World War 2 began briefly. Day of the end of the Second World War - Day of military glory

Among the colossal losses suffered in the Second World War, a special place is occupied by the irreparable losses of the USSR. German fascism and Japanese militarism, nurtured by the West to fight Russia, inflicted enormous damage not only on the USSR, but also on their creators.

Announcement: unfortunately, our enemies aspired to it. But, as they say, it was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines.

September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945– Second World War. Lasted 6 years. 61 states participated (80% of the world's population). mobilized approx. 110 million people. Died ok. 65 million people. Tens of millions more were wounded, maimed, left without relatives. Part of the Second World War is the war of the Nazis against the USSR.

June 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945- The Great Patriotic War Soviet people against fascism 4 years. The USSR lost 27 million people killed. More than 1700 cities, more than 70 thousand villages and villages, more than 32 thousand industrial facilities, more than 65 thousand km railways. Several million children were stillborn or died after birth. More than 5 million people returned disabled and suffered.

Action films show that war is a fun thing for tough guys. War is madness, destruction, famine, death or disability. War is poverty, filth, humiliation, the loss of everything that is dear to man.

Fascism- this is a direction in politics when they put their people above everyone else, and other peoples begin to destroy and turn into slaves.

REASONS for war:

1. Creation of fascism in Europe to counter communism.
2. Germany's pursuit of world domination.
3. Weakening of the USSR by Stalin's repressions (about 4 million people were arrested and killed in the army alone).
4. Japan's desire for dominance in Asia.
5. The passivity of France and Great Britain in order to set Hitler against the USSR.
6. The desire of each country in Europe to achieve its goals by participating in the war (for example, Poland dreamed of attacking the USSR, Italy dreamed of seizing neighboring lands).

September 1, 1939- The Nazis of Germany attacked Poland, violating the peace treaty. By June 1941 they took over all of Europe except Sweden, Great Britain and Switzerland.

June 22, 1941- the plan "Barbarossa" - the attack of the Nazis on the USSR. From that day the Great Patriotic War began.

September 02, 1945- after the defeat, Japan signed the surrender. World War II is over. To be continued.

From the beginning of 1944, the Soviet army launched a powerful offensive on all fronts. By autumn most of the territory of the Soviet Union was cleared of invaders, and the war was transferred outside our country.

Hitler's bloc began to rapidly fall apart. On August 23, 1944, the fascist regime fell in Romania, and on September 9, an uprising broke out in Bulgaria. On September 19, an armistice was signed with Finland.

The position of Germany worsened even more after the second front was opened in Normandy (France) on June 6, 1944. The allied troops pushed the Germans from Italy, Greece, Slovakia. Things were going well in the Pacific as well. In August 1944, after stubborn fighting, the Americans captured the Mariana Islands. From the air base located on these islands, American bombers could bomb Japan, the situation of which after that deteriorated sharply.

All this raised the problem of a post-war settlement to its full potential. In the autumn of 1944, at a conference in Dumbarton Oaks (USA), the preparation of the Charter of the new international organization peacekeeping - United Nations. A little earlier, at a conference in Bretton Woods, issues related to the creation of an international monetary system were discussed. There it was decided to establish two major international financial institutions - the International Monetary Fund(IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which supported the entire post-war monetary and financial system. The United States began to play a key role in these organizations, skillfully using them to strengthen its influence in world affairs.

The main thing at the final stage of the war was to achieve an early victory. In the spring of 1944, the war was transferred to the territory of the Reich proper. April 13 Soviet troops they took Vienna, and on April 24 the battle for Berlin began. On April 30, A. Hitler committed suicide, and on May 2, the Berlin garrison capitulated. On the night of May 8-9, 1945, the Germans were forced to sign an act of complete and unconditional surrender of Germany. The war in Europe is over.

The war in the Pacific was drawing to a close. But the high military command of Japan was not going to put up with the steadily looming disaster. However, by the spring of 1945, the strategic initiative had gone over to the side of Japan's opponents. In June, after heavy fighting, the Americans took the island of Okinawa, located in close proximity to the main territory of Japan. The ring around Japan was shrinking ever tighter. The outcome of the war was no longer in doubt.

Her ending was marked by one exceptional important event: On August 6, 1945, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On August 9, the Americans repeated their attack, the object of which was the city of Nagasaki. On the same day, he entered the war against Japan. Soviet Union. On September 2, 1945, Japan capitulated, and thus World War II ended.

