World War II 1939 1945 briefly. History of the Second World War. Blitzkrieg in Europe

War is a great sorrow

World War II is the bloodiest war in human history. Lasted 6 years. The army of 61 states with a total population of 1,700 million, that is, 80% of the total population of the earth, took part in the hostilities. The battles were fought in the territories of 40 countries. For the first time in the annals of mankind, the number of civilian deaths exceeded the number of those killed directly in battles, and almost doubled.
finally dispelled people's illusions about human nature. No progress changes this nature. People have remained the same as two or a thousand years ago: beasts, only slightly covered with a thin layer of civilization and culture. Anger, envy, self-interest, stupidity, indifference are qualities that are manifested in them to a much greater extent than kindness and compassion.
dispelled illusions about the importance of democracy. The people do not decide anything. As always in history, he is driven to the slaughterhouse to kill, rape, burn, and he obediently goes.
dispelled the illusion that humanity learns from its own mistakes. It doesn't learn. The First World War, which claimed 10 million lives, is only 23 years away from the Second.

Participants in World War II

— Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic - on one side
— USSR, Great Britain, USA, China - on the other

Years of World War II 1939 - 1945

Causes of World War II

— not only drew a line under the First World War, in which Germany was defeated, but his terms humiliated and ruined Germany. Political instability, the danger of the victory of the left forces in the political struggle, economic difficulties contributed to the coming to power in Germany of the ultranationalist Nazinal-Socialist Party headed by Hitler, whose nationalist, demagogic, populist slogans appealed to the German people
"One Reich, one people, one Fuhrer"; "Blood and Soil"; "Germany wake up!"; “We want to show the German People that there is no life without Justice, but Justice without Power, Power without Power, and all Power is within our People”, “Freedom and bread”, “Death of a lie”; "End Corruption!"
— After the First World War, pacifist sentiments gripped Western Europe. The peoples did not want to fight under any circumstances, for nothing. These feelings of voters were forced to reckon with politicians who in no way or very sluggishly, yielding in everything, reacted to the revanchist, aggressive actions and aspirations of Hitler.

* early 1934 - Plans to mobilize 240 thousand enterprises for the production of military products were approved by the Working Committee of the Reich Defense Council

* October 1, 1934 - Hitler gave the order to increase the Reichswehr from 100 thousand to 300 thousand soldiers

* March 10, 1935 - Goering announced that Germany had an air force

* March 16, 1935 - Hitler announced the restoration of the system of universal recruitment to the army and the creation in peacetime of an army of thirty-six divisions (this is about half a million people)

* On March 7, 1936, German troops entered the territory of the Rhine demilitarized zone, violating all past treaties
* March 12, 1938 - Annexation of Austria to Germany
* September 28-30, 1938 - transfer to Germany of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia
* October 24, 1938 - Germany's demand for Poland to allow the annexation of the free city of Danzig to the Reich and the construction of extraterritorial railways and highways on Polish territory to East Prussia
* November 2, 1938 - Germany forced Czechoslovakia to transfer the southern regions of Slovakia and Transcarpathian Ukraine to Hungary
* March 15, 1939 - the occupation of the Czech Republic by Germany and its inclusion in the Reich

— In the 1920s and 1930s, before World War II, the West watched with great apprehension the actions and policies of the Soviet Union, which continued to broadcast about the world revolution, which Europe perceived as a desire for world domination. The leaders of France and England, Stalin and Hitler, were presented with the same field of berries and they hoped to direct the aggression of Germany to the East, by clever diplomatic moves pitting Germany and the USSR, and they themselves stay on the sidelines.
As a result of the disunity and contradictory actions of the world community, Germany gained strength and confidence in the possibility of its hegemony in the world.

Main events of World War II

, September 1 - the German army crossed the western border of Poland
1939 September 3 - Great Britain and France declared war on Germany
1939, September 17 - The Red Army crossed the eastern border of Poland
1939, October 6 - surrender of Poland
, May 10 - German attack on France
1940, April 9-June 7 - Occupation by Germany of Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Norway
1940, June 14 - German army entered Paris
1940, September - 1941, May - Battle of England
1940, September 27 - Formation of the Triple Alliance between Germany, Italy, Japan, hoping after the victory to share the influence in the world

Later the Union was joined by Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Finland, Thailand, Croatia, Spain. The Triple Alliance or Axis countries in World War II were opposed by the Anti-Hitler coalition of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and its dominions, the United States and China.

, March 11 - In the USA adopted
1941, April 13 - Treaty of the USSR and Japan on non-aggression and neutrality
1941, June 22 - German attack on the Soviet Union. The beginning of the Great Patriotic War
1941, September 8 - the beginning of the blockade of Leningrad
1941, September 30-December 5 - Battle of Moscow. Defeat of the German army
1941, November 7 - The Lend-Lease Law is extended to the USSR
1941, December 7 - Japanese attack on the American base Pearl Harbor. The outbreak of the war in the Pacific
1941, December 8 - US entry into the war
1941, December 9 - China's declaration of war on Japan, Germany and Italy
1941 December 25 - Japan invades British-owned Hong Kong
January 1 - Washington Declaration of 26 States on Cooperation in the Fight Against Fascism
1942, January-May - heavy defeats of British troops in North Africa
1942, January-March - Japanese troops occupied Rangoon, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Bali, part of New Guinea, New Britain, Gilbert Islands, most of the Solomon Islands
1942, the first half - the defeat of the Red Army. The German army reached the Volga
1942, June 4-5 - defeat by the US Navy of a part of the Japanese fleet at Midway Atoll
1942, July 17 - the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad
1942, 23 October-11 November - the defeat of the German army by the Anglo-American troops in North Africa
1942, November 11 - German occupation of southern France
, February 2 - the defeat of the fascist troops at Stalingrad
1943, January 12 - breaking the blockade of Leningrad
1943, May 13 - the surrender of German troops in Tunisia
1943, July 5-August 23 - the defeat of the Germans near Kursk
1943, July-August - the landing of the Anglo-American troops in Sicily
1943, August-December - the offensive of the Red Army, the liberation of most of Belarus and Ukraine
1943, November 28-December 1 - Tehran conference of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt
, January-August - the offensive of the Red Army on all fronts. Her exit to the pre-war borders of the USSR
1944, June 6 - the landing of the allied Anglo-American troops in Normandy. Opening of the Second Front
1944, 25 August - Paris in the hands of the allies
1944, autumn - continuation of the offensive of the Red Army, liberation of the Baltic States, Moldova, Northern Norway
1944, December 16-1945, January - heavy defeat of the Allies in the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes
, January-May - offensive operations of the Red Army and allied forces in Europe and the Pacific
1945, January 4-11 - Yalta conference with the participation of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill on the post-war structure of Europe
1945, April 12 - US President Roosevelt died, he was replaced by Truman
1945, April 25 - the storming of Berlin by units of the Red Army began
1945, May 8 - the surrender of Germany. End of the Great Patriotic War
1945, July 17-August 2 - Potsdam Conference of the Heads of Government of the USA, USSR, Great Britain
1945 July 26 - Japan rejects surrender offer
1945, August 6 - atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1945, August 8 - USSR Japan
1945, September 2 - the surrender of Japan. End of World War II

World War II ended on September 2, 1945 with the signing of Japan's surrender

Major battles of World War II

Air and Naval Battle of England (10 July - 30 October 1940)
Battle of Smolensk (July 10-September 10, 1941)
Battle of Moscow (September 30, 1941 - January 7, 1942)
Defense of Sevastopol (October 30, 1941 - July 4, 1942)
Japanese Navy attack on US Navy base Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941)
Naval battle at Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean of the US and Japanese fleets (June 4-June 7, 1942)
Battle of Guadalcanal Island of the Solomon Islands archipelago in the Pacific Ocean (August 7, 1942 - February 9, 1943)
Battle of Rzhev (January 5, 1942 - March 21, 1943)
Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943)
Battle of El Alamein in North Africa (23 October-5 November)
Battle of the Kursk Bulge (July 5 - August 23, 1943)
Battle of the Dnieper (crossing the Dnieper 22-30 September) (26 August-23 December 1943)
Allied landings in Normandy (6 June 1944)
Liberation of Belarus (June 23 - August 29, 1944)
Battle of the Ardennes in southwest Belgium (December 16, 1944 - January 29, 1945)
Storming of Berlin (April 25 - May 2, 1945)

World War II generals

Marshal Zhukov (1896-1974)
Marshal Vasilevsky (1895-1977)
Marshal Rokossovsky (1896-1968)
Marshal Konev (1897-1973)
Marshal Meretskov (1897 - 1968)
Marshal Govorov (1897 - 1955)
Marshal Malinovsky (1898 - 1967)
Marshal Tolbukhin (1894 - 1949)
General of the Army Antonov (1896 - 1962)
General of the Army Vatutin (1901-1944)
Chief Marshal of Armored Forces Rotmistrov (1901-1981)
Marshal of Armored Forces Katukov (1900-1976)
General of the Army Chernyakhovsky (1906-1945)

General of the Army Marshall (1880-1959)
General of the Army Eisenhower (1890-1969)
General of the Army MacArthur (1880-1964)
General of the Army Bradley (1893-1981)
Admiral Nimitz (1885-1966)
General of the Army, General of the Air Force H. Arnold (1886-1950)
General Patton (1885-1945)
General Divers (1887-1979)
General Clark (1896-1984)
Admiral Fletcher (1885-1973)

World War II 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. V. m.v., like the first, arose due to the operation of the law of uneven development of capitalist countries under imperialism and was the result of a sharp exacerbation of inter-imperialist contradictions, the struggle for sales markets, sources of raw materials, spheres of influence and capital investment. The war began in conditions when capitalism was no longer an all-embracing system, when the first socialist state in the world, the USSR, existed and became 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. The warring capitalist groups, fighting each other, simultaneously sought to destroy the USSR. However, V. m. began as a clash between two coalitions of major capitalist powers. By its origin, it was imperialist, its culprits were the imperialists of all countries, the system of modern capitalism. Hitlerite 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 was imperialist throughout its entire length. 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 the peoples, the process of transforming the war into a just, anti-fascist war was going on. 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 unleashing of war. The forces that unleashed military action were preparing strategic and political positions that were advantageous for the aggressors long before it began. In the 30s. two main centers of military danger have formed in the world: Germany - in Europe, Japan - in the Far East. Strengthened German imperialism, under the pretext of eliminating the injustices of the Versailles system, began to demand a redivision of the world in its favor. The establishment in Germany in 1933 of a terrorist fascist dictatorship, 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 the conquest of world domination envisaged 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, the mass destruction of the population in the conquered countries, especially in Eastern Europe. The fascist elite planned to start implementing this program from the countries of Central Europe, then spreading it to the entire continent. The defeat and seizure of the Soviet Union with the aim of destroying the center of the international communist and workers' 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 strove 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 United States. However, the ruling circles of the Western powers, driven by a sense of class hatred of the Soviet state, under the guise of "non-interference" and "neutrality", were essentially pursuing a policy of complicity with the fascist aggressors, hoping to avert the threat of a fascist invasion from their countries, by the forces of the Soviet Union to weaken their imperialist rivals, and then destroy the USSR with their help. They relied on the mutual exhaustion of the USSR and Nazi Germany in a protracted and exterminatory war.

