The year of the start of World War 2. Beginning of World War II - Russia, Russia

Second World War 1939-1945

a war prepared by the forces of international imperialist reaction and unleashed by the main aggressive states - fascist Germany, fascist Italy and militaristic Japan. World capitalism, like the first, arose due to the law of uneven development of capitalist countries under imperialism and was the result of a sharp aggravation of inter-imperialist contradictions, the struggle for markets, sources of raw materials, spheres of influence and investment of capital. The war began in conditions when capitalism was no longer a comprehensive system, when the world's first socialist state, the USSR, existed and grew stronger. The split of the world into two systems led to the emergence of the main contradiction of the era - between socialism and capitalism. Inter-imperialist contradictions have ceased to be the only factor in world politics. They developed in parallel and in interaction with the contradictions between the two systems. Warring capitalist groups, fighting each other, simultaneously sought to destroy the USSR. However, V. m.v. began as a clash between two coalitions of major capitalist powers. It was imperialist in origin, its culprits were the imperialists of all countries, the system of modern capitalism. Hitler’s Germany, which led the bloc of fascist aggressors, bears special responsibility for its emergence. On the part of the states of the fascist bloc, the war bore an imperialist character throughout its entire duration. On the part of the states that fought against the fascist aggressors and their allies, the nature of the war gradually changed. Under the influence of the national liberation struggle of peoples, the process of transforming the war into a just, anti-fascist war was underway. The entry of the Soviet Union into the war against the states of the fascist bloc that treacherously attacked it completed this process.

Preparation and outbreak of war. The forces that unleashed military warfare prepared strategic and political positions favorable to the aggressors long before it began. In the 30s

Two main centers of military danger have emerged in the world: Germany in Europe, Japan in the Far East. The strengthening of German imperialism, under the pretext of eliminating the injustices of the Versailles system, began to demand the redivision of the world in its favor. The establishment of a terrorist fascist dictatorship in Germany in 1933, which fulfilled the demands of the most reactionary and chauvinistic circles of monopoly capital, turned this country into a striking force of imperialism, directed primarily against the USSR. However, the plans of German fascism were not limited to the enslavement of the peoples of the Soviet Union. The fascist program for gaining world domination provided for the transformation of Germany into the center of a gigantic colonial empire, the power and influence of which would extend to all of Europe and the richest regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the mass destruction of the population in the conquered countries, especially in the countries of Eastern Europe. The fascist elite planned to begin the implementation of this program from the countries of Central Europe, then spreading it to the entire continent. The defeat and capture of the Soviet Union with the aim, first of all, of destroying the center of the international communist and labor movement, as well as expanding the “living space” of German imperialism, was the most important political task of fascism and at the same time the main prerequisite for the further successful deployment of aggression on a global scale. The imperialists of Italy and Japan also sought to redistribute the world and establish a “new order”. Thus, the plans of the Nazis and their allies posed a serious threat not only to the USSR, but also to Great Britain, France, and the USA. However, the ruling circles of the Western powers, driven by a feeling of class hatred towards the Soviet state, under the guise of “non-interference” and “neutrality”, essentially pursued a policy of complicity with the fascist aggressors, hoping to avert the threat of fascist invasion from their countries, to weaken their imperialist rivals with the forces of the Soviet Union, and then with their help, destroy the USSR. They relied on the mutual exhaustion of the USSR and Nazi Germany in a protracted and destructive war. The French ruling elite, pushing in Hitler's aggression in the East and fighting against the communist movement within the country, at the same time she feared a new German invasion, sought a close military alliance with Great Britain, strengthened eastern borders through the construction of the Maginot Line and the deployment of armed forces against Germany. The British government sought to strengthen the British colonial empire and sent troops and naval forces to its key areas (Middle East, Singapore, India). Pursuing a policy of aiding the aggressors in Europe, the government of N. Chamberlain, right up to the start of the war and in its first months, hoped for an agreement with Hitler at the expense of the USSR. In the event of aggression against France, it hoped that the French armed forces, repelling the aggression together with the British expeditionary forces and British aviation units, would ensure the security of the British Isles. Before the war, the US ruling circles supported Germany economically and thereby contributed to the reconstruction of German military potential. With the outbreak of the war, they were forced to slightly change their political course and, as fascist aggression expanded, switch to supporting Great Britain and France.

The Soviet Union, in an environment of increasing military danger, pursued a policy aimed at curbing the aggressor and creating a reliable system for ensuring peace. On May 2, 1935, a Franco-Soviet treaty on mutual assistance was signed in Paris. On May 16, 1935, the Soviet Union concluded a mutual assistance agreement with Czechoslovakia. The Soviet government fought to create a collective security system that could become effective means preventing war and ensuring peace. At the same time, the Soviet state carried out a set of measures aimed at strengthening the country’s defense and developing its military-economic potential.

In the 30s Hitler's government launched diplomatic, strategic and economic preparations for world war. In October 1933, Germany left the Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1932-35 (See Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1932-35) and announced its withdrawal from the League of Nations. On March 16, 1935, Hitler violated the military articles of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 (See Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919) and introduced universal conscription in the country. In March 1936, German troops occupied the demilitarized Rhineland. In November 1936, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy joined in 1937. The activation of the aggressive forces of imperialism led to a number of international political crises and local wars. As a result of the aggressive wars of Japan against China (began in 1931), Italy against Ethiopia (1935-36), and the German-Italian intervention in Spain (1936-39), fascist states strengthened their positions in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Using the policy of “non-intervention” pursued by Great Britain and France, Nazi Germany captured Austria in March 1938 and began preparing an attack on Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia had a well-trained army, based on a powerful system of border fortifications; Treaties with France (1924) and the USSR (1935) provided for military assistance from these powers to Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union has repeatedly stated its readiness to fulfill its obligations and provide military assistance to Czechoslovakia, even if France does not. However, the government of E. Benes did not accept help from the USSR. As a result of the Munich Agreement of 1938 (See Munich Agreement of 1938), the ruling circles of Great Britain and France, supported by the United States, betrayed Czechoslovakia and agreed to Germany’s seizure of the Sudetenland, hoping in this way to open the “path to the East” for Nazi Germany. The fascist leadership had a free hand for aggression.

At the end of 1938, the ruling circles of Nazi Germany began a diplomatic offensive against Poland, creating the so-called Danzig crisis, the meaning of which was to carry out aggression against Poland under the guise of demands for the elimination of the “injustices of Versailles” against the free city of Danzig. In March 1939, Germany completely occupied Czechoslovakia, created a fascist puppet “state” - Slovakia, seized the Memel region from Lithuania and imposed an enslaving “economic” agreement on Romania. Italy occupied Albania in April 1939. In response to the expansion of fascist aggression, the governments of Great Britain and France, in order to protect their economic and political interests in Europe, provided “guarantees of independence” to Poland, Romania, Greece and Turkey. France also pledged military assistance to Poland in the event of an attack by Germany. In April - May 1939, Germany denounced the Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935, broke the non-aggression agreement concluded in 1934 with Poland and concluded the so-called Pact of Steel with Italy, according to which the Italian government pledged to help Germany if it went to war with the Western powers.

In such a situation, the British and French governments, under the influence of public opinion, out of fear of the further strengthening of Germany and in order to put pressure on it, entered into negotiations with the USSR, which took place in Moscow in the summer of 1939 (see Moscow negotiations 1939). However, the Western powers did not agree to conclude the agreement proposed by the USSR on a joint struggle against the aggressor. By inviting the Soviet Union to make unilateral commitments to help any European neighbor in the event of an attack on it, the Western powers wanted to drag the USSR into a one-on-one war against Germany. The negotiations, which lasted until mid-August 1939, did not produce results due to sabotage by Paris and London of Soviet constructive proposals. Leading the Moscow negotiations to a breakdown, the British government at the same time entered into secret contacts with the Nazis through their ambassador in London G. Dirksen, trying to achieve an agreement on the redistribution of the world at the expense of the USSR. The position of the Western powers predetermined the breakdown of the Moscow negotiations and presented the Soviet Union with an alternative: to find itself isolated in the face of a direct threat of attack by Nazi Germany or, having exhausted the possibilities of concluding an alliance with Great Britain and France, to sign the non-aggression pact proposed by Germany and thereby push back the threat of war. The situation made the second choice inevitable. The Soviet-German treaty concluded on August 23, 1939 contributed to the fact that, contrary to the calculations of Western politicians, the world war began with a clash within the capitalist world.

On the eve of V. m.v. German fascism, through the accelerated development of the military economy, created a powerful military potential. In 1933-39, expenditures on armaments increased more than 12 times and reached 37 billion marks. Germany smelted 22.5 million in 1939. T steel, 17.5 million T pig iron, mined 251.6 million. T coal, produced 66.0 billion. kW · h electricity. However, for a number of types of strategic raw materials, Germany depended on imports (iron ore, rubber, manganese ore, copper, oil and petroleum products, chrome ore). The number of armed forces of Nazi Germany by September 1, 1939 reached 4.6 million people. There were 26 thousand guns and mortars, 3.2 thousand tanks, 4.4 thousand combat aircraft, 115 warships (including 57 submarines) in service.

The strategy of the German High Command was based on the doctrine of “total war.” Its main content was the concept of “lightning war”, according to which victory should be won in the shortest possible time, until the enemy fully deploys his armed forces and military-economic potential. The strategic plan of the fascist German command was to, using limited forces in the west as cover, attack Poland and quickly defeat its armed forces. 61 divisions and 2 brigades were deployed against Poland (including 7 tank and about 9 motorized), of which 7 infantry and 1 tank divisions arrived after the start of the war, a total of 1.8 million people, over 11 thousand guns and mortars, 2.8 thousand tanks, about 2 thousand aircraft; against France - 35 infantry divisions (after September 3, 9 more divisions arrived), 1.5 thousand aircraft.

The Polish command, counting on military assistance guaranteed by Great Britain and France, intended to conduct a defense in the border zone and go on the offensive after the French army and British aviation distracted them with active actions. German forces from the Polish front. By September 1, Poland had managed to mobilize and concentrate troops only 70%: 24 infantry divisions, 3 mountain brigades, 1 armored brigade, 8 cavalry brigades and 56 national defense battalions were deployed. The Polish armed forces had over 4 thousand guns and mortars, 785 light tanks and tankettes and about 400 aircraft.

The French plan for waging war against Germany, in accordance with the political course pursued by France and the military doctrine of the French command, provided for defense on the Maginot Line and the entry of troops into Belgium and the Netherlands to continue the defensive front to the north in order to protect the ports and industrial areas of France and Belgium. After mobilization, the armed forces of France numbered 110 divisions (15 of them in the colonies), a total of 2.67 million people, about 2.7 thousand tanks (in the metropolis - 2.4 thousand), over 26 thousand guns and mortars, 2330 aircraft (in the metropolis - 1735), 176 warships (including 77 submarines).

Great Britain had a strong Navy and Air Force - 320 warships of the main classes (including 69 submarines), about 2 thousand aircraft. Her ground troops consisted of 9 personnel and 17 territorial divisions; they had 5.6 thousand guns and mortars, 547 tanks. The strength of the British army was 1.27 million people. In the event of war with Germany, the British command planned to concentrate its main efforts at sea and send 10 divisions to France. The British and French commands did not intend to provide serious assistance to Poland.

1st period of the war (September 1, 1939 - June 21, 1941)- the period of military successes of Nazi Germany. On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland (see Polish campaign of 1939). On September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Having an overwhelming superiority of forces over the Polish army and concentrating a mass of tanks and aircraft on the main sectors of the front, the Nazi command was able to achieve major operational results from the beginning of the war. The incomplete deployment of forces, the lack of assistance from the allies, the weakness of the centralized leadership and its subsequent collapse put the Polish army before a disaster.

The courageous resistance of Polish troops near Mokra, Mlawa, on Bzura, the defense of Modlin, Westerplatte and the heroic 20-day defense of Warsaw (September 8-28) wrote bright pages in the history of the German-Polish war, but could not prevent the defeat of Poland. Hitler's troops surrounded a number of Polish army groups west of the Vistula, transferred military operations to the eastern regions of the country and completed its occupation in early October.

