The Holocaust and World War II: Key Dates
The surrender takes effect on May 8 at 11:01 PM Central European time (CET). May 8, 1945. Germany signs a second, very similar, document of surrender in Berlin.
World War II
Beginning in 1938, the Nazis increased their territorial control outside of Germany. By 1942, three years into <anchor>World War II</anchor>, Nazi Germany reached the peak of its expansion. At the height of its power, Germany had incorporated, seized, or occupied most of the continent. However, also in 1942, the Allied Powers started to systematically bomb Germany. They would continue to do so until Germany's surrender in 1945, weakening the war effort and demolishing cities.
World War II in Europe | Holocaust Encyclopedia
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German tanks on the eastern front © IWM (HU 111382)

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# World War II in Europe

The Holocaust occurred in the broader context of World War II. World War II was the largest and most destructive conflict in history. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime envisioned a vast, new empire of "living space" ( Lebensraum) for Germans in eastern Europe by the removal of existing populations. The Nazi goal to strengthen the German “master race” resulted in the persecution and murder of Jews and many others.

## Key Facts

- 1

Germany started World War II by invading Poland on September 1, 1939. In subsequent years, Germany invaded 11 countries.

- 2

Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of its Axis allies to ghettos and to killing centers.

- 3

The Nazi leadership began planning a European war from the day the Nazis came to power in late January 1933. War and genocidal policy would come to be inextricably linked.

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  Axis alliance, 1939-1941

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The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims - six million were murdered. Roma (Gypsies), physically and mentally disabled people and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.

In World War II, Germany sought to defeat its opponents in a series of short campaigns in Europe. Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years. Germany defeated and occupied Poland (attacked in September 1939), Denmark (April 1940), Norway (April 1940), Belgium (May 1940), the Netherlands (May 1940), Luxembourg (May 1940), France (May 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941), and Greece (April 1941). Yet Germany did not defeat Great Britain, which was protected from German ground attack by the English Channel and the Royal Navy. On June 22, 1941, German forces suddenly invaded the Soviet Union. But Germany proved unable to defeat the Soviet Union, which together with Great Britain and the United States turned the tide of battle and ultimately defeated Germany in May 1945.

Beginning in 1938, the Nazis increased their territorial control outside of Germany. By 1942, three years into World War II, Nazi Germany reached the peak of its expansion. At the height of its power, Germany had incorporated, seized, or occupied most of the continent. However, also in 1942, the Allied Powers started to systematically bomb Germany. They would continue to do so until Germany's surrender in 1945, weakening the war effort and demolishing cities.

Slowly, the Allied Powers began pushing Germany back towards prewar boundaries. From 1942 to 1943, Nazi Germany suffered battle and territory losses in the Soviet Union and North Africa. With the Soviets on the offensive, German troops were pushed westward, gradually losing control of the Eastern Front. In July 1943, the Allied Powers landed in Italy, pushing German troops north. Rome was liberated in June, 1944. That same month, other Allied divisions landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, pushing German troops east. By the end of 1944, the Allies had liberated a majority of Axis territories occupied during the war.

In early 1945, Allied troops entered Germany. By mid-April, the Soviets had encircled the German capital of Berlin. On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler killed himself. The German armed forces surrendered unconditionally in the west on May 7 and in the east on May 9, 1945, bringing an end World War II in Europe.

The Holocaust took place in the broader context of World War II. Still reeling from Germany's defeat in World War I, Hitler's government envisioned a vast, new empire of "living space" ( Lebensraum) in eastern Europe. The realization of German dominance in Europe, its leaders calculated, would require war.

## 1939

After securing the neutrality of the Soviet Union (through the August 1939 German-Soviet Pact of nonaggression), Germany started World War II by invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3. Within a month, Poland was defeated by a combination of German and Soviet forces and was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

German troops parade through Warsaw after the invasion of Poland.

Photo

Credits:

- National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD

## 1940

The relative lull in fighting which followed the defeat of Poland ended on April 9, 1940, when German forces invaded Norway and Denmark. On May 10, 1940, Germany began its assault on western Europe by invading the Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg), which had taken neutral positions in the war, as well as France. On June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany, which provided for the German occupation of the northern half of the country and permitted the establishment of a collaborationist regime in the south with its seat in the city of Vichy.

