History of WW 1939-1945

This Web site is intended for enthusiasts of World War II, a period now far behind us. The text has been written using our own judgement and should be easily understood by everybody. The reader is taken back in time and feels that he was actually present when the events took place, a new and compelling way of experiencing the events of World War II. Every possible care has been taken to ensure that the facts are presented accurately, although new developments could of course shed new light on the matter. Every such work as The World at War, history of WW 1939-1945 is an attempt to walk the tightrope between the fullest possible and the most accessible description of the period. Our aim has been to provide a basic source of information for these vastly important and often misrepresented years, enabling students to orient themselves rapidly or the general reader to browse through the entries following a theme by use of the cross-references. The chronologies, too, have been designed for this dual purpose. However, we are very confident that this story will make a contribution to history, a contribution which will benefit mankind in the future. We hope you will like it.
The objective of our site is to provide you with a vast catalogue of interesting resources including WW II links throught the WWW, you may search the whole site using keywords or names, use these resources to recreate the atmosphere of the time 1939-1945. Once you become acquainted with the features, you will be navigating this complex and bewildering war in a clear, easy-to-understand and exciting way. This war site will be invaluable both to students of history and to a wide audience of general readers curious to know more about this extraordinary period of the twentieth century.

Never has there been a war that could have been avoided more easily than the one that has just destroyed (1939 - 1945) whatever was left of the world after the previous confrontation (1914 -1918).

When World War II began in 1939, Germany was the aggressor, it was later joined in June 1940, by Italy, and Japan in December 1941. The war against Japan was fought over two-thirds of the world's surface, with America and her allies taking part in vast air, land and sea battles. It turned WW II into global conflict and ended it with the drawning of nuclear era. Together they formed the major Axis nations, each had their strenghts and weakness. From 1900 until the late 1930's the armies of the world believed that massed infantry charges, heavy artillery, and static defenses could dominate and control any battlefield. But on the morning of September 1st 1939, the world was forever changed as Germany invaded Poland and executed its first "Blitzkrieg" or "Lightning attack", quickly crushing Polish resistance. And the entry of France and Britain into the conflict on 3 September, marked not so much the beginning of a new war as opening of a more intensive phase of a war that already in progress. A possible opinion was that it had never stopped at all during the years since 1914. A more moderate view, might take the outbreak of the Spanish revolt in July 1936 as the starting point. But to any informed observer it was at least clear that the struggle had waged, bloodlessly but with growing intensity, for a considerable period before the resort to armed hostilities.

From 1939 to 1945, Germany's military machine struck out and conquered most of Western Europe, swept into deserts of North Africa and drove deep into the hinterlands of Russia. In time, however, the Allies gathered strength and eventually crushed the German Army and Axis powers with a display of brute force that has remained unmatched to this day. What started out as a war based on military technical tactics and blitzkriegs, later became a war reliant on industry and mass production.
The western offensive has learned the German much, though they will not remember all the lessons. They have seen the movement of heavy armoured vehicles, and the battlefield tactics they could employ, significantly reduced by unhelpful terrain and the most modest of road obstructions; columns of such machines have also often been badly delayed by human traffic, in the form of fleeing refugees. With command of the air and relatively light resistance, however, the Blitzkrieg technique has been proven; the tempo of advance has been unprecedented and, indeed, caused its own, unforeseen logistical problems. But the success of the Battle of France may have proved to be the Germans' undoing for they expect future battlefields to be equally susceptible to these techniques and when this proves not to be the case some of its finest commanders will be found wanting, their one-dimensional approach not being effective in defence or retreat. Furthermore, the rapid defeat of France has focused Allied minds. Had they been able to hold their ground for longer, old strategies might have been clung to and new equipment might not have been urgently demanded. For the French, the last weeks have been a chastening experience. Their industry has broken all manufacturing records to keep the armed forces suppilied, but political foresight and military resolve have been absent. It is indicative that their air force ends the Battle of France with more aircraft than when it started, thanks to that manufacturing spurt accompanied by the logistical failure to deploy what was available.

The deeds of the Japanese extremists and of Hitler and Mussolini, which led up to martial conflict, are the positive points of the story, but they are not more of it than the negative points, the ability of democracy to understand the nature of peace and to cope with the swelling flood of aggression. Peace itself might have been preserved if men of good will who were leading the democracies had also been men of good sense. It would make a poor understanding of the world crisis if these failures were not continually borne in mind.

Victory won over evil, we have still not found peace or safety and we are still in the grip of dangers which are even worse than the ones we have survived. I seriously hope that a careful consideration of the past may show us the way in the years to come, that it will enable the new generation to make up for the errors (against animals and wildlife too, not only people) committed in the past and that they will thus be able to rule this vast, rapidly developing world, in accordance with the needs and the dignity of mankind, with the help of all the numerous new technological developments at our disposal, such as nuclear energy and electronics, and all their benefits.