Second World War

Second World War – The beginning and post-war world

The Second World War is the result of the clash of interests of the nations that divided the international market since the end of the First World War.

All pertinent information about the Second World War, maps of the evolution of the conflict, the period between wars, the construction of the war, Nazi Germany, the expansion of the war and resistance, the Soviet Union in the conflict, Japan and the United States in war, Brazil at war, the collapse of the axis, the technology of war, the outcome of the war and the post-war world. This information will help you better understand how it all started and ended.

The interwar period – World War I and World War II

At the end of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles imposes severe and humiliating punishments on Germany, which, in addition to territorial losses, sees its army disarmed and reduced, is prohibited from manufacturing weapons and is forced to pay heavy war indemnities to Great Britain. -Brittany and France. This would help to understand the radical nationalism awakened in Germany in the short period before World War II.

In this program, international politics after the First World War, the great economic crisis in the United States in 1929, and its consequences throughout the world. Fascism, in Italy, and Nazism, in Germany, entered the scene. Popular fronts were created in France and Spain to fight against the Nazi-fascist emergency. In Brazil, President Vargas carries out a coup d'état and implements a fascist-inspired regime.

The build-up to World War II

“We demand land to feed our people and settle our surplus population there.”

This cry of the National Socialist Party (NAZI) program began to be put into practice with the annexation of Austria and the occupation of Czechoslovakia by German troops, without any reaction from the rest of Europe. At the Munich Conference, Great Britain and France even gave legitimacy to German action in Czechoslovakia. But when Hitler occupies Poland, an ally of the British, London feels threatened and declares war on Germany. France does the same. In this program, also, the rise of fascism in Portugal and Spain, Italian expansionism in Africa and Japanese expansionism in Asia; and the mutual non-aggression agreement between Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany.

Nazi Germany

In his book Mein Kampf, published in the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler says: “The day came when I no longer went blindfolded: I recognized the enemies of my race – they were Jews… I ended up recognizing Jews by their smell and, under their disgusting rubbish, I discovered the moral defects of the 'chosen people'.”

From 1935 onwards, when Hitler was already in power, the Nuremberg Laws, created to discriminate against Jews, made anti-Semitism official policy in Germany. Supported by the violence of paramilitary groups and an efficient propaganda machine, the Nazis gave voice to and exacerbated latent feelings of nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, Aryanism, anti-Marxism and anti-capitalism.

The expansion of the Second World War and resistance

“The authority of my government is discussed. Orders are poorly executed. From now on, it is necessary to overcome the resistance of all opponents, decimating their leaders.”

This phrase was said by a French hero of the First World War who had just become the head of the Nazi government of German-occupied France: Marshal Philippe Pétain. Before conquering Paris, German troops annexed Austria and occupied Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Greece and Yugoslavia; the latter, with the assistance of Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops, members of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. By also attacking North Africa, Germany and Italy are attacking the colonial empires of France and Great Britain. And after the occupation of France, Great Britain is the only country in Western Europe not yet attacked by the Germans.

Hitler decides to begin the venture with the aerial bombing of London. Still in this program, the constitution of national resistance to the German advance and the involvement of communists in them, for whom Nazi-fascism became the priority enemy.

The Soviet Union and World War II

In December 1940, while the Soviets and Germans were still living under a non-aggression pact, Adolf Hitler told his generals: “The German Armed Forces must be prepared to crush the Soviet Union in a swift campaign.” Shortly afterwards, in June 1941, the Soviet Union was invaded by German troops and the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared:

“Surprising were the miscalculations and ignorance that Stalin revealed regarding what was about to happen to him.”

Germany attacks the Soviet Union on three fronts and begins the bloodiest of all the military undertakings of the war, which lasted four years and cost the Soviets alone the loss of 20 million people. The Germans are finally contained in Stalingrad, where the Soviet counter-offensive and the great turning point of World War II began.

The Soviets give the German commander an ultimatum, but Hitler forbids him to surrender. The Red Army expels the Germans and advances towards Berlin. The Eastern European countries freed from the Nazi yoke are included in the zone of Soviet influence and Stalin is transformed into the new great enemy of the West, taking the place that, until recently, belonged to Hitler.

Japan and the United States in World War II

By joining the Axis, Japan obtains German and Italian support for its intention to form a “Greater Japanese Asia”. In 1940, with the occupation of France by Germany and the paralysis of Great Britain, the Japanese began to believe that their ambitions in the Far East and Southeast Asia were now threatened by a single rival: the United States.

