Second World War
Second World War : It was the largest and bloodiest armed conflict in world history in which the countries that made up the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers clashed , between 1939 and 1945 . After six years of hard fighting, on August 14 , 1945 , the end of the war was declared with the victory of the Allies after the fall of the regimes of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Hideki Tojo in the Empire of Japan . Conservative figures establish that the war caused the death of around 60 million people [1] , with the Soviet Union , China and Germany being the nations that had the most victims.
After the war ended, the world was divided into two blocs, the capitalist bloc, led by the United States and with influence over Western Europe and other domains, and the communist bloc, led by the USSR and with influence over Eastern Europe .
Summary
[ disguise ]
- 1 General information
- 2 Causes
- 1 Causes in Europe
- 1.1 German resentment
- 1.2 Italian situation
- 1.3 Anti-communist ideologies: Fascism and Nazism
- 1.4 German rearmament
- 1.5 Weakness of the League of Nations
- 1.6 The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
- 1.7 The Pact of Steel
- 1.8 The Tripartite Pact
- 1.9 German-Soviet Pact
- 2 Causes in Asia
- 2.1 Japanese expansionism
- 3 Course of the war
- 1 European theater
- 1.1 Invasion of Poland
- 1.2 Invasion of Finland
- 1.3 Northern or Norwegian Campaign
- 1.4 Battle of France
- 1.5 Bombings of England
- 1.6 Balkan Campaign (1941)
- 1.7 Great Patriotic War
- 1.8 Opening of the European fronts
- 1.8.1 Mediterranean Front
- 1.8.2 Reopening of the Western Front
- 1.9 Battle of Berlin
- 4 Historical consequences
- 5 The Nuremberg Trial
- 1 Background
- 2 Why Nuremberg
- 3 The charges of the accusation
- 4 Sentence
- 5 Execution
- 6 References
- 7 Bibliographic sources
- 8 See related articles
- 9 External links
- 10 Fonts
- 1 European theater
- 1 Causes in Europe
General data
72 States took part in the Second World War, [2] the strength of all participating armies was 110 million men, of which 34 million died (31% of the total), 28 million men were maimed (25% of the total of troops), casualties in the civilian population exceeded 24.8 million people, more than 5 million people disappeared and expenses are estimated at more than 935 billion dollars. [2] As a consequence of Nazi-fascist aggression, the Soviet Union lost 50% of its economic potential, including the vital heavy industry of the Donez Basin and the agricultural centers of Ukraine and Belarus . This is explained because until mid- 1944 , 95% of German war potential was on the Eastern Front. Around 20 million citizens of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics lost their lives and 25 million lost their homes, as they were destroyed by that war.
The Soviets had more than 30,000 factories destroyed; Germany practically lost its entire industrial infrastructure: more than 2,250,000 homes were destroyed and another 2.5 million were partially destroyed. It is said that more than 400 million cubic meters of debris remained. China lost between 3 and 8 million people, 6 million Jews were exterminated, within the so-called Jewish Holocaust .
On February 13 , 1945 , Allied aviation destroyed the city of Dresden , in Germany , where almost 130,000 people (most of them refugees) died due to this bombing. Other cities such as Berlin , Hamburg , Munich and Nuremberg were destroyed in the same air campaign, in whose massive attacks more than 1,000 bombers participated.
Hundreds of bodies of dead prisoners in the Nordhausen concentration camp (photo taken on April 12 , 1945 )
One of the most horrendous crimes committed by German fascism during World War II was the so-called Holocaust where millions of people, including Jews, Islamists, homosexuals and communists, were exterminated in about 20 human concentration and extermination camps created to murder human beings. The total number of people who lost their lives in these death camps has not yet been determined exactly, although conservative figures estimate the victims at 20 million people, the vast majority of them civilians, women, children, the elderly, handicapped and disabled.
Causes
Causes in Europe
German resentment
On November 9 , 1919 , the German Empire , one of the promoters and drivers of the First World War, had fallen after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the subsequent proclamation of the German Republic or Weimar Republic . The new government, divided between socialists and conservatives, had to face the consequences of the application of the agreements of the Treaty of Versailles [3] , which established in some of its clauses the following measures:
- Payment of compensation by Germany to the Allies for the economic losses suffered by them as a result of the war.
- Reduction of the German army to the number of 100 thousand men, without the right to possess any modern combat weapons (tanks, aircraft and submarines).
- Reduction of the German Fleet to ships smaller than 10 thousand tons.
- Loss of important and strategic German territories such as Alsace and Lorraine , Saarland , Schleswig-Holstein, much of the West Prussia region and most of the German colonies in Africa and Oceania .
Such measures conditioned the formation of resentment towards the loss of national territory as well as the theft of the sovereignty of Germany and its government, which became controlled by external entities such as the governments of France and the United Kingdom as well as the Society of Nations . Within this context, the so-called “National Socialist” movement began to form, which in its beginnings was led by the German Workers’ Party until February 24, 1920 , when the party changed its name to become the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, whose main figure It was Adolf Hitler .
Italian situation
Italy , one of the winners of the War, did not receive enough territorial concessions to offset the cost of the war or to see its ambitions fulfilled, which is why it had not been left with the distribution of territories under the Treaty of Versailles , in which France , the United Kingdom and Belgium had obtained the highest results. On the other hand, the harsh situation in the fields as well as the famine in the cities, led to the growth of popular discontent towards the socialist government led by the Italian Socialist Party and with it the rise to power of Benito Mussolini ‘s National Fascist Party .
Anti-communist ideologies: Fascism and Nazism
Fascism : Mussolini founded a newspaper in 1914 , “Il popolo d’Italia”, a platform that he used to incite Italy’s entry into the First World War . [4] At the end of the war, he created a union of ex-combatants called “FFasci di combattimento”. [4] From this group was born the fascist movement, of a nationalist and anti-communist nature. The fascists declared the fight against communism and the weak government of the time, organizing expeditions to Italian towns, where they forced the socialist mayors to resign.
Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini established the first fascist dictatorship in Italy in 1922 . His regime was nationalist and totalitarian. The economy was organized based on union corporations that brought together workers and bosses. Corporatism is one of the main characteristics that identified fascism. The military preparation of the population was another of the objectives of the fascist regime.
Mussolini himself signed an entry in the Italian Encyclopedia in 1932 titled doctrine of fascism [5] [6] . Today this text is often cited as the “original” definition of Italian fascism, which, in turn, is considered the “original” fascism.