On September 17, by order of the Soviet government, Red Army troops crossed the border of the collapsed Polish state and began a liberation campaign into Western Belarus and Western Ukraine in order to protect the lives and property of the Ukrainian and Belarusian population, who were seeking reunification with the Soviet republics. The campaign to the West was also necessary to stop the spread of Hitler's aggression to the east. The Soviet government, confident in the inevitability of German aggression against the USSR in the near future, sought to delay the starting point of the future deployment of troops of a potential enemy, which was in the interests of not only the Soviet Union, but also all peoples threatened by fascist aggression. After the Red Army liberated the Western Belarusian and Western Ukrainian lands, Western Ukraine (November 1, 1939) and Western Belarus (November 2, 1939) were reunited with the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR, respectively.

At the end of September - beginning of October 1939, Soviet-Estonian, Soviet-Latvian and Soviet-Lithuanian mutual assistance agreements were signed, which prevented the seizure of the Baltic countries by Nazi Germany and their transformation into a military springboard against the USSR. In August 1940, after the overthrow of the bourgeois governments of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, these countries, in accordance with the wishes of their peoples, were accepted into the USSR.

As a result of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 (See Soviet-Finnish War of 1939), according to the agreement of March 12, 1940, the USSR border on the Karelian Isthmus, in the area of ​​Leningrad and the Murmansk Railway, was somewhat pushed to the north-west. On June 26, 1940, the Soviet government proposed that Romania return Bessarabia, captured by Romania in 1918, to the USSR and transfer the northern part of Bukovina, inhabited by Ukrainians, to the USSR. On June 28, the Romanian government agreed to the return of Bessarabia and the transfer of Northern Bukovina.

The governments of Great Britain and France after the outbreak of the war until May 1940 continued, only in a slightly modified form, the pre-war foreign policy course, which was based on calculations for reconciliation with fascist Germany on the basis of anti-communism and the direction of its aggression against the USSR. Despite the declaration of war, the French armed forces and the British Expeditionary Forces (which began arriving in France in mid-September) remained inactive for 9 months. During this period, called the “Phantom War,” Hitler’s army prepared for an offensive against the countries of Western Europe. Since the end of September 1939, active military operations were carried out only on sea communications. To blockade Great Britain, the Nazi command used naval forces, especially submarines and large ships (raiders). From September to December 1939, Great Britain lost 114 ships from attacks by German submarines, and in 1940 - 471 ships, while the Germans lost only 9 submarines in 1939. Attacks on Great Britain's sea communications led to the loss of 1/3 of the tonnage of the British merchant fleet by the summer of 1941 and created a serious threat to the country's economy.

In April - May 1940, German armed forces captured Norway and Denmark (see Norwegian operation 1940) in order to strengthen German positions in the Atlantic and Northern Europe, seizing iron ore wealth, bringing the bases of the German fleet closer to Great Britain, and providing a bridgehead in the north for an attack on the USSR. On April 9, 1940, amphibious assault forces landed simultaneously and captured the key ports of Norway along its entire 1800-long coastline. km, and airborne assaults occupied the main airfields. The courageous resistance of the Norwegian army (which was late in deployment) and the patriots delayed the onslaught of the Nazis. Attempts by the Anglo-French troops to dislodge the Germans from the points they occupied led to a series of battles in the areas of Narvik, Namsus, Molle (Molde), and others. British troops recaptured Narvik from the Germans. But they failed to wrest the strategic initiative from the Nazis. At the beginning of June they were evacuated from Narvik. The occupation of Norway was made easier for the Nazis by the actions of the Norwegian “fifth column” led by V. Quisling. The country turned into Hitler's base in northern Europe. But significant losses of the Nazi fleet during the Norwegian operation weakened its capabilities in the further struggle for the Atlantic.

At dawn on May 10, 1940, after careful preparation, Nazi troops (135 divisions, including 10 tank and 6 motorized, and 1 brigade, 2,580 tanks, 3,834 aircraft) invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and then through their territories and into France (see French campaign 1940). The Germans delivered the main blow with a mass of mobile formations and aircraft through the Ardennes Mountains, bypassing the Maginot Line from the north, through northern France to the English Channel coast. The French command, adhering to a defensive doctrine, stationed large forces on the Maginot Line and did not create a strategic reserve in the depths. The main group of troops, including the British Expeditionary Army, it was after the start German offensive entered Belgian territory, exposing these forces to attack from the rear. These serious mistakes of the French command, aggravated by poor interaction between the Allied armies, allowed Hitler's troops after crossing the river. Meuse and battles in central Belgium to carry out a breakthrough through northern France, cut the front of the Anglo-French troops, go to the rear of the Anglo-French group operating in Belgium, and break through to the English Channel. On May 14, the Netherlands capitulated. The Belgian, British and part of the French armies were surrounded in Flanders. Belgium capitulated on May 28. The British and part of the French troops, surrounded in the Dunkirk area, managed, having lost all their military equipment, to evacuate to Great Britain (see Dunkirk operation 1940).

At the 2nd stage of the summer campaign of 1940, Hitler’s army, with much superior forces, broke through the front hastily created by the French along the river. Somme and En. The danger looming over France required the unity of the people's forces. French communists called for nationwide resistance and organization of the defense of Paris. The capitulators and traitors (P. Reynaud, C. Pétain, P. Laval and others) who determined the policy of France, the high command led by M. Weygand rejected this only way to save the country, as they feared revolutionary actions of the proletariat and the strengthening of the Communist Party. They decided to surrender Paris without a fight and capitulate to Hitler. Having not exhausted the possibilities of resistance, the French armed forces laid down their arms. The Compiègne Armistice of 1940 (signed on June 22) became a milestone in the policy of national treason pursued by the Pétain government, which expressed the interests of part of the French bourgeoisie, oriented toward Nazi Germany. This truce was aimed at strangling the national liberation struggle of the French people. Under its terms, an occupation regime was established in the northern and central parts of France. France's industrial, raw materials and food resources came under German control. In the unoccupied southern part of the country, the anti-national pro-fascist Vichy government led by Pétain came to power, becoming Hitler's puppet. But at the end of June 1940, the Committee of Free (from July 1942 - Fighting) France was formed in London, headed by General Charles de Gaulle to lead the struggle for the liberation of France from the Nazi invaders and their henchmen.

On June 10, 1940, Italy entered the war against Great Britain and France, striving to establish dominance in the Mediterranean basin. Italian troops captured British Somalia, part of Kenya and Sudan in August, and in mid-September invaded Egypt from Libya to make their way to Suez (see North African campaigns 1940-43). However, they were soon stopped, and in December 1940 they were driven back by the British. An attempt by the Italians to develop an offensive from Albania to Greece, launched in October 1940, was decisively repulsed by the Greek army, which inflicted a number of strong retaliatory blows on the Italian troops (see Italo-Greek War 1940-41 (See Italo-Greek War 1940-1941)). In January - May 1941, British troops expelled the Italians from British Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Italian Somalia, and Eritrea. Mussolini was forced in January 1941 to ask Hitler for help. In the spring, German troops were sent to North Africa, forming the so-called Afrika Korps, led by General E. Rommel. Having gone on the offensive on March 31, Italian-German troops reached the Libyan-Egyptian border in the 2nd half of April.

After the defeat of France, the threat looming over Great Britain contributed to the isolation of the Munich elements and the rallying of the forces of the English people. The government of W. Churchill, which replaced the government of N. Chamberlain on May 10, 1940, began organizing an effective defense. Special meaning The British government gave US support. In July 1940, secret negotiations began between the air and naval headquarters of the United States and Great Britain, which ended with the signing on September 2 of an agreement on the transfer of 50 obsolete American destroyers to the latter in exchange for British military bases in the Western Hemisphere (they were provided to the United States for a period of 99 years). Destroyers were needed to fight the Atlantic communications.

On July 16, 1940, Hitler issued a directive for the invasion of Great Britain (Operation Sea Lion). From August 1940, the Nazis began massive bombing of Great Britain in order to undermine its military and economic potential, demoralize the population, prepare for an invasion and ultimately force it to surrender (see Battle of Britain 1940-41). German aviation caused significant damage to many British cities, enterprises, and ports, but did not break the resistance of the British Air Force, was unable to establish air supremacy over the English Channel, and suffered heavy losses. As a result of the air raids, which continued until May 1941, Hitler's leadership was unable to force Great Britain to capitulate, destroy its industry, and undermine the morale of the population. The German command was unable to provide the required number of landing equipment in a timely manner. The naval forces were insufficient.

However main reason Hitler’s refusal to invade Great Britain was the decision he made back in the summer of 1940 to commit aggression against the Soviet Union. Having begun direct preparations for an attack on the USSR, the Nazi leadership was forced to transfer forces from the West to the East, directing enormous resources to the development of ground forces, and not the fleet necessary to fight against Great Britain. In the autumn, the ongoing preparations for war against the USSR removed the direct threat of a German invasion of Great Britain. Closely connected with plans to prepare an attack on the USSR was the strengthening of the aggressive alliance of Germany, Italy and Japan, which found expression in the signing of the Berlin Pact of 1940 on September 27 (See Berlin Pact of 1940).

Preparing an attack on the USSR, fascist Germany carried out aggression in the Balkans in the spring of 1941 (see Balkan campaign of 1941). On March 2, Nazi troops entered Bulgaria, which joined the Berlin Pact; On April 6, Italo-German and then Hungarian troops invaded Yugoslavia and Greece and occupied Yugoslavia by April 18, and the Greek mainland by April 29. On the territory of Yugoslavia, puppet fascist “states” were created - Croatia and Serbia. From May 20 to June 2, the fascist German command carried out the Cretan airborne operation of 1941 (See Cretan airborne operation of 1941), during which Crete and other Greek islands in the Aegean Sea were captured.

The military successes of Nazi Germany in the first period of the war were largely due to the fact that its opponents, who had an overall higher industrial and economic potential, were unable to pool their resources, create a unified system of military leadership, and develop unified effective plans for waging war. Their military machine lagged behind the new demands of armed struggle and could hardly withstand more modern methods its management. In terms of training, combat training and technical equipment, the Nazi Wehrmacht as a whole was superior to the armed forces Western states. The insufficient military preparedness of the latter was mainly associated with the reactionary pre-war foreign policy course of their ruling circles, which was based on the desire to come to an agreement with the aggressor at the expense of the USSR.

By the end of the 1st period of the war, the bloc of fascist states had sharply strengthened economically and militarily. Most of continental Europe, with its resources and economy, came under German control. In Poland, Germany captured the main metallurgical and engineering plants, the coal mines of Upper Silesia, the chemical and mining industries - a total of 294 large, 35 thousand medium and small industrial enterprises; in France - the metallurgical and steel industry of Lorraine, the entire automobile and aviation industry, reserves iron ore, copper, aluminum, magnesium, as well as cars, precision mechanics products, machine tools, rolling stock; in Norway - mining, metallurgical, shipbuilding industries, enterprises for the production of ferroalloys; in Yugoslavia - copper and bauxite deposits; in the Netherlands, in addition to industrial enterprises, gold reserves amount to 71.3 million florins. The total amount of material assets looted by Nazi Germany in the occupied countries amounted to 9 billion pounds sterling by 1941. By the spring of 1941, more than 3 million foreign workers and prisoners of war worked at German enterprises. In addition, all the weapons of their armies were captured in the occupied countries; for example, in France alone there are about 5 thousand tanks and 3 thousand aircraft. In 1941, the Nazis equipped 38 infantry, 3 motorized, 1 tank division. More than 4 thousand steam locomotives and 40 thousand carriages from occupied countries appeared on the German railway. The economic resources of most European states were put at the service of the war, primarily the war being prepared against the USSR.

In the occupied territories, as well as in Germany itself, the Nazis established a terrorist regime, exterminating all those dissatisfied or suspected of discontent. A system of concentration camps was created in which millions of people were exterminated in an organized manner. The activity of death camps especially developed after the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR. More than 4 million people were killed in the Auschwitz camp (Poland) alone. The fascist command widely practiced punitive expeditions and mass executions of civilians (see Lidice, Oradour-sur-Glane, etc.).

Military successes allowed Hitler's diplomacy to push the boundaries of the fascist bloc, consolidate the accession of Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland (which were headed by reactionary governments closely associated with fascist Germany and dependent on it), plant its agents and strengthen its positions in the Middle East, in some areas of Africa and Latin America. At the same time, political self-exposure of the Nazi regime took place, hatred of it grew not only among broad sections of the population, but also among the ruling classes of capitalist countries, and the Resistance Movement began. In the face of the fascist threat, the ruling circles of the Western powers, primarily Great Britain, were forced to reconsider their previous political course aimed at condoning fascist aggression, and gradually replace it with a course towards the fight against fascism.

