World War II

World War II was an armed conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945,
and that directly or indirectly involved most of the military and economic powers
of the time, as well as numerous Third World countries.
It is considered the most dramatic and catastrophic war in contemporary history,
because of the large number of people and countries involved, as well as the
enormous territorial dimensions of the conflict, the amount of warfare used and
the heartbreaking historical consequences for the humanity.
The Second World War took place mainly in three different scenarios: the
European, Asian and African continents. In them, the troops of the two opposing
sides, known as the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, as well as of the
countries involved voluntarily or by force in a conflict that did not distinguish
between military forces and the civilian population, faced each other.
In the context of this war, extremely traumatic events occurred for human
civilization, as well as the massive deaths in extermination camps and forced
labor (particularly of citizens of the Jewish ethnic group, which was called the
Holocaust), or the use by first time in the history of nuclear weapons of mass
destruction on a civilian population (the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki).

1
 Start of the second war
After ensuring the neutrality of the Soviet Union (through the German-Soviet
Non-Aggression Pact signed in August 1939), Germany began World War II
with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 3, Great
Britain and France responded with a declaration of war against Germany. In
less than a month, Poland suffered defeat at the hands of German and Soviet
forces, who proceeded to partition Poland.

Participating countries
The two opposing sides were:
• Axis Powers. Led by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, along
with Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and co-belligerent states such as Finland,
Thailand, Iran, and Iraq.
• Allied Powers. Composed of France, Great Britain, the United States and the
Soviet Union, as well as Poland, China, Norway, Denmark, Belgium,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Greece, Yugoslavia, Canada, New Zealand,
South Africa, Australia and, later, some countries of minority participation, but
which provided diplomatic support to the allies.

2
Causes of World War II
The terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The surrender of Germany and its allies
at the end of World War I, they imposed a highly oppressive unconditional
surrender treaty on them, preventing the war-torn nation from ever having an
army again, wresting control of its African colonies, and imposed an unpayable
debt on the victorious countries.
The rise of fascism. Adolf Hitler in Germany (Nazism) and Benito Mussolini in
Italy (Fascism), mainly, took advantage of popular discontent and built extremist
nationalist movements, seeking to recover national glories through the
militarization of broad social sectors, the establishment of totalitarianism and the
expansion of national borders.
Sino-Japanese tensions. After the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895),
Japan had become an imperial power that did not look kindly on China and the
Soviet Union. Taking advantage in 1932 of the weakness in which the Civil War
between communists and republicans had left China, Japan started a Second
War with China and occupied Manchuria, later expanding into Asia Minor until it
was confronted by the United States.
German invasion to Poland. Germany began its territorial expansion by taking
Austria and part of Czechoslovakia, without major conflicts. When in 1939 Hitler
established a pact with the USSR known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, to
divide up Polish territory and proceeded to invade it, the Western European
nations declared war on him, starting the conflict as such.

3
End of the second world war
The Soviets launched an offensive on January 12 (1945), liberating western
Poland and forcing Hungary (Axis ally) to surrender. In mid-February 1945, the
Allies bombed the German city of Dresden, killing an estimated 35,000 civilians.
American troops crossed the Rhine River on March 7 (19459. On April 16
(1945) a final Soviet offensive allowed those forces to encircle the German
capital of Berlin.

On April 30, 1945, as Soviet troops advanced fighting towards the Reich
Chancellery, Hitler committed suicide. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered
unconditionally to the Western Allies at Reims and on May 9 to the Soviets at
Berlin. The war in the Pacific ended in August, immediately after the United
States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki; bombardment that caused the death of 120 thousand civilians. Japan
formally surrendered on September 2, ending World War II.

4
World War II consequences
Almost total devastation of Europe. Extensive and devastating aerial
bombardments of the main European cities took place, first when the Germans
conquered the continent and then when the Allies liberated it, which resulted in
their almost destruction. This later required large economic investments for its
gradual reconstruction, such as the called Marshall Plan proposed by the United
States.
Beginning of a bipolar world. The European powers, both Allied and Axis,
were left, at the end of the conflict, so economically and politically weakened
that the leadership of world politics passed to the two new superpowers: the
United States and the Soviet Union, thus beginning the called The Cold War.
Germany Division. Once Germany was defeated, its territory passed to the
control of the allied countries and the USSR, (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) for
which the country was divided into two completely different nations: the Federal
Republic of Germany, with a capitalist system and under American control, and
the German Democratic Republic, with a communist system and under Soviet
administration. Germany would unify again in 1991, after the fall of the Berlin
Wall.
Emergence of new technologies. Technologies common today such as
television, computers, sonar, jet flight, or atomic energy owe their discovery to
this war.
Decolonization. The loss of political and economic power in Europe led to the
loss of control of its colonies in the Third World, thus allowing numerous
processes of independence.
The death of between 55 and 70 million people. Counting soldiers and
civilians, indistinctly, millions of whom did so in subhuman conditions in
concentration camps and extermination.