In the course of it, an exclusively aggressive grouping of states that openly claimed to redistribute the world and unify it in their own image and likeness was completely defeated. A serious regrouping of forces also took place in the camp of the victors. The positions of Great Britain, especially France, were noticeably weakened. China began to be considered among the leading countries, but until the end of the civil war there, it could only nominally be considered a great power. Across Europe and Asia, the positions of the left forces were noticeably strengthened, whose authority increased noticeably due to their active participation in the resistance movement, and, conversely, representatives of the right-wing conservative circles, who stained themselves with cooperation with the Nazis, were pushed to the sidelines of the political process.

Finally, not just two great powers appeared in the world, but two superpowers - the USA and the USSR. The equal power of these two giants, on the one hand, and the complete mismatch of the value systems that they represented, on the other, inevitably predetermined their sharp clash in the post-war world, and it was precisely this that until the turn of the 1980s-1990s. became the core of the development of the entire system of international relations.

The instability in Europe caused by the First World War (1914-1918) eventually resulted in another international conflict– The Second World War, which broke out two decades later and became even more destructive.

Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party (Nazi Party) came to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany.

He reformed the armed forces and signed strategic agreements with Italy and Japan in his quest for world domination. The German invasion of Poland in September 1939 led to the fact that Britain and France declared war on Germany, which marked the beginning of the Second World War.

In the next six years, the war will take more lives and will bring destruction to such a vast territory around the globe like no other war in history.

Among the approximately 45-60 million people who died were 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis in concentration camps as part of Hitler's diabolical "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" policy, also known as .

On the way to World War II

The devastation caused by the Great War, as World War I was called at the time, destabilized Europe.

In many ways, the unresolved issues of the first global conflict spawned World War II.

In particular, the political and economic instability of Germany and the long-term resentment of the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles provided fertile ground for the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) party.

As early as 1923, in his memoirs and in his propaganda treatise Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler predicted a great European war, the result of which would be "the extermination of the Jewish race in German territory."

After accepting the position of Reich Chancellor, Hitler quickly consolidated power, appointing himself Führer (Supreme Commander) in 1934.

Obsessed with the idea of ​​the superiority of the "pure" German race, which was called the "Aryan", Hitler believed that war was the only way to get the "Lebensraum" (living space for the German race to settle).

In the mid-1930s, he secretly began the rearmament of Germany, bypassing the Versailles Peace Treaty. After signing alliance treaties with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and annex Czechoslovakia the following year.

Hitler's open aggression went unnoticed, as the US and the Soviet Union were focused on domestic politics, and neither France nor Britain (the two countries with the most destruction in the First World War) were not eager to enter into a confrontation.

Beginning of World War II 1939

On August 23, 1939, Hitler and the leader of the Soviet state, Joseph Stalin, signed a non-aggression pact, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which created a frenzy in London and Paris.

Hitler had long-term plans to invade Poland, a state guaranteed military support by Britain and France, in the event of a German attack. The pact meant that Hitler would not have to fight on two fronts after the invasion of Poland. Moreover, Germany received assistance in the conquest of Poland and the division of its population.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland from the west. Two days later, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, and World War II began.

On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland in the east. Poland quickly capitulated to attacks from two fronts, and by 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union shared control of the country, according to a secret clause in a non-aggression pact.

Then the Soviet troops occupied the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and crushed the Finnish resistance in the Russian-Finnish war. For the next six months after the capture of Poland, neither Germany nor the Allies took active action on the western front and in the means mass media the war began to be called "background".

However, at sea, British and German naval forces met in a fierce battle. Deadly German submarines hit British trade routes, sinking more than 100 ships in the first four months of World War II.

World War II on the Western Front 1940-1941

On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied Denmark, and the war broke out with renewed vigor.

On May 10, German troops swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in what was later called "blitzkrieg" or blitzkrieg. Three days later, Hitler's troops crossed the Meuse River and attacked the French troops at Sedan, located on the northern border of the Maginot Line.

The system was considered an insurmountable protective barrier, but in fact the German troops broke through bypassing it, making it completely useless. The British Expeditionary Force was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk at the end of May, while French forces in the south tried to put up any resistance. By early summer, France was on the brink of defeat.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR of 1939-45, the largest war in the history of mankind between Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militaristic Japan and the countries of the anti-fascist coalition that unleashed it. 61 states were involved in the war, over 80% of the world's population, military operations were conducted on the territory of 40 states, as well as in sea and ocean theaters.

