World War II and its Consequences : Germany

But Hitler wanted more. From the outset he prepared for a war he was willing to wage to subjugate Europe. He demonstrated th|s as early as March 1939 when he had his troops march into Czechoslovakia. With his attack on Poland on 1 September 1939, he unleashed World Warll, which lasted five and a half years, devastated much ot Europe and killed 55 million people. The German rmies first defeated Poland, Denmark, Norway, °lland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia nd Greece. In the Soviet Union they advanced to a p S|t’on just short of Moscow, and in North Africa they threatened the Suez Canal. Harsh occupation regimes were set up in the conquered countries. They were fought by resistance movements.

In 1942 the regime began the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”: All the Jews the regime could lay its hands on were taken to concentration camps and murdered. The total number of victims is estimated at six million. The year in which this inconceivable crime began marked the turning point in the war. From then on, Germany and its allies suffered setbacks in all theaters.

The terror of the National Socialist regime and the military setbacks strengthened resistance against Hitler in all classes of society. A coup attempt on 2OJuly 1944, carried out mainly by officers, failed. Hitler survived a bomb planted in his headquarters and took terrible revenge. More than 4,000 people from all walks of life who had been involved in the resistance were executed in the following months. Outstanding figures of the resistance, whose names stand for all the victims, were General Ludwig Beck, Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, the former lord mayor of Leipzig Carl Goerdeler, and the Social Democrat Julius Leber.

The war continued. Hitler prosecuted it under enormous losses until the entire Reich area was occupied by the Allied forces. Then, on 30April 1945, the dictator killed himself. Eight days later, the successor he had willed by testament, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, carried out the unconditional capitulation.