World War II Essays (2846 words) - Modern History, World War II

World War II World War II was one of the deadliest and most destructive wars this world has seen. The origins of the war were in Germany where Adolf Hitler became the leader and started ethnic cleansing, killing any Jewish person, gypsy, homosexual or any other person whom he considered "inferior." Another cause of the war was the attempted invasion of Ethiopia by Italy, which they eventually occupied in 1936 despite British and French opposition. Germany appeared to be winning the war, taking over the Rhineland, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium and other pieces of land, up until 1942 when the tides turned in favor of the Allies. The Japanese naval airpower was devastated by the Americans and Hitler had recently been defeated at Moscow. Shortly after Italy was defeated and expelled from the war and Germany's forces were slowly deteriorated. The war officially ended when the Japanese surrendered following the detonation of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hitler began holding meetings with others who thought like him, blaming Jewish people for the problems in Europe. The Communists continually tried to break up the meetings of the group who came to be known as the National Socialist Party in 1923. The National Socialist Party, led by Goering, Hess, Rosenberg, and Roehm, was outraged with France for occupying the Ruhr. In 1924 Hitler was sentenced to a four-year prison term for a demonstration where twenty people were killed. He only ended up serving thirteen months of the term but it provided sufficient time for him to outline his book Mein Kampf, which means "My Struggle" in German. The President of the German State, Marshal Hindenburg, was eighty-three years old as of 1930 and was persuaded to view Hitler as the next Chancellor of the Reich. Hitler was called to Berlin by the President and on January thirtieth, 1933 he became the Chancellor of Germany. Hitler's first acquisition was his reoccupation of the Rhineland, a small portion of western Germany in 1936. Just three years later German soldiers had already taken over Czechoslovakia. In early September of the same year Germany took over Poland, France and Great Britain declare war on Germany, and Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland all declare neutrality. Later in the year Turkey signs a pact with Britain and France giving them mutual assistance and the Soviets attack Finland. In April of 1940 the Danish king announced that Norway was surrendering to Germany and one month later Belgium does the same. France, under constant attack, gave into Germany in mid June. Italy, sided with Germany, decides that it needs control of the Suez Canal so it invades Egypt on September thirteenth. In October after Hitler's constant nagging, Spain joins the war in exchange for military, agricultural, and territorial demands. On June twenty-second, 1941 Germany begins Operation Barbarossa, the code name for the invasion of the U.S.S.R. Hitler's plan was to have his army, 3,200,000 men, split into three groups; one moving north towards Leningrad, one moving towards Moscow, and one moving south towards Kiev. By the time his army had taken Kiev it was already September and as they moved north towards Moscow winter set in early. Hitler's forces were stuck in the bitter cold of winter. In December a Soviet counter-attack forced the Germans to withdraw from Moscow. This was the first sign that Hitler's powerful army could in fact be stopped and that he was bound to make a mistake at some time. Another Allied force, the British, were also having good luck. In Libya the British were able to split the army under Rommel, forcing him to retreat. Early in the morning of December seventh, 1941 a fleet of 189 Japanese aircraft began attacking Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The first wave of planes destroyed anything it could find, including American aircraft, battleships, destroyers, cruisers, and submarines. The second wave followed shortly and attacked everything the first wave had missed. Anti-aircraft fire was able to deter a third wave, but an incredible amount of damage had already happened. In only one hour, forty five minutes the Japanese air forces wrecked and capsized two battleships and three were resting on the bottom. Nineteen war ships had been hit and 150 aircraft had been disabled. In all over 2,400 American lives were lost, 2,086 from the Navy and 237 from the Army. As a result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor the United States, with many of the Latin American countries, declared war on Germany, Japan and Italy. Although many countries declared war against the Axis nations, only the United States,