Although the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism and democracy, that does not mean that the 20th century should also be the century of socialism, liberalism and democracy. Political doctrines pass; the nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century that tends towards ‘the good’, a fascist century. If the 19th was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism), we are free to believe that this is the century of the ‘collective’, and therefore the century of the state.
The fascist conception of the state is totally inclusive; Outside of it no human or spiritual value can exist, much less have value. Understanding this, fascism is totalitarian, and the fascist state – synthesis and unity that includes all values - interprets, develops and enhances the entire life of a people.
(…)Fascism is a religious conception, in which a man is seen from the perspective of his immanent relationship with a higher law and with an objective Will, which transcends the particular individual and elevates him to conscious belonging to a spiritual society. Anyone who has not seen in the religious policies of the fascist regime nothing more than mere opportunism has not understood that fascism, apart from being a system of government, is also, and above all, a system of thought.
Nazism : Adolf Hitler postulated that according to natural laws, the strongest should prevail over the weakest. He also considered that there was a natural tendency towards the duration of races, an idea on which he based himself to fight for the purity of the Aryan race, the ethnic trunk of the Germans.
According to Hitler, the Aryans were a privileged “culture-shaping” race. [7] The Jews , on the other hand, represented for him a people who destroyed that culture. Hitler saw anti-Semitism as a foundation of his historical mission. This led him to unleash a relentless persecution, which began by stripping the Jews of their property, continued with their discrimination in all aspects and culminated with five million victims in the concentration camps. Nationalisms that transform into imperialisms.
The desire for expansion and dominance of the national socialist regime that led to the invasion of Poland by Germany meant the outbreak of war two days later. Germany’s aggression against Poland became inevitable. Poland, a Slavic state , constituted an obstacle to the eastward expansion dreamed of by Hitler. Since 1919 , Germany was trying to formulate a border claim at the expense of Poland, a country that included a German minority between 700 and 800 thousand individuals, which in the opinion of the Germans, the borders of Upper Silesia also constituted a “flagrant injustice.” Furthermore, the issue of Danzig ( Gdańsk ) and the Polish corridor had been producing great friction between Warsaw and Berlin. In 1919 Danzig became a free state under the control of the League of Nations , [8] but Germany claimed it because it believed that its population was almost exclusively German-speaking .
German rearmament
Contrary to popular belief, German rearmament did not begin with the rise of Hitler but began once the First World War had ended , during the so-called Weimar Republic . It is at this stage that Chancellor (head of government) Hermann Müller approves government decrees that promote various secret rearmament policies which violate the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. Several subsequent investigations demonstrated the hypothesis that the great powers (United Kingdom and France) knew about the rearmament plans from the beginning although they did not take action to stop the race because they considered the positions of the governments during the First Republic harmless.
Once the NSAP ( National Socialist German Workers’ Party ) came to power, rearmament became a government priority, especially based on the passionate and nationalist Nazi discourse that considered the task of recovering the usurped territories as a matter of national security. during the First World War to Germany. That is why, starting in 1933, Hitler began the largest expansion of industrial production ever seen in Germany.
The task of reviving the so-called military-industrial complex in Germany was a well-thought-out and costly strategy. Two men with great knowledge in politics and economics ( Wilhelm Frick [9] and Hjalmar Schacht) were appointed by Hitler to direct the ambitious rearmament plans. Among the approved policies were the creation of a series of “facade” companies that acted not only as money-raisers to support the nascent industry but also entities that trained pilots, drivers and members of militias under the strictest secrecy.
Rearmament meant a sudden change in economic expectations for a large part of the German industrial sector, greatly affected by the crisis of 1929. Some large companies, specialized in obsolete products and technologies, diversified and introduced decisive innovations in their production structures. Shipyards, for example, diversified to give rise to the aircraft industry, creating opportunities for revolutionary technological advances.
Weakness of the League of Nations
In 1935 Mussolini had attacked Ethiopia and with a great deployment of forces he soon defeated the disorganized troops of the Negus Fallé Selassie occupying Addis Adeba . [10] The League of Nations applied economic sanctions that did not even prevent the arrival of oil necessary for the war to Italian ports. England allowed ships loaded with troops to pass through the Suez Canal and with these events the League of Nations was completely discredited, strengthening Italy and reinforcing the Rome – Berlin axis .
The League of Nations (dominated by Great Britain ) could not prevent the outbreak of new international conflicts nor fulfill the peacekeeping mission for which it had supposedly been conceived. He could not impose a ceasefire when Japan, Italy and Germany began aggression. Although it applied economic and diplomatic sanctions, the guilty countries chose to leave the organization rather than abide by them.
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
It is said that the Spanish Civil War was a kind of testing ground, in which the weapons that would later be used in the Second World War were tested, which began when the peninsular conflict ended. Hitler, after denouncing the disarmament clauses imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles , organizing a new Air Force and reintroducing military service, put his new weaponry to the test during the Spanish Civil War. Germany and Italy delivered war materials to Franco and sent specialized troops to fight on Spanish soil against the Republican government in 1936 . The other powers did not want to provoke a direct confrontation and refrained from intervening in the fight.
The Pact of Steel
The Pact of Steel or Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was the political-military agreement that sealed the German-Italian alliance and with it the destiny of Europe and the future war. Although from the beginning, Mussolini did not sympathize with Hitler , especially with his war discourse and his image of a Germanic Europe, the fact that Italian fascism and German Nazism had strong similarities ended up bringing them closer. In that sense, Hitler needed Italy’s help to fulfill his clear intentions of invading Poland . He also wanted to have allies in Europe, with the aim of discouraging the United Kingdom and France from declaring war on him.
The signing of the agreement took place on May 22 , 1939 in the city of Berlin between the Foreign Ministers Galezzo Ciano for the Kingdom of Italy and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany , laying the foundations for future mutual military and logistical support. in case of war. The agreement contained a secret clause, where both totalitarian governments agreed to control their respective presses and propaganda media to enhance the image of both governments.
Despite everything, on September 1 , 1939 , when German forces entered Poland , Mussolini and Ciano renounced supporting Germany in its military adventure for fear of a confrontation with France and the United Kingdom . It would not be until the French defeat in 1940 that Mussolini would validate the Pact of Steel, finally declaring war on the United Kingdom and the already defeated France.
The tripartite pact
Main Article: Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis
The so-called Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis emerged after the signing of the so-called Tripartite Pact or Axis Pact , which was signed in Berlin on September 27 , 1940 by Saboru Kurusu , Adolf Hitler and Galeazzo Ciano , representing the Empire of Japan , Germany and the Kingdom of Italy . It constituted the military alliance between these nations, and officially the Axis Forces were formed, opposed to the Allied Forces in the war. In the following months, the kingdoms of Hungary , Bulgaria , Romania , and Yugoslavia would adhere to the pact, the first three to receive territory in the Balkans, and the last to avoid being invaded. The Slovak State also acceded to the Pact after the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia .
