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128-578: The final battles of the European theatre of World War II continued after the definitive surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies , signed by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 ( VE Day ) in Karlshorst , Berlin . After German leader Adolf Hitler 's suicide and handing over of power to Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz on the last day of April 1945, Soviet troops conquered Berlin and accepted surrender of

256-704: A US force in Western Germany". At a meeting for the foreign ministers of France, the UK, and the US in New York from 12 September – 19 December 1950, it was stated that among other measures to strengthen West Germany 's position in the Cold War that the western allies would "end by legislation the state of war with Germany". In 1951, many former Western Allies did end their state of war with Germany: Australia (9 July), Canada, Italy, New Zealand,

384-700: A civil war against another group of guerillas, the Partisans , led by Josip "Tito" Broz . The Chetniks collaborated with the Allies, and in 1943, the British switched their alliance to the Partisans. In Greece, the communist ELAS fought a civil war with the republican EDES . They fought until a peace deal was made by the Allies. Spl%C3%BCgen Pass The pass road connects the Swiss Hinterrhein valley and Splügen in

512-610: A few months and the Soviet Union quickly began the process of Sovietization , the enforcing of communist-led people's assemblies (" soviets ") which would be the new governmental bodies. The new Baltic soviets voted for their countries to become republics of the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union formally accepted these additions in August 1940. On 9 April 1940, in Operation Weserubrung , Germany invaded Norway and Denmark as essentially

640-694: A good historical review for hikers on the Via Spluga . The pass was in use in the Roman era. It possibly corresponds to Cunus Aureus shown on the Tabula Peutingeriana (which may alternatively have referred to the Julier Pass ). The name Splügen itself is possibly derived from specula ("lookout"). In the Middle Ages , the bishops of Chur had the trade route relocated to Septimer Pass . From 1818 to 1823

768-477: A key motivation of Germany's expansion in Europe in the mid-to-late 1930s. In 1934, Germany signed a non-aggression pact with Poland, but this would not last as Poland was considered a part of the lebensraum ; Nazi mythology considered eastern Europe to be lost German land. In 1933, Germany began building concentration camps to hold their political enemies and those they considered " degenerates ", such as people on

896-402: A mile, you look back and see the country you had left, through the narrow opening of the gigantic crags, set like a painting in this cloud-reaching frame. It is giddy work to look down over the parapet that protects the road, and mark the arrowy rushing of the imprisoned river. Mid-way in the pass, the precipices approach so near that you might fancy that a strong man could leap across." In 1843

1024-555: A paramilitary that terrorized the Italian countryside in a campaign against socialism. In 1922, during a controversial general strike by a weakened trade unionist movement, Mussolini and his followers seized power in Rome and installed him as the Prime Minister of Italy to run the country alongside the pre-existing monarchy of King Victor Emmanuel III . Similar to Germany, Mussolini turned

1152-529: A preventative measure to stop the U.K. and France from occupying Norway, as well as to protect German industry; Britain previously had set up naval blockades between Norway and Germany which cut off the import of iron from northern Sweden that was being shipped out of the Norwegian port of Narvik . The invasion was led by General of the Infantry Nikolaus von Falkenhorst . Germany notified the U.K. and France of

1280-529: A small area around the town), was not recognized by the Allies. On 12 May an Allied liaison team arrived in Flensburg and took quarters aboard the passenger ship Patria . The liaison officers and the Supreme Allied Headquarters soon realized that they had no need to act through the Flensburg government and that its members should be arrested. On 23 May, acting on SHAEF's orders and with the approval of

1408-529: A surrender document at Caserta after prolonged unauthorised secret negotiations with the Western Allies , which were viewed with great suspicion by the Soviet Union as trying to reach a separate peace . In the document, the Germans agreed to a ceasefire and surrender of all the forces under the command of Vietinghoff on 2 May at 2 pm. Accordingly, after some bitter wrangling between Wolff and Albert Kesselring in

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1536-734: The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)—the German Armed Forces High Command—not all commanders did so. The largest contingent was Army Group Centre under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner , who had been promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Army on 30 April in Hitler's last will and testament. On 8 May, Schörner deserted his command and flew to Austria; the Soviet Army sent overwhelming force against Army Group Centre in

1664-655: The Uranverein ( uranium club) began a project to develop a bomb using nuclear fission that could destroy entire cities, the atomic bomb . This was supposed to be secret, but scientists fleeing Nazi Germany to avoid persecution made word of the program in other Western countries. In 1939, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt was warned of the program by one of these fleeing scientists, Albert Einstein . The U.K. and France responded to Germany's aggressive expansion through appeasement , "maintain[ing] peace in Europe by making limited concessions to German demands", which

1792-564: The Allies , a name reused from the Allies who were the main opponent of the Central Powers in World War I. Under the Nazi Party, Germany developed a hierarchy which considered the pseudoscientific " Aryan race " — white ethnic Germans or those closest genetically to them — as the most superior race, and Jews and Slavs at or near the bottom. A major part of Nazi Germany's racial policy was

1920-609: The Atlantic Ocean . On 17 September, the Soviets invaded Poland , and the Poles now fought on two fronts. The next day, Polish government officials escaped into Romania, and for the next ten days, the Polish garrison in the capitol of Warsaw held on as Germans bombed the city massively, killing many civilians. On the 28th, Poland surrendered, and the next day, Germany and Soviet Union partitioned

2048-711: The Axis powers . Italy and Japan needed allies, as Italy was involved in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (the Italian invasion of the Ethiopian Empire ) from 1935 to 1937, and Japan started the Second Sino-Japanese War (Japan's expanded invasion of the Republic of China ) in 1937, the latter of which was subsumed by World War II and ended in 1945. In 1936, Italy and Germany made a pact of mutual assurance,

