What follows is a chronological outline with narrative explanation of the major events and developments that characterized World War II in Europe. Readers are reminded that beginning in late 1941 World War II was expanded to Asia and the Pacific when Japan, then at war with China, launched its war against the US and Britain. The Pacific war is not included in this reading.
Realizing that the present war resulted in part from the failure of the peace settlement of 1919, the Allies, throughout World War II, planned for the peace. This they did through numerous conferences which are mentioned but not discussed in this overview and are considered in the section “Allied Cooperation and the Making of the Peace.”
1939
(Sept 1) Germany invaded Poland, destroyed Polish resistance, and occupied western Poland. Honoring their alliance agreements with Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany (Sept 3). The US proclaimed its neutrality. On Sept 17 the Soviet Union, acting on the Nazi-Soviet Pact, invaded Poland from the east. Warsaw surrendered (Sept 27) and the Polish government fled to London where it remained in exile until the end of the War. Victorious, Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland between them.
In late 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) asked Congress to amend the Neutrality Acts. The result was the "Cash and Carry" policy whereby the US would sell needed arms and materials to whatever countries (meaning primarily Britain) could pay cash for them and transport them in their own ships.
1939 – 1940
In the West it was “all quiet on the Western Front.” There was no attempt by Germany to invade either France or Britain. The “war” in the West was referred to as “The Phony War” as nothing was happening. With Britain at war, it was dependent upon its sister Dominions and Empire for the raw materials needed for its defense. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa joined the war, committing their manpower and resources to the struggle. The ANZACs, as the Australian and New Zealanders would be known, would later see heavy combat in North Africa and the Middle East.
At sea, British and German naval forces were engaged in combat, as they would be throughout the war. The Battle of the Atlantic saw the British suffer staggering losses in German U-boat attacks against British merchant shipping.
1940
(April – June) Blitzkrieg! The German invasion of the West
The Germans launched a massive offensive in the West. Denmark and Norway were invaded, defeated, and occupied. In Norway, Nazi sympathizers set up a government led by Vidkun Quisling. (The term “quisling” entered political vocabulary being synonymous with traitor.) Germany invaded, defeated, and occupied the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. France was now vulnerable to German invasion from Belgium. The vaunted Maginot Line, key to France's defense, did not extend beyond the French border with Germany.
In Britain Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and was replaced by Winston Churchill. Churchill, in urging continued British resistance, promised his people ultimate victory but that they would have to face an immediate future of “blood, toil, sweat, and tears.”
The German invasion of France (May – June) defeated both the British and French armies in France. French armies, thrown into confusion by the intensity of the German advance, were ineffective in their resistance and retreated. The British forces in France retreated towards the Channel coast hoping to be evacuated. Churchill flew to France several times in a futile effort to persuade the French government to order its armies to stand and fight. Barring that, he requested that France not surrender its naval fleet to the Germans. Were the Germans to get control of the French fleet British naval power on the Mediterranean would be severely threatened. The French refused. Pinned down on the beaches at Dunkirk, the British army seemingly faced annihilation.
Between May 28 and June 4, a massive British rescue (The “Miracle of Dunkirk”) involving hundreds of civilian boats managed to evacuate most of the British forces safely across the Channel to Britain. Some 338,000 troops were rescued.
(June 10) Taking advantage of the German invasion of France, Italy declared war on France and Britain.
In July and September British naval and air forces attacked units of the French fleet in Morocco and Dakar, effectively eliminating the threat. In 1942 France's Vichy government ordered that its remaining warships in Toulon be scuttled.
(June 22) France, defeated, surrendered. The German peace terms resulted in the occupation of northern and coastal France. Paris was occupied and visited by Hitler. The rest of France was set up as a satellite state, theoretically sovereign, but in reality subject to German direction. This rump state in France came to be known as Vichy France, so-called because its capital was in the city of Vichy. Marshall Henri Pétain, a hero of World War I, was named as the Vichy President. Across France those actively opposed to the German conquest became part of the “Free France” resistance movement (the FFI - Forces Française l’Intérieur), covertly waging acts of sabotage against the German presence. The Free France Resistance was led by General Charles de Gaulle, who took refuge in London.