By the date of signing the pact, Italy and Germany had already begun military campaigns against the Allies. While Japan had peacefully occupied French Indochina, after putting pressure on the French colonial authorities who could not count on any help from the metropolis (invaded by the Wehrmacht since June). Until then, Asia’s colonial power, the United Kingdom , had committed military units in small numbers to the protection of its colonies, partly because most of its troops were already too busy fighting Germany. Only the United States had been preparing to face the Japanese military threat, but they were not prepared to face a war on two fronts, that is, against Germany and Japan simultaneously.
The Tripartite Pact recognized the spheres of influence of the three original members, and promoted cooperation among its members to establish a new world order, and to promote the prosperity and well-being of their peoples. It also ordered its members to support, by all possible means, a member that was attacked by an external power, except for those that were already at war, in this case France and the United Kingdom. Under this last condition, Japan was not obliged to attack the United Kingdom’s Asian colonies, although it eventually did so in December 1941. At a specific request from Japan, the Soviet Union was not included in the list of attacking powers, for So when Germany invaded this country, Japan had no formal obligation to join the German aggression. In this way, the main power affected in practice by the Tripartite Pact was the United States, since if it went to war with Japan, it would have to prepare to fight in Europe and Asia at the same time.
The governments of Japan, Germany and Italy consider it a prerequisite for lasting peace that every nation in the world receives the space to which it is entitled. Therefore, these nations have decided to support and cooperate with each other in their efforts in Europe and Greater East Asia respectively. The main purpose of this is to establish and maintain a new order of things, planned to promote the mutual prosperity and well-being of the peoples involved. Furthermore, it is the desire of the three governments to extend cooperation to nations in other spheres of influence that are inclined to direct their efforts through avenues similar to their own for the purpose of realizing their ultimate goal, world peace. So, the governments of Japan, Germany and Italy have agreed:
ARTICLE 1: Japan recognizes and respects the leadership of Germany and Italy in establishing a new order in Europe.
ARTICLE 2: Germany and Italy recognize and respect Japan’s leadership in establishing a new order in Greater East Asia.
ARTICLE 3: Japan, Germany and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts along the lines discussed. They will assist each other with all political, economic and military means if one of the signatory nations is attacked by a power that is not currently involved in the European conflict or the Sino-Japanese conflict.
ARTICLE 4: With a view to implementing the Pact, technical commissions, appointed by the respective governments of Japan, Germany and Italy, must meet without delay.
ARTICLE 5: Japan, Germany and Italy affirm that the agreements do not affect in any way the current political status between each of the signatory powers and Soviet Russia.
ARTICLE 6: This agreement will be valid immediately after its signature and will remain so for ten years from the date on which it became effective. Before the expiration of that term, the signatory Powers may, at the request of one of them, enter into negotiations to renew the pact.
Fragment taken from the text of the Tripartite Pact [11]
German-Soviet Pact
Main Article: Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact
On June 2 , 1939, Stalin took the initiative and proposed the formation of a military alliance with the West. Western nations studied the Soviet approach and sent delegations to Moscow by sailboat, arriving on August 11 . At this point the Soviets discovered that the delegates had no authority to sign an agreement. Negotiations progressed slowly, but stalled when Kliment Voroshilov proposed discussing the defense of Poland . The Polish government flatly refused to let Soviet troops enter Poland, as they feared that their State would lose the territories gained in the Peace of Riga. In the third week of August, the Polish refusal completely paralyzed the progress of the negotiations, even under Anglo-French pressure.
There are two main points of view on the motivation for the Soviet actions of the following days. Historians have stated that after the Munich Conference, Stalin believed he saw a Western plan to push Hitler toward Russia. Even after the United Kingdom and France re-assured their guarantees towards Poland , Stalin considered that they were insincere, and that the Western democracies would make the Soviet Union and Germany fight in the first stage of the war, while they grew stronger. In this way, the two main threats to the West, Bolshevism and Nazism, would annihilate each other. However, other historians have argued that the British declaration on Polish security gave Stalin the opportunity to condition his participation in the war, and that the alleged Western conspiracy was a pretext to justify parallel negotiations with Germany. Furthermore, they blame Stalin for the failure of the negotiations, since he requested the military occupation of the Baltic States, in exchange for offering his help, a proposal unacceptable to the British and French.
Finally, they claim that Stalin, fearful of an insurrection against him, preferred to sacrifice the Polish cushion state to appease Nazi Germany. In both cases, historians agree that the Soviet-Japanese clash, which was taking place at that time in Manchuria , made Stalin realize that this was not the right time to start war with Germany.
Stalin and Ribbentrop greet each other during the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact , August 24 , 1939 .
The first indication of German-Soviet rapprochement came on May 3, when Stalin replaced Maxim Litvinov , an ethnic Jew , with Vyacheslav Molotov as Foreign Minister; The Nazis could now negotiate with the Soviet Union again. On August 19 , Joachim von Ribbentrop traveled to Moscow and met with Molotov, for the signing of a seven-year trade agreement. Ribbentrop then suggested extending the agreement to the political sphere, to ensure good relations between the nations for the duration of the trade agreement.
On August 24 , Ribbentrop met with Stalin and signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact , which stipulated non-aggression between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany for 10 years, as well as the neutrality of one nation if the other went to war. war with a third power, which could be understood as France and the United Kingdom . A secret clause, unknown until 1945 , indicated that Finland , Estonia and Latvia would become part of the Soviet sphere of influence, while Poland and Lithuania would be divided between Germany and Russia . Additionally, the Bessarabia region would be annexed by the Soviets from Romania .
However, although his latest actions contradicted him, Hitler wanted to avoid war with the West. In addition to momentarily neutralizing the Soviet giant, Hitler believed that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact would force the United Kingdom and France to renounce their commitment to Poland . Until the last moment the German dictator believed that those nations would not go to war if he attacked the Poles. However, this was not the case.
Causes in Asia
Japanese expansionism
After the Great Depression , the Empire of Japan began a great approach towards the fascist model, using a campaign in which it presented itself as a modern and expansionist empire with great interests in taking Asia towards the path of modernization. However, unlike Adolf Hitler and Victor Emmanuel III , Japan had two economic objectives for developing an empire.