Causes, preparation and outbreak of war. The Second World War arose as a result of a sharp aggravation of economic and ideological contradictions between the leading world powers. main reason its emergence was the course of Germany, supported by its allies, for revenge for the defeat in the First World War of 1914-18 and the forcible redivision of the world. In the 1930s, 2 hotbeds of war were formed - on Far East and in Europe. The exorbitant reparations and restrictions imposed by the victors on Germany contributed to the development of a strong nationalist movement in it, in which extremely radical currents took over. With the advent of A. Hitler to power in 1933, Germany turned into a militaristic force dangerous for the whole world. This was evidenced by the scale and growth rate of its military economy and armed forces (AF). If in 1934 Germany produced 840 aircraft, then in 1936 - 4733. The volume of military production from 1934 to 1940 increased 22 times. In 1935, there were 29 divisions in Germany, and by the autumn of 1939 there were already 102. The German leadership placed special emphasis on training attack offensive forces - armored and motorized troops, and bomber aircraft. The Nazi program for world domination included plans for the restoration and expansion of the German colonial empire, the defeat of Great Britain, France and posed a threat to the United States, the most important goal of the Nazis was to destroy the USSR. Ruling circles Western countries, hoping to evade the war, sought to direct German aggression to the East. They contributed to the revival of the military-industrial base of German militarism (US financial assistance to Germany under the Dawes Plan, the British-German naval agreement of 1935, etc.) and, in essence, encouraged the Nazi aggressors. The desire to redistribute the world was also characteristic of the fascist regime in Italy and militaristic Japan.

Having created a solid military-economic base and continuing to develop it, Germany, Japan, and also, despite certain economic difficulties, Italy (in 1929-38, the gross industrial products increased by 0.6%) began to implement their aggressive plans. Japan in the early 1930s occupied the territory of Northeast China, creating a springboard for attacking the USSR, Mongolia, and others. The Italian fascists invaded Ethiopia in 1935 (see Italo-Ethiopian wars). In the spring of 1935, Germany, in violation of the military articles of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, introduced a universal military service. As a result of the plebiscite, the Saarland was added to it. In March 1936, Germany unilaterally terminated the Locarno Treaty (see Locarno Treaties of 1925) and sent its troops into the Rhine demilitarized zone, in March 1938 - into Austria (see Anschluss), liquidating an independent European state (of the great powers, only the USSR protested) . In September 1938, Great Britain and France betrayed their ally, Czechoslovakia, by agreeing to Germany's seizure of the Sudetenland (see the Munich Agreement of 1938). Having an agreement on mutual assistance with Czechoslovakia and France, the USSR repeatedly offered Czechoslovakia military aid, but the government of E. Benes refused it. In the autumn of 1938, Germany occupied part of Czechoslovakia, and in the spring of 1939 - the entire Czech Republic (Slovakia was declared " independent state”), captured the Klaipeda region from Lithuania. Italy annexed Albania in April 1939. Having caused the so-called Danzig crisis at the end of 1938 and having secured itself from the east after the conclusion of a non-aggression pact with the USSR in August 1939 (see the Soviet-German treaties of 1939), Germany prepared to invade Poland, which received guarantees of military support from Great Britain on August 25, 1939 and France.

The first period of the war (1.9.1939 - 21.6.1941). World War II began on September 1, 1939 with the German attack on Poland. By September 1, 1939, the strength of the German Armed Forces reached over 4 million people, about 3.2 thousand tanks were in service, more than 26 thousand artillery pieces and mortars, about 4 thousand aircraft, 100 warships of the main classes. Poland had an armed forces of about 1 million people, armed with 220 light tanks and 650 tankettes, 4.3 thousand artillery pieces, 824 aircraft. Great Britain in the metropolis had an armed force of 1.3 million people, a strong navy (328 warships of the main classes and over 1.2 thousand aircraft, of which 490 were in reserve) and an air force (3.9 thousand aircraft, of which 2 thousand were in reserve) . By the end of August 1939, the French Armed Forces numbered about 2.7 million people, about 3.1 thousand tanks, over 26 thousand artillery pieces and mortars, about 3.3 thousand aircraft, 174 warships of the main classes. On September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, but they did not provide practical assistance to Poland. German troops, with overwhelming superiority in strength and technology, despite the courageous resistance Polish army, defeated it in 32 days and occupied most of Poland (see the German-Polish war of 1939). Having lost the ability to govern the country, on September 17, the Polish government fled to Romania. On September 17, the Soviet government sent its troops into the territory of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine (see the Campaign of the Red Army 1939), 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 the further advance of the German armies to the east (these lands were assigned to the Soviet "sphere of interest" according to the Soviet-German secret protocols of 1939). Important political implications in initial period The Second World War had the reunification of Bessarabia with the USSR and the entry of Northern Bukovina into it, the conclusion of agreements in September - October 1939 on mutual assistance with the Baltic states and the entry of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union in August 1940. As a result of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40, although at the cost of great sacrifices, the main strategic goal pursued by the Soviet leadership was achieved - to secure the northwestern border. However, there was no full guarantee that the territory of Finland would not be used for aggression against the USSR, because. the set political goal - the creation of a pro-Soviet regime in Finland - was not achieved, and the hostile attitude towards the USSR intensified in it. This war led to a sharp deterioration in relations between the USA, Great Britain and France with the USSR (12/14/1939 the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations for attacking Finland). Great Britain and France even planned a military invasion of the territory of the USSR from Finland, as well as the bombing of oil fields in Baku. The course of the Soviet-Finnish war strengthened doubts about the combat capability of the Red Army, which arose in the Western ruling circles in connection with the repressions of 1937-38 against its commanding staff, and gave A. Hitler confidence in his calculations for a quick defeat of the Soviet Union.