With German encouragement, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 and formally annexed them in August 1940. Italy, a member of the Axis (countries allied with Germany), joined the war on June 10, 1940. From July 10 to October 31, 1940, the Nazis waged, and ultimately lost, an air war over England, known as the Battle of Britain.

Film

After the defeat of France in June 1940, Germany moved to gain air superiority over Great Britain as a prelude to an invasion of Britain. Despite months of air attacks, Germany was not able to destroy Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF). In the fall of 1940, the invasion was indefinitely postponed. The German bombing campaign against Britain continued until May 1941. The Germans ultimately halted the air attacks primarily because of preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Credits:

- ABC News Videosource

## 1941

Film

The German army (Wehrmacht) regarded the war in the east as a crusade against communism and not subject to the "normal rules" of war. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Soviet soldiers followed a "scorched earth" policy to hinder the German advance. In this German newsreel footage, German soldiers approach a burning village, one of many destroyed during the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Credits:

After securing the Balkan region by invading Yugoslavia and Greece on April 6, 1941, the Germans and their allies invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in direct violation of the German-Soviet Pact. In June and July 1941, the Germans also occupied the Baltic states. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin then became a major wartime Allied leader, in opposition to Nazi Germany and its Axis allies. During the summer and autumn of 1941, German troops advanced deep into the Soviet Union, but stiffening Red Army resistance prevented the Germans from capturing the key cities of Leningrad and Moscow. On December 6, 1941, Soviet troops launched a significant counteroffensive that drove German forces permanently from the outskirts of Moscow. One day later, on December 7, 1941, Japan (one of the Axis powers) bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States immediately declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States as the military conflict widened.

Film

While Japanese diplomats in Washington, DC, negotiated with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Japanese planes bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor. American outrage at the surprise attack overcame isolationist sentiment and the United States declared war on Japan the following day.

Credits:

- National Archives - Film

## 1942–43

Concentration camp prisoners, many from satellite camps of Neuengamme, remove corpses of German civilians after Allied bombings of ...

Photo

Concentration camp prisoners, many from satellite camps of Neuengamme, remove corpses of German civilians after Allied bombings of Hamburg. Germany, August 1943.

Credits:

- Senat der Freien Hansestadt Hamburg Staatsarchiv

In May 1942, the British Royal Air Force carried out a raid on the German city of Cologne with a thousand bombers, for the first time bringing war home to Germany. For the next three years, Allied air forces systematically bombed industrial plants and cities all over the Reich, reducing much of urban Germany to rubble by 1945. In late 1942 and early 1943, the Allied forces achieved a series of significant military triumphs in North Africa. The failure of French armed forces to prevent Allied occupation of Morocco and Algeria triggered a German occupation of collaborationist Vichy France on November 11, 1942. Axis military units in Africa, approximately 150,000 troops in all, surrendered in May 1943.

On the eastern front, during the summer of 1942, the Germans and their Axis allies renewed their offensive in the Soviet Union, aiming to capture Stalingrad on the Volga River, as well as the city of Baku and the Caucasian oil fields. The German offensive stalled on both fronts in the late summer of 1942. In November, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive at Stalingrad and on February 2, 1943, the German Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets. The Germans mounted one more offensive at Kursk in July 1943, the biggest tank battle in history, but Soviet troops blunted the attack and assumed a military predominance that they would not again relinquish during the course of the war.

In July 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily and in September went ashore on the Italian mainland. After the Italian Fascist Party's Grand Council deposed Italian premier Benito Mussolini (an ally of Hitler), the Italian military took over and negotiated a surrender to Anglo-American forces on September 8. German troops stationed in Italy seized control of the northern half of the peninsula, and continued to resist. Mussolini, who had been arrested by Italian military authorities, was rescued by German SS commandos in September and established (under German supervision) a neo-Fascist puppet regime in northern Italy. German troops continued to hold northern Italy until surrendering on May 2, 1945.

## 1944

Media Essay

Explore images related to the June 6, 1944, Allied invasion of Normandy—commonly known as “D-Day."

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General Dwight D. Eisenhower visits with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division just hours before their jump into German-occupied France ( D-Day). June 5, 1944.

Captain Lasdun briefs troops of the British Army on June 4, 1944, two days before the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day.

Assault troops in a landing craft approach Omaha Beach on D-Day. Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.