The US government gradually began to reconsider its foreign policy course. It increasingly actively supported Great Britain, becoming its “non-belligerent ally.” In May 1940, Congress approved an amount of 3 billion dollars for the needs of the army and navy, and in the summer - 6.5 billion, including 4 billion for the construction of a “fleet of two oceans.” The supply of weapons and equipment for Great Britain increased. According to the law adopted by the US Congress on March 11, 1941 on the transfer of military materials to warring countries on loan or lease (see Lend-Lease), Great Britain was allocated 7 billion dollars. In April 1941, the Lend-Lease law was extended to Yugoslavia and Greece. US troops occupied Greenland and Iceland and established bases there. The North Atlantic was declared a "patrol zone" for the US navy, which was also used to escort merchant ships heading to the UK.

2nd period of the war (22 June 1941 - 18 November 1942) characterized by a further expansion of its scope and the beginning in connection with the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR by the Great Patriotic War 1941-45, which became the main and decisive integral part V.m.v. (for details on the actions on the Soviet-German front, see the article The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-45). On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany treacherously and suddenly attacked the Soviet Union. This attack completed the long course of anti-Soviet policy of German fascism, which sought to destroy the world's first socialist state and seize its richest resources. Nazi Germany sent 77% of its armed forces personnel, the bulk of its tanks and aircraft, i.e., the main most combat-ready forces of the Nazi Wehrmacht, against the Soviet Union. Together with Germany, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Italy entered the war against the USSR. The Soviet-German front became the main front of the military war. From now on, the struggle of the Soviet Union against fascism decided the outcome of the World War, the fate of humanity.

From the very beginning, the struggle of the Red Army had a decisive influence on the entire course of military warfare, on the entire policy and military strategy of the warring coalitions and states. Under the influence of events on the Soviet-German front, the Nazi military command was forced to determine methods of strategic management of the war, the formation and use of strategic reserves, and a system of regroupings between theaters of military operations. During the war, the Red Army forced the Nazi command to completely abandon the doctrine of “blitzkrieg.” Under the blows of the Soviet troops, other methods of warfare and military leadership used by the German strategy consistently failed.

As a result of a surprise attack, the superior forces of the Nazi troops managed to penetrate deeply into Soviet territory in the first weeks of the war. By the end of the first ten days of July, the enemy captured Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, a significant part of Ukraine, and part of Moldova. However, moving deeper into the territory of the USSR, the Nazi troops encountered growing resistance from the Red Army and suffered increasingly heavy losses. Soviet troops fought steadfastly and stubbornly. Under the leadership of the Communist Party and its Central Committee, the restructuring of the entire life of the country on a military basis began, the mobilization of internal forces to defeat the enemy. The peoples of the USSR rallied into a single battle camp. The formation of large strategic reserves was carried out, and the country's leadership system was reorganized. The Communist Party began work on organizing the partisan movement.

Already initial period war showed that the Nazis’ military adventure was doomed to failure. The Nazi armies were stopped near Leningrad and on the river. Volkhov. The heroic defense of Kyiv, Odessa and Sevastopol pinned down large forces of fascist German troops in the south for a long time. In the fierce Battle of Smolensk 1941 (See Battle of Smolensk 1941) (July 10 - September 10) The Red Army stopped the German strike group - Army Group Center, which was advancing on Moscow, inflicting heavy losses on it. In October 1941, the enemy, having brought up reserves, resumed the attack on Moscow. Despite the initial successes, he was unable to break the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, who were inferior to the enemy in numbers and military equipment, and break through to Moscow. In intense battles, the Red Army defended the capital in extremely difficult conditions, bled the enemy’s strike forces dry, and in early December 1941 launched a counteroffensive. The defeat of the Nazis in the Battle of Moscow 1941-42 (See Battle of Moscow 1941-42) (September 30, 1941 - April 20, 1942) buried the fascist plan for a “lightning war”, becoming an event of world-historical significance. The Battle of Moscow dispelled the myth of the invincibility of Hitler's Wehrmacht, confronted Nazi Germany with the need to wage a protracted war, contributed to the further unity of the anti-Hitler coalition, and inspired all freedom-loving peoples to fight the aggressors. The victory of the Red Army near Moscow meant a decisive turn of military events in favor of the USSR and had a great influence on the entire further course of military warfare.

Having carried out extensive preparations, the Nazi leadership resumed offensive operations on the Soviet-German front at the end of June 1942. After fierce battles near Voronezh and in the Donbass, fascist German troops managed to break through to the big bend of the Don. However, the Soviet command managed to remove the main forces of the South-Western and Southern Fronts from the attack, take them beyond the Don and thereby thwart the enemy’s plans to encircle them. In mid-July 1942 began Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943 (See Battle of Stalingrad 1942-43) - the greatest battle of the World War II. During the heroic defense near Stalingrad in July - November 1942, Soviet troops pinned down the enemy strike group, inflicted heavy losses on it and prepared the conditions for launching a counteroffensive. Hitler's troops were unable to achieve decisive success in the Caucasus (see article Caucasus).

By November 1942, despite enormous difficulties, the Red Army had achieved major successes. The Nazi army was stopped. A well-coordinated military economy was created in the USSR; the output of military products exceeded the output of military products of Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union created the conditions for a radical change in the course of the World War.

The liberation struggle of the peoples against the aggressors created objective prerequisites for the formation and consolidation of the anti-Hitler coalition (See Anti-Hitler coalition). The Soviet government sought to mobilize all forces in the international arena to fight against fascism. On July 12, 1941, the USSR signed an agreement with Great Britain on joint actions in the war against Germany; On July 18, a similar agreement was signed with the government of Czechoslovakia, and on July 30 - with the Polish émigré government. On August 9-12, 1941, negotiations were held on warships near Argentilla (Newfoundland) between British Prime Minister W. Churchill and US President F. D. Roosevelt. Taking a wait-and-see attitude, the United States intended to limit itself to material support (Lend-Lease) to countries fighting against Germany. Great Britain, urging the United States to enter the war, proposed a strategy of protracted action using naval and air forces. The goals of the war and the principles of the post-war world order were formulated in the Atlantic Charter signed by Roosevelt and Churchill (See Atlantic Charter) (dated August 14, 1941). On September 24, the Soviet Union joined the Atlantic Charter, expressing its dissenting opinion on certain issues. At the end of September - beginning of October 1941, a meeting of representatives of the USSR, USA and Great Britain was held in Moscow, which ended with the signing of a protocol on mutual supplies.

December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on the American military base In the Pacific Ocean, Pearl Harbor started a war against the United States. On December 8, 1941, the USA, Great Britain and a number of other states declared war on Japan. The war in the Pacific and Asia was generated by long-standing and deep Japanese-American imperialist contradictions, which intensified during the struggle for dominance in China and Southeast Asia. The entry of the United States into the war strengthened the anti-Hitler coalition. The military alliance of states fighting against fascism was formalized in Washington on January 1 with the Declaration of 26 States of 1942 (See Declaration of 26 States of 1942). The declaration was based on the recognition of the need to achieve complete victory over the enemy, for which the countries waging war were obliged to mobilize all military and economic resources, cooperate with each other, and not conclude a separate peace with the enemy. The creation of an anti-Hitler coalition meant the failure of the Nazi plans to isolate the USSR and the consolidation of all world anti-fascist forces.

To produce joint plan actions Churchill and Roosevelt held a conference in Washington on December 22, 1941 - January 14, 1942 (codenamed “Arcadia”), during which a coordinated course of Anglo-American strategy was determined, based on the recognition of Germany as the main enemy in the war, and the Atlantic and European regions - the decisive theater of military operations. However, assistance to the Red Army, which bore the main brunt of the struggle, was planned only in the form of intensifying air raids on Germany, its blockade and the organization of subversive activities in the occupied countries. It was supposed to prepare an invasion of the continent, but not earlier than 1943, either from the Mediterranean Sea or by landing in Western Europe.

At the Washington Conference, a system of general management of the military efforts of the Western allies was determined, a joint Anglo-American headquarters was created to coordinate the strategy developed at the conferences of heads of government; a single allied Anglo-American-Dutch-Australian command was formed for the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean, headed by the English Field Marshal A.P. Wavell.

Immediately after the Washington Conference, the Allies began to violate their own established principle of the decisive importance of the European theater of operations. Without developing specific plans for waging war in Europe, they (primarily the United States) began to transfer more and more naval forces, aviation, and landing craft to the Pacific Ocean, where the situation was unfavorable for the United States.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Nazi Germany sought to strengthen the fascist bloc. In November 1941, the Anti-Comintern Pact of the fascist powers was extended for 5 years. On December 11, 1941, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed an agreement on waging war against the United States and Great Britain “to the bitter end” and refusing to sign an armistice with them without mutual agreement.

Having disabled the main forces of the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, the Japanese armed forces then occupied Thailand, Hong Kong (Hong Kong), Burma, Malaya with the fortress of Singapore, the Philippines, the most important islands of Indonesia, seizing vast reserves of strategic raw materials in the southern seas. They defeated the US Asiatic Fleet, part of the British fleet, the air force and ground forces of the allies and, having ensured supremacy at sea, in 5 months of the war deprived the US and Great Britain of all naval and air force bases in the western Pacific. With a strike from the Caroline Islands, the Japanese fleet captured part of New Guinea and the adjacent islands, including most of the Solomon Islands, and created the threat of invasion of Australia (see Pacific campaigns of 1941-45). The ruling circles of Japan hoped that Germany would tie up the forces of the United States and Great Britain on other fronts and that both powers, after seizing their possessions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, would abandon the fight at a great distance from the mother country.

Under these conditions, the United States began to take emergency measures to deploy the military economy and mobilize resources. Having transferred part of the fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the United States launched the first retaliatory strikes in the first half of 1942. The two-day Battle of the Coral Sea on May 7-8 brought success to the American fleet and forced the Japanese to abandon further advances in the southwest Pacific. In June 1942, near Fr. Midway, the American fleet defeated large forces of the Japanese fleet, which, having suffered heavy losses, was forced to limit its actions and in the 2nd half of 1942 go on the defensive in the Pacific Ocean. Patriots of the countries captured by the Japanese - Indonesia, Indochina, Korea, Burma, Malaya, the Philippines - launched a national liberation struggle against the invaders. In China, in the summer of 1941, a major offensive by Japanese troops on the liberated areas was stopped (mainly by the forces of the People's Liberation Army of China).

The actions of the Red Army on the Eastern Front had an increasing influence on the military situation in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and North Africa. After the attack on the USSR, Germany and Italy were unable to simultaneously conduct offensive operations in other areas. Having transferred the main aviation forces against the Soviet Union, the German command lost the opportunity to actively act against Great Britain and deliver effective attacks on British sea lanes, fleet bases, and shipyards. This allowed Great Britain to strengthen the construction of its fleet, remove large naval forces from the waters of the mother country and transfer them to ensure communications in the Atlantic.

However, the German fleet soon seized the initiative for a short time. After the United States entered the war, a significant part of German submarines began to operate in coastal waters Atlantic coast of America. In the first half of 1942, losses of Anglo-American ships in the Atlantic increased again. But the improvement of anti-submarine defense methods allowed the Anglo-American command from the summer of 1942 to improve the situation on the Atlantic sea lanes, deliver a series of retaliatory strikes to the German submarine fleet and push it back into central areas Atlantic. Since the beginning of V. m. century. Until the fall of 1942, the tonnage of merchant ships sunk mainly in the Atlantic from Great Britain, the United States, their allies and neutral countries exceeded 14 million. T.

The transfer of the bulk of the Nazi troops to the Soviet-German front contributed to a radical improvement in the position of the British armed forces in the Mediterranean and North Africa. In the summer of 1941, the British fleet and air force firmly seized supremacy at sea and in the air in the Mediterranean theater. Using o. Malta as a base, they sank 33% in August 1941, and in November - over 70% of cargo sent from Italy to North Africa. The British command re-formed the 8th Army in Egypt, which on November 18 went on the offensive against Rommel's German-Italian troops. A fierce tank battle unfolded near Sidi Rezeh, with varying degrees of success. Exhaustion forced Rommel to begin a retreat along the coast to positions at El Agheila on December 7.

