Britain was the last remaining country, opposing Germany. “We shall never SURRENDER!”
In July 1940, on a map, Europe looked like this. Germany’s dictator Adolf Hitler occupied nearly all surrounding countries. Austria, Poland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, France, all these countries, were invaded by Hitler. In Italy in the south, another dictator was ruling, Mussolini. He had formed an alliance with Hitler. They were colluding together. So broadly speaking, only 3 major countries remained in Europe – Germany, the Soviet Union, and Britain.
There was a peace agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union too. So Hitler needn’t be worried about the Soviet Union, because the Soviets wouldn’t have attacked Germany. This meant that Britain was the last European country opposing Germany. On the other side of the world, America did not want to be involved in this war. They stayed away. This begs the question, how did the situation change? How was Hitler defeated?
Come, let’s understand the complete story of World War II here.
Hitler believed that since the fighting was over, Winston Churchill would want to sign a peace treaty with Hitler. Churchill wouldn’t want to put his country at risk, since the German army was so much stronger. But the opposite happens. Winston Churchill gave an iconic speech. “We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields. And in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never SURRENDER!” He made it clear that there would be no peace treaty between Churchill and Hitler. The war against Germany would continue. This speech meant that Hitler would want to invade the UK too. And Hitler did try to. Hitler planned Operation Sea Lion to invade the British. They had to come up with a strategy to attack Britain. There is no land connection between the UK and mainland Europe. So the army couldn’t simply be deployed. If they were to try sending ships, British Royal Navy had more ships than Germany. The Germans would be at a loss. Hitler then decided to establish control over the air space. German Air Force Luftwaffe had 2,600 aircrafts. The UK had only 700. So on 10th July 1940, Hitler attacked Britain from the sky. German Air Force Luftwaffe attacked by bombing. Their initial goal was to destroy aircrafts, airfields, and manufacturing factories.
The smaller British Royal Air Force, that was one-fourth the size of the German Air Force, tried their best to defend their country. It was a tough fight. But eventually, the British had to incur heavy losses. Eventually, Germans began attacking at night too. 24th August 1940 was such a night. When some German pilots mistakenly bombed London. Killing many civilians. “It was the Great Fire in the city of London. Almost to be compared with the fire of London in 1666. Pictures look like hell on Earth.” Winston Churchill was astounded by this war. Cities were being attacked. He decided to do the same. The UK retaliated by bombing Berlin. When Hitler saw this happening, unlike previously when he wasn’t interested in bombing London, when he saw that cities were already being bombed by the UK, he decided to destroy London. 15th September 1940. Hitler ordered the German Air Force to carry out an all-out decisive attack. More than 1,000 fighter jets were to be deployed at once to finish off the city as quickly as possible. Imagine the view the people would have seen on that fateful day. More than 1,000 fighter jets flying in the sky, coming to bomb your country. To be specific, there were 1,120 air crafts of which, 620 were fighter and 500 bombers.
The British prepared their Royal Air Force. They had only 630 air crafts. A historical battle ensued in the sky that day. “The first wave of a hundred bombers and 400 fighters was intercepted. Fighting raged, all the waves were crushed.” British Royal Air Force downed more than 60 Luftwaffe air craft. And lost on 29 air crafts. British successfully stopped the German Air Force attack. This day is now known as the Battle of Britain Day.
What were the reasons driving this? You might be wondering this, how could the overpowered German air force with more air crafts fall down to the British Air force? The reason is quite simple. Whenever a country is attacked when a country invades another the invader aims to gain something. But the defending country, it is literally a matter of existence for it. If they do not fight with all their might the country would be wiped out. There would be no place for the citizens to live. There’s a large difference in motivation among soldiers. A recent example of this is the Russia-Ukraine War.
When Russia invaded Ukraine last year, everyone thought that within a week, Russia will wipe out Ukraine. Because the Russian army is much larger than the Ukrainian army. And more advanced, technologically. But the motivation levels among the Ukrainian soldiers were much higher. This is why, till date, Ukraine has been quite successful in defending itself. Battle of Britain Day was one of the first major losses for Hitler. For the first time in WORLD WAR II, Hitler faced loss. Hitler knew that there was little chance of this mission being successful so Operation Sea Lion was postponed And Hitler shifted his focus from the UK to the Soviet Union.