2176-700: The Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia , and Estonia — were allocated to the Soviet sphere of influence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. On 10 October 1939, the Soviets demanded the Baltic states to allow Soviet garrisons to be stationed within them. The countries felt threatened, resentfully agreeing to sign pacts of mutual assurance allowing the soldiers in. The beginning of World War II escalated tensions between Finland and

2304-775: The Battle of Britain , the German Luftwaffe air branch launched air assaults on the United Kingdom in preparation to launch an amphibious invasion of Britain codenamed Operation Sea Lion . The British Royal Air Force (RAF) successfully defended Britain, and that phase of bombing ended in September 1940. On September 7, the Luftwaffe started an aerial bombing campaign on Britain known as the Blitz , which instead destroyed strategic targets to hurt

2432-611: The Battle of Taranto , the British navy destroyed almost half of the Italian fleet. In March 1941, the British sent 58,000 Commonwealth troops to help Greece, despite their intense combat in North Africa. During the Battle of Britain, the U.K. asked the U.S. for help, but the American public was divided over the need to get involved in the war. In the November 1940 U.S. presidential election ,

2560-543: The Berlin Declaration , proclaiming the unconditional surrender of Germany to the four victorious powers, was signed. The Allied powers then moved to finishing the Pacific War against Japan. Once World War II ended, the Allies occupied the continent, giving some countries back to their pre-war leaders or creating new governments, before funding their nations' economic recovery. German military leaders were subject to

2688-656: The Dutch government-in-exile . The next day, the Germans crossed the Meuse river, entering France. On 14 May 1940, Dutch Commander-in-Chief Henri Winkelman surrendered his forces east of the Scheldt river, essentially all of the Netherlands. On the 15th, French general Maurice Gamelin reported to French Premier Paul Reynard that the Germans might take Paris within days. Reynard then replaced Gamelin with retired general Maxime Weygand , who

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2816-783: The Dönitz-led government . The last battles were fought on the Eastern Front which ended in the total surrender of all of Nazi Germany ’s remaining armed forces such as in the Courland Pocket in western Latvia from Army Group Courland in the Baltics surrendering on 10 May 1945 and in Czechoslovakia during the Prague offensive on 11 May 1945. Allied forces begin to take large numbers of Axis prisoners : The total number of prisoners taken on

2944-592: The Geneva Convention of 1929 on the treatment of former combatants. By October, thousands had died in the camps from starvation, exposure and disease. Liberation of Nazi concentration camps and refugees : Allied forces began to discover the scale of the Holocaust , confirming the findings of Pilecki's 1943 Report . The advance into Germany uncovered numerous Nazi concentration camps and forced labour facilities. Up to 60,000 prisoners were at Bergen-Belsen when it

3072-821: The Lehrter Bahnhof railway station after encountering a Soviet Red Army patrol. Lehrter Bahnhof is close to where the remains of Bormann, confirmed as his by a DNA test in 1998, were unearthed on 7 December 1972. German forces in North West Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrender : On 4 May 1945, the British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery took the unconditional military surrender at Lüneburg from Generaladmiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg , and General Eberhard Kinzel , of all German forces "in Holland [sic], in northwest Germany including

3200-574: The Munich Agreement , which gave Germany the Sudetenland , a Czech region near its border with Germany which had long been ethnically German. Chamberlain returned back to England and proclaimed that the U.K. had achieved " Peace for our time ". At the same time, Hungary annexed a part of southern Slovakia and Poland annexed the Tešin District of Czech Silesia . On 15 March 1939, Germany occupied

3328-524: The Nuremberg criminal trials . Western Europe became a series of capitalist governments and eastern Europe became communist , beginning the Cold War among the former Allied nations. Germany was split into the capitalist West Germany and the communist East Germany . Germany was defeated in World War I , and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles placed punitive conditions on the country after finding Germany and

3456-594: The Prague offensive , forcing many of the German units in there to capitulate by 11 May. The other units of the Army Group which did not surrender on 8 May were forced to surrender. Debellation: At the time the Allied powers assumed that a debellation had occurred (the end of a war caused by the complete destruction of a hostile state), and their actions during the immediate post war period were based on that legal premise (however,

3584-704: The Red Army . On the same day the officers commanding the two armies of Army Group Vistula north of Berlin, (General Kurt von Tippelskirch , commander of the German 21st Army and General Hasso von Manteuffel , commander of Third Panzer Army ), surrendered to the Western Allies. 2 May is also believed to have been the day when Hitler's deputy Martin Bormann died, from the account of Artur Axmann who saw Bormann's corpse in Berlin near

3712-729: The Rome-Berlin axis agreement. Also that year, Japan and Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact to counter the perceived threat of communism from the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin ; Italy joined the pact in 1937. Italy and Germany signed the Pact of Steel in 1939, formalizing the Rome-Berlin axis. Other smaller powers joined the Axis throughout World War II. The Axis' main opponents would be

3840-488: The Soviet Union . Between 14 August 1946 and 9 May 1947, up to five million people were forcibly handed over to the Soviets. On return, most deportees faced imprisonment or execution; on some occasions the NKVD began killing people before Allied troops had departed from the rendezvous points. The Allied Control Council was created to effect the Allies' assumed supreme authority over Germany, specifically to implement their assumed joint authority over Germany. On 30 August,

3968-400: The Third French Republic (the French government before Germany invaded) and later for the French resistance against the Nazis. Spain claimed neutrality during World War II, but collaborated with the Axis. They gave Germany raw materials to use in weapons production. 10,000 to 15,000 Spaniards that were previously refugees in France were deported to Germany, where about 60% were killed by

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4096-408: The United Kingdom , the United States , and the Soviet Union ) fought the Axis powers (including Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ) on both sides of the continent in the Western and Eastern fronts. There was also conflict in the Scandinavian , Mediterranean and Balkan regions. It was an intense conflict that led to at least 39 million deaths and a dramatic change in the balance of power in