The first, like its European counterparts, created a closely controlled domestic military industry, which was drastically hit by the global crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s. In that sense, the lack of resources on the islands From Japan, in order to maintain a growing industrial sector, raw materials such as iron , oil and coal had to be imported mostly from the United States, which had become Japan’s main trading partner. Thus, due to the scheme of military-industrial development and industrial growth, the prevalent mercantilist theories made it essential to control several colonies in the area of Southeast and Central Asia, mainly in strategic enclaves of China , Russia and Indochina .
The first expansionist actions occurred in 1895 with the invasion of Formosa (current Taiwan ) and the invasion of Korea in 1910 , which were annexed as agricultural colonies, dedicated exclusively to the production of food that would allow the agri-food sustenance of the nascent expansionist Empire. The eyes of Japanese expansionism were set on the vast resources of iron and coal in the area of Manchuria (northern China and Mongolia), rubber in Indochina and the vast territories belonging to China .
Japanese forces enter Manchuria
With few problems, Japan invades and conquers the entire region of Manchuria (called Manchukuo) in 1931 . Apparently, Japan justifies it to free the Manchus from the Chinese, just as in the case of the annexation of Korea, which was supposedly an act of protection. Like Korea, a puppet government is created, governed under the figure of the deposed Chinese emperor, the boy Piyu. Later, Jehol, a Chinese territory that borders Manchuria, was controlled in 1933 .
Japan invades China in 1937 , creating what was essentially a three-pronged war between Japan, Mao Zedong ‘s communists, and Chiang Kai-Shek ‘s nationalists . Japan takes control of many of China’s coasts and port cities, but avoided attacking European colonies and their spheres of influence. In 1936 , before the invasion of China, Japan signed an Anti-Communist Treaty with Germany and another with Italy in 1937 .
Course of the war
European theater
Invasion of Poland
Girl cries before the body of one of the civilian victims of the Nazi bombings of Warsaw on September 13 , 1939 .
On September 1 , 1939 , the German armies crossed the Polish border, and in a matter of days neutralized the Polish army, which was not prepared to face the consequences of the Blitzkrieg doctrine . On September 3, the governments of France and the United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany , to Hitler’s surprise, but this did not mean any change in the course of the war in Poland , since the allies did not consider sending troops to this country. country because they hoped that the declaration of war would serve as a deterrent in order to avoid being attacked by the Nazis.
When on October 1 , the Wehrmacht occupied Warsaw [12] , the Polish Military High Command decided to direct its forces south, towards the border with Romania , where they planned to contain the Germans indefinitely until the arrival of the promised aid. This plan fell apart when the Soviet Union invaded Poland from its other border on September 17 , under the pretext of protecting Ukrainians and Belarusians living in the eastern part of Poland, due to the collapse of the Polish administration following the invasion. Nazi. After this, the forces of the Polish Army fled to Romania , while the Nazis installed a puppet government which would remain until 1945 .
Invasion of Finland
Stalin , still concerned about a very possible war with Germany, proceeded to accelerate the organization of the Soviet armed forces, and focused his sights on the western borders. In that sense, aware of the fact that Finland had declared its sympathy with the Nazi Axis, the Soviet political command foresaw the possibility that said territory would be used by Hitler as an access point for an imminent invasion. That is why they are making an intense effort to convince the authorities of said nation, offering them greater territories to the north in exchange for receiving territories around Lake Ladoga, which would serve to protect the city of Leningrad, very close to the new theater of operations. war.
The Finnish government of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim refused, and after failed negotiations, the Soviet Union began its invasion of the small neighbor. The result of the Soviet offensive was disappointing, the numerically superior Soviet armies were unable to confront the Finnish forces, better adapted to the harsh climate of the Arctic battlefield, and thousands of Soviet soldiers died due to the inefficiency of their commanders. Then, Stalin removed his protégé Kliment Voroshilov from command , and with fresh troops under the command of Semyon Timoshenko they restarted the attack. This time the exhausted Finnish defenders were overwhelmed and Finland had to cede much of its territory to the Soviet Union.
The Soviet failure in Finland did not go unnoticed by Hitler, who began to underestimate the Red Army and consider the possibility of an attack as quickly as possible. For his part, Stalin began to grant more autonomy to the process of appointing army commanders.
Northern or Norwegian Campaign
Hitler, who was concerned about the possibility that the British would attack Norway and Sweden as a way to cut off the important supply of iron to the Nazi troops, decided to direct his forces towards Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which took place during the spring of April 1940. occupation of these territories ended up convincing the United Kingdom of the need to carry out an attack to expel the Nazis from Norway with the aim of avoiding by all means that the Luftwaffe (Nazi Air Force) could direct direct attacks towards the weak area. from the British north. During the confrontation, approximately 45 thousand soldiers were used by the Nazi side while the British used a total of 80 thousand soldiers as an approximate, although the difference was notable and leaned in favor of the British side, the invasion would culminate in failure for Hugh’s troops. Massy and Claude Auchinleck (British Commanders). In addition, the Norwegian bases were used as a starting point for the Luftwaffe bombers and fighters that participated in the Battle of Britain.
Battle of France
With the eyes of the world fixed on the conflict in Norway , the German Military High Command began to plan the reopening of the Western Front, with a clear objective, to avoid the reuse of the trench warfare method that had been highly effective in delaying the results during World War I. As the Netherlands and Belgium had declared themselves neutral, the French armies had retreated to their borders, awaiting attack from this point, since their border with Germany was considered impenetrable. General Erich von Manstein realized that the Ardennes region, southeast of Belgium, had not been sufficiently protected, as French Marshal Maurice Gamelin considered that the dense forests would make it difficult for tanks to cross through that region. Marshal Gamelin was right, but he left this region, which was where the main German forces headed on May 10, 1940, almost unprotected.
Hitler in Paris (in the background the Eiffel Tower) accompanied by other military leaders verifying the success of the results in France and giving the world the image of Nazi control over said territory.
On the day of the invasion, a significant German force entered Holland and Belgium, violating their neutrality, the allies advanced from France towards these countries. Meanwhile, another major German force under General Gerd von Rundstedt crossed the Ardennes, tank jams forming on the narrow roads. When they emerged from the forest two days later, the Allies realized they were going to be surrounded, and the government French panicked.
On May 18 , 1840, the German encirclement was closed, and the bulk of the Allied armies were trapped in Belgium. Counterattacks from within and without to lift it were unsuccessful, and the British began the evacuation of their men through Operation Dynamo. It is at that same moment that Mussolini finally decided to act and get involved in the war, complying with what was agreed within the Pact of Steel, and on June 5 he declared war on the Allies, and attempted to invade France from the south. On June 10, Paris was declared an open city, and it fell shortly after.