In Western Europe until May 1940 there was " strange war". The British-French troops were inactive, and the German armed forces, using the strategic pause after the defeat of Poland, were actively preparing for an offensive against the Western European states. On April 9, 1940, German troops occupied Denmark without declaring war and on the same day launched an invasion of Norway (see the Norwegian operation of 1940). The British and French troops that landed in Norway captured Narvik, but were unable to resist the aggressor and were evacuated from the country in June. On May 10, units of the Wehrmacht invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and delivered a blow to France through their territories (see the French campaign of 1940) bypassing the French Maginot Line. Having broken through the defenses in the Sedan area, the tank formations of the German troops reached the English Channel on May 20. On May 14, the Dutch army capitulated, on May 28 - the Belgian. The British Expeditionary Force and part of the French troops, blockaded in the Dunkirk area (see the Dunkirk operation of 1940), managed to evacuate to Great Britain, abandoning almost all military equipment. On June 14, German troops occupied Paris without a fight, and on June 22, France capitulated. Under the terms of the Armistice of Compiegne, most of France was occupied by German troops, southern part remained under the rule of the pro-fascist government of Marshal A. Pétain (Vichy government). At the end of June 1940, a French patriotic organization headed by General Charles de Gaulle, the "Free France" (since July 1942, "Fighting France"), was formed in London.

On June 10, 1940, Italy entered the war on the side of Germany (in 1939, its armed forces numbered over 1.7 million people, about 400 tanks, about 13 thousand artillery pieces and mortars, about 3 thousand aircraft, 154 warships of the main classes and 105 submarines) . Italian troops captured British Somalia, part of Kenya and Sudan in August, invaded Egypt from Libya in September, where they were stopped and defeated by British troops in December. An attempt by Italian troops in October to develop an offensive from Albania occupied by them in 1939 to Greece was repulsed by the Greek army. In the Far East, Japan (by 1939, its armed forces included over 1.5 million people, over 2 thousand tanks, about 4.2 thousand artillery pieces, about 1 thousand aircraft, 172 warships of the main classes, including 6 aircraft carriers with 396 aircraft, and 56 submarines) took southern regions China and occupied the northern part of French Indochina. Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Berlin (Triple) Pact on September 27 (see Three Power Pact 1940).

In August 1940, aerial bombardments of Great Britain by German aircraft began (see the Battle of England 1940-41), the intensity of which sharply decreased in May 1941 due to the transfer of the main forces of the German Air Force to the east to attack the USSR. In the spring of 1941, the United States, which had not yet participated in the war, landed troops in Greenland, and then in Iceland, setting up military bases there. German U-boat operations intensified (see Battle of the Atlantic 1939-45). In January - May 1941, British troops, with the support of the insurgent population, expelled the Italians from East Africa. In February, German troops arrived in North Africa, forming the so-called African Corps, headed by Lieutenant General E. Rommel. Going on the offensive on March 31, the Italo-German troops reached the Libyan-Egyptian border in the second half of April (see North African campaign of 1940-43). Preparing an attack on the Soviet Union, the countries of the fascist (Nazi) bloc carried out aggression in the Balkans in the spring of 1941 (see the Balkan Campaign of 1941). On March 1-2, German troops entered Bulgaria, which had joined the Tripartite Pact, and on April 6, German troops (later Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops) invaded Yugoslavia (surrendered on April 18) and Greece (occupied on April 30). In May

the island of Crete was captured (see the Cretan airborne operation of 1941).

The military successes of Germany in the first period of the war were largely due to the fact that its opponents were unable to combine their efforts, create a unified system of military leadership, and develop effective plans for the joint conduct of the war. The economy and resources of the occupied countries of Europe were used to prepare the war against the USSR.

