Winston Churchill (1874-1965) is the new English prime minister (1940-1945 and 1951-1955) upon Chamberlain's resignation (Chamberlain was very ill and died shortly after his resignation). Chamberlain had been a peaceful guy. Churchill is the right guy to have as prime minister for war! England was afraid they'd be invaded despite their still-neat navy. They hoped the United States would enter the war.
Germany begins invading Poland on September 1, 1939. The British and French declare war against Germany on September 3, 1939. A Norwegian Nazi named Quisling sold out Norway to Germany from the inside. The word "Quisling" has come to mean a traitor to one's country. Germany got Denmark and Belgium early.
The Maginot Line was supposed to protect France. There were underground guns, etc. from Switzerland to Belgium. It stopped at Belgium. France and England were to protect the Belgium border into France. Hitler used tanks like cavalry in Blitzkrieg ("lightning war"). He beat France quickly. The French army just collapsed–they didn't really fight (they may not have had the stomach for another war after World War I or maybe the French sympathized with Hitler).
Hitler surrounded the English navy at Dunkirk. The English lost all their weapons (destroyed them so the Germans couldn't use them), but they got their soldiers out before the slaughter. The English sent any boat that would float across the channel to get the English soldiers out. It was a disaster, but they got their soldiers out. Germany got France.
Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) was a French tank man. He went to England to set up the French Resistance. He knew how to use tanks as cavalry, too. De Gaulle becomes the president of France in 1959 (til 1969).
The Germans struck England by air. The English have the best fighter plane on the western front. It is called a "spitfire." It is small with no fuel supply so things must be timed just right. The English invented radar. They could see the German planes as they took off, which allowed the spitfires to go up at the right time. The R.A.F. (Royal Air Force) is the British Air Force. They had radar which the Germans lacked. They were good anti-aircraft pilots. Germany began night bombings to destroy morale, but it actually pulled England together. The Germans bombed English industrial towns night and day. Eventually, they had to switch to night bombings cuz the day bombings were too costly. The Germans bomb London, but that just makes the British madder and more determined.
What did the United States do? They were neutral (pro-English). Germany used to hunt in submarine packs to knock off destroyer convoys. The German subs were dangerous. They sink British ships and the British almost starve to death. United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt "loaned" England 50 destroyers. President Roosevelt (1882-1945 and president from 1933 to 1945) begins giving "Fireside Chats" in which he explains that a good person lends water if the neighbor's house is on fire. Pretty soon, the U.S. start shooting at Germans and vice versa.. There is an undeclared naval war between Germany and the United States for a while.
Italy attacked North Africa and Greece in 1940. North Africa and Greece beat the Italians, so the Germans came in to save Italy's rear. Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) was the German general in North Africa. Rommel takes Greece and North Africa. Rommel is called the "Desert Fox." He eventually loses this ground, but he was a great general. He commits suicide in 1944 by drinking poison when accused of complicity in the attempted assassination of Hitler.
In June of 1941, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union (which I will call Russia, cuz it is easier to type, but Russia is the Soviet Union from 1922 until the end of 1991). Russia had signed a secret treaty with Germany in August of 1939 called the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, but Germany got greedy and decided to take on Russia anyway. Russia retreated faster than Germany could catch them. Russia had a scorched earth policy. They burned everything behind them, so the Germans would have captured only scorched earth–nothing to feed them or house them, etc. By winter, Germany had a battle line of 1800 miles. Russia counterattacked in the winter.
The United States loaned England half the planes they were using. Our ships used to point out German subs so the English ships could get them.
Japan was out there causing trouble. They decided to expand into the Pacific. Japanese naval commander Yamamoto said not to attack the United States but they overrode him, so he planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. They decided that they had better take the United States out quickly. They bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941 ("a day that will live in infamy," FDR said.). The United States had been worried about Japanese submarines, so we were not thinking about airplanes. This almost completely killed our Pacific Fleet. That brought the United States into the war against Japan. Hitler then declared war on the United States.
The real fighting is on the Eastern Front. 3/4 of Germans were fighting on the Russian front. Germany had gotten to Stalingrad (Southeast Russia) but couldn't quite capture it. Stalin wanted the United States and England to land in France and make Germany fight a two-front war. Instead, the United States helped Africa and Italy and let Stalin take all the heat from Germany. The United States was neat to have enter the war cuz we are a huge manufacturing industrial power. The U.S. could make ships faster than Germany could sink them. Our major input was manufacturing at this point. We just overwhelmed the Germans with how quickly we could make things.