4224-421: The Wehrmacht the most powerful army in the world. Britannica writes: In accordance with the doctrines of General Heinz Guderian , the German tanks were used in massed formations in conjunction with motorized artillery to punch holes in the enemy line and to isolate segments of the enemy, which were then surrounded and captured by motorized German infantry divisions while the tanks ranged forward to repeat

4352-416: The canton of Graubünden with the Valle San Giacomo and Chiavenna in the Italian province of Sondrio , the road continuing to Lake Como . The pass is the water divide between the drainage basins of the Rhine , which flows into the North Sea , and the Po , which flows into the Adriatic . The pass is overlooked by Pizzo Tambo and the Surettahorn , on its western and eastern side, respectively. On

4480-411: The chancellor and fuhrer of Germany in 1933. In February 1933, the German Reichstag building caught on fire in an arson attack, giving Hitler the opportunity to blame the fire on his political opponents, especially communists . In response, the government passed the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State , which "abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and

4608-410: The 12th that the French battle had been lost. Meanwhile, French Major General Victor Fortune surrendered his 10,000 men of the British Expeditionary Forces' 51st Highland Division who were being exhausted at Saint-Valéry-en-Caux . On the 14th, the French military evacuated Paris and the Germans entered the city. Reynaud again moved the government, this time to Bordeaux. The next day, Verdun fell, and on

4736-512: The 16th, Reynaud resigned, being succeeded by Philippe Petain . On the 17th, Petain asked the Germans for an armistice. The terms were dictated with Hitler on the 21st, and on the 25th, war between France and Germany/Italy was officially over. On 22 June, France was divided into two sections under the Franco-German Armistice ; one was occupied by the German military and the other, Vichy France , had some autonomy. The Chasselay massacre occurred in France in June 1940. Starting in June 1940, in

4864-419: The 24th, the Germans almost reached Dunkirk, but Hitler ordered them back, giving the British Expeditionary Forces and other Allies in Dunkirk some time to evacuate to England . They moved quickly, and the situation worsened on the 27th, when Leopold III , the king of Belgium , surrendered his army. The Allies successfully evacuated by 4 June, saving 198,000 British men and 140,000 French men. At this point,

4992-425: The Allied forces, this time in the presence of Marshal Georgy Zhukov and representatives of SHAEF . The signing ceremony took place in a former German Army Engineering School in the Berlin district of Karlshorst ; it now houses the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst . VE-Day : Following news of the German surrender, spontaneous celebrations erupted all over the world on 7 May, including in Western Europe and

5120-402: The Allied powers began an invasion of Italy , causing the end of Mussolini's regime , but Germans and Italians loyal to the Axis continued fighting. The Allies liberated Rome in 1944. In June 1944, the Allied powers began an invasion of German-occupied western Europe, as the Soviets launched a massive counterattack in eastern Europe in Operation Bagration . Both campaigns were successful for

5248-476: The Allies, while having about an equal number of tanks and military aircraft to the three of them combined. New types of military technology invented in the interwar years included radar , the dive bomber , and the aircraft carrier . The Allied countries, motivated by their victory in World War I, had generally not worked to produce significant amounts of newer weapons and military equipment afterwards, feeling confident in what they already had, while Germany did

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5376-430: The Allies. In 1945, Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman . The Soviet Union conquered most of Eastern Europe including the German capital Berlin , as Mussolini was hanged and Hitler committed suicide . Concentration camps that were used in the Holocaust were liberated. Germany unconditionally surrendered on 8 May 1945 , although fighting continued elsewhere in Europe until 25 May . On 5 June 1945,

5504-452: The Army. They quickly destroyed vital Polish infrastructure including the railways, essentially taking out the Polish Air Force before it could be used. In 1939, they surpassed the three current Allied powers in their individual numbers of infantry and armoured divisions (the Wehrmacht 's armoured divisions are also known as panzer divisions ). Germany also had more machine guns, mortars , antitank guns , and howitzers per division than

5632-429: The Axis powers under the Tripartite Pact . In 1941, Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders including Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich agree on a program of mass extermination of Jews throughout occupied Europe, beginning the Holocaust ; this was referred to as the " Final Solution " to the " Jewish question ", or the debate over what should happen to the Jews living on the continent. On 1 March 1941, Himmler ordered

5760-404: The British war effort. On 28 October 1940, Italy began invading Greece . This surprised the Greeks, as well as Hitler, who did not want Axis troops to be taken away from the North African campaign . Mussolini was convinced that Italy would quickly win, but they were pushed back into Albania after a week. The Italians then spent the next three months in Albania defending against the Greeks. At

5888-484: The Control Council constituted itself and issued its first proclamation, which informed the German people of the council's existence and asserted that the commands and directives issued by the Commanders-in-Chief in their respective zones were not affected by the establishment of the council. Cessation of hostilities between the United States and Germany was proclaimed on 13 December 1946 by US President Truman . The Paris Peace Conference ended on 10 February 1947 with

6016-514: The Czech resistance started the Prague uprising . The following day, the Soviets launched the Prague offensive . In Dresden , Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann let it be known that a large-scale German offensive on the Eastern Front was about to be launched. Within two days, Mutschmann abandoned the city but was captured by Soviet troops while trying to escape. Hermann Göring's surrender : On 6 May, Reichsmarshall and Hitler's second-in-command Hermann Göring surrendered to General Carl Spaatz , who

6144-409: The Defeat of Germany and the Assumption of Supreme Authority by Allied Powers was signed by the four Allies on 5 June. It included the following: The Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the Provisional Government of the French Republic, hereby assume supreme authority with respect to Germany, including all the powers possessed by

6272-443: The Dutch town of Wageningen , in the presence of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (acting as commander-in-chief of the Dutch Interior Forces). German forces in Bavaria surrender : At 14:30 on 5 May 1945, General Hermann Foertsch surrendered all forces between the Bohemian mountains and the Upper Inn river to the American General Jacob L. Devers , commander of the American 6th Army Group . Central Europe : On 5 May 1945,