At the end of November - December 1941, the German command strengthened its air force in the Mediterranean basin and transferred some submarines and torpedo boats from the Atlantic. Having inflicted a series of strong blows on the British fleet and its base in Malta, sinking 3 battleships, 1 aircraft carrier and other ships, the German-Italian fleet and aviation again seized dominance in the Mediterranean Sea, which improved their position in North Africa. On January 21, 1942, German-Italian troops suddenly went on the offensive for the British and advanced 450 km to El Ghazala. On May 27, they resumed their offensive with the goal of reaching Suez. With a deep maneuver they managed to cover the main forces of the 8th Army and capture Tobruk. At the end of June 1942, Rommel's troops crossed the Libyan-Egyptian border and reached El Alamein, where they were stopped without reaching the goal due to exhaustion and lack of reinforcements.

3rd period of the war (November 19, 1942 - December 1943) was a period of radical change, when the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition wrested the strategic initiative from the Axis powers, fully deployed their military potential and went on a strategic offensive everywhere. As before, decisive events took place on the Soviet-German front. By November 1942, of the 267 divisions and 5 brigades that Germany had, 192 divisions and 3 brigades (or 71%) were operating against the Red Army. In addition, there were 66 divisions and 13 brigades of German satellites on the Soviet-German front. On November 19, the Soviet counteroffensive began near Stalingrad. The troops of the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts broke through the enemy’s defenses and, introducing mobile formations, by November 23 encircled 330 thousand people between the Volga and Don rivers. a group from the 6th and 4th Panzer Armies. Soviet troops stubbornly defended themselves in the area of ​​the river. Myshkov thwarted the attempt of the fascist German command to release the encircled. The offensive on the middle Don by the troops of the Southwestern and left wing of the Voronezh fronts (began on December 16) ended with the defeat of the 8th Italian Army. The threat of a strike by Soviet tank formations on the flank of the German relief group forced it to begin a hasty retreat. By February 2, 1943, the group surrounded at Stalingrad was liquidated. This ended the Battle of Stalingrad, in which from November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943, 32 divisions and 3 brigades of the Nazi army and German satellites were completely defeated and 16 divisions were bled dry. The total losses of the enemy during this time amounted to over 800 thousand people, 2 thousand tanks and assault guns, over 10 thousand guns and mortars, up to 3 thousand aircraft, etc. The victory of the Red Army shocked Nazi Germany and caused irreparable harm to its armed forces damage, undermined Germany's military and political prestige in the eyes of its allies, and increased dissatisfaction with the war among them. The Battle of Stalingrad marked the beginning of a radical change in the course of the entire World War.

The victories of the Red Army contributed to the expansion of the partisan movement in the USSR and became a powerful stimulus for the further development of the Resistance Movement in Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Greece, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and other European countries. Polish patriots gradually moved from spontaneous, isolated actions during the beginning of the war to mass struggle. Polish communists at the beginning of 1942 called for the formation of a “second front in the rear of Hitler’s army.” The fighting force of the Polish Workers' Party - the Ludowa Guard - became the first military organization in Poland to wage a systematic struggle against the occupiers. The creation at the end of 1943 of the democratic national front and the formation on the night of January 1, 1944 of its central body - the Home Rada of the People (See Home Rada of the People) contributed to the further development of the national liberation struggle.

In Yugoslavia in November 1942, under the leadership of the communists, the formation of the People's Liberation Army began, which by the end of 1942 liberated 1/5 of the country's territory. And although in 1943 the occupiers carried out 3 major attacks on Yugoslav patriots, the ranks of active anti-fascist fighters steadily multiplied and grew stronger. Under the attacks of the partisans, Hitler's troops suffered increasing losses; By the end of 1943, the transport network in the Balkans was paralyzed.

In Czechoslovakia, on the initiative of the Communist Party, the National Revolutionary Committee was created, which became the central political body of the anti-fascist struggle. The number of partisan detachments grew, and centers of the partisan movement formed in a number of regions of Czechoslovakia. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the anti-fascist resistance movement gradually developed into a national uprising.

The French Resistance Movement intensified sharply in the summer and autumn of 1943, after new defeats of the Wehrmacht on the Soviet-German front. Organizations of the Resistance Movement joined the unified anti-fascist army created on French territory - the French Internal Forces, the number of which soon reached 500 thousand people.

The liberation movement, which unfolded in the territories occupied by the countries of the fascist bloc, fettered Hitler's troops, their main forces were bled dry by the Red Army. Already in the first half of 1942, conditions arose for the opening of a second front in Western Europe. The leaders of the USA and Great Britain pledged to open it in 1942, as stated in the Anglo-Soviet and Soviet-American communiqués published on June 12, 1942. However, the leaders of the Western powers delayed the opening of the second front, trying to weaken both Nazi Germany and the USSR at the same time, so that establish their dominance in Europe and throughout the world. On June 11, 1942, the British cabinet rejected the plan for a direct invasion of France across the English Channel under the pretext of difficulties in supplying troops, transferring reinforcements, and a lack of special landing craft. At a meeting in Washington of the heads of government and representatives of the joint headquarters of the United States and Great Britain in the 2nd half of June 1942, it was decided to abandon the landing in France in 1942 and 1943, and instead carry out an operation to land expeditionary forces in French North-West Africa (Operation "Torch") and only in the future begin to concentrate large masses of American troops in Great Britain (Operation Bolero). This decision, which had no compelling reasons, caused a protest from the Soviet government.

In North Africa, British troops, taking advantage of the weakening of the Italian-German group, launched offensive operations. British aviation, which again seized air supremacy in the fall of 1942, sank in October 1942 up to 40% of Italian and German ships heading to North Africa, disrupting the regular replenishment and supply of Rommel’s troops. On October 23, 1942, the 8th British Army under General B. L. Montgomery launched a decisive offensive. Having won an important victory in the battle of El Alamein, over the next three months she pursued Rommel's Afrika Korps along the coast, occupied the territory of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, liberated Tobruk, Benghazi and reached positions at El Agheila.

On November 8, 1942, the landing of the American-British expeditionary forces in French North Africa began (under the overall command of General D. Eisenhower); 12 divisions (over 150 thousand people in total) unloaded in the ports of Algiers, Oran, and Casablanca. Airborne troops captured two large airfields in Morocco. After minor resistance, the commander-in-chief of the French armed forces of the Vichy regime in North Africa, Admiral J. Darlan, ordered not to interfere with the American-British troops.

The fascist German command, intending to hold North Africa, urgently transferred the 5th Tank Army to Tunisia by air and sea, which managed to stop the Anglo-American troops and drive them back from Tunisia. In November 1942, Nazi troops occupied the entire territory of France and tried to capture the French Navy (about 60 warships) in Toulon, which, however, was sunk by French sailors.

At the Casablanca Conference of 1943 (See Casablanca Conference of 1943), the leaders of the United States and Great Britain, declaring the unconditional surrender of the Axis countries as their ultimate goal, determined further plans for waging war, which were based on the course of delaying the opening of a second front. Roosevelt and Churchill reviewed and approved the strategic plan prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for 1943, which included the capture of Sicily in order to put pressure on Italy and create conditions for attracting Turkey as an active ally, as well as an intensified air offensive against Germany and the concentration of the largest possible forces to enter the continent “as soon as German resistance weakens to the required level.”

The implementation of this plan could not seriously undermine the forces of the fascist bloc in Europe, much less replace the second front, since active actions by American-British troops were planned in a theater of military operations that was secondary to Germany. In the main issues of strategy V. m.v. this conference turned out to be fruitless.

The struggle in North Africa continued with varying success until the spring of 1943. In March, the 18th Anglo-American Army Group under the command of the English Field Marshal H. Alexander struck with superior forces and, after lengthy battles, occupied the city of Tunisia, and by May 13 forced the Italian-German troops surrender on the Bon Peninsula. The entire territory of North Africa passed into Allied hands.

After the defeat in Africa, Hitler's command expected the Allied invasion of France, not being ready to resist it. However, the allied command was preparing a landing in Italy. On May 12, Roosevelt and Churchill met at a new conference in Washington. The intention was confirmed not to open a second front in Western Europe during 1943 and the tentative date for its opening was set as May 1, 1944.

At this time, Germany was preparing a decisive summer offensive on the Soviet-German front. Hitler's leadership sought to defeat the main forces of the Red Army, regain the strategic initiative, and achieve a change in the course of the war. It increased its armed forces by 2 million people. through “total mobilization”, forced the release of military products, and transferred large contingents of troops from various regions of Europe to the Eastern Front. According to the Citadel plan, it was supposed to encircle and destroy Soviet troops in the Kursk ledge, and then expand the offensive front and capture the entire Donbass.

The Soviet command, having information about the impending enemy offensive, decided to exhaust the fascist German troops in a defensive battle on the Kursk Bulge, then defeat them in the central and southern sections of the Soviet-German front, liberate Left Bank Ukraine, Donbass, the eastern regions of Belarus and reach the Dnieper. To solve this problem, significant forces and resources were concentrated and skillfully located. The Battle of Kursk 1943, which began on July 5, is one of the greatest battles of military history. - immediately turned out in favor of the Red Army. Hitler's command failed to break the skillful and persistent defense of the Soviet troops with a powerful avalanche of tanks. In the defensive battle on the Kursk Bulge, the troops of the Central and Voronezh Fronts bled the enemy dry. On July 12, the Soviet command launched a counteroffensive on the Bryansk and Western Fronts against the German Oryol bridgehead. On July 16, the enemy began to retreat. The troops of the five fronts of the Red Army, developing a counteroffensive, defeated the enemy’s strike forces and opened their way to the Left Bank Ukraine and the Dnieper. In the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops defeated 30 Nazi divisions, including 7 tank divisions. After this major defeat, the Wehrmacht leadership finally lost its strategic initiative and was forced to completely abandon the offensive strategy and go on the defensive until the end of the war. The Red Army, using its major success, liberated the Donbass and Left Bank Ukraine, crossed the Dnieper on the move (see the Dnieper article), and began the liberation of Belarus. In total, in the summer and autumn of 1943, Soviet troops defeated 218 fascist German divisions, completing a radical turning point in the military war. A catastrophe loomed over Nazi Germany. The total losses of German ground forces alone from the beginning of the war to November 1943 amounted to about 5.2 million people.

After the end of the struggle in North Africa, the Allies carried out the Sicilian Operation of 1943 (See Sicilian Operation of 1943), which began on July 10. Having absolute superiority of forces at sea and in the air, they captured Sicily by mid-August, and in early September crossed to the Apennine Peninsula (see Italian campaign 1943-1945 (See Italian campaign 1943-1945)). In Italy, the movement for the elimination of the fascist regime and exit from the war grew. As a result of attacks by Anglo-American troops and the growth of the anti-fascist movement, the Mussolini regime fell at the end of July. He was replaced by the government of P. Badoglio, which signed an armistice with the United States and Great Britain on September 3. In response, the Nazis sent additional troops to Italy, disarmed the Italian army and occupied the country. By November 1943, after the landing of Anglo-American troops in Salerno, the fascist German command withdrew its troops to the north, to the area of ​​Rome, and consolidated on the river line. Sangro and Carigliano, where the front has stabilized.

In the Atlantic Ocean, by the beginning of 1943, the positions of the German fleet were weakened. The Allies ensured their superiority in surface forces and naval aviation. Large ships of the German fleet could now only operate in the Arctic Ocean against convoys. Given the weakening of its surface fleet, the Nazi naval command, led by Admiral K. Dönitz, who replaced the former fleet commander E. Raeder, shifted the center of gravity to the actions of the submarine fleet. Having commissioned more than 200 submarines, the Germans inflicted a number of heavy blows on the Allies in the Atlantic. But after the greatest success achieved in March 1943, the effectiveness of German submarine attacks began to rapidly decline. The growth in the size of the Allied fleet, the use of new technology for detecting submarines, and the increase in the range of naval aviation predetermined the increase in losses of the German submarine fleet, which were not replenished. Shipbuilding in the USA and Great Britain now ensured that the number of newly built ships exceeded those sunk, the number of which had decreased.

In the Pacific Ocean in the first half of 1943, the warring parties, after the losses suffered in 1942, accumulated forces and did not conduct broad action. Japan increased the production of aircraft more than 3 times compared to 1941; 60 new ships were laid down at its shipyards, including 40 submarines. The total number of Japanese armed forces increased by 2.3 times. The Japanese command decided to stop further advance in the Pacific Ocean and consolidate what they had captured, going over to defense on the line of the Aleutian, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, New Guinea, Indonesia, Burma.

