the American General Joseph Stilwell, Chinese forces in India were retrained and re-equipped, while preparations were made to drive the Ledo Road from India to replace the Burma Road. This effort was to prove an enormous engineering task.
The Atlantic (September 1939 - May 1945)
Main article: Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)
The U-Boat U-47 returns from sinking HMS Royal Oak, with the battlecruiser Scharnhorst in the background“ The only thing that ever really frightened me during the War was the U-boat peril. ”
— Winston Churchill
In the North Atlantic, German U-boats interdicted Allied transatlantic merchant shipping, attempting to cut supply lines to the United Kingdom and the USSR. One U-boat sank the British carrier HMS Courageous, while another managed to sink the battleship HMS Royal Oak in her home anchorage of Scapa Flow. Altogether, the U-boats sank more than 110 vessels in the first four months of the war.
In addition to U-boats, surface raiders posed a threat to Allied shipping. In the South Atlantic, the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee sank nine British Merchant Navy vessels. She was tracked down off the coast of South America, then engaged by the cruisers HMS Ajax, HMS Exeter, and HMNZS Achilles in the Battle of the River Plate, and forced into Montevideo Harbor. Rather than face battle again, Captain Langsdorff made for sea and scuttled his battleship just outside the harbor.
On May 24, 1941, the German battleship Bismarck left port, threatening to break out into the Atlantic. She sank HMS Hood, one of the finest battlecruisers in the Royal Navy. A massive hunt ensued, in which the German battleship was sunk after a 1,700-mile (2,700 kilometer) chase. During this chase the British employed eight battleships and battle cruisers, two aircraft carriers, 11 cruisers, 21 destroyers, and six submarines. Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal struck the Bismarck, causing her rudder to jam and allowing the pursuing Royal Navy squadrons to catch and sink her.
Following the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941, U-boats sank shipping along the East Coast of the United States, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. They were initially so successful that this became known among U-boat crews as the Second happy time. Eventually, the institution of shore blackouts and an interlocking convoy system resulted in a drop in attacks and U-boats shifted their operations back to the mid-Atlantic.
A German U-boat under attack by Allied aircraftOn May 9, 1942 the destroyer HMS Bulldog captured a German U-Boat and recovered a complete, intact Enigma Machine, an encryption device. The machine was taken to Bletchley Park, England, where it was used to break the German code. Thereafter the Allies enjoyed an advantage in that they could intercept and understand some German radio communications, directing naval forces to where they would be most effective.
In December 1943, the last major sea battle between the Royal Navy and the German Navy took place. At the Battle of North Cape, Germany's last battlecruiser, the Scharnhorst, was sunk by HMS Duke of York, HMS Belfast, and several destroyers.
The turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic took place in early 1943 as the Allies refined their naval tactics, effectively making use of new technology to counter the U-Boats. The Allies produced ships faster than they were sunk, and lost fewer ships by adopting the convoy system. Improved anti-submarine warfare meant that the life expectancy of a typical U-boat crew would be measured in months. The vastly improved Type 21 U-boat appeared as the war was ending, but too late to affect the outcome.
The Eastern Front (January 1942 - February 1943)
Main articles: Operation Blue, Battle of Stalingrad, and Battle of the Caucasus
Operation Blau: German advances from 7 May 1942 to 18 November 1942
██ to 7 July 1942
██ to 22 July 1942
██ to 1 August 1942
██ to 18 November 1942On January 6, 1942, Stalin, confident of his earlier victory, ordered a general counter-offensive. Initially the attacks made good ground as Soviet pincers closed around Demyansk and Vyazma and threatening attacks were made towards Smolensk and Bryansk. But despite these successes the Soviet offensive soon ran out of steam. By March, the Germans had recovered and stabilized their line and secured the neck of the Vyazma Pocket. Only at Demyansk was there any serious prospect of a major Soviet victory. Here a large part of the German 16th Army had been surrounded. Hitler ordered no withdrawal and the 92,000 men trapped in the pocket were to hold their ground while they were re-supplied by air. For 10 weeks they held out until April when a land corridor was opened to the west. The German forces retained Demyansk until they were permitted to withdraw in February 1943.
With the spring both sides decided to resume the offensive. While the German high command decided to stabilize the front at Kharkov, the Soviets unknowingly decided to attack in the same sector to maintain pressure in the south. The Soviets had attacked in Kharkov sector in January and had established a salient on the West Bank of the River Donets. On May 12, the Soviets opened with concentric attacks on either side of Kharkov and in both sides the Soviets broke through German lines and a serious threat to the city emerged. In response, the Germans accelerated the plans for their own offensive and launching it 5 days later.
The German 6th Army struck at the salient from the south and encircled the entire Soviet army assaulting Kharkov. In the last days of May, the Germans destroyed the forces inside the pocket. Of the Soviet troops inside the pocket, 70,000 were killed, 200,000 captured and only 22,000 managed to escape. The Germans did not realize the scale of the victory they had achieved, and unknown to the Germans, by early June the wide steppes of the Caucuses lay virtually undefended.
Hitler had by now realized that his Armies were too weak to carry out an offensive on all sectors of the Eastern Front. But if the Germans could seize the oil and fertile rich area of Southern Russia this would give the Germans the means to continue with the war. In April, Hitler outlined his plans for the main campaign in Russia codenamed Operation Blue. The overall objective of Operation Blue would be the destruction of the Red Army's southern front, consildation of the Ukraine west of the River Volga, and the capture of the Caucaus oil fields. The Germans reinforced Army Group South by transferring divisions from other sectors and getting divisions from Axis allies. By late June, Hitler had 74 Divisions ready to go on the offensive, 54 of them were German.
The German plan was a three pronged attack in Souther Russia. The 4th Panzer Army (transferred from Army Group North) and the 2nd Army supported by the 2nd Hungarian Army would attack from Kursk to Voronezh and afterwhich they will continue to attack and anchor their left wing around the River Volga. The 6th Army would attack from Kharkov and move in parallel with 4th Panzer Army to reach the River Volga. The 1st Panzer Army would strike towards the lower Don River, flanked on its right by the 17th Army. These movements were expected to result in a series of great encirclements of Soviet troops. The Soviets did not know where the main German offensive of 1942 would come. Stalin was convinced that the German objective of 1942 would be Moscow and over 50% of all Red Army troops were deployed in the Moscow region. Only 10% of Russian troops were deployed in Southern Russia.
On June 28, 1942, the German offensive began. Everywhere the Russians fell back as the Germans sliced through the Russian defenses. By July 5, forward elements of 4th Panzer Army reached the River Don near Voronezh and got embroiled in a bitter battle to capture the city. The Russians, by tying down 4th Panzer Army gained vital time to reinforce their defenses. The Russians for the first time in the war were not fighting to hold hopelessly exposed positions but were retreating in good order. As German pincers closed in they only found stragglers and rear guards. Angered by the delays, Hitler re-organized Army Group South to two smaller Army Groups, Army Group A which now included the 17th Army, 1st Panzer Army and 4th Panzer Army. Army Group B included 2nd Army, 6th Army and two Italian and Hungarian Armies. By transferring the 4th Panzer Army from 6th Army to help the 1st Panzer Army cross the lower region of the Don River, this reduced 6th Army's advance to a march giving further time to the Russians to consolidate their positions.
By July 23, the German 6th Army had taken Rostov but Russians fought a skillful rearguard action which embroiled the Germans in heavy urban fighting to take the city. This also allowed the main Russian formations to escape encirclements. With the River Don crossing secured and with the 6th Army's advance flagging, Hitler send the 4th Panzer Army back to join up with 6th Army. In late July, 6th Army resumed its offensive and by August 10, 6th Army cleared Russian presence from the west bank of the River Don but Russians held out in some areas further delaying 6th Army's march east. In contrast, Army Group A after crossing the River Don on July 25 had fanned out on a broad front. The German 17th Army swung west towards the Black Sea, the 1st Panzer Army attacked towards the south and east sweeping through country largely abandoned by the Russians. On August 9, 1st Panzer Army reached the foothills of the Caucaus mountains, advancing more than 300 miles.
Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of Stalingrad, 1942The German 6th Army after finally clearing the west bank of the River Don of Russian troops crossed the river on August 21 and began advancing on Stalingrad. Germans bombed the city killing over 40,000 people and turning much of the city into rubble. The 6th Army's advance on Stalingrad from the North while the 4th Panzer Army advanced from the South. Between these armies and in the area from Rover Don to River Volga, a salient had been created. Two Russian Armies were in the salient and on August 29, 4th Panzer Army mounted a major attack through the salient towards Stalingrad. 6th Army was ordered to do the same but Russians mounted major attacks against 6th Army from the North which tied up 6th Army for 3 vital days enabling the Soviet forces in the salient to escape encirclement and fall back towards Stalingrad. Zhukov had assumed command of the Stalingrad front and in early September, he mounted a series of attacks from the North which further delayed the 6th Army's attempt to seize Stalingrad. Meanwhile Soviet forces continued to be send south to bolster the flanks. By mid-September, the 6th Army after neutralizing the Soviet counterattacks once again resumed to capture the city. On September 13, the Germans advanced through the southern suburbs and by September 23, 1942, the main factory complex was surrounded and the German artillery was within range of the quays on the river, across which the Soviets evacuated wounded and brought in reinforcements. Ferocious street fighting, hand-to-hand conflict of the most savage kind, now ensued at Stalingrad. Exhaustion and deprivation gradually sapped men's strength. Hitler, who had become obsessed with the battle of Stalingrad, refused to countenance a withdrawal. General Paulus, in desperation, launched yet another attack early in November by which time the Germans had managed to capture 90% of the city. The Soviets, however, had been building up massive forces on the flanks of Stalingrad which were by this time severely undermanned as the bulk of the German forces had been concentrated in capturing the city and Axis satellite troops were left guarding the flanks. The Soviets launched Operation Uranus on November 19 1942, with twin attacks that met at the city of Kalach four days, encircling the 6th Army in Stalingrad.
The eastern front at the time of Operation Uranus.The Germans requested permission to attempt a breakout, which was refused by Hitler, who ordered the Sixth Army to remain in Stalingrad where he promised they would be supplied by air until rescued. About the same time, the Soviets launched Operation Mars in a salient near the vicinity of Moscow. Its objective was to tie down Army Group Center and to prevent it from reinforcing Army Group South at Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, Army Group A's advance into the Caucaus had stalled as Russians had destroyed the oil production facilities and a year's work was required to bring them back up and the remaining oil fields lay south of the Caucausus Mountains. Throughout August and September, German Mountain troops probed for a way through but by October with the onset of winter, they were no closer to their objective. With German troops encircled in Stalingrad, Army Group A began to fall back.
By December, Field Marshal von Manstein hastily put together a German relief force of units composed from Army Group A to relieve the trapped Sixth Army. Unable to get reinforcements from Army Group Center, the relief force only managed to get within 50 kilometers (30 mi) before they were turned back by the Soviets. By the end of the year, the Sixth Army was in desperate condition, as the Luftwaffe was able to supply only about a sixth of the supplies needed.
Shortly before surrendering to the Red Army on February 2, 1943, Friedrich Paulus was promoted to Field Marshal. This was a message from Hitler, because no German Field Marshal had ever surrendered his troops or been taken alive. Only 91,000 German prisoners were taken, including 22 generals, of which only 5,000 men ever returned to Germany after the war. This was to be the greatest, and most costly, battle in terms of human life in history: about 2 million men were killed or wounded on both sides, including civilians, with Axis casualties estimated to be approximately 850,000.
The Western Front (September 1940 – June 1944)
Main article: Strategic bombing during World War II
Picture taken after the failed Canadian assault on the beach at DieppeApart from Italy, Western Europe saw very little fighting from September 1940-June 1944. British and Canadian forces launched a small raid on the occupied French seaport of Dieppe, on August 19, 1942, whose aim was to test and gain information for an invasion of Europe which would happen later in the war. The Dieppe Raid was a total disaster but it provided critical information about amphibious tactics which would be utilized later in Operation Torch and Operation Overlord.
In December 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the United States into the war, Churchill and Roosevelt met at the Arcadia Conference. They agreed that defeating Germany had priority over defeating Japan. To relieve German pressure on the Soviet Union, the United States proposed a 1942 cross-channel invasion of France. The British opposed this, suggesting instead a small invasion of Norway or landings in French North Africa. The Declaration by the United Nations was issued, and the Western Allies invaded North Africa first.
The remains of German town of Wesel after intensive allied area bombing in 1945 (destruction rate 97% of all buildings)With the entry of the United States into the War, the aerial war turned in favor of the Allies by late 1942. The U.S. air force began the first daylight bombing of Germany, which allowed for more precise targeting but exposed the attackers to more danger. Meanwhile the British and the Canadians bombed Germany during the night targeting German cities and war industries. This effort was orchestrated by Air Chief Marshall Harris, who became known as 'Bomber Harris'. Additionally, Winston Churchill ordered "terror raids" intended to wipe out whole cities in one go, by incendiary devices causing firestorms, thus depriving German workers of their homes. Mass raids involving upwards of 500 to 1000 heavy bombers at a time were undertaken against airfields, industrial centers, submarine bases, rail-marshalling yards, oil depots and, in the later stages of the war, launching sites for weapons such as the V-1 missile (nicknamed 'doodlebug'), the V-2 rocket and a jet-engined plane, the Messerschmitt Me 262. The Luftwaffe was overwhelmed and had only a few operational planes left by late 1944 on the Western Front. By 1945, all major German cities were burnt-out ruins.
The Allies also began sabotage missions against Germany such as Operation Anthropoid in which Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Final Solution was assassinated in May 1942 by Czech resistance agents send flow in from the United Kingdom. Hitler ordered severe reprisals against the occupants of the nearby Czechoslovakian village of Lidice. All the while, the Allies continued to build up their forces in the United Kingdom for an eventual invasion of Western Europe which was planned for late spring or early summer of 1944.
The Mediterranean (May 1943 – March 1945)
Main article: Italian Campaign (World War II)
The surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia on May 13, 1943, yielded some 250,000 prisoners. The North African war proved to be a disaster for Italy, and when the Allies invaded Sicily on July 10 in Operation Husky, capturing the island in a little over a month, the regime of Benito Mussolini collapsed. On July 25, he was removed from office by Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy, and arrested with the positive consent of the Great Fascist Council. A new government, led by Pietro Badoglio, took power and declared ostensibly that Italy would stay in the war. Badoglio had already begun secret peace negotiations with the Allies.
The Allies invaded mainland Italy on September 3, 1943. Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, as had been agreed in negotiations. The royal family and Badoglio government escaped to the south, leaving the Italian army without orders, while the Germans took over the fight, forcing the Allies to a complete halt in the winter of 1943–44 at the Gustav Line south of Rome.
In the north, Mussolini, with Nazi support, created what was effectively a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic or Republic of Salò, named after the new capital of Salò on Lake Garda.
Cassino is destroyed after heavy bombardmentMid-1943 brought the fifth and final German Sutjeska offensive against the Yugoslav partisans.
Following Italy's surrender, German troops took over the defense of the Italian peninsula and established the Gustav line in the southern Apennine Mountains south of Rome. The Allies were unable to break this line, and so attempted to bypass it with an amphibious landing at Anzio on January 22, 1944. The landing, named Operation Shingle, quickly became encircled by the Germans and bogged down, leading Churchill to comment, "Instead of hurling a wildcat onto the shore all we got was a stranded whale."
Unable to circumvent the Gustav line, the Allies again attempted to break through with frontal assaults. On February 15, the monastery of Monte Cassino, founded in 524 by St. Benedict was destroyed by American B-17 and B-26 bombers. Crack German paratroopers poured back into the ruins to defend it. From January 12 to May 18, it was assaulted four times by Allied troops, for a loss of over 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers.
After months, the Gustav line was broken and the Allies marched north. On June 4, Rome was liberated, and the Allied army reached Florence in August. It then was held at the Gothic Line on the Tuscan Apennines during the winter.
The Eastern Front (February 1943 – January 1945)
Main articles: Third Battle of Kharkov, Battle of Kursk, Battle of the Lower Dnieper, Operation Bagration, and Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive
Soviet soldiers crossing the River Dneiper under German fire.
Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiers and Tiger tanks of the SS Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf during the start of Operation ZitadelleAfter the surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943, the Red Army launched eight offensives during the winter. Many were concentrated along the Don basin near Stalingrad. These attacks resulted in initial gains until German forces were able to take advantage of the over extended and weakened condition of the Red Army and launch a counter attack to re-capture the city of Kharkov and surrounding areas. This was to be the last major strategic German victory of World War II.