6400-419: The French front had been pushed back to the Somme and Aisne rivers. French numbers and morale weakened, and many retreated westward across France. On 9 June, the Germans crossed the Seine . On 10 June 1940, Italy declared war on France and the United Kingdom. They began attacking France on the 20th, but it made little effect. Reynaud had fled Paris to Tours , and he and his ministers were told by Weygand on

6528-660: The Frisian Islands and Heligoland and all other islands, in Schleswig-Holstein, and in Denmark… includ[ing] all naval ships in these areas", at the Timeloberg on Lüneburg Heath ; an area between the cities of Hamburg , Hanover and Bremen . The number of German land, sea and air forces involved in this surrender amounted to 1,000,000 men. On 5 May, Großadmiral Dönitz ordered all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases. At 16:00 on 5 May, German Oberbefehlshaber Niederlande supreme commander Generaloberst Johannes Blaskowitz surrendered to I Canadian Corps commander Lieutenant-General Charles Foulkes in

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6656-419: The German Government, the High Command and any state, municipal, or local government or authority. The assumption, for the purposes stated above, of the said authority and powers does not effect the annexation of Germany [i.e., the document does not authorize the Allies to annex Germany]. The Potsdam Agreement was signed on 1 August 1945. In connection with this, the leaders of the United States, Britain and

6784-423: The German government's legal position during and following the reunification of Germany is that the state remained in existence although moribund in the immediate post war period). Dönitz government ordered dissolved by Eisenhower : Karl Dönitz continued to act as if he were the German head of state, but his Flensburg Government (so called because it was based at Flensburg in northern Germany and controlled only

6912-418: The Germans agreed to a complete unconditional surrender to all the Allies on all fronts. Eisenhower explicitly told Jodl that he would order western lines closed to German soldiers, thus forcing them to surrender to the Soviets. Jodl sent a signal to Dönitz, who was in Flensburg , informing him of Eisenhower's declaration. Shortly after midnight, Dönitz, accepting the inevitable, sent a signal to Jodl authorizing

7040-408: The Italian side of the pass is Montespluga , a small three street village that is cut off from both Italy and Switzerland during the winter. Since the opening of the San Bernardino road tunnel in 1967, the pass has lost its former importance; it is not kept open in winter. Thanks to its lack of importance, it is now a quiet pass where essential portions of the historical roads have survived allowing

7168-404: The Low Countries, the latter movement resembling the Schlieffen Plan from World War I. On the 10th, the Germans first entered the Netherlands and Belgium, and Neville Chamberlain resigned, making Winston Churchill the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Chamberlain had been criticized for the failure of the Norwegian campaign, and Churchill had become the Labour Party 's choice for leading

7296-563: The Mannerheim Line. On 6 March, Finland asked for peace terms, and on the 12th, the two countries signed the Moscow Peace Treaty , in which the Finns ceded 9% of their territory to the Soviet Union, and the Hanko Peninsula was leased to the Soviets for 30 years. The war ended the following day. In June 1940, Joseph Stalin sent another set of ultimatums to the Baltic states, demanding the allowance of an unlimited number of Soviet troops into their countries and to form governments under Soviet terms. All three countries were occupied by within

7424-414: The Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary organization, believing them to have gotten too powerful. From 1919 to 1921, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini grew a base of supporters who wanted him to deal with Italy's political and economic crises, which involved civil conflict over the growth of socialism in the country. Many of Mussolini's supporters became known as blackshirts , who would form

7552-474: The Nazis. Portugal claimed neutrality as well, but they allowed the British to access Portuguese bases in the Azores . On 10 May 1940, Germany began an invasion of France and the Low Countries ( the Netherlands , Belgium , and Luxembourg ). Three German commanders, Willhelm von Leeb , Fedor von Bock, and Gerd von Rundstedt took control of an army each and invaded France through the northern end of its German border, and also by crossing into France through

7680-411: The Netherlands (26 July), South Africa, the United Kingdom (9 July), and the United States (19 October). The state of war between Germany and the Soviet Union was ended in early 1955. " The full authority of a sovereign state " was granted to the Federal Republic of Germany on 5 May 1955 under the terms of the Bonn–Paris conventions . The treaty ended the military occupation of West German territory, but

7808-471: The Netherlands , Belgium , and Luxembourg . The six countries were taken over, and Germany began two successive aerial bombardments of the United Kingdom, in the Battle of Britain and the Blitz . British Prime Minister Winston Churchill led his country's war effort. Germany also began a widespread genocide of Jews in the Holocaust . In 1940, Italy invaded Greece , and in 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece . Germany then began an invasion of

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7936-406: The Piazzale Loreto of the city. On 29 April, Rodolfo Graziani surrendered all Fascist Italian armed forces at Caserta. This included Army Group Liguria . Graziani was the Minister of Defence for Mussolini's Italian Social Republic . Hitler dies by suicide : On 30 April 1945, as the Battle of Nuremberg and the Battle of Hamburg ended with American and British occupation, the Battle in Berlin

8064-611: The Potsdam Conference, so the French representatives on the Allied Control Council subsequently refused to recognise any obligation to implement the Potsdam Agreement; with the consequence that much of the programme envisaged at Potsdam, for the establishment of a German government and state adequate for accepting a peace settlement, remained a dead letter. Operation Keelhaul began the Allies' forced repatriation of displaced persons, families, anti-communists, White Russians , former Soviet Armed Forces POWs , foreign slave workers, soldier volunteers and Cossacks , and Nazi collaborators to

8192-402: The Soviet Union , breaking the countries' non-aggression pact , and Germany declared war on the United States after Imperial Japan did so. The United States was led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1942, the Soviets stopped further invasion of their country at the Battle of Stalingrad . Meanwhile, the Allies engaged in a mass bombing campaign of German industrial targets. In 1943,