With no reserves to contain the German advance, France surrendered on June 22 , 1940 . The then Colonel Charles de Gaulle escaped to England, and unaware of the new pro-German Vichy government , creating the French Resistance through the historic June 18 Appeal made from the BBC microphones in London . The poor results in the management of the British troops ended up leading to the resignation of the then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain , who was replaced by Winston Churchill .
Bombings of England
British firefighters fighting fire among ruined buildings after the wave of bombings during the Second World War
German strategists had studied the possibility of an invasion of England, which was condensed into Operation Sea Lion . They had concluded that before considering the German landing it was necessary to neutralize the British Air Force so that the German Air Force would finish off the British Navy, since the German Navy could not achieve this. In this way all eyes fell on General Hermann Göring , commander of the Luftwaffe . General Göering began a series of strategic bombing raids on England , focusing on airfields and industrial areas. The results were devastating, especially Operation Eagle Day, where 1,000 bombers protected by 700 fighters attacked England, destroying dozens of aircraft on the ground.
However, the RAF found respite when the port of London was accidentally bombed, prompting the British to bomb Berlin. This attack on German soil motivated Hitler to order Göering to change strategy, starting the Blitz . During this stage, civilian targets were bombed, killing around 43,000 people and destroying 1 million homes. The RAF took advantage of the change in strategy to increase their numbers, and they were finally able to confront the Luftwaffe. On October 12 , Hitler gets tired of waiting and orders the suspension of the invasion of England. However, the bombing of London would not stop until May 16 , 1941 , when Hitler would focus his gaze eastwards again.
Balkan Campaign (1941)
With control over France achieved and British forces disarmed after the terrible Blitz, Germany’s next objective was the Soviet Union while Italy prepared to seek control over Greece. In this sense, Mussolini had pressured the Prime Minister of Greece, Ioannis Metaxas, to give in to Italian demands. Greece’s negative response triggered the Italian invasion from Albania in October 1940, which ended in the stagnation of the front. In March 1941, Hitler learned that the RAF was using Greek air bases, and he finally came to Italy’s aid.
German soldiers raising the Reichskriegsflagge on the Acropolis .
To carry out a surprise attack, the German armies had to pass through Macedonia , part of Yugoslavia , so regent Paul was pressured to join his country to the Tripartite Pact. Two days after this occurred, the Regent was overthrown, and although the new rulers of Yugoslavia decided to join the German side anyway, this did not calm Hitler, who ordered the invasion to begin on April 6 . After 11 days of fighting, Yugoslavia was completely occupied. At the same time, the armies of Bulgaria , Italy and Germany had begun the invasion of Greece, whose defenders were unable to contain the enemy avalanche, despite having British units among their forces.
On April 27, Athens fell and the Allied evacuation to Crete began. On May 20, Germany also invades Crete, suffering heavy casualties. However, despite having lost almost 16,000 men, the Axis Forces managed to expel the Allied forces, conquering the island on June 1.
The German campaign in the Balkans is known as the Distraction or the Diversion of the Balkans, since one of its consequences was the delay of the German offensive on the Soviet Union. Indeed, Hitler began his long-awaited “crusade” two months later than initially planned, which would cause German troops to arrive in Moscow when the autumn rains began, making the German armored advance difficult.
Great Patriotic War
Main articles: Operation Barbarossa and Great Patriotic War
The Great Patriotic War is the term given by the Soviets to frame the period between June 22 , 1941 and May 9 , 1945 , although to the West, it is known as the Eastern Front. During this process, the USSR would lose approximately 27 million people in a confrontation that began with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22 , 1941 , and culminated with the fall of Berlin on May 3 , 1945 at the hands of the Red Army. .
The Battle of Stalingrad constituted the turning point of the Second War, the moment in which Soviet troops, after the initial defeats of Operation Barbarossa , went on the offensive against the Nazi forces of the Axis, in fact, the importance of this battle It can be seen in the enormous number of casualties on both sides, the total destruction of a Soviet city and the enormous losses of men and material suffered by the Wehrmacht , which is why historical criticism considers that the Battle of Stalingrad was the most severe military defeat ( and most decisive) of Hitler’s Germany, after which the initiative in combat belonged to the Red Army . The Soviet Union was the combatant country that withstood almost 80% of the attack by the Axis countries in Europe , so the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad and the subsequent counteroffensive meant the beginning of the collapse of the German war machine.
Opening of the European fronts
Mediterranean Front
After the success achieved by the Allies in their fight against Erwin Rommel ‘s Afrika Korps in North Africa , the next objective of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean would be Italy and with it the possibility of overthrowing Mussolini and dealing a hard blow. to Hitler. On July 10 , 1943 , British forces commanded by Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery landed near the Sicilian city of Syracuse while General George Patton landed near Gela. Although Mussolini had insisted that only Italian divisions defend Sicily, two panzer divisions under General Albert Kesselring were on the island. Due to the rapid Italian collapse, Kesselring retreated northwest of Mount Etna , aiming to keep the escape route to Messina clear . Montgomery advanced quickly to the slopes of Etna, when his offensive was stopped in its tracks. For his part, Patton advanced freely until liberating Palermo on July 22.
After losing several days on the Santo Stefano defensive line, the two Allied armies began a race to Messina. Several Allied attempts to make amphibious landings on the enemy flanks failed, but resistance was eventually broken and Patton reached Messina first on 17 August. However, by that time, most of the enemy forces had already escaped from Sicily . Kesselring himself had luckily escaped the day before Patton’s arrival.
Despite the defeat, the first Allied landing attempt in Sicily would have results on a political level, because faced with the danger of direct aggression, on July 25 , 1943, the Great Fascist Council decided to appoint Pietro Badoglio as Prime Minister of Italy. instead of Mussolini. The action, which had the consent of King Victor Emmanuel III , was a betrayal against Mussolini who would be arrested and sent to multiple prisons, with the aim of outwitting potential rescuers. Badoglio’s main objective would be to secretly agree on a surrender with the allies that would include the perpetuation of the monarchy. Hitler, who distrusted the new Italian authorities, ordered German troops to carry out a coup d’état in order to restore Mussolini to power, a fact that would be consummated on September 12, when a command of SS paratroopers led by Otto Skorzeny, He freed Mussolini from captivity. Once free, Mussolini was proclaimed prime minister of the Italian Social Republic , a territory located in northern Italy.
