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 imperialistic 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 turning the war into a just, anti-fascist war went 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 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 the whole 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 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 outbreak of the war and during its first months, hoped for an agreement with Hitler at the expense of the USSR. In the event of an 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 forced 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-interference" pursued 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 and agreed to the seizure of the Sudetenland by Germany, hoping in this way to open the "way to the East" for Nazi Germany. The fascist leadership was 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 to eliminate 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 in April 1939 occupied Albania. 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, tore up 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, for 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 pledges to help any European neighbor in the event of an attack on it, the Western powers wanted to drag the USSR into a one-on-one war against Germany. The negotiations, which lasted until mid-August 1939, did not yield results due to the sabotage of Soviet constructive proposals by Paris and London. While leading the Moscow negotiations to breakdown, 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 talks and presented the Soviet Union with an alternative: to find itself in isolation in front of a 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 agreement 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 expenditures on armaments increased more than 12 times and reached 37 billion marks. Germany smelted 22.5 million in 1939. t steel, 17.5 mln. t pig iron, produced 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 Nazi Germany reached 4.6 million by September 1, 1939. In service there 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 crush 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 national defense battalions 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 areas 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 disaster. Courageous resistance of 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 Poland's defeat. 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 the protection of the life and property of the Ukrainian and Belarusian population, striving for reunification with the Soviet republics. A trip 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 base against the USSR. In August 1940, after the overthrow of the bourgeois governments of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, these countries, in accordance with the wishes of their peoples, were accepted into the USSR. As a result of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 (see Soviet-Finnish War of 1939), according to the treaty of March 12, 1940, the USSR border on the Karelian Isthmus, in the Leningrad region and the Murmansk railway was somewhat moved 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. After the start of the war until May 1940, the governments of Great Britain and France continued only in a slightly modified form the pre-war foreign policy, which was based on the calculations of 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. From the end of September 1939, active hostilities 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 securing 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 key ports of Norway along its entire 1800 coastline. km, and airborne assault forces occupied the main airfields. Courageous resistance of the Norwegian army (which was late with deployment) and patriots delayed the onslaught of the Nazis. Attempts by the Anglo-French troops to drive the Germans out of 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 it was not possible 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 aircraft 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 group of forces, including the British Expeditionary Army, into Belgium, exposing these forces to attack from the rear. These serious mistakes of the French command, aggravated 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 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 looming 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 of 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 Nazi invaders and their proteges. On June 10, 1940, Italy entered the war against Great Britain and France, seeking to establish dominance in the Mediterranean basin. Italian troops in August captured British Somalia, parts of Kenya and Sudan, in mid-September invaded Egypt from Libya 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). In 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, was unable to establish air superiority over the English Channel and suffered heavy losses. As a result of the air raids, which continued until May 1941, the Nazi 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 his decision 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 enormous resources for the development of the ground forces, and not the fleet necessary 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 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, Nazi 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 (see Cretan airborne operation 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 possessed a total higher industrial and economic potential, were unable to pool their resources, create a unified system of military leadership, and work out uniform effective plans for waging war. Their war machine lagged behind the new demands of armed struggle and with difficulty resisted more modern methods of waging it. In terms of training, combat training and technical equipment, the Nazi Wehrmacht as a whole was superior to the armed forces of the Western states. The inadequate 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 has grown sharply. Much 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 industry, 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 Nazi 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 Hitlerites 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 European states were put at the service of the war, above all the war being prepared against the USSR. In the occupied territories, as in Germany itself, the Nazis established a terrorist regime, exterminating all disaffected or suspected of 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. Only in the Auschwitz camp (Poland) over 4 million people were killed. 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 of 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 reconsider their previous political course aimed at conniving at fascist aggression and gradually replace it with a course of fighting against fascism. Gradually, the US government began to revise its foreign policy. It more and more 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 ended 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. From the very beginning, the struggle of the Red Army 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. During the war, the Red Army forced the Nazi command to completely abandon the doctrine of "lightning war". 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 the first weeks of the war to penetrate deeply into the Soviet territory. By the end of the first ten days of July, the enemy captured Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, a significant part of Ukraine, and part of Moldova. However, moving deeper into the territory of the USSR, the fascist German troops met growing resistance from the Red Army, and suffered increasingly heavy losses. Soviet troops fought steadfastly and stubbornly. Under the leadership of the Communist Party and its Central Committee, the 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 battle camp. The formation of large strategic reserves was carried out, the reorganization of the country's leadership system was carried out. The Communist Party launched work to organize 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 grouping - 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, 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, confronted Nazi Germany with 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 training, 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 thereby 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's strike group, inflicted heavy losses on it, and prepared the conditions for launching a counteroffensive. Hitler's troops were unable to achieve decisive success in the Caucasus 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 peoples against the aggressors created the objective preconditions for the formation and consolidation of the anti-Hitler coalition (see. 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 action 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 intensified during the struggle for dominance in China and Southeast Asia. US entry into the war strengthened the anti-Hitler coalition. The military alliance of the states that fought against fascism was formalized in Washington on January 1 by the Declaration of 26 states in 1942 (see Declaration of 26 states of 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 Atlantic and European regions - 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 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. Meanwhile, the leaders of Nazi 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 the refusal to sign a truce 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 ensured 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 link 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 actions 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 stopped (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 Sea and North Africa. After the attack on the USSR, Germany and Italy were unable to simultaneously conduct offensive operations in other areas. Having transferred the main air force 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 operating 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 United States, 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 en route 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 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 powerful blows on the British fleet and its base in Malta, sinking 3 battleships, 1 aircraft carrier and other ships, the German-Italian fleet and aviation again seized dominance in the Mediterranean, which improved their position in North Africa. On January 21, 1942, German-Italian troops suddenly went on the offensive for the British and advanced 450 km to El-Ghazala. On May 27, they renewed 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, of the 267 divisions and 5 brigades available to Germany, 192 divisions and 3 brigades (or 71%) operated against the Red Army. In addition, there were 66 divisions and 13 brigades of German satellites on the Soviet-German front. On November 19, the Soviet counteroffensive began 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 \u200b\u200bthe 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 bled. 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. At the beginning of 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 against 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 intensified 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, the number of 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, as 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 staff 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 to start concentrating 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 the 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 little 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 German-fascist 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 throw them back from Tunisia. In November 1942, fascist German troops occupied the entire territory of France and tried to seize 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 less 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 basic questions of the strategy of V. of m. this conference was fruitless. The struggle 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 confirmed not to open a second front in Western Europe during 1943 and an 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, regain the strategic initiative, and achieve a change in the course of the war. It increased its armed forces by 2 million people. by means of "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 Nazi troops in a 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 did not manage to break the skillful and persistent defense of the Soviet troops with a powerful avalanche of tanks. In the defensive battle on the Kursk Bulge, the troops of the Central and Voronezh fronts bled the enemy. On July 12, the Soviet command launched a counteroffensive against the troops of the Bryansk and Western fronts against the Germans' Oryol bridgehead. 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 Nazi 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 German fascist divisions, completing a radical change in the course of the military battle. A catastrophe loomed 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, the movement for the elimination of the fascist regime and an exit from the war was growing. As a result of the blows of the Anglo-American troops and the growth of the anti-fascist movement, Mussolini's regime fell at the end of July. He was replaced by the government of P. Badoglio, who signed an armistice with the USA 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 landing in Salerno, the fascist German command withdrew its troops to the north, to the Rome region, 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. The 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 German submarine attacks began to decline rapidly. The growth in the size of the allied fleet, the use of new technology to detect 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 provided an 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 operations. Compared to 1941, Japan increased the production of aircraft more than 3 times, 60 new ships were laid down at its shipyards, including 40 submarines. The total number of the Japanese armed forces increased 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 Aleutian, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, New Guinea, Indonesia, Burma lines. The United States also intensively deployed military production. 