1940 –1941
The Battle of Britain (began August 1940; ended June 1941) Hitler intended to invade and conquer Britain, but needed air superiority in the skies over the Channel. The German air force, the Luftwaffe, launched massive bombing raids against British air bases and coastal defenses. The Royal Air Force (RAF) took a severe beating barely managing to keep air superiority. One German air strike inadvertently bombed civilian sections of London. The British, in retaliation, launched a bombing raid against Berlin. The British raid did little damage, but an outraged Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb London and other cities. Thus began what the British called “The Blitz.” With the Germans concentrating now on civilian targets, the RAF was spared further attacks on its air bases and was thus able to regain some degree of strength. Massive German air raids devastated parts of London and other major cities. At the height of The Blitz Churchill’s defiant words rallied British morale. Let them come, he said. “We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the streets … we will never surrender.” “If the British Empire should last a thousand years, this (meaning British resistance to The Blitz) will be our finest hour.” The RAF persistently attacked the incoming Luftwaffe bombers, and the Germans never secured air supremacy. Hitler abandoned plans for an invasion. “Never,” Churchill said of the RAF pilots, “have so many owed so much to so few.”
The United States On the background of The Blitz Churchill made a public appeal for American support. “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.” It was becoming increasingly clear that Britain was all that stood between Hitler and the complete Nazi conquest of Europe. Despite the isolationist “America First” sentiments of a sizable portion of the American population, FDR saw it in American interest to assist Britain. In September 1940 FDR, through executive order and without the consent of the Senate, authorized the giving of 50 overage American destroyers to Britain in exchange for long-term lease of some eight military bases in British possessions in the western hemisphere. Of particular value to US strategic interests were the bases in Newfoundland and Bermuda. The ships would certainly aid Britain in its war with Germany. The bases would be future protection for America should the war expand. Although FDR's action circumvented the Senate's power to approve treaties, American popular opinion supported the President.
Lend-Lease In March 1941 following a bitter debate, Congress approved FDR's request for a Lend-Lease Act. Through the Act, Congress allocated some $7 billion for Lend-Lease. Through Lend-Lease the US would “lend or lease” (i.e., give) the arms, aircraft, tanks, supplies, and foodstuffs needed by Britain to wage war against Hitler. The US, FDR told the American people, would become the “great arsenal of democracy.” Between 1941 and 1945 the US would provide some $50 billion in lend-lease of arms, foodstuffs, and services to its allies. American merchant shipping would be used to move Lend-Lease supplies to Europe. This would, consequently, put American shipping in harm’s way. The Americans would be joining the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Atlantic Charter In August 1941, FDR met with Churchill in a secret shipboard conference off the coast of Newfoundland. It was clear to both that it was simply a matter of time before the US entered the war on the Allied side. Both leaders agreed that should continued Japanese aggression lead to an expansion of the war into the Pacific and bring the US into the war, the primary objective of their future cooperative effort would be the defeat of Germany. They also agreed to a broad statement of war aims known as the Atlantic Charter. Both countries agreed that the Allies would seek…
… no territorial aggrandizement in defeating the Axis powers;
… the complete independence and self-determination for all nations under Axis domination;
… a peace based on collective security provided by an international organization of nations.
The end of American Neutrality To protect Lend-Lease shipments on convoy to Britain (and later to the USSR), FDR ordered the US navy to begin air and sea patrolling of the North Atlantic and inform the British of German submarines and warships. For further protection of American interests he ordered US military occupation of Greenland (June) and Iceland (July). Twice in October German U-boats attacked American destroyers on convoy duty. American military personnel were killed and one of the ships was sunk. FDR authorized the Navy to actively hunt for and destroy German submarines. In November FDR extended Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union. In November Congress repealed the Neutrality Act but by a very narrow margin. The American people, evidently, were in favor of protecting American shipping and aiding the Allies but were not yet ready to go to war against Germany.
North Africa (1940 - 1943)
Seeking to press the war against Britain in the Mediterranean in order to take control of Suez and break Britain’s lifeline to India, Germany invaded and conquered the Balkans and Greece in the spring of 1941. The British had been fighting the Italians in North Africa since the summer of 1940. When it appeared that the British might defeat the Italians, Germany sent a huge force to North Africa. The German Afrika Korps, as the army was called, was led by a remarkably able General, Erwin Rommel, who became known as the “Desert Fox.” Rommel was loved by his troops and greatly respected by his Allied opponents. The British forces in North Africa were led by General Bernard Montgomery. The British would be initially defeated and pushed back into Egypt, but, when Hitler ordered the invasion of Russia, Rommel’s forces found themselves increasingly at a disadvantage. In late 1941 the United States entered the war. An American invasion (November 1942) of North Africa through Morocco, forced Rommel to fight a two-front campaign – the Americans in the west, the British in the east. The Americans were led by generals Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton. Montgomery’s forces won a significant victory at Al Alamein in Egypt (Nov 1942) forcing Rommel to retreat to the west. The Germans were then caught in Tunisia between the advancing Americans and British. Rommel was recalled to Germany in the spring of 1943. Without Rommel, the remaining units of the Afrika Korps and their Italian allies, lacking effective leadership and severely hampered by dwindling supplies, surrendered.