The French ruling elite, pushing Hitler's aggression to the East in the pre-war years and fighting against the communist movement inside the country, at the same time feared a new German invasion, sought a close military alliance with Great Britain, strengthened the eastern borders by building the "Maginot Line" and deploying armed forces against Germany. The British government sought to strengthen the British colonial empire and sent troops and naval forces to its key regions (the Middle East, Singapore, India). Pursuing a policy of aiding the aggressors in Europe, the government of N. Chamberlain, right up to the beginning 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 ruling circles of the United States 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 the fascist aggression expanded, they were going to support Great Britain and France.

In an atmosphere of increasing military danger, the Soviet Union pursued a policy aimed at curbing the aggressor and creating a reliable system for ensuring peace. On May 2, 1935, a Franco-Soviet treaty of mutual assistance was signed in Paris. On May 16, 1935, the Soviet Union signed a mutual assistance treaty with Czechoslovakia. The Soviet government fought to create a collective security system that could become an effective means of 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, developing its military-economic potential.

In the 30s. the Hitlerite government launched diplomatic, strategic and economic preparations for a world war. In October 1933 Germany withdrew from the Geneva Conference on Disarmament 1932-35 (see Geneva Conference on Disarmament 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 the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919) and introduced universal military service 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 intensification 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), the German-Italian intervention in Spain (1936-39), the fascist states strengthened their positions in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Using the policy of "non-intervention" carried out by Great Britain and France, fascist Germany seized Austria in March 1938 and began to prepare an attack on Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia had a well-trained army based on a powerful system of border fortifications; treaties with France (1924) and with the USSR (1935) provided for the military assistance of these powers to Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union has repeatedly declared 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 the assistance of 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, agreed to the seizure of the Sudetenland by Germany, hoping in this way to open the "way to the East" for Nazi Germany. The hands of the fascist leadership were untied for aggression.

At the end of 1938, the ruling circles of fascist Germany launched 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 puppet fascist "state" - Slovakia, seized the Memel region from Lithuania and imposed an onerous "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 1934 non-aggression agreement with Poland and concluded the so-called Steel Pact with Italy, according to which the Italian government pledged to help Germany if she entered the war with the Western powers.

In such a situation, the British and French governments, under the influence of public opinion, out of fear of further strengthening Germany and with the aim of putting pressure on it, entered into negotiations with the USSR, which took place in Moscow in the summer of 1939 (see Moscow negotiations of 1939). However, the Western powers did not agree to conclude an agreement proposed by the USSR on a joint struggle against the aggressor. By offering the Soviet Union to take unilateral obligations 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. Negotiations, which lasted until mid-August 1939, did not yield results due to the sabotage of Soviet constructive proposals by Paris and London. While leading the Moscow negotiations to collapse, the British government at the same time entered into secret contacts with the Nazis through their ambassador in London G. Dirksen, seeking 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 in isolation in front of the direct threat of an attack by Nazi Germany, or, having exhausted the possibilities of concluding an alliance with Great Britain and France, sign the non-aggression pact proposed by Germany and thereby push back the threat of war. The setting 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. German fascism, through the accelerated development of the military economy, created a powerful military potential. Between 1933 and 1939, arms expenditures increased more than 12 times and reached 37 billion marks. Germany smelted in 1939 22.5 million. T steel, 17.5 mln. T pig iron, mined 251.6 mln. 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 oil products, chrome ore). The number of the armed forces of fascist Germany reached 4.6 million by September 1, 1939. In service were 26 thousand guns and mortars, 3.2 thousand tanks, 4.4 thousand combat aircraft, 115 warships (including 57 submarines).

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 must be won as soon as possible, before the enemy fully deployed his armed forces and military-economic potential. The strategic plan of the fascist German command was to attack Poland, using limited forces in the west, and quickly defeat its armed forces. 61 divisions and 2 brigades (including 7 tank and about 9 motorized ones) were fielded against Poland, of which 7 infantry and 1 tank divisions approached after the start of the war, in total - 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 approached), 1.5 thousand aircraft.

The Polish command, counting on the 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 with active actions diverted German forces from the Polish front. By September 1, Poland managed to mobilize and concentrate troops only 70%: 24 infantry divisions, 3 mountain rifle brigades, 1 armored brigade, 8 cavalry brigades and 56 battalions of national defense were deployed. The Polish armed forces had over 4,000 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 and military doctrine of the French command pursued by France envisaged 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 regions of France and Belgium. The armed forces of France after mobilization consisted of 110 divisions (of which 15 were 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. Its ground forces consisted of 9 personnel and 17 territorial divisions; they had 5.6 thousand guns and mortars, 547 tanks. The size of the British army was 1.27 million. In the event of a war with Germany, the British command planned to concentrate its main efforts at sea and send 10 divisions to France. The British and French commanders 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 invaded Poland (see Polish Campaign of 1939). On September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Possessing an overwhelming superiority of forces over the Polish army and concentrating a mass of tanks and aviation in the main sectors of the front, the Hitlerite 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 the subsequent disintegration of it soon put the Polish army in front of a catastrophe.

The courageous resistance of the Polish troops at 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 groupings of the Polish army west of the Vistula, transferred hostilities to the eastern regions of the country and ended its occupation in early October.

On September 17, by order of the Soviet government, the troops of the Red Army crossed the border of the disintegrated Polish state and began a liberation campaign in Western Belarus and Western Ukraine in order to take under protection the lives and property of the Ukrainian and Belarusian population, striving for reunification with the Soviet republics. A march 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 postpone the initial line of the future deployment of the troops of a potential enemy, which was in the interests not only of the Soviet Union, but also of all peoples who were threatened by fascist aggression. After the liberation of the Western Belarusian and Western Ukrainian lands by the Red Army, Western Ukraine (November 1, 1939) and Western Belarus (November 2, 1939) were reunited with the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR, respectively.

In late September - early October 1939, the Soviet-Estonian, Soviet-Latvian and Soviet-Lithuanian mutual assistance treaties were signed, which prevented the capture of the Baltic countries by fascist Germany and their transformation into a military foothold 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 admitted to the USSR.

As a result of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 (see Soviet-Finnish War of 1939), according to the treaty of March 12, 1940, the USSR border on the Karelian Isthmus, in the Leningrad region and the Murmansk railway was somewhat pushed aside to the northwest. On June 26, 1940, the Soviet government proposed to Romania to return Bessarabia, which had been captured by Romania in 1918, to the USSR and to 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 the calculations for reconciliation with Nazi 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 Force (which began arriving in France in mid-September) remained inactive for 9 months. During this period, called the "strange war," Hitler's army was preparing for an offensive against the countries of Western Europe. Active military operations from the end of September 1939 were conducted only on sea lanes. For the blockade of Great Britain, the Hitlerite command used the forces of the fleet, 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 in 1939 the Germans lost only 9 submarines. The attacks on the sea communications of Great Britain 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 seized Norway and Denmark (see Norwegian operation 1940) with the aim of strengthening German positions in the Atlantic and Northern Europe, seizing iron ore resources, 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, the amphibious troops, having landed at the same time, captured the key ports of Norway along its entire 1800 coastline. km, and airborne assault forces 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. In early June, they were evacuated from Narvik. The occupation of Norway was facilitated by the Nazis by the actions of the Norwegian "fifth column" led by V. Quisling. The country turned into a Nazi base in the north of Europe. But significant losses of the German-fascist fleet during the Norwegian operation weakened its capabilities in the further struggle for the Atlantic.

At dawn on May 10, 1940, after careful preparation, fascist German troops (135 divisions, including 10 tank and 6 motorized, and 1 brigade, 2580 tanks, 3834 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 aviation through the Ardennes Mountains, bypassing the Maginot Line from the north, through northern France to the coast of the English Channel. The French command, adhering to a defensive doctrine, deployed large forces on the "Maginot Line" and did not create a strategic reserve in the depths. After the start of the German offensive, it brought the main grouping of troops, including the British Expeditionary Army, into Belgium, exposing these forces to attack from the rear. These serious mistakes of the French command, exacerbated by poor interaction between the armies of the allies, allowed the Nazi troops after crossing the river. Meuse and battles in central Belgium to make 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. The Netherlands surrendered on May 14. The Belgian, British and part of the French armies were surrounded in Flanders. Belgium surrendered on May 28. The British and part of the French troops encircled in the Dunkirk area, having lost all their military equipment, managed to evacuate to Great Britain (see Dunkirk operation of 1940).

At the second stage of the 1940 summer campaign, the Hitlerite army with a much superior force broke through the hastily created French front along the river. Somma and En. The danger hanging over France demanded the rallying of the forces of the people. The French communists called for popular resistance, the organization of the defense of Paris. The capitulators and traitors (P. Reynaud, C. Petain, P. Laval and others), who determined the policy of France, the high command headed by M. Weygand rejected this only way to save the country, as they feared revolutionary actions by the proletariat and the strengthening of the Communist Party. They decided to surrender Paris without a fight and surrender to Hitler. Without exhausting the possibilities of resistance, the French armed forces laid down their arms. The Compiegne Armistice of 1940 (signed on June 22) was a milestone in the policy of national treason, which was pursued by the Pétain government, which expressed the interests of a part of the French bourgeoisie oriented towards fascist 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. Industrial, raw materials, food resources of France were under the control of Germany. In the unoccupied southern part of the country, the anti-national pro-fascist government "Vichy", headed by Pétain, came to power, which became 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 German fascist invaders and their protégés.

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, parts of Kenya and Sudan in August, and invaded Egypt from Libya in mid-September to break through to the Suez (see North African campaigns 1940–43). However, they were soon stopped, and in December 1940 they were driven back by the British. The Italians' attempt to develop an offensive from Albania to Greece, which began in October 1940, was resolutely repelled by the Greek army, which inflicted a series of strong retaliatory strikes on the Italian troops (see Italian-Greek War 1940-41 (see Italian-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 for help from Hitler. In the spring, German troops were sent to North Africa, forming the so-called Afrika Korps headed by General E. Rommel. Going on the offensive on March 31, the Italian-German troops reached the Libyan-Egyptian border in the second half of April.

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

On July 16, 1940, Hitler issued a directive to invade Great Britain (Operation Sea Lion). From August 1940, the Nazis began massive bombing raids on 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 England 1940-41). German aviation inflicted significant damage to many British cities, enterprises, ports, but did not break the resistance of the British Air Force, could not establish air superiority over the English Channel and suffered heavy losses. As a result of air raids, which continued until May 1941, the Hitlerite leadership failed 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 amount of landing equipment in a timely manner. The forces of the fleet were insufficient.