Beginning of the Japanese strategy for the occupation of Asia

They conquered Mandchuria, Thailand and the northern part of French Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), cut off the route to Burma and began to put pressure on the Dutch Indies (present-day Indonesia). Great Britain and the United States worked together to contain the Japanese advance. In 1941, Japan occupied Hong Kong and Malaysia and bombed the American base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Five thousand American soldiers are killed. It is said that President Roosevelt knew in advance that the attack would happen but did nothing to prevent it: the United States needed a good argument to enter the war.

Brazil in the Second World War

In 1937, President Getúlio Vargas carried out a coup d'état and implemented a regime inspired by Italian fascism in Brazil. In 1940, Getúlio raised the possibility of building a steel mill in Brazil, with the support of the German industry Krupp. The United States immediately granted credit to Brazil to finance the steel plant without German participation. Two years later, Getúlio declared war on the Axis countries. In the early 90s, a confidential document from the US Army was made public revealing plans for the United States to invade Brazil if Getúlio did not join the allies.

At the Rio de Janeiro Conference in 1942, twenty-one Latin American nations recognized the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as aggression against the continent and began to declare war on the Axis. The FEB (Brazilian Expeditionary Force) fights in Italy.

The Paraguayan Air Force carries out air patrols in the South Atlantic. Argentina and Chile are also involved in the conflict. The other countries on the continent participate in the North American war effort by supplying raw materials. It was the first major diplomatic victory for the United States on the continent.

The collapse of the Axis

Allied forces retake countries conquered by Germany, England completes the siege.

The growth of allied actions in Africa and the Mediterranean undermines the prestige of the fascist regime in Italy. The German defeat on the Soviet steppes and the invasion of Normandy by Allied forces make Hitler lose his power of initiative. The resistance of the populations becomes decisive for the overthrow of Nazi-fascism. Little by little, the occupied nations were freeing themselves from the Nazi yoke. In Italy, Mussolini is removed from power by the fascist leaders themselves, he is rescued by the Germans but ends up arrested and executed by the population. “The German people suffered in an indescribable way: it is time to put an end to so many horrors”, is what the commander writes. German commander-in-chief Von Kluge, shortly before committing suicide, in a message left to Hitler. Goering threatens to start peace talks with the United States. Himmler proposes a separate peace to the Americans and the English, but Churchill does not accept: the Germans must surrender unconditionally to England, the United States and the Soviet Union.

The technology of war

The war years saw a definitive alliance between science and the power of destruction. Governments make massive investments in weapons technology and reach 50 million deaths. From the cremation ovens in German concentration camps to the Japanese research into bacteriological weapons and the North American atomic bomb, through the German V-2 flying bombs and the enormous technological espionage and counter-espionage trove of all the countries involved in the war, There is a strong presence of the war industry, scientists and money in everything. At the end of the war, everything is justified in the name of what is called “scientific neutrality”. It is in her name that the German Werner von Braun and the Japanese Shiro Ishii are pardoned and incorporated into North American science and that the Italian Bruno Pontecorvo can become one of the fathers of the Soviet atomic bomb.

The balance of the war

50 million dead, including 20 million Soviets and 6 million Jews. Is this how to measure the outcome of a war? Propaganda is the fundamental weapon of the victors, praising battles full of glory and consecrating their heroes. But is it possible to talk about heroes and glories in a war that killed 50 million people?

The Nazi forces left behind massacred populations in destroyed cities and countries, not to mention their concentration camps, where millions of Jews, Slavs, gypsies, communists, disabled people and homosexuals died. But the Allies also committed war crimes: they massacred the civilian population of Dresden and Berlin and dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The profits obtained from the war exceed 2 billion pounds sterling. How do you “make” money in war?

The post-war world

In 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill says: “An iron curtain has descended over Europe. I do not believe that Soviet Russia wants war. What it wants are the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of its power and its doctrines.” Churchill used the expression “iron curtain” for the first time to refer to the new area of Soviet influence. The geopolitical reorganization of the world had already been discussed since 1943, when Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill met in Tehran, Iran. With the end of the war, Germany, France and Italy and Japan were destroyed; Britain finds itself on the brink of exhaustion. The great colonial empires crumble, the countries of Africa and Asia undergo processes of decolonization. The United States and the Soviet Union emerge as the greatest powers on the planet. Before long, the tension between the powers intensifies. The polarization of international disputes between the Western bloc and the Soviet bloc will set the tone in the following decades. The Cold War begins.

Map of the World before and after World War II