28 new aircraft carriers were laid down, several new operational formations (2 field and 2 air armies), many special units were formed; 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 United States naval and air forces outnumbered the Japanese. In May 1943, the formations of the Nimitz group occupied the Aleutian Islands, securing 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, through an air offensive, to achieve "undermining and disorganizing the ever-increasing scale of Germany's military-economic power." 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 with the aim of capturing bridgeheads, from which it would then be possible, after the defeat of the European Axis countries and the transfer of forces from Europe, to strike Japan and 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 Ocean, 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 1943 Cairo conference) and the 1943 Tehran conference (see the 1943 Tehran conference). 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 envisaged 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 seen 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 of the quickest defeat of Germany, for operations in the Mediterranean Sea area were "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 enter the 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 our 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 hinder 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 a period when the Red Army, in the course of a powerful strategic offensive, expelled Nazi 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 continued in the Pacific Ocean, 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 maintain 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 the satellite states on the Soviet-German front. The Soviet command planned in 1944 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 a blow to 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 the 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 delay in 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 strove to restore the pre-war capitalist order in the countries occupied by the Nazis and their allies. London and Washington began to rush to prepare an invasion of Western Europe across the English Channel in order to capture bridgeheads in Normandy and Brittany, ensure the landing of expeditionary troops, 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, therefore, had 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, of the 324 divisions and 5 brigades that Nazi Germany had, 179 German divisions and 5 brigades, as well as 49 divisions and 18 brigades of its allies were on the Soviet-German front, 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 region 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 (see People's armed uprising on August 23, 1944 (see People's armed uprising in Romania 1944)). On September 12, an armistice agreement was signed in Moscow between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain with Romania. The entry of the Red Army troops 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 the 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 to liberate 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 the Anglo-American troops and crush them with a blow on Antwerp. During the 1944-45 Ardennes operation (See 1944-45 Ardennes operation), 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 exhausted. 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 sought 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. Churchill) agreed on military plans providing for a complete 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, liquidate 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 Southeast 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 in 1945 (see Vistula-Oder operation 1945), they defeated the grouping of the Nazi armies between the Vistula and the 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 fascist German East Prussian grouping, occupied East Prussia, and 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 its 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 created 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. Anglo-American forces continued their rapid offensive in all directions, which soon turned into an unhindered advance. 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, Luebeck 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. The last center of resistance to Nazi Germany was Berlin. At the beginning of April, the Hitlerite command attracted the main forces to the Berlin sector, creating a large grouping: about 1 million people, over 10,000 guns and mortars, 1,500 tanks and assault guns, 3,300 combat aircraft. In order 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 intensity, 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 in complete victory for the Soviet troops. The Red Army, advancing on a wide front, completed the liberation of the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. After expelling 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 Nazi 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 consent 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 expressed its categorical protest against 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 at the beginning of 1944, the allied armed forces, surpassing the Japanese in personnel by 1.5 times, in 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, tried 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 seizure of the Mariana Islands by the Americans by mid-August deprived Japan of maritime ties with the South Sea zone, 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 the 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 went over to the 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 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 four-fifths 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 transport 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 from Rangoon to the north, as well as the highway linking 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 by American aviation south of Fr. Kyushu. In June 1945, the allied forces occupied Okinawa, which made it possible to bring the American aviation base even closer to Japan and launch a broad air offensive against its economic centers. At the same time, allied forces and local partisans liberated Burma, most of Indonesia, and many regions of Indochina, which finally undermined the Japanese positions in these regions 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 June 17 - August 2, the heads of government of the USSR (head of the delegation J.V. Stalin), the USA (head of the delegation G. Truman) and Great Britain (head of the delegation W. Churchill, from July 28 - K. Attlee), a decision was made to demilitarize, denazify and reorganize Germany in a democratic way, to destroy German monopoly associations. The three powers confirmed their intention to completely disarm Germany, to liquidate all German industry that 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, containing a demand for 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. This 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 of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan 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 included more than 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. Total human losses reached 50-55 million people, of which 27 million people 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, the 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, 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 influenced the development of the national liberation movement of peoples, which led to the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism. As a result of the 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 its 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 largest in length of the military front lines. 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 Nazi 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 that predetermined a military victory over fascism during the entire war of the military. 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, 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 carried out major operations in which various types of armed forces participated. Significant experience was gained in planning such operations, managing them. The landing in Normandy was the largest airborne operation of the military air force, in which all types of 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 over to 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 USA 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 of the eve of the Second World War, v. 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 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; Israelyan V.L., Anti-Hitler Coalition, M., 1965; Projector 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., \u200b\u200bThe 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.
SECOND WORLD WAR 1939 1945, unleashed by Germany, Italy and Japan. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France on September 3 declared war on Germany. In April May 1940 German troops occupied Denmark and Norway, ... ... Russian history
The war generated by the imperialist system and originated in the beginning within this system between the main fascists. states by Germany and Italy, on the one hand, and Great Britain and France, on the other; in the course of the further development of events, adopting the world ... ... Soviet Historical Encyclopedia
- (September 1, 1939 September 2, 1945). The main participants in the war from the defeated side are Germany, Italy and Japan; with the victorious USSR, Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries, USA, France, China. The main theaters of war are Europe, East and Southeast Asia, ... ... Collier's Encyclopedia
SECOND WORLD WAR 1939 45, the largest war in history waged by Germany, Italy and Japan. 72 states took part, over 80% of the world's population, military operations covered the territories of 40 states. World War II began 1 ... ... Modern encyclopedia
World War II 1939 45 the largest war in history waged by Germany, Italy and Japan. 72 states took part, over 80% of the world's population, military operations covered the territory of 40 states. Started on September 1, 1939 ... ... Historical Dictionary
Untied by Germany, Italy and Japan. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France on September 3 declared war on Germany. In April May 1940, German fascist troops occupied Denmark and Norway, on May 10, 1940 they invaded ... ... Political science. Dictionary.
World War II Top clockwise: Allied forces land in Normandy on D-Day; Red Army soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag; the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp; Stalingrad after the battle; atomic bombing ... Wikipedia
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: Encyclopedia Read more
In the early morning of September 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland. Goebbels propaganda presented this event as a response to the "capture by Polish soldiers" of a radio station in the German border town of Gleiwitz (it later turned out that the staging of the attack in Gleiwitz was organized by the German security service, using German death row prisoners dressed in Polish military uniforms). Germany sent 57 divisions against Poland.
Great Britain and France, bound by allied obligations to Poland, after some hesitation, declared war on Germany on September 3. But the opponents were in no hurry to get involved in an active struggle. At Hitler's instructions, German troops had to adhere to defensive tactics on the Western Front during this period in order to "spare their forces as much as possible, to create the prerequisites for the successful completion of the operation against Poland." Nor did the Western powers launch an offensive. 110 French and 5 British divisions stood against 23 German ones, without undertaking serious hostilities. It is no coincidence that this confrontation was called the "strange war."
Left without help, Poland, despite the desperate resistance of its soldiers and officers to the invaders in Gdansk (Danzig), on the Baltic coast near Westerplatte, in Silesia and other places, could not hold back the onslaught of the German armies.
On September 6, the Germans approached Warsaw. The Polish government and diplomatic corps left the capital. But the remnants of the garrison and the population defended the city until the end of September. The defense of Warsaw became one of the heroic pages in the history of the struggle against the occupiers.
At the height of the tragic events for Poland on September 17, 1939, units of the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Polish border and occupied the border territories. In a Soviet note in this regard, it was said that they "took under protection the life and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus." On September 28, 1939, Germany and the USSR, practically dividing the territory of Poland, concluded a treaty of friendship and border. In a statement on this occasion, representatives of the two countries emphasized that "by doing so, they have created a solid foundation for a lasting peace in Eastern Europe." Having thus secured new borders in the east, Hitler turned to the west.