However, the main reason for Hitler's refusal to invade Great Britain was the decision he made back in the summer of 1940 on 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, to channel huge resources for the development of ground forces, and not the fleet needed to fight against Great Britain. In the fall, the unfolding preparations for war against the USSR removed the direct threat of a German invasion of Great Britain. The plans to prepare for an attack on the USSR were closely linked to 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 1940).

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

The military successes of fascist Germany in the first period of the war were largely due to the fact that its opponents, who had a total higher industrial and economic potential, were unable to pool their resources, create a unified system of military leadership, and develop uniform effective plans for waging war. Their war machine lagged behind the new requirements of armed struggle and with difficulty resisted more modern methods of waging it. In terms of training, combat training and technical equipment, the fascist German Wehrmacht as a whole was superior to the armed forces of the Western states. 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 first period of the war, the bloc of fascist states in the economic and military respect increased sharply. Most of continental Europe with its resources and economy came under German control. In Poland, Germany seized the main metallurgical and machine-building 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 of iron ore, copper, aluminum, magnesium, as well as cars, fine mechanics, machine tools, rolling stock; in Norway - the mining, metallurgical, shipbuilding industries, enterprises for the production of ferroalloys; in Yugoslavia - copper, bauxite deposits; in the Netherlands, in addition to industrial enterprises, a gold reserve of 71.3 million florins. The total amount of material assets plundered by fascist Germany in the occupied countries amounted to 9 billion pounds by 1941. By the spring of 1941, more than 3 million foreign workers and prisoners of war were employed at German enterprises. In addition, all the weapons of their armies were captured in the occupied countries; for example, only in France - about 5 thousand tanks and 3 thousand aircraft. In 1941, the Nazis equipped 38 infantry, 3 motorized, and 1 tank divisions with French vehicles. More than 4 thousand steam locomotives and 40 thousand carriages from the occupied countries appeared on the German railway. The economic resources of most of the states of Europe were placed at the service of the war, above all - 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 disaffected or suspected discontent. A system of concentration camps was created, in which millions of people were exterminated in an organized manner. The death camps were especially active 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, and others).

Military successes allowed Hitler's diplomacy to expand the borders of the fascist bloc, consolidate the annexation of Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland (headed by reactionary governments closely connected with fascist Germany and dependent on it), plant their agents and strengthen their positions in the Middle East, in parts of Africa and Latin America. At the same time, the political self-exposure of the Nazi regime took place, hatred for it grew not only among the broad strata 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 revise their previous political course aimed at conniving at fascist aggression, and gradually replace it with a course of fighting against fascism.

Gradually began to revise its foreign policy and the US government. It increasingly actively supported Great Britain, becoming its "non-belligerent ally." In May 1940, Congress approved an amount of $ 3 billion 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 to Great Britain increased. According to the law passed by the US Congress on March 11, 1941, on the transfer of military materials to belligerent countries on loan or lease (see Lend-Lease), Great Britain was allocated $ 7 billion. In April 1941, the Lend-Lease Act 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 bound for the UK.

2nd period of the war (June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942) characterized by the further expansion of its scale and the beginning in connection with the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, which became the main and decisive component of the military hardware industry. (for details on actions on the Soviet-German front, see Art.). On June 22, 1941, Hitler's Germany treacherously and suddenly attacked the Soviet Union. This attack completed the long course of the anti-Soviet policy of German fascism, which sought to destroy the world's first socialist state and seize its richest resources. Fascist Germany threw 77 percent of the personnel of the armed forces against the Soviet Union, the bulk of tanks and aircraft, that is, the main most combat-ready forces of the fascist Wehrmacht. 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 military. Henceforth, the struggle of the Soviet Union against fascism decided the outcome of the military century, the fate of mankind.

The struggle of the Red Army from the very beginning exerted a decisive influence on the entire course of military military action, on the entire policy and military strategy of the belligerent coalitions and states. Under the influence of events on the Soviet-German front, the Hitlerite military command was forced to determine the methods of strategic management of the war, the formation and use of strategic reserves, the system of regrouping between theaters of military operations. In the course of the war, the Red Army forced the Hitlerite command to completely abandon the "blitzkrieg" doctrine. Under the blows of the Soviet troops, other methods of warfare and military leadership used by German strategy also failed.

As a result of a surprise attack, the superior forces of the German fascist troops succeeded in penetrating deeply into Soviet territory in the first weeks of the war. By the end of the first decade 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 fascist German troops encountered growing resistance from the Red Army, and suffered more and more heavy losses. Soviet troops fought steadfastly and stubbornly. Under the leadership of the Communist Party and its Central Committee, the entire life of the country began to be rebuilt on a war footing, and internal forces were mobilized to defeat the enemy. The peoples of the USSR rallied into a single military camp. The formation of large strategic reserves was carried out, the reorganization of the system of governing the country was carried out. The Communist Party began work on organizing the partisan movement.

Already the initial period of the war showed that the military adventure of the Nazis was doomed to failure. The fascist German armies were stopped near Leningrad and on the river. Volkhov. The heroic defense of Kiev, Odessa and Sevastopol for a long time fettered the large forces of the German fascist troops in the south. In the fierce battle of Smolensk 1941 (See Smolensk battle 1941) (July 10 - September 10) The Red Army stopped the German strike group - Army Group Center, advancing on Moscow, inflicting heavy losses on it. In October 1941, the enemy, pulling up reserves, resumed the offensive on Moscow. Despite the initial successes, he failed to break the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, who were inferior to the enemy in numbers and military equipment, and to break through to Moscow. In intense battles, the Red Army, in extremely difficult conditions, defended the capital, bled the enemy's shock groups, and in early December 1941 launched a counteroffensive. The defeat of the Nazis in the Moscow Battle of 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-wide historical significance. The Battle of Moscow dispelled the myth of the invincibility of the Hitlerite Wehrmacht, put Nazi Germany in front of the need to wage a protracted war, contributed to the further rallying of the anti-Hitler coalition, and inspired all freedom-loving peoples to fight the aggressors. The victory of the Red Army near Moscow signified a decisive turn of military events in favor of the USSR and had a great influence on the entire subsequent course of military aviation.

After extensive preparation, the Nazi leadership at the end of June 1942 resumed offensive operations on the Soviet-German front. After fierce battles near Voronezh and in the Donbass, the Nazi troops managed to break into the big bend of the Don. However, the Soviet command was able to withdraw the main forces of the Southwestern and Southern fronts from under the blow, to withdraw them beyond the Don and thus to thwart the enemy's plans to encircle them. In mid-July 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad 1942-1943 began (see Battle of Stalingrad 1942-43) - the greatest battle of the Great Patriotic War. In the course of the heroic defense at Stalingrad in July - November 1942, Soviet troops pinned down the enemy strike group, inflicted heavy losses on it and prepared the conditions for a counteroffensive. Hitler's troops were unable to achieve decisive success in the Caucasus as well (see article Caucasus).

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

The liberation struggle of the peoples against the aggressors created the objective prerequisites for the formation and consolidation of the anti-Hitler coalition. The Soviet government strove 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, on July 30 - with the Polish émigré government. On August 9-12, 1941, on warships near Argentia (Newfoundland), negotiations were held 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) of the countries waging a struggle against Germany. Great Britain, prompting the United States to enter the war, proposed a strategy of protracted actions by the forces of the fleet and aviation. 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, while expressing its dissenting opinion on some issues. In late September - early October 1941, a meeting of representatives of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain was held in Moscow, which ended with the signing of a protocol on mutual supplies.

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

To develop a joint plan of action, Churchill and Roosevelt held a conference in Washington on December 22, 1941 - January 14, 1942 (codenamed "Arcadia"), during which an agreed course of the Anglo-American strategy was determined, based on the recognition of Germany as the main enemy in the war, and the region of the Atlantic and Europe - a decisive theater of military operations. However, the provision of assistance to the Red Army, which bore the 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 region, or by landing in Western Europe.

At the Washington Conference, the system of general leadership 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 the heads of government; formed a single allied Anglo-American-Dutch-Australian command for the southwestern Pacific, headed by the British Field Marshal A.P. Waivell.

Immediately after the Washington Conference, the Allies began to violate their own established principle of the decisive importance of the European theater of military operations. Having failed to develop specific plans for waging war in Europe, they (primarily the United States) began to transfer more and more forces of the fleet, aviation, and landing craft to the Pacific Ocean, where the situation was unfavorable for the United States.

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

Disabling 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 Asian fleet, parts of the British fleet, the air force and the land forces of the allies and, having secured supremacy at sea, in 5 months of the war deprived the United States and Great Britain of all naval and air bases in the western part of the Pacific Ocean. With a blow from the Caroline Islands, the Japanese fleet captured part of New Guinea and the adjacent islands, including most of the Solomon Islands, created a threat of invasion of Australia (see Pacific campaigns 1941–45). The ruling circles of Japan hoped that Germany would tie 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 struggle at a great distance from the metropolis.

In these conditions, the United States began to take emergency measures to expand the military economy and mobilize resources. Having transferred part of the fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, the USA made the first retaliatory strikes in the first half of 1942. The two-day battle in the Coral Sea on May 7-8 brought success to the American fleet and forced the Japanese to abandon a further offensive in the southwestern Pacific. In June 1942 at about. The Midway American fleet defeated large forces of the Japanese fleet, which, having suffered heavy losses, was forced to limit its operations and in the second half of 1942 go over to the defensive in the Pacific. The 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 Japanese offensive against the liberated regions was halted (mainly by the forces of the People's Liberation Army of China).

The actions of the Red Army on the Eastern Front exerted 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 regions. Having transferred the main aviation forces against the Soviet Union, the German command was deprived of the opportunity to actively act against Great Britain, to deliver effective strikes against British sea communications, naval bases, and shipyards. This allowed Great Britain to strengthen the construction of the fleet, remove large naval forces from the waters of the metropolis 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 the coastal waters of the Atlantic coast of America. In the first half of 1942, the 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, to deliver a number of retaliatory strikes to the German submarine fleet and push it back to the central regions of the Atlantic. Since the beginning of V. m. Until the autumn of 1942, the tonnage of merchant ships of Great Britain, the USA, allied and neutral countries sunk mainly in the Atlantic, exceeded 14 million. T.