The invasion of mainland Italy was planned in three non-simultaneous operations: Baytown, Avalanche and Slapstick. Baytown was executed on September 3, when Montgomery’s troops crossed the Strait of Messina and occupied the region of Calabria . The massive surrender of the Italian army left the entire weight of the defense on Germany. However, the German tactic of destroying bridges and roads delayed Montgomery’s advance. On September 9, Slapstick was executed, which stipulated landings in Taranto with the objective of forcing the German units, since the Italian ones had already surrendered, to move away from Salerno, which is where Avalanche was going to be executed. Taranto was quickly secured and soon all eyes turned to Salerno, which is where the main landing was to take place.
The landing at Salerno, commanded by American General Mark Wayne Clark , began on the same day as the landing at Taranto to the south. After taking the beaches, a German counterattack caused high casualties among the Allied troops, however, naval artillery destroyed the panzers that approached the beaches. The invading troops attempted to move south, with the aim of contacting Montgomery, but the strong German presence made them stop. Between September 12 and 14, a German counterattack pushed the Allies back to their last line of defense, making them fight with the beach on their backs. However, the timely use of reserve troops saved the landing force from disaster. Eventually, the beachhead was secured and Montgomery’s forces located to the south could be contacted. After the occupation of Naples on October 1 , 1943 , the southern area of Italy ended up in Allied hands while in the north the Germans prepared to contain the Allies from the so-called Volturno Line. [[File:Allied-troops-italia.jpg|thumb|Allied soldiers during the Battle of Montecattini Faced with the rapid Allied advances, Kesselring became alarmed at the prospect of the airfields in northern Italy falling into enemy hands, allowing for increased bombing about Germany. Therefore, he made the decision to retain the allies in central Italy indefinitely, using the Montes
Apennines as natural defense. Two temporary defensive lines, the Volturno line and the Barbara line, were quickly built, the aim of which was to allow the construction of a more powerful line: the Gustav line. In front of this line and in its rear, around the Monte Cassino area, two lines were built protecting Italy’s western flank: the Bernhardt Line and the Adolf Hitler Line. While the Americans suffered delays crossing the Volturno and Barbara lines to the west, the British crossed without much trouble to the east, reaching the same Gustav Line, where heavy snowfall decreed the end of the British offensive by 1943 . Winter operations on the Italian Eastern Front were limited to raids and night patrols.
On the American side, the offensive continued, but after six weeks suffering 16,000 casualties, the American Fifth Army had only managed to advance less than 10 kilometers, surpassing the Bernhardt line. By January 15 , 1944 , the Allies had managed to expel the Germans under the command of Heinrich von Vietinghoff from Monte Trocchio, although this could not be considered a victory, as Allied expectations had been greater.
As it was considered that the quickest way to reach Rome was to cross the Liri Valley on the Italian Western Front, plans were made to overwhelm the German defensive lines quickly through an amphibious landing in the rear of the Gustav Line, to the rear of the Gustav Line. At the same time, two attacks would be carried out on its flanks through the Liri valley. However, both the landing ( Battle of Anzio ) and the attacks through the Liri Valley ( Battle of Montecassino ) did not yield the desired results, as newly arrived German relief troops isolated the Allies at Anzio, and an observation post at Monte Cassino provided the German artillery the advantage to neutralize any Allied attempt to enter the valley.
It was not until May 18 , 1944 that a Polish regiment conquered the summit of Monte Cassino. The Allied armies then moved towards the Adolf Hitler line, overwhelming it within a week. With the Germans retreating towards northern Italy, the isolated forces at Anzio launched a raid to free themselves, creating a unique opportunity to cut off the retreat of the German forces coming from the south. But General Mark Wayne Clark let the Germans escape, as he preferred to go directly to Rome to have the honor of liberating it before the British.
On June 4 , 1944 , the Americans entered Rome . However, this victory was overshadowed, not only by the enormous unestimated loss of life, but also because two days later the Normandy Landings began and the Italian front was definitively relegated to second place, as the British and American generals They would focus from now on on the Western Front.
Reopening of the Western Front
While the Soviet Union faced the armies of the Third Reich alone, the Western Allies began to plan the landing in Europe, first carrying out a small raid that would be known as the Battle of Dieppe. On August 19 , 1942 , 6,000 Canadian soldiers landed in Dieppe, with the objective of staying for a short period in which they would collect information and test new methods of assaulting the beaches. The result was disastrous, with almost all soldiers dying or being captured, and many ships and planes being lost.
Fortunately for Stalin , President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in favor of ending the war in Europe first, before going against Japan , so after the relatively successful campaigns in North Africa, the Allied troops jumped into Sicily on the 10th. July 1943 . Finally, at Stalin’s continued insistence, it was decided in May 1943 that the reopening of the Western Front would take place in 1944 .
Landing barges transport soldiers and military supplies to the coast of Normadia during the landing
After selecting different places for the landing, it was concluded that it should occur on the beaches of Brittany, Normandy or in the Pas de Calais . Because Calais was so well defended, it was ruled out almost immediately, and because Brittany was so far from Paris and Germany, and because its climate was very unstable, it was decided that the beaches of Normandy would be selected. In June 1943 it was confirmed to Stalin that the invasion would take place in May 1944. This invasion, until then Operation Round-Up, was renamed Operation Overlord .
Stages of the Western Front from 1944 to 1945:
- Reopening of the Front: Battle of Normandy , Operation Market Garden
- German counterattack: Battle of the Bulge
- Conquest of Germany: Operation Plunder
After significant resources were invested in Operation “Rhine Guard” during the Battle of the Bulge , which had yielded no results, the German defense depended on control over two rivers: the Rhine in the west and the Oder in the East. After the failure of Bernard Montgomery , Eisenhower had to reconsider the path to invading Germany. While the British pressed to make the crossing in front of the positions occupied by their armies, the Americans pressed to make it in front of their own positions. Eisenhower decided to carry out both plans, allowing Montgomery to execute Operation Veritable with the 21st Army Group, which would position his forces to cross the Rhine in front of Wessel. To the south, General Omar Bradley would do the same between Koblenz and Cologne with the XII Army Group. Patton’s Third Army would head south between Mainz and Mannheim to link up with American troops coming from southern France. Once Montgomery had begun crossing the Rhine , Bradley would have the green light to do so as well.
In front of Montgomery was Model’s Army Group, being a relatively small force, Montgomery thought of surrounding it, so he borrowed the Ninth Army from the Americans ( Operation Grenade ). In this way, while Bradley’s forces crossed upriver, Montgomery would cross downstream, surrounding the Ruhr valley where Model was located.