8320-406: The Soviet Union during an invasion, the two countries signed an agreement to neutrality named the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after secret negotiations from 23 to 24 August. Hitler gave the orders to invade on 26 August, certain that the U.K. and the Soviet Union would not retaliate. However, on the 25th, the U.K. and Poland publicly signed a formal treaty of military assurance, causing Hitler to delay

8448-484: The Soviet Union invaded Finland, justifying it with a staged incident at the countries' border. Thus began the Winter War , with the Soviet objective being the conquest of Finland and the installation of a communist puppet government in Helsinki . At the start of the war, the Soviets suffered severe losses and made little progress. The Finns made use of the Molotov cocktail , a type of makeshift grenade, naming it after Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov who

8576-512: The Soviet Union planned the new postwar German government, resettled war territory boundaries, de facto annexed a quarter of pre-war Germany situated east of the Oder–Neisse line , and mandated and organized the expulsion of the millions of Germans who remained in the annexed territories and elsewhere in the east. They also ordered German demilitarization , denazification , industrial disarmament and settlements of war reparations . But, as France (at American insistence) had not been invited to

8704-551: The Soviet Union. The Soviets thought the Axis would use Finland as a base to attack them, and the Finns thought the Soviets were trying to expand into Finnish territory. The Soviets then forwarded demands to Finland that were similar to the demands sent to the Baltic states; the Finns also had to destroy their defensive Mannerheim Line along the Karelian Isthmus near the border with the Soviet Union. Finland rejected these demands, instead mobilising their army and unsuccessfully attempting to gain Allied support. On 30 November 1939,

8832-502: The Soviets' Leningrad commissar Andrei Zhdanov had started making observations of their border with Finland . Based on these observations, the Soviets began building railway spur tracks leading west toward Finnish wilderness, in particular toward Kuusamo , Suomussalmi , Kuhmo , and Lieksa . The tracks were meant for a future invasion of Finland; they could have served no other purpose than to transport troops and material, since little trade passed through these regions. Finland and

8960-460: The Soviets, American Major General Rooks summoned Dönitz aboard the Patria and communicated to him that he and all the members of his Government were under arrest and that their government was dissolved. The Allies had a problem because they realized that although the German armed forces had surrendered unconditionally, SHAEF had failed to use the document created by the " European Advisory Commission " (EAC) and so there had been no formal surrender by

9088-426: The Splugen was only traversed by shepherds and travellers of the country on mules or on foot. But now, a new and most marvellous road has been constructed - the mountain in question is, to the extent of several miles, cleft from the summit to the base, and a sheer precipice of 4000 feet rises on either side. The Rhine, swift and strong, but in width a span, flows in the narrow depth below. The road has been constructed on

9216-475: The United States. As the Germans officially set the end of operations for 2301 Central European Time on 8 May, that day is celebrated across Europe as V-E Day . Most of the former Soviet Union celebrates Victory Day on 9 May, as the end of operations occurred after midnight Moscow Time . German units cease fire : Although the military commanders of most German forces obeyed the order to surrender issued by

9344-905: The Western Front in April 1945 by the Western Allies was 1,500,000. April also witnessed the capture of at least 120,000 German troops by the Western Allies in the last campaign of the war in Italy. In the three to four months up to the end of April, over 800,000 German soldiers surrendered on the Eastern Front. In early April, the first Allied -governed Rheinwiesenlager camps were established in western Germany to hold hundreds of thousands of captured or surrendered Axis Forces personnel. Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) reclassified all prisoners as Disarmed Enemy Forces , not POWs (prisoners of war). The legal fiction circumvented provisions under

9472-578: The camps' prisoners, which started as soon as they were built, expanded in 1941, which is usually when the start date of the Holocaust is given. In 1938, during the Kristallnacht pogroms , 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps. In 1938, German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman , discovered nuclear fission , or the release of large amounts energy after the " nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei ". German scientists of

9600-560: The civilian German government. This was considered a very important issue, because just as the civilian, but not military, surrender in 1918 had been used by Hitler to create the " stab in the back " argument, the Allies did not want to give any future hostile German regime a legal argument to resurrect an old quarrel. On 20 September 1945, the Allied Control Council passed its Control Council Law No. 1 - Repealing of Nazi Laws , which repealed numerous pieces of legislation enacted by

9728-469: The complete and total surrender of all German forces. Channel Islanders were informed about the German surrender after : At 10:00 on 8 May, the Channel Islanders were informed by the German authorities that the war was over. British prime minister Winston Churchill made a radio broadcast at 15:00 during which he announced: "Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, but in

9856-606: The concept of lebensraum , or "living space": increasing the amount of land in Europe where members of the Aryan race could live. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum writes: The Nazis also adopted the social Darwinist take on Darwinian evolutionary theory regarding the “ survival of the fittest .” For the Nazis, survival of a race depended upon its ability to reproduce and multiply, its accumulation of land to support and feed that expanding population, and its vigilance in maintaining

9984-710: The construction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. At the same time, Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact, and two days later, Germany began sealing off a Jewish ghetto in Krakow, Poland . Aside from concentration camps, the Final Solution was also enacted with Einsatzgruppen , mobile killing units. Croatia joined the Tripartite Pact on 15 June. On 6 April 1941, Germany, aided by Bulgarian and Hungarian forces, started invading Yugoslavia and Greece . This

10112-432: The continent. Throughout the mid-to-late 1930s, Adolf Hitler , the leader of fascist Nazi Germany, expanded German territory by annexing all of Austria and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938. This was motivated in part by Germany's racial policy that believed the country needed to expand in order for the pseudoscientific " Aryan race " to survive. They were aided by Italy, another fascist state which

10240-438: The country into a one-party fascist state which outlawed free speech, the free press, trade unions, and targeted socialists, Catholics, and liberals with a network of secret police and spies. Italy became sympathetic to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Italy, Germany, and Imperial Japan — led by Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo — increasingly allied with each other, and during World War II they would be known as