Nobody really tried to kill civilians before World War II. Cities are a natural target because materials are more important than men. World War II was a "Total War" to break the other side's morale. Germany started it by bombing London. Germans start rounding up the mentally defective people and people who are in the way. Gypsies (don't have jobs), Jews (scapegoats), etc. They made these unwanted people prisoners of war for a while. They thought about trying to send the Jews to Palestine. They don't quite know what to do with them. They decide to start killing them. This extermination of the Jews is called, by the Germans, the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." The "final solution" is to kill them all in the easiest way possible. They shot them or killed them with exhaust in the backs of trucks. They put them to work in death camps. The Germans executed Jews and others they found unworthy of life (homosexuals, gypsies, etc.). They built death factories with furnaces to get rid of the bodies. Auschwitz was one of the big death factories. They used poison gas showers. They made soap and fertilizer from their bodies. They took the gold from their teeth. The Germans performed medical experiments on Jews. They thought of them as less than human, so they treated them like guinea pigs. Lampshades were made of tattooed skin.
The United States forces Japanese-Americans into detention camps during World War II. The United States deliberately burned cities using bombs. That took all the oxygen out of the city cuz of the fires so if the fire didn't get the people, the people left over couldn't breathe. Penetration bombs were used–they dig into the ground and blow up after a while which kills the water lines. Then, we bomb them with phosphorus bombs after there is no way to put out the fires. They bombed Dresden the same way. But Dresden had lots of refugees (not many real Germans) in it so it sounded worse than others. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is written about this. Why bomb Dresden when there aren't really any Germans there?
Why didn't Germany surrender? On June 6, 1944, the D-Day invasion of Normandy was started by England and the United States (the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan depict the landing on Normandy's beach) to take back France. Rommel lost North Africa, but he was a defensive genius on Omaha Beach. Germany was out of material and people, but Hitler wouldn't quit. The German Buzz Bombs (V-1) were bad cuz you could hear them coming. They came in low and slow. They were designed to run out of gas over England. V-2's are short-range missile and are neat but need a launch pad. Germany had jets before us but the gun sights were bad so they couldn't shoot them straight. Germany had chemical rocket planes which were supposed to glide in. Germany was very close to getting the Atomic Bomb.
In the spring of 1944, the German General Staff realized the war was over, but Hitler wouldn't quit. A lot of military men realize that Hitler is a real liability and try to assassinate him. There was an assassination attempt on Hitler in a below ground bunker. But it missed–the table leg deflected the bomb. Himmler was running Germany for Hitler.
The fighting got tougher as England, France, and the United States hit the German border. German people were fighting on their own soil (which always makes people tougher). Germany tried one last big push with the Battle of the Bulge, but they were out of gas and manpower. Most of the adult Germans were dead, so they start using twelve- and thirteen-year-olds.
Italy fell and Mussolini was captured trying to get to Switzerland in 1945. He and his mistress were killed by his own people. In April of 1945, Hitler tried to surrender just to England, France, and the United States but not Russia. We refused. The United States could've taken Berlin before Russia got there, but we waited for them cuz the Russians had been in it longer. Russia captured Berlin. Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945. May 8th is proclaimed V-E (Victory in Europe) Day.
Japan had run out of oil and gas about the same time as Germany did. It set cities on fire. Japan wouldn't surrender unconditionally. They were ready to repel landings. A type of patriotic/religious zeal pushed the Japanese. We used the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945). We weren't sure what the effects would be. No one knew about radiation effects. The light was so intense that it burned out the retinas of anyone looking at it. Dark repelled the light, so patterns of clothes were burned onto skin. The first bomb was necessary cuz it supposedly save more lives in the long run. Three days later the second Atomic bomb landed on Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). It may not have been necessary. Japan had tried to surrender and asked Russia to tell us, but Russia refused because they wanted to be in on the surrender and get some islands. Nagasaki had a lot of Christian missionaries–the bomb killed all the Christians in Japan. The Japanese announced their surrender on August 14, 1945 and signed a not-quite-unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945. The Japanese were allowed to keep their emperor, Hirohito (1901-1989). Hirohito reigned as Japanese emperor from 1926 until his death in 1989.
The casualty lists look like this: U.S.A. 36,000 deaths, England 360,000 plus civilians, Italy 150,000 plus civilians, Germany 7 million (military and civilians combined), and Russia 7 million plus 12 million civilians with 25 million homeless. Every major city in Russia was destroyed except Moscow.
Germany and the city of Berlin was divided into 4 zones–American, French, British, and Russian. As a civilian, you could pick your zone. The Russians didn't go home; they set up Communist governments wherever they were. The United States set up a democratic government in West Germany. The United States and England were nicer in West Germany where they set up a democratic process. Russia made East Germany and the satellite states communist to make a buffer zone. Stalin was afraid the West was going to attack Russia. He turned all the industry and science to warfare. Actually, Churchill was probably the only one who'd have wanted to attack Russia. He hated Stalin and Communism.