On February 8 , Veritable was executed, however, strong German resistance delayed the advance of Montgomery’s forces. Worse still, the Germans destroyed the dams in the Ruhr Valley, flooding it, which prevented Grenade from being executed until two weeks later. Meanwhile, Montgomery’s forces faced Model’s alone, until February 23, when William H. Simpson ‘s Ninth Army crossed, linking up with Plunder’s forces two weeks later.
Bradley to the south, took Cologne on March 6 and then Bonn. A commando of the American First Army approached Remagen to hold off the German forces while the Third Army coming from the south linked up with them. To their surprise, this commando found a bridge over the Rhine intact, which was immediately taken. This was the first pass that the allies achieved, and although it allowed the passage of material and soldiers to the other bank, it collapsed on March 17, as it had been damaged during its capture.
What followed was a struggle among the Allied generals to see who would advance beyond the Rhine. By March 28, Montgomery had a firm bridgehead and, as previously discussed, began preparing to take Berlin . To his surprise, Eisenhower changed plans at the last minute, and ordered that Bradley’s armies would now move toward Dresden, with the goal of dividing Germany in two. Montgomery, for his part, should cut off the Red Army from entering Denmark . A smaller force would head to Austria , where rumors spread that Nazi fanatics were entrenching themselves in a series of impregnable fortresses in the Alps.
As Hitler’s generals had predicted, Allied forces surrounded Walther Model ‘s German Army Group B , which had been isolated in the Ruhr Pocket. After holding out until mid-April, the pocket was divided in two by the allies, with one half quickly captured. When Model’s requests fell on deaf ears in Berlin, he decided to give freedom of conscience to his soldiers, allowing those who wanted to surrender to do so, while those who wanted to continue fighting could do so. Model committed suicide near Duisburg shortly afterwards, claiming that a general could not surrender, although some historians claim that he was afraid of being tried and executed. Of the 430 thousand trapped soldiers, about 325 thousand were captured alive.
By May 1945 , all organized defense had disappeared, due to mass surrenders, the Wehrmacht had proceeded to recruit children and the elderly into the Volkssturm battalions, which did not achieve a significant change. On April 11, the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated, and then, on April 29, the Dachau concentration camp. Allied generals had already been alerted to the nature of these camps, in part by information given by 16 survivors of the Struthof-Natzweiler concentration camp on the French border with Germany, liberated on November 23 of last year.
On April 24 , American forces made first contact with Soviet forces at Torgau on the Elbe. On May 5, the Allies entered Austria . Having fallen all major German cities, except Berlin, the Allies worried about occupying every corner of Germany possible, leaving the capital of the Reich to the Soviets.
Battle of Berlin
By April, all Soviet fronts were ready to begin the final advance on Germany, gathering 2 and a half million men, 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces, 3,255 Katyusha rocket launchers, and almost one hundred thousand transport vehicles, most of them lent by the United States .
On April 16 , 1945 , the so-called Battle of Berlin began, and although Georgi Zhukov encountered problems in the so-called Seelow Hills in the south, Koniev’s I Ukrainian Front arrived south of Berlin without problems. Zhukov’s First Belorussian Front was pressured to accelerate its pace, as it wanted to conquer Berlin first. In this way, Zhukov surrounded Berlin and attacked from the northwest, while Koniev, who was momentarily stopped by Stalin’s orders, arrived second in Berlin and attacked from the south.
On April 24 , General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the LVI Panzer Corps, headed to Hitler’s bunker to be shot after being accused of having escaped to Potsdam. However, as a symptom of the mental instability that Hitler displayed in his final months, Weidling was not only not executed, but was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Berlin, since Goebbels, the nominal Defender of Berlin, did not have the military preparation. The Battle of Berlin was tough, as the civilian population was forced to use weapons, so it was normal to see ten-year-old children, as well as the elderly and invalids, at artillery posts or using Panzerfausts. Soviet casualties were very high, and Berlin’s architecture suffered great damage, including the Reich Chancellery, the Reichstag, and the Brandenburg Gate .
Those civilians who refused to fight were immediately executed by the Germans, while those who fought were executed by the Soviets, the number of prisoners was low compared to those obtained in other battles. Hitler all the time refused to leave the capital to go to Berchtesgaden, so the senior officers of the Wehrmacht refused to surrender, since they had all taken an oath of loyalty to the Fuhrer.
On April 30 , Adolf Hitler committed suicide along with his new wife Eva Braun . Several important figures in the German government did the same, including Joseph Goebbels and his wife, who earlier poisoned their six children. Hitler’s secretary, Martin Bormann, disappeared in the battle, although several people claim that he was seen dead with two shots in the back in a Berlin subway station. Weidling surrendered the city to the Russians on May 2. Feldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel was captured and later participated in the signing of the surrender document. 360 thousand Soviet soldiers died in the battle, the German figures are doubtful, but it is estimated that they were much lower, since there were only 90,000 German defenders. [[File:Keitel-May 9-1945.jpeg|thumb|Moment when German Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signs the capitulation on behalf of Nazi Germany on May 9, 1945.]] Admiral Karl Dönitz was appointed Chancellor by Hitler before dying, and he gave permission to General Alfred Jodl to sign the unconditional surrender with the Soviet Union on May 7 , becoming effective the next day. Hitler’s once trusted men, Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, had fallen into disgrace while attempting to make separate peace with the Allies. Both committed suicide after being captured by the Americans.
May 9 , Victory Day for the Soviet Union , became a festive date, and on June 24, an impressive parade was held in Moscow , thus culminating the European stage of World War II.
Historical consequences
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The League of Nations, which was blamed for helping to spark the war, was replaced by the UN . The United Nations charter was signed in San Francisco on June 26, 1945. In the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, part of the Nazi hierarchy and the Japanese Tenno were tried and convicted of crimes against humanity. In Germany after the signing of the armistice by the Axis, the Marshall Plan contributed to the reconstruction of Germany. Although the Germans lost the war, their advances in cutting-edge technology in industry chains, manufacturing of components for rockets, missiles and various types of weapons helped the Western Allies and served for the so-called “German miracle.”
The losses for the United States were, compared to the rest of the Allies, much lower in number because the war did not take place on its territory and the losses were only military.
This, in effect, consecrated the end of its colonial power. Consequently, the British Isles experienced an unprecedented crisis, which required the reconstruction and restructuring of its economy.