The United States also intensively developed military production. 28 new aircraft carriers were laid down, several new operational formations were formed (2 field and 2 air armies), and many special units; Military bases were built in the South Pacific. The forces of the United States and its allies in the Pacific Ocean were consolidated into two operational groups: the central part of the Pacific Ocean (Admiral C.W. Nimitz) and the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean (General D. MacArthur). The groups included several fleets, field armies, marines, carrier and base aviation, mobile naval bases, etc., in total - 500 thousand people, 253 large warships (including 69 submarines), over 2 thousand combat aircraft. The US naval and air forces outnumbered the Japanese. In May 1943, formations of the Nimitz group occupied the Aleutian Islands, securing American positions in the north.

In the wake of the Red Army's major summer successes and the landings in Italy, Roosevelt and Churchill held a conference in Quebec (August 11–24, 1943) to again refine military plans. The main intention of the leaders of both powers was to “achieve, in the shortest possible time, the unconditional surrender of the European Axis countries,” and to achieve, through an air offensive, “undermining and disorganizing the ever-increasing scale of Germany’s military-economic power.” On May 1, 1944, it was planned to launch Operation Overlord to invade France. In the Far East, it was decided to expand the offensive in order to seize bridgeheads, from which it would then be possible, after the defeat of the European Axis countries and the transfer of forces from Europe, to strike Japan and defeat it “within 12 months after the end of the war with Germany.” The action plan chosen by the Allies did not meet the goals of ending the war in Europe as quickly as possible, since active operations in Western Europe were planned only in the summer of 1944.

Carrying out plans for offensive operations in the Pacific Ocean, the Americans continued the battles for the Solomon Islands that had begun in June 1943. Having mastered Fr. New George and a bridgehead on the island. Bougainville, they brought their bases in the South Pacific closer to the Japanese ones, including the main Japanese base - Rabaul. At the end of November 1943, the Americans occupied the Gilbert Islands, which were then turned into a base for preparing an attack on the Marshall Islands. MacArthur's group, in stubborn battles, captured most of the islands in the Coral Sea, the eastern part of New Guinea and established a base here for an attack on the Bismarck Archipelago. Having removed the threat of a Japanese invasion of Australia, she secured US sea communications in the area. As a result of these actions, the strategic initiative in the Pacific passed into the hands of the Allies, who eliminated the consequences of the defeat of 1941-42 and created the conditions for an attack on Japan.

The national liberation struggle of the peoples of China, Korea, Indochina, Burma, Indonesia, and the Philippines expanded more and more. Communist parties These countries were united by partisan forces in the ranks of the National Front. People's Liberation Army and partisan detachments China, having resumed active actions, liberated a territory with a population of about 80 million people.

The rapid development of events in 1943 on all fronts, especially on the Soviet-German front, required the allies to clarify and coordinate war plans for the next year. This was done at the November 1943 conference in Cairo (see Cairo Conference 1943) and the Tehran Conference 1943 (See Tehran Conference 1943).

At the Cairo Conference (November 22-26), the delegations of the USA (head of delegation F.D. Roosevelt), Great Britain (head of delegation W. Churchill), China (head of delegation Chiang Kai-shek) considered plans for waging war in Southeast Asia, which provided limited goals: the creation of bases for a subsequent attack on Burma and Indochina and the improvement of air supply to Chiang Kai-shek's army. Issues of military operations in Europe were viewed as secondary; The British leadership proposed postponing Operation Overlord.

At the Tehran Conference (November 28 -December 1, 1943), the heads of government of the USSR (head of delegation I.V. Stalin), USA (head of delegation F.D. Roosevelt) and Great Britain (head of delegation W. Churchill) focused on military issues. The British delegation proposed a plan to invade South-Eastern Europe through the Balkans, with the participation of Turkey. The Soviet delegation proved that this plan does not meet the requirements for the rapid defeat of Germany, because operations in the Mediterranean Sea are “operations of secondary importance”; With its firm and consistent position, the Soviet delegation forced the Allies to once again recognize the paramount importance of the invasion of Western Europe, and Overlord as the main Allied operation, which should be accompanied by an auxiliary landing in southern France and diversionary actions in Italy. For its part, the USSR pledged to enter the war with Japan after the defeat of Germany.

The report of the conference of the heads of government of the three powers said: “We have come to complete agreement as to the scale and timing of the operations to be undertaken from the east, west and south. The mutual understanding we have achieved here guarantees our victory.”

At the Cairo Conference held on December 3-7, 1943, the US and British delegations, after a series of discussions, recognized the need to use landing craft intended for Southeast Asia in Europe and approved a program according to which the most important operations in 1944 should be Overlord and Anvil ( landing in the south of France); The conference participants agreed that "no action should be taken in any other area of ​​the world that could interfere with the success of these two operations." This was an important victory for Soviet foreign policy, its struggle for unity of action among the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and the military strategy based on this policy.

4th war period (1 January 1944 - 8 May 1945) was a period when the Red Army, in the course of a powerful strategic offensive, expelled fascist German troops from the territory of the USSR, liberated the peoples of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and, together with the armed forces of the Allies, completed the defeat of Nazi Germany. At the same time, the offensive of the armed forces of the United States and Great Britain in the Pacific Ocean continued, and the people's liberation war in China intensified.

As in previous periods, the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the struggle on its shoulders, against which the fascist bloc continued to hold its main forces. By the beginning of 1944, the German command, out of 315 divisions and 10 brigades it had, had 198 divisions and 6 brigades on the Soviet-German front. In addition, there were 38 divisions and 18 brigades of satellite states on the Soviet-German front. In 1944, the Soviet command planned an offensive on the front from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea with the main attack in the southwestern direction. In January - February, the Red Army, after a 900-day heroic defense, liberated Leningrad from the siege (see Battle of Leningrad 1941-44). By spring, having carried out a number of major operations, Soviet troops liberated Right Bank Ukraine and Crimea, reached the Carpathians and entered the territory of Romania. In the winter campaign of 1944 alone, the enemy lost 30 divisions and 6 brigades from the attacks of the Red Army; 172 divisions and 7 brigades suffered heavy losses; human losses amounted to more than 1 million people. Germany could no longer make up for the damage suffered. In June 1944 the Red Army struck Finnish army, after which Finland requested an armistice, an agreement on which was signed on September 19, 1944 in Moscow.

The grandiose offensive of the Red Army in Belarus from June 23 to August 29, 1944 (see Belarusian operation 1944) and in Western Ukraine from July 13 to August 29, 1944 (see Lvov-Sandomierz operation 1944) ended in the defeat of the two largest strategic groupings of the Wehrmacht in the center of the Soviet -German front, breakthrough of the German front to a depth of 600 km, the complete destruction of 26 divisions and inflicting heavy losses on 82 Nazi divisions. Soviet troops reached the border of East Prussia, entered Polish territory and approached the Vistula. Polish troops also took part in the offensive.

In Chelm, the first Polish city liberated by the Red Army, on July 21, 1944, the Polish Committee of National Liberation was formed - a temporary executive body of people's power, subordinate to the Home Rada of the People. In August 1944, the Home Army, following the orders of the Polish exile government in London, which sought to seize power in Poland before the approach of the Red Army and restore pre-war order, began the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After a 63-day heroic struggle, this uprising, undertaken in an unfavorable strategic situation, was defeated.

The international and military situation in the spring and summer of 1944 was such that a further delay in the opening of a second front would have led to the liberation of all of Europe by the USSR. This prospect worried the ruling circles of the USA and Great Britain, who sought to restore the pre-war capitalist order in the countries occupied by the Nazis and their allies. London and Washington began to rush to prepare an invasion of Western Europe across the English Channel in order to seize bridgeheads in Normandy and Brittany, ensure the landing of expeditionary forces, and then liberate northwestern France. In the future, it was planned to break through the Siegfried Line, which covered the German border, cross the Rhine and advance deep into Germany. By the beginning of June 1944, the Allied expeditionary forces under the command of General Eisenhower had 2.8 million people, 37 divisions, 12 separate brigades, “commando squads”, about 11 thousand combat aircraft, 537 warships and a large number of transports and landing craft.

After the defeats on the Soviet-German front, the fascist German command could maintain in France, Belgium and the Netherlands as part of Army Group West (Field Marshal G. Rundstedt) only 61 weakened, poorly equipped divisions, 500 aircraft, 182 warships. The Allies thus had absolute superiority in forces and means.

The Second World War was the bloodiest and most brutal military conflict in the entire history of mankind and the only one in which nuclear weapons were used. 61 states took part in it. The dates of the beginning and end of this war (September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945) are among the most significant for the entire civilized world.

The causes of World War II were the imbalance of power in the world and the problems provoked by the results, in particular territorial disputes.

The winners of the First World War, the USA, England and France, concluded the Treaty of Versailles on the most unfavorable and humiliating conditions for the losing countries (Turkey and Germany), which provoked an increase in tension in the world. At the same time, adopted in the late 1930s. England and France's policy of appeasing the aggressor made it possible for Germany to sharply increase its military potential, which accelerated the Nazis' transition to active military action.

Members of the anti-Hitler bloc were the USSR, USA, France, England, China (Chiang Kai-shek), Greece, Yugoslavia, Mexico, etc. On the German side, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, Finland, China (Wang Jingwei), Thailand, Iraq, etc. participated in World War II. Many states that participated in the Second World War did not conduct any action on the fronts, but helped by supplying food, medicine and other necessary resources.

Researchers identify the following stages of World War II:

• first stage: from September 1, 1939 to June 21, 1941 - the period of the European blitzkrieg of Germany and the allies;
• second stage: June 22, 1941 - approximately mid-November 1942 - attack on the USSR and the subsequent failure of the Barbarossa plan;
• third stage: second half of November 1942 - end of 1943 - a radical turning point in the war and Germany’s loss of strategic initiative. At the end of 1943, at the Tehran Conference, in which Roosevelt and Churchill took part, it was decided to open a second front;
• fourth stage: from the end of 1943 to May 9, 1945 - was marked by the capture of Berlin and the unconditional surrender of Germany;
• fifth stage: May 10, 1945 - September 2, 1945 - at this time, fighting took place only in Southeast Asia and the Far East. The United States used nuclear weapons for the first time.

The Second World War began on September 1, 1939. On this day, the Wehrmacht suddenly began aggression against Poland. Despite the retaliatory declaration of war by France, Great Britain and some other countries, real help Poland was not provided. Already on September 28, Poland was captured. A peace treaty between Germany and the USSR was concluded on the same day. Having received reliable rear, Germany began active preparations for war with France, which capitulated already in 1940, on June 22. Nazi Germany began large-scale preparations for war on the eastern front with the USSR. was approved already in 1940, on December 18. The Soviet senior leadership received reports of the impending attack, however, fearing to provoke Germany and believing that the attack would be carried out at a later date, they deliberately did not put the border units on alert.

In the chronology of World War II, the most important period is from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, known in Russia as. On the eve of World War II, the USSR was an actively developing state. As the threat of conflict with Germany increased over time, defense and heavy industry and science developed first in the country. Closed design bureaus were created, whose activities were aimed at developing the latest weapons. At all enterprises and collective farms, discipline was tightened as much as possible. In the 30s More than 80% of the officers of the Red Army were repressed. To make up for the losses, a network of military schools and academies was created. However, there was not enough time for full training of personnel.

The main battles of World War II, which were of great importance for the history of the USSR:

• (September 30, 1941 - April 20, 1942), which became the first victory of the Red Army;
• (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943), which marked a radical turning point in the war;
• (July 5 - August 23, 1943), during which the largest tank battle of the Second World War took place near the village. Prokhorovka;
• which led to the surrender of Germany.

Events important for the course of World War II took place not only on the fronts of the USSR. Among the operations carried out by the Allies, it is worth especially noting:

• the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which triggered the United States' entry into World War II;
• opening of the second front and landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944;
• the use of nuclear weapons on August 6 and 9, 1945 to strike Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The end date of World War II was September 2, 1945. Japan signed the act of surrender only after the defeat of the Kwantung Army by Soviet troops. The battles of World War II, according to rough estimates, killed about 65 million people on both sides.

The Soviet Union suffered the greatest losses in World War II - 27 million citizens of the country died. It was the USSR that took the brunt of the blow. These figures, according to some researchers, are approximate. It was the stubborn resistance of the Red Army that became the main cause of the defeat of the Reich.