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

At the end of November - December 1941, the German command reinforced its air force in the Mediterranean basin and transferred part of the submarines and torpedo boats from the Atlantic. After inflicting 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 aircraft again seized dominance in the Mediterranean, which improved their position in North Africa. On January 21, 1942, the 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 aim of reaching the 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, not reaching their 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 potentials and launched a strategic offensive everywhere. As before, decisive events took place on the Soviet-German front. By November 1942, out of 267 divisions and 5 brigades available to Germany, 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, a Soviet counteroffensive began at Stalingrad. The troops of the Southwestern, Don and Stalingrad fronts broke through the enemy's defenses and, having introduced mobile formations, by November 23 surrounded 330,000 troops between the Volga and Don rivers. a grouping from the 6th and 4th tank German armies. Soviet troops stubborn defense in the area of the river. Myshkov thwarted the attempt of the fascist German command to unblock the encircled. The offensive on the middle Don of the troops of the Southwestern and left wings 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 unblocking group forced it to start a hasty retreat. By February 2, 1943, the grouping 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 Hitlerite army and satellites of Germany were completely defeated, and 16 divisions were drained of blood. 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 shook fascist Germany, inflicting irreparable damage on its armed forces. damage, undermined the military and political prestige of Germany in the eyes of its allies, increased discontent with the war among them. The Battle of Stalingrad marked the beginning of a radical change in the course of the entire military century.

The victories of the Red Army contributed to the expansion of the partisan movement in the USSR, 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, scattered actions of the beginning of the war to mass struggle. In early 1942, the Polish communists called for the formation of a "second front in the rear of the Hitlerite army." The fighting force of the Polish Workers' Party - Guard Ludowa became the first military organization in Poland, which led 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 Krajova Rada Narodova (see Craiova Rada Narodova), contributed to the further development of the national liberation struggle.

In November 1942, in Yugoslavia, under the leadership of the communists, the formation of the People's Liberation Army began, which liberated 1/5 of the country's territory by the end of 1942. And although in 1943 the invaders carried out 3 major offensives on the Yugoslav patriots, the ranks of active anti-fascist fighters steadily multiplied and strengthened. Hitler's troops suffered increasing losses under the blows of the partisans; the transport network in the Balkans by the end of 1943 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 were formed in a number of regions of Czechoslovakia. Under the leadership of the CPC, the anti-fascist resistance movement gradually developed into a national uprising.

The French Resistance Movement increased sharply in the summer and autumn of 1943, after new defeats of the Wehrmacht on the Soviet-German front. The organizations of the Resistance Movement joined the united anti-fascist army created on the territory of France - the French internal forces, which soon reached 500 thousand people.

The liberation movement, which unfolded on the territory occupied by the countries of the fascist bloc, fettered the Nazi troops, their main forces were drained of 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 United States and Great Britain pledged to open it in 1942, which was announced 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 in order to establish their dominance in Europe and around the world. On June 11, 1942, the British cabinet rejected a plan for a direct invasion of France across the English Channel under the pretext of difficulty in supplying troops, transferring reinforcements, and lack of special landing equipment. 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 second half of June 1942, it was decided to abandon the landing in France in 1942 and 1943, and instead conduct 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 good reason, provoked a protest from the Soviet government.

In North Africa, British troops, using the weakening of the Italo-German grouping, 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 sailing to North Africa, and disrupted the regular replenishment and supply of Rommel's troops. General BL Montgomery's 8th British Army launched a decisive offensive on 23 October 1942. Having won an important victory in the battle of El Alamein, for 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 Ageila.

November 8, 1942 began the landing of the American-British expeditionary forces in French North Africa (under the general command of General D. Eisenhower); in the ports of Algeria, Oran, Casablanca, 12 divisions disembarked (more than 150 thousand people in total). Airborne troops captured two major airfields in Morocco. After insignificant 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 Panzer Army to Tunisia by air and sea, which managed to stop the Anglo-American troops and drive them back from Tunisia. In November 1942, fascist German 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 1943 Casablanca Conference (see 1943 Casablanca Conference), the leaders of the United States and Great Britain, announcing their ultimate goal of the unconditional surrender of the Axis countries, 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 provided for 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 desired level."

The implementation of this plan could not seriously undermine the forces of the fascist bloc in Europe, and even more so replace the second front, since the active actions of the American-British troops were planned in a theater of operations that was secondary to Germany. In the main questions of the strategy of V. of m. this conference was fruitless.

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

After the defeat in Africa, the Hitlerite command awaited an 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 not to open a second front in Western Europe during 1943, and the approximate date for its opening was set - May 1, 1944.

At this time, Germany was preparing a decisive summer offensive on the Soviet-German front. The Hitlerite leadership sought to defeat the main forces of the Red Army, return 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, 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 the Soviet troops in the Kursk salient, and then expand the front of the offensive and capture the entire Donbass.

The Soviet command, having information about the impending enemy offensive, decided to wear out the German-fascist troops in the defensive battle on the Kursk Bulge, then defeat them in the central and southern sectors of the Soviet-German front, liberate the Left-Bank Ukraine, Donbass, eastern regions of Belarus and reach the Dnieper. To solve this problem, considerable forces and resources were concentrated and skillfully located. The Battle of Kursk, which began on July 5, 1943, is one of the greatest battles of the Great Patriotic War. - immediately developed in favor of the Red Army. The Hitlerite command failed to break the skillful and persistent defense of the Soviet troops with a powerful avalanche of tanks. In a defensive battle on the Kursk Bulge, the troops of the Central and Voronezh fronts bled the enemy. On July 12, the Soviet command launched a counteroffensive by the troops of the Bryansk and Western fronts against the Oryol bridgehead of the Germans. On July 16, the enemy began to withdraw. The troops of the five fronts of the Red Army, developing a counteroffensive, defeated the enemy's shock groups, and opened their way to the Left-Bank Ukraine and the Dnieper. In the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops defeated 30 German fascist divisions, including 7 tank divisions. After this major defeat, the leadership of the Wehrmacht finally lost its strategic initiative, was forced to completely abandon the offensive strategy and go on the defensive until the end of the war. The Red Army, using its great success, liberated Donbass and the Left-Bank Ukraine, crossed the Dnieper on the move (see the article Dnieper), 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 change in the course of the war. A catastrophe looms over fascist Germany. The total losses of the 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 conducted the Sicilian Operation of 1943 (see Sicilian Operation 1943), which began on July 10. Possessing an absolute superiority of forces at sea and in the air, they captured Sicily by mid-August, and at the beginning of September crossed over to the Apennine Peninsula (see Italian campaign 1943-1945 (see Italian campaign 1943-1945)). In Italy, there was a growing movement for the elimination of the fascist regime and an exit from the war. As a result of the blows of the 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, who signed an armistice with the United States and Great Britain on September 3. In response, the Nazis brought additional contingents of troops into Italy, disarmed the Italian army and occupied the country. By November 1943, after the Anglo-American landings in Salerno, the fascist German command withdrew its troops to the north, to the Rome area, and consolidated itself 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 secured their superiority in surface forces and naval aviation. Large ships of the German fleet could now operate only in the Arctic Ocean against convoys. Taking into account the weakening of its surface fleet, the Hitlerite naval command, headed by Admiral K. Dönitz, who replaced the former fleet commander E. Raeder, shifted the center of gravity to the operations of the submarine fleet. Having commissioned more than 200 submarines, the Germans inflicted a series of heavy blows on the Allies in the Atlantic. But after the highest success achieved in March 1943, the effectiveness of the German submarine attacks began to decline rapidly. The growth in the size of the allied fleet, the use of new technology for detecting submarines, and an increase in the range of naval aviation predetermined the growth of losses of the German submarine fleet, which were not replenished. The shipbuilding of the USA and Great Britain now ensured the excess of the number of newly built ships over the sunk ones, the number of which decreased.

In the Pacific Ocean, in the first half of 1943, the belligerents, after the losses suffered in 1942, accumulated forces and did not carry out broad actions. Compared to 1941, Japan increased the production of aircraft more than 3 times, 60 new ships were laid at its shipyards, including 40 submarines. The total number of the Japanese armed forces increased by 2.3 times. The Japanese command decided to stop further advance in the Pacific Ocean and consolidate what it had captured, going over to the defensive on the lines of the Aleutian, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, New Guinea, Indonesia, Burma.

The United States also intensively deployed military production. 28 new aircraft carriers were laid down, several new operational formations were formed (2 field and 2 air armies), many special units; military bases were built in the South Pacific. The forces of the United States and its allies in the Pacific were consolidated into two task forces: the Central Pacific (Admiral CW Nimitz) and the Southwest Pacific (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, the formations of the Nimitz group occupied the Aleutian Islands, consolidating the American positions in the north.

In connection with the great summer successes of the Red Army and the landing in Italy, Roosevelt and Churchill held a conference in Quebec (August 11-24, 1943) to clarify military plans again. The main intention of the leaders of both powers proclaimed "to achieve in the shortest possible time the unconditional surrender of the European Axis countries", for which purpose, through an air offensive, achieve "undermining and disorganizing the ever-increasing scale of Germany's military and economic might." On May 1, 1944, it was planned to begin Operation Overlord to invade France. In the Far East, it was decided to expand the offensive in order to capture bridgeheads, from which it would then be possible, after the defeat of the European countries of the "axis" and the transfer of forces from Europe, to strike Japan and break it "within 12 months after the end of the war with Germany." The plan of action chosen by the allies did not meet the tasks of an early end to the war in Europe, since active operations in Western Europe were supposed only in the summer of 1944.

Implementing plans for offensive operations in the Pacific, the Americans continued the battles for the Solomon Islands, which had begun in June 1943. Having mastered about. New George and a bridgehead on about. Bougainville, they brought their bases in the South Pacific closer to the Japanese, 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, eastern New Guinea and deployed a base here for an attack on the Bismarck archipelago. Having removed the threat of a Japanese invasion of Australia, she secured US naval 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 offensive against Japan.

The national liberation struggle of the peoples of China, Korea, Indochina, Burma, Indonesia, and the Philippines grew ever wider. The communist parties of these countries rallied the partisan forces in the ranks of the National Front. The People's Liberation Army and partisan detachments of China, having resumed active operations, 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 agree on plans for waging war for the next year. This was done at the November 1943 conference in Cairo (see the Cairo conference of 1943) and the Tehran conference of 1943 (see the Tehran conference of 1943).

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

At the Tehran Conference (November 28 - December 1, 1943), the heads of government of the USSR (head of the delegation JV Stalin), the USA (head of the delegation FD Roosevelt) and Great Britain (head of the delegation W. Churchill) focused on military issues. The British delegation proposed a plan for an invasion of Southeast Europe through the Balkans, with the participation of Turkey. The Soviet delegation proved that this plan did not meet the requirements for the quickest defeat of Germany, for operations in the Mediterranean Sea area 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 the Overlord, 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 go to war with Japan after the defeat of Germany.

The report on the conference of the heads of government of the three powers said: “We have come to full agreement on the scope and timing of operations to be undertaken from the east, west and south. The mutual understanding we have achieved here guarantees us victory. "

At the Cairo Conference held on December 3-7, 1943, the delegations of the United States and Great Britain, after a series of discussions, recognized the need to use amphibious assault vehicles 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 "in no other region of the world should any action be taken that could interfere with the success of these two operations." This was an important victory for Soviet foreign policy, its struggle for the unity of actions of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and the military strategy based on this policy.