The German Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941
In the pre-dawn of June 22, 1941, Hitler launched his war against the Soviet Union. Despite the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was inevitable. Fascist ideology and Nazi doctrine were based upon an uncompromising hatred of Communism. In his book, Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler had outlined Germany's future destiny. A Nazi-dominated Germany would seek its rightful Lebensraum (living space) in the lands populated by Slavic Untermenschen (sub-humans) to the East. Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Balkans, and Russia would be taken over by the Nazi Reich and their peoples would be enslaved for the benefit of the German "Master Race." At the same time, Germany would rid the world of the menace of Soviet Communism and, thus, save Western Civilization from the cancer of Marxism. The conquest of Russia would be, in Hitler's mind, a great and noble crusade.
At the time their foreign ministers signed the 1939 treaty of friendship and mutual non-aggression, both Hitler and Stalin knew the agreement was only a temporary expedient. Both needed what the treaty offered – time. Hitler needed time to conquer Poland and defeat the British and French without having to fight the USSR at the same time. Stalin needed time to build up his armed forces to such strength that if a German attack came, the USSR would be able not only to defend itself but take over the war-weary West.
The period of "friendship" between 1939 and 1941 was an uneasy one. Hitler watched with pleased anticipation as the Soviets struggled to defeat Finland in the Winter War of 1939-1940. Stalin became increasingly concerned as Hitler's armies easily conquered Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France. He had hoped for a western war that would devastate and exhaust Britain, France, and Germany. Soviet nervousness increased as the intimidation of German diplomacy made subservient allies of Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. Stalin's generals expressed alarm as German aggression marched through the Balkans taking Yugoslavia and Greece in the spring of 1941. By the early summer of 1941 the Soviet Union seemed isolated behind a solid wall of German-controlled territory in Eastern Europe.
Hitler had hoped that he could defeat Britain before going to war with Russia. The Battle of Britain had prevented German air mastery needed for an invasion, but German U-boats and surface raiders could cut off Britain from its economic lifelines abroad. Besides, he thought, the British had been defeated in Greece and Crete and were suffering setbacks in the deserts of North Africa. What the Luftwaffe could not do over the Channel, Rommel's Afrika Korps and the Kriegsmarine (Germany’s surface fleet) would eventually do. It was simply a matter of time before Britain would surrender. He could, therefore, launch "Operation Barbarossa."
The German campaign to conquer Russia was called "Barbarossa." It was based on a three-pronged Blitzkrieg strategy intended to rapidly destroy Soviet armies and air force and occupy the industrial and agricultural regions of western Russia. With the capture of Moscow, Leningrad, and other key cities, Stalin's Russia would be destroyed. Hitler's strategists anticipated a short victorious war that would be over before the Russian winter set in. They would be wrong.
In a well-planned and coordinated attack, some three million German troops invaded the Soviet Union along a thousand-mile front. Soviet border forces, caught by surprise, were easily overwhelmed and routed. Stalin, initially disbelieving reports of the invasion, isolated himself in the Kremlin and remained incommunicado for several days before publicly addressing the nation that it was at war. Unable to mount effective resistance, Soviet generals ordered their forces to fall back to the east. Whatever of strategic value that could be saved was ordered dismantled and relocated east of the Ural Mountains. As the German invader pushed forward, the Russian people "scorched" the earth. What industries that could not be saved were purposely destroyed. Dams were opened; railroad lines were torn up; mines were collapsed; and crops were set afire. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet people died or became refugees as the Germans ruthlessly bombed cities and destroyed villages. The Germans advanced across Western Russia towards what was believed to be certain victory. By December they were within forty miles of Moscow. The southern strategy saw German armies smash into the Ukraine where the Ukrainians initially welcomed them as liberators from Stalin’s oppression. The Germans, however, came to enslave, not liberate, the Ukraine.