On April 9, 1940, German troops invaded Denmark and Norway. On May 10, they crossed the borders of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and launched an offensive against France. The balance of forces was approximately equal. But the German shock armies, with their strong tank formations and aircraft, managed to break through the Allied front. Part of the defeated Allied forces retreated to the coast of the English Channel. Their remnants were evacuated from Dunkirk in early June. By mid-June, the Germans captured the northern part of France.
The French government declared Paris an "open city". On June 14, he was surrendered to the Germans without a fight. The hero of the First World War, 84-year-old Marshal AF Petain, spoke on the radio with an address to the French: “With a pain in my heart, I tell you today that we must stop the struggle. Tonight I turned to the enemy in order to ask him if he was ready to seek with me ... a means to put an end to hostilities. " However, not all French people supported this position. On June 18, 1940, in a broadcast on the BBC radio station in London, General Charles de Gaulle said:
“Has the last word been said? Is there no more hope? Has the final defeat been inflicted? No! France is not alone! ... This war is not limited to the long-suffering territory of our country. The outcome of this war is not decided by the battle for France. This is a world war ... I, General de Gaulle, currently in London, appeal to the French officers and soldiers who are on British soil ... with a call to contact me ... Whatever happens, the French resistance should not go out and will not go out. "
On June 22, 1940, a Franco-German armistice was concluded in the Compiegne forest (there and in the same carriage as in 1918), this time marking the defeat of France. On the remaining unoccupied territory of France, a government was created headed by A.F. Petain, which expressed its readiness to cooperate with the German authorities (it was located in the small town of Vichy). On the same day, Charles de Gaulle announced the creation of the Free France committee, whose goal was to organize the struggle against the occupiers.
After the surrender of France, Germany offered Great Britain to start peace talks. The British government, headed at that moment by a supporter of decisive anti-German actions, W. Churchill, refused. In response, Germany strengthened the naval blockade of the British Isles, and began massive German bombing raids on British cities. Great Britain, for its part, signed an agreement with the United States in September 1940 on the transfer of several dozen American warships to the British fleet. Germany failed to achieve its intended goals in the "Battle of Britain".
Back in the summer of 1940, the strategic direction of further actions was determined in the leading circles of Germany. The chief of the General Staff F. Halder then wrote in his official diary: "The eyes are turned to the East." Hitler said at one of the military meetings: “Russia must be liquidated. The term is spring 1941 ".
Preparing for this task, Germany was interested in expanding and strengthening the anti-Soviet coalition. In September 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan entered into a military-political alliance for a period of 10 years - the Triple Pact. It was soon joined by Hungary, Romania and the self-proclaimed Slovak state, and a few months later by Bulgaria. A German-Finnish agreement on military cooperation was also concluded. Where it was not possible to establish an alliance on a contractual basis, they acted by force. In October 1940, Italy attacked Greece. In April 1941, German troops occupied Yugoslavia and Greece. Croatia became a separate state - a satellite of Germany. By the summer of 1941, almost all of Central and Western Europe was under the rule of Germany and its allies.
1941 year
In December 1940, Hitler approved the "Barbarossa" plan, which provided for the defeat of the Soviet Union. This was a blitzkrieg (lightning war) plan. Three army groups - "North", "Center" and "South" were supposed to break through the Soviet front and capture the vital centers: the Baltic States and Leningrad, Moscow, Ukraine, Donbass. The breakthrough was ensured by the forces of powerful tank formations and aviation. Before the onset of winter, it was planned to enter the Arkhangelsk - Volga - Astrakhan line.
On June 22, 1941, the armies of Germany and its allies attacked the USSR. A new stage of the Second World War began. Its main front was the Soviet-German front, the most important component was the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people against the invaders. First of all, these are the battles that thwarted the German plan for a lightning war. Many battles can be named among them - from desperate resistance of border guards, the Smolensk battle to the defense of Kiev, Odessa, Sevastopol, besieged but never surrendered Leningrad.
The biggest event of not only military but also political significance was the battle of Moscow. The offensives of the German Army Group Center, which began on September 30 and November 15-16, 1941, did not achieve their goal. They failed to take Moscow. And on December 5-6, a counteroffensive by Soviet troops began, as a result of which the enemy was thrown back from the capital by 100-250 km, 38 German divisions were defeated. The victory of the Red Army near Moscow became possible thanks to the staunchness and heroism of its defenders and the skill of the commanders (the fronts were commanded by I.S.Konev, G.K. Zhukov, S.K. Timoshenko). This was Germany's first major defeat in World War II. W. Churchill said in this connection: "The Russian resistance broke the back of the German armies."
The balance of forces at the beginning of the Soviet counteroffensive in Moscow
Important events took place at this time in the Pacific Ocean. In the summer and autumn of 1940, Japan, taking advantage of the defeat of France, seized her possessions in Indochina. Now it has decided to strike at the strongholds of other Western powers, primarily its main rival in the struggle for influence in Southeast Asia - the United States. On December 7, 1941, more than 350 Japanese naval aircraft attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor (in the Hawaiian Islands).
Within two hours, most of the warships and aircraft of the American Pacific Fleet were destroyed or disabled, the death toll of the Americans was more than 2,400 people, and more than 1,100 were wounded. The Japanese lost several dozen people. The next day, the US Congress decided to start a war against Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
The defeat of the German troops near Moscow and the entry into the war of the United States of America accelerated the formation of the anti-Hitler coalition.
Dates and Events
- 12 July 1941 - the signing of the Anglo-Soviet agreement on joint actions against Germany.
- 14 august - F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill came out with a joint declaration on the goals of war, support for democratic principles in international relations - the Atlantic Charter; in September the USSR joined it.
- September 29 - October 1 - British-American-Soviet conference in Moscow, adopted a program of mutual deliveries of weapons, military materials and raw materials.
- 7 November - the lend-lease law (the transfer by the United States of America of weapons and other materials to Germany's opponents) is extended to the USSR
- January 1, 1942 - the Declaration of 26 states - "united nations", waging a struggle against the fascist bloc, was signed in Washington.
On the fronts of the world war
War in Africa. Back in 1940, the war spread beyond Europe. This summer, Italy, seeking to make the Mediterranean its "inland sea", tried to seize the British colonies in North Africa. Italian troops occupied British Somalia, parts of Kenya and Sudan, and then invaded Egypt. However, by the spring of 1941, the British armed forces not only drove the Italians out of the territories they had occupied, but also entered Ethiopia, which was occupied by Italy in 1935. Italian possessions in Libya were also under threat.
At the request of Italy, Germany intervened in hostilities in North Africa. In the spring of 1941, the German corps under the command of General E. Rommel, together with the Italians, began to oust the British from Libya and blockaded the Tobruk fortress. Then Egypt became the target of the offensive of the German-Italian troops. In the summer of 1942, General Rommel, nicknamed "the fox of the desert," captured Tobruk and broke through with his troops to El Alamein.
The Western powers were faced with a choice. They promised the leadership of the Soviet Union to open a second front in Europe in 1942. In April 1942, F. Roosevelt wrote to W. Churchill: “Your peoples and mine are demanding the creation of a second front in order to remove the burden from the Russians. Our peoples cannot fail to see that the Russians are killing more Germans and destroying more enemy equipment than the United States and England combined. " But these promises were at odds with the political interests of Western countries. Churchill telegraphed Roosevelt: "Keep North Africa out of sight." The Allies announced that they were forced to postpone the opening of the second front in Europe until 1943.