10368-401: The county between them in accordance with a secret provision of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The provision originally stated the western third of Poland would be given to the Germans, and the eastern two thirds to the Soviets, while Lithuania would be put in the German sphere of influence; now, the two countries agreed to let Lithuania fall under the Soviet sphere of influence if more of Poland

10496-580: The crumbling remains of Nazi Germany . Hitler appointed his successors as follows; Großadmiral Karl Dönitz as the new Reichspräsident ("President of Germany") and Joseph Goebbels as the new Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels died by suicide the next day, leaving Dönitz as the sole leader of Germany. German forces in Italy surrender : On 29 April, the day before Hitler died, Oberstleutnant Schweinitz and Sturmbannführer Wenner, plenipotentiaries for Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff and SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff , signed

10624-576: The democratically elected Spanish government in the Spanish Civil War . Hitler sided with Franco, giving aid to the insurgents. In 1939, Franco won the war, becoming the dictator of Spain. Before that, though, in early 1939, many Spaniards crossed the border into France, where they were given a choice by the French government whether to return to Spain (and be punished by Franco), or join the French military; during World War II, many Spanish soldiers fought for

10752-702: The discovery of their crimes. However, up to 10,000 Nazi war criminals eventually fled Europe using ratlines . German forces withdraw from Finland : On 25 April 1945, the last German troops withdrew from Finnish Lapland and made their way into occupied Norway. On 27 April 1945, the Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn photograph was taken. Mussolini is executed : On 25 April 1945, Italian partisans liberated Milan and Turin . On 27 April 1945, as Allied forces closed in on Milan , Italian dictator Benito Mussolini

10880-470: The early hours of 2 May, nearly 1,000,000 men in Italy and Austria surrendered unconditionally to British Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander on 2 May at 2 pm. German forces in Berlin surrender : The Battle of Berlin ended on 2 May. On that date, General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling , the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, unconditionally surrendered the city to General Vasily Chuikov of

11008-532: The eastern part of Slovakia, the Subcarpathian Rus , was annexed by Hungary. The latter two annexations formally ended the country of Czechoslovakia, which had existed since 1918. By early 1939, Hitler had plans of invading Poland , despite Poland having assurances from the U.K. and France that those countries would intervene if Poland was attacked. Germany revoked its non-aggression pact with Poland on 28 April. To ensure Germany would not face resistance from

11136-480: The end of 1994 (articles 4 and 5). In accordance with the Treaty, occupying troops were withdrawn by that deadline. European theatre of World War II Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II , taking place from September 1939 to May 1945. The Allied powers (including

11264-442: The evening of 9 April 1940, and he became the Prime Minister of Norway under Germany's administration during the war. Norway's army agreed to cooperate with Germany, and began attacking the Allies. The U.K. tried to defend Norway with ground, air, and sea presence, but it was difficult. On 27 April, the British ground soldiers began to retreat. On 28 May, the British recaptured Narvik, but the Axis took it again on 9 June. The invasion

11392-452: The face of the precipice, now cut into the side, now perforated through the living rock into galleries: it passes, at intervals, from one side of the ravine to the other, and bridges of a single arch span the chasm. The precipices, indeed approach so near, in parts, that a fallen tree could not reach the river below, but lay wedged in mid-way. It may be imagined how singular and sublime this pass is, in its naked simplicity. After proceeding about

11520-542: The fall of " Festung Breslau " ( Fortress Breslau ), General Alfred Jodl arrived in Reims and, following Dönitz's instructions, offered to surrender all forces fighting the Western Allies. This was exactly the same negotiating position that von Friedeburg had initially made to Montgomery, and like Montgomery, the Supreme Allied Commander , General Dwight D. Eisenhower , threatened to break off all negotiations unless

11648-507: The incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his third term in office. America was becoming more certain of the need to send aid to the U.K.; for example, Roosevelt's main opponent in the election, Wendell Wilkie of the Republican Party , differed from his party's previous sentiment by agreeing to give aid. In December 1940, president-elect Roosevelt gave a speech in which he explained his " Arsenal of democracy " approach to

11776-550: The interests of saving lives the 'Cease fire' began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today." At 02:41 on the morning of 7 May, at SHAEF headquarters in Reims, France, the chief-of-staff of the German Armed Forces High Command , General Alfred Jodl, signed an unconditional surrender document for all German forces to the Allies. General Franz Böhme announced

11904-458: The invasion in a memorandum claiming that the Allies were trying to use Scandinavia as a base from which to attack Germany from the north, and that Scandinavia needed to be protected from Allied "aggression". Norwegian resistance quickly faltered, and Norwegian government heads fled for the countryside. Vidkun Quisling , of the Nasjonal Samling fascist party, proclaimed a new government on

12032-440: The invasion, and had overwhelming military superiority to Poland's 1 million soldiers. The invasion was led by generals Fedor von Bock , Franz Halder , Georg von Küchler , Gerd von Rundstedt , Günther von Kluge , Johannes Blaskowitz , Walther von Brauchitsch , Walther von Reichenau , and Wilhelm List . Poland fought on a large front, both on the German border and with their flanks in the German territory of East Prussia in

12160-617: The island of Crete . On 20 May, 1941, Germany began an invasion of Crete . They launched paratrooper assaults on multiple Cretan cities, overwhelming the Allies, who evacuated the island. Germany fought off guerilla resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece for the rest of the war. In late 1941, the Brits started aiding the Chetnik guerillas, led by Dragoljub Mihailovic . Eventually, the Chetniks fought in

12288-403: The lower end of their racial hierarchy, the Nazi Party's political enemies (like socialists , social democrats , and communists), Poles, Romani people , Jehovah's Witnesses , Freemasons , disabled people, and LGBTQ people. They were brought from many places across lower continental Europe to the camps using the extensive railway network which crossed the continent. The mass killing of