In the northern advance, the Germans swept up the Baltic coasts meeting little opposition. By early September, they had surrounded and isolated the city of Leningrad. Despite the obvious German military superiority, the city's defenders refused to surrender. Rather than attack Leningrad, however, the Germans chose to besiege the city into submission. The resulting siege would last almost three years during which the city's population suffered terrible hardship. In heroic defiance, Leningrad resisted, but almost a million Leningraders would die of starvation before the siege would be lifted in January 1943.
As the Russian winter set in, the German advance slowed and halted. The Germans would wait out the winter. The expected Soviet surrender would certainly come soon. Hitler, however, made another strategic blunder. Within days of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7), Germany declared war (Dec. 11) on the United States. The British, Soviets, and the Americans were now allies.
The United States enters the War, December 1941
(Dec) The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7) brought the United States into the war. Japan simultaneously attacked American positions in the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Islands. Japan also declared war against Britain and launched a campaign to take Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma. In a radio address to the American people President Roosevelt referred to December 7th as a “date that will live in infamy.” He called upon Congress for a declaration of war, which was approved on December 8. Germany declared war on the US (Dec. 11).
American attention was immediately concentrated on the war in the Pacific, but Roosevelt promised Churchill that the US would commit its economic resources and manpower to winning the war against Hitler. Lend-Lease was extended to the Soviet Union and American supplies and weapons would soon be on their way to Russia via convoy to the Arctic port of Murmansk and Iran.
1942
Declaration of the "United Nations" (January 1) Representatives of the 26 Allied nations met in Washington and pledged to unite their war efforts in defeating the Axis as well as to seek peace in accordance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter.
In 1942 the war continued in North Africa (see above) and in the Pacific. In November the Germans ended the fiction of the Vichy government and occupied the rest of France. The Vichy government's Minister for War ordered the remaining units of the French fleet docked in Toulon be scuttled to prevent them from falling into German hands.
The Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 - February 1943) The summer of 1942 saw renewed German offensives along the southern Russian Front. The strategy was to take the Caucasus oil fields and break the allied supply lines from Iran. Key to the German success was Stalingrad, a major industrial city on the Volga River. A huge German army successfully took the city, but General Grigori Zhukov, the Soviet commander, ordered a major counteroffensive that surrounded the Germans and cut them off from their lines of supply. General Friedrich Von Paulus, the German commander, was ordered by Hitler to hold the city "to the last man." Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring promised an air assault to relieve the besieged Germans, but this failed. The advancing Russians forced the battle into the city where it was savagely fought street to street and house to house. Finally, with annihilation inevitable, Von Paulus defied Hitler and surrendered. Over 80,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner. Some 120,000 had been killed. Stalingrad marked the end of the German offensive in Russia.
1943
The Casablanca Conference (January) Churchill and FDR met in Morocco to discuss issues relating to the Free French leadership and future military strategy. See section 24.4 “Allied Cooperation and the Making of the Peace”
The Allied Invasion of Italy (July) With the defeat of the Axis armies in North Africa, the Allies turned their attention to the conquest of fascist Europe. Under the joint command of Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery, a massive force of over 200,000 combined American, British, and Canadian troops landed in Sicily. Despite fierce resistance by the island's Italian and German defenders, the Allies took Sicily after six weeks of fighting.
Mussolini Overthrown / Italy Joins the Allies With the Allied invasion of Sicily, Mussolini's government collapsed. Wishing to avoid Italy's becoming a battleground, dissidents in the Italian army led by Marshall Pietro Badoglio successfully persuaded King Victor Emmanuel III to dismiss Mussolini (July 25). In a completely bloodless coup, Mussolini was arrested, the Fascist Party was disbanded, and Badoglio was appointed Italy's new premier. Badoglio immediately sought to negotiate an armistice with the Allies.
In early September 1943, Allied forces crossed from Sicily into southern Italy, but fighting soon ended as Badoglio's government accepted Allied terms for an armistice. Hitler, not wanting to lose Italy, ordered the German commanders in Italy, Generals Erwin Rommel and Albert Kesselring, to seize control of the country. German armies now turned on their former allies and took control of the major Italian cities and key military bases. Thousands of Italian soldiers suddenly became prisoners of their former allies. To give legitimacy to their actions, the Germans sought to restore Mussolini to power. In a daring raid, German commandos freed Mussolini from captivity. Taken to safety in the north, he was reestablished as leader of a new Italian Fascist government in Milan that was in reality a shadow puppet regime of the German military command. The Badoglio government declared war on Germany and, in effect, joined the Allied side. Italy now became what the Italians had hoped to avoid - a major battleground.