4th period of the war (January 1, 1944 - May 8, 1945) was the period when the Red Army, in the course of a powerful strategic offensive, expelled the German fascist troops from the territory of the USSR, liberated the peoples of Eastern and Southeastern 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 brunt of the struggle was borne by the Soviet Union, against which the fascist bloc continued to hold its main forces. By the beginning of 1944, the German command of 315 divisions and 10 brigades, which it had, kept 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, after a 900-day heroic defense, the Red Army liberated Leningrad from the blockade (see Battle of Leningrad 1941-44). By the spring, having carried out a number of major operations, Soviet troops liberated the 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 blows 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 the 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 with the defeat of the two largest strategic groups 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 the infliction of heavy losses on 82 German fascist divisions. Soviet troops reached the border of East Prussia, entered the territory of Poland 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 for National Liberation was formed - a temporary executive body of people's power, subordinate to the Krajova Rada Narodova. In August 1944, the Home Army, following an order from the Polish émigré government in London, seeking to seize power in Poland before the Red Army approached and restoring pre-war order, began the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After 63 days of heroic struggle, this uprising, undertaken in an unfavorable strategic environment, was defeated.

The international and military situation in the spring and summer of 1944 developed in such a way that a further postponement of the opening of the second front would lead to the liberation of all of Europe by the forces of the USSR. This prospect worried the ruling circles of the United States 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 for an invasion of Western Europe across the English Channel in order to capture bridgeheads in Normandy and Brittany, ensure the landing of expeditionary forces, and then liberate northwestern France. In the future, it was supposed to break through the "Siegfried Line" covering the German border, cross the Rhine and advance deep into Germany. By early June 1944, the Allied Expeditionary Force under the command of General Eisenhower had 2.8 million men, 37 divisions, 12 separate brigades, “commando detachments,” about 11,000 combat aircraft, 537 warships, and a large number of transports and landing craft.

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

On June 6, the Normandy landing operation of 1944 began. The second front in Europe was opened when the outcome of the war was already predetermined as a result of the victories won by the Soviet Union in single combat with Nazi Germany and its allies. But even after the creation of the second front, the main military forces of Germany continued to be on the Soviet-German front and the decisive importance of the latter in winning the victory over fascism did not diminish. In the summer of 1944, out of 324 divisions and 5 brigades that Nazi Germany had, there were 179 German divisions and 5 brigades on the Soviet-German front, as well as 49 divisions and 18 brigades of its allies, while in France, Belgium and the Netherlands there were 61. and in Italy there are 26.5 German divisions. Nevertheless, the opening of the second front became an important event in the history of military military affairs, which confirmed the possibility of coordinated offensive operations by the participants of the anti-fascist coalition against a common enemy. Until the end of June, the landed troops occupied a bridgehead about 100 km and up to 50 km in depth. On July 25, the Allies launched an offensive from this bridgehead, delivering the main attack by the 1st American Army from the Saint-Lo area. After a successful breakthrough, the Americans occupied Brittany and, together with the 2nd British and 1st Canadian armies, defeated the main forces of the Norman group of Germans near Falaise, defeating 6 divisions here. At the end of August, the Allies, with the active support of units of the French Resistance Movement, reached the Seine and occupied all of northwestern France. Under the blows of the allied forces advancing from Normandy and the American-French forces that landed on the coast of southern France on August 15, the Hitlerite command began to withdraw troops from France to the Siegfried Line. Pursuing the Germans, the American-British troops, with the active support of the French partisans, reached this line by mid-September, but attempts to break through it on the move failed.

Continuing its powerful offensive, the Red Army liberated the Baltic states from July to November 1944, defeating here 29 German fascist divisions (see Baltic operation of 1944), and in the south in the Yassko-Kishinev operation of 1944 (see Jassy-Kishinev operation 1944 ) inflicted a complete defeat on Army Group South Ukraine, destroying 18 divisions and liberating Romania. As a result of the popular armed uprising that broke out on August 23 in Romania, the anti-popular regime of J. Antonescu was liquidated. On September 12, an armistice agreement between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain with Romania was signed in Moscow. The entry of the Red Army into Bulgaria precipitated a popular uprising in the country, which took place on September 9 (see the September people's armed uprising of 1944). During the uprising, the ruling monarchist-fascist clique was overthrown and the government of the Fatherland Front was formed. The peoples freed with the help of the Red Army were given the opportunity to take the path of democratic development and social transformations, to make their contribution to the defeat of fascism. Romania and Bulgaria declared war on fascist Germany. Soviet troops, together with Romanian and Bulgarian troops, launched an offensive in the Carpathian, Belgrade and Budapest directions. Moving to help, Soviet troops, together with Czechoslovak units, crossed the border on September 20, 1944, marking the beginning of the liberation of Czechoslovakia. At the same time, the Red Army, together with units of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia and Bulgarian troops, began the liberation of Yugoslavia (see the Belgrade operation of 1944). In October 1944, the Red Army began the liberation of Hungary. The position of fascist Germany deteriorated sharply. Its Eastern Front, especially its southern flank, was crumbling.

On the Western Front, the fascist German command launched a counteroffensive in the Ardennes in December 1944. It intended to cut through the Anglo-American troops and defeat them with a blow on Antwerp. During the Ardennes operation 1944-45 (See the Ardennes operation 1944-45), the fascist German army group "B" managed to break through to 90 km and defeat the 1st American Army. Having transferred large forces of troops and aviation from other sectors of the front, the allied command stopped the enemy's advance. However, the situation on the western front remained tense. The transition of the Red Army, at the request of the allies, to the offensive on January 12-14, 1945 on the front from the Baltic to the Carpathians, forced the Nazi command to abandon the continuation of the offensive in the Ardennes. Under the growing pressure of the Anglo-American troops, the German troops retreated to their original positions.

In Italy, the Anglo-American 15th Army Group only in May 1944 managed to break through the German defenses south of Rome and, having united with the landing force previously landed at Anzio, took the Italian capital. Pursuing the retreating German Army Group "C", the Anglo-American 15th Army Group then overcame the defenses on the so-called Gothic Line in a narrow sector and in the fall reached the Ravenna-Bergamo line, where it stopped its offensive until the spring of 1945. Thus, by the end of 1944, the Allies occupied France, Belgium, part of the Netherlands, central Italy and some areas of western Germany.

By the beginning of 1945, the economic and military resources of Nazi Germany were depleted. From the middle of 1944, military production fell rapidly, having lost its main sources of raw materials. The increasing intensity of bombing of industrial facilities of Nazi Germany, which did not give the expected effect in 1943, began to cause noticeable damage to the German economy in 1944-45.

However, the fascist ruling elite did not lose hope of a possible split in the anti-Hitler coalition and in every possible way tried to prolong the war. But these attempts were in vain. At the Crimean Conference of 1945 (See Crimean Conference 1945), held in the first half of February, the heads of government of the USSR (J.V. Stalin), the USA (F.D. Roosevelt), and Great Britain (W. and the final defeat of Nazi Germany, and also determined the leading principles of policy in the organization of the post-war peace and international security. The tasks were proclaimed to destroy German militarism and Nazism, to create guarantees that Germany would never be able to disturb the peace. It was supposed to disarm and dissolve the German armed forces, permanently destroy the German General Staff, eliminate German military equipment, punish war criminals, oblige Germany to compensate for the damage caused to the allied countries, and dissolve the Nazi Party and other fascist organizations and institutions. The conference determined the forms of government of the defeated Germany by the allied powers. The Soviet government confirmed its agreement given at the Tehran Conference to take part in the war against Japan.

By January 1945, Germany had 299 divisions and 31 brigades, of which 169 divisions and 20 brigades were German, 16 divisions and 1 brigade were Hungarian. Anglo-American forces were opposed by 107 German divisions.

The goal of the Red Army was to finish off the fascist Wehrmacht, complete the liberation of the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe and, together with the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, force Germany to surrender unconditionally. In January - early February, during the Vistula-Oder operation of 1945 (see Vistula-Oder operation 1945), they defeated a grouping of German fascist armies between the Vistula and Oder, liberated a significant part of Poland's territory, destroyed 35 enemy divisions, inflicted heavy losses on 25 divisions ... In the East Prussian operation of 1945 (see East Prussian operation 1945), Soviet troops defeated the Nazi East Prussian grouping, occupied East Prussia, liberated part of northern Poland and the Baltic coast, defeating 25 Nazi divisions. On the southern wing of the Soviet-German front, Soviet troops repulsed a strong counter-offensive by Nazi troops in Hungary, captured Budapest (see Budapest operation 1944-45), liberated Hungary, and began the liberation of Austria. The offensive operations of the Red Army in February - the first half of April 1945 (see East Pomeranian Operation 1945) thwarted the plans of the Hitlerite command and created favorable conditions for the final strike in the Berlin direction.

At the same time, the Allies launched an offensive on the Western Front and in Italy. Since the fascist German command threw the main forces against the Red Army, the offensive of the Anglo-American troops, who had an absolute superiority of forces, especially in tanks and aircraft, was carried out with increasing speed and without significant losses. In the first half of March 1945, German troops were forced to withdraw beyond the Rhine. In pursuit of them, American, British and French troops reached the Rhine and established bridgeheads near Remagen and south of Mainz. The Allied Command decided to launch two strikes in the general direction of Koblenz in order to encircle the German-fascist Army Group "B" in the Ruhr. On the night of March 24, the Allies crossed the Rhine on a wide front, bypassed from the south-east. Ruhr and at the beginning of April surrounded 20 German divisions and 1 brigade. The German Western Front ceased to exist. The Anglo-American forces continued their rapid offensive in all directions, which soon turned into an unhindered advance of the troops. In the second half of April - early May, the Allies reached the Elbe, occupied Erfurt, Nuremberg, entered Czechoslovakia and western Austria. On April 25, the advance units of the 1st American Army met with Soviet troops at Torgau. In early May, British troops reached Schwerin, Lubeck and Hamburg.

In the first half of April, the Allies launched an offensive in Northern Italy. After a series of battles with the support of Italian partisans, they occupied Bologna and crossed the river. By. At the end of April, under the blows of the Allied forces and the impact of a popular uprising that engulfed all of Northern Italy (see April Uprising of 1945), German troops began to retreat quickly, and on May 2, German Army Group C surrendered.

Berlin was the last center of resistance to Nazi Germany. At the beginning of April, the Hitlerite command attracted the main forces to the Berlin direction, creating a large grouping: about 1 million people, over 10 thousand guns and mortars, 1.5 thousand tanks and assault guns, 3.3 thousand combat aircraft.

