NAME: AMAL ATTA

MUHAMMAD
ROLL NO: 02
TOPIC: WORLD WAR 2
INTRODUCTION:

 World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second

World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945 and starting out from
Europe spread to nearly every part of the world
 Although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the
world's countries —including all of the great powers—eventually forming two
opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.
WHO WERE ALLIES AND AXIS:

 ALLIES: In World War II the chief Allied powers were Great Britain, France

(except during the German occupation, 1940–44), the Soviet Union (after its entry
in June 1941), the United States (after its entry on December 8, 1941), and China.
The leaders of the Allies were Franklin Roosevelt (the United States), Winston
Churchill (Great Britain), and Joseph Stalin (the Soviet Union).
 AXIS: Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed
the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. The Axis powers, also known as the Axis
and the Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, were the nations that fought in World War II
against the Allied forces. The Axis leaders were Adolf Hitler (Germany),Benito
Mussolini (Italy), and Emperor Hirohito(Japan).
 
ALLIES

ALLIES: In World War II the chief Allied powers were Great

Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China.
The leaders of the Allies were Franklin Roosevelt (the United
States),
Winston Churchill (Great Britain),
and Joseph Stalin (the Soviet Union).
 AXIS:

AXIS: Germany conquered or controlled much of continental

Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. The
Axis powers, also known as the Axis and the Rome–Berlin–
Tokyo Axis, were the nations that fought in World War II
against the Allied forces.
The Axis leaders were Adolf Hitler (Germany),Benito
Mussolini (Italy), and Emperor Hirohito(Japan).
LOCATION:

 It included following location:

 Europe,
 Pacific,
 Atlantic,
 South-East Asia,
 China,
 Middle East,
 Mediterranean,
 North Africa and Horn of Africa,
 briefly North and South America
FATALITIES AND MASSACRES:

 It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100
million people from over 30 countries.
 World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 million to
85 million fatalities, most of which were civilians in the Soviet Union and
China.
 It included massacres.
 the deliberate genocide of the Holocaust,
  strategic bombing,
 starvation, disease and the first use of nuclear weapons in history.
 (clockwise from top left)
Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanji aling
Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein
German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December
1943
American naval force in the Lingayen Gulf
Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender
Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad
Aircraft of World War II
- The Spitfire
REASONS OF WW2
There are many causes of the war and some of them go back to the end of the First World War.
The end of World War I and the peace that followed in 1919 changed the face of Europe and
the borders of countries completely. New nations emerged. The countries that lost the
war, especially Germany and Austria had to give up a lot of land. They also had to pay money to
other countries for the damages that happened during the war.It led them to bankruptcy.
 Economic problems:
After the war many countries were in debt. The losers had problems paying reparations and the
winners borrowed a lot of money from the United States which they could not pay
back. Inflation in many countries left people without any savings. In the 1930s the Great
Depression, starting out in the USA, spread to Europe and stopped the continent's recovery.
Millions of people were out of work and poverty rose.
 Political movements
The problems after the war made the governments in many
countries weaker and weaker. Two movements became more
and more powerful:
 
Communism,  called for a revolution of the working class.
 Fascism, wanted a strong national government
Communist hammer and sickle