12416-597: The modern road was built at the behest of the Austrian authorities, then ruling the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia in the south. In 1840, author Mary Shelley traveled through the pass on the way to Lake Como with her son. She describes the pass in her travel narrative, Rambles in Germany and Italy , published in 1844: A few years ago, there was no path except across this mountain, which being very exposed, and difficult even to danger,

12544-600: The nation — even if they disliked his anti-socialist beliefs — because of his willingness to fight Germany. A coalition government was formed, led by a war cabinet of Churchill, Chamberlain, the conservative Lord Halifax , and the Labour members Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood . Churchill also became the Minister of Defence . On 12 May, the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina fled with her ministers to England, where she established

12672-642: The national-socialist regime, putting a de jure end to the Government of Nazi Germany . Incidentally, this law should have theoretically reestablished the Weimar Constitution ; however, this constitution stayed irrelevant on the grounds of the powers of the Allied Control Council acting as occupying forces. On 10 October 1945, Control Council Law No. 2 was also passed, formally abolishing all national socialist organisations. The Declaration Regarding

12800-593: The newer Hurricane fighter and was producing the Spitfire , which began combat in 1940. France's military aircraft, however, were outdated, and they were trying to buy newer models from the United States . The U.K. did not have any armoured divisions, and France's tanks were spread thin across its infantry divisions. The Allies in 1939 were "together superior in industrial resources, population, and military manpower", but German weapons, equipment, training and logistics made

12928-484: The north and German-occupied Slovakia in the south. Poland did not move their troops eastward to more defensive positions because their western half had their most vital industrial regions. The Wehrmacht used " Blitzkrieg attacks", surprise attacks with "massive, concentrated forces of fast-moving [armoured] units supported by overwhelming air power". Their air force, the Luftwaffe , specifically operated as support for

13056-456: The opposite since remilitarizing in 1935. Poland did not have "tanks, armoured personnel carriers , and antitank and antiaircraft guns ", and believed horsed cavalry could take on German mechanized forces . The U.K. and France did make up for Poland's lack of air strength; Poland only had fighters and bombers , and the other Allies had those plus aircraft meant for either reconnaissance , coastal defense, or naval aviation. The U.K. had ready

13184-593: The other Central Powers guilty for starting the war . These punishments included the loss of Alsace-Lorraine , the temporary loss of the Saarland , military limitations, and reparation payments to the Allied powers . The Rhineland region of Germany was also made a demilitarized zone . Germany would also join the League of Nations , an international governmental body devoted to peacekeeping. Historians are divided on whether or not

13312-559: The press; legalized phone tapping and interception of correspondence; and suspended the autonomy of federated states, like Bavaria ". Communist politicians were arrested, leaving the Nazi Party free to do what they wanted. Hitler made Germany an absolute dictatorship, and he withdrew from the League of Nations. In 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives , Hitler ordered the purge of leaders within

13440-407: The process: deep drives into enemy territory by panzer divisions were thus followed by mechanized infantry and foot soldiers. These tactics were supported by dive bombers that attacked and disrupted the enemy’s supply and communications lines and spread panic and confusion in its rear, thus further paralyzing its defensive capabilities. The only form of combat in which Germany had inferior capability

13568-433: The purity of its gene pool , thus preserving the unique “racial” characteristics with which “nature” had equipped it for success in the struggle to survive. Since each “race” sought to expand, and since the space on the earth was finite, the struggle for survival resulted “naturally” in violent conquest and military confrontation. Hence, war—even constant war —was a part of nature, a part of the human condition . This formed

13696-573: The remaining western half of Czechoslovakia, the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia . Later that month, part of Slovakia became the independent fascist and Catholic state of the Slovak Republic under dictator and Catholic priest Jozef Tiso . The republic was controlled by the Slovak People's Party , who made the country a client state of Germany and allowed Germany to occupy it. At the same time,

13824-636: The road was further expanded with a 312 m (1,024 ft) long avalanche gallery designed by the Swiss engineer Richard La Nicca which today is out of use but largely preserved. Plans to build a railroad line across Splügen Pass were abandoned in favour of the Gotthard railway line, which opened in 1882. The Pass is also mentioned in Arthur Conan Doyle 's The Adventure of the Illustrious Client ,

13952-512: The signing of peace treaties by the wartime Allies with the former European Axis powers ( Italy , Romania , Hungary and Bulgaria ) and their co-belligerent ally Finland . The Federal Republic of Germany , which had been founded on 23 May 1949 (when its Basic Law was promulgated), had its first government formed on 20 September 1949 while the German Democratic Republic was formed on 7 October. End of state of war with Germany

14080-560: The three occupying powers retained some special rights, e.g. vis-à-vis West Berlin . The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed following the 1990 German reunification , whereby the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in the newly single country, including Berlin. The treaty came into force on 15 March 1991. Under the terms of the Treaty, the Allies were allowed to keep troops in Berlin until

14208-437: The treaty was harsh or actually "very restrained" compared to other peace treaties at the time. Many Germans back then blamed their country's post-war economic collapse on the treaty's conditions and these resentments contributed to the political instability, which made it possible for Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party to come to power. This was worsened by the worldwide Great Depression , which began in 1929. Hitler became

14336-461: The unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway on 7 May. It included the phrase "All forces under German control to cease active operations at 23:01 hours Central European Time on May 8, 1945." The next day, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and other German OKW representatives travelled to Berlin, and shortly before midnight signed another document of unconditional surrender, again surrendering to all

14464-684: The violation of their sovereignty, but capitulated to the U.K., who occupied the country . The U.K. promised to compensate the Icelandic population and leave at the end of the war. Canadian troops arrived in Iceland in June 1940 and the Americans arrived a year later; foreign troops continued staying in Iceland after the war, as the country became a NATO member. Sweden was able to remain neutral . In 1936, insurgents led by fascist Francisco Franco went to war with