The second period of the war (22.6.1941 - November 1942). 22/6/1941 Germany, violating the non-aggression pact, suddenly attacked the USSR. Together with Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, and Italy came out against the USSR. The Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 began. Since the mid-1930s, the Soviet Union has been taking measures to increase the country's defense capability and repel possible aggression. The development of industry proceeded at an accelerated pace, the scale of production of military products increased, new types of tanks, aircraft, artillery systems, and the like were introduced into production and adopted for service. In 1939, a new Law on universal conscription was adopted, aimed at creating a mass cadre army (by mid-1941, the number of Soviet Armed Forces had increased by more than 2.8 times compared to 1939 and amounted to about 5.7 million people). The experience of military operations in the West, as well as the Soviet-Finnish war, was actively studied. However, the mass repressions unleashed by the Stalinist leadership in the late 1930s, which hit the Armed Forces especially hard, reduced the effectiveness of preparations for war and affected the development of the military-political situation at the beginning of Hitler's aggression.

The entry of the USSR into the war determined the content of its new stage and had a tremendous impact on the policy of the leading world powers. The governments of Great Britain and the USA 22-24.6.1941 declared their support for the USSR; in July-October, agreements were signed on joint actions and military-economic cooperation between the USSR, Great Britain and the USA. In August - September, the USSR and Great Britain sent their troops into Iran to prevent the possibility of creating fascist strongholds in the Middle East. These joint military-political actions laid the foundation for the creation of an anti-Hitler coalition. September 24 at Londonskaya international conference 1941, the USSR joined the Atlantic Charter of 1941.

The Soviet-German front became the main front of the Second World War, where the armed struggle acquired an exceptionally fierce character. 70% of the personnel of the German ground forces and parts of the SS, 86% tank, 100% motorized formations, up to 75% artillery. Despite major successes at the beginning of the war, Germany failed to achieve the strategic goal envisaged by the Barbarossa plan. The Red Army, suffering heavy losses, in fierce battles in the summer of 1941, thwarted the plan for a "blitzkrieg". Soviet troops in heavy battles exhausted and bled the advancing enemy groups. The German troops failed to capture Leningrad, they were for a long time pinned down by the defense of Odessa in 1941 and the Sevastopol defense of 1941-42, stopped near Moscow. As a result of the defeat of the German troops in the Battle of Moscow in 1941-1942, the myth of the invincibility of the Wehrmacht was dispelled. This victory forced Germany into a protracted war, inspired the peoples of the occupied countries to fight for liberation against fascist oppression, and gave impetus to the Resistance Movement.

On December 7, 1941, having attacked the American military base 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 of the United States and Japan into the war affected the balance of power and increased the scale of the armed struggle. An important role in the development of allied relations was played by the Moscow meetings of 1941-43 of representatives of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain on the issue of military supplies to the Soviet Union (see Lend-Lease). In Washington on January 1, 1942, the Declaration of 26 States of 1942 was signed, to which other states later joined.

In North Africa, in November 1941, British troops, taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Wehrmacht were pinned down near Moscow, launched an offensive, occupied Cyrenaica and lifted the blockade from Tobruk, besieged by the Italo-German troops, but in January - June, the Italo-German troops, having launched a counteroffensive , advanced 1.2 thousand km, captured Tobruk and part of the territory of Egypt. After that, there was a lull on the African front until the autumn of 1942. In the Atlantic Ocean, German submarines continued to inflict great damage on the Allied fleets (by the autumn of 1942, the tonnage of ships sunk, mainly in the Atlantic Ocean, amounted to over 14 million tons). Japan in early 1942 occupied Malaya, the most important islands of Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, inflicted a major defeat on the British fleet in the Gulf of Thailand, the British-American-Dutch fleet in the Java operation and seized dominance at sea. The American Navy and Air Force, significantly reinforced by the summer of 1942, defeated the Japanese fleet in naval battles in the Coral Sea (May 7-8) and at Midway Island (June). In North China Japanese invaders launched punitive operations in the areas liberated by the partisans.

On May 26, 1942, an agreement was signed between the USSR and Great Britain on an alliance in the war against Germany and its satellites; On June 11, the USSR and the USA concluded an agreement on the principles of mutual assistance in the conduct of war. These acts completed the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition. On June 12, the United States and Great Britain made a promise to open a second front in Western Europe in 1942, but did not keep it. Taking advantage of the absence of a second front and the defeats of the Red Army in the Crimea, and especially in the Kharkov operation of 1942, the German command launched a new strategic offensive on the Soviet-German front in the summer of 1942. In July-November, Soviet troops pinned down enemy strike groups and prepared the conditions for a counteroffensive. The failure of the German offensive on the Soviet-German front in 1942 and the failure of the Japanese Armed Forces in the Pacific Ocean forced Japan to refrain from the planned attack on the USSR and switch to defense in the Pacific Ocean at the end of 1942. At the same time, the USSR, observing neutrality, refused the US to use military air bases in the Soviet Far East, from where it would be possible to strike at Japan.