Nazi swastika
 The Axis and Allied Powers

Two groups of nations fought against each other during the Second World War.
• During the 1930s Germany, Italy and Japan led a group of nations called the Axis. The leaders of these countries
were dictators. They wanted their own countries to grow and others to become weaker. In the years before the
beginning of World War II all three Axis powers had strengthened and modernized their armies.
• In the 1930s the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. In 1933 the party's leader Adolf Hitler
was appointed chancellor and became known as der Führer(Leader of the Nation). He promised to take revenge on
the countries that had defeated Germany in the First World War and make Germany the most powerful country in the
world. He also claimed that only Germans were the true race and wanted to get rid of Jews, Communists and
other weaker people.
• In Italy Benito Mussolini, known as the Il Duce, became the leader of the Fascist Party,
which gained many supporters. He promised to bring law and order to the country and
help solve its economic problems.
Hitler and Mussolini in June 1940
 INVASION OF AXIS IN
OTHER COUNTRIES
 The Axis Powers invaded other countries and expanded their territory.
 At the beginning of the 1930s Japan invaded Manchuria because it had a lot of raw materials. In 1938 it
attacked China and later on expanded to Southeast Asia. In 1935 Italy took over Ethiopia.
 Germany started its conquest of foreign territories by invading Austria.
 Italy and Germany also sent soldiers to help another dictator, Francisco Franco, in the Spanish Civil War.
THE RISE OF THE
ADOLF HITLER
Germany lost the war and the Treaty of Versailles punished the country very strictly . It lost its overseas colonies and had to
give up its Saar coal region to France. It was only allowed to have a small army and building ships was forbidden .
The treaty also made Germany pay a lot of money to Great Britain and France for the damage caused by the war. Hitler was
angry at the Allies because he thought they had treated his homeland in an unfair way.
Hitler became the leader of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, or Nazis. The party’s emblem was an
old hooked cross called swastika . Hitler was a powerful speaker and crowds of followers came to his meetings.
Hitler spoke in a style that many people liked. He blamed Jews , Communists and other groups for all the problems that the
country had and said that only if pure Germans, which he called Aryans, controlled the country it would return to greatness .
By January 1933 Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist party took over power. He became a dictator, a leader with complete
control andcreated the Third Reich . The Nazis acted quickly against everyone who was against them. They outlawed all other
political parties. People who opposed the new government were often murdered.
Once in control he started persecuting the Jews. He also began strengthening the German army and creating jobs for
the population . This made him increasingly popular among many Germans.
The Nazis tried to get teenagers to follow Adolf Hitler and his party. These teenagers were organized in groups called
the “Hitler Youth” where they chanted Nazi slogans and sang songs in honour of the Fuehrer.
By 1944 the war was going badly for Hitler and the Third Reich . Some of his officers wanted to end the war and
save the country from destruction . They tried to kill him by planting a bomb in his office, but
Hitler escaped without injuries . Eventually he realized that Germany had lost the war . He committed suicide on
April 30th 1945 in Berlin . Eva Braun, his mistress , died with him.
THE BLITZKRIEG
On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. At the same time the Soviet
Union attacked Poland from the east. It was divided up among the countries before the Allies were able to help.
Germany's attack was carried out with fast tanks and troops that were supported by warplanes. Because the German
army moved very quickly this phase of the war was called "Blitzkrieg".
In the following spring Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. Both countries were occupied by the German army
by June. On May 10, 1940 Hitler's troops invaded the Low Countries- Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and
days later they surrendered.
In the middle of May German soldiers crossed into France and by June 14 the Germans had entered Paris. On June 22
France signed a peace agreement with Germany. German forces then occupied northern France and the Atlantic
coast. A new government that was friendly to the Germans was formed in Vichy. On the other side General Charles de
Gaulle escaped to Great Britain and started his free French movement. In a radio broadcasts he urged the French
people to fight against the Germans.
 The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain
Hitler next wanted to invade the island of Great Britain. He attacked the British Air Force in order to control the skies over the
island. It was history's first major air battle.
In June 1940, the German Luftwaffe began bombing airfields and other targets in southern England. German
warplanes attacked from airports in France. At the end of the battle the British had shot down about 1700 German planes.
Hitler saw that he could not defeat England's air force so he gave up his idea of invading Britain. Instead he sent the
Luftwaffe to bomb British cities and towns. In London alone, more than 12,000 civilians were killed.
 BATTLE OF THE
ATLANTIC

During the war Great Britain got most of its food , war materials and other supplies from North America. Throughout the war
Germany tried to destroy the ships that brought goods to the island. German U-boats or submarines were the biggest threat to
the British navy . At first these U-boats were very successful in tracking down British cargo ships and sinking them. They
often attacked in groups called wolf packs .
To survive such attacks British ships travelled in groups called convoys . They were protected by destroyers and
also supported by planes. As time went on America gave British ships more and more protection .
The Allies began winning the sea war also because they started using an underwater radar system called sonar to find the
submarines. By the middle of 1943 the Allies were sinking German U-boats faster than they could replace them.
 THE HOLOCAUST

Under Adolf Hitler the National Socialist German Worker’s Party became very powerful in Germany from 1933 to 1945. The Nazis,
as they were called, wanted to get rid of people who they thought were not as good as they were. They especially hated Jews and
thought they were evil . At the beginning they made life hard for the Jews in Germany and all over Europe. Later on, they decided to
kill them. This mass killing was called the Holocaust.
After 1939 about 6 million Jews were killed in the countries that Hitler controlled. But Jewish people were not the only ones
murdered by the Nazis. Gypsies , homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled people and others who were against Hitler were
killed in the Holocaust.
Hating Jews and treating them badly is called anti-Semitism. Hitler started this as soon as he became chancellor of Germany in
1933. Jews lost their jobs and their shops were closed and often destroyed .
Hitler killed himself shortly before the war was over because he realized that he had lost the war. When it ended in
1945, Allied soldiers entered Germany. They liberated the concentration camps but were shocked when they saw what had
happened there.
Jews who survived the Holocaust had no place to go. They waited to find a new home. In 1948, the United Nations decided to give
homeless Jews a new place to live. The state of Israel was founded and hundreds of thousands of European Jews went there to start a
new life.
OPERATION BARBOSA
On June 22, 1941 Germany started Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union. The attack surprised the Soviets
and Germantanks smashed through the Russian battle lines. In the first few weeks hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers
were captured. As the Germans went forward, the Soviet population destroyed factories, dams, railroads, food supplies and
other things that might help the Germans. The Germans were heading for a fast victory but then they started making mistakes.
 PEARL HARBOUR-
AMERICA ENTERS THE
WAR
When war broke out in Europe in 1939 Japan decided to start expanding its territory to the Asian mainland . The Japanese occupiedparts
of China and conquered Indochina as well. The United States was against the Japanese invasion of Asia. They thought they could stop them
by halting the sales of petroleum and other raw materials which the Japanese desperately needed. Japanese generals realized that only the
United States had the power to stop them. The American Navy was so strong that it had to be destroyed .
On the morning of December 7, 1941 Japanese warplanes attacked U.S. warships at Pearl Harbour naval base in Hawaii. It came as a
complete surprise to the Americans . Within hours bombs and torpedoes sank six American ships and killed more than 2,000 Americans. The
Japanese had destroyed the heart of the American fleet .
The next day the United States declared war on Japan and a few days later on the other Axis powers, Italy and Germany.
The attack on Pearl Harbour was the beginning of the War in the Pacific.
 D-DAY