In October 1942, British forces under the command of General B. Montgomery launched an offensive in Egypt. They defeated the enemy at El Alamein (about 10 thousand Germans and 20 thousand Italians were captured). Most of Rommel's army retreated to Tunisia. In November, American and British troops (numbering 110 thousand) under the command of General D. Eisenhower landed in Morocco and Algeria. The German-Italian army group, trapped in Tunisia by British and American troops advancing from the east and west, capitulated in the spring of 1943. According to various estimates, from 130 thousand to 252 thousand people were captured (in total, 12-14 Italian and German divisions, while over 200 divisions of Germany and its allies fought on the Soviet-German front).
Fighting in the Pacific. In the summer of 1942, the American naval forces defeated the Japanese in the battle at Midway Island (4 large aircraft carriers, 1 cruiser were sunk, and 332 aircraft were destroyed). Later, American units occupied and defended the island of Guadalcanal. The balance of forces in this area of \u200b\u200bhostilities changed in favor of the Western powers. By the end of 1942, Germany and its allies were forced to suspend the advance of their troops on all fronts.
"New order"
In the Nazi plans to conquer the world, the fate of many nations and states was predetermined.
Hitler, in his secret notes, which became known after the war, envisioned the following: the Soviet Union "will disappear from the face of the earth", in 30 years its territory will become part of the "Great German Reich"; after the "final victory of Germany" there will be reconciliation with England, a treaty of friendship will be concluded with her; the Reich will include the countries of Scandinavia, the Iberian Peninsula and other European states; The United States of America will be "excluded from world politics for a long time", it will carry out "complete re-education of the racially inferior population", and the population "with German blood" will be given military training and "re-education in the national spirit", after which America "will become a German state." ...
Already in 1940, directives and instructions "on the Eastern question" began to be developed, and a detailed program for the conquest of the peoples of Eastern Europe was outlined in the general plan "Ost" (December 1941). The general guidelines were as follows: “The highest goal of all activities carried out in the East should be to strengthen the military potential of the Reich. The task is to withdraw from the new eastern regions the greatest amount of agricultural products, raw materials, labor "," the occupied regions will provide everything you need ... even if the result is the starvation of millions of people. " Part of the population of the occupied territories was to be destroyed on the spot, a significant part - to move to Siberia (it was planned to destroy 5-6 million Jews in the "eastern regions", evict 46-51 million people, and reduce the remaining 14 million people to the level of a semi-literate labor force, education limit to four-grade school).
In the conquered countries of Europe, the Nazis methodically put their plans into practice. In the occupied territories, a "purge" of the population was carried out - Jews and communists were exterminated. Prisoners of war and part of the civilian population were sent to concentration camps. A network of more than 30 death camps enmeshed Europe. The terrible memory of millions of tortured people is associated with the military and post-war generations with the names Buchenwald, Dachau, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc. Only in two of them - Auschwitz and Majdanek - over 5.5 million people were killed. Those who arrived at the camp underwent "selection" (selection), the weak, primarily the elderly and children, were sent to the gas chambers, and then burned in the crematoria furnaces.
From the testimony of a prisoner of Auschwitz, Frenchwoman Vaillant-Couturier, presented at the Nuremberg Trials:
“There were eight cremation ovens in Auschwitz. But since 1944, this amount has become insufficient. The SS men forced the prisoners to dig colossal ditches in which they set fire to brushwood drenched in gasoline. The corpses were thrown into these ditches. We saw from our block how, about 45 minutes or an hour after the arrival of the party of prisoners, large tongues of flame began to burst from the ovens of the crematorium, and a glow appeared in the sky, rising over the moats. One night we were awakened by a terrible cry, and the next morning we learned from the people who worked in the Sonderkommando (the team that serviced the gas chambers) that the day before there was not enough gas and therefore the children still alive were thrown into the furnaces of the cremation ovens.
In early 1942, the Nazi leaders adopted a directive on the "final solution of the Jewish question," that is, on the systematic destruction of an entire people. During the war years, 6 million Jews were killed - every third. This tragedy was named the Holocaust, which in Greek means "burnt offering". The orders of the German command to identify and transport the Jewish population to concentration camps were perceived differently in the occupied countries of Europe. In France, the Vichy police helped the Germans. Even the Pope did not dare to condemn the 1943 Germans' export of Jews from Italy for subsequent extermination. And in Denmark, the population hid Jews from the Nazis and helped 8 thousand people move to neutral Sweden. After the war, an alley was laid in Jerusalem in honor of the Righteous Among the Nations - people who risked their lives and the lives of their loved ones in order to save at least one person innocently sentenced to imprisonment and death.
For the inhabitants of the occupied countries, who were not immediately subjected to destruction or deportation, the "new order" meant strict regulation in all spheres of life. The occupation authorities and German industrialists seized the dominant position in the economy with the help of the laws of "Aryanization". Small enterprises were closed, and large ones switched to military production. Part of the agricultural areas was subject to Germanization, their population was forcibly evicted to other areas. So, from the territories of the Czech Republic bordering on Germany, about 450 thousand inhabitants were evicted, from Slovenia - about 280 thousand people. For peasants, mandatory deliveries of agricultural products were introduced. Along with control over economic activities, the new authorities pursued a policy of restrictions in the field of education and culture. In many countries, representatives of the intelligentsia were persecuted - scientists, engineers, teachers, doctors, etc. In Poland, for example, the Nazis carried out a purposeful curtailment of the education system. Universities and secondary schools were banned. (What do you think, why, why was this done?) Some teachers, risking their lives, continued to conduct classes with students illegally. During the war years, the invaders killed about 12.5 thousand teachers of higher educational institutions and teachers in Poland.
The authorities of the allied states of Germany - Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, as well as the newly proclaimed states - Croatia and Slovakia also pursued a tough policy towards the population. In Croatia, the Ustasha government (members of the nationalist movement that came to power in 1941), under the slogan of creating a "purely national state", encouraged the mass expulsion and extermination of Serbs.
The forced export of the able-bodied population, especially young people, from the occupied countries of Eastern Europe to work in Germany has become widespread. Sauckel, General Commissioner for the Use of Manpower, set the task of "completely exhausting all the manpower reserves available in the Soviet regions." Echelons with thousands of boys and girls forcibly driven away from their homes pulled into the Reich. By the end of 1942, about 7 million "Eastern workers" and prisoners of war were employed in German industry and agriculture. In 1943, another 2 million people were added to them.
Any insubordination, let alone resistance to the occupation authorities, was mercilessly punished. The destruction of the Czech village of Lidice in the summer of 1942 was one of the terrible examples of the massacre of the civilians by the Nazis. It was carried out as an "act of retaliation" for the murder of a major Nazi official, "protector of Bohemia and Moravia" G. Heydrich, committed the day before by members of a sabotage group.
The village was surrounded by German soldiers. The entire male population over 16 years old (172 people) was shot (those who were absent on that day - 19 people - were captured later and also shot). 195 women were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp (four pregnant women were taken to maternity hospitals in Prague, after giving birth they were also sent to the camp, and the newborn children were killed). 90 children from Lidice were taken away from their mothers and sent to Poland, and then to Germany, where their traces were lost. All houses and buildings of the village were burned to the ground. Lidice disappeared from the face of the earth. German cameramen carefully filmed the entire "operation" on film - "for the edification" of contemporaries and descendants.
Turning point in the war
By mid-1942, it became apparent that Germany and its allies had failed to carry out their initial military plans on any of the fronts. In subsequent hostilities, it was necessary to decide on which side the advantage would be. The outcome of the entire war depended mainly on events in Europe, on the Soviet-German front. In the summer of 1942, the German armies launched a major offensive in the southern direction, approached Stalingrad and reached the foothills of the Caucasus.
Battles for Stalingrad lasted more than 3 months. The city was defended by the 62nd and 64th armies under the command of V.I. Chuikov and M.S.Shumilov. Hitler, who had no doubts of victory, declared: "Stalingrad is already in our hands." But the counter-offensive of Soviet troops, which began on November 19, 1942 (front commanders - N.F. Vatutin, K.K.Rokossovsky, A.I. , including the commander of Field Marshal F. Paulus.
