World War 2

• World War II


  A global conflict in which Germany, Italy and Japan (the Axis powers) fought against Britain, the Soviet Union, the US and China from 1939 to 1945
• Hitler came to power

  1933
• The economic depression that had spread world-wide following the crash of Wall Street

  Hitler capitalized on it
• The German resentment of the humiliating Treaty of Versailles signed after Germany's surrender in World War I


  Hitler capitalized on it
• Hitler's ideology


  Declaring that the Germans were a superior race that needed living space
• Hitler's actions


  1. Began to rebuild the German military

  2. Broke the terms of the Treaty of Versailles

  3. Expanded German territory by uniting with Austria and annexing the German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia
• World War II erupted in Europe when Germany invaded Poland


  September 1939
• Germany's invasion of Europe


  1. Invaded Denmark and Norway to secure iron supply

  2. Invaded Belgium, the Netherlands and France

  3. All these nations were conquered swiftly by mid-1940
• Blitzkrieg


  The German offensive warfare using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration designed to achieve quick victory
• The British expeditionary force was trapped at Dunkirk but managed to withdraw by sea back to Britain
• Germany launched a further attack on Britain exclusively from the air


  Although the German Luftwaffe heavily bombed London during the Blitz and other British cities, it was never able to overcome Britain's Royal Air Force and resilience
• Italy led by fascist dictator Mussolini, an ally of Germany, expanded the war even further by invading parts of North Africa and launching an unsuccessful campaign in Greece in 1941
• Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa)


  1. Led the Axis powers against the Soviet Union in the largest surprise land invasion in history

  2. Initially made swift progress deep into the Russian Heartland

  3. However, the invasion of the USSR would prove to be the first major German setback as the German forces gradually got trapped in a war of attrition due to the country's sheer size, poor roads, brutal winters and the Soviet scorched earth policy and resilience
• In 1943, after the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, Germany was forced into a full-scale retreat on the Eastern Front
• In the Pacific, Japan seized Manchuria from China in 1931 and launched a surprise attack on the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1941
• Japan pursued its expansionist policy throughout the southeast Asia Pacific region and committed terrible war crimes, but its advances were halted in 1942 after losing the critical Battle of Midway against the US
• Germany and Italy suffered a decisive defeat against the British at the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt in 1942, which was a turning point of the North African campaign
• In 1943, after Mussolini's regime collapsed and the Allies landed in Sicily, the Germans moved to quickly take control of Italy fearing its loss to the Allies
• The Allied advance in Europe

  1. In June 1944, American, British and Canadian Forces launched the D-Day invasion, the largest seaborne invasion in history, on the coast of Normandy to begin the liberation of German-occupied France

  2. The Allies also continued the strategic bombing campaign on German cities

  3. Allied Forces were closing in on Germany from both fronts, East and West, until May 1945 when Germany surrendered after the Soviets' invasion of Berlin and Hitler's suicide
• The end of the war in the Pacific

  1. By Spring 1945, most of Japan's conquests had been liberated and Allied Forces were closing in on the Japanese home islands

  2. Following the bombing campaigns against Japanese cities and Japan's refusal to surrender, the US dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  3. Japan surrendered in September 1945
• World War II was the bloodiest and largest conflict in history with about 60 million deaths worldwide, many of whom from the Soviet Union and China, as well as Jews exterminated during the Holocaust
• The United Nations was created and a sense of political and economic integration began, especially in Europe, to forge a sense of common identity
• The influence of European great powers waned, triggering the decolonization of Africa and Asia and setting the stage for the emergence of the US and the Soviet Union as new rival superpowers to confront in a Cold War