Download World War 2

World War 2
By David Walsh.
Background to the war.
With the defeat of the central power after WW1,many countries
involved with them lost many territories and power including
Germany. Germany elected Adolph Hitler chancellor giving him full
power in Germany. Hitler promised to gain power in Europe. Hitler
first made allies with Italy and Japan. He then invaded and
conquered many countries surrounding Poland.
Invasion of Poland.
One of Adolf Hitler's first acts as chancellor of Germany was to
invade Poland to gain more power in Europe. On the first of
September 1939
Germany invaded Poland and within weeks
had defeated the Polish army.
On the third of September 1939 Britain and France declared war
on Germany.
Concentration Camps.
Nazi Germany had many concentration camps spread
throughout the territories they controlled. Poland had more than
430 camp complexes. Some of the major ones, such as Stutthof
and Auschwitz consisted of dozens of small camps scattered over
a broad area of land. Concentration camps were often
overcrowded so many people died of disease and starvation as
well as the gas chambers.
The Battle of Britain
On the 18th of June 1940, Churchill gave a speech to the British
people, saying" the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain
is about to begin." Four days later, France surrendered to
Germany and they began the invasion of Britain.
German air superiority in the south of England was crucial before
Hitler could even begin an invasion. Hitler said to the leader of
the Luftwaffe, that the RAF must be "beaten down to such an
extent that it can no longer muster any power of attack worth
mentioning against the German crossing".
D-Day
After much of Europe had been occupied by the Axis powers for four
years, the Allies finally launched their campaign to liberate Western
Europe on the 6th of June 1944. The Allied forces, based in Britain,
decided to begin the invasion by landing a huge army at a place called
Normandy Beach, which is located on the northwest coast of France.
Commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allies
landed on five beaches in the Normandy area. Local French Resistance
forces, alerted to the invasion, engaged in behind-the-lines sabotage
and combat against the occupying Germans. The German failure to
successfully defend the Normandy area from the Allied liberation
forces in a way doomed Hitler's dream of a Nazi controlled "Fortress
Europe" and marked the beginning of the end for Germany.
The allies take Germany
In April 1945, with the allies bombing major German cities and Russian
and allied soldiers advancing through Germany, Hitler was forced to
make a last stand in Berlin. Hitler took shelter in a bunker while
thousands of soldiers lost their lives fighting for him. Then on the 30th
of April 1945 Hitler committed suicide along with his new wife Eva
Braun and dog Blondii. On the 7th
of May 1945 Hitler's successor Admiral Donitz offered an unconditional
surrender to the allies. This is known as V.E day.
The bombs dropped on Japan
After Germany surrendered, Japan did not. American scientists
had invented atomic bombs and asked Japan to surrender or else they
would attack. After japan refused, America, reluctantly, Dropped
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, within the first four months of
the bombings, the effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in
Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of
the deaths in each city occurring on the first day. on August 15,
Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, ending
World War II, as Germany had already surrendered on May 7,
ending the war in Europe.