The results of World War II horrified everyone. Military actions have brought the very existence of civilization to the brink. During the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials fascist ideology was convicted, and many war criminals were punished. In order to prevent the possibility of a new world war in the future, at the Yalta Conference in 1945 it was decided to create the United Nations Organization (UN), which still exists today.

results nuclear bombing Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the signing of arms non-proliferation pacts mass destruction, a ban on its production and use. It must be said that the consequences of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still felt today.

The economic consequences of World War II were also serious. For Western European countries it turned into a real economic disaster. The influence of Western European countries has decreased significantly. At the same time, the United States managed to maintain and strengthen its position.

The significance of World War II for the Soviet Union is enormous. The defeat of the fascists determined future history countries. As a result of the conclusion of the peace treaties that followed the defeat of Germany, the USSR noticeably expanded its borders.

At the same time, the totalitarian system was strengthened in the Union. Communist regimes were established in some European countries. Victory in the war did not save the USSR from what followed in the 50s. mass repressions.

Gafurov Said 05/09/2017 at 10:25

In the days of the Great Victory, the hubbub of revisionist historians about the intolerable implicit racism of the Anglo-Saxons, about Budyonny and Tukhachevsky, the conspiracy of the marshals had already become familiar... What and how actually happened? What are the well-known and new facts? World War II began in the summer of 1937, not the fall of 1939. The bloc of lordly Poland, Horthy Hungary and Hitlerite Germany tore apart unfortunate Czechoslovakia. It was not for nothing that Churchill called the Polish masters of life the most vile of vile hyenas, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty a brilliant success of Soviet diplomacy.

Every year, as Victory Day approaches, various non-humans try to revise history, shouting that the Soviet Union is not the main winner, and its victory would have been impossible without the help of its allies. They usually cite the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty as their main argument.

The very fact that Western historians They believe that the Second World War began in September 1939, is explained solely by the overt racism of the Western allies, primarily the Anglo-American ones. In fact, World War II began in 1937 when Japan began its aggression against China.

Japan is the aggressor country, China is the victorious country, and the war went on from 1937 to September 1945, without a single break. But for some reason these dates are not named. After all, this happened somewhere in far Asia, and not in civilized Europe or North America. Although the end is completely obvious: the end of World War II is the surrender of Japan. It is logical that the beginning of this story should be considered the beginning of Japanese aggression against China.

This will remain on the conscience of Anglo-American historians, but we just need to know about it. In fact, the situation is not at all so simple. The question is posed the same way: in what year did the Soviet Union enter World War II? The war had been going on since 1937, and its beginning was not the liberation campaign of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army in Poland, when Western Ukraine and Western Belarus reunited with their brothers in the east. The war began earlier in Europe. It was in the fall of 1938, when the Soviet Union announced to lordly Poland that if it took part in aggression against Czechoslovakia, the non-aggression treaty between the USSR and Poland would be considered terminated. This is very important point; because when a country breaks the non-aggression pact, it is actually a war. The Poles were very scared then, there were several joint statements. But nevertheless, Poland took part, together with the Nazi allies and Chartist Hungary, in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. The fighting was coordinated between the Polish and German general staffs.

Here it is important to remember one document that patent anti-Sovietists are very fond of: this is the prison testimony of Marshal Tukhachevsky about the strategic deployment of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. There are papers there that both anti-Sovietists and Stalin supporters call very important and interesting. True, for some reason their substantive analysis can hardly be found anywhere.

The fact is that Tukhachevsky wrote this document in prison back in 1937, and in 1939, when the war began on the Western Front, the situation changed dramatically. The entire substantive pathos of Tukhachevsky’s testimony lies in the fact that the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army was not able to win against the Polish-German coalition. And in accordance with the Hitler-Pilsudski Pact (the first brilliant success of Hitler's diplomacy), Poland and Germany must jointly attack the Soviet Union.

There is a lesser-known document - the report of Semyon Budyonny, who was present at the trial of the marshals' conspiracies. Then all the marshals, including Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich, were sentenced to death - along with big amount army commanders. The head of the political department of the Red Army, Gamarnik, shot himself. They shot Blucher and Marshal Egorov, who participated in another conspiracy.

These three military men took part in the marshals' conspiracy. In the report, Budyonny says that the final impetus that forced Tukhachevsky to begin planning a coup was his realization that the Red Army was not able to win against the united allies - Hitler's Germany and the lord's Poland. This was precisely the main threat.

So, we see that in 1937 Tukhachevsky says: the Red Army has no chance against the Nazis. And in 1938, Poland, Germany and Hungary tear unfortunate Czechoslovakia to pieces, after which Churchill calls the Polish leaders hyenas and writes that the bravest of the brave were led by the most vile of the vile.

And only in 1939, thanks to the brilliant successes of Soviet diplomacy and the fact that the Litvinov line was replaced by the Molotov line, the USSR managed to remove this mortal threat, which consisted in the fact that in the West Germany and Poland could act against the Soviet Union, and in the South Western front - Hungary and Romania. And at the same time, Japan had the opportunity to attack in the east.

Tukhachevsky and Budyonny considered the position of the Red Army in this situation to be almost hopeless. Then, instead of soldiers, diplomats began to work, who managed to break the block between Soviet diplomacy, between Hitler, Beck and lordly Poland, between the fascists and the Polish leadership, and start a war between Germany and Poland. It should be noted that the German army at that moment was practically invincible.

The Germans did not have much combat experience, it consisted only of the Spanish War, the relatively bloodless Anschluss of Austria, as well as the bloodless capture of the Sudetenland and then the rest of Czechoslovakia, except for those pieces that, by agreement between the Nazis and Poland and Hungary, went to these countries .

Pan's Poland was defeated by the Germans in three weeks. To understand how this happened, it is enough to re-read war memoirs and analytical documents; for example, the famous book by brigade commander Isserson “New Forms of Fighting,” which is now becoming popular again. It was a completely unexpected and quick defeat for Poland. In 1940, France, then considered the most powerful army in Europe, suffered a similarly rapid, three-week and catastrophic defeat. Nobody expected this.

But, in any case, such a quick defeat of Poland meant only one thing: Soviet diplomacy worked superbly, it pushed the borders of the Soviet Union far to the West. After all, in 1941, the Nazis were very close to Moscow, and it is quite possible that these several hundred kilometers, by which the border moved to the West, made it possible to save not only Moscow, but also Leningrad. We managed to do the almost impossible.

The victory of Soviet diplomacy provided us with guarantees that not only broke the bloc, but also led to Hitler destroying the Warsaw threat to Russia. No one expected how rotten the Polish army would turn out to be. Therefore, when they tell you about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, answer: it was a brilliant response to the Munich agreement, and the Polish gentlemen received their well-deserved punishment. Churchill was right: these were the vilest of the vilest.

The Great Victory is not just a holiday that unites us. This is a very important thing in our historical experience, which makes us always remember to keep our powder dry: we are never safe.

The Second World War is considered the largest in human history. It began and ended on September 2, 1945. During this time, sixty-two countries took part in it, representing eighty percent of the planet's population. Three continents and four oceans experienced hostilities, and atomic weapons were also used. It was the most terrible war. It started quickly and took many people from this world. We will talk about this and much more today.

Prerequisites for the war

Many historians consider the main prerequisite for the outbreak of World War II to be the outcome of the first armed conflict in the world. The peace treaty that ended the First World War put the countries that were defeated in it in a powerless position. Germany lost a lot of its lands, it had to stop developing its weapons system and military industry, abandon the armed forces. In addition, it had to pay compensation to the affected countries. All this depressed the German government, and a thirst arose to take revenge. Dissatisfaction in the country with the low standard of living made it possible for A. Hitler to come to power.

Policy of reconciliation

What happened on September 1, 1939, we already know. But shortly before this, the USSR, which appeared during the First World War, worried many European politicians, since they in every possible way prevented the spread of socialism in the world. Therefore, the second reason for the start of the war was opposition to the popularization of communism. This gave impetus to the development of fascism in many countries. England and France, which had initially restricted Germany, subsequently lifted all restrictions and ignored the many violations by the German state of the Treaty of Versailles. There was no reaction to the fact that Germany annexed Austria, increasing its military power. The Munich Treaty also approved the annexation of part of Czechoslovakia to Germany. All this was done in order to direct the country's aggression towards the USSR. Europe's politicians began to worry when Germany expanded its annexation without asking anyone. But it was too late, because the plan for a new military conflict had been drawn up and began to be implemented.

Role of Italy

Together with Germany, Italy also began to pursue an aggressive foreign policy. In 1935, she invaded Ethiopia, to which the world community reacted negatively. However, fascist Italy a year later annexed all Ethiopian territories and proclaimed itself an empire. The deterioration of relations with Western countries contributed to its rapprochement with Germany. Mussolini allows Hitler to take over Austria. In 1936, the Third Reich and Japan entered into an agreement to jointly fight communism. A year later, Italy joined them.

Collapse of the Versailles-Washington system

The outbreaks of World War II formed gradually, so the outbreak of hostilities could have been prevented. Let's consider the main stages of the collapse of the Versailles-Washington system:

1. In 1931, Japan occupied Northeast China.
2. In 1935, Hitler began to deploy the Wehrmacht in Germany, violating the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
3. In 1937, Japan conquered all of China.
4. 1938 - Germany captured Austria and part of Czechoslovakia.
5. 1939 - Hitler captured all of Czechoslovakia. In August, Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression treaty and division of spheres of influence in the world.
6. September 1, 1939 - German attack on Poland.

Armed intervention in Poland

Germany has set itself the task of expanding space to the East. At the same time, Poland must be captured as soon as possible. In August, the USSR and Germany signed a non-aggression pact against each other. In the same month, Germans dressed in Polish uniforms attacked a radio station in Gleiwitz. German and Slovak troops advance on Poland. England, France and other countries that were allied with Poland declare war on the Nazis. At half past five in the morning, German dive bombers made their first flight to the control points of Tczew. The first Polish plane was shot down. At four hours and forty-five minutes in the morning, a German battleship opened fire on the Polish fortifications located on Westerplatte. Mussolini put forward a proposal for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, but Hitler refused, citing the incident in Gleiwitz.

In the USSR, military mobilization was introduced. In a short period of time, the army reached five million people.

Fascist strategy

Poland and Germany have long had claims against each other regarding territories. The main clashes began near the city of Danzig, which the Nazis had long claimed. But Poland did not meet the Germans halfway. This did not upset the latter, since they had long ago had the Weiss plan ready to capture Poland. 1 September 1939 Poland should have become part of Germany. A plan was developed to quickly seize its territory and destroy all infrastructure. To achieve the goal, Hitler planned to use aviation, infantry and tank troops. The Weiss plan was designed down to the smallest detail. Hitler hoped that England and France would not begin military operations, but considered the possibility of opening a second front, sending troops to the borders with the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

Preparedness for military conflict

Attack on Poland September 1, 1939 year was obvious, as was the outcome of the fascist operation. The German army was much larger than the Polish one, as was its technical equipment. In addition, the Nazis organized a rapid mobilization, about which Poland knew nothing. The Polish government concentrated all its forces along the entire border, which contributed to the weakening of the troops before the powerful attack of the Nazis. The Nazi offensive went according to plan. Polish troops turned out to be weak in front of the enemy, especially in front of his tank formations. In addition, the President of Poland left the capital. The government followed four days later. The Anglo-French troops did not take any action to help the Poles. Only two days later they, along with New Zealand and Australia, declared war on Hitler. A few days later they were joined by Nepal, Canada, the Union of South Africa and Newfoundland. On September 3, at sea, a Nazi submarine attacked an English liner without warning. During the war, Hitler hoped to the last that Poland's allies would not enter into an armed conflict, everything would happen the same as with Munich. Adolf Hitler was shocked when Britain gave him an ultimatum, demanding the withdrawal of troops from Poland.

Germany

Nazi Germany made several diplomatic steps in order to expand the circle of states that were involved in the division of Polish territory. Ribbentrop proposed that Hungary annex part of Polish Ukraine, but Budapest avoided these questions. Germany offered Lithuania to conquer the Vilnius region, but the latter declared neutrality for the year. From the first days of the war, the leader of the OUN was in Berlin, to whom the German side promised the formation of the so-called independent Ukraine in southeastern Poland. A little later, he was informed about the possibility of forming a Western Ukrainian state on the border with Soviet Russia.

