History

History of WW2

Battles, Military Production and Personages of WW2.

Production of Russian KV-1
Comparison of military expenditures, distribution of vital strategic raw materials, oil and fuel production in World War II. Warmaking potential, Read more
Soldiers of the 214th Infantry Division with truck
The Eastern Front from winter 1943-44 until late summer 1944. Ending the siege of Leningrad and Operation Bagration, the destruction Read more
Pioneer Tombs
Losses and casualties during World War II. Military personnel and civilian losses, aircraft, warships and merchant ships of the combatants Read more
assembly line of German Focke-Wulf Fw 190
German arms production in WW2 from 1939-1945. The annual German armaments and military equipment production (excluding ammunition) and a comparison Read more
'selection' at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp
Holocaust, the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question'. Wannsee Conference, Gas for Mass Murder, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and Hitler's Role Read more
'Schleswig-Holstein' bombards the Westerplatte
The campaign against Poland in September 1939 (Part I). Deployment, the German attack and the advance on Warsaw until 9 Read more
Ju 52 landed on Maleme airfield
Operation Merkur (Mercury), the 'Battle of Crete'. German Plan of Attack and assault troops, deployed forces, intelligence, the fighting and Read more
Soldiers of the 69th US Division and the Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front
Second World War, overview of the course from 1943 to 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers by the Read more
pilots were running to their Spitfires
The Battle of Britain in 1940-1941. Operation Sea lion, strengths of the German Navy and Luftwaffe vs RAF, the air Read more
Altmark
Operation Weser Crossing (Unternehmen Weserübung), the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940. The six-month hiatus known as Read more
Japanes aircraft factory
Military production and imports of Japan in World War II. The annual Japanese armaments and military equipment production (excluding ammunition) Read more
Outbreak of British infantry from Tobruk
From August 1941 until the end of the Siege of Tobruk in December 1941 (Part III). Australians withdrawn and replaced Read more
Control of territories
The map of the control of territories in the European theater of war from 1942-45. Above is the strategic map Read more
Geramn infantry on Panzers
German Orders of Battle of 11 May 1942 and the Planning of the Summer Offensive (Operation Blue). Here to the Read more
Roosevelt is talking with his foreign minister Cordell Hull.
Part III of 'Why did Hitler declare war on the US?' Back to PART II: The 'undeclared war' of the Read more
German assault party Tobruk
The Siege of Tobruk, from April to December 1941 (Part II). Rommel’s attack on the defensive perimeter, trench warfare and Read more
The pensive Hitler
The Five Faces of Adolf Hitler. An attempt to describe the character of the German leader or 'Fuehrer' of the Read more
German infantry, armed with 98K rifles as well as grenade throwers
Could had Operation Barbarossa - Hitler's attack on Soviet Russia - a different course and why was the invasion carried Read more
Tobruk harbour
The siege of Tobruk from April to December 1941. Tobruk is a tiny but significant harbor on the coastline of Read more
Ein Volk Reich Fuehrer
Collection of pictures about Adolf Hitler. Hitler was the driving force and uncontested leader of National Socialism, whose rise and Read more

Prophetic cartoon from a US newspaper from 1920
Prophetic cartoon from a US newspaper from 1920 after the Treaty of Versailles which ended WWI – the French P.M. Clemenceau (nicknamed the ‘Tiger’) leaving the conference, which had met to ensure peace, hears one of the children it had doomed to become a soldier in 1940 weeping at his fate.
WW2 History defines that war as beginning in 1939 in Europe with the battles for Poland.
Post-Versailles Poland was a country of some 24 million. Poland was only 75 percent Polish; the rest was Russian or Ukrainian in the east or German in the west. The Polish Corridor (including the port of Danzig) not only was heavily German but separated East Prussia from the Fatherland, a source of tension that Hitler eagerly exploited.

Poland had beaten the Red Army during the Russian civil wars after 1918 and remained impressive enough to motivate France to sign a mutual defense treaty in the 1920s. But if the Poles detested Germany, they detested Russia even more and so rejected French entreaties to permit Soviet troops into Poland if Germany attacked.
By mid-1939 Hitler, deprived of war in Czechoslovakia, was committed to one in Poland. Despite the Franco-Polish treaty and the growing alarm in London, he did not think the West would interfere, particularly after he signed a startling nonaggression and trade pact with Premier Joseph Stalin that included a secret protocol allowing the Soviets to occupy eastern Poland in case of war.
Even so, the Poles did not altogether despair. They believed that France and Britain would eventually respond and that the Polish army could withstand the Wehrmacht for many months, long enough for the West to mobilize and confront Hitler with what he feared most – a two-front war. This proved only partly accurate. When the Germans attacked on September 1, France and Britain, after issuing an ultimatum, did declare war. But they intended less to fight for Poland, which they considered indefensible without Russian involvement, than to signal to Hitler that they would fight him at some point.
The Poles moreover did not hold out, largely because the Germans fought a war that emphasized surprise and velocity as well as firepower. However, WW2 History has begun…

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