QE REVIEW

• World War II, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history, involved more than 50 nations and was fought on land, sea and air in nearly every part of the world
• World War II was also known as the Second World War
• World War II was caused in part by the economic crisis of the Great Depression and by political tensions left unresolved following the end of World War I
• World War II began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland

  1939
• World War II raged across the globe until Japan surrendered to the United States after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  1945
• By the end of World War II, an estimated 60 to 80 million people had died, including up to 55 million civilians, and numerous cities in Europe and Asia were reduced to rubble
• 6 million Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler's "Final Solution", now known as the Holocaust
• The legacy of the war included the creation of the United Nations as a peacekeeping force and geopolitical rivalries that resulted in the Cold War
• The devastation of World War I had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict
• Political and economic instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party
• As early as 1923, in his memoir "Mein Kampf", Adolf Hitler had predicted a general European war that would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany"
• After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated power, anointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934
• Obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called "Aryan", Hitler believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary "Lebensraum," or living space, for the German race to expand
• In the mid-1930s, Hitler secretly began the rearmament of Germany, a violation of the Versailles Treaty
• After signing alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia
• Hitler's open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain were eager for confrontation
• Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact


  Late August 1939
• Hitler invaded Poland from the west

  September 1, 1939
• Two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II
• Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east

  September 17, 1939
• Under attack from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended to the Nonaggression Pact
• Stalin's forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-Finnish War
• During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a "phony war"
• At sea, the British and German navies faced off in heated battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II
• Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied Denmark

  April 9, 1940
• German forces swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as "blitzkrieg," or lightning war


  May 10, 1940
• Three days later, Hitler's troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French forces at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line, rendering it useless
• The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south French forces mounted a doomed resistance
• Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler, the Pact of Steel, and Italy declared war against France and Britain


  June 10, 1940
• German forces entered Paris


  June 14, 1940
• A new government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain (France's hero of World War I) requested an armistice two nights later, and France was subsequently divided into two zones, one under German military occupation and the other under Petain's government, installed at Vichy France
• Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which had the defensive advantage of being separated from the Continent by the English Channel
• German planes bombed Britain extensively in the Blitz, including night raids on London and other industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage


  September 1940 to May 1941
• The Royal Air Force (RAF) eventually defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in the Battle of Britain, and Hitler postponed his plans to invade
• With Britain's defensive resources pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving crucial aid from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in early 1941
• By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April
• Hitler's conquest of the Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master race the "Lebensraum" it needed
• The other half of Hitler's strategy was the extermination of the Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe, and over the next three years more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied Poland
• Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa


  June 22, 1941
• Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly outnumbered the Germans', Russian aviation technology was largely obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July