The rains of spring inhibited campaigning in the Soviet Union, but both sides used the interval to build up for the inevitable battle that would come in the summer. The start date for the offensive had been moved repeatedly as delays in preparation had forced the Germans to postpone the attack. By July 4, the Wehrmacht, after assembling their greatest concentration of firepower during the whole of World War II, launched their offensive against the Soviet Union at the Kursk salient. Their intentions were known by the Soviets, who hastened to defend the salient with an enormous system of earthwork defenses. The Germans attacked from both the north and south of the salient and hoped to meet in the middle, cutting off the salient and trapping 60 Soviet divisions. The German offensive in the Northern sector was ground down as little progress was made through the Soviet defenses but in the Southern Sector there was a danger of a German breakthrough. The Soviets then brought up their reserves to contain the German thrust in the Southern sector, and the ensuing Battle of Kursk became the largest tank battle of the war, near the city of Prokhorovka. The Germans lacking any sizable reserves had exhausted their armored forces and could not stop the Soviet counteroffensive that threw them back across their starting positions.
The Soviets captured Kharkov following their victory at Kursk and with the Autumn rains threatening, Hitler agreed to a general withdrawal to the Dnieper line in August. As September proceeded into October, the Germans found the Dnieper line impossible to hold as the Soviet bridgeheads grew. Important Dnieper towns started to fall, with Zaporozhye the first to go, followed by Dnepropetrovsk. Early in November the Soviets broke out of their bridgeheads on either side of Kiev and recaptured the Ukrainian capital. The 1st Ukrainian Front attacked at Korosten on Christmas Eve, and the Soviet advance continued along the railway line until the 1939 Soviet-Polish border was reached.
Soviet advances from August 1943 to December 1944.The Soviets launched their winter offensive in January 1944 in the Northern sector and relieved the brutal siege of Leningrad. The Germans conducted an orderly retreat from the Leningrad area to a shorter line based on the lakes to the south. By March the Soviets struck into Romania from Ukraine. The Soviet forces encircled the First Panzer Army north of the Dniestr river. The Germans escaped the pocket in April, saving most of their men but losing their heavy equipment. During April, the Red Army launched a series of attacks near the city of Iaşi, Romania, aimed at capturing the strategically important sector which they hoped to use as a springboard into Romania for a summer offensive. The Soviets were held back by the German and Romanian forces when they launched the attack through the forest of Târgul Frumos as Axis forces successfully defended the sector through the month of April.
As Soviet troops neared Hungary, German troops occupied Hungary on March 20. Hitler thought that Hungarian leader Admiral Miklós Horthy might no longer be a reliable ally. Germany's other Axis ally, Finland had sought a separate peace with Stalin in February 1944, but would not accept the initial terms offered. On June 9, the Soviet Union began the Fourth strategic offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that, after three months, forced Finland to accept an armistice.
Before the Soviet could begin their Summer offensive into Belarus they had to clear the Crimea peninsula of Axis forces. Remnants of the German Seventeenth Army of Army Group South and some Romanian forces were cut off and left behind in the peninsula when the Germans retreated from the Ukraine. In early May, the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front attacked the Germans and the ensuing battle was a complete victory of the Soviet forces and a botched evacuation effort across the Black Sea by Germany failed.
With the Crimea cleared, the long awaited Soviet summer offensive codenamed, Operation Bagration, began on June 22, 1944 which involved 2.5 million men and 6,000 tanks. Its objective was to clear German troops from Belarus and crush German Army Group Center which was defending that sector. The offensive was timed to coincide with the Allied landings in Normandy but delays caused the offensive to be postponed for a few weeks. The subsequent battle resulted in the destruction of German Army Group Centre and over 800,000 German casualties, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The Soviets swept forward, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw on July 31.
Ruins of the Bank Polski after the Warsaw UprisingThe proximity of the Red Army led the Poles in Warsaw to believe they would soon be liberated. On August 1, they revolted as part of the wider Operation Tempest. Nearly 40,000 Polish resistance fighters seized control of the city. The Soviets, however, did not advance any further. [1] The only assistance given to the Poles was artillery fire, as German army units moved into the city to put down the revolt. The resistance ended on October 2. German units then destroyed most of what was left of the city.
Following the destruction of German Army Group Center, the Soviets attacked German forces in the south in mid-July 1944, and in a month's time they cleared Ukraine of German presence inflicting heavy losses on the Germans. Once Ukraine had been cleared the Soviet forces struck into Romania. The Red Army's 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts engaged German Heeresgruppe Südukraine, which consisted of German and Romanian formations, in an operation to occupy Romania and destroy the German formations in the sector. The result of the Battle of Romania was a complete victory for the Red Army, and a switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allied camp. Bulgaria surrendered to the Red Army in September. Following the German retreat from Romania, the Soviets entered Hungary in October 1944 but the German Sixth Army encircled and destroyed three corps of Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky's Group Pliyev near Debrecen, Hungary. The rapid assault the Soviets had hoped that would lead to the capture of Budapest was now halted and Hungary would remain Germany's ally until the end of the war in Europe. This battle would be the last German victory in the Eastern Front.
Bucharesters greet Romania's new ally, the Red Army, on 31 August 1944.The Soviets recovered from their defeat in Debrecen and advancing columns of the Red Army liberated Belgrade in late December and reached Budapest on December 29, 1944 and en-circled the city where over 188,000 Axis troops were trapped including many German Waffen-SS. The Germans held out till February 13, 1945 and the siege became one of the bloodiest of the war. Meanwhile the Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged the remnants of German Army Group Center and Army Group North to capture the Baltic region from the Germans in October 1944. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of contact between Army Groups North and Centre, and the creation of the Courland Pocket in Latvia where the 18th and 16th German Armies, numbering over 250,000 men were trapped and would remain there till the end of the war.
The Pacific (June 1943 – July 1945)
Main articles: New Guinea campaign, Solomon Islands campaign, Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, Philippines campaign (1944-45), Battle of Iwo Jima, and Battle of Okinawa
On June 30, the Allies launched Operation Cartwheel, a grand strategy for the South and South West Pacific, aimed at isolating the major Japanese base at Rabaul, before proceeding on an "island-hopping" campaign towards Japan. Three main objectives were identified: recapturing Tulagi and the Santa Cruz Islands; recapturing the north coast of New Guinea, and the central Solomon Islands and; the reduction of Rabaul and related bases.
By September, Australian and U.S. forces in New Guinea had captured the major Japanese bases at Salamaua and Lae. Soon afterwards they launched the Huon Peninsula, the Finisterre Range, Bougainville, and New Britain campaigns.
In November, U.S. Marines won the Battle of Tarawa. This was the first heavily opposed amphibious assault in the Pacific theater. The high casualties taken by the Marines sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the large losses could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island. The Allies adopted a policy of bypassing some Japanese island strongholds and letting them "wither on the vine", cut off from supplies and troop reinforcements.
The Allied advance continued in the Pacific with the capture of the Marshall Islands before the end of February. Some 42,000 U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Marines landed on Kwajalein atoll on January 31. Fierce fighting occurred, and the island was taken on February 6. U.S. Marines next defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Eniwetok.
The U.S. strategic objective was to gain airbases within bombing range of the new B-29s on the Mariana Islands, especially Saipan, Tinian and Guam. On June 11, the U.S. Naval fleet bombarded Saipan, defended by 32,000 Japanese troops; 77,000 Marines landed starting the 15th, and the island was secure by July 9. The Japanese committed much of their declining naval strength in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, but suffered severe losses in both ships and aircraft. After the battle, the Japanese aircraft carrier force was no longer militarily effective. With the capture of Saipan, Japan was finally within range of B-29 bombers.
Guam was invaded on July 21 and taken on August 10, but the Japanese fought fanatically. Mopping-up operations continued long after the Battle of Guam was officially over. The island of Tinian was invaded on July 24 and was conquered on August 1. This operation saw the first use of napalm in the war.[citation needed]
"I have returned." — A famous photo of Gen. MacArthur coming ashore back to the Philippines. Photo taken by Carl Mydans of Life magazine.General MacArthur's troops liberated the Philippines, landing on the island of Leyte on October 20. The Japanese had prepared a rigorous defense and used the last of their naval forces in a failed attempt to destroy the invasion force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23 through October 26, 1944, arguably the largest naval battle in history. This was the first battle that employed Japanese kamikaze attacks. The Japanese battleship Musashi, one of the two largest battleships ever built, was sunk by 19 American torpedoes and 17 bombs.
Throughout 1944, Allied submarines and aircraft attacked Japanese merchant shipping and deprived Japan's industry of the raw materials it had gone to war to obtain. The main target was oil, and Japan ran almost dry by late 1944. In 1944, submarines sank over two million tons of cargo,[5] while the Japanese were only able to replace less than one million tons.[6]
In January 1945, the U.S. Sixth Army landed on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. Manila was recaptured by March.
The United States captured Iwo Jima in February. The island was psychologically important because it was traditional Japanese territory, administered by the Tokyo prefecture. It was heavily defended with many underground entrenchments, but was eventually taken by Marines after they captured Mount Suribachi, a keystone of the defense. Iwo Jima proved invaluable because of its two airfields that were used for emergency landings for B29's and because it was close enough to provide fighter escort that could reach the Japanese Home Islands.[7]
With the subsequent capture of Okinawa (April through June), the U.S. brought the Japanese homeland within easier range of naval and air attack. The Japanese defended the island with ground forces, kamikazes, and with the one-way suicide mission of the battleship Yamato, which was sunk by American dive-bombers. Amongst dozens of other Japanese cities, Tokyo was firebombed, and about 90,000 people died from the initial attack. The dense living conditions around production centres and the wooden residential constructions contributed to the large loss of life. In addition, the ports and major waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air in Operation Starvation, which seriously disrupted the logistics of the island nation.
The last major offensive in the South West Pacific Area was the Borneo campaign of mid-1945, which was aimed at further isolating the remaining Japanese forces in Southeast Asia and securing the release of Allied prisoners of war.
China and Southeast Asia (March 1944 – June 1945)
Main articles: Battle of Henan-Hunan-Guangxi and Battle of Imphal
The Indian Army's Gurkha Rifles crossing the Irrawaddy River on 27 January 1945. The Gurkhas were involved in hard fought actions with the Japanese during the early months of 1945.In April 1944, the Japanese launched Operation Ichigo, to secure the railway route from Peking to Nanking, and to clear southern China of American airfields under the command of General Chennault.[8] The operation was successful in that it opened a continuous corridor from Peking to Indochina, and the airfields were forced to relocate inland. However it failed to destroy the army of Chiang Kai-shek, and the Americans soon acquired the Marianas, from which they could bomb the Japanese Home Islands.
While the Americans steadily built the Ledo Road from India to China, in March 1944, the Japanese began their own offensive into India. This 'March to Delhi' was initiated by Subhas Chandra Bose[9],the commander of Indian National Army (a force comprised of POWs from the British Indian Army who had been captured by the Japanese and had decided to join the war in an attempt to rid India of their colonial rulers, and thereby attain independance)[10]. The Japanese attempted to destroy the main British and Indian forces at Imphal, resulting in some of the most ferocious fighting of the war. While the encircled allied troops were reinforced and resupplied by transport aircraft until fresh troops broke the siege, the Japanese ran out of supplies and starved. They eventually retreated losing 85,000 men, one of the largest Japanese defeats of the war.
During the monsoon from August to November 1944, the Japanese were pursued to the Chindwin River in Burma. With the onset of the dry season in early 1945, while the American and Chinese forces finally completed the Ledo Road, although too late to have any decisive effect, the British Fourteenth Army, consisting of Indian, British, and African units, launched an offensive into Central Burma. The Japanese forces were heavily defeated, and the Allies pursued them southward, taking Rangoon on May 2 (see Operation Dracula).
The Western Front (June 1944 – January 1945)
Main articles: Battle of Normandy, Operation Market Garden, and Battle of the Bulge
Supplies coming ashore on Normandy.On "D-Day" (June 6, 1944), the western Allies of mainly the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada invaded German-held Normandy.[11] Prior to this the Germans had constructed an elaborate series of fortifications along the coast called the Atlantic Wall. The Allied forces under supreme command of Dwight D. Eisenhower had launched an elaborate deception campaign to convince the Germans that the landings would occur in the Calais area which caused the Germans to deploy the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army in that sector. Only three days after the invasion did the German high command realize that Normandy was the actual invasion but by then the Allies had already consolidated their beachheads. The British had hoped to capture Caen on the first day but that proved too ambitious. The British launched another attack a few days later but were held back as the Germans had moved in large number of troops to hold the city. The city was to remain in German hands for another 6 weeks. The bocage terrain of Normandy where the Americans had landed made it ideal ground for defensive warfare. Nevertheless, they made steady progress and captured the deep-water port of Cherbourg on June 26, one of the primary objectives of the invasion. However, the Germans had mined the harbor and destroyed most of the port facilities before surrendering, and it would be another month before the port could be brought back into limited use.
British Troops take cover on Sword BeachAllied firepower, improved tactics, and numerical superiority eventually resulted in a breakout of American mechanized forces at the western end of the Normandy pocket in Operation Cobra on July 23. When Hitler learned of the American breakout, he ordered his forces in Normandy to launch an immediate counter-offensive. However the German forces moving in open countryside were now easily targeted by Allied aircraft, as they had initially escaped Allied air attacks due to their well camouflaged defensive positions.
The Americans placed strong formations on their flanks which blunted the attack and then began to encircle the 7th Army and 5th Panzer Army in the Falaise Pocket. Some 50,000 Germans were captured, but 100,000 managed to escape the pocket. Worse still, the British and Canadians who had been bogged down in their sector now began to break through the German lines. Any hope the Germans had of containing the Allied thrust into France by forming new defensive lines was now gone. The German forces retreated into Northern France, Holland and Belgium. By August 1944, Allied forces stationed in Italy invaded the French Riviera on August 15 and linked up with forces from Normandy. The clandestine French Resistance in Paris rose against the Germans on August 19, and a French armored division under General Philippe Leclerc, pressing forward from Normandy, received the surrender of the German forces there and liberated the city on August 25.
American troops march down the Champs Elysées in ParisThe Germans launched the V-1 flying bomb, the world's first cruise missile to attack targets in UK. Later, they would employ the V-2 rocket, a liquid-fuelled guided ballistic missile. However the weapon was not accurate and could only target large targets like cities and thus was not able to play a decisive role in the war.
Logistical problems plagued the Allies' advance east as the supply lines still ran back to the beaches of Normandy. Allied paratroopers and armor attempted a war-winning advance through the Netherlands and across the Rhine River with Operation Market Garden in September, but they were repulsed. A decisive victory by the Canadian First Army in the Battle of the Scheldt secured the entrance to the port of Antwerp, which freed it to receive supplies by late November 1944. Meanwhile, the Americans launched an attack through the Hurtgen Forest in September; the Germans, despite having smaller numbers, were able to use the difficult terrain and good defensive positions to hold back the Americans for over 5 months. In October, the Americans captured Aachen, the first major German city to be occupied.
British paratroopers land during Operation Market GardenIn December 1944, the German Army made its last major offensive in the West, known as the Battle of the Bulge. With Hitler's Eastern flank collapsing in, he sought victory similar to the 1940 Ardennes offensive, which he envisioned would drive back the Western Allies and force them to agree to a separate peace. Poor weather during the initial days of the offensive favored the Germans, because Allied aircraft were grounded. At first, the Germans scored successes against the unprepared Allied forces. The lead group of panzers, Kampfgruppe Peiper led by Jochen Peiper, got so far out in front that he created a "bulge" in the American lines, hence the name of the battle.
Stubborn U.S. resistance at St. Vith and by the surrounded 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, an important crossroads, blunted the German advance. The arrival of the U.S. Third Army under General George Smith Patton, Jr. ended the German threat, and further counterattacks trapped many German units in the resulting pocket. On January 7, Hitler gave the order for his remaining forces to retreat. It was the bloodiest battle in U.S. military history.
The Eastern Front (January 1945 – April 1945)
Main articles: Vistula-Oder Offensive and Battle of Berlin
Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgiy Konstantinovich Zhukov.On January 12, the Soviet Army was ready for its next big offensive. Konev’s armies attacked the Germans in southern Poland and expanded out from their Vistula River bridgehead near Sandomierz. On January 14, Rokossovskiy’s armies attacked from the Narew River north of Warsaw. Zhukov's armies in the centre attacked from their bridgeheads near Warsaw. The combined Soviet offensive broke the defences covering East Prussia, leaving the German front in chaos.