It is estimated that around 6 million Jews, along with other ethnic groups, were murdered by the Nazis, mainly through deportation to concentration camps, some as well-known as Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek. The Hebrew expression Shoah (catastrophe)—also known as Holocaust—designates the mass extermination of the Jews perpetrated during this bloody war. At the end of the conflict, the United Nations Organization ( UN ) replaced the League of Nations (SDN), founded in 1919, and gave itself the mission of resolving conflicts, generally warlike, of an international nature.
Decolonization: The independence movements of the colonies became widespread with the support of the two superpowers. The armies of the colonial powers no longer had the capacity to control these movements, which is why throughout the second half of the 20th century the so-called decolonization took place.
The Nuremberg Trial
Main article: Nuremberg Trials .
Background
In history there were no precedents for holding an international trial against the leaders of a sovereign nation after losing a war against other nations. The lack of international law recognized by all nations constituted a great obstacle to imputing crimes against politicians from bodies outside the sovereignty of their state. His actions were only subject to the legal system of his country and the politician was only responsible before its courts. Nazi politicians, then, could only be tried by German courts.
The news of the atrocities that the Germans were committing during the war and the conviction that the Nazi government had deliberately provoked the war favored, from the beginning of 1941, the development of the idea of subjecting the leaders of Nazism to an international trial. Winston Churchill was the one who first spoke of war crimes and the need that “the punishment for these crimes should take place when the final outcome of the war occurred.”
In 1942, a commission was created in order to draw up a list of those responsible who should be tried when the conflict ended. In 1945, at the Yalta conference, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt also discussed this issue, analyzed an extensive document prepared in the United States and established the basis for reaching an agreement between the allies on the way in which the trial should be held.
Finally, on August 8, 1945, when the war was over, the agreement was signed in London between the 26 countries that had intervened in it against Germany, which decided to create an International Military Court.
Why Nuremberg
This process begins with a preliminary session in Berlin, on October 18 , 1945, chaired by the Russian military judge Nikitchenko. But the trial as such against the main culprits of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity was held between November 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946 in the city’s Palace of Justice. of Nuremberg . Unfortunately, very few people responsible for German barbarism were brought to justice and even many Nazi leaders managed to avoid being caught. The most well-known faces of the Third Reich arrived in Nuremberg, at least, those people who were still alive at the time of the trial. Himmler, Goebbels and Hitler himself had committed suicide to avoid being judged; Only Göring arrived at Nuremberg alive in his capacity as a great Nazi leader.
The city of Nuremberg was chosen for a practical reason: in Berlin there was no building left standing that could house a judicial procedure of these characteristics, but Nuremberg had a courthouse with a courtroom capable of seating 600 people, adjacent to a large center penitentiary in which the detainees could be held and with access to the room, which, on the one hand, avoided any unwanted contact by the Nazi leaders, and on the other, made the transfer of the prisoners from the cells to the prison completely safe. court.
Nuremberg also offered an added incentive: it had been the headquarters of the great demonstrations; There they had displayed all their symbols and flags acclaimed by crowds, and there the most racist laws of the Third Reich had been approved. The symbolic ingredient was also important.
The charges of the accusation
The prosecution made four charges:
- Crimes against peace: that is, actions that lead to the planning or execution of violations of international treaties or the commission of acts of unjustified aggression against nations.
- Crimes against humanity: planning, execution or participation in exterminations and genocides.
- War crimes: violations of international war laws and conventions.
- Conspiracy: acting with or association with others to commit any of the crimes indicated in the previous charges.
Judges: The court was made up of four judges from the four main powers that had intervened in the war: the United States, France, Great Britain and the USSR. Each of them had a substitute of the same nationality. The presidency fell to the Englishman Geoffrey Lawrence.
Accused: The accused were selected from among the eight hundred senior leaders arrested in the final days of the war. The list, in the end, was reduced to 24 names, although the court only opened the case against 22, because the accusation against the heavy industry magnate Gustav Krupp was dismissed due to his advanced age and poor health and because Robert Ley , responsible for the labor camps, he managed to commit suicide, hanging himself with a sheet before the trial began. Even one less appeared before the court, since Martin Borman would be tried in absentia because his death in the Battle of Berlin had not yet been confirmed (the total number of defendants present in Nuremberg was 21 people).
Judgment
The sentence was handed down on October 1 , 1946 , the judges found 19 of the 22 defendants guilty of any of the charges against them. Hess , Raeder and Funk were sentenced to life in prison; Speer and Schirach were sentenced to twenty years; Neurath at fifteen years old; Doenitz to ten years. Sentenced to die by hanging: Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Seyss-Inquart, Sauckel, Jodl, Bormann (he was sentenced in absentia since he was a fugitive). As far as the accused Schacht , Fritzsche and Von Papen were concerned , they were incredibly acquitted.
Nuremberg trials
There was not full agreement between the judges when setting the sentence. The Russian judge disagreed on two issues: he did not accept the three acquittals and demanded, without success, that both the governments of the Third Reich and the General Staff of its Armed Forces be globally condemned as criminal organizations.
Execution
The executions of the condemned were carried out by First Sergeant John C. Wood, of San Antonio, Texas , a professional executioner who until then had executed 299 people. Hermann Göring escaped from the executioner’s hands because he committed suicide hours before his cell by ingesting a cyanide capsule. It was never known how the poison got into Göring’s hands, which served to save the pride of the man most harshly censured by the Court, which called him “the leader of a war of aggression and the creator of the program of persecution against the Jews. Their guilt is unique in its enormity.”
On October 16 , 1946, at eleven minutes past one in the morning, Ribbentrop climbed the stairs of the scaffold, installed in the prison gym, to be hanged. He would be followed in a short interval by Keitel , Kaltenbrunner , Rosenberg , Frank, Frick and Streicher , who shouted Heil Hitler!! while the executioner put the gallows rope around his neck. The others, Jodl , Sauckel and Seyss-Inquart , ascended the scaffold with serenity. Borman , tried in absentia, could not be executed. His death was later confirmed during the last days of Berlin.
To avoid any type of demonstration in memory of the executed Nazi leaders, their bodies were cremated in the only crematorium that existed in Dachau, near Munich, and their ashes were scattered in the nearby Isar River.
References
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- ↑Jump to:0 4.1« Biography of Benito Mussolini » Available in Biographies and Lives. Accessed April 22, 2012.
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- go back up^Asimov, Isaac. History and chronology of the world / Isaac Asimov. pp-789. Ariel Publishing House, 2006. ISBN 8434452146
- go back up↑Lightbody, Bradley World War II, from ambition to confrontation
- go back up^Swigart, Soren. The fall of Poland. Published on worldatwar.net