During the Soviet offensive, the losses of the armies of Germany and its allies amounted to 800 thousand people. In total, in the Battle of Stalingrad, they lost up to 1.5 million soldiers and officers - about a fourth of the forces that were then operating on the Soviet-German front.
Battle of the Kursk Bulge. In the summer of 1943, an attempt by a German offensive against Kursk from the Orel and Belgorod regions ended with a crushing defeat. On the German side, over 50 divisions (including 16 tank and motorized) participated in the operation. A special role was assigned to powerful artillery and tank strikes. On July 12, the largest tank battle of the Second World War took place on the field near the village of Prokhorovka, in which about 1200 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts collided. In early August, Soviet troops liberated Orel and Belgorod. 30 enemy divisions were defeated. The losses of the German army in this battle amounted to 500 thousand soldiers and officers, 1.5 thousand tanks. After the Battle of Kursk, the Soviet troops launched an offensive along the entire front. In the summer and autumn of 1943, Smolensk, Gomel, Left-Bank Ukraine and Kiev were liberated. The strategic initiative on the Soviet-German front passed to the Red Army.
In the summer of 1943, hostilities began in Europe and the Western powers. But they did not open, as was supposed, a second front against Germany, but struck in the south, against Italy. In July, British-American forces landed on the island of Sicily. Soon, a coup d'etat took place in Italy. Mussolini was removed from power and arrested by members of the army. A new government was created, headed by Marshal P. Badoglio. On September 3, it entered into an armistice agreement with the British-American command. On September 8, the surrender of Italy was announced, the troops of the Western powers landed in the south of the country. In response, 10 German divisions entered Italy from the north and captured Rome. On the emerging Italian front, the British-American troops, with difficulty, slowly, but still pressed the enemy (in the summer of 1944 they occupied Rome).
The turning point in the course of the war immediately affected the positions of other countries - Germany's allies. After the Battle of Stalingrad, representatives of Romania and Hungary began to find out the possibilities of concluding a separate (separate) peace with the Western powers. The Francoist government of Spain has issued statements of neutrality.
November 28 - December 1, 1943 Tehran hosted a meeting of the leaders of the three countries - members of the anti-Hitler coalition: USSR, USA and Great Britain. I. Stalin, F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill discussed mainly the question of the second front, as well as some questions of the structure of the post-war world. The leaders of the United States and Great Britain promised to open a second front in Europe in May 1944, starting the landing of the Allied forces in France.
Resistance movement
Since the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany, and then the occupation regimes in Europe, a movement of Resistance to the "new order" began. It was attended by people of different persuasions and political affiliations: communists, social democrats, supporters of bourgeois parties and non-party people. Among the first, in the pre-war years, German anti-fascists entered the struggle. Thus, in the late 1930s, an underground anti-Nazi group, headed by H. Schulze-Boysen and A. Harnack, arose in Germany. In the early 1940s, it was already a strong organization with an extensive network of conspiratorial groups (in total, up to 600 people participated in its work). The underground workers carried out propaganda and intelligence work, maintaining contact with Soviet intelligence. In the summer of 1942, the Gestapo uncovered the organization. The scale of her activities amazed the investigators themselves, who called this group the "Red Capella". After interrogation and torture, the leaders and many members of the group were sentenced to death. In his last speech at the trial H. Schulze-Boysen said: "Today you judge us, but tomorrow we will be the judges."
In a number of European countries, immediately after their occupation, an armed struggle against the invaders unfolded. In Yugoslavia, the communists became the initiators of the nationwide resistance to the enemy. Already in the summer of 1941, they created the General Staff of the People's Liberation Partisan Detachments (headed by I. Broz Tito) and decided on an armed uprising. By the fall of 1941 in Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, there were partisan detachments numbering up to 70 thousand people. In 1942, the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (NOAJ) was created; by the end of the year, it practically controlled a fifth of the country's territory. In the same year, representatives of organizations participating in the Resistance formed the Anti-Fascist Council for the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOYU). In November 1943 the veche proclaimed itself the temporary supreme body of legislative and executive power. By this time, half of the country's territory was already under his control. A declaration was adopted defining the foundations of the new Yugoslav state. On the liberated territory, national committees were created, the confiscation of enterprises and lands of the fascists and collaborators (people who collaborated with the invaders) began.
The Resistance Movement in Poland consisted of many groups of different political orientations. In February 1942, part of the underground armed formations united into the Home Army (AK), led by representatives of the Polish émigré government, which was located in London. “Peasant battalions” were created in the villages. Detachments of the Army of the People (AL) organized by the communists began to operate.
Partisan groups sabotaged transport (over 1200 military trains were blown up and about the same number set on fire), at military enterprises, and attacked police and gendarmerie stations. The underground workers issued leaflets telling about the situation at the fronts, warning the population about the actions of the occupation authorities. In 1943-1944. Partisan groups began to unite into large detachments that successfully fought against significant enemy forces, and as the Soviet-German front approached Poland, they interacted with Soviet partisan detachments and army units, and conducted joint combat operations.
The defeat of the armies of Germany and its allies at Stalingrad had a particular impact on the mood of people in the warring and occupied countries. The German security service reported on the "state of mind" in the Reich: "It has become common belief that Stalingrad marks a turning point in the war ... Unstable citizens see Stalingrad as the beginning of the end."
In Germany, in January 1943, a total (general) mobilization into the army was announced. The working day has increased to 12 hours. But simultaneously with the desire of the Hitler regime to gather the forces of the nation into an "iron fist", there was growing rejection of its policies in different groups of the population. So, one of the youth circles issued a leaflet with the appeal: “Students! Students! The German people are looking at us! We are expected to be liberated from the Nazi terror ... Those killed at Stalingrad call on us: rise, people, the flame is burning! "
After the turning point in the course of hostilities on the fronts, the number of underground groups and armed detachments that fought against the invaders and their accomplices in the occupied countries increased significantly. In France, the poppies became active - partisans who organized sabotage on the railways, attacked German posts, warehouses, etc.
One of the leaders of the French Resistance movement - Charles de Gaulle wrote in his memoirs:
“Until the end of 1942, there were few Maki units and their actions were not particularly effective. But then hope increased, and with it the number of those who wanted to fight increased. In addition, the compulsory "labor service", with the help of which in a few months half a million young men, mainly workers, were mobilized for use in Germany, as well as the dissolution of the "armistice army" prompted many dissenters to go underground. The number of more or less significant groups of Resistance increased, and they waged a guerrilla war, which played a primary role in wearing down the enemy, and later in the unfolding battle for France. "
Figures and facts
The number of participants in the Resistance movement (1944):
- France - over 400 thousand people;
- Italy - 500 thousand people;
- Yugoslavia - 600 thousand people;
- Greece - 75 thousand people.
By the middle of 1944, the governing bodies of the Resistance movement had formed in many countries, uniting different trends and groups - from communists to Catholics. For example, in France, the National Council of the Resistance included representatives from 16 organizations. The most decisive and active participants in the Resistance were the Communists. For the sacrifices made in the struggle against the invaders, they were called the "party of the executed." In Italy, Communists, Socialists, Christian Democrats, Liberals, members of the Action Party and the Democracy of Labor Party took part in the work of the National Liberation Committees.
All members of the Resistance sought first of all to free their countries from occupation and fascism. But on the question of what kind of power should be established after this, the views of representatives of certain trends differed. Some advocated the restoration of pre-war regimes. Others, especially the communists, strove to establish a new, "people's democratic government."