14592-491: The war and justifying providing the U.K. with aid. In March 1941, the U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act , which allowed the U.S. to send large amounts of aid: it ranged from "tanks, aircraft, ships, weapons and road building supplies to clothing, chemicals and food." The program soon expanding to giving aid to the Soviet Union, China, and allied France. From 20 to 24 November 1940, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia joined

14720-479: The war for a few days. On 31 August, he gave the order to invade the next day. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland , falsely claiming that Poland was trying to encircle and partition Germany and that ethnic Germans were being persecuted there. Germany also staged an attack on one of their own radio stations and blamed it on the Poles. 1.5 million soldiers of the German military, the Wehrmacht , took part in

14848-455: Was at sea, so they did not attack the Allies' navies with massed fleets, but instead through "the individual operation of German pocket battleships and commerce raiders ". France and the U.K. declared war on Germany on 3 September, but they did not actually engage in warfare with Germany during the invasion of Poland. Meanwhile, the Battle of the Atlantic began over control of sea routes in

14976-488: Was blamed for the war. The Finns, who had little outside help, became worn down in a war of attrition . The Soviets reduced their strategic objectives in late January 1940 and put an end to the puppet Finnish communist government, informing the opposing Finnish government that they were willing to negotiate peace. After the Soviets reorganized and adopted different tactics, they renewed their offensive in February and breached

15104-509: Was captured by Italian partisans. It is disputed whether he was trying to flee from Italy to Switzerland (through the Splügen Pass ), and was travelling with a German anti-aircraft battalion. On 28 April, Mussolini was executed in Giulino (a civil parish of Mezzegra ); the other fascists captured with him were taken to Dongo and executed there. The bodies were then taken to Milan and hung up on

15232-524: Was declared by many former Western Allies from 1950. In the Petersberg Agreement of 22 November 1949, it was noted that the West German government wanted an end to the state of war, but the request could not be granted. The US state of war with Germany was being maintained for legal reasons, and though it was softened somewhat it was not suspended since "the US wants to retain a legal basis for keeping

15360-529: Was given to Germany. The last Polish unit surrendered on 6 October. The invasion ended with 14,000 Germans dead or missing and 66,000 to 70,000 Poles dead. 700,000 Poles were taken prisoner and 80,000 escaped into neutral countries. From October 1939 to March 1940, the European theatre was in a phase known as the Phoney War , when no major land operations were made by the Allied powers. As early as August 1935,

15488-658: Was in Syria. Reynard arrived from Syria on the 19th, leaving the French high command without a top general for days while the Germans pushed towards Paris. Weygand arrived and replaced 12 generals, notably employing general Charles de Gaulle . The Germans broke through the French line on the 15th and marched swiftly into undefended land. They reached the English Channel by the 20th, and days later, moved north towards Calais and Dunkirk . The Belgians became encircled in Flanders . On

15616-498: Was led by Benito Mussolini . World War II started with Germany 's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin , joined the invasion later that month. They partitioned Poland so the country was split up among the two nations. Poland's allies, France and the United Kingdom, declared war on Germany days after the invasion of Poland but did not want to actually engage in conflict. This changed after Germany invaded Norway , Denmark , France ,

15744-517: Was liberated on 15 April 1945, by the British 11th Armoured Division . Four days later troops from the American 42nd Infantry Division found Dachau . Allied troops forced the remaining SS guards to gather up the corpses and place them in mass graves. Due to the prisoners' poor physical condition, thousands continued to die after liberation. Captured SS guards were subsequently tried at Allied war crime tribunals where many were sentenced to death. Some Nazi guards and personnel were killed outright upon

15872-512: Was over by 10 June 1940. The British occupied the Faroe Islands in response to Germany's gains. Winston Churchill, meanwhile, tried to convince Iceland to join the Allies, but they wanted to stay neutral. Ultimately, the U.K. decided to invade, as the country was strategically important as a base to control the North Atlantic. The invasion began on 10 May 1940. The government disliked

16000-682: Was seen as reasonable by the British and French populaces because the Treaty of Versailles was thought of as indeed too restrictive, and they did not want to go to war with Germany. In 1935, Germany revoked the Treaty of Versailles' limitations on its military, and remilitizared the Rhineland in 1936. On 13 March 1938, Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss . Hitler then threatened to go to war with Czechoslovakia , and in response, on 30 September 1938, Hitler, Mussolini, U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain , and French premiere Edouard Daladier signed

16128-535: Was still raging. With the Soviets surrounding Berlin and his escape route cut off by the Americans, German dictator Adolf Hitler , realizing that all was lost and not wishing to suffer Mussolini's fate, died by suicide in his Führerbunker along with his long-term partner Eva Braun , whom he had married less than 40 hours earlier. In his will , Hitler dismissed Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring , his second-in-command, and Interior minister Heinrich Himmler after each of them separately tried to seize control of

16256-530: Was the commander of the operational United States Air Forces in Europe , along with his wife and daughter at the Germany - Austria border. German forces in Breslau surrender : At 18:00 on 6 May, General Hermann Niehoff , the commandant of Breslau , a 'fortress' city surrounded and besieged for months, surrendered to the Soviets. Jodl and Keitel surrender all German armed forces unconditionally : Thirty minutes after

16384-655: Was to help the Italian invasion of Greece, overthrow the pro-Allied Yugoslavia government, secure the German flank during the planned invasion of Russia, protect German oil in Romania from Allied air attacks, and create a base to attack British communication lines with the east. Major Yugoslavian cities, including Belgrade , were bombed. On 17 April, Yugoslavia capitulated, as Germany moved into northern Greece. Greek cities were subject to Blitzkrieg attacks; despite intense resistance, Athens fell on 27 April. 2,500 Germans were killed. 11,000 Allied men were captured, and 45,000 evacuated to

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