To defeat the Berlin grouping in a short time, the Supreme High Command of the Soviet Armed Forces concentrated in three fronts - 1st and 2nd Belorussian, 1st Ukrainian - 2.5 million people, over 41 thousand guns and mortars, more 6.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, 7.5 thousand combat aircraft. In the course of the Berlin Operation 1945 (see Berlin Operation 1945), which began on April 16, grandiose in scale and tension, the Soviet troops broke the desperate resistance of the Nazi troops. On April 28, the Berlin group was cut into three parts, on April 30, the Reichstag fell, and on May 1, a massive surrender of the garrison began. On the afternoon of May 2, the struggle for Berlin ended with the complete victory of the Soviet troops.

The Red Army, advancing on a wide front, completed the liberation of the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Having expelled the Nazis from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, and the eastern regions of Czechoslovakia, the Red Army, together with the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, liberated Yugoslavia from the invaders; Soviet troops liberated a significant part of Austria. Fulfilling its liberation mission, the Soviet Union received warm sympathy and active support from the European peoples, all democratic and anti-fascist forces of the occupied countries and Germany's former allies. The entry of Soviet troops into the territory of the states of Eastern and Southeastern Europe contributed to their social and political transformation, fettered the reaction and favorably affected the strengthening of democratic forces.

The storming of Berlin and its fall meant the end of the fascist Reich. In the West, surrender soon became widespread. But on the Eastern Front, the fascist German troops continued, where they could, fierce resistance. The goal of the Dönitz government, created after Hitler's suicide (April 30), was to conclude an agreement on "partial surrender" with the United States and Great Britain without stopping the struggle against the Red Army. Dönitz ordered the strongest grouping of fascist troops - Army Groups Center and Austria - not to stop hostilities in Czechoslovakia and at the same time to withdraw "everything that is possible" to the west. Field Marshal F. Schörner, who headed this grouping, received an order from the main command "to continue the struggle against the Soviet troops as long as possible."

To liquidate Schörner's grouping and help the popular uprising in Prague, the Soviet High Command organized the offensive of the 1st, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian fronts. The defeat of Schörner's troops and the liberation of Prague (May 9) by units of the Red Army together with Czechoslovak formations with the participation of the Polish and Romanian armies and Czechoslovak partisans ended the Prague operation of 1945, the last operation in Europe in Great Britain.

On May 3, on behalf of Dönitz, Admiral Friedeburg established contact with the British commander, Field Marshal Montgomery, and obtained an agreement to surrender the German troops "individually" to the British. On May 4, an act was signed on the surrender of German troops in the Netherlands, northwestern Germany, Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark. On May 5, the fascist German army groups "E", "G" and the 19th Army, operating in southern and western Austria, Bavaria, and Tyrol, surrendered to the Anglo-American command. At 2 hours 41 minutes. On the night of May 7, General A. Jodl, on behalf of the German command, signed the terms of unconditional surrender at Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims, which entered into force on May 9 at 00 h. 01 min. The Soviet government strongly opposed this unilateral act, so the Allies agreed to consider it a preliminary protocol of surrender. It was decided to sign an act of unconditional surrender in Berlin with the participation of the USSR, which bore the brunt of the war on its shoulders.

At midnight on May 8, in the Karlshorst suburb of Berlin, occupied by Soviet troops, representatives of the German High Command, headed by W. Keitel, signed an act of unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany; unconditional surrender was accepted on the instructions of the Soviet government by Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, together with representatives of the United States, Great Britain and France.

In the Pacific Ocean, at the beginning of 1944, the allied armed forces, surpassing the Japanese in personnel by 1.5 times, by aviation by 3 times, by ships of various classes by 1.5-3 times, launched an offensive in the direction of the Philippines. The Nimitz group moved through the Marshall and Mariana Islands, the MacArthur group along the northern coast of New Guinea. The Japanese command, having gone over to the defensive in the Pacific Ocean, sought to strengthen its ground forces in central and southern China.

In early February 1944, the Americans, without encountering serious resistance, invaded the Marshall Islands. The Japanese attempt to strengthen the 2nd line of defense (Bonin Islands, Mariana Islands, New Guinea) failed due to heavy aviation losses, which forced the 2nd Japanese fleet, the main force of this defense, to withdraw from the Truk base (Caroline Islands) to the west. ., where on the Tavitavi Islands (Sulawesi Sea) a base was established near the oil sources of Kalimantan (Borneo). The capture of the Marshall Islands meant a breakthrough for Japanese defenses in the center of the Pacific Ocean and allowed the Americans to establish bases for an attack against the Mariana Islands, which followed in June 1944 after careful preparation. Particularly heavy battles unfolded on about. Saipan, where the Japanese resisted for a month. An attempt by the Japanese fleet to launch a counterstrike from the Tavitavi base was thwarted. The Japanese fleet suffered heavy losses, especially in aircraft carriers, which finally deprived the Japanese command of the chance to improve the position in the air. The capture of the Mariana Islands by the Americans by mid-August deprived Japan of maritime ties with the South Seas, with New Guinea and the most important strongholds in the center of the Pacific Ocean. MacArthur's group, which captured the Admiralty Islands in February - April 1944, created an air force base on them and ensured control over the Japanese-occupied Bismarck archipelago and the approaches to New Guinea. In April - May, having landed troops, the Americans captured most of New Guinea and the islands west of it. This led to the unification of the actions of the Nimitz and MacArthur groups and made it possible to begin preparations for the invasion of the Philippines, which the Japanese command intended to hold at any cost, since their capture created a direct threat to the metropolis.

At the beginning of the Philippine operation (October 1944), MacArthur's group, having complete superiority over the Japanese in the naval forces and more than double in the infantry and aviation, occupied Fr. Pour. An attempt by the main forces of the Japanese fleet to launch a counteroffensive from Singapore and the bases of the metropolis led to a naval battle in the Philippine Islands (October 24-25), which ended in the defeat of the Japanese fleet and the occupation by the Americans of all the islands of the Philippine archipelago, except for Fr. Luzon. All the most important Japanese sea communications linking Japan with its main resource base in the South Seas were under US control. The supply of oil from Indonesia and Malaya has almost stopped. The Japanese military industry, based on limited supplies of strategic raw materials, could not compensate for the heavy losses of the fleet and aviation. The Japanese command, having lost half of its fleet and most of its aviation, began to widely use planes with suicide pilots ("kamikaze") to combat the American fleet. In January - August 1945, the Americans occupied Fr. Luzon.

In China, the Japanese armies in the spring of 1944 launched an offensive against Chiang Kai-shek's troops in Henan province and achieved major successes. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appealed to the government of Chiang Kai-shek with a proposal to coordinate their actions. Chiang Kai-shek rejected these proposals, which were in the interests of the entire nation, and demanded that the CCP renounce the leadership of the liberated regions and disband 4/5 of the armed forces led by the communists. No agreement was reached between the CCP and the Kuomintang. Despite this, the People's Liberation Army of China launched a counteroffensive in Henan province and from the liberated areas in the rear of the Japanese army, pinning down large forces of Japanese troops. However, due to poor technical equipment and a shortage of weapons, the People's Liberation Army of China was unable to stop the Japanese offensive in the south.As a result, the Japanese seized communications linking the northern regions of China with the southern ones, and through Korea with the Japanese islands. This gave the Japanese command the opportunity to use the railway to export strategic raw materials from Southeast Asia.

During 1944, the allied forces managed to free the territory of India and most of northern Burma from the Japanese and cut the railway line from Rangoon to the north, as well as the highway connecting Burma with southern China.

In February - March 1945, the 5th US Fleet captured Fr. Iwo Jima. The airbase created here made it possible to dramatically increase the power of air raids on Japan. On April 1, after a long preparation, the Allies began an assault on Fr. Okinawa. Despite the overwhelming superiority in manpower and equipment, the Americans could not break the resistance of the 32nd Japanese Army for a long time. To disrupt the landing, the Japanese command threw suicide pilots against the American fleet, who sank 36 and damaged 368 warships, brought into battle the 2nd fleet (10 ships), which, however, was destroyed on April 7 by American aviation south of the island. Kyushu. In June 1945, the allied forces occupied Okinawa, which made it possible to bring the basing of American aviation even closer to Japan and launch a broad offensive from the air against its economic centers.

At the same time, allied forces and local partisans liberated Burma, most of Indonesia, and many areas of Indochina, which finally undermined the Japanese positions in these areas and in the western part of the Pacific Ocean.

5th period of the war (May 9 - September 2, 1945)- the final period of the war in the Far East and in the Pacific Ocean basin, which led to the end of the war in the Far East.

At the Potsdam Conference of 1945 (see Potsdam Conference 1945), which took place on 17 June - 2 August, the heads of government of the USSR (head of the delegation I.V. Stalin), the USA (head of the delegation G. Truman) and Great Britain (head of the delegation W. Churchill, - K. Attlee), a decision was made to demilitarize, denazify and reorganize Germany in a democratic way, to destroy the German monopoly associations. The three powers confirmed their intention to completely disarm Germany, to liquidate all German industry, which could be used for war production. The Soviet delegation confirmed that the USSR would enter the war against Japan. On July 26, on behalf of the heads of government of Great Britain, the United States and China, the Potsdam Declaration of 1945 was published, demanding the surrender of Japan. The Japanese government rejected this demand. On August 6 and 9, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing and maiming about 1/4 million civilians. It was a barbaric atrocity, not caused by the demands of war and serving only the purpose of intimidating other peoples and states. The Japanese armed forces continued to resist. The entry into the war against Japan by the Soviet Union on August 9, 1945 decided its outcome in favor of the Allies. Soviet troops in the Far East for the conduct of hostilities against Japan were brought together in 3 fronts - Transbaikal, 1st and 2nd Far Eastern, which had 76 divisions, 4 tank and mechanized corps and 29 brigades. Mongolian formations operated together with Soviet troops. In total, the group consisted of over 1.5 million people. Japanese troops, concentrated in Manchuria, Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, numbered 49 divisions and 27 brigades (a total of 1.2 million people). As a result of the rapid defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army by Soviet troops, the northeastern part of China, North Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands were liberated. The successful actions of the Red Army stimulated the development of a broad national liberation movement in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian Republic was established on August 17, 1945, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2.

On September 2, 1945, the Japanese government signed an act of unconditional surrender. Thus ended the six-year struggle of freedom-loving peoples against fascism.

Results of V. m. The Second World War had a huge impact on the fate of mankind. It was attended by 61 states (80% of the world's population). Military operations were conducted on the territory of 40 states. 110 million people were mobilized into the armed forces. The total human losses reached 50-55 million people, of whom 27 million were killed at the fronts. Military spending and military losses totaled $ 4 trillion. Material costs reached 60-70% of the national income of the warring states. The industry of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and Germany alone produced 652.7 thousand aircraft (combat and transport), 286.7 thousand tanks, self-propelled guns and armored vehicles, over 1 million artillery pieces, over 4.8 million machine guns (excluding Germany), 53 million rifles, carbines and machine guns and a huge amount of other weapons and equipment. The war was accompanied by colossal destruction, destruction of tens of thousands of cities and villages, innumerable calamities of tens of millions of people.