Liberation of Europe
The beginning of 1944 was marked by large-scale offensive operations by Soviet troops in the southern and northern sectors of the Soviet-German front. Ukraine and Crimea were liberated, the blockade of Leningrad, which had lasted for 900 days, was lifted. In the spring of this year, Soviet troops reached the state border of the USSR for over 400 km, approached the borders of Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania. Continuing to defeat the enemy, they began to liberate the countries of Eastern Europe. Alongside the Soviet soldiers, units of the 1st Czechoslovak Brigade under the command of L. Svoboda and the 1st Polish Division, formed during the war on the territory of the USSR, fought for the freedom of their peoples. T. Kosciuszko under the command of 3. Berling.
At this time, the Allies finally opened a second front in Western Europe. On June 6, 1944, American and British forces landed in Normandy, on the northern coast of France.
The bridgehead between the cities of Cherbourg and Caen was occupied by 40 divisions with a total strength of up to 1.5 million people. The allied forces were commanded by American General D. Eisenhower. Two and a half months after the landing, the Allies began to advance deep into French territory. They were opposed by about 60 understaffed German divisions. At the same time, Resistance units launched an open struggle against the German army in the occupied territory. On August 19, an uprising against the troops of the German garrison began in Paris. General de Gaulle, who arrived in France with the Allied troops (by that time he was proclaimed the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic), fearing the "anarchy" of the mass liberation struggle, insisted that Leclerc's French armored division be sent to Paris. On August 25, 1944, this division entered Paris, practically liberated by that time by the rebels.
Having liberated France and Belgium, where in a number of provinces the Resistance forces also launched armed actions against the occupiers, the Allied forces reached the German border by September 11, 1944.
At that time, on the Soviet-German front, a frontal offensive of the Red Army was taking place, as a result of which the countries of Eastern and Central Europe were liberated.
Dates and Events
Fighting in Eastern and Central Europe in 1944-1945
1944 g.
- July 17 - Soviet troops crossed the border with Poland; Chelm, Lublin freed; on the liberated territory, the power of the new government, the Polish Committee for National Liberation, began to be established.
- August 1 - the beginning of the uprising against the occupiers in Warsaw; this speech, prepared and directed by the émigré government based in London, was defeated by the beginning of October, despite the heroism of its participants; by order of the German command, the population was expelled from Warsaw, and the city itself was destroyed.
- August 23 - the overthrow of the Antonescu regime in Romania, a week later Soviet troops entered Bucharest.
- August 29 - the beginning of the uprising against the occupiers and the reactionary regime in Slovakia.
- September 8 - Soviet troops entered the territory of Bulgaria.
- September 9 - an anti-fascist uprising in Bulgaria, the coming to power of the Fatherland Front government.
- October 6 - Soviet troops and units of the Czechoslovak corps entered the territory of Czechoslovakia.
- October 20 - The troops of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia and the Red Army liberated Belgrade.
- October 22 - Red Army units crossed the border of Norway and on October 25 occupied the port of Kirkenes.
1945 g.
- January 17 - the troops of the Red Army and the Polish Army liberated Warsaw.
- January 29 - Soviet troops crossed the German border in the Poznan region. February 13 - The troops of the Red Army took Budapest.
- April 13 - Soviet troops entered Vienna.
- April 16 - the Berlin operation of the Red Army began.
- April 18 - American units entered the territory of Czechoslovakia.
- April 25 - Soviet and American troops met on the Elbe River near the city of Torgau.
Many thousands of Soviet soldiers gave their lives for the liberation of European countries. In Romania, 69 thousand soldiers and officers were killed, in Poland - about 600 thousand, in Czechoslovakia - more than 140 thousand, and about the same in Hungary. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in other, including opposing, armies. They fought on opposite sides of the front, but they were similar in one thing: no one wanted to die, especially in the last months and days of the war.
In the course of the liberation in the countries of Eastern Europe, the question of power acquired paramount importance. The pre-war governments of a number of countries were in exile and now sought to return to leadership. But in the liberated territories, new governments and local authorities appeared. They were created on the basis of the organizations of the National (Popular) Front, which arose during the war years as an association of anti-fascist forces. The organizers and most active participants in the national fronts were communists and social democrats. The programs of the new governments envisaged not only the elimination of the occupation and reactionary, pro-fascist regimes, but also broad democratic transformations in political life, socio-economic relations.
Defeat of Germany
In the fall of 1944, the troops of the Western powers - members of the anti-Hitler coalition - approached the borders of Germany. In December of this year, the German command launched a counteroffensive in the Ardennes (Belgium). American and British troops were in a difficult position. D. Eisenhower and W. Churchill appealed to JV Stalin with a request to accelerate the advance of the Red Army in order to divert German forces from west to east. By Stalin's decision, the offensive along the entire front was launched on January 12, 1945 (8 days earlier than planned). W. Churchill later wrote: "It was a wonderful feat on the part of the Russians to accelerate a broad offensive, undoubtedly at the cost of human lives." On January 29, Soviet troops entered the territory of the German Reich.
On February 4-11, 1945, a conference of the heads of government of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain took place in Yalta. J. Stalin, F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill agreed on plans for military operations against Germany and post-war policy towards it: zones and conditions of occupation, actions to destroy the fascist regime, the procedure for collecting reparations, etc. The conference also signed an agreement on accession USSR in the war against Japan 2-3 months after the surrender of Germany.
From the documents of the conference of the leaders of the USSR, Great Britain and the United States in the Crimea (Yalta, February 4-11, 1945):
“... Our unyielding goal is the destruction of German militarism and Nazism and the creation of guarantees that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the whole world. We are determined to disarm and dissolve all German armed forces, to destroy once and for all the German General Staff, which has repeatedly contributed to the revival of German militarism, to withdraw or destroy all German military equipment, to liquidate or take control of all German industry that could be used for military production; to subject all criminals of war to just and swift punishment and to recover damages in kind for the destruction caused by the Germans; to wipe out the Nazi Party, Nazi laws, organizations and institutions; to eliminate all Nazi and militaristic influences from public institutions, from the cultural and economic life of the German people, and to take jointly such other measures in Germany as may be necessary for the future peace and security of the whole world. It is not our aim to destroy the German people. Only when Nazism and militarism are eradicated will there be hope for a dignified existence for the German people and a place for them in the community of nations. "
By mid-April 1945, Soviet troops approached the capital of the Reich, on April 16 the Berlin operation began (commanders of the fronts G.K. Zhukov, I.S.Konev, K.K.Rokossovsky). It was distinguished by both the power of the offensive of the Soviet units and the fierce resistance of the defenders. On April 21, Soviet units entered the city. On April 30, A. Hitler committed suicide in his bunker. The next day, the Red Banner fluttered over the Reichstag building. On May 2, the remnants of the Berlin garrison surrendered.
During the battle for Berlin, the German command issued an order: "Defend the capital to the last man and to the last bullet." Teenagers - members of the Hitler Youth were mobilized into the army. The photo shows one of these soldiers, the last defenders of the Reich, who was captured.
On May 7, 1945, General A. Jodl signed an act of unconditional surrender of the German troops at the headquarters of General D. Eisenhower in Reims. Stalin considered this unilateral surrender to the Western powers insufficient. In his opinion, the surrender should have taken place in Berlin and before the high command of all countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. On the night of May 8-9, in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, Field Marshal V. Keitel, in the presence of representatives of the high command of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, signed an act of unconditional surrender of Germany.
Prague was the last liberated European capital. On May 5, an uprising against the invaders began in the city. A large group of German troops under the command of Field Marshal F. Scherner, which refused to lay down its arms and was breaking through to the west, threatened to seize and destroy the capital of Czechoslovakia. In response to the insurgents' request for help, units of three Soviet fronts were hastily deployed to Prague. On May 9 they entered Prague. As a result of the Prague operation, about 860 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were taken prisoner.