The entry into the war of the two largest countries in the world - the USSR, and then the USA - led to a gigantic expansion of the scale of hostilities in the 2nd period of World War II, an increase in the number of armed forces participating in the struggle. In opposition to the fascist bloc, an anti-fascist coalition of states was formed, which had enormous economic and military potentials. By the end of 1941, on the Soviet-German front, the fascist bloc was faced with the need to wage a long, protracted war. The armed struggle in the Pacific Ocean, in Southeast Asia and in other theaters of war also assumed a similar character. By the autumn of 1942, the adventurism of the aggressive plans of the leadership of Germany and its allies, calculated to win world domination, became completely obvious. Attempts to crush the USSR were unsuccessful. On all theaters of operations, the offensive of the aggressors' armed forces was stopped. However, the fascist coalition continued to be a powerful military-political organization capable of active operations.

The third period of the war (November 1942 - December 1943). The main events of the Second World War in 1942-1943 developed on the Soviet-German front. By November 1942, 192 divisions and 3 brigades of the Wehrmacht (71% of all Ground Forces) and 66 divisions and 13 brigades of Germany's allies were operating here. On November 19, the counter-offensive of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad began (see the Battle of Stalingrad 1942-43), which ended with the encirclement and defeat of the 330,000-strong group of German troops. An attempt by the German Army Group "Don" (commander - Field Marshal E. von Manstein) to release the encircled grouping of Field Marshal F. von Paulus was thwarted. Having fettered the main forces of the Wehrmacht in the Moscow direction (40% of the German divisions), the Soviet command did not allow the transfer of the reserves needed by Manstein to the south. The victory of the Soviet troops near Stalingrad was the beginning of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War and had big influence on the further course of the entire Second World War. It undermined the prestige of Germany in the eyes of its allies, gave rise to doubt among the Germans themselves about the possibility of winning the war. The Red Army, seizing the strategic initiative, launched a general offensive on the Soviet-German front. The mass expulsion of the enemy from the territory of the Soviet Union began. The Battle of Kursk in 1943 and the access to the Dnieper completed a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War. The battle for the Dnieper in 1943 overturned the enemy's calculations for a transition to a protracted positional defensive war.

In the autumn of 1942, when fierce battles on the Soviet-German front fettered the main forces of the Wehrmacht, British-American troops intensified military operations in North Africa. They won in October - November in the El Alamein operation of 1942 and carried out the North African landing operation of 1942. As a result of the Tunisian operation in 1943, the Italo-German troops in North Africa capitulated. British-American troops, using a favorable situation (the main enemy forces participated in Battle of Kursk), 10/7/1943 landed on the island of Sicily and captured it by mid-August (see the Sicilian landing operation of 1943). On July 25, the fascist regime in Italy fell; on September 3, the new government of P. Badoglio concluded a truce with the Allies. The withdrawal of Italy from the war marked the beginning of the disintegration of the fascist bloc.

On October 13, Italy declared war on Germany, in response, German troops occupied Northern Italy. In September, the allied troops landed in southern Italy, but could not break the resistance of the German troops on the defensive line created north of Naples, and in December they suspended active operations. During this period, secret negotiations between representatives of the United States and Great Britain with German emissaries became more active (see Anglo-American-German contacts 1943-45). In the Pacific Ocean and in Asia, Japan, turning to strategic defense, sought to hold the territories captured in 1941-42. The Allies, having launched an offensive in the Pacific Ocean in August 1942, captured the island of Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands; February 1943), landed on the island of New Guinea, ousted the Japanese from the Aleutian Islands, and inflicted a number of defeats on the Japanese fleet.

The 3rd period of the Second World War went down in history as a period of a radical turning point. Of decisive importance for changing the strategic situation were the historical victories of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk and the Battle of the Dnieper, as well as the victories of the Allies in North Africa and the landing of their troops in Sicily and in the south of the Apennine Peninsula. However, the Soviet Union still bore the brunt of the fight against Germany and its European allies. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, at the request of the Soviet delegation, a decision was made to open a second front no later than May 1944. The armies of the Nazi bloc in the 3rd period of the Second World War could not win a single major victory and were forced to take a course to prolong hostilities and switch to strategic defense. Having passed the turning point, the Second World War in Europe entered the final stage.

It began with a new offensive of the Red Army. Soviet troops in 1944 on the entire Soviet-German front brought crushing blows to the enemy and expelled the invaders from the borders of the Soviet Union. During the subsequent offensive, the USSR Armed Forces played decisive role in the liberation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, northern regions Norway, in withdrawing Finland from the war, created the conditions for the liberation of Albania and Greece. Together with the Red Army, the troops of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia took part in the fight against Nazi Germany, and after the armistice with Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the military units of these countries also took part. The allied troops, having carried out the "Overlord" operation, opened a second front and launched an offensive in Germany. Having landed on 15/8/1944 in the south of France, the British-American troops, with the active support of the French Resistance Movement, by mid-September joined the troops advancing from Normandy, but the German troops managed to leave France. After the opening of the second front, the main front of the Second World War continued to be the Soviet-German front, where it operated 1.8-2.8 times more troops countries of the fascist bloc than on other fronts.