Zhukov took Warsaw by January 17 and by January 19, his tanks took Łódź. That same day, Konev's forces reached the German pre-war border. At the end of the first week of the offensive, the Soviets had penetrated 160 kilometers (100 mi) deep on a front that was 650 kilometers (400 mi) wide. The Soviet onslaught finally halted on the Oder River at the end of January, only 60 kilometers (40 mi) from Berlin.
Berlin and Prague offensive on the Eastern Front, 1945.The Soviets had hoped to capture Berlin by mid-February but that proved hopelessly optimistic. German resistance which had all but collapsed during the initial phase of the attack had stiffened immeasurably. The Russian supply lines were over extended and discipline among Soviet troops as they were unleashed on German territory all but collapsed. The spring thaw, the lack of air support, and fear of encirclement through flank attacks from East Prussia, Pommern and Silesia led to a general halt in the Soviet offensive. The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of Heinrich Himmler, attempted a counter-attack on the exposed flank of the Soviet Army but failed by February 24. This made it clear to Zhukov that the flank had to be secure before any attack on Berlin could be mounted. The Soviets then re-organized their forces and then struck north and cleared Pomerania and Silesia of German troops. In the south, three German attempts to relieve the encircled Budapest garrison failed, and the city fell to the Soviets on February 13. Again the Germans counter-attacked; Hitler insisting on the impossible task of regaining the Danube River. By March 16, the attack had failed, and the Red Army counter-attacked the same day. On March 30, they entered Austria and captured Vienna on April 13.
Red Army soldiers raising the Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag in Berlin, GermanyHitler had believed that the main Soviet target for their upcoming offensive would be in the south near Prague and not Berlin and had send the last remaining German reserves to defend that sector. The Red Army's main goal was in fact Berlin and by April 16 it was ready to begin its final assault on Berlin. Zhukov's forces struck from the center and crossed the Oder river but got bogged down under stiff German resistance around Seelow Heights. After three days of very heavy fighting and 30,000 Russian soldiers dead, the last defenses of Berlin was breached. Konev crossed the Oder river from the South and was within striking distance of Berlin but Stalin ordered Konev to guard the flanks of Zhukov's forces and not attack Berlin, as Stalin had promised the capture of Berlin to Zhukov[citation needed]. Rokossovskiy’s forces crossed the Oder from the North and linked up with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's forces in northern Germany while the forces of Zhukov and Konev captured Berlin.
By April 24, the Soviet army groups had encircled the German Ninth Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army. These were main forces that were supposed to defend Berlin but Hitler had issued orders for these forces to hold their ground and not retreat. Thus the main German forces which were suppose to defend Berlin were trapped south east of the Berlin. The city was encircled around the same time and as a final resistance effort, Hitler called for civilians, including teenagers and the elderly, to fight in the Volkssturm militia against the oncoming Red Army. Those marginal forces were augmented by the battered German remnants who had fought the Soviets in Seelow Heights. Hitler ordered the encircled Ninth Army to break out and link up with the Twelfth Army of General Walther Wenck and relieve Berlin. An impossible task, the surviving units of the Ninth Army were instead driven into the forests around Berlin near the village of Halbe where they were involved in particularly fierce fighting trying to break through the Soviet lines and reach the Twelfth Army. A minority managed to join with the Twelfth Army and fight their way west to surrender to the Americans. Meanwhile the fierce urban fighting continued in Berlin. The Germans had stockpiled a very large quantity of panzerfausts and took a very heavy toll on Soviet tanks in the rubble filled streets of Berlin. However, the Soviets employed the lessons they learned during the urban fighting of Stalingrad and were slowly advancing to the center of the city. German forces in the city resisted tenaciously, in particular the SS Nordland which was made of foreign SS volunteers, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured. The fighting was house-to-house and hand-to-hand. The Soviets sustained 360,000 casualties; the Germans sustained 450,000 including civilians and above that 170,000 captured. Hitler and his staff moved into the Führerbunker, a concrete bunker beneath the Chancellery, where on April 30, 1945, he committed suicide, along with his bride, Eva Braun.
War ends in Europe
Main articles: Yalta Conference, End of World War II in Europe, and Prague Offensive
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin at Yalta in 1945.On January 14, the U.S. XII Corps and British 2nd Army launched Operation Blackcock in order to clear the Roer Triangle, a German-held salient between the rivers Maas and Roer south of Roermond. By January 27, the German forces were driven east of the Roer.
Meanwhile, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin made arrangements for post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Their meeting resulted in many important resolutions such as the formation of the United Nations, democratic elections in Poland, borders of Poland moved westwards at the expense of Germany, Soviet nationals were to be repatriated and it was agreed that Soviet Union would attack Japan within three months of Germany's surrender.
U.S. General Omar Bradley led the advance into GermanyThe Allies resumed their advance into Germany in late January. The final obstacle to the Allies was the river Rhine, which was crossed in late March 1945, aided by the fortuitous capture of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast towards Hamburg, crossing the river Elbe and moving on towards Denmark and the Baltic Sea. The U.S. 9th Army went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement, and the U.S. 1st Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. These armies were commanded by General Omar Bradley who had over 1,300,000 men under his control. On April 4, the encirclement was completed, and the German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket. Some 300,000 German soldiers became prisoners of war. The 1st and 9th U.S. armies then turned east. They halted their advance at the Elbe river where they met up with Soviet troops in mid-April.
Allied advances in the winter of 1944–45 up the Italian peninsula had been slow because of the mountains and troop re-deployments to France. By April 9, the British/American 15th Army Group broke through the Gothic Line and attacked the Po Valley, gradually enclosing the main German forces. Milan was taken by the end of April. The U.S. 5th Army continued to move west and linked up with French units. The New Zealand Second Division entered Trieste to confront Yugoslav partisans, who were intending to make the city part of Yugoslavia.
A few days before the surrender of German troops in Italy, Italian partisans captured Mussolini trying to make his escape to Switzerland. He was executed, along with his mistress, Clara Petacci. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung upside down on public display.
Marshals of the Soviet Union Zhukov (on the white horse) and Rokossovskiy at the Victory Parade in Red Square on June 24, 1945.Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz became leader of the German government after the death of Hitler, but the German war effort quickly disintegrated. German forces in Berlin surrendered the city to Soviet troops on May 2, 1945.
The German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945, at General Alexander's headquarters, and German forces in northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrendered on May 4. The surrender in Italy was preceded by the controversial secret Operation Sunrise in March 1945, during which the Great Britain and the United States were accused by the Soviet Union of trying to reach a separate peace. The German High Command under Generaloberst Alfred Jodl surrendered unconditionally all remaining German forces on May 7 in Rheims, France. The western Allies celebrated "V-E Day" on May 8.
The Soviet Union celebrated "Victory Day" on May 9. Some remnants of German Army Group Center continued resistance until May 11 or May 12 (see Prague Offensive). [2]
War ends in Asia
Main articles: Potsdam Conference, Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Operation August Storm
Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in the wartime capital of Chongqing, to toast to the Chinese victory over Japan.The last Allied conference of World War II was held at the suburb of Potsdam, outside Berlin, from July 17 to August 2. During the Potsdam Conference, agreements were reached among the Allies on policies for occupied Germany. An ultimatum was issued calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan.
U.S. president Harry Truman decided to use the new atomic weapon to bring the war to a swifter end. The battle for Okinawa had shown that an invasion of the Japanese mainland (planned for November) would result large numbers of American casualties. The official estimate given to the Secretary of War was 1.4 to four million Allied casualties, though some historians dispute whether this would have been the case. Invasion would have meant the death of millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians, who were being trained as militia.
On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, dropped a nuclear weapon dubbed Little Boy on Hiroshima, destroying the city. On August 9, a B-29 named Bockscar dropped the second atomic bomb, dubbed Fat Man, on the port city of Nagasaki.
The mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear weapon known as Fat Man rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) over Nagasaki from the nuclear explosion hypocenter.On August 8, two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union, having renounced its nonaggression pact with Japan in April, attacked the Japanese in Manchuria, fulfilling its Yalta pledge to attack the Japanese within three months after the end of the war in Europe. The attack was made by three Soviet army groups. In less than two weeks, the Japanese army in Manchuria, consisting of over a million men, had been destroyed by the Soviets. The Red Army moved into North Korea on August 18. Korea was subsequently divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet and U.S. zones.
The American use of atomic weapons against Japan and the Soviet invasion of Manchukuo prompted Hirohito to bypass the existing government and intervene to end the war. In his radio address to the nation, the Emperor did not mention the entry of the Soviet Union into the war, but in his "Rescript to the soldiers and sailors" of August 17, ordering them to cease fire and lay down arms, he stressed the relationship between Soviet entrance into the war and his decision to surrender, omitting any mention of the atomic bombs.
The Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945, or V-J day, signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered to the Chinese on September 9, 1945. See image
Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities
Main articles: World War II casualties, The Holocaust, Concentration camp, Gulag, Japanese American internment, and War crimes during World War II
Major deportation routes to Nazi extermination camps during The Holocaust, Aktion T-4 and alike.Some 63 million people, or 3% of the world population, died in the war (though estimates vary): about 24 million soldiers and 38 million civilians. This total includes the estimated 9 million lives lost in the Holocaust. Of the total deaths in World War II, approximately 80% were on the Allied side and 20% on the Axis side.[12]
Allied forces suffered approximately 17 million military deaths, of which about 11 million were Soviet and 3 million Chinese. Axis forces suffered about 8 million, of which more than 5 million were German. In total, of the military deaths in World War II, approximately 44% were Soviet soldiers, 22% were German, 12% were Chinese, 8% were Japanese, 9% were soldiers of other Allied forces, and 5% were other Axis country soldiers. Some modern estimates double the number of Chinese casualties originally stated.[12] Of the civilian deaths, approximately 90% were Allied (nearly a third of all civilians killed were Soviet citizens, and more than 15% of all civilians killed in the war died in German extermination camps) and 10% were Axis.[12]
Many civilians died as a result of disease, starvation, massacres, genocide—in particular, the Holocaust—and aerial bombing. One estimate is that 12 million civilians died in Holocaust camps, 1.5 million by bombs, 7 million in Europe from other causes, and 7.5 million in China from other causes.[13] Allied civilian deaths totaled roughly 38 million, including 11.7 million in the Soviet Union, 7 million in China and 5.2 million from Poland. There were around 3 million civilian deaths on the Axis side, including 2 million in Germany and 0.6 million in Japan. The Holocaust refers to the organized state-sponsored murder of 6 million Jews, 1.8-1.9 million non-Jewish Poles, 200,000–800,000 Roma people, 200,000–300,000 people with disabilities, and other groups carried out by the Nazis during the war. The Soviet Union suffered by far the largest death toll of any nation in the war, over 23 million.
Mistreated, starved prisoners in the Ebensee concentration camp, Austria.In addition to the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, or labor camps, led to the death of citizens of occupied countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of war (POW) and even Soviet citizens themselves who had been supporters of the Nazis. Japanese POW camps also had high death rates; many were used as labour camps, and starvation conditions among the mainly U.S., British, Australian and other Commonwealth prisoners were little better than many German concentration camps. Sixty percent (1,238,000 ref. Krivosheev) of Soviet POWs died during the war. Vadim Erlikman puts it at 2.6 million Soviet POWs that died in German Captivity.[14] Richard Overy gives the number of 5.7 million Soviet POW and out of those 57% died or were killed.[15] Furthermore, 150,000 Japanese-Americans were interned by the U.S. and Canadian governments, as well as nearly 11,000 German and Italian residents of the U.S.
A survivor of German aerial bombardment, Siege of Warsaw.Despite the international treaties and a resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May 1938 condemning the use of toxic gas by Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons. Because of fears of retaliation, however, those weapons were never used against Occidentals but only against other Orientals judged "inferior" by the imperial propaganda. According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, the authorization for the use of chemical weapons was given by specific orders (rinsanmei) issued by Hirohito himself. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the invasion of Wuhan, from August to October 1938.
The bacteriological weapons were experimented on human beings by many units incorporated in the Japanese army, such as the infamous Unit 731, integrated by Imperial decree in the Kwantung army in 1936. Those weapons were mainly used in China and, according to some Japanese veterans, against Mongolians and Russian soldiers in 1939 during the Nomonhan incident.[16]
According to a joint study of historians featuring Zhifen Ju, Mark Peattie, Toru Kubo, and Mitsuyochi Himeta, more than 10 million Chinese were mobilized by the Japanese army and enslaved by the Kôa-in for slave labor in Manchukuo and north China.[17] According to Mitsuyoshi Himeta, at least 2.7 million died during the Sankō Sakusen operation implemented in Heipei and Shantung by General Yasuji Okamura.
From 1945 to 1951, German and Japanese officials and personnel were prosecuted for war crimes. Top German officials were tried at the Nuremberg Trials, and many Japanese officials at the Tokyo War Crime Trial and other war crimes trials in the Asia-Pacific region.
Resistance and collaboration
Main articles: Resistance during World War II and Collaboration during World War II
Members of the Dutch Eindhoven Resistance with troops of the U.S. 101st Airborne in front of the Eindhoven cathedral during Operation Market Garden in September 1944.Resistance during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation, and propaganda to outright warfare.
Among the most notable resistance movements were the Polish Home Army, the French Maquis, the Yugoslav Partisans, the Greek resistance force, and the Italian Resistance in the German-occupied Northern Italy after 1943. Germany itself also had an anti-Nazi movement. The Communist resistance was among the fiercest, since they were already organised and militant even before the war and they were ideologically opposed to the Nazis.
Before D-Day, there were some operations performed by the French Resistance to help with the forthcoming invasion. Communications lines were cut; trains were derailed; roads, water towers, and ammunition depots were destroyed; and some German garrisons were attacked.
There were also resistance movements fighting against the Allied invaders. The German resistance petered out within a few years, while in the Baltic states resistance operations against the occupation continued into the 1960s.
Home fronts
During the war, women worked in factories throughout much of the West and East.Main article: Home front during World War II
"Home front" is the name given to the activities of the civilians of the nations at war. All the main countries reorganized their homefronts to produce munitions and soldiers, with 40–60% of GDP being devoted to the war effort. Women were drafted in the Soviet Union and Britain. Shortages were everywhere, and severe food shortages caused malnutrition and even starvation, such as in the Netherlands and in Leningrad. New workers were recruited, especially housewives, the unemployed, students, and retired people. Skilled jobs were re-engineered and simplified ("de-skilling") so that unskilled workers could handle them. Every major nation imposed censorship on the media as well as a propaganda program designed to boost the war effort and stifle negative rumors. Every major country imposed a system of rationing and price controls. Black markets flourished in areas controlled by Germany. Germany brought in millions of prisoners of war, slave laborers, and forced workers to staff its munitions factories. Many were killed in the bombing raids, the rest became refugees as the war ended.
Technology
German Enigma machine for encryption.Main articles: Technology during World War II and Technological escalation during World War II
Weapons and technology improved rapidly during World War II and some of these played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the war. Many major technologies were used for the first time, including nuclear weapons, radar, proximity fuses, jet engines, ballistic missiles, and data-processing analog devices (primitive computers). Every year, the piston engines were improved. Enormous advances were made in aircraft, submarine, and tank designs, such that models coming into use at the beginning of the war were long obsolete by its end. One entirely new kind of ship was the amphibious landing craft.