July 17 - August 2, 1945 in Potsdam (near Berlin) a conference of the heads of government of the USSR, USA and Great Britain took place. I. Stalin, G. Truman (US President after F. Roosevelt, who died in April 1945), K. Attlee (who replaced W. Churchill as British Prime Minister), who took part in it, discussed “the principles of coordinated policy of the Allies in relation to the Germany ". A program of democratization, denazification, and demilitarization of Germany was adopted. The total amount of reparations she had to pay was confirmed - $ 20 billion. Half was intended for the Soviet Union (it was subsequently calculated that the damage inflicted by the Nazis on the Soviet country was about $ 128 billion). Germany was divided into four zones of occupation - Soviet, American, British and French. Berlin and the Austrian capital Vienna, liberated by Soviet troops, were placed under the control of the four allied powers.
At the Potsdam Conference. In the first row from left to right: K. Attlee, G. Truman, I. Stalin
Provided was the establishment of an International Military Tribunal for the trial of Nazi war criminals. The border was established between Germany and Poland - along the Oder and Neisse rivers. East Prussia withdrew to Poland and partially (the region of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad) - to the USSR.
End of the war
In 1944, while in Europe the armies of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition were conducting a wide offensive against Germany and its allies, Japan stepped up its actions in Southeast Asia. Its troops launched a massive offensive in China, capturing an area of \u200b\u200bover 100 million people by the end of the year.
The size of the Japanese army reached 5 million at that time. Its units fought with special stubbornness and fanaticism, defended their positions to the last soldier. In the army and aviation, there were kamikaze - suicide bombers who sacrificed their lives by sending specially equipped planes or torpedoes at enemy military facilities, undermining themselves along with enemy soldiers. The American military believed that it would be possible to defeat Japan no earlier than 1947, with at least 1 million casualties. The participation of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan could, in their opinion, greatly facilitate the achievement of the assigned tasks.
In accordance with the commitment given at the Crimean (Yalta) conference, the USSR declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945. But the Americans did not want to give up the leading role in the future victory to the Soviet troops, especially since by the summer of 1945 atomic weapons had been created in the USA. On August 6 and 9, 1945, American planes dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Historians' testimony:
“On August 6, a B-29 bomber appeared over Hiroshima. The alarm was not announced, as the appearance of one plane did not seem to pose a serious threat. At 8.15 am an atomic bomb was dropped by parachute. A few moments later, a blinding fireball erupted over the city, and the temperature at the epicenter of the explosion reached several million degrees. Fires in the city, built up with light wooden houses, covered an area within a radius of more than 4 km. Japanese authors write: “Hundreds of thousands of people who became victims of atomic explosions died an unusual death - they died after terrible torment. Radiation even penetrated the bone marrow. People without the slightest scratch, looking completely healthy, in a few days or weeks, or even months, suddenly lost their hair, gums began to bleed, diarrhea appeared, the skin became covered with dark spots, hemoptysis began, and in full consciousness they died. "
(From the book: Rozanov G. L., Yakovlev N. N. Recent history. 1917-1945)
Hiroshima. 1945 g.
As a result of nuclear explosions in Hiroshima, 247 thousand people died, in Nagasaki there were up to 200 thousand killed and wounded. Later, many thousands of people died from wounds, burns, radiation sickness, the number of which has not yet been accurately calculated. But the politicians did not think about it. And the cities that were bombed were not important military installations. Those who used the bombs wanted mainly to demonstrate their strength. The President of the United States, H. Truman, upon learning that the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, exclaimed: "This is the greatest event in history!"
On August 9, troops of three Soviet fronts (over 1 million 700 thousand personnel) and parts of the Mongolian army launched an offensive in Manchuria and on the coast of North Korea. A few days later, they penetrated 150-200 km into enemy territory in some areas. The Japanese Kwantung Army (numbering about 1 million people) was under the threat of defeat. On August 14, the Japanese government announced its agreement with the proposed terms of surrender. But the Japanese troops did not stop their resistance. Only after August 17, units of the Kwantung Army began to lay down their arms.
On September 2, 1945, representatives of the Japanese government signed an act of Japan's unconditional surrender on board the American battleship Missouri.
The Second World War is over. It was attended by 72 states with a total population of over 1.7 billion people. The fighting took place in 40 countries. 110 million people were mobilized into the armed forces. In the war, according to updated estimates, up to 62 million people died, including about 27 million Soviet citizens. Thousands of cities and villages were destroyed, innumerable material and cultural values \u200b\u200bwere destroyed. Humanity paid a huge price for the victory over the invaders who were striving for world domination.
The war, in which atomic weapons were first used, showed that armed conflicts in the modern world threaten to destroy not only an increasing number of people, but also humanity as a whole, all living things on earth. The hardships and losses of the war years, as well as examples of human self-sacrifice and heroism, left a memory of themselves in several generations of people. The international and socio-political consequences of the war turned out to be significant.
References:
Aleksashkina L. N. / General history. XX - early XXI century.
War is a huge grief
World War II is the bloodiest war in human history. Lasted 6 years. 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, greed, 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.
World War II participants
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Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic - on one side
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USSR, Great Britain, USA, China - on the other
The years of World War II 1939 - 1945
Causes of World War II
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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 a 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 general 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 previous treaties
* March 12, 1938 - Annexation of Austria to Germany
* September 28-30, 1938 - transfer of the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia to Germany
* 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
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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 influence in the world
Later Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Finland, Thailand, Croatia, Spain joined the Union. 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 Dec 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 - capitulation 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 during 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 and 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. The 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 (10 July-10 September 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 (25 April-2 May 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)
It would seem that the answer to this question is absolutely clear. Any more or less educated European will name the date - September 1, 1939 - the day of the attack of Nazi Germany on Poland. And the more prepared will explain: more precisely, world war began two days later - on September 3, when Great Britain and France, as well as Australia, New Zealand and India declared war on Germany.
True, they did not immediately participate in hostilities, waging a so-called wait-and-see strange war. For Western Europe, the real war began only in the spring of 1940, when German troops invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, and from May 10 the Wehrmacht launched an offensive in France, Belgium and Holland.
Let us recall that at this time the largest powers of the world - the USA and the USSR - remained out of the war. For this reason alone, doubts arise about the complete justice of the date of the beginning of the planetary massacre established by Western European historiography.
And therefore, I think, by and large, it can be assumed that it would be more correct to consider the date of the involvement of the Soviet Union in hostilities - June 22, 1941, as the starting point of World War II. Well, I heard from the Americans that the war acquired a truly global character only after the treacherous Japanese attack on the Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor and Washington's declaration of war against militaristic Japan, Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in December 1941.
However, the most persistent and, say, from their point of view, convincingly defend the illegitimacy of the world war countdown adopted in Europe from September 1, 1939, Chinese scientists and politicians. I came across this many times at international conferences and symposia, where the Chinese participants invariably defend the official position of their country that the beginning of World War II should be considered the date when militarist Japan unleashed a full-scale war in China - July 7, 1937. There are historians in the "Celestial Empire" who believe that this date should be September 18, 1931 - the beginning of the Japanese invasion of the northeastern provinces of China, then called Manchuria.
One way or another, it turns out that this year the PRC will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the beginning of not only the Japanese aggression against China, but also the Second World War.
One of the first in our country to seriously pay attention to such a periodization of the history of World War II, the authors of the collective monograph prepared by the Foundation for Historical Perspectives “Score of World War II. Thunderstorm in the East "(Auth.-comp. A.A. Koshkin. M., Veche, 2010).
In the foreword, the head of the Foundation, Doctor of Historical Sciences N. Narochnitskaya notes:
“According to the ideas established in historical science and in the public consciousness, World War II began in Europe with the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, after which Great Britain was the first of the future victorious powers to declare war on the fascist Reich. However, this event was preceded by large-scale military clashes in other parts of the world, which are unreasonably viewed by Eurocentric historiography as peripheral, and therefore secondary.