US troops wade ashore at Normandy on D-Day, the beginning of the Allied invasion of France to establish a second front against German forces in Europe. Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.

US troops wade through the surf on their arrival at the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.

US troops pull the survivors of a sunken craft onto the shores of the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.

British troops land on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, the beginning of the Allied invasion of France to establish a second front against German forces in Europe. Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.

British troops land on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, the beginning of the Allied invasion of France to establish a second front against German forces in Europe. Normandy, France, June 6, 1944.

Canadian troops of the 'B' Company, North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment take cover on June 6, 1944, or D-Day.

Dated June 6, 1944, this US Twelfth Army Group situation map shows the presumed locations of Allied and Axis forces on D-Day, when Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. Drafted during the war, the content in this historical map reflects the information that operational commander, General Omar N. Bradley, would have had on hand at the time.

The Normandy beach as it appeared after D-Day. Landing craft on the beach unload troops and supplies transferred from transports offshore. Barrage balloons hover overhead to deter German aircraft. Normandy, France, undated (after June 6, 1944).

Teenager Simon Jeruchim learned of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France ( D-Day) on a shortwave radio. He painted a watercolor depiction of the bombing and burning of a town situated on a river. He titled the piece "Memory of June 6, 1944."

Simon Jeruchim was born in Paris in 1929 to Samuel and Sonia (née Szpiro), Jewish émigrés from Poland. In July 1942, Simon’s parents were able to find hiding places for him and his siblings, but they were arrested and deported to Auschwitz before they could themselves go into hiding. Simon spent almost two years in Normandy. There, a schoolmaster gave him a gift consisting of watercolors and a sketchpad. Simon used them to depict various aspects of his life in Normandy.

On June 6, 1944 ( D-Day), as part of a massive military operation, over 150,000 Allied soldiers landed in France, which was liberated by the end of August. On September 11, 1944, the first US troops crossed into Germany, one month after Soviet troops had crossed the eastern border. In mid-December the Germans launched an unsuccessful counterattack in Belgium and northern France, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Allied air forces attacked Nazi industrial plants, such as the one at the Auschwitz camp (though the gas chambers were never targeted).

## 1945

GIs keep low inside a landing craft during an assault across the Rhine at Oberwesel, Germany.

Photo

GIs keep low inside a landing craft during an assault across the Rhine at Oberwesel, Germany. March 22, 1945. US Army Signal Corps photograph.

Credits:

- National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD

The Soviets began an offensive on January 12, 1945, liberating western Poland and forcing Hungary (an Axis ally) to surrender. In mid-February 1945, the Allies bombed the German city of Dresden, killing up to 25,000 civilians. American troops crossed the Rhine River on March 7, 1945. A final Soviet offensive on April 16, 1945, enabled Soviet forces to encircle the German capital, Berlin.

Soviet soldiers guard the entrance to Hitler's underground bunker.

Photo

Soviet soldiers guard the entrance to Adolf Hitler's underground bunker. Upon the advance of Soviet forces through the streets of Berlin, Hitler committed suicide here on April 30, 1945, rather than face capture. Berlin, Germany, 1945.

Credits:

- Wide World Photo

As Soviet troops fought their way towards the Reich Chancellery, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies at Reims and on May 9 to the Soviets in Berlin. In August, the war in the Pacific ended soon after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 120,000 civilians. Japan formally surrendered on September 2.

World War II resulted in an estimated 55 million deaths worldwide. It was the largest and most destructive conflict in history.

Last Edited: Mar 14, 2007

Author(s):

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

## Discussion Questions

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## See Also

## Glossary Terms

## Series: World War IISeries: World War II

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## Critical Thinking Questions

- While fighting against the Allied armies, how was the German military involved in the murder of the European Jews at the same time?
- Why weren’t the camps and killing centers bombed by the Allies?
- What was the relationship between the progress of the war and the mass murder of Europe’s Jews?

## Further Reading

- Bess, Michael. Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2006.

- Chickering, Roger, Stig Förster, and Bernd Greiner. A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1945. Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2005.

- Berthon, Simon, and Joanna Potts. Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-Creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006.

- Plowright, John. The Causes, Course, and Outcomes of World War Two. England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

- Weinberg, Gerhard L. Hitler's Foreign Policy: The Road to World War II, 1933-1939. New York: Enigma, 2005.

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