Industrial production played a role in the Allied victory. The Allies more effectively mobilized their economies and drew from a larger economic base. The peak year of munitions production was 1944, with the Allies out-producing the Axis by a ratio of 3 to 1. (Germany produced 19% and Japan 7% of the world's munitions; the U.S. produced 47%, Britain and Canada 14%, and the Soviets 11%).[18]
The Allies used low-cost mass production techniques, using standardized models. Japan and Germany continued to rely on expensive hand-crafted methods. Japan thus produced hundreds of airplane designs and did not reach mass-production efficiency; the new models were only slightly better than the original 1940 planes, while the Allies rapidly advanced in technology.[19] Germany thus spent heavily on high-tech weaponry, including the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket, advanced submarines, jet engines, and heavy tanks that proved strategically of minor value. The combination of better logistics and mass production proved crucial in the victory. "The Allies did not depend on simple numbers for victory but on the quality of their technology and the fighting effectiveness of their forces... In both Germany and Japan less emphasis was placed upon the non-combat areas of war: procurement, logistics, military services," concludes historian Richard Overy.[20]
Delivery of weapons to the battlefront was a matter of logistics. The Allies again did a much better job in moving munitions from factories to the front lines. A large fraction of the German tanks after June 1944 never reached the battlefield, and those that did often ran short of fuel. Japan in particular was notably inefficient in its logistics system.[21]
Many new medical and surgical techniques were employed as well as new drugs like sulfa and penicillin, not to mention serious advances in biological warfare and nerve gases. The Japanese control of the quinine supply forced the Australians to invent new anti-malarial drugs. The saline bath was invented to treat burns. More prompt application of sulfa drugs saved countless lives. New local anesthetics were introduced making possible surgery close to the front lines. The Americans discovered that only 20% of wounds were cause by machine-gun or rifle bullets (compared to 35% in World War I). Most came from high explosive shells and fragments, which besides the direct wound caused shock from their blast effects. Most deaths came from shock and blood loss, which were countered by a major innovation, blood transfusions.[22]
Cryptography played an important part in the war, as the United States had broken the Japanese naval codes and knew the Japanese plan of attack at Midway. British and Polish codebreakers deciphered several German codes, giving the Allies an advantage in the European theater as well.
The massive research and development demands of the war accelerated the growth of the scientific communities in Allied states, while German and Japanese laboratories were disbanded; many German engineers and scientists continued their weapons research after the war in the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries.
See also: Military production during World War II and List of World War II military equipment
Aftermath
Germany's territorial losses 1919–1945Main articles: Aftermath of World War II and Effects of World War II
The war concluded with the surrender and occupation of Germany and Japan. It left behind millions of displaced persons and prisoners of war, and resulted in many new international boundaries. The economies of Europe, China and Japan were largely destroyed as a result of the war. In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall devised the "European Recovery Program", better known as the Marshall Plan. Effective from 1948 to 1952, it allocated 13 billion dollars for the reconstruction of Western Europe. To prevent (or at least minimize) future conflicts, the allied nations, led by the United States, formed the United Nations in San Francisco, California in 1945. One of the first actions of the United Nations was the creation of the State of Israel, partly in response to the Holocaust.
Aftermath of World War II in Europe
Main articles: Marshall Plan, Eastern bloc, Iron Curtain, Expulsion of Germans after World War II, Allied Occupation Zones in Germany, Morgenthau plan, and Oder-Neisse line
German occupation zones in 1946 after territorial annexations in the East. The Saarland (in the French zone) is shown with stripes because it was removed from Germany by France in 1947 as a protectorate, and was not incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany until 1957.The end of the war hastened the independence of many British crown colonies (such as India) and Dutch territories (such as Indonesia) and the formation of new nations and alliances throughout Asia and Africa. The Philippines were granted their independence in 1946 as previously promised by the United States. Poland's boundaries were re-drawn to include portions of pre-war Germany, including East Prussia and Upper Silesia, while ceding most of the areas taken by the Soviet Union in the Molotov-Ribbentrop partition of 1939, effectively moving Poland to the west. Germany was split into four zones of occupation, and the three zones under the Western Allies was reconstituted as a constitutional democracy. The Soviet Union's influence increased as they established hegemony over most of eastern Europe, and incorporated parts of Finland and Poland into their new boundaries. Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence, which heightened existing tensions between the two camps and helped establish the Cold War.
Germany was partitioned into four zones of occupation, coordinated by the Allied Control Council. The American, British, and French zones joined in 1949 as the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic. In Germany, economic suppression and denazification took place. Millions of Germans and Poles were expelled from their homelands as a result of the territorial annexations in Eastern Europe agreed upon at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. In the West, Alsace-Lorraine was given to France, which also separated the Saar area from Germany. Austria was separated from Germany and divided into four zones of occupation, which were united in 1955 to become the Republic of Austria. The Soviet Union occupied much of Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In all the USSR-occupied countries, with the exception of Austria, the Soviet Union helped Communist regimes to power. It also annexed the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Aftermath of World War II in Asia
Main articles: Occupied Japan, Division of Korea, and Chinese Civil War
In Asia, Japan was occupied by the U.S, aided by Commonwealth troops, until the peace treaty took effect in 1952. The Japanese Empire's government was dismantled under General Douglas MacArthur and replaced by a constitutional monarchy with the emperor as a figurehead. The defeat of Japan also led to the establishment of the Far Eastern commission which set out policies for Japan to fulfill under the terms of surrender. In accordance with the Yalta Conference agreements, the Soviet Union occupied and subsequently annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril islands. Japanese occupation of Korea also ended, but the peninsula was divided between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, along 38th parallel. The U.S.-backed South Korea would fight the communist North Korea in the Korean War, with Korea remain divided.
World War II was a pivotal point in China's history. Before the war against Japan, China had suffered nearly a century of humiliation at the hands of various imperialist powers and was relegated to a semi-colonial status. However, the war greatly enhanced China's international status. Not only was the central government under Chiang Kai-shek able to abrogate most of the unequal treaties China had signed in the past century, the Republic of China also became a founding member of the United Nations and a permanent member in the Security Council. China also reclaimed Manchuria and Taiwan. Nevertheless, eight years of war greatly taxed the central government, and many of its nation-building measures adopted since it came to power in 1928 were disrupted by the war. Communist activities also expanded greatly in occupied areas, making post-war administration of these areas difficult. Vast war damages and hyperinflation thereafter demoralized the populace, along with the continuation of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Partly because of the severe blow his army and government had suffered during the war against Japan, the Kuomintang, along with state apparatus of the Republic of China, retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and in its place the Chinese communists established the People's Republic of China on the mainland.
Media
Main article: World War II in contemporary culture
The term most used in the United Kingdom and Canada is "Second World War", while American publishers use the term "World War II". Thus the Oxford University Press uses The Oxford Companion to the Second World War in the United Kingdom, and The Oxford Companion to World War II for the identical 1995 book in the United States.
The OED reports the first use of "Second World War" was by novelist H.G. Wells in 1930, although it may well have been used earlier.[23] The term was immediately used when war was declared; for example, the September 3, 1939, issue of the Canadian newspaper, The Calgary Herald. Prior the United States' entry into the War, many Americans referred to it as the "European War".
World War II has been portrayed in numerous media in many languages. The hundreds of fictional (versus documentary) war movies include Twelve O'Clock High (1949), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Dirty Dozen (1967), Patton (1970), Das Boot (1981), Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Pearl Harbor (2001). The war figures prominently in thousands of written works, including Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Akiyuki Nosaka's Grave of the Fireflies, Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Games set within World War II include the board game Axis and Allies and video games 1942 (1984), Wolfenstein 3D (1992), and Call of Duty (2003). The war has been portrayed in many television media, such as Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971) and the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001).
The modern world is still living with the consequences of World War 2, the most titanic conflict in history. Just over 67 years ago on September 1st 1939, Germany invaded Poland without warning. By the evening of September 3rd, Britain and France were at war with Germany and within a week, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa had also joined the war. The world had been plunged into its second world war in 25 years. Six long and bloody years of total war, fought over many thousand of square kilometres followed. From the Hedgerows of Normandy to the streets of Stalingrad, the icy mountains of Norway to the sweltering deserts of Libya, the insect infested jungles of Burma to the coral reefed islands of the pacific. On land, sea and in the air, Poles fought Germans, Italians fought Americans and Japanese fought Australians in a conflict which was finally settled with the use of nuclear weapons. World War 2 involved every major world power in a war for global domination and at its end, more than 60 million people had lost their lives and most of Europe and large parts of Asia lay in ruins.
I hope you will enjoy viewing worldwar-2.net and find its information both helpful and interesting. The website includes an exhaustive day by day timeline, covering every event that occured during World War 2, by military theatre and in chronological order from 1939 through to 1945, which gives a fascinating insight into the most devastating war in our history.
What Really Caused World War 2?
The True Cause of the Second World War
The date of September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, is remembered as the date the war started. But little is remembered about the date Russia also moved into Poland, on September 16,1939. The nation of Poland was now divided between these two war-time allies.
It is interesting to notice what the responses of the major allied nations were to these two dates. When Germany entered the western portion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. But when Russia moved into eastern Poland, there was no war declaration by either nation.
The Soviets caused one of the tragic events of history after they occupied their portion of Poland. They captured approximately 10,000 Polish officers and brutally murdered them, most of them meeting their death in Katyn Forest near the Russian town of Smolensk. The traditional story about their deaths was that the officers had been killed by the German army, but now the evidence is clear that the Russians committed this crime. The other victims were taken aboard a barge which was towed out to sea and then sunk.
Even with all of these efforts of the American businessman to construct the German war machine with the full knowledge and approval of President Roosevelt, he kept repeating that the nation would continue its "neutral" position: it would remain out of the war. On September 1, 1939, when the war started, he was asked by a reporter whether America would stay out of the war and Roosevelt replied: "... I believe we can, and every effort will be made by the Administration to do so."
Roosevelt responded by appointing George Marshall, a CFR member, as Chief of Staff of the Army over General Douglas MacArthur, not a member of the CFR, and other senior officers.
Others did not believe Roosevelt's claim that America would remain neutral. On September 12, 1939, Hans Thomson, the German charge d'affaires in Washington, cabled the German government: "... if defeat should threaten the Allies (Great Britain and France), Roosevelt is determined to go to war against Germany, even in the face of the resistance of his own country."
But Germany's war efforts were still dependent on oil resources, and it came from a variety of sources, some external to the German border. Before Rumania was invaded by the Germans, it was selling oil to Germany. Life magazine of February 19, 1940, has a picture of Rumanian oil being loaded into oil tank cars. The picture has a caption under it which reads, in part: "Oil for Germany moves in these tank cars of American Essolube and British Shell out of Creditui Minier yards near Ploesti (Rumania.) Notice that cars are marked for German-American Oil Co. and German Railways, consigned to Hamburg and Wuppertal in Germany. They were sent from Germany to speed up Rumanian oil shipments." This picture was taken after Germany had invaded Austria and Poland, yet American and British oil companies are transporting oil for the German government, (the tank cars in the picture are dearly marked "Essolube," and "Shell").
And other sources supplied oil as well. When the German air force ran short of fuel, this was generously supplied from the great refinery belonging to the Standard Oil Company situated on the island of Aruba via Spanish tankers. This occurred during the war itself, yet these tankers were not sunk by American submarines.
Even with the purchases of oil from non-German sources, the major supplier of oil was still the cartel. The I.G. Farben-Standard Oil cooperation for production of synthetic oil from coal gave the I.G. Farben cartel a monopoly of German gasoline production during World War II. Just under one half of German high octane gasoline in 1945 was produced directly by I.G. Farben, and most of the balance by its affiliated companies.
But as the war in Europe continued, America's leaders were attempting to get America involved, even though the American people didn't want to become part of it Roosevelt, the presidential candidate, was promising the American people that the Roosevelt administration would remain neutral should he be re-elected. Others knew better. One, for instance, was General Hugh Johnson, who said: "I know of no well informed Washington observer who isn't convinced that, if Mr. Roosevelt is elected (in 1940), he will drag us into war at the first opportunity, and that, if none presents itself, he will make one."
Roosevelt had two opportunities to involve America in World War II: Japan was at war with China, and Germany was at war with Great Britain, France and other countries. Both war zones presented plenty of opportunities to involve the American government in the war, and Roosevelt was quick to seize upon the opportunities presented.
His first opportunity came from the war in the Pacific. It was in August, 1940, that the United States broke the Japanese "purple" war-time code. This gave the American government the ability to read and understand all of their recoverable war-time messages. Machines were manufactured to de-code Japan's messages, and they were sent all over the world, but none was sent to Pearl Harbor.
Roosevelt's public efforts to involve America, while ostensibly remaining neutral, started in August, 1940, when the National Guard was voted into Federal service for one year. This was followed in September by the Selective Service Act, also for one year's duration.
But the key to America's early involvement occurred on September 28, 1940, when Japan, Germany and Italy signed the Tripartite Treaty. This treaty required that any of the three nations had to respond by declaring war should any one of the other three be attacked by any of the Allied nations. This meant that should Japan attack the United States, and the United States responded by declaring war against Japan, it would automatically be at war with the other two nations, Germany and Italy.
Roosevelt now knew that war with Japan meant war with Germany. His problem was solved.
He had made secret commitments to Winston Churchill and the English government to become involved in the war against Germany and he knew that the only way he could fulfill his secret commitments to Churchill to get us into the war, without openly dishonoring his pledges to the American people to keep us out, was by provoking Germany or Japan to attack.
Roosevelt moved towards the Pacific theater first, knowing that, if he could provoke Japan to attack America first, America would automatically be at war with Germany as well. He also knew that, should Germany attack America, Japan would have to declare war on America. So Roosevelt attempted to get either nation to attack the United States first. Japan was to get the first opportunity.
In October, 1940, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox sent for Admiral J.O. Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the American fleet in the Pacific. Knox advised him that the President wanted him to establish a patrol of the Pacific—a wall of American naval vessels stretched across the western Pacific in such a way as to make it impossible for Japan to reach any of her sources of supply; a blockade of Japan to prevent by force her use of any part of the Pacific Ocean. Richardson protested vigorously. He said that would be an act of war, and besides, we would lose our navy. Of course Roosevelt had to abandon it.
This scene in history poses two rather interesting questions:
Why did Roosevelt, the Commander-in-Chief of all armed forces, including the Navy, not directly order Admiral Richardson to do as he wished? Why did he choose to use his Secretary of the Navy to almost politely ask him to create the naval patrol?
Is it possible that Roosevelt did not choose to use his supreme power because he knew that this was indeed an act of war and that he did not want to be identified as the originator of the plan. If Richardson had agreed to Knox's proposal, and Japan had attacked an American naval vessel, Roosevelt could have directly blamed the admiral for allowing the vessel to get into the position of being fired upon by the Japanese Navy in the first place.
Roosevelt wanted a scapegoat and Richardson refused.
Why did Roosevelt not replace the admiral with someone who would do exactly as he wished?
It is possible that Roosevelt realized that Richardson now knew about the plan, and since he did not approve, he would be in a position to clearly identify Roosevelt as the source of the idea should the second admiral agree to it.
Roosevelt did not want to jeopardize his carefully constructed image as a "dove" in the question of whether or not America should become involved in the war.
It is important to remember that, in November, 1940, just after this incident, candidate Roosevelt told the American people: "I say to you fathers and mothers, and I will say it again and again and again, your boys will not be sent into foreign wars."
Richardson later appraised his situation at Pearl Harbor and felt that his position was extremely precarious. He visited Roosevelt twice during 1940 to recommend that the fleet be withdrawn to the west coast of America, because:
His ships were inadequately manned for war;
The Hawaiian area was too exposed for Fleet training; and
The Fleet defenses against both air and submarine attacks were far below the required standards of strength.
That meant that the American government had done nothing to shore up the defenses of Pearl Harbor against an offshore attack since the naval manuevers of 1932 discovered just how vulnerable the island was.
Richardson's reluctance to provide Roosevelt's incident for the United States to enter the war, and his concern about the status of the Fleet, led to his being unexpectedly relieved of the Fleet command in January, 1941.
The American Ambassador to Tokyo, Joseph C. Grew, was one of the first to officially discover that Pearl Harbor was the intended target of the Japanese attack, as he corresponded with President Roosevelt's State Department on January 27, 1941: "The Peruvian minister has informed a member of my staff that he had heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that, in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor...."
In March 1941, President Roosevelt was still hoping for an incident involving the United States and Germany, according to Harold Ickes, Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior. He reported: "At dinner on March 24, he [Roosevelt] remarked that 'things are coming to a head; Germany will be making a blunder soon.' There could be no doubt of the President's scarcely concealed desire that there might be an incident which would justify our declaring a state of war against Germany...."
Roosevelt and Churchill had conspired together to incite an incident to allow America's entry into the war. According to Churchill:
The President had said that he would wage war but not declare it, and that he would become more and more provocative. If the Germans did not like it, they could attack American forces.
The United States Navy was taking over the convoy route to Iceland.
The President's orders to these escorts were to attack any U-boat which showed itself, even if it were two or three hundred miles away from the convoy....
Everything was to be done to force "an incident".
Hitler would be faced with the dilemma of either attacking the convoys and dashing with the United States Navy or holding off, thus "giving us victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. It might suit us in six or eight weeks to provoke Hider by taunting him with this difficult choice."
But Hider was attempting to avoid a confrontation with the United States. He had told his naval commanders at the end of July [1941] to avoid incidents with the United States while the Eastern campaign [the war against Russia] was still in progress .... A month later these orders were still in force.
