A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

CHAPTER 26

WORLD WAR II

For the second time in just twenty-five years, a European con­
flict became a world war. It would be even more devastating than World
War I, wreaking destruction on a global scale. Germany’s invasion of
Poland on September 1, 1939, like its invasion of Belgium in 1914, started
a chain reaction that brought the world powers into the conflict. The
Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states of
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Japan joined Germany and Italy, and the
United States entered the war on the side of Great Britain and the free
French government exiled in London. Following Germany’s invasion of the
Soviet Union in June 1941, the Communist state became an ally of Britain
and the United States.
The Second World War was the first in which civilian populations became
systematic, strategic targets. Beginning with the invasion of Poland, Ger­
many used genocide both as an instrument of war and as an end in itself.
More than 6 million Jews perished in Europe during World War II, most in
German death camps. The technology of warfare developed rapidly; exist­
ing weapons w'ere perfected, and by the end of the war, the atomic bomb, a
terrible new weapon, had taken a terrible toll on human life. When the
war ended in 1945, Europe seemed to be entering an even more threaten­
ing era. Unlike at the end of World War I in 1918, few people imagined
that World War II would be the “war to end all wars.”

The Coming of World War II

Determined to achieve his territorial goals and willing to go to war if nec­

essary to do so, Adolph Hitler in 1936 allied with Italy and Japan. He sent

German troops into Austria in 1938 and then Czechoslovakia a year later,

believing that Great Britain and France would not resist, but prepared to

go to war if they did so. Finally, Germany and the Soviet Union astonished

the world in August 1939 by signing a mutual nonaggression pact. This

cleared the way for Hitler to launch a murderous attack on Poland. That

pact included a secret agreement by which Germany and the Soviet Union

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