In February 1945, the Crimean (Yalta) Conference of 1945 was held by the leaders of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain, during which plans for the final defeat of the German Armed Forces were agreed upon, the basic principles of a common policy regarding the post-war world order were outlined, decisions were made to create zones of occupation in Germany and the all-German control body, on the recovery of reparations from Germany, on the creation of the UN, etc. The USSR agreed to enter the war against Japan 3 months after the surrender of Germany and the end of the war in Europe.

During the Ardennes operation of 1944-1945, German troops defeated the Allied forces. To alleviate the position of the allies in the Ardennes, at their request, the Red Army launched its winter offensive ahead of schedule (see Vistula-Oder operation 1945 and East Prussian operation 1945). Having restored the situation by the end of January 1945, British-American troops crossed the Rhine at the end of March and carried out the Ruhr operation in April, which ended with the encirclement and capture of a large enemy grouping. During the North Italian operation of 1945, the allied forces, with the help of Italian partisans, completely captured Italy in April - early May. In the Pacific Theater of Operations, the Allies carried out operations to defeat the Japanese fleet, liberated a number of islands, and approached Japan directly (on April 1, American troops landed on japanese island Okinawa) and cut off its communications with the countries of Southeast Asia.

In April - May, Red Army units defeated the last groupings of German troops in the Berlin operation of 1945 and the Prague operation of 1945 and met with the Allied troops. The war in Europe is over. The unconditional surrender of Germany was accepted late in the evening on May 8 (at 00:43 on May 9, Moscow time) by representatives of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France.

In the 4th period of the Second World War, the struggle reached its highest scope and tension. The most a large number of states, personnel of the Armed Forces, military equipment and weapons. The military-economic potential of Germany fell sharply, while in the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition it reached the highest level during the war years. The hostilities took place in conditions when Germany faced the armies of the allied powers advancing from the east and west. Since the end of 1944, Japan remained the only ally of Germany, which testified to the collapse of the fascist bloc and bankruptcy foreign policy Germany. The USSR victoriously ended the Great Patriotic War, unprecedented in its fierceness.

At the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference of 1945, the USSR confirmed its readiness to enter the war with Japan, and at the San Francisco Conference of 1945, together with representatives of 50 states, they developed the UN Charter. In order to demoralize the enemy and demonstrate their military power to the allies (primarily to the USSR), the United States dropped atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, respectively). Fulfilling its allied duty, the USSR declared war on Japan and on August 9 began hostilities. During the Soviet-Japanese War of 1945, Soviet troops, having defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army (see the Manchurian operation of 1945), liquidated the center of aggression in the Far East, liberated Northeast China, North Korea, South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, thereby hastening the end of the war. On September 2, Japan capitulated, World War II ended.

Main results of the Second World War. The Second World War was the largest military clash in the history of mankind. It lasted 6 years, the population of the participating states amounted to 1.7 billion people, 110 million people were in the ranks of the Armed Forces. Military operations were conducted in Europe, Asia, Africa, in the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans. It was the most destructive and bloody of wars. More than 55 million people died in it. The damage from the destruction and destruction of material assets on the territory of the USSR amounted to about 41% of the losses of all countries participating in the war. The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the war, suffered the greatest human casualties (about 27 million people died). Poland (about 6 million people), China (over 5 million people), Yugoslavia (about 1.7 million people) and other states suffered great losses. The Soviet-German front was the main front of World War II. It was here that the military power of the fascist bloc was crushed. AT different periods on the Soviet-German front, from 190 to 270 divisions of Germany and its allies operated. British-American troops in North Africa in 1941-43 were opposed by 9 to 20 divisions, in Italy in 1943-1945 - from 7 to 26 divisions, in Western Europe after the opening of the second front - from 56 to 75 divisions. The Soviet Armed Forces defeated and captured 607 enemy divisions, the Allies - 176 divisions. Germany and its allies lost about 9 million people on the Soviet-German front (total losses - about 14 million people) and about 75% of military equipment and weapons. The length of the Soviet-German front during the war years ranged from 2 thousand km to 6.2 thousand km, the North African - up to 350 km, the Italian - up to 300 km, the Western European 800-1000 km. Active operations on the Soviet-German front were carried out for 1320 days out of 1418 (93%), on the Allied fronts out of 2069 days - 1094 (53%). Dead Losses allies (killed, dead from wounds, missing) amounted to about 1.5 million soldiers and officers, including the United States - 405 thousand, Great Britain - 375 thousand, France - 600 thousand, Canada - 37 thousand, Australia - 35 thousand, New Zealand - 12 thousand, the Union of South Africa - 7 thousand people. The most important outcome of the war was the defeat of the most aggressive reactionary forces, which radically changed the alignment of political forces in the world and determined its entire post-war development. Many peoples of “non-Aryan” origin were saved from physical destruction, who were destined to perish in Nazi concentration camps or become slaves. The defeat of Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan contributed to the rise of the national liberation movement and the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism. For the first time, a legal assessment was given to the ideologues and executors of misanthropic plans for the conquest of world domination (see the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-49 and the Tokyo Trial of 1946-48). World War II had a profound effect on further development military art, the construction of the sun. She was different mass application tanks, a high degree of motorization, the widespread introduction of new combat and technical means. During the Second World War, radars and other means of radio electronics were used for the first time, rocket artillery, jet planes, projectile aircraft and ballistic missiles, and at the final stage - nuclear weapons. The Second World War clearly showed the dependence of war on the economy and scientific and technological progress, the closest interconnection of economic, scientific, military and other potentials on the path to victory.