The Allied campaign to liberate Italy from the Germans began with an American and British landing at Salerno (September). Stiff German resistance, now led exclusively by Kesselring, was overcome and the Allies won a secure beachhead. With fresh troops and supplies now pouring into Salerno, the Allies began the advance to the north towards Rome. In early October, the Allies entered Naples.
The Russian Front Ever since the Russian victory at Stalingrad in early 1943, Soviet armies, under Zhukov’s command, had mounted a steady and relentless campaign to drive the German invader back to the west. Hitler was determined that his armies hold against the Russian offensive and committed the greater part of his manpower to the dreaded Russian Front. A Soviet victory could mean the unimaginable ravaging of Germany by vengeful Russians. Thus, the Russian Front continued to be the scene of Europe's bloodiest fighting. Once again the western regions of the Soviet Union experienced brutal devastation as the Soviets pushed the desperately-resistant Wehrmacht forces back towards Poland. The question for Stalin was when would his British and American Allies launch an invasion of France and open a second front against the Germans in the West. From Stalin’s perspective, North Africa and Italy were military sideshows with little consequence; the Soviets were now carrying the burden of the war in Europe.
By the end of 1943 American troops and supplies were pouring into Britain. Plans for an Allied invasion of France were underway.
The UNRRA Agreement (Nov.) See section 24.4 “Allied Cooperation and the Making of the Peace.”
The Cairo Conference (Nov.) FDR and Churchill met with Chinese leader Jiang Jieshi. See section 24.4 “Allied Cooperation and the Making of the Peace.”
The Teheran Conference (Nov. – Dec.) FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met in Teheran, Iran. See section 24.4 “Allied Cooperation and the Making of the Peace.”
1944
The Allied campaign in Italy turned hard and bloody in the face of stiff German resistance. Rome fell to the Allies in June and Florence fell in August. Still, the Germans fought with bitter resolve.
D-Day: The Normandy Landings and Allied Invasion of France
June 1944 For many months throughout late 1943 and early 1944, the Allies had been building up their forces in Britain preparatory to an invasion of France. "Operation Overlord," as the Allied invasion strategy was called, was under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower, now Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Eisenhower's plan was to attack France directly through a massive amphibious landing concentrated on the beaches of Normandy. The landing of the troops would be supported by carefully coordinated naval firepower and intense aerial bombardment. Once a beachhead was secured, support ships and forces would construct huge artificial harbors from which the invasion supplies and materiel would be landed. Hitler, knowing an invasion of France was coming, had recalled Rommel from Italy and placed him in command of Germany's Festung Europa (“Fortress Europe”) the line of powerful fortifications along the French coasts.
The Allied invasion of France began on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The invasion force would eventually consist of almost three million combat troops and support personnel. Some 11,000 aircraft, 80 warships, and some 4000 transport and supply ships would provide additional firepower and support. The landings were made at beaches along the Norman coast designated "Sword," "Gold," "Juno," "Omaha," and "Utah." Despite intense German resistance, the invasion went as planned. Once the beachhead was secured, it took the Allies over a month to battle inland and push the Germans back towards Paris.
German Missiles Strike London Throughout the war the Nazi government had commandeered Germany's scientific community for the war effort. The most spectacular achievement of German military science was unleashed in the summer of 1944 when the first of the V1 rocket bombs struck London. A jet-propelled missile with a range of 200 miles, the V1 marked the beginning of a whole new concept of warfare. The British called the V1s “buzz bombs” because of their distinctive sound when in flight. Later in 1944 the Germans introduced a more sophisticated rocket weapon, the V2. This was also a ballistic missile with a range of 200 miles but capable of carrying a one-ton explosive warhead that distance in only four minutes. Most of the several thousand V1 and V2 missiles were launched against London where they did great damage and caused thousands of casualties among the city's population. Despite the terrifying impact of the German missiles, they did not interfere with the Allied war effort, and their launch sites were successfully targeted for destruction through aerial bombing.