In the summer of 1939, when the OUN was preparing for military action in Poland, a unit of Galicians called the VVN was formed in Slovakia. It was part of a German-Slovak unit that attacked from the territory of Slovakia. Hitler wanted to create states on the border with the USSR that would be subordinate to the Third Reich: Ukraine, the so-called Polish pseudo-state and Lithuania. Ribbentrop pointed out that it was necessary to destroy the Poles and Jews with the help of the VVN. At the end of September, Ukrainian nationalists launched uprisings, during which military personnel and civilians were killed. At this time, actions were taken in Germany against the USSR. Ribbentrop invites Hitler to discuss the issue of the entry of Russian troops into the lands of Poland to occupy that part that is included in the circle of interests of the USSR, according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Moscow refused such a proposal, indicating that the time had not yet come. Molotov indicated that the intervention of the Soviet Union could be a reaction to the advance of the Nazis, to protect Ukrainians and Belarusians from the Nazis.

The Union was officially notified that the outbreak had begun in Europe. war, September 1, 1939. The border troops were ordered to strengthen the security of the Soviet-Polish border, military mobilization was introduced, the number of vehicles, horses, tractors, etc. was increased in the army. Ribbentrop calls on the Union to completely defeat Poland within two or three weeks. Molotov argued that the USSR did not want to take part in the war, ensuring its security. Stalin said that there was a war going on in the world between two camps (rich and poor) for the redivision of the world. But the Union will watch from the side as they weaken each other well. He claimed that the communists were against the war. But in the meantime, the SIC directive stated that the Union could not defend fascist Poland. A little later, the Soviet press indicated that the German-Polish war was becoming threatening, so reserves were being called up. A large number of army groups were created. On September 17, the Red Army advanced to Poland. Polish troops offered no resistance. The division of Poland between the Union and Germany ended on September 28. Western Belarus and Western Ukraine went to the USSR, which later merged with the Ukrainian SSR and BSSR.

The mood for war with Germany, which had existed in the Union since 1935, lost its meaning, but mobilization continued. About two hundred thousand conscripts continued to serve, according to the new conscription law that was created September 1, 1939 (event what happened on this day is familiar to us).

Poland's reaction

Having learned about the crossing of the Polish border by the Soviet army, the Polish command sent an ambassador with the question of how the Soviet army crossed their border. He was presented with a fait accompli, although the Polish government believed that the Red Army was brought in to limit the Nazi occupation zone. It was ordered to retreat to Romania and Hungary and not to conduct military operations.

Germany's reaction

For the management of the German armed forces, the advance of the Soviet army into Poland came as a surprise. An emergency meeting was convened to discuss options for further actions by the Nazis. At the same time, armed clashes with the Red Army were considered inappropriate.

France and England

When September 1, 1939 World War II began with the invasion of Poland, England and France remained on the sidelines. After the USSR invaded Poland, these two states did not focus on Soviet intervention in the Polish-German war. They tried to find out what position the Union took in this conflict. There were rumors in these countries that the Red Army in Poland opposed German troops. In mid-September, the British government decided that England would defend Poland only from Germany, so the USSR did not send a protest, thereby recognizing the Soviet action in Poland.

Withdrawal of German troops

On September 20, Hitler gave the order to withdraw troops to the west. He demanded an immediate end to the fighting. But this order did not take into account the fact that there were a large number of wounded, prisoners and equipment on Polish territory. It was planned to leave the wounded in place, providing them with medical personnel. All trophies that could not be evacuated were left to the Russian soldiers. The Germans left military equipment in place for further removal. Damaged tanks made using new technologies were ordered to be destroyed so that it would not be possible to identify them.

Negotiations between Germany and the USSR were scheduled for September 27-28. Stalin made a proposal to transfer Lithuania to the Union in exchange for part of the Warsaw and Lublin voivodeships. Stalin was afraid of the division of the Polish population, so he left the entire ethnic territory of the country to Germany, as well as part of the Augustow forests. Hitler approved this version of the division of Poland. On September 29, the Treaty of Friendship and Border between the Soviet Union and Germany was signed. Thus, the basis of peace in Europe was created on long time. The elimination of the impending war between Germany, England and France ensured the interests of many nations.

Anglo-French reaction

England was satisfied with this course of events. She informed the Union that she wanted Poland to be smaller, so the question of returning the territories captured by the USSR to it could not arise. France and England informed the Polish President not to declare war on the Soviet Union. Churchill said that Russian troops needed to enter Poland in order to ensure security against the threat from the Nazis.

Results of the operation

Poland ceased to exist as a state. As a result of its division, the USSR received a territory of about two hundred thousand square kilometers, which is half the area of ​​the country, and a population of thirteen million people. The territory of the Vilnius region was transferred to Lithuania. Germany received the entire ethnic territory of Poland. Some lands went to Slovakia. The lands that did not join Germany became part of the General Government, which was ruled by the Nazis. Krakow became its capital. The Third Reich lost about twenty thousand people, thirty thousand people were wounded. The Polish army lost sixty-six thousand people, two hundred thousand were wounded, and seven hundred thousand were captured. The Slovak army lost eighteen people, forty-six people were wounded.

Year 1939... September 1 - beginning of World War II. Poland was the first to take the blow, as a result of which it was divided between the Soviet Union and Germany. In the territories that became part of the USSR, it was established Soviet authority, industry was nationalized. Repressions and deportations of representatives of the bourgeoisie, rich peasants, intelligentsia, and so on were carried out. In the territories that became part of Germany, a so-called racial policy was carried out; the population was divided according to rights, depending on their nationality. At the same time, Gypsies and Jews were destroyed. In the General Government there was more aggression against the Polish and Jewish population. No one suspected then that this was just the beginning of the war, that it would take six long years and end with the defeat of Nazi Germany. Most of the world's population took part in military conflict.

Prerequisites for war, alleged allies and opponents, periodization

The First World War (1914-1918) ended with the defeat of Germany. The victorious states insisted on Germany signing the Versailles peace agreements, according to which the country pledged to pay multimillion-dollar indemnities, renounced its own army and military developments, and agreed to seize some territories from it.

The signed agreements were largely predatory and unfair, since the Russian Empire, which by this time had changed political system from monarchy to republic. In view of the ongoing political events and the ongoing civil war, the government of the RSFSR agreed to sign a separate peace with Germany, which subsequently served as a reason for the exclusion of Russians from the number of peoples who won the First World War and the impetus for the development of economic, political and military relations with Germany. The beginning of such relations was laid by the Genoa Conference of 1922.

In the spring of 1922, former World War I allies and adversaries met in the Italian city of Rapallo to work out an agreement regarding the mutual renunciation of any claims against each other. Among other things, it was proposed to abandon the demand for indemnity from Germany and its allies.

During mutual meetings and diplomatic negotiations, the representative of the USSR Georgy Chicherin and the head of the delegation from the Weimar Republic, Walter Rathenau, signed the Rapallo Agreement, restoring diplomatic ties between the countries that signed it. The Rapallo agreements were received in Europe and America without much enthusiasm, but did not encounter significant obstacles. After some time, Germany received an unofficial opportunity to return to building up weapons and creating its own army. Fearing the communist threat posed by the USSR, the participants in the Versailles agreements successfully turned a blind eye to Germany's desire to take revenge for its loss in the First World War.

In 1933, the National Socialist Workers' Party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in the country. Germany openly declares its unwillingness to comply with the Versailles agreements and on October 14, 1933, withdraws from the League of Nations, not accepting the offer to participate in the Geneva Disarmament Conference. The expected negative reaction from the Western powers did not follow. Hitler unofficially received freedom of action.

On January 26, 1934, Germany and Poland sign the Non-Aggression Pact. On March 7, 1936, German troops occupy the Rhineland. Hitler enlists the support of Mussolini, promising him help in the conflict with Ethiopia and renouncing military claims in the Adriatic. In the same year, the Anti-Comintern Pact was concluded between Japan and Germany, obliging the parties to take active measures to eradicate communism in the territories under their control. The following year, Italy joins the pact.

In March 1938, Germany carried out the Anschluss of Austria. From this time on, the threat of World War II became more than real. Having secured the support of Italy and Japan, Germany no longer saw any reason to formally comply with the Versailles Protocols. Limp protests from Great Britain and France did not bring the expected effect. On April 17, 1939, the Soviet Union proposed that these countries conclude a military agreement that would limit German influence on the Baltic countries. The USSR government sought to protect itself in case of war by gaining the opportunity to transfer troops through the territory of Poland and Romania. Unfortunately, it was not possible to achieve agreement on this issue; the Western powers preferred a fragile peace with Germany to cooperation with the USSR. Hitler hastened to send diplomats to conclude an agreement with France and Great Britain, later known as the Munich Agreement, which involved the introduction of Czechoslovakia into Germany's sphere of influence. The country's territory was divided into spheres of influence, and the Sudetenland was given to Germany. Active participation Hungary and Poland took part in the section.

In the current difficult situation, the USSR decides to move closer to Germany. On August 23, 1939, Ribbentrop, endowed with emergency powers, arrived in Moscow. A secret agreement is concluded between the Soviet Union and Germany - the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. At its core, the document was an attack agreement for a period of 10 years. In addition, he distinguished between the influence of Germany and the USSR in Eastern Europe. Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Bessarabia were included in the sphere of influence of the USSR. Germany received rights to Lithuania. In the event of a military conflict in Europe, the territories of Poland that were part of Belarus and Ukraine under the Riga Peace Treaty of 1920, as well as some native Polish lands of the Warsaw and Lublin voivodeships, ceded to the USSR.

Thus, by the end of the summer of 1939, all the main territorial issues between the allies and rivals in the proposed war had been resolved. The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria were controlled by German troops, Italy occupied Albania, and France and Great Britain provided guarantees of protection to Poland, Greece, Romania and Turkey. At the same time, clear military coalitions similar to those that existed on the eve of the First World War had not yet been formed. Germany's obvious allies were the governments of the territories it occupied - Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Austria. The regime of Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain was ready to provide military support. In the Asian direction, the Mikado of Japan took a wait-and-see attitude. Having secured himself from the USSR, Hitler put Great Britain and France in a difficult position. The United States was also in no hurry to enter into a conflict that was about to break out, hoping to support whichever side whose economic and political interests would be most consistent with the country’s foreign policy course.

On September 1, 1939, the combined forces of Germany and Slovakia invaded Poland. This date can be considered the beginning of the Second World War, which lasted for 5 years and affected the interests of more than 80% of the world's population. 72 states and over 100 million people took part in the military conflict. Not all of them directly participated in the hostilities, some were engaged in the supply of goods and equipment, others expressed their support in monetary terms.

The periodization of World War II is quite complex. The conducted research allows us to identify at least 5 significant periods in the Second World War:

September 1, 1939 - June 22, 1944. The attack on Poland is aggression against the Soviet Union and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

June 1941 - November 1942. The Barbarossa plan for the lightning-fast seizure of the territory of the USSR within 1-2 months and its final destruction in the Battle of Stalingrad. Japanese offensive operations in Asia. Entry of the United States into the war. Battle of the Atlantic. Battles in Africa and the Mediterranean. Creation of an anti-Hitler coalition.

November 1942 - June 1944. German losses on the Eastern Front. Actions of Americans and British in Italy, Asia and Africa. The fall of the fascist regime in Italy. The transition of hostilities to enemy territory - the bombing of Germany.

June 1944 - May 1945. Opening of the second front. Retreat of German troops to the borders of Germany. Capture of Berlin. Surrender of Germany.

May 1945 - September 2, 1945. The fight against Japanese aggression in Asia. Japanese surrender. Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals. Creation of the UN.

The main events of World War II took place in Western and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa and the Pacific.

Beginning of World War II (September 1939-June 1941)

On September 1, 1939, Germany annexes Polish territory. On September 3, the governments of France and Great Britain, bound by peace treaties with Poland, announce the beginning of military actions directed against Germany. Similar actions followed by Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Union of South Africa, Nepal and Newfoundland. Surviving written eyewitness accounts suggest that Hitler was not prepared for such a turn of events. Germany hoped for a repeat of the events in Munich.

The well-trained German army occupied most of Poland within hours. Despite the declaration of war, France and Great Britain were in no hurry to begin open hostilities. The governments of these states took a wait-and-see position, similar to that which took place during the annexation of Ethiopia by Italy and Austria by Germany. IN historical sources At that time it was called the “Strange War”.