The Germans had been expecting an Allied invasion of Northern France for long time. However , they were not sure where
the invasion would take place . The Germans concentrated their troops near Calais because it was nearest to the British Isles.
Early on June 6,1944 Operation Overlord, the code name of the invasion, began. Commanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower
about 3,000 ships and 176,000 soldiers crossed the English Channel and landed , to the surprise of the Germans, on the
beaches of Normandy, much farther to the west than Hitler’s generals had expected. Paratroopers dropped behind the
German defence lines and captured bridges and railroad tracks.
After heavy fighting , American and British armies were able to move inland . They captured Paris on August 25, 1944. After
advancing to eastern France and Belgium the Allied offensive moved on but as winter came was halted west of the Rhine
River .
HIROSHIMA &
NAGASAKI
In 1939 German born scientist Albert Einstein informed US president Roosevelt about the possibility of making a
super bomb that would cause an explosion that nobody had ever seen before. Large amounts of energy could
be released by splitting an atom. Einstein and other scientists were afraid that the Germans could develop such a bomb
first. In 1942 the Americans set up the Manhattan Project, a secret program to make such a bomb. The first atomic
bomb was tested in the New Mexican desert in July 1945.
 
Even though the United States was winning the war against Japan some generals thought that they would have
to invade the island nation to defeat the Japanese. Experts thought that hundreds of thousands of
American soldiers might die in such an attack.
After the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt , Harry Truman
became president. He learned about the successful test of the
bomb. In July 1945 Truman warned the Japanese that the
United States would destroy the country with a powerful
bomb if they did not surrender at once. In spite of the
warning Japan continued fighting.
 
On August 6,1945 an American bomber called the Enola
Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima. The explosion killed about 70,000 to 100,000
people and destroyed about 13 square kilometres of land.
Three days later a much larger bomb was dropped on
Nagasaki. It killed about 40,000 people. Thousands of
people died of injuries and radiation in the years that
followed. On August 14, the
Japanese government agreed to surrender. Many
officers committed suicide. On September 2, 1945 World
War II officially ended.
 THE END
The Allied leaders– U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier 
Joseph Stalin—met in Russia for the Yalta conference. There they planned Germany’s defeat and the occupation of the
country.
Meanwhile the Soviet army pushed on through Germany and by April 25, 1945 they had surrounded Berlin. Adolf Hitler
 realized that the war was over and committed suicide in his bunker on April 30.Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.
 
As they marched on through Germany Allied soldiers discovered terrifying evidence of Nazi brutality. Even though they
freed death camps thousands died of starvation after Germany's surrender .
Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag in Berlin
AFTERMATH OF THE
WAR
 After the end of the war, a conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, to set up peace treaties .
 The countries that fought with Hitler lost territory and had to pay reparations to the Allies .
 Germany and its capital Berlin were divided into four parts.
 The zones were to be controlled by Great Britain, the United States, France and the Soviet Union.
 The three western Allies and the Soviet Union disagreed on many things and as time went on Germany was divided into
two separate countries : East Germany , which had a Communist government and West Germany, which was a
democratic state .
 Berlin was also divided into East and West Berlin. Austria was also occupied by the four Allies from 1945 to 1955.
 One by one, the Russians started to take over countries in eastern Europe and install Communist governments there. The
division of Europe was the beginning of the Cold War, between the democratic nations of the west and the Communist
countries of eastern Europe. The Iron Curtain marked the border between these two regions.
German occupation zones
after World War
II(clockwise from top left)
 England
 Soviet Union
 United States of America
 France
 After the war many Nazi leaders were arrested and punished for what they had done in the war. The most famous war
trials were held at Nuremberg, Germany. Those who were responsible for brutal crimes were sentenced to death.
 Many problems arose after the war was over. One of them focused on the city of Berlin which was deep inside the Russian
zone. In June 1948, the Soviet Union tried to drive the western powers out of Berlin by blocking all routes to the city. For a
whole year the Allies flew in food, fuel and other things that the population needed to survive . Finally , the Russians gave up
and the blockade ended. In 1961 the Russians built a wall around Berlin to stop their citizens from escaping to the west.
 The biggest task was to rebuild Europe, which lay in ruins . In 1948 the United States set up the Marshall Plan to help
Europe’s economy . 18 nations received 13 billion dollars worth of food machines and other goods .
 During World War II , four of the Allied powers—the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China
— agreed to create an organization that should work for peace . In April 1945 fifty countries signed a charter and gave birth
to the United Nations.
Division of Europe : the free western countries (blue) and
Communist Eastern Europe (red) - grey countries are
neutral