Churchill even wrote to Roosevelt after the German ship the Bismarck sank the British ship the Hood, recommending in April, 1941: "... that an American warship should find the Prinz Eugen (the escort to the Bismarck) then draw her fire, 'thus providing the incident for which the United States would be so thankful,' i.e., bring her into the war."
Hitler was not as wise in other matters. He attacked his "ally" Russia on June 22, 1941, even though Germany and Russia had signed a treaty not to declare war on each other.
With this action, the pressure to get the United States involved in the war really accelerated. Roosevelt, on June 24, 1941, told the American people: "Of course we are going to give all the aid that we possibly can to Russia."
And an American program of Lend-Lease began, supplying Russia enormous quantities of war materials, all on credit.
So with Hitler pre-occupied with the war against Russia and refusing to involve himself with the Americans on the open sea, Roosevelt had to turn his attentions back to Japan for the incident he needed.
The next step was to assist other countries, the English and the Dutch, to embargo oil shipments to Japan in an attempt to force them into an incident that would enable the United States to enter the war.
Japan, as a relatively small island, and with no oil industry to speak of, had to look elsewhere for its oil, and this was the reason for the proposed embargo. It was thought that this action would provoke Japan into an incident. Ex-President Herbert Hoover also saw the manipulations leading to war and he warned the United States in August, 1941: "The American people should insistently demand that Congress put a stop to step-by-step projection of the United States into undeclared war... ."
But the Congress wasn't listening.
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chancellor of Germany
Reichskanzler
In office
30 January 1933 – 30 April 1945
Preceded by Kurt von Schleicher
Succeeded by Joseph Goebbels
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Head of State
Führer und Reichskanzler
In office
2 August 1934 – 30 April 1945
Preceded by Paul von Hindenburg
(as President)
Succeeded by Karl Dönitz
(as President)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Born April 20, 1889
Braunau am Inn, Austria
Died April 30, 1945
Berlin, Germany
Political party National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)
Spouse Eva Braun
(married on 29 April 1945)
Religion see section below
Hitler holding a speechAdolf Hitler (help·info) (April 20, 1889-April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933, and Führer (Leader) of Germany from 1934 until his death. He was leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), better known as the Nazi Party.
Hitler gained power in a Germany facing crisis after World War I. Using propaganda and charismatic oratory, he was able to appeal to the economic need of the lower and middle classes, while sounding resonant chords of nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism. With the establishment of a restructured economy, a rearmed military, and a totalitarian and fascist regime, Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy with the intention of expanding German Lebensraum ("living space"), which triggered World War II when Germany annexed Austria, the Czech lands, and invaded Poland, much of which was also annexed to form the "Greater German Reich" (Großdeutsches Reich).
At their greatest extent, Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers occupied most of Europe, but were eventually defeated by the Allies. By the end of the war, Hitler's racial policies had culminated in the killing of approximately 11 million people, including the genocide of some 6 million Jews, in what is now known as the Holocaust. In total, the war in Europe cost approximately 45 million people their lives.
In the final days of the war, Hitler, along with his new wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin, as the city was being overrun by the Red Army of the Soviet Union.
Contents [hide]
1 Early years
1.1 Childhood and heritage
1.2 Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
1.3 World War I
2 The early years of the Nazi Party
2.1 Hitler's entry into politics
2.2 The Beer Hall Putsch
2.3 Mein Kampf
2.4 The rebuilding of the party
3 The road to power
3.1 The Brüning administration
3.2 The cabinets of Papen and Schleicher
3.3 Hitler's appointment as Chancellor
3.4 Reichstag Fire and the March elections
3.5 The "Day of Potsdam" and the Enabling Act
3.6 Removal of remaining limits
4 The Third Reich
4.1 Economics and culture
4.2 Rearmament and new alliances
4.3 The Holocaust
5 World War II
5.1 Opening moves
5.2 Path to defeat
5.3 Defeat and death
6 Legacy
7 Hitler's religious beliefs
8 Health and sexuality
8.1 Health
8.2 Sexuality
9 Hitler's family
10 People associated with Hitler
11 Miscellany
12 Hitler in various media
12.1 Movie clip
12.2 Speeches and talk by Hitler
12.3 Recording of Hitler in private conversation
12.4 Films
12.5 Documentaries
12.6 Dramatizations
12.7 Further reading
13 See also
14 References
15 External links
Early years
Childhood and heritage
Adolf Hitler as an infantHitler was born April 20, 1889 at Braunau am Inn, Austria, a village in Upper Austria, bordering Germany. He was the third son and fourth child of six. His father, Alois Hitler, (born Schicklgruber), (1837–1903), was a customs official in Austria-Hungary on the border with the German Empire; his mother, Klara Pölzl, (1860–1907), Alois' second cousin, was his father's third wife. Because of the close kinship of the two, a special papal dispensation had to be obtained before the marriage could take place, both being Roman Catholic. Of Alois and Klara's six children, only Adolf and his younger sister Paula reached adulthood. Hitler's father also had a son, Alois Jr, and a daughter, Angela, by his second wife. There were no children by his first wife.
Hitler's father, Alois, was born illegitimate and for the first thirty-nine years of his life bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. However, in 1876, Alois began using the surname of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler, after visiting a priest who was responsible for birth registries. The priest declared that Johann Hiedler was Alois' father (Alois gave the impression that Georg was still alive but he was long dead). The name was variously spelled Hiedler, Huetler, Huettler and Hitler and probably changed to "Hitler" by a clerk. The origin of the name is either from the German word Hittler and similar, "one who lives in a hut", "shepherd", or from the Slavic word Hidlar and Hidlarcek.
Later, Hitler was accused by enemies of not being a Hitler, but a Schicklgruber. This was exploited in Allied propaganda during World War II. Pamphlets bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were airdropped over German cities.[citation needed] Adolf was legally born a Hitler, however, and was also related to Hiedler via his maternal grandmother, Johanna Hiedler.
The name, "Adolf", comes from Old High German for "noble wolf" ("Adel"="nobility" + "wolf").[1] Hence, not surprisingly, one of Hitler's self-given nicknames was Wolf or Herr Wolf — he began using this nickname in the early 1920s and was addressed by it only by intimates (as "Uncle Wolf" by the Wagners) up until the fall of the Third Reich.[2] The names of his various headquarters scattered throughout continental Europe (Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Wolfsschlucht in France, Werwolf in Ukraine, etc.) seem to reflect this. By his closest family and relatives, Hitler was known simply as "Adi".[citation needed]
As a boy, Hitler was whipped almost daily by his father. Years later he told his secretary, "I then resolved never again to cry when my father whipped me. A few days later I had the opportunity of putting my will to the test. My mother, frightened, took refuge in the front of the door. As for me, I counted silently the blows of the stick which lashed my rear end." [3]
Hitler was not sure who his paternal grandfather was, but it was probably either Johann Georg Hiedler or his brother Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. There were rumours that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish [1] and that his paternal grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber, became pregnant while working as a servant in a Jewish household. During the 1920s, the implications of these rumours along with his known family history were politically explosive, especially for the proponent of a racist ideology. Opponents tried to prove that Hitler, the leader of the anti-Semitic Nazi Party, had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Although these rumours were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins. Soviet propaganda insisted Hitler was a Jew, though more modern research tends to diminish the probability that he had Jewish ancestors. According to Robert G. L. Waite in The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, Hitler made it illegal for German women to work in Jewish households, and after the "Anschluss" (annexation) of Austria, Hitler had his father's hometown obliterated by turning it into an artillery practice area. Hitler seemed to fear that he was Jewish, and as Waite points out, this fact is more important than whether he actually was.
Because of Alois Hitler's profession, his family moved frequently, from Braunau to Passau, Lambach, Leonding, and Linz. As a young child, Hitler was reportedly a good student at the various elementary schools he attended; however, in sixth grade (1900–1), his first year of high school (Realschule) in Linz, he failed completely and had to repeat the grade. His teachers reported that he had "no desire to work." One of Hitler's classmates in the Linz Realschule was Ludwig Wittgenstein, who went on to become one of the great philosophers of the 20th century.[4]
Hitler later explained this educational slump as a kind of rebellion against his father Alois, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a customs official, although Adolf wanted to become a painter. This explanation is further supported by Hitler's later description of himself as a misunderstood artist. However, after Alois died on January 3, 1903, when Adolf was 13, Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. At the age of 16, Hitler left school with no qualifications.
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
From 1905 onward, Hitler lived a Bohemian life on a fatherless child's pension and support from his mother. He was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907 – 1908) due to "unfitness for painting", and was told his abilities lay in the field of architecture. His memoirs reflect a fascination with the subject:
"The purpose of my trip was to study the picture gallery in the Court Museum, but I had eyes for scarcely anything but the Museum itself. From morning until late at night, I ran from one object of interest to another, but it was always the buildings which held my primary interest." (Mein Kampf, Chapter II, paragraph 3).
Following the school rector's recommendation, he too became convinced this was the path to pursue, yet he lacked the proper academic preparation for architecture school:
"In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible.''"(Mein Kampf, Chapter II, paragraph 5 & 6).
On December 21, 1907, his mother, Klara, died a painful death from breast cancer at the age of 47. Hitler gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his younger sister Paula, but when he was 21 he inherited some money from an aunt. He worked as a struggling painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists (there is evidence he produced over 2000 paintings and drawings before World War I).
A watercolour by Adolf Hitler depicting Laon, FranceAfter the second refusal from the Academy of Arts, Hitler gradually ran out of money. By 1909, he sought refuge in a homeless shelter, and by the beginning of 1910 had settled permanently into a house for poor working men.
Hitler first became an active anti-Semite in Vienna, which had a large Jewish community, including many Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe and where traditional religious prejudice mixed with recent racist theories. Hitler was influenced over time by the writings of the race ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz von Liebenfels and polemics from politicians such as Karl Lueger, founder of the Christian Social Party and mayor of Vienna, one of the most outrageous demagogues in history, and Georg Ritter von Schönerer, leader of the pan-Germanic Away from Rome! movement. Hitler later wrote in his book Mein Kampf that his transition from opposing anti-Semitism on religious grounds to supporting it on racial grounds came from having seen an Orthodox Jew: In tracing his anti-semitism it should be noted that Hitler's anti-semitic views may also have been directly influenced by the anti-semitism of the founder of the Protestant church, Martin Luther, author of "The Jews and Their Lies", whom Hitler mentions in "Mein Kampf". Kristallnacht took place on 10 November - the day of Martin Luther's birthday - and bears a resemblance to Luther's own advice on how the Jews should be dealt with.
"There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had become Europeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a systematic anti-Semitism.
Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I carefully watched the man stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?"
(Mein Kampf, vol. 1, chap. 2: "Years of study and suffering in Vienna")
Hitler began to claim the Jews were natural enemies of what he called the Aryan race. He held them responsible for Austria's crisis. He also identified certain forms of Socialism and especially Bolshevism, which had many Jews among its leaders, as Jewish movements, merging his anti-Semitism with anti-Marxism. Blaming Germany's military defeat on the 1917 Revolutions[citation needed], he considered Jews the culprit of Imperial Germany's military defeat and subsequent economic problems as well.
A landscape painted by Adolf HitlerGeneralising from tumultuous scenes in the parliament of the multi-national Austria Monarchy, he developed a firm belief in the inferiority of the democratic parliamentary system, which formed the basis of his political views. However, according to August Kubizek, his close friend and roommate at the time, he was more interested in the operas of Richard Wagner than in politics.
Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He later wrote in Mein Kampf that he had always longed to live in a "real" German city. In Munich, he became more interested in architecture and the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape military service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army later arrested him. After a physical exam (during which his height was measured at 173 cm, or 5 ft 8 in) and a contrite plea, he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World War I in August 1914, he immediately petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to serve in a Bavarian regiment, this request was granted, and Adolf Hitler enlisted in the Bavarian army.[5]
World War I
Hitler soldiered in France and Belgium as a messenger for the regimental headquarters of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment (also called Regiment List after its first commander), which exposed him to enemy fire. Unlike his fellow soldiers, Hitler never complained about the food or hard conditions, preferring to talk about art or history. He drew cartoons and instructional drawings for the army newspaper.
His behaviour as a soldier was considered sloppy,[citation needed] but his duties required taking dispatches to and from fighting areas and he was twice decorated for bravery, as message-runner duties were particularly dangerous. He received the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1914 and the Iron Cross, First Class, in August 1918, an honour rarely given to a Gefreiter. However, because the regimental staff thought Hitler lacked leadership skills, and (according to Kershaw) Hitler's unwillingness to leave regimental headquarters (which would have been likely in event of promotion), he was never promoted to Unteroffizier. Other historians say that the reason he was not promoted is that he did not have German citizenship. His duty station at regimental headquarters, while often dangerous, gave Hitler time to pursue his artwork. During October 1916 in northern France, Hitler was wounded in the leg, but returned to the front in March 1917. He received the Wound Badge later that year, as his injury was the direct result of hostile fire. Sebastian Haffner, referring to Hitler's experience at the front, suggests he did have at least some understanding of the military.
On October 15, 1918 Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, temporarily blinded by a poison gas attack. The English psychologist David Lewis[6] and Bernhard Horstmann indicate the blindness may have been the result of a conversion disorder (then known as hysteria). Hitler said it was during this experience that he became convinced the purpose of his life was to "save Germany". Some scholars, notably Lucy Dawidowicz,[7] argue that an intention to exterminate Europe's Jews was fully formed in Hitler's mind at this time, though he probably hadn't thought through how it could be done.
Two passages in Mein Kampf mention the use of poison gas:
At the beginning of the Great War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas ... then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain. (Volume 2, Chapter 15 "The Right to Self-Defence").
These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human weakness and must lead to success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the other side also learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The weaker natures must be told that here it is a case of to be or not to be. (Volume 1, Chapter 2 "Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna")
Hitler had long admired Germany, and during the war he had become a passionate German patriot, although he did not become a German citizen until 1932. He was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918 even while the German army still held enemy territory. Like many other German nationalists, Hitler believed in the Dolchstoßlegende ("dagger-stab legend") which claimed that the army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" by civilian leaders and Marxists back on the home front. These politicians were later dubbed the November Criminals.
The Treaty of Versailles deprived Germany of various territories, demilitarized the Rhineland and imposed other economically damaging sanctions. The treaty also declared Germany the culprit for all the horrors of the Great War, something which major historians like John Keegan now consider at least in part to be victor's justice, as most European nations in the run-up to World War I had become increasingly militarised and had in fact been eager to fight. The culpability of Germany was used as a basis to impose not-yet-specified reparations on Germany (the amount was repeatedly revised under the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the Hoover Moratorium). Germany in turn perceived the treaty and especially the paragraph on the German guilt as a humiliation. For example, there was a nearly total demilitarisation of the armed forces, allowing Germany only 6 battleships, no submarines, no air force, an army of 100,000 without conscription and no armoured vehicles. The treaty was an important factor in both the social and political conditions encountered by Hitler and his National Socialist Party as they sought power. Hitler and his party used the signing of the treaty by the "November Criminals" as a reason to build up Germany so that it could never happen again. He also used the "November Criminals" as scapegoats, although at the Paris peace conference, these politicians had had very little choice in the matter.
The early years of the Nazi Party
A copy of Adolf Hitler's forged DAP membership card. His actual membership number was 555 (the 55th member of the party - the 500 was added to make the group appear larger) but later the number was reduced to create the impression that Hitler was one of the founding members (Ian Kershaw Hubris). Hitler had wanted to create his own party, but was ordered by his superiors in the Reichswehr to infiltrate an existing one instead.
Hitler's entry into politics
Main article: Hitler's political beliefs
After World War I, Hitler remained in the army and returned to Munich, where he - in contrast to his later declarations - participated in the funeral march for the murdered Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner.[8] After the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, he took part in "national thinking" courses organized by the Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian Reichswehr Group, Headquarters 4 under Captain Karl Mayr. A key purpose of this group was to create a scapegoat[citation needed] for the outbreak of the war and Germany's defeat. The scapegoats were found in "international Jewry", communists, and politicians across the party spectrum, especially the parties of the Weimar Coalition, who were deemed "November Criminals".
In July 1919, Hitler was appointed a Verbindungsmann (police spy) of an Aufklärungskommando (Intelligence Commando) of the Reichswehr, for the purpose of influencing other soldiers toward similar ideas and was assigned to infiltrate a small party, the German Workers' Party (DAP), which was thought of to be a possibly socialist party (See: Adolf Hitler's inspection of the German Workers' Party). During his inspection of the party, Hitler was impressed with Drexler's anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas, which favoured a strong active government, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism and mutual solidarity of all members of society.