In the course of the war, the forces of imperialist reaction failed to achieve their main goal - to destroy the Soviet Union, to suppress the communist and workers' movement throughout the world. In this war, which marked the further deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, fascism, the striking force of international imperialism, was completely defeated. The war irrefutably proved the invincible strength of socialism and the Soviet Union - the world's first socialist state. Lenin's words were confirmed: “They will never defeat the people in which the workers and peasants for the most part recognized, felt and saw that they were defending their own, Soviet power - the power of the working people, that they were defending the cause whose victory they and their children will be provided with the opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of culture, all the creations of human labor ”(Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 38, p. 315).

The victory won by the anti-Hitler coalition with the decisive participation of the Soviet Union contributed to revolutionary transformations in many countries and regions of the world. In the balance of forces between imperialism and socialism, a radical change took place in favor of the latter. Exodus V. m. facilitated and accelerated the victory of the people's democratic and socialist revolutions in a number of countries. The countries of Europe, numbering over 100 million people, have embarked on the path of socialism. The capitalist system was undermined in Germany itself: after the war, the GDR was formed - the first socialist state on German soil. The states of Asia, numbering about 1 billion people, fell away from the capitalist system. Later, Cuba was the first in America to follow the path of socialism. Socialism has become a world system - a decisive factor in the development of mankind.

The war had an impact on the development of the national liberation movement of the peoples, which led to the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism. As a result of a new upsurge in the liberation struggle of the peoples that began after the Great Military Revolution, almost 97 percent of the population (as of 1971), who lived by the end of the Military Revolution, was freed from colonial oppression. in the colonies. The peoples of the developing countries launched a struggle against neo-colonialism and for progressive development.

In the capitalist countries the process of revolutionizing the masses has accelerated, the influence of the communist and workers' parties has grown; the world communist and workers' movement has risen to a new, higher level.

The Soviet Union played a decisive role in the victory over Nazi Germany. On the Soviet-German front, the main military forces of the fascist coalition were destroyed - a total of 607 divisions. Anglo-American forces defeated and captured 176 divisions. The German armed forces lost about 10 million people on the Eastern Front. (about 77% of all their losses in the military air force), 62 thousand aircraft (62%), about 56 thousand tanks and assault guns (about 75%), about 180 thousand guns and mortars (about 74% ). The Soviet-German front was the longest of the military military fronts. The duration of hostilities on the Soviet-German front was 1418 days, on the North African - 1068 days, on the West European - 338 days, on the Italian - 663 days. Active actions on the Soviet-German front reached 93% of the total time of the armed struggle, while on the North African - 28.8%, West European - 86.7%, Italian - 74.2%.

From 62 to 70% of the active divisions of fascist Germany and its allies (from 190 to 270 divisions) were on the Soviet-German front, while the Anglo-American troops in North Africa in 1941-43 were opposed by 9 to 20 divisions, in Italy in 1943-45 - from 7 to 26 divisions, in Western Europe after the opening of the second front - from 56 to 75 divisions. In the Far East, where the main forces of the Japanese Navy and Air Force acted against the allied armed forces, the bulk of the ground forces was concentrated on the borders of the USSR, in China, Korea and on the Japanese islands. Having defeated the elite Kwantung Army in Manchuria, the Soviet Union made a major contribution to the victorious conclusion of the war with Japan.

V. m. In. demonstrated the decisive advantage of the socialist economy over the capitalist one. The socialist state was able to deeply and comprehensively rebuild the economy in accordance with the requirements of the war, ensure the rapid growth of war production, widely use material, financial and labor resources for the needs of the war, restore the national economy in the regions subjected to occupation, and create conditions for the post-war development of the country. The Soviet Union successfully solved the most difficult problem of rearmament and material and technical support of the armed forces, relying only on its own economic resources. Having surpassed fascist Germany in all indicators of armament production during the war years, the Soviet Union won an economic victory, which predetermined a military victory over fascism during the entire war of arms.

V. m. In. was fought by huge masses of ground forces, numerous and powerful naval and air fleets, equipped with a variety of military equipment, which embodied the highest achievements of military-technical thought of the 40s. In the long and intense battles of the colossal groupings of the armed forces of the two coalitions, methods of armed struggle developed, and new forms of it were developed. V. m. In. - the largest stage in the development of military art, the construction and organization of the armed forces.

The greatest and most comprehensive experience was acquired by the Soviet Armed Forces, whose military art was of an advanced nature (for details, see the article The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-45). Waging an intense struggle against a strong enemy, the personnel of the Soviet Armed Forces displayed high military skill and mass heroism. In the course of the war, a galaxy of outstanding Soviet military leaders emerged, including Marshals of the Soviet Union A. M. Vasilevsky, L. A. Govorov, G. K. Zhukov, I. S. Konev; R. Ya.Malinovsky, K.K.Rokossovsky, F.I.Tolbukhin and many others.

The armed forces of the United States, Great Britain, and Japan conducted major operations in which various types of armed forces participated. Significant experience was gained in planning and managing such operations. The landing in Normandy was the largest airborne operation of the military air force, in which all branches of the armed forces participated. In land theaters, the military art of the Allies was characterized by the desire to create absolute superiority in technology, mainly in aviation, and to go on the offensive only after the enemy defense was completely suppressed. Significant experience was gained in operations in special conditions (in deserts, mountains, jungles), as well as experience in strategic offensive operations of the Air Force against the economic and political centers of Germany and Japan. In general, the bourgeois military art received significant development, but it was to a certain extent one-sided in nature, since the main forces of Nazi Germany were on the Soviet-German front and the armed forces of the United States and Great Britain fought mainly against a weakened enemy.

Source and lit .: Lenin V.I., Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Poln. collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 27; his, Imperialism and the Split of Socialism, ibid., v. 30; his, Socialism and War, ibid., v. 26; his, War and Revolution, ibid., v. 32; his, War and Russian Social Democracy, ibid., vol. 26; Documents and materials on the eve of the Second World War, vols. 1-2, M., 1948; Correspondence of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR with the Presidents of the USA and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945, v. 1-2, M., 1957; Foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War, v. 1-3, M., 1946-47; Soviet-French relations during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Documents and materials, M., 1959; Soviet-Czechoslovak relations during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Documents and materials, M., 1960; Tehran. Yalta. Potsdam. Sat. documents, 2nd ed., M., 1970; History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, t. 1-6, M., 1960-65; World War II, 1939-1945, M., 1958; The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945. A Brief History, 2nd ed., M., 1970; Against the falsification of the history of the Second World War. Sat. Art., M., 1964; The Second World War. Materials of the scientific conference dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, v. 1-3, M., 1966; Israelian V.L., Anti-Hitler Coalition, M., 1965; Proektor D. M., Aggression and Catastrophe, M., 1968; Deborin GA, World War II, M., 1958; Fomin VT, Imperialist aggression against Poland in 1939, M., 1952; Smirnov VP, "Strange War" and the defeat of France, M., 1963; Kulish V.M., Second front, M., 1960; his, Revealed secret, M., 1965; Melnikov D.E., Conspiracy on July 20, 1944 in Germany, M., 1965; Filatov G.S., Mussolini's Eastern campaign, M., 1968; The lessons of history are irrefutable, M., 1964: A. I. Pushkash, Hungary during the Second World War, M., 1966; Kuznets Yu. L., US Entry into the Second World War, M., 1962; Tippelskirch K., History of the Second World War, trans. from it., M., 1956; Fuller J., World War II 1939-1945, trans. from English, M., 1956; Liddell-Garth B.G., Strategy of indirect actions, trans. from English., M., 1957; Documents of British foreign policy, 1919-1939, L., 1949-55; Foreign Relations of the United States, Wash., 1967; Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, Bd 1-4, Fr./M., 1961-65; Churchill W. S., The Second World War, v. 1-6, L., 1948-54; Eisenhower D., Crusade in Europa, N. Y. 1948; Gaulle Ch. de, Memoires de Guerre, v. 1-3, P., 1954-59 (in Russian translation - Military memoirs, v. 1-2, M., 1957-60); Montgomery B., El Alamein to the River Sangro, L., 1948; Morison S., History of United States naval operations in World War II, v. 2-10, Boston-Oxf. 1947-56; Müller-Hillebrand B., Das Heer 1933-1945, Bd 1-3, Fr./M. 1954-68; Osgood R., Ideals and self-interest in America's foreign relations, Chi., 1953; Kennan G., American diplomacy 1900-1950, 12th ed., N. Y. 1963; Baldwin N., The great mistakes of the war, L., 1950; Taylor A., The origins of the second world war, 2nd ed., L., 1966; The eve of war 1939, L. 1958; Görlitz W., Der deutsche Generalstab, Fr./M., 1953: Beard Ch., American foreign policy in the making 1932-1940, New Haven, 1946; Tansill Ch., Back door to war, Chi., 1952; Barnick J., Die deutschen Trümpfe, Stuttg. 1958; Meinecke F., Die deutsche Katastrophe, Wiesbaden, 1947; Hiligruber A. und Hümmelchen G., Chronik des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Fr./M., 1966.

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World War II 1939-45- THE SECOND WORLD WAR 1939–45, a war prepared by the forces of the international. imperialistic. reactions and unleashed ch. aggressive state you - fasc. Germany, fasc. Italy and militaristic Japan. 61 states were drawn into the war, St. 80% ... ... The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945: an encyclopedia Read more

The Second World War, which lasted from September 1, 1939 to September 2, 1945, was unleashed by fascist Germany, Italy and militaristic Japan. 61 states with a population of 1.7 billion people were involved in the war, military operations were conducted on the territory of 40 states, as well as in maritime and ocean theaters.

The Second World War arose as a result of the exacerbation of social, ideological and national contradictions both within a number of the largest countries of the world and between states and groups of states, the militarization of all spheres of public life. The political and economic contradictions between the two groups of capitalist powers (the victor countries and the defeated countries in the First World War) reached the extreme heat. The main reason for the outbreak of World War II was the course of Germany and its allies towards a violent redistribution of the world.

With the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in 1933, Germany became the main reactionary force of international militarism. The fascist program of conquering world domination included plans for the return of the former colonies, the defeat of Great Britain, France and posed a threat to the United States. The main obstacle to the conquest of world domination was the USSR.

Having created a solid military-economic base, Germany, Italy and Japan began to implement their aggressive plans. Italian fascists invaded Ethiopia in 1935. In March 1936, Germany introduced its troops to the Rhine demilitarized zone, in March 1938 - to Austria, eliminating the independent European state. In the early 1930s, Japan occupied the territory of Northeast China, creating a staging area for attacks on the USSR, Mongolia and the rest of China. The ruling circles of Great Britain and France betrayed their ally - Czechoslovakia, agreed to the capture of the Sudetenland by Germany, hoping to open the way to the east for the Nazis. In the fall of 1938, Germany occupied part of Czechoslovakia, and in the spring of 1939 - the whole country, seized the Klaipeda region from Lithuania. Italy occupied Albania in April 1939.