One of major events At this time, the defense of the Brest Fortress began, which began on September 14, 1939. The defense was led by the Polish General Plisovsky. The defense of the fortress fell on September 17, 1939, the fortress actually ended up in the hands of the Germans, but already on September 22, units of the Red Army entered it. In compliance with the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Germany handed over the eastern part of Poland to the USSR.

On September 28, an agreement on Friendship and the border between the USSR and Germany is signed in Moscow. The Germans occupy Warsaw, and the Polish government flees to Romania. The border between the USSR and German-occupied Poland is established along the “Curzon Line”. The territory of Poland, controlled by the USSR, is included in Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus. The Polish and Jewish population in territories controlled by the Third Reich were deported and subjected to repression.

On October 6, 1939, Hitler invites the warring parties to enter into peace negotiations, thereby wanting to consolidate Germany’s official right to its annexation. Having not received a positive response, Germany refuses any further actions to peacefully resolve the conflicts that have arisen.

Taking advantage of the busyness of France and Great Britain, as well as Germany’s lack of desire to enter into an open conflict with the USSR, on November 30, 1939, the Government of the Soviet Union gave the order to invade Finland. During the outbreak of hostilities, the Red Army managed to obtain islands in the Gulf of Finland and push the border with Finland 150 kilometers from Leningrad. On March 13, 1940, a peace treaty was signed between the USSR and Finland. At the same time, the Soviet Union managed to annex the territories of the Baltic states, Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia.

Considering the refusal of the peace conference as a desire to continue the war, Hitler sends troops to capture Denmark and Norway. On April 9, 1940, the Germans invade the territories of these states. On May 10 of the same year, the Germans occupied Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Attempts by the combined French-English troops to counter the seizure of these states were unsuccessful.

On June 10, 1940, Italy joined the fighting on the side of Germany. Italian troops occupy part of French territory, providing active support German divisions. On June 22, 1940, France made peace with Germany, with most of the country coming under the control of the German-controlled Vichy government. The remnants of the resistance forces under the leadership of General Charles de Gaulle took refuge in Great Britain.

On July 16, 1940, Hitler issues a decree on the invasion of Great Britain, and the bombing of English cities begins. Great Britain finds itself under an economic blockade, but its advantageous island position does not allow the Germans to carry out their planned takeover. Until the end of the war, Great Britain resisted the German army and navy not only in Europe, but also in Africa and Asia. In Africa, British troops collide with Italian interests. Throughout 1940, the Italian army was defeated by the combined forces of the Allies. At the beginning of 1941, Hitler sent an expeditionary force to Africa under the leadership of General Romel, whose actions significantly undermined the position of the British.

In the winter and spring of 1941, the Balkans, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon were engulfed in hostilities. Japan invades Chinese territory, Thailand sides with Germany and gains part of the territories of Cambodia, as well as Laos.

At the beginning of the war fighting are carried out not only on land, but also at sea. The inability to use land routes to transport goods forces Great Britain to strive for dominance at sea.

The foreign policy of the United States is changing significantly. The American government understands that staying away from the events taking place in Europe is no longer profitable. Negotiations begin with the governments of Great Britain, the USSR and other states that have expressed a clear desire to counteract Germany. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union's confidence in maintaining neutrality is also weakening.

German attack on the USSR, eastern theater of operations (1941-1945)

Since the end of 1940, relations between Germany and the USSR have gradually deteriorated. The USSR government rejects Hitler's proposal to join the Triple Alliance, since Germany refuses to consider a number of conditions put forward by the Soviet side. Cool relations, however, do not interfere with compliance with all the terms of the pact, in the validity of which Stalin continues to believe. In the spring of 1941, the Soviet government began to receive reports that Germany was preparing a plan to attack the USSR. Such information comes from spies in Japan and Italy, the American government, and is successfully ignored. Stalin does not take any steps towards building up the army and navy or strengthening the borders.

At dawn on June 22, 1941, German aviation and ground forces cross the state border of the USSR. That same morning, German Ambassador to the USSR Schulenberg read out a memorandum declaring war on the USSR. In a matter of weeks, the enemy managed to overcome the insufficiently organized resistance of the Red Army and advance 500-600 kilometers into the interior of the country. In the last weeks of the summer of 1941, the Barbarossa plan for the lightning takeover of the USSR was close to being successfully implemented. German troops occupied Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Moldova, Bessarabia and the right bank of Ukraine. The actions of the German troops were based on the coordinated work of four army groups:

The Finnish group is commanded by General von Dietl and Field Marshal Mannerheim. The task is to capture Murmansk, White Sea, Ladoga.

Group "North" - commander Field Marshal von Leeb. The task is to capture Leningrad.

Group "Center" - commander-in-chief von Bock. The task is to capture Moscow.

Group "South" - commander Field Marshal von Rundstedt. The goal is to take control of Ukraine.

Despite the creation of the Evacuation Council on June 24, 1941, more than half of the country's strategically important resources, heavy and light industry enterprises, workers and peasants, were in the hands of the enemy.

On June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee was created, headed by I.V. Stalin. Molotov, Beria, Malenkov and Voroshilov were also members of the Committee. Since that time, the State Defense Committee has been the most important political, economic and military institution in the country. On July 10, 1941, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command was created, including Stalin, Molotov, Timoshenko, Voroshilov, Budyonny, Shaposhnikov and Zhukov. Stalin took on the role of People's Commissar of Defense and Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

On August 15, the Battle of Smolensk ended. On the approaches to the city, the Red Army struck the German troops for the first time. Unfortunately, already in September-November 1941, Kyiv, Vyborg and Tikhvin fell, Leningrad was encircled, and the Germans launched an attack on Donbass and Crimea. Hitler's goal was Moscow and the oil veins of the Caucasus. On September 24, 1941, the offensive against Moscow began, ending in March 1942 with the establishment of a stable front line along the Velikiye Luki-Gzhatsk-Kirov, Oka line.

Moscow was able to be defended, but significant territories of the Union were under the control of the enemy. On July 2, 1942, Sevastopol fell, and the way to the Caucasus was opened for the enemy. On June 28, the Germans launched an offensive in the Kursk area. German troops took the Voronezh region, Northern Donets, Rostov. Panic began in many parts of the Red Army. To maintain discipline, Stalin issues order No. 227 “Not a step back.” Deserters and soldiers simply confused in battle were not only subjected to the censure of their comrades, but also punished to the fullest extent of wartime. Taking advantage of the retreat of the Soviet troops, Hitler organized an offensive in the direction of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. The Germans occupied Kuban, Stavropol, Krasnodar and Novorossiysk. Their advance was stopped only in the Grozny area.

From October 12, 1942 to February 2, 1943, battles for Stalingrad took place. Trying to take possession of the city, the commander of the 6th Army, von Paulus, made a number of strategic mistakes, due to which the troops subordinate to him were surrounded and forced to surrender. The defeat at Stalingrad became a turning point in the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army moved from defense to a large-scale offensive on all fronts. The victory raised morale, the Red Army managed to return many strategically important territories, including Donbass and Kurs, and the blockade of Leningrad was broken for a short time.

In July-August 1943, the Battle of Kursk took place, ending in another devastating defeat for German troops. From this time on, the operational initiative forever passed to the Red Army; the few victories of the Germans could no longer create a threat to the conquest of the country.

On January 27, 1944, the blockade of Leningrad was lifted, which claimed the lives of millions of civilians and became the starting point for the offensive of Soviet troops along the entire front line.

In the summer of 1944, the Red Army crosses the state border and forever expels the German invaders from the territory of the Soviet Union. In August of this year, Romania capitulated and the Antonescu regime fell. The fascist regimes actually fell in Bulgaria and Hungary. In September 1944, Soviet troops entered Yugoslavia. By October, almost a third of Eastern Europe was controlled by the Red Army.

On April 25, 1945, the Red Army and the troops of the Second Front opened by the Allies met on the Elbe.

On May 9, 1945, Germany signed the act of surrender, marking the end of the Great Patriotic War. Meanwhile, World War II continued.

Creation of the anti-Hitler coalition, actions of the allies in Europe, Africa and Asia (June 1941 - May 1945)

Having developed a plan for an attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler counted on the international isolation of this country. Indeed, the communist power was not particularly popular on the international stage. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact also played a decisive role in this. At the same time, already on July 12, 1941, the USSR and Great Britain signed a cooperation agreement. This agreement was later supplemented by an agreement on trade and loans. In September of the same year, Stalin for the first time turned to Great Britain with a request to open a second front in Europe. Requests, and subsequently demands, from the Soviet side remained unanswered until the beginning of 1944.

Before the US entered the war (December 7, 1941), the British government and the French government in London, led by Charles de Gaulle, were in no hurry to reassure new allies, limiting themselves to supplies of food, money and weapons (Lend-Lease).

On January 1, 1942, the Declaration of 26 states was signed in Washington and the official formation of the anti-Hitler coalition was actually completed. In addition, the USSR became a party to the Atlantic Charter. Agreements on cooperation and mutual assistance were concluded with many countries that by this time were part of the anti-Hitler bloc. The Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States become the undisputed leaders. The Declaration on achieving a lasting and just peace was also signed between the USSR and Poland, but in view of the execution of Polish soldiers near Katyn, indeed strong relationships it was not established.

In October 1943, the foreign ministers of Great Britain, the USA and the USSR met in Moscow to discuss the upcoming Tehran Conference. The conference itself took place from November 28 to December 1, 1943 in Tehran. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were present. The Soviet Union managed to achieve a promise to open a second front in May 1944 and various kinds of territorial concessions.

In January 1945, allies in the anti-Hitler coalition gathered in Yalta to discuss further actions after the defeat of Germany. The Soviet Union pledged to continue the war, directing its military power to achieve victory over Japan.

The rapid rapprochement with the Soviet Union was of great importance for Western European countries. Broken France, besieged Great Britain, and more than neutral America could not pose a serious threat to Hitler. The outbreak of war on the Eastern Front distracted the main forces of the Reich from events in Europe, Asia and Africa and gave a noticeable respite, which Western countries did not fail to take advantage of.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, which became the reason for the United States to enter the war and begin hostilities in the Philippines, Thailand, New Guinea, China and even India. At the end of 1942, Japan controls all of Southeast Asia and Northwest Oceania.

In the summer of 1941, the first significant Anglo-American convoys appeared in the Atlantic Ocean, transporting equipment, weapons, and food. Similar convoys appear on the Pacific and Arctic oceans. Until the end of 1944, there was a fierce confrontation at sea between German combat submarines and Allied ships. Despite significant losses on land, the right to supremacy at sea remains with Great Britain.

Having secured the support of the Americans, the British made repeated attempts to oust the Nazis from Africa and Italy. This was achieved only by 1945 during the Tunisian and Italian companies. Since January 1943, there have been regular bombings of German cities.

The most significant event of World War II on the Western Front was the landing of Allied forces in Normandy on June 6, 1944. The appearance of the Americans, British and Canadians in Normandy marked the opening of the Second Front and marked the beginning of the liberation of Belgium and France.

The final period of World War II (May - September 1945)

The surrender of Germany, signed on May 9, 1945, made it possible to transfer part of the troops that took part in the liberation of Europe from fascism to the Pacific direction. By this time, over 60 states took part in the war against Japan. In the summer of 1945, Japanese troops left Indonesia and liberated Indochina. On July 26, the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition demanded that the Japanese Government sign an agreement on voluntary surrender. There was no positive response, so the fighting continued.

On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union also declares war on Japan. The transfer of Red Army units to the Far East begins, the Kwantung Army located there suffers defeats, and the puppet state of Manchukuo ceases to exist.

On August 6 and 9, American aircraft carriers jettison atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after which there was no longer any doubt about the Allied victory in the Pacific direction.

On September 2, 1945, the act of unconditional surrender of Japan is signed. The Second World War ends, negotiations begin between the former allies in the anti-Hitler bloc regarding future fate Germany and fascism itself. Tribunals begin to operate in Nuremberg and Tokyo to determine the degree of guilt and punishment for war criminals.

The Second World War claimed the lives of 27 million people. Germany was divided into 4 occupation zones and for a long time lost the right to make independent decisions in the international arena. In addition, the amount of indemnity imposed on Germany and its allies was several times greater than that determined following the First World War.

Counteraction to fascism in Asian and African countries took shape in an anti-colonial movement, thanks to which many colonies acquired the status of independent states. One of the most important results of the war was the creation of the United Nations. The warm relations between the allies, established during the war, cooled noticeably. Europe was divided into two camps - capitalist and communist.