German Officers Attempt to Kill Hitler (July) To many high-ranking officers of the German general staff, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the war was lost. By the summer of 1944, the Americans and British had liberated Rome and were advancing in France. Despite heavy German opposition, the Russians were pressing in from the east. Not trusting his generals and believing himself to be a divinely-guided military genius, Hitler had assumed personal command of the war effort. To these professional and experienced soldiers, it was clear that the former corporal had little understanding of strategy and battle tactics. Hitler had also given the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem" (the extermination of the Jews) priority over the war effort and was diverting needed resources to the SS. Seeing themselves as patriots saving their country from unparalleled disaster, several officers conspired to kill their Fuhrer. The plot, called "Valkerie," failed. On July 20th, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg placed an explosive-laden briefcase under the table at which Hitler would preside at a military briefing at his East Prussian headquarters. The bomb exploded, but Hitler was only slightly wounded. In a fury of vengeance, he unleashed the Gestapo against those responsible for the crime. Many of Germany's best officers were implicated in the plot, arrested, and executed. Even Rommel, the respected "Desert Fox," was convicted. Because of his popularity, Rommel was spared the indignation of execution and was ordered to commit suicide. Fearing what might happen to his family if he refused, Rommel took his own life.
The Liberation of France (July - September) In July the Allies in France broke through the German defenses and fanned out to the north towards Belgium and the east towards Paris. In Paris the FFI , as the French underground resistance forces were known, began a campaign to liberate the city of the German occupiers. Taking to the streets they ambushed German soldiers and attacked or bombed German military facilities. Outraged that Paris might be captured by the Allies, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the German commander in Paris, to destroy the city. Explosives were set at all the bridges, public buildings, utilities, and city landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and Nôtre Dame Cathedral.
As the Allies approached the city, Eisenhower decided that it should be the French who first enter Paris. This he did to enable General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, to take the city. The FFI forces inside Paris were largely French Communists, and the Allies felt the future of France would be better served if de Gaulle were to liberate Paris rather than the Communists. As the Allies moved on Paris, there were frantic negotiations between de Gaulle and the city's FFI leaders who finally agreed to accept de Gaulle's command. When de Gaulle's Free French forces entered the city, General von Choltitz ordered his troops to evacuate. Defying Hitler, he refused to give the order to set off the explosives and surrendered himself to the Allies. On August 24th, a triumphant de Gaulle, now the self-proclaimed head of a new French government, led his forces past cheering throngs of delirious Parisians down the Champs Elysées to celebrate a victory mass at Nôtre Dame.
The liberation of Paris did not mean the end of the war in France. The battle, however, now swung to the north as the Allies pushed towards Belgium. Also in mid-August, an Allied army was landed in southern France near Marseilles, and, after defeating German opposition near Grenoble, advanced northward eventually to link up with Eisenhower's main force.
The Soviet Liberation of Eastern Europe By 1944 the German ability to wage war had been severely strained. Germany's soldiers were disciplined, experienced, and loyal, but they were beginning to experience logistical and command problems caused by the weakening of German industrial productivity and the eccentricities of Hitler's leadership. Germany's military problems were compounded in June, when the Americans and British opened a second front in France. The success of the Allied invasion in Normandy caused Hitler to withdraw some divisions from the Russian Front in order to combat the advancing Americans and British in the west. Relieved by the opening of the western front, the Soviets stepped up their offensive in the east. In a massive summer offensive that began in June, the Soviets pressed forward into Poland. By the end of July the Soviets were on the outskirts of Warsaw.
By late summer, 1944, the Red Army had expelled the Germans from Soviet soil and was pressing into Eastern Europe. With victory only a matter of time, Stalin's government was able to give greater attention to concerns relating to postwar Europe. These concerns centered on the restoration of Poland, the "liberation" of the Eastern European countries under fascist rule, and the revision of the Soviet borders with Eastern Europe. These concerns were also among those of Stalin's American and British allies as well.
The Soviet treatment of Poland demonstrated the nature of Soviet policy for the liberation of Eastern Europe. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, the leading Polish Communists fled to the USSR while others from the Polish leadership fled to London. The London Poles were recognized by the British government as the legitimate Polish government in exile. Following the German invasion of the USSR, Stalin recognized the Polish Communists as the Polish government in exile. Intending to put the Polish Communists in power once the Red Army liberated Poland, Stalin had to do something to prevent the return of the London Poles. His opportunity came in the fall of 1944.