At the same time, Germany denounced the Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935, tore up the German-Polish declaration of 1934 on the non-use of force, and concluded the 1939 "Steel Pact" with Italy, under which the parties pledged to provide mutual military assistance in case of war. At the same time, Britain and France rejected the collective security system in Europe proposed by the Soviet Union. Under these conditions, the USSR, remaining in political isolation, was forced on August 23, 1939 to conclude a non-aggression pact with Germany.

World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. On September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, as they were bound by allied obligations with the aggression of Poland. The Anglo-French coalition, which included the British dominions and colonies (September 3 - Australia, New Zealand, India; September 6 - the Union of South Africa; September 10 - Canada, etc.), practically did not render any assistance to Poland. Courageous resistance of the Polish people and troops could not prevent the defeat of the country: its territory was occupied by German troops.

On September 17, 1939, by decision of the Soviet government, Red Army troops crossed the Polish border and entered the territory of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, which were part of Russia until 1917, in order to protect the Belarusian and Ukrainian population in connection with the collapse of the Polish state and prevent further the advance of the German army to the east. The reunification of Bessarabia with the USSR and the entry of Northern Bukovina into it, the conclusion of agreements on mutual assistance with the Baltic states were also important. Hitler's troops stopped 200-350 kilometers west of the line from which they hoped to launch an offensive against the USSR.

The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opens fire on Polish positions on the Westerplatte Peninsula. September 1, 1939

The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 had a definite influence on the international situation. During this "strange war" the Anglo-French troops were virtually inactive, fighting was fought only in the air.

In April - May 1940, the troops of Nazi Germany occupied Denmark and Norway, then Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and then through their territory invaded France, which surrendered on June 22.

In August 1940, massive attacks by German aircraft began on the cities of Great Britain. At the same time, the actions of the German naval forces in the Atlantic Ocean intensified.

In August of the same year, the troops of fascist Italy, which entered the war on the side of Germany on June 10, 1940, captured British Somalia, part of Kenya and Sudan, and in mid-September invaded Egypt from Libya, trying to break through to Suez. The Greek army repelled the offensive from Albania to Greece, launched by the Italians in October 1940. In January - May 1941, British troops, with the support of the insurgent population and partisans, expelled the Italians from British Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Italian Somalia, and Eritrea. At the beginning of 1941, German troops began to arrive in North Africa, forming the so-called Afrika Korps. Going on the offensive on March 31, the Italian-German troops reached the Libyan-Egyptian border in the second half of April.

Simultaneously with the hostilities in Europe and Africa, there was a further expansion of Japan's aggression in China. Japanese troops began the occupation of the southern regions of China, captured the northern part of French Indochina.

In the spring of 1941, the United States sent troops to Greenland and in the summer to Iceland, creating military bases there.

On March 1, 1941, German fascist troops were sent to Bulgaria, which joined the Triple Pact - a military-political alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan, concluded on September 27, 1940 and fixing the parties' obligations to provide mutual political, economic and military assistance.

In April 1941, Italian-German, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops captured Greece and Yugoslavia, and in May German troops captured the island of Crete. As a result, all the countries of Western and Central Europe were occupied by Nazi Germany and Italy.

On June 22, 1941, German troops invaded the territory of the Soviet Union. The Great Patriotic War began. Together with Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Italy opposed the USSR, and in August Norway joined them.

On July 12, 1941, an agreement was concluded between the USSR and Great Britain on joint actions against Germany. On August 2, an agreement was reached with the United States on military-economic cooperation. To prevent the danger of creating fascist strongholds in the Middle East, British and Soviet troops entered Iran in August - September 1941.

On December 7, 1941, with an attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan unleashed a war against the United States. On December 8, the United States, Great Britain and other countries of the anti-fascist coalition declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. In late 1941 - early 1942, Japan captured Malaya, the Philippines, Burma, and created a threat of invasion of Australia.

On the Soviet-German front, Soviet troops exhausted the enemy in heavy battles and stopped his offensive in all the most important directions. The first major defeat of the Wehrmacht in World War II was the defeat of the Nazi troops in the Moscow battle of 1941-1942, which meant the disruption of Hitler's plan for a "lightning war."

In 1942, as a result of the summer offensive, the Nazi troops reached the Caucasus and the Volga, but the victories of the Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) and the Battle of Kursk (1943) led to the final loss of the German command of the strategic initiative.

Japan in connection with the setbacks of its armed forces in the Pacific in 1942 (defeats by the American fleet in the Coral Sea in May and off Midway Island in June), as well as with the disruption of plans for a German fascist offensive in 1942 on the Soviet-German front, was forced to abandon the attack on the USSR and go over to the defense in the Pacific at the end of 1942.

By May 1943, North Africa was liberated by Anglo-American forces. In July - August 1943, Anglo-American troops landed on the island of Sicily. On September 3, 1943, Italy signed an act of surrender. On October 13, Italy declared war on Germany. German fascist troops occupied its territory.

In 1944, Soviet troops liberated almost the entire territory of the USSR. On June 6, 1944, Anglo-American forces landed in France, opening a second front in Europe, and launched an offensive in Germany. In September 1944, with the active support of the French Resistance forces, they cleared almost the entire territory of France from the fascist occupiers. From mid-1944, Soviet troops began the liberation of the countries of Central and Southeastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and other states), which was completed with the participation of the patriotic forces of these countries in the spring of 1945.

In 1944, in the Pacific, the US-British armed forces took possession of the Marshall and Mariana Islands.

Japanese battleship Yamato, bombed in Leyte Gulf

In February 1945, the Crimean (Yalta) conference of the leaders of the USSR, the USA, and Great Britain was held, which considered the issues of the post-war world order and the participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.

The first major defeat of the Wehrmacht was the defeat of the Nazi troops in the Moscow battle (1941-1942), during which the Nazi "blitzkrieg" was finally thwarted, the myth of the Wehrmacht's invincibility was dispelled.

On December 7, 1941, with an attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan unleashed a war against the United States. On December 8, the United States, Great Britain and a number of other states declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The entry into the war of the United States and Japan influenced the balance of forces and increased the scale of the armed struggle.

In North Africa, in November 1941 and in January-June 1942, hostilities were fought with varying degrees of success, then there was a lull until the fall of 1942. In the Atlantic, German submarines continued to inflict heavy damage on the Allied fleets (by the fall of 1942, the tonnage of sunk ships, mainly in the Atlantic, amounted to over 14 million tons). In the Pacific Ocean, Japan at the beginning of 1942 occupied Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, inflicted a major defeat on the British fleet in the Gulf of Thailand, the Anglo-American-Dutch fleet in the Java operation and established dominance at sea. The US Navy and Air Force, significantly strengthened by the summer of 1942, defeated the Japanese fleet in the naval battles in the Coral Sea (May 7-8) and Midway Island (June).

Third period of the war (November 19, 1942 - December 31, 1943) began with a counter-offensive by Soviet troops, which ended in the defeat of the 330,000-strong German group during the Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943), which marked the beginning of a radical change in the Great Patriotic War and had a great influence on the further course of the entire Second World War. The mass expulsion of the enemy from the territory of the USSR began. The Battle of Kursk (1943) and access to the Dnieper brought a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War. The battle for the Dnieper (1943) overturned the enemy's calculations to conduct a protracted war.

At the end of October 1942, when the Wehrmacht was fighting fierce battles on the Soviet-German front, the Anglo-American troops intensified military operations in North Africa, conducting the El Alamein operation (1942) and the North African landing operation (1942). In the spring of 1943, they carried out the Tunisian operation. In July-August 1943, the Anglo-American troops, using a favorable situation (the main forces of the German troops participated in the Battle of Kursk), landed on the island of Sicily and captured it.

On July 25, 1943, the fascist regime in Italy collapsed; on September 3, she concluded an armistice with the Allies. Italy's withdrawal from the war marked the beginning of the collapse of the fascist bloc. On October 13, Italy declared war on Germany. German fascist troops occupied its territory. In September, the Allies landed in Italy, but could not break the defenses of the German troops and in December they suspended active operations. In the Pacific Ocean and Asia, Japan sought to retain the territories captured in 1941-1942, without weakening the groupings near the borders of the USSR. The allies, having launched an offensive in the Pacific in the fall of 1942, captured the island of Guadalcanal (February 1943), landed in New Guinea, and liberated the Aleutian Islands.

The fourth period of the war (January 1, 1944 - May 9, 1945) began with a new offensive by the Red Army. As a result of the crushing blows of the Soviet troops, the German fascist invaders were expelled from the borders of the Soviet Union. In the course of the subsequent offensive, the USSR Armed Forces carried out a liberation mission against the countries of Europe, played, with the support of their peoples, a decisive role in the liberation of Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and other states. Anglo-American forces landed on June 6, 1944 in Normandy, opening a second front, and launched an offensive in Germany. In February, the Crimean (Yalta) Conference (1945) of the leaders of the USSR, the USA, and Great Britain took place, which considered the issues of the post-war world order and the participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.

In the winter of 1944-1945, on the Western Front, Nazi troops defeated the Allied forces during the Ardennes operation. To alleviate the position of the Allies in the Ardennes, at their request, the Red Army launched its winter offensive ahead of schedule. Having restored the situation by the end of January, the allied forces during the Meuse-Rhine operation (1945) crossed the Rhine River, and in April they carried out the Ruhr operation (1945), which ended with the encirclement and capture of a large enemy grouping. In the course of the North Italian operation (1945), the allied forces, slowly advancing north, with the help of the Italian partisans, at the beginning of May 1945, completely captured Italy. In the Pacific theater of operations, the allies conducted operations to defeat the Japanese fleet, liberated a number of islands occupied by Japan, approached Japan directly and cut off its communications with the countries of Southeast Asia.

In April-May 1945, the Soviet Armed Forces defeated in the Berlin Operation (1945) and the Prague Operation (1945) the last groupings of the German fascist troops and met with the Allied forces. The war in Europe is over. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally. May 9, 1945 became the Day of Victory over Nazi Germany.

At the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference (1945), the USSR confirmed its agreement to enter the war with Japan. For political purposes, the United States carried out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. On August 8, the USSR declared war on Japan and on August 9 began hostilities. During the Soviet-Japanese War (1945), the Soviet troops defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army, eliminated the hotbed of aggression in the Far East, liberated Northeast China, North Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, thereby accelerating the end of World War II. On September 2, Japan surrendered. The Second World War is over.

The Second World War was the largest military confrontation in the history of mankind. It lasted 6 years, 110 million people were in the ranks of the Armed Forces. Over 55 million people died in World War II. The greatest casualties were suffered by the Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people. The damage from direct destruction and destruction of material assets on the territory of the USSR amounted to almost 41% of all countries participating in the war.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Participants in World War II

Causes of World War II

Main events of World War II

Major battles of World War II

World War II generals

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