Lit.: History of the Second World War. 1939-1945. M., 1973-1982. T. 1-12; Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Munch., 1979-2005. Bd 1-9; World War II: Results and Lessons. M., 1985; Nuremberg Trials: Sat. materials. M., 1987-1999. T. 1-8; 1939: The Lessons of History. M., 1990; Resistance Movement in Western Europe. 1939-1945. M., 1990-1991. T. 1-2; World War II: Actual Problems. M., 1995; Allies at War, 1941-1945. M., 1995; Resistance movement in the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, 1939-1945. M., 1995; Another war, 1939-1945. M., 1996; The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: Military Historical Essays. M., 1998-1999. T. 1-4; Churchill W. World War II. M., 1998. T. 1-6; Zhukov G.K. Memories and reflections. 13th ed. M., 2002. T. 1-2; World Wars of the XX century. M., 2002. Book. 3: World War II: A Historical Outline. Book. 4: World War II: Documents and Materials.

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

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a war against the United States with the attack on Pearl Harbor. 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 of the United States and Japan into the war affected the balance of power and increased the scale of the armed struggle.

In North Africa in November 1941 and in January-June 1942 fighting were carried out with varying success, then until the autumn of 1942 there was a lull. In the Atlantic, German submarines continued to inflict great damage on the Allied fleets (by the autumn of 1942, the tonnage of ships sunk, mainly in the Atlantic, amounted to over 14 million tons). In the Pacific Ocean, Japan occupied Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma in early 1942, 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 American Navy and Air Force, significantly reinforced by the summer of 1942, defeated the Japanese fleet in naval battles in the Coral Sea (May 7-8) and at Midway Island (June).

Third period of the war (November 19, 1942 - December 31, 1943) began with the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops, culminating in the defeat of the 330,000th German group during the Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943), which marked the beginning of a radical turning point 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 completed a radical turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War. The battle for the Dnieper (1943) overturned the enemy's plans for 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 the 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, it concluded a truce with the Allies. The withdrawal of Italy from the war marked the beginning of the disintegration of the fascist bloc. On October 13, Italy declared war on Germany. Nazi troops occupied its territory. In September, the Allies landed in Italy, but could not break the defense of the German troops and in December they suspended active operations. In the Pacific Ocean and in Asia, Japan sought to hold on to 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 Ocean in the autumn of 1942, captured the island of Guadalcanal (February 1943), landed on New Guinea, and liberated the Aleutian Islands.

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

In the winter of 1944-1945, on the Western Front, the Nazi troops inflicted a defeat on the Allied forces during the Ardennes operation. To alleviate the position of the allies in the Ardennes, at their request, the Red Army began its winter offensive ahead of schedule. Having restored the situation by the end of January, the Allied forces crossed the Rhine River during the Meuse-Rhine operation (1945), and in April they carried out the Ruhr operation (1945), which ended in the encirclement and capture of a large enemy grouping. During the North Italian operation (1945), the Allied forces, slowly moving north, with the help of Italian partisans, completely captured Italy in early May 1945. In the Pacific theater of operations, the allies carried out 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 the last groupings of Nazi troops in the Berlin operation (1945) and the Prague operation (1945) and met with the Allied troops. The war in Europe is over. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally. May 9, 1945 became Victory Day over Nazi Germany.

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

The Second World War was the largest military clash in the history of mankind. It lasted 6 years, there were 110 million people in the ranks of the Armed Forces. Over 55 million people died in World War II. The greatest victims were the Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people. The damage from the 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