In August there began the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation of Poland. In Warsaw a Polish underground resistance force, the Home Army, loyal to the London Poles had been receiving clandestine arms and assistance from the western allies. The Soviet Red Army had advanced to within five miles of the Polish capital when the Polish resistance rose in armed rebellion against the Germans. Stalin ordered the Soviet forces to hold their positions and not to aid the Polish rebels. When the British and Americans asked Stalin to permit planes with supplies for the rebels to land behind Soviet lines, he refused on the grounds that the resistance forces were not acting in the best interests of the people of Poland. The Polish Home Army heroically and desperately fought the superior German forces sent to crush them. Appeals from both Churchill and Roosevelt for Soviet assistance for the Poles were politely refused by Stalin. Thus, Stalin allowed the Germans to do what he had wanted all along - eliminate the Polish Home Army loyal to the London government. By October, the Warsaw Uprising had been crushed by the Germans. Some 200,000 Poles were killed or wounded in the struggle. With the later liberation of Warsaw by the Red Army, Stalin's Polish Communists were placed in key positions in a new Polish government centered in Lublin. The question of Poland's postwar future had still to be determined. Stalin would insist that the Poland be Communist. Churchill and Roosevelt would insist on its being democratic.
1944 - 1945
With the Soviet advance, the pro-Fascist puppet regimes of Germany's "allies" quickly collapsed. In late 1944 and early 1945 Red Army forces moved into Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, and Slovakia (eastern Czechoslovakia). In "liberating" these countries from Germany, the Soviets would establish Communist-dominated governments that in the postwar period would look to Moscow for direction. Albania and Yugoslavia would also have Communist governments, but these were the result of their own internal conditions and not imposed on them by Stalin. With the German retreat from Greece, Communist partisans and royalists supporting the exiled monarchy, found themselves in conflict. Free of German occupation, Greece slipped into a bitter civil war that would last until 1949.
The Battle of the Bulge Between September and December 1944, the Allies advanced into the Low Countries. Because the German border with France was so heavily fortified, Eisenhower saw it as prudent to invade Germany further north, through the Netherlands. The Allies easily moved into Belgium and took Brussels early in September. Mid-September saw an Allied attempt to cross into Germany by seizing key bridges along the Dutch reaches of the Rhine River. German resistance proved stronger than anticipated and the battles for the Rhine bridges, especially that at Arnhem, proved failures. Abandoning plans for an immediate assault into Germany, the Allies took up defensive positions and made preparations for a future invasion.
In December, Hitler ordered General Karl von Runstedt, his commander in the west, to stop the Allies by counterattacking through the Ardennes Forests in Belgium. Von Runstedt, not fully convinced that such an attack would work, nevertheless obeyed his Fuhrer and ordered a daring German tank and infantry offensive intended to push through the Allied positions to the Channel ports. Such an attack, if successful, would disrupt the Allied command, split the Allied forces, and give the Germans valuable time to defeat the Russians in the east. The German offensive began on December 16. Initially surprised by the large scale of the German attack, the Allied lines were broken and their forces fell back in confusion. When the American force in the small town of Bastogne was surrounded and the German commander called for their surrender, their commander, General MacAuliffe, responded with a defiant, "Nuts!"
Called the "Battle of the Bulge" because of the shape of the German offensive on the map, the attack's initial successes proved only temporary. The Allied recovery was far faster than the Germans anticipated. Forces led by General George Patton and British General Bernard Montgomery were able to move immediately into the Ardennes and relieve the forces at Bastogne and elsewhere. The Germans had gambled on quick success and committed their existing petroleum reserves to their Panzer and Luftwaffe forces. They were not enough and the Germans virtually ran out of gas. Six weeks after the offensive had been launched, the Germans had been pushed back to the positions held before the attack. In the meantime, however, they had lost some 200,000 men, some 600 tanks, and almost all of their remaining aircraft.
1945
The Yalta Conference In early February Roosevelt and Churchill traveled to the Soviet Black Sea resort town of Yalta to meet with Stalin. There, the "Big Three," knowing victory in Europe was imminent, discussed and deliberated conditions for the coming peace. Their agenda included plans for postwar Germany, the political reconstruction of Poland and Eastern Europe, and plans for the new United Nations Organization. Stalin also agreed to declare war on Japan within three months of the defeat of Germany. The decisions reached at Yalta would have profound effect upon the future of the United States and the Soviet Union and are seen by most historians as underlying the Cold War relationship that would develop between the two powers. See section 24.4 “Allied Cooperation and the Making of the Peace.”
Italy In late April Italian Communist guerrillas captured Mussolini as he attempted to escape to Switzerland. He and his mistress were summarily shot by his captors and their bodies were subjected to public desecration by being hanged in Milan.