Here Hitler also met Dietrich Eckart, one of the early founders of the party and member of the occult Thule Society.[9] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him, teaching him how to dress and speak, and introducing him to a wide range of people. Hitler in return thanked Eckart by paying tribute to him in the second volume of Mein Kampf.
Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and with his former superiors' continued encouragement began participating full time in the party's activities. By early 1921, Adolf Hitler was becoming highly effective at speaking in front of even larger crowds. In February, Hitler spoke before a crowd of nearly six thousand in Munich. To publicize the meeting, he sent out two truckloads of Party supporters to drive around with swastikas, cause a commotion and throw out leaflets, their first use of this tactic. Hitler gained notoriety outside of the Party for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians (including monarchists, nationalists and other non-internationalist socialists) and especially against Marxists and Jews.
The DAP was centered in Munich which had become a hotbed of German nationalists who included Army officers determined to crush Marxism and undermine or even overthrow the young German republic. Gradually they noticed Adolf Hitler and his growing movement as a vehicle to hitch themselves to. Hitler traveled to Berlin to visit nationalist groups during the summer of 1921 and in his absence there was an unexpected revolt among the DAP leadership in Munich.
The Party was run by an executive committee whose original members considered Hitler to be overbearing and even dictatorial. To weaken Hitler's position they formed an alliance with a group of socialists from Augsburg. Hitler rushed back to Munich and countered them by tendering his resignation from the Party on July 11, 1921. When they realized the loss of Hitler would effectively mean the end of the Party, he seized the moment and announced he would return on the condition that he was made chairman and given dictatorial powers. Infuriated committee members (including founder Anton Drexler) held out at first. Meanwhile an anonymous pamphlet appeared entitled Adolf Hitler: Is he a traitor?, attacking Hitler's lust for power and criticizing the violence-prone men around him. Hitler responded to its publication in a Munich newspaper by suing for libel and later won a small settlement.
The executive committee of the DAP eventually backed down and Hitler's demands were put to a vote of party members. Hitler received 543 votes for and only one against. At the next gathering on July 29, 1921, Adolf Hitler was introduced as Führer of the National Socialist Party, marking the first time this title was publicly used. Hitler changed the name of the party to the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP).
Hitler's beer hall oratory, attacking Jews, social democrats, liberals, reactionary monarchists, capitalists and communists, began attracting adherents. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, the former air force pilot Hermann Göring, and the army captain Ernst Röhm, who became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organization, the SA (Sturmabteilung, or "Storm Division"), which protected meetings and attacked political opponents. Hitler also assimilated independent groups, such as the Nuremberg-based Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft, led by Julius Streicher, who now became Gauleiter of Franconia. Hitler also attracted the attention of local business interests, was accepted into influential circles of Munich society and became associated with wartime General Erich Ludendorff during this time.
The Beer Hall Putsch
Main article: Beer Hall Putsch
Encouraged by this early support, Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an attempt to seize power later known as the Beer Hall Putsch (and sometimes as the Hitler Putsch or Munich Putsch). The Nazi Party had copied the Italian Fascists in appearance and also had adopted some programmatical points and now, in the turbulent year 1923, Hitler wanted to emulate Mussolini's "March on Rome" by staging his own "Campaign in Berlin". Hitler and Ludendorff obtained the clandestine support of Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler along with leading figures in the Reichswehr and the police. As political posters show, Ludendorff, Hitler and the heads of the Bavarian police and military planned on forming a new government.
However on November 8, 1923 Kahr and the military withdrew their support during a meeting in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall outside of Munich. A surprised Hitler had them arrested and proceeded with the coup. Unknown to him, Kahr and the other detainees had been released on Ludendorff's orders after he obtained their word not to interfere. That night they prepared resistance measures against the coup and in the morning, when Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government as a start to their "March on Berlin", the army quickly dispersed them (Ludendorff was wounded and a few other Nazis were killed).
Hitler fled to the home of friends and contemplated suicide. He was soon arrested for high treason and appointed Alfred Rosenberg as temporary leader of the party but found himself in an environment somewhat receptive to his beliefs. During Hitler's trial, sympathetic magistrates allowed Hitler to turn his debacle into a propaganda stunt. He was given almost unlimited amounts of time to present his arguments to the court, and his popularity soared when he voiced basic nationalistic sentiments shared by some of the public. On April 1, 1924 Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison for the crime of conspiracy to commit treason. Hitler received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from admirers. Hitler was released on December 20, 1924 after the authorities decided that he was not a danger to the public. Including remand, he had served just over one year of his five-year sentence.
Mein Kampf
Main article: Mein Kampf
While at Landsberg he dictated his political book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) to his deputy Rudolf Hess. The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was both an autobiography and an exposition of his political ideology. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926 respectively, selling about 240,000 copies between 1925 and 1934 alone. By the end of the war, about 10 million copies had been sold or distributed (every newly-wed couple, as well as front soldiers, received free copies).
Hitler spent years dodging taxes on the royalties of his book, and had accumulated a tax debt of about 405,500 Reichsmarks (€6m in today's money) by the time he became chancellor (at which time his debt was waived).[10][11]
The rebuilding of the party
At the time of Hitler's release, the political situation in Germany had calmed and the economy had improved, which hampered Hitler's opportunities for agitation. Though the Hitler Putsch had given Hitler some national prominence, his party's mainstay was still Munich.
As Hitler was still banned from public speeches, he appointed Gregor Strasser, who in 1924 had been elected to the Reichstag, as Reichsorganisationsleiter, authorizing him to organize the party in northern Germany. Gregor, joined by his younger brother Otto and Joseph Goebbels, steered an increasingly independent course, emphasizing the socialist element in the party's programme. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Gauleiter Nord-West became an internal opposition, threatening Hitler's authority, but this faction was defeated at the Bamberg Conference (1926), during which Goebbels joined Hitler.
After this encounter, Hitler centralized the party even more and asserted the Führerprinzip ("Leader principle") as the basic principle of party organization. Leaders were not elected by their group but were rather appointed by their superior and were answerable to them while demanding unquestioning obedience from their inferiors. Consistent with Hitler's disdain for democracy, all power and authority devolved from the top down.
A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to convey a sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated German Empire by the Western Allies. Germany had lost economically important territory in Europe along with its colonies and in admitting to sole responsibility for the war had agreed to pay a huge reparations bill totaling 132 billion marks. Most Germans bitterly resented these terms but early Nazi attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "international Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.
Having failed in overthrowing the Republic by a coup, Hitler now pursued the "strategy of legality": this meant formally adhering to the rules of the Weimar Republic until he had legally gained power and then transforming liberal democracy into a Nazi dictatorship. Some party members, especially in the paramilitary SA, opposed this strategy and Ernst Röhm ridiculed Hitler as "Adolphe Legalité".
The road to power
Main article: Hitler's rise to power
Nazi Party Election Results
Date Votes Percentage Seats in Reichstag Background
May 1924 1,918,300 6.5 32 Hitler in prison
December 1924 907,300 3.0 14 Hitler is released from prison
May 1928 810,100 2.6 12
September 1930 6,409,600 18.3 107 After the financial crisis
July 1932 13,745,800 37.4 230 After Hitler was candidate for presidency
November 1932 11,737,000 33.1 196
March 1933 17,277,000 43.9 288 During Hitler's term as Chancellor of Germany
The Brüning administration
The political turning point for Hitler came when the Great Depression hit Germany in 1930. The Weimar Republic had never been firmly rooted and was openly opposed by right-wing conservatives (including monarchists), Communists and the Nazis. As the parties loyal to the democratic, parliamentary republic found themselves unable to agree on counter-measures, their Grand Coalition broke up and was replaced by a minority cabinet. The new Chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, lacking a majority in parliament, had to implement his measures through the President's emergency decrees. Tolerated by the majority of parties, the exception soon became the rule and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government.
The Reichstag's initial opposition to Brüning's measures led to premature elections in September 1930. The republican parties lost their majority and their ability to resume the Grand Coalition, while the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag, becoming the second largest party in Germany.
Hitler emerges from the Brown House in Munich (headquarters of the Nazi party during the last days of the Weimar Republic) after a post-election meeting in 1930.Brüning's measure of budget consolidation and financial austerity brought little economic improvement and was extremely unpopular. Under these circumstances, Hitler appealed to the bulk of German farmers, war veterans and the middle-class who had been hard-hit by both the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression. Hitler received little response from the urban working classes and traditionally Catholic regions.
Meanwhile, on September 18, 1931, Hitler's niece Geli Raubal was found dead in her bedroom in his Munich apartment (his half-sister Angela and her daughter Geli had been with him in Munich since 1929), an apparent suicide. Geli was 19 years younger than he was and had used his gun, drawing rumours of a relationship between the two. The event is viewed as having caused lasting turmoil for him.
In 1932, Hitler intended to run against the aging President Paul von Hindenburg in the scheduled presidential elections. Though Hitler had left Austria in 1913, he still had not acquired German citizenship and hence could not run for public office. In February, however, the state government of Brunswick, in which the Nazi Party participated, appointed Hitler to some minor administrative post and also gave him citizenship. The new German citizen ran against Hindenburg, who was supported by a broad range of reactionary nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, Republican and even social democratic parties, and against the Communist presidential candidate. His campaign was called "Hitler über Deutschland" (Hitler over Germany). The name had a double meaning.
Besides an obvious reference to Hitler's dictatorial intentions, it also referred to the fact that Hitler was campaigning by aircraft. This was a brand new political tactic that allowed Hitler to speak in two cities in one day, which was practically unheard of at the time. Hitler came in second on both rounds, attaining more than 35% of the vote during the second one in April. Although he lost to Hindenburg, the election established Hitler as a realistic and fresh alternative in German politics.
The cabinets of Papen and Schleicher
President Hindenburg, influenced by the Camarilla, became increasingly estranged from Brüning and pushed his Chancellor to move the government in a decidedly authoritarian and right-wing direction. This culminated, in May 1932, with the resignation of the Brüning cabinet.
Hindenburg appointed the nobleman Franz von Papen as chancellor, heading a "Cabinet of Barons". Papen was bent on authoritarian rule and, since in the Reichstag only the conservative DNVP supported his administration, he immediately called for new elections in July. In these elections, the Nazis achieved their biggest success yet and won 230 seats.
The Nazis had become the largest party in the Reichstag without which no stable government could be formed. Papen tried to convince Hitler to become Vice-Chancellor and enter a new government with a parliamentary basis. Hitler however rejected this offer and put further pressure on Papen by entertaining parallel negotiations with the Centre Party, Papen's former party, which was bent on bringing down the renegade Papen. In both negotiations, Hitler demanded that he, as leader of the strongest party, must be Chancellor, but President Hindenburg consistently refused to appoint the "Bohemian private" to the Chancellorship.
After a vote of no-confidence in the Papen government, supported by 84% of the deputies, the new Reichstag was dissolved and new elections were called in November. This time, the Nazis lost some seats but still remained the largest party in the Reichstag.
After Papen failed to secure a majority, he proposed to dissolve the parliament again along with an indefinite postponement of elections. Hindenburg at first accepted this, but after General Kurt von Schleicher and the military withdrew their support, Hindenburg instead dismissed Papen and appointed Schleicher, who promised he could secure a majority government by negotiations with both the Social Democrats, the trade unions, and dissidents from the Nazi party under Gregor Strasser. In January 1933, however, Schleicher had to admit failure in these efforts and asked Hindenburg for emergency powers along with the same postponement of elections that he had opposed earlier, to which the President reacted by dismissing Schleicher.
Hitler's appointment as Chancellor
Meanwhile Papen, resentful because of his dismissal, tried to get his revenge on Schleicher by working toward the General's downfall, through forming an intrigue with the camarilla and Alfred Hugenberg, media mogul and chairman of the DNVP. Also involved were Hjalmar Schacht, Fritz Thyssen and other leading German businessmen. They financially supported the Nazi Party, which had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by the cost of heavy campaigning. The businessmen also wrote letters to Hindenburg, urging him to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties" which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people."[12]
Finally, the President reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor of a coalition government formed by the NSDAP and DNVP. Hitler and two other Nazi ministers (Frick, Göring) were to be contained by a framework of conservative cabinet ministers, most notably by Papen as Vice-Chancellor and by Hugenberg as Minister of Economics. Papen wanted to use Hitler as a figure-head, but the Nazis had gained key positions, most notably the Ministry of the Interior. On the morning of January 30, 1933, in Hindenburg's office, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor during what some observers later described as a brief and simple ceremony.
Reichstag Fire and the March elections
Having become Chancellor, Hitler foiled all attempts to gain a majority in parliament and on that basis persuaded President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag again. Elections were scheduled for early March, but on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. Since a Dutch independent communist was found in the building, the fire was blamed on a Communist plot to which the government reacted with the Reichstag Fire Decree of February 28, which suspended basic rights, including habeas corpus. Under the provisions of this decree, the German Communist Party and other groups were suppressed, and Communist functionaries and deputies were arrested, put to flight, or murdered. In the same month Hitler reportedly banned gay pornography, homosexual bars and bath-houses and groups that promoted "gay rights".[citation needed]
Campaigning continued, with the Nazis making use of paramilitary violence, anti-Communist hysteria, and the government's resources for propaganda. On election day, March 6, the NSDAP increased its result to 43.9% of the vote, remaining the largest party, but its victory was marred by its failure to secure an absolute majority. Hitler had to maintain his coalition with the DNVP, as the coalition had a slim majority.
The "Day of Potsdam" and the Enabling Act
On 21 March, the new Reichstag was constituted itself with an impressive opening ceremony held at Potsdam's garrison church. This "Day of Potsdam" was staged to demonstrate reconciliation and union between the revolutionary Nazi movement and "Old Prussia" with its elites and virtues. Hitler himself appeared, not in Nazi uniform, but in a tail coat, and humbly greeted the aged President Hindenburg.
Because of the Nazis' failure to obtain a majority on their own, Hitler's government confronted the newly elected Reichstag with the Enabling Act that would have vested the cabinet with legislative powers for a period of four years. Though such a bill was not unprecedented, this act was different since it allowed for deviations from the constitution. As the bill required a two-thirds majority in order to pass, the government needed the support of other parties. The position of the Catholic Centre Party, at this point the third largest party in the Reichstag, turned out to be decisive: under the leadership of Ludwig Kaas, the party decided to vote for the Enabling Act. It did so in return for the government's oral guarantees regarding the Church's liberty, the concordats signed by German states and the continued existence of the Centre Party itself.
On 23 March, the Reichstag assembled in a replacement building under extremely turbulent circumstances. Some SA men served as guards within while large groups outside the building shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving deputies. Kaas announced that the Centre would support the bill amid "concerns put aside.", while Social Democrat Otto Wels denounced the Act in his speech. At the end of the day, all parties except the Social Democrats voted in favour of the bill. The Enabling Act was dutifully renewed by the Reichstag every four years, even through World War II.
Removal of remaining limits
With this combination of legislative and executive power, Hitler's government further suppressed the remaining political opposition. The KPD and the SPD were banned, while all other political parties dissolved themselves. Labour unions were merged with employers' federations into an organisation under Nazi control and the autonomy of German state governments was abolished.
Adolf Hitler in Triumph of the WillHitler also used the SA paramilitary to push Hugenberg into resigning and proceeded to politically isolate Vice Chancellor Papen. As the SA's demands for political and military power caused much anxiety among military leaders, Hitler used allegations of a plot by the SA leader Ernst Röhm to purge the SA's leadership during the Night of the Long Knives. Opponents unconnected with the SA were also murdered, notably Gregor Strasser and former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher.
President Paul von Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934. Rather than holding new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law proclaiming the presidency dormant and transferred the role and powers of the head of state to Hitler as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor). Thereby Hitler also became supreme commander of the military, whose officers then swore an oath not to the state or the constitution but to Hitler personally. In a mid-August plebiscite, these acts found the approval of 84.6%[13] of the electorate. Combining the highest offices in state, military and party in his hand, Hitler had attained supreme rule that could no longer be legally challenged.
The Third Reich
Main article: Nazi Germany
Photographs like the one on the cover of Heinrich Hoffmann's book of photography were used to promote Hitler's populist-nationalist (Völkisch) imageHaving secured supreme political power, Hitler went on to gain their support by convincing most Germans he was their saviour from the economic Depression, the Communists, the Versailles Treaty, and the Jews, along with other "undesirable" minorities.
