We are going to talk about World War II today, and everyone has probably heard of World War II, including movies, books, dictations by others, and so on. Today I am not going to recount the course of the war, but to say why one of the most devastating wars in history broke out and how it affected the world today. History classes generally like to discuss war because of war is easy to come up with exam questions, there is a declaration of war day, there is a truce day to stop, and social, political, and economic causes of war are more likely to choose questions. But the facts are not so simple, for example, when World War II began, it is generally considered that Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. But I don't agree, I think World War II began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, or at the latest in 1937. Some people say that Hitler seized power in 1933 or the United States entered the war in 1941, which is indeed very complicated. The war situation in China is particularly brutal and bloody, as can be seen from the Nanjing Massacre, where more than 300,000 people were killed, which still affects china's relations with Japan.
In the West, there are movies and televisions that recognize World War II roughly from the European battlefield, the war started by Hitler. Hitler was one of the very few veritable great demons, and without him, the chances of World War II breaking out were slim. But he did come to power in 1933 with his promise to make his homeland great again, plus xenophobic and anti-Semitic complexes. Germany quickly rearmed, and later could not avoid the outbreak of war. At the beginning of the war, the Germans developed new strategies to fight with new technologies (tanks, planes, especially trucks). This is known as blitzkrieg, which uses rapid transport, tanks, and air forces to assist infantry, and the strategy is extremely efficient at the beginning of the war. The Germans crushed all of Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France in the nearly nine months from the autumn of 1939 to the summer of 1940. After the conquest of Central Europe, germany's targets were thrown at Britain but did not land directly, but chose large-scale air raids. The Battle of England was a clash between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, and although the British prevented Germany from taking full control of British airspace, the Germans were able to continue to attack Britain, that is, the bombing of London, while the European powers also fought in North Africa. The North African Campaign took place in 1940-42, when The British General Montgomery defeated the German "Desert Fox" General Rommel, and the North African battlefield was also the first place where the American army fought the German army.
1941 was a turning point in World War II. First, the Nazis attacked Soviet Russia and denigrated the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939. This heated up the war rapidly and allied the capitalist powers with the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany then attacked Russia to open the so-called Eastern Front, but for the Russians it was the Western Front, which also led to the deaths of millions of people. The attack on Pearl Harbor was also in 1941, and the Japanese hoped that such a high-profile act would deter the United States from remaining neutral. The Japanese invasion of much of Southeast Asia in 1941 worried Australia and New Zealand. Anzac, of course, had entered the war as a member of the British Empire Federation, but could now attack Japan in its backyard. When the United States and Australia entered the war, the war has extended to the whole world, sometimes it means fighting, starving, shelling, other times it means production, the great powers of World War II will not think of Argentina, But Argentina is the source of 40% of British meat, and it has contributed greatly to the Allies. The entry of the United States into the war really changed everything, although the German army could not conquer Russia under any circumstances. No one could conquer Russia in winter, except the Mongols (mentioned in the previous article). Needless to say, the main battles of 1942 were like the Battle of Midway, which broke Japan's victory over Midway. But speaking of the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the deadliest battles in German siege history, killing two million people. The Germans first dropped a thousand tons of bombs, and the Russians' countermeasure was to get as close as possible to the Germans so that soldiers on both sides would be killed when the Germans launched an air raid. The move had a slight effect, but the Germans still managed to take most of the city. At this time, the Soviet counterattack heavily surrounded the German Sixth Army, and the Sixth Army died of cold and hunger before surrendering, and Stalingrad turned the situation in the European battlefield.
In 1944, the United States adopted island hopping tactics in the Pacific Ocean to approach the Japanese island, the United States and Canadian troops liberated Rome in June, and the Anglo-American and Canadian troops successfully seized the beach in Normandy, writing the first page of the end of the Nazis. At the end of 1944, the Allies advanced from the west and the Soviets advanced from the east, and the Germans finally struggled and failed. Mussolini was executed in April 1945, Hitler committed suicide at the end of April, Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8 of the same year, and the Allies declared victory in Europe. Three months later, the United States dropped the only atomic weapon in the history of the war, which led to The surrender of Japan, and World War II ended. The war, of course, had causes, which were the uncontrolled armaments of Germany, Japan (Italy was not very important). It would be easy to say that Hitler was crazy or vicious, but it still does not explain why the Nazis invaded Soviet Russia, let alone why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. There are many reasons beyond viciousness, and the most interesting thing for me is food. Hitler wanted to expand his territory for many reasons, and he often mentioned the conquest of living space for the German people. German agriculture is inefficient because of its small farm size and low efficiency, and Germany needs a lot of land to be self-sufficient. The original plan was to move many German peasants to the land in Poland, Ukraine and eastern Russia to supply the German people. It's called the Hunger Plan, because it's about 20 million people starving to death, and it's almost as scary as Thanos. Most of them were local Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian, and the rest were Jews who had died of labor. The Nazi regime massacred six million Jews, many starved to death, and many died in extermination camps dedicated to systematic killings. Extermination camps differ from concentration camps or labor camps in that their primary function is to massacre Jews, Roma, the physically and mentally handicapped, and other ethnic groups that the Nazi Party does not identify with.
Similarly, japan's food supply was tight on the eve of the war, because domestic agriculture could not afford population growth. Japan also wants to expand its agriculture, for example by relocating Japanese farmers to South Korea. More than a million people died in famine in British India because of britain's reluctance to distribute food, which led many Indians to believe that Britain's claim to be superior was a lie, and the Vietnam famine was more than a million deaths. World War II was a watershed in history, after which the world, including the West, had to rethink whether the West could dominate the world, or even whether it should be seen as progress.