During this second great war, the combatants engaged in wholesale destruction of cities, deliberate attacks on civilians, and the systematic destruction of their enemies’ industrial complexes. |
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The Second World War, c. 1929-c. 1945
The newly established, postwar democracies in central and eastern Europe were too weak to provide stability either internally or in the European state system, especially during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The League of Nations, established after the war to employ collective security in the interests of peace, could not manage the international tensions unleashed by World War I. The breakdown of the settlement led to World War II, a conflict even more violent than World War I.
In Italy and Germany, charismatic leaders led fascist movements to power, seizing control of the post–World War I governments. Fascism promised to solve economic problems through state direction, although not ownership, of production. The movements also promised to counteract the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles by rearming the military and by territorial expansion. The efforts of fascist governments to revise the Treaty of Versailles led to the most violent and destructive war in human history, World War II—a conflict between democracies, temporarily allied with communist Russia, and fascist states.
During this second great war, the combatants engaged in wholesale destruction of cities, deliberate attacks on civilians, and the systematic destruction of their enemies’ industrial complexes. The Nazi government in Germany undertook the annihilation of Jews from the whole continent (the Holocaust), as well as the murder of other targeted groups of Europeans.
At the end of this conflict, fascist forces had been defeated, Europe was devastated, and the international diplomatic situation developed into a conflict between the capitalistic democracies and the centrally directed communist states. The economic and political devastation left a power vacuum that facilitated the Cold War division of Europe.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
In Italy and Germany, charismatic leaders led fascist movements to power, seizing control of the post–World War I governments. Fascism promised to solve economic problems through state direction, although not ownership, of production. The movements also promised to counteract the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles by rearming the military and by territorial expansion. The efforts of fascist governments to revise the Treaty of Versailles led to the most violent and destructive war in human history, World War II—a conflict between democracies, temporarily allied with communist Russia, and fascist states.
During this second great war, the combatants engaged in wholesale destruction of cities, deliberate attacks on civilians, and the systematic destruction of their enemies’ industrial complexes. The Nazi government in Germany undertook the annihilation of Jews from the whole continent (the Holocaust), as well as the murder of other targeted groups of Europeans.
At the end of this conflict, fascist forces had been defeated, Europe was devastated, and the international diplomatic situation developed into a conflict between the capitalistic democracies and the centrally directed communist states. The economic and political devastation left a power vacuum that facilitated the Cold War division of Europe.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
The Machine Age
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Fascist Italy
Above: Reacting against the looming communist threat during the Two Red Years, Blackshirts conducted the March on Rome in 1922 to install Benito Mussolini as the new Italian prime minister.
Below: Fascist Party Headquarters in Rome in 1934 
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International Economics
The American Dawes Plan and Young Plan stabilized the failing German economy and ushered in a brief period of prosperity during the Weimar Golden Age until the U.S. stock market crash in 1929. The Nazis, of course, were opposed to Dawes Plan and any foreign influence in Germany.
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Failures of Democratic States
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Józef Piłsudski overthrew the infant Polish Republic in the 1926 May Coup and ruled as a behind-the-scenes dictator until his death in 1935.
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Béla Kun led a communist revolution that established the short-lived 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic which collapsed when Romania invaded Hungary. Miklós Horthy oversaw a right-wing White Terror and collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.
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Ion Antonescu (left) allied himself with the far-right Iron Guard party and allied Romania with Nazi Germany during World War II.
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During the chaos of the Ruhr Crisis, Adolf Hitler tried to spark a far-right revolution in Germany during the failed Beer Hall Putsch. While in prison afterward, Hitler wrote his political treatise Mein Kampf.
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During the Ruhr Crisis, Weimar Republic suffered extreme hyperinflation which crippled the German economy.
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The British National Government was a coalition of Conservative, Liberal, Liberal National and National Labour politicians who worked together to pull Britain through the Great Depression.
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Text: "It's the Soviets pulling the strings of the Popular Front." French right-wing critics denounced the Popular Front alliance of Liberals, Socialists, and Communists as puppets of the Soviet Union.
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Stalinism
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Altered documents erased individuals killed during the Great Purge from the historical record.
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Millions starved through the process of forced Collectivization. The Holodomor famine in Ukraine was a genocidal, engineered disaster.
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A Soviet Cult of Personality celebrated Joseph Stalin, depicted here in the Socialist Realist style.
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The sculpture Worker and Kolkhoz Woman (1937) is one of the most famous art works of Socialist Realism.
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Propaganda posters for the Five-Year Plans
Nazi Germany
Hitler and Heinrich Himmler murdered rival Nazi Party leaders during the 1934 Night of the Long Knives. Just days later, President Paul von Hindenburg died. With a monopoly on Party and State power, Hitler announced he was Germany's new Führer .
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German and Italian Expansion
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The Spanish Civil War
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The Spanish Civil War was a proxy war between far-right and far-left forces. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supported the Spanish Nationalists led by Francisco Franco while the USSR gave aid to the Spanish Popular Front.
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Nazi Germany field tested its new high-altitude long-range aerial bombers on a small Basque town. Spanish artist Pablo Picasso painted his masterpiece Guernica (1937) protesting the horrors of modern, industrial warfare.
The Second World War
1939-1940
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In Spring 1940, Germany did an end-run around the French Maginot Line, a complex network of underground fortresses developed after World War I. British forces fell back across the English Channel at Dunkirk.
When France fell in June 1940, General Charles de Gaulle rallied Free French Forces to his government-in-exile in London, proclaiming that France had lost the battle but not the war.
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By July 1940, the United Kingdom stood alone against the Axis Powers. For months, the Royal Air Force fought the Luftwaffe in the skies during the Battle of Britain as London suffered through the Blitz.
1941-1942
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The first great turning point of the war was British General Bernard "Monty" Montgomery's defeat of German General Erwin Rommel's Africa Corps at the Battle of El Alamein, Egypt in October 1942. After driving Axis forces from Africa, Allied forces launched an invasion of Italy in 1943.
The major turning point of the war was the Soviet defeat of German forces at the Battle of Stalingrad during the winter of 1942-1943.
1943-1945
The Holocaust
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The 1933 Reichstag Fire allowed Hitler to arrest communist and socialist political opponents and consolidate power under the cover of martial law. Thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were burned or looted during the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom.
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Total War
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Demographic Disasters
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Hospital beds during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic
World War I graves
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