Economics and culture
Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, mostly based on debt flotation and expansion of the military. Nazi policies toward women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to bear children and keep house. In a September 1934 speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization, Adolf Hitler argued that for the German woman her “world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home,” a policy which was reinforced by the bestowing of the Cross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more babies. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Given this, claims that the German economy achieved near full employment are at least partly artifacts of propaganda from the era. Much of the financing for Hitler's reconstruction and rearmament came from currency manipulation by Hjalmar Schacht, including the clouded credits through the Mefo bills. The negative effects of this inflation were offset in later years by the acquisition of foreign gold from the treasuries of conquered nations.
Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure-improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Hitler's policies emphasised the importance of family life: men were the "breadwinners", while women's priorities were to lie in bringing up children and in household work. This revitalising of industry and infrastructure came at the expense of the overall standard of living, at least for those not affected by the chronic unemployment of the later Weimar Republic, since wages were slightly reduced in pre-World-War-II years, despite a 25% increase in the cost of living (Shirer 1959). Labourers and farmers, the traditional voters of the NSDAP, saw their standards of living increase however.
Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich. While important as an Architect in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, Speer would prove much more effective as armaments minister during the last years of World War II. In 1936, Berlin hosted the summer Olympic games, which were opened by Hitler and choreographed to demonstrate Aryan superiority over all other races, achieving mixed results. Olympia, the movie about the games and other documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party were directed by Hitler's personal filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
Although Hitler made plans for a Breitspurbahn (broad gauge railroad network), they were pre-empted by World War II. Had the railroad been built, its gauge would have been three metres, even wider than the old Great Western Railway of Britain.
Hitler contributed slightly to the design of the car that later became the Volkswagen Beetle, and charged Ferdinand Porsche with its design and construction.[14] Production was also deferred due to the war.
Rearmament and new alliances
Main articles: Axis Powers and Tripartite Treaty
In March 1935, Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by reintroducing conscription in Germany, building a massive military machine, including a new Navy (Kriegsmarine) and an Air Force (Luftwaffe). The enlistment of vast numbers of men and women in the new military seemed to solve unemployment problems, but seriously distorted the economy. For the first time in 20 years, Germany's armed forces were as strong as France's.
In March 1936, Hitler again violated the Treaty by reoccupying the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland. When Britain and France did nothing, he grew bolder. In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War began when the military, led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the elected Popular Front government. Hitler sent troops to support Franco and Spain served as a testing ground for Germany's new forces and their methods, including the bombing of undefended towns such as Gernika in April 1937, prompting Pablo Picasso's famous eponymous Guernica painting.
Hitler in FinlandAn Axis was declared between Germany and Italy by Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on October 25, 1936. Tripartite Treaty was then signed by Saburo Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Galeazzo Ciano of Fascist Italy in September 27, 1940 and was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. Then on November 5, 1937, at the Reich Chancellory, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting and stated his plans for acquiring "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German people.
The Holocaust
Main article: Holocaust
One of the foundations of Hitler's and the NSDAP's social policies was the concept of racial hygiene, based on the ideas of Arthur de Gobineau and incorporating a pseudo-scientific version of eugenics (race purity and race-ranking) based on the concepts commonly (though misleadingly) called social Darwinism. Applied to human beings, "survival of the fittest" was interpreted as requiring racial purity and killing off "life unworthy of life." The first victims were crippled and retarded children on an order signed by Hitler. After a public outcry, Hitler made a show of ending this program, but the killings in fact continued.
Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed about 11 million people, including about 6 million Jews[15], in concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also were purposefully killed off by starvation and disease while working as slave labourers (sometimes benefiting private German companies in the process, because of the low cost of such labour). Along with Jews, non-Jewish Poles (over 3 million of whom died), alleged communists or political opposition, members of resistance groups, resisting Roman Catholics and Protestants, homosexuals, Roma, the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah's Witnesses, anti-Nazi clergy, trade unionists, and psychiatric patients were killed. This industrial-scale genocide in Europe is referred to as the Holocaust (the term is also used by some authors in a narrower sense, to refer specifically to the unprecedented destruction of European Jewry). One of the biggest centres of mass-killing was the extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hitler never visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killing in precise terms.
The massacres that led to the coining of the word "genocide" (the Endlösung der jüdischen Frage or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") were planned and ordered by leading Nazis, with Himmler playing a key role. While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, there is documentation showing that he approved the Einsatzgruppen and the evidence also suggests that in the fall of 1941 Himmler and Hitler agreed in principle on mass extermination by gassing. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet Heinz Linge and his military aide Otto Gunsche said Hitler had "pored over the first blueprints of gas chambers."
To make for smoother cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution", the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on January 20, 1942, with fifteen senior officials participating, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. The records of this meeting provide the clearest evidence of planning for the Holocaust. On February 22, Hitler was recorded saying to his associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews".
World War II
Main article: World War II
Opening moves
On March 12, 1938, Hitler pressured his native Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna. Next, he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland districts of Czechoslovakia. This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which authorized the annexation and immediate military occupation of these districts by Germany. As a result of the summit, Hitler was TIME magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.[16] British prime minister Neville Chamberlain hailed this agreement as "Peace in our time", but by giving way to Hitler's military demands Britain and France also left Czechoslovakia to Hitler's mercy. Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on March 10, 1939 and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
After that, Hitler claimed German grievances relating to the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, that Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty. Britain had not been able to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and, on August 23, 1939, Hitler concluded a secret non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with Stalin on which it was likely agreed that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany would partition Poland. On September 1, Germany invaded the western portion of Poland. Britain and France, who had guaranteed assistance to Poland, declared war on Germany. Not long after this, on September 17, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.
Britain and France, who had guaranteed assistance to Poland, declared war on Germany on September 3, but did not go to the offensive. During this so-called Phony War, Hitler built up his forces much further. In April 1940, he ordered German forces to march into Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to attack France, conquering the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium in the process. France surrendered on June 22, 1940. This series of victories convinced his main ally, Benito Mussolini of Italy, to join the war on Hitler's side in May 1940.
Britain, whose defeated forces had evacuated France from the coastal town of Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside Canadian forces in the Battle of the Atlantic. After having his overtures for peace systematically rejected by the defiant British Government, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the British Isles, leading to the Battle of Britain, a prelude of the planned German invasion. The attacks began by pounding the RAF airbases and the radar stations protecting South-East England. However, the Luftwaffe failed to defeat the RAF by the end of October 1940. Air superiority for the invasion, code-named Operation Sealion, could not be assured and Hitler ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including London and Coventry, mostly at night.
Path to defeat
Hitler with Großadmiral Erich RaederOn June 22, 1941, Hitler gave the signal for three million German troops to attack the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact he had concluded with Stalin less than two years earlier. This invasion, code-named Operation Barbarossa, seized huge amounts of territory, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine, along with the encirclement and destruction of many Soviet forces. German forces, however, were stopped short of Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian winter and fierce Soviet resistance (see Battle of Moscow), and the invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph over the Soviet Union which Hitler had anticipated.
Hitler's declaration of war against the United States on December 11, 1941 four days after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, USA set him against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the USA), and the world's largest army (the Soviet Union).
In late 1942, German forces under Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February 1943, the lengthy Battle of Stalingrad ended with the complete encirclement and destruction of the German 6th Army. Both defeats were turning points in the war, although the latter is more commonly considered primary. From this point on, the quality of Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated. Hitler's health was deteriorating too. His left hand started shaking uncontrollably. The biographer Ian Kershaw and UM neurology head Abraham Lieberman[17] believes he suffered from Parkinson's disease. Other conditions that are suspected by some to have caused some (at least) of his symptoms are methamphetamine addiction and syphilis.
Italians overthrew Hitler's ally, Benito Mussolini, in 1943 after Operation Husky, an American and British invasion of Sicily. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the eastern front. On June 6, 1944, the Western allied armies landed in northern France in what was the largest amphibious operation ever conducted, Operation Overlord. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944 one of them, Claus von Stauffenberg, planted a bomb at Hitler's military headquarters in Rastenburg (the so-called July 20 Plot), but Hitler narrowly escaped death. He ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people[18] (sometimes by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation). The main resistance movement was destroyed although smaller isolated groups such as Die Rote Kapelle continued to operate.
Defeat and death
Main article: Death of Adolf Hitler
Cover of US newspaper The Stars and Stripes, May 1945By the end of 1944, the Red Army had driven the last German troops from Soviet territory and began entering Central Europe. The western allies were also rapidly advancing into Germany. The Germans had lost the war from a military perspective, but Hitler allowed no negotiation with the Allied forces, and as a consequence the German military forces continued to fight. Hitler's stubbornness and defiance of military realities also allowed the continued mass killing of Jews and others to continue. He even issued the Nero Decree on March 19, 1945, ordering the destruction of what remained of German industry, communications and transport. However, Albert Speer, who was in charge of that plan, did not carry it out (The Morgenthau Plan for postwar Germany, promulgated by the Allies, aimed at a similar deindustrialization).
In April 1945, Soviet forces were at the outskirts of Berlin. Hitler's closest lieutenants urged him to flee to Bavaria or Austria to make a last stand in the mountains, but he seemed determined to either live or die in the capital. SS leader Heinrich Himmler tried on his own to inform the Allies (through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte) that Germany was prepared to discuss surrender terms. Meanwhile Hermann Göring sent a telegram from Bavaria in which he argued that since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, as Hitler's designated successor he should assume leadership of Germany. Hitler angrily reacted by dismissing both Himmler and Göring from all their offices and the party and declared them traitors.
After intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were spotted within a block or two of the Reich Chancellory in the city centre, Hitler committed suicide in the Führerbunker on April 30, 1945 by means of a self-delivered shot to the head while simultaneously biting into a cyanide capsule. Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun (his long-term mistress whom he had married the day before) were put in a bomb crater, partially burned with gasoline by Führerbunker aides and hastily buried in the Chancellory garden as Russian shells poured down and Red Army infantry continued to advance only two or three hundred metres away. He also had his dog Blondi poisoned some time before to test the poision he and Eva Braun were going to take.
When Russian forces reached the Chancellory, they found his body and an autopsy was performed using dental records (and German dental assistants who were familiar with them) to confirm the identification. To avoid any possibility of creating a potential shrine, the remains of Hitler and Braun were repeatedly moved, then secretly buried by SMERSH at their new headquarters in Magdeburg. In April 1970, when the facility was about to be turned over to the East German government, the remains were reportedly exhumed, thoroughly cremated, and the ashes finally dumped unceremoniously into the Elbe. According to the Russian Federal Security Service, a fragment of human skull stored in its archives and displayed to the public in a 2000 exhibition came from the remains of Hitler's body uncovered by the Red Army in Berlin, and is all that remains of Hitler; however, the authenticity of the skull has been challenged by many historians and researchers.
At the time of Hitler's death, most of Germany's infrastructure and major cities were in ruins and he had left explicit orders to complete the destruction. Millions of Germans were dead with millions more wounded or homeless. In his will, he dismissed other Nazi leaders and appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident (President of Germany) and Goebbels as Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide on 1 May 1945. On 7 May 1945, in Rheims, France, the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies and on 8 May 1945, in Berlin to the Soviet Union thus ending the war in Europe and with the creation of the Allied Control Council on 5 June 1945, the Four Powers assumed "supreme authority with respect to Germany". Adolf Hitler's proclaimed Thousand Year Reich had lasted 12 years.
Legacy
Further information: Consequences of German Nazism and Neo-Nazism
Outside the building in Braunau am Inn where Adolf Hitler was born is a memorial stone warning of the horrors of World War IISince the defeat of Germany in World War II, Hitler, the Nazi Party and the results of Nazism have been regarded in most of the world as synonymous with evil. Historical and cultural portrayals of Hitler in the west are, almost by consensus, condemnatory, with the exception of some right-wing authors who sometimes label him as misunderstood or excessive in execution but correct in his convictions.
The copyright of Hitler's book Mein Kampf in Europe is claimed by the Free State of Bavaria and will expire in 2015. Reproductions in Germany are generally authorized only for scholarly purposes and in heavily commented form. The situation is however unclear; Werner Maser (whom Theodor Heuss proposed to publish "Mein Kampf" as a weapon against Nazi Ideology) comments that intellectual property cannot be confiscated and so, it still would lie in the hands of Hitler's nephew, who, however, does not want to have anything to do with Hitler's legacy. This situation led to contested trials, eg., in Poland and Sweden. "Mein Kampf", however, is published in the USA, as well as in other countries such as Turkey and Israel, by publishers with various political positions.
The display of swastikas or other Nazi symbols is prohibited in Germany and political extremists are generally under surveillance by the Verfassungsschutz, one of the federal or state-based offices for the protection of the constitution.
There have been instances of public figures referring to Hitler's legacy in neutral or favourable terms, particularly in South America, the Islamic World and parts of Asia. Future Egyptian President Anwar Sadat wrote favourably of Hitler in 1953.[19] Louis Farrakhan has referred to him as a "very great man".[20] Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of the Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler.[21] Some of the positive or neutral attitude towards Hitler may partly be because these commentators come from countries which were colonies of the Allied Powers.
Hitler's religious beliefs
Main article: Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs
Adolf Hitler was brought up in his family's religion by his Roman Catholic parents, but as a school boy he began to reject the Church and Catholicism. After he had left home, he never attended Mass or received the Sacraments.
In later life, Hitler's religious beliefs present a discrepant picture: In public statements, he frequently spoke positively about the Christian heritage of German culture and belief in Christ. Hitler’s private statements, reported by his intimates, are more mixed, showing Hitler as a religious man but also critical of Christianity. However, in contrast to other Nazi leaders, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism, or neo-paganism, and ridiculed such beliefs in his book Mein Kampf. Rather, Hitler advocated a "Positive Christianity", a belief system purged from what he objected to in traditional Christianity, and reinvented Jesus as a fighter against the Jews.
Hitler believed in Arthur de Gobineau's ideas of struggle for survival between the different races, among which the "Aryan race" - guided by "Providence" - was supposed to be the torchbearers of civilization and the Jews as enemies of all civilization. Whether his anti-semitism was influenced by older Christian ideas remains disputed.
Among Christian denominations, Hitler favoured Protestantism, which was more open to such reinterpretations. At the same time, he made use of some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy and phraseology in his politics.
Health and sexuality
Main article: Adolf Hitler's medical health
Health
Hitler's alleged health problems in his later years have long been the subject of debate, and he has variously been suggested to have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, tremors on the left side of his body due to Parkinson's disease, syphilis, and a strongly suggested addiction to methamphetamine.
Most of Hitler's biographers have characterized him as a vegetarian who abstained from eating meat, beginning in the early 1930s until his death (although his actual dietary habits appear inconsistent and are sometimes hotly disputed). There are reports of him disgusting his guests by giving them graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make them shun meat. A fear of cancer (which his mother died from) is the most widely cited reason, though many authors also assert Hitler had a profound and deep love of animals. He did consume dairy products and eggs, however. Martin Bormann had a large greenhouse constructed for him close to the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) in order to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruits and vegetables for Hitler throughout the war. Personal photographs of Bormann's children tending the greenhouse survive and, by 2005, its foundations were among the only ruins visible in the area which were directly associated with Nazi leaders. For more information on this topic, see vegetarianism of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler was also a dedicated non-smoker and promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany. He reportedly promised a gold watch to any of his close associates who quit (and actually gave a few away). Several witness accounts relate that, immediately after his suicide was confirmed, many officers, aides, and secretaries in the Führerbunker lit cigarettes.[22]
Contrary to popular accounts, there seems to be some evidence Hitler did not abstain entirely from alcohol. After the war, an interrogation in the USSR of his valet Heinz Linge could indicate that Hitler drank champagne now and then with Eva Braun.[citation needed]
Sexuality
Hitler presented himself publicly as a man without an intimate domestic life, dedicated to his political "mission". He had a fiancée, Mimi Reiter in the 1920s, and later had a mistress, Eva Braun. He had a close bond with his niece Geli Raubal, which many commentators have claimed was sexual.[23] All three women attempted suicide during their relationship with him, a fact which has led to speculation that Hitler may have had unusual sexual fetishes, such as urolagnia, as was claimed by Otto Strasser. Reiter, the only one to survive the Nazi regime, denies this.[24] During the war and afterwards psychoanalysts offered numerous inconsistent psycho-sexual explanations of his pathology.[25] More recently Lothar Machtan has argued in his book The Hidden Hitler that Hitler was homosexual, while others argue that he was largely asexual.