By September 1, 1939, a truly world war was already in full swing in Asia. China, fighting Japanese aggression since the mid-1930s, has already lost twenty million lives. In Asia and Europe, the Axis countries - Germany, Italy and Japan - have issued ultimatums for several years, deployed troops and redrawn borders. Hitler, with the connivance of Western democracies, seized Austria and Czechoslovakia, Italy occupied Albania and waged a war in North Africa, where 200 thousand Abyssinians died.
Since the end of World War II is considered the surrender of Japan, the war in Asia is recognized as part of the Second World War, but the question of its beginning needs a more substantiated definition. The traditional periodization of World War II needs rethinking. In terms of the scale of the redistribution of the world and military operations, in terms of the scale of the victims of aggression, the Second World War began in Asia long before Germany's attack on Poland, long before the Western powers entered the world war.
The word in the collective monograph was also given to Chinese scientists. Historians Luan Jinghe and Xu Zhimin note:
“According to one of the generally accepted points of view, the Second World War, which lasted six years, began on September 1, 1939 with the German attack on Poland. Meanwhile, there is a different view of the starting point of this war, in which more than 60 states and regions participated at different times and which disrupted the lives of over 2 billion people around the world. The total number of mobilized people from both sides was over 100 million, the death toll was more than 50 million. The direct cost of the war was $ 1.352 trillion, and the financial loss reached $ 4 trillion. We are citing these figures to once again indicate the scale of the enormous disasters that the Second World War brought to humanity in the twentieth century.
There is no doubt that the formation of the Western Front meant not only the expansion of the scale of hostilities, it also played a decisive role in the course of the war.
However, an equally important contribution to victory in World War II was made on the Eastern Front, where the Chinese people waged an eight-year war against the Japanese invaders. This resistance became an important part of the world war.
An in-depth study of the history of the Chinese people's war against the Japanese invaders and understanding its meaning will help to create a more complete picture of the Second World War.
This is what the proposed article is devoted to, which argues that the real date for the outbreak of World War II should be considered not September 1, 1939, but July 7, 1937 - the day when Japan unleashed a full-scale war against China.
If we accept this point of view and do not strive to artificially divide the Western and Eastern fronts, there will be all the more reason to call the anti-fascist war ... the Great World War ”.
The author of the article in the collective monograph, a major Russian sinologist, a full member of the RAS V.S. Myasnikov, who does a lot to restore historical justice, to properly assess the contribution of the Chinese people to the victory over the so-called "Axis countries" - Germany, Japan and Italy, who were striving to enslave the peoples and world domination. An authoritative scholar writes:
“As for the outbreak of World War II, there are two main versions: European and Chinese ... Chinese historiography has long argued that it is time to move away from Eurocentrism (which, in essence, is similar to negro people) in assessing this event and admit that the beginning of this war is falling on July 7, 1937 and is associated with the open aggression of Japan against China. Let me remind you that the territory of China is 9.6 million square meters. km, that is, approximately equal to the territory of Europe. By the time the war began in Europe, most of China, where its largest cities and economic centers were located - Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, was occupied by the Japanese. Almost the entire railway network of the country fell into the hands of the invaders, and its sea coast was blocked. Chongqing became the capital of China during the war.
It should be borne in mind that China lost 35 million people in the war of resistance to Japan. The European public is not sufficiently aware of the monstrous crimes of the Japanese military.
So, on December 13, 1937, Japanese troops captured the then capital of China - Nanjing and carried out a mass extermination of civilians and a robbery of the city. The victims of this crime were 300 thousand people. These and other crimes were convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East at the Tokyo Trial (1946-1948).
But, finally, objective approaches to this problem began to appear in our historiography ... The collective work provides a detailed picture of military and diplomatic moves, which fully confirms the necessity and validity of revising the outdated Eurocentric point of view. "
For my part, I would like to note that the proposed revision will cause resistance from pro-government historians of Japan, who not only do not recognize the aggressive nature of their country's actions in China and the number of victims in the war, but also do not consider the eight-year destruction of the Chinese population and the all-round plundering of China as a war. They stubbornly refer to the Sino-Japanese war as an "incident" allegedly caused by China, despite the absurdity of such a name of military and punitive actions, during which tens of millions of people were killed. They do not recognize the aggression of Japan in China and an integral part of the Second World War, claiming that they participated in the world conflict, opposing only the United States and Great Britain.
In conclusion, it should be admitted that our country has always objectively and comprehensively assessed the contribution of the Chinese people to the victory of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition in World War II.
High assessments of the heroism and self-sacrifice of Chinese soldiers in this war are also given in modern Russia, both by historians and leaders of the Russian Federation. Such assessments are duly contained in the 12-volume work "The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" by prominent Russian historians, issued by the Russian Defense Ministry for the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory. Therefore, there is reason to expect that our scientists and politicians, during the measures planned for the upcoming 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war, will treat with understanding and solidarity the position of the Chinese comrades, who consider the events that took place in July 1937 to be the starting point that then fell on almost the entire world of unprecedented planetary tragedy.
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On September 1, 1939, the armed forces of Germany and Slovakia invaded Poland. Simultaneously, the German battleship "Schleswig-Holstein" fired on the fortifications of the Polish peninsula Westerplatte. Since Poland entered into an alliance with England, France and, this was seen as a declaration of war by Hitler.
On September 1, 1939, universal military service was declared in the USSR. The draft age was lowered from 21 to 19, and in some cases to 18. This quickly increased the size of the army to 5 million. The USSR began to prepare for war.
Hitler justified the necessity of attacking Poland by the incident in Gleiwitz, carefully avoiding "" and fearing the outbreak of hostilities against England and France. He promised the Polish people guarantees of immunity and expressed his intention only to actively defend against "Polish aggression".
The Gleiwitz incident was a provocation by the Third Reich to create a pretext for an armed conflict: SS officers, dressed in Polish military uniforms, carried out a series of attacks on the Polish-German border. The victims of the attack were pre-killed prisoners of concentration camps and delivered directly to the scene.
Until the last moment, Hitler hoped that Poland's allies would not stand up for her and Poland would be transferred to Germany in the same way as the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia was transferred in 1938.
England and France declare war on Germany
Despite the Fuhrer's hopes, on September 3, 1945, England, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany. Within a short time they were joined by Canada, Newfoundland, the Union of South Africa and Nepal. The United States and Japan have declared neutrality.The British ambassador who arrived at the Reich Chancellery on September 3, 1939 and passed an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of troops from Poland, shocked Hitler. But the war had already begun, the Fuhrer did not want to leave diplomatically what had been conquered with weapons, and the offensive of German troops on Polish soil continued.
Despite the declared war, on the Western Front, the Anglo-French troops did not take any active action from September 3 to 10, with the exception of military operations at sea. This inaction allowed Germany to completely destroy the Polish armed forces in just 7 days, leaving only minor pockets of resistance. But they will be completely eliminated by October 6, 1939. It was on this day that Germany announced the end of the existence of the Polish state and government.
Participation of the USSR at the beginning of World War II
According to the secret additional protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, including Poland, were clearly delineated between the USSR and Germany. Therefore, on September 16, 1939, the Soviet Union brought its troops into Polish territory and occupied the lands that later fell into the zone of influence of the USSR and were included in the Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR and Lithuania.Despite the fact that the USSR and Poland did not declare war on each other, many historians consider the fact that Soviet troops entered Polish territory in 1939 as the date of the USSR's entry into the Second World War.
On October 6, Hitler proposed to convene a peace conference between the world's major powers to resolve the Polish question. Britain and France set a condition: either Germany withdraws its troops from Poland and the Czech Republic and grants them independence, or there will be no conference. The leadership of the Third Reich rejected this ultimatum and the conference did not take place.