The Defeat of Germany (January - May 1945) In the early months of 1945, the Allies prepared for the invasion of Germany. Preparatory to the ground advance was a series of major air attacks on strategic military, industrial, transport, and communications centers throughout Germany. The intensity of these bombing raids was devastating. Thousands of German civilians were killed or made homeless by raids on such cities as Dresden. The once-mighty Luftwaffe had been driven from the skies and what planes remained were destroyed on the ground, defenseless for want of fuel and repair.
The ground offensive in the west began in February as Allied forces renewed the attack along the Rhine in the Netherlands. In March American and British forces moved into the German Rhineland from both Belgium and France.
(On April 12 President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Vice President Harry Truman.)
As the Americans and British advanced westward, the Soviets invaded Germany from the east. Hitler's generals concentrated their resistance primarily in the east. German armies courageously but futilely attempted to hold their ground against the Russian onslaught. Millions of terrified German civilians abandoned their homes in eastern Germany and fled to the west seeing it better to surrender to the Americans and British than to the Russians. On April 25, Soviet and American armies converged in joyous celebration at Torgau on the Elbe River.
Honoring earlier agreements, Eisenhower allowed the Russians to take Berlin. By mid-April Zhukov's armies had laid siege to the German capital. Under intensive shelling and bombing, Hitler and his entourage of Nazi officials had taken refuge in a fortified bunker deep under the Chancellery building. From there, in isolated delusion, he continued to issue orders to armies that no longer existed. He even issued an order calling upon all in authority throughout Germany to destroy all stocks of food, fuel, and other necessary supplies to deny them to the advancing enemy. The order was not carried out as saner heads realized that such destruction would mean the starvation of millions of Germans. When word was received that President Roosevelt had died on April 12, Hitler rejoiced, claiming that Roosevelt's death would certainly mean the end of the Allied coalition and a German victory. On April 30, with Russian armies already in the city, Hitler turned power over to Admiral Karl Doenitz and together with Eva Braun, his wife of one day, committed suicide. His body was burned to prevent its capture.
With Hitler's death, German resistance rapidly collapsed. Berlin fell to the Russians on May 1. On May 7, Doenitz sent General Alfred Jodl to Eisenhower's headquarters at Reims in France to ask for an armistice. As the Allies had earlier made the peace dependent upon Germany's unconditional surrender, Jodl agreed and signed the surrender documents. At midnight on May 8, the guns fell silent. The war in Europe was over.
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Never in human history had there been warfare on such a global scale. Beyond the battlefields, it was total war with civilians in large cities being targeted for attack by both sides. Millions were systematically murdered as victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Millions died of starvation and disease in areas ravaged by war. The statistics of deaths, both military and civilian, stagger the imagination.* The Soviet Union alone suffered 27 million deaths – military, 12 million; civilian, 15 million. Germany lost over 6 million, military and civilian. Poland lost over 6 million, mostly civilian victims of the Holocaust. Britain and its imperial partners (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India) lost almost 600,000, military and civilian. France, 600,000. The United States, 413,000. Outside of Europe millions of Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian peoples died in the war against Japan. It is estimated that those wounded and survived numbered over 25 million. The losses in property and industrial resources are incalculable. The psychological impact on those who survived is also immeasurable.
* It is not possible to calculate with accuracy the exact number of military and civilian deaths. The figures included here represent commonly held approximates from several sources.
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Sources for World War II in Europe
As this section is little more than a chronological overview, it could be produced with a limited number of general sources. Included here are those sources as well as some others that provide a more substantive consideration of the War.
Ambrose, Stephen. Rise to Globalism. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Churchill, Winston and the Editors of Life. The Second World War. New York: Time, Inc., 1959.
Jenkins, Roy. Churchill: A Biography. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001.
Katz, Catherine Grace. The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War. New York: Harper Collins, 2020.
Kennan, George F. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin. Boston: Little Brown, 1961.
Langer, William L. et al. Western Civilization. New York: American Heritage, 1968.
Langer, William L., ed. An Encyclopedia of World History. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
Larson, Erik, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz. New York: Random House, 2020.
McCullough, David, ed. The American Heritage Picture History of World War II. USA: American Heritage, 1966.
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: Norton, 1996.
Palmer, Robert R. et al. A History of the Modern World. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Paterson, Thomas et al. American Foreign Policy: A History since 1900. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1991.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960.
Stokesbury, James. A Short History of World War II. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980.