Hitler's family
Main article: Hitler (disambiguation)
Paula Hitler, the last living member of Adolf Hitler's immediate family, died in 1960.
The most prominent, and longest-living direct descendants of Adolf Hitler's father, Alois, was Adolf's nephew William Patrick Hitler. With his wife Phyllis, he eventually moved to Long Island, New York, USA, and had four sons. None of William Hitler's children have yet had any children of their own.
Over the years various investigative reporters have attempted to track down other distant relatives of the Führer; many are now alleged to be living inconspicuous lives and have long since changed their last name.
Adolf Hitler's genealogy
Sketch of Eva Braun by HitlerEva Braun, mistress and then wife
Alois Hitler, father
Klara Hitler, mother
Paula Hitler, sister
Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother
Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law
William Patrick Hitler, nephew
Heinz Hitler, nephew
Angela Hitler Raubal, half-sister
Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother
Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather
Geli Raubal, niece and rumoured mistress
People associated with Hitler
Main articles: List of Nazi Party leaders and officials and List of former Nazis influential after 1945
Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler's secretary
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and Hitler supporter
Hans Frank, Hitler's lawyer and later senior Nazi official in occupied Poland
Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda
Hermann Göring, Reichsmarschall, Commander of the Luftwaffe, founder of the Gestapo.
Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy as party leader, best known for his flight to Scotland to negotiate peace in 1941
Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo)
Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, key figure in the Holocaust and the "Final Solution"
Heinrich Hoffmann, official photographer from 1920 to 1945
Alfred Jodl, military officer, knew Hitler since 1923
Wilhelm Keitel, military Field Marshal during World War II
August Kubizek, close friend and roommate in Vienna
Leopold Poetsch, Hitler's anti-Semitic school teacher
Leni Riefenstahl, friend and filmmaker who documented the Nazi party
Erwin Rommel, the famous "Desert Fox", a highly skilled Field Marshal during World War II who was forced to commit suicide after being implicated in a plot against Hitler
Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA and internal critic, killed in the Night of the Long Knives (1934)
Albert Speer, Hitler's personal architect, Minister of armaments. Close friend of Hitler's
Paul Troost, famous architect who served before Speer
Winifred Wagner, head of the Wagner family and close friend of Hitler's
Miscellany
This article's trivia section contains too much trivia. To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, the article requires cleanup.
Content in the trivia section should either be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article, or removed.
A nickname for Hitler used by German soldiers was Gröfaz, a derogatory and/or sarcastic abbreviation for Größter Führer / Feldherr aller Zeiten ("Greatest Leader / War Lord of all Time"), a title initially publicized by Nazi propaganda after the surprisingly quick fall of France. Nicknames by others were more disparaging. General George S. Patton referred to Hitler as "that paper-hanging son of a *****!", probably a reference to the common wartime claim that Hitler had worked as a painter and decorator.
Hitler did not like women to wear cosmetics, since they contained animal by-products, and frequently teased his mistress Eva Braun about her habit of wearing makeup.[26]
Hitler's wearing of the toothbrush moustache has caused it to fall out of popular use.
He almost never wore a uniform to social engagements, which he attended frequently whenever in Berlin during the 1930s. When he did wear uniforms, they were tailored and understated compared to those of other prominent Nazis who often wore elaborate uniforms with extensive decorations and medals.
According to the 2001 documentary The Tramp and the Dictator, the Charlie Chaplin parody/satire The Great Dictator was not only sent to Hitler, but an eyewitness claimed he did see it.[27] Chaplin has been quoted as saying, "I'd have given anything to know what he thought of it."
Hitler's favourite film is variously credited as being King Kong (1933) or The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) and his favourite opera was Richard Wagner's Rienzi, of which he claimed to have seen over 40 performances. [citation needed]
In the British Radio series the Bradshaws, many references are made to Hitler, mostly because Audrey's uncle, Uncle wally one-ball has only one Testicle. In an urban legend inspired by a British wartime song it is claimed that "Hitler has only got one ball".
Hitler in various media
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Adolf HitlerSee also: Hitler in popular culture
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Speeches and talk by Hitler
Main article: List of Adolf Hitler speeches
Hitler was a gifted orator who captivated many with his beating of the lectern and growling, emotional speech. Authentic though they may seem, Hitler's speeches were full of propaganda and rhetoric, used to touch a spot with his audience as a way to persuade them. While his early speeches were rather amateurish, over time Hitler perfected his delivery by rehearsing in front of mirrors and carefully choreographing his display of emotions with the message he was trying to convey.[28][29]
Recording of Hitler in private conversation
Hitler visited Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim on his 75th birthday on the June 4, 1942. During the visit an engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE, Thor Damen, recorded Hitler and Mannerheim in a private conversation, something which had to be done secretly as Hitler never allowed recordings of him off-guard.[2] Today the recording is the only known recording of Hitler not speaking in an official tone. The recording captures 11 and a half minutes of the two leaders in private conversation.[3] Hitler speaks in a slightly excited, but still intellectually detached manner during this talk (the speech has been compared to that of the working class). The majority of the recording is a monologue by Hitler. In the recording, Hitler admits to underestimating the Soviet Union's ability to conduct war (some English transcripts exist [4] [5]).
Recording on the YLE Internet Archieve
Films
During Hitler's reign, he appeared in and was involved to varying degrees with a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl:
Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Victory of Faith, 1933).
Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934), co-produced by Hitler.
Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935).
Olympia (1938).
Hitler was the central figure of the first three films, that focused on the party rallies of the respective years and are considered propaganda films, and features prominently in the Olympia film. Whether the latter is a propaganda film or a mere documentation is controversial, but it nonetheless perpetuated and spread the propagandistic message of the 1936 Olympic Games, depicting Nazi Germany as a prosperous and peaceful country.
IMDb: Adolf Hitler
Documentaries
The World at War (1974) is a famous Thames Television series which contains much information about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, including an interview with his secretary, Traudl Junge.
Adolf Hitler's Last Days, from the BBC series "Secrets of World War II" tells the story about Hitler's last days during World War II.
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary (2002) is an exclusive 90 minute interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler's final trusted secretary. Made by Austrian Jewish director André Heller shortly before Junge's death from lung cancer, Junge recalls the last days in the Berlin bunker. Clips used in Downfall.
Dramatizations
Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) is a movie depicting the days leading up to Adolf Hitler's death, starring Sir Alec Guinness.
The Bunker (1978) by James O'Donnell, describing the last days in the Führerbunker from 1945-01-17 to 1945-05-02. Made into the TV movie The Bunker (1981), starring Anthony Hopkins.
Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003) is a two-part TV series about the early years of Adolf Hitler and his rise to power (up to 1933). Stars Robert Carlyle.
Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004) is a German movie about the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, starring Bruno Ganz. This film is partly based on the autobiography of Traudl Junge, a favorite secretary of Hitler's. In 2002 Junge said she felt great guilt for "...liking the greatest criminal ever to have lived."
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Hitler - Ein Film aus Deutschland (Hitler, A Film From Germany), 1977. Originally presented on German television, this is a 7-hour work in 4 parts: The Grail; A German Dream; The End Of Winter's Tale; We, Children Of Hell. The director uses documentary clips, photographic backgrounds, puppets, theatrical stages, and other elements from almost all the visual arts, with the "actors" addressing directly the audience/camera, in order to approach and expand on this most taboo subject of European history of the 20th century.
Max is a 2002 Drama movie, that depicts a friendship between art dealer Max Rothman (who is Jewish) and a young Adolf Hitler as a failed painter in Vienna.
Further reading
Main article: List of Adolf Hitler books
Many books have been written about Adolf Hitler with his life and legacy thoroughly researched. See this list for an extensive annotated bibliography of books related to Adolf Hitler.
See also
Further information: Category:Adolf Hitler
References
^ Origin and Popularity of the Name "Adolph" thinkbabynames.com
^ Walter C. Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler, p. 246 (Basic Books: New York, 1972)
^ John Toland, Adolph Hitler, pp. 12-13.
^ Although Hitler and Wittgenstein did attend the same school, there is scant evidence that they actually knew each other or had any meaningful contact. The Wittgenstein connection remains nothing more than speculation despite a recent book by British author Kimberley Cornish which suggests that conflict between the young Hitler and a group of Jewish students that included Wittgenstein was a critical moment in Hitler's formation as an anti-semitic radical. See The Jew of Linz: Hitler, Wittgenstein and their secret battle for the mind (1999).
^ Shirer, William L., The Rise And Fall of Adolf Hitler c 1961, Random House
^ David Lewis, The Man who invented Hitler, Headline Book Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7553-1148-5.
^ The War Against the Jews. Bantam. 1986
^ 1919 Picture of Hitler
^ Joachim C. Fest, The Drummer in The Face Of The Third Reich (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970; URL accessed June 11, 2005).
^ Hitler dodged taxes, expert finds BBC News
^ Mythos Ladenhüter Spiegel Online
^ "Die Übertragung der verantwortlichen Leitung eines mit den besten sachlichen und persönlichen Kräften ausgestatteten Präsidialkabinetts an den Führer der grössten nationalen Gruppe wird die Schlacken und Fehler, die jeder Massenbewegung notgedrungen anhaften, ausmerzen und Millionen Menschen, die heute abseits stehen, zu bejahender Kraft mitreissen." Glasnost archives
^ Fest, Joachim, Hitler (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), pp. 476.
^ Robert S. Wistrich,Who's Who in Nazi Germany (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 193.
^ "There is no precise figure for the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. The figure commonly used is the six million quoted by Adolf Eichmann, a senior SS official. Most research confirms that the number of victims was between five to six million." How many Jews were murdered in the Holocaust? How do we know? Do we have their names?; FAQs About The Holocaust, Yad Vashem (URL accessed on January 3, 2006)
"Between 1942 and 1944, Nazi Germany deported millions more Jews from the occupied territories to extermination camps, where they murdered them in specially developed killing facilities" The Holocaust; Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (URL accessed on January 3, 2006).
^ TIME magazine (January 2, 1939), "Man of the Year", time.com
^ of Medicine in the News, University of Miami
^ Shirer, William L., Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, ch. 29, The Allied Invasion of Western Europe and the Attempt to Kill Hitler lists 4,980.
^ (Review, Excerpts) Schoeman, Roy. "Salvation Is from the Jews: The Role of Judaism in Salvation History", Ignatius Press 2004. ISBN 0-89870-975-X
^ CNN News, October 7, 1995
^ Portrait of a Demagogue AsiaWeek's interview with Bal Thackeray
^ John Toland, Adolf Hitler, p. 741
^ Rosenbaum, R., "Was Hitler 'unnatural'", Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of his Evil, Macmillan, 1998, pp.99-117.
^ Rosenbaum, op. cit., p.116
^ The Pink Swastika - Homosexuality in the Nazi Party - 4th edition
^ Hugh Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944, section 66
^ The Tramp and the Dictator. BBC. Accessed June 22, 2006.
^ The Power of Speech by A. E. Frauenfeld. Calvin College
^ The Führer as a Speaker by Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Calvin College
External links
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Comprehensive lectures on the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party
Portrayals of Hitler Project How Hitler has been viewed over the years.
Photographs of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler at the Internet Movie Database
1943 Psychological Profile of Hitler written by Dr. Henry A. Murray for the wartime Office of Strategic Services [1943 OSS Archives, DD247.H5 M87 1943]
Color Footage of Hitler - Watch color footage of Hitler during WWII
Hitler's Mein Kampf (full text)
Finnish Broadcasting Company recording of Adolf Hitler speaking in Mannerheim's birthday The world's only recording of Adolf Hitler's natural speech. More of the subject: [6]
Hitler Speech with English Translation
Political offices
Preceded by
Anton Drexler Leader of the NSDAP
1921–1945 Succeeded by
None
Preceded by
Franz Pfeffer von Salomon Leader of the SA
1930–1945
Preceded by
Kurt von Schleicher Chancellor of Germany(a)
1933–1945 Succeeded by
Joseph Goebbels
Preceded by
Paul von Hindenburg (as President) Führer und Reichskanzler(a)
1934–1945 Succeeded by
Karl Dönitz (as President)
Preceded by
Walther von Brauchitsch Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (Army Commander)
1941–1945 Succeeded by
Ferdinand Schörner
(a) The offices of Head of State and of Chancellor were combined 1934-1945 in the office of Führer und Reichskanzler
[hide]v • d • eChancellors of Germany
German Empire (1871–1918): Otto von Bismarck | Leo von Caprivi | Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst | Bernhard von Bülow | Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg | Georg Michaelis | Georg von Hertling | Prince Maximilian of Baden • Weimar Republic (1919–1933): Friedrich Ebert | Philipp Scheidemann | Gustav Bauer | Hermann Müller | Konstantin Fehrenbach | Joseph Wirth | Wilhelm Cuno | Gustav Stresemann | Wilhelm Marx | Hans Luther | Wilhelm Marx | Hermann Müller | Heinrich Brüning | Franz von Papen | Kurt von Schleicher • Nazi Germany (1933–1945): Adolf Hitler | Joseph Goebbels | Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk • Federal Republic of Germany (1949–): Konrad Adenauer | Ludwig Erhard | Kurt Georg Kiesinger | Willy Brandt | Helmut Schmidt | Helmut Kohl | Gerhard Schröder | Angela Merkel
The Hitler Cabinet – 30 January 1933 to 30 April 1945[hide]
Adolf Hitler (Chancellor & Führer, NSDAP) | Franz von Papen (independent) | Konstantin von Neurath (independent → NSDAP) | Joachim von Ribbentrop (NSDAP) | Wilhelm Frick (NSDAP) | Heinrich Himmler (NSDAP) | Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk (independent) | Alfred Hugenberg (DNVP) | Kurt Schmitt (NSDAP) | Hjalmar Schacht (independent) | Hermann Göring (NSDAP) | Walther Funk (NSDAP) | Franz Seldte (DVP → NSDAP) | Franz Gürtner (DNVP) | Franz Schlegelberger (NSDAP) | Otto Georg Thierack (NSDAP) | Werner von Blomberg (independent) | General Keitel (independent) | Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach (independent) | Julius Heinrich Dorpmüller (NSDAP) | Wilhelm Ohnesorge (NSDAP) | R. Walther Darré (NSDAP) | Herbert Backe (NSDAP) | Joseph Goebbels (NSDAP) | Bernhard Rust (NSDAP) | Fritz Todt (NSDAP) | Albert Speer (NSDAP) | Alfred Rosenberg (NSDAP) | Hanns Kerrl (NSDAP) | Hermann Muhs (NSDAP) | Otto Meißner (independent) | Hans Lammers (NSDAP) | Martin Bormann (NSDAP) | Karl Hermann Frank (NSDAP)
Rudolf Hess (NSDAP) | Ernst Röhm (NSDAP)
Adolf Hitler
Hitler's life and views
Death | Family | Home | Last will and testament | Medical health | Mein Kampf | Political beliefs | Religious beliefs | Speeches | Vegetarianism
Depictions of Hitler
Books on Hitler | Der Sieg des Glaubens | Triumph of the Will | Hitler: The Last Ten Days | Der Untergang (Downfall) | The Empty Mirror | Hitler: The Rise of Evil
Edit
v • d • eFinal occupants of the Führerbunker by date of departure[hide]
April 22 | April 23 | April 24
Julius Schaub · Christa Schröder · Johanna Wolf | Theodor Morell · Albert Speer | Walter Frentz
April 29 | April 30 | May 1
Robert Ritter von Greim · Hanna Reitsch · Heinz Lorenz · Wilhelm Zander · Heinrich Müller · Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven | Otto Günsche · Gerda Christian | Wilhelm Mohnke · Martin Bormann · Artur Axmann · Traudl Junge · Ludwig Stumpfegger · Hans Baur · Erich Kempka · Johann Rattenhuber · Günther Schwägermann · Werner Naumann · Hans-Erich Voss
Committed suicide | Killed
Adolf Hitler · Eva Braun · Joseph Goebbels · Magda Goebbels · Wilhelm Burgdorf · Peter Högl · Hans Krebs | Hermann Fegelein · Goebbels children
Date of departure uncertain
Heinz Linge · Walther Hewel · Constanze Manziarly · Nicholaus von Below
Still present when Soviet forces arrived on May 2
Rochus Misch · Erna Flegel · Werner Haase · Johannes Hentschel
Persondata
NAME Hitler, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Führer of the National Socialist German Workers Party; Reichskanzler of Germany
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Braunau am Inn, Austria
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1945
PLACE OF DEATH Berlin, Germany