In April 1941, the map looked like this. Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in Eastern Europe, had formed an alliance with Germany they were a part of the Axis Powers. Moving eastwards, the countries Yugoslavia and Greece were already occupied by Hitler. Actually, Italian dictator Mussolini was busy occupying Libya and Greece but the British presence in the Mediterranean Sea, was more influential. The Italian forces could not deal with it alone. So to defeat the British forces Hitler sent some German troops to Libya, to help the Italians fight. With this, Yugoslavia and Greece were also occupied. Interestingly, Hitler wasn’t very interested in invading Britain. Hitler wanted to sign a peace treaty with Britain. Instead, he wanted to focus on the Soviet Union and to defeat it so that Britain could be scared into signing the peace treaty. But why did he want to invade the Soviet Union when there was a peace treaty already?
The real reason behind this was Hitler’s ideology. He despised communists. Additionally, he believed that only if a country as large as the Soviet Union was captured, could Germany become the #1 superpower in the world. Because Germany would then control so much land. Basically, Hitler was suffering from Megalomania. He believed that he was the ruler of the world. He was driven crazy with power. He believed that he could achieve everything that he could rule over the entire world. But attacking the Soviet Union was a major mistake for Hitler. In fact, this became a turning point in WORLD WAR II. Hitler’s plan was simple. The way he invaded France, he wanted to invade the Soviet Union similarly. By dividing the German forces into 3 parts. The first group would travel across the Baltic region towards Leningrad. The city where Stalin resided. The second group would attack Moscow. And the third group would attack from the South, travelling through Ukraine. This operation began on 22nd June 1941. The army of the Soviet Union was much larger than German’s. They had 20,000 tanks. And the Germans had only 6,000 tanks. But there was a major difference. The German technology was much better than the Soviet’s.
This is why, Hitler still had the upper hand in this war. To protect itself, the Soviet Union joined hands with Britain. And became a part of the Allied Powers. They formed a plan together to send supplies to the Soviet Union army. They decided on a route through Iran. But the problem was that the Iranian Government favoured Hitler. This is why the UK and the Soviet Union invaded Iran together. This wasn’t very beneficial, because Hitler’s Blitzkrieg strategy helped the Germans invade 100 km within 2 days and occupy a large amount of Soviet Union territory. Within some weeks, they had proceeded so much that they were only 300 km away from Moscow.
By this point in time, Hitler and his military commanders had some disagreements. Due to this, the next German advance, was delayed till October. It started getting colder. The cold season gave the advantage to the Soviets. They were accustomed to fighting in the cold. On the other side with Japan, the Soviet Union found their second advantage there. Japan and the Soviets had signed a non-aggression treaty. This meant that the Soviet Army troops stationed at the Eastern border fighting with Japan, they could return to the West and fight Germany to defend their country.
In December 1941, another twist came to our story. Suddenly, Japan attacked USA’s Pearl Harbour base. Without any provocation. More than 2,300 American troops were killed. Till this point in time, America did not want to be involved in WORLD WAR II. Whatever was happening in Europe till now, America watched it from afar but didn’t want to be involved in it. They had enough in World War I. So America stayed out of WORLD WAR II. But after the bombing of Pearl Harbour America had had enough. At this point, America officially declared war against Japan. And entered WORLD WAR II.
America entered the alliance with the Allied Forces. It included major countries like the UK, the Soviet Union, and China. If you are wondering why Pearl Harbour was bombed it had its own backstory which I explained in the video on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America took a few months to prepare for the war before entering into it. Till then, by early 1942, countries like Thailand and Cambodia were already invaded and occupied by Japan.
By mid-1942, Hitler decided to focus on the Southern Soviet Union. On their supply chain from Iran. They decided to disrupt that. And so a devastating battle ensued in the city of Stalingrad. The Soviet Union army could successfully defend itself against the German army. On the other side of the Earth, the Allied Forces and America attacked the Japanese territories in the South Pacific. This is known as the Battle of Midway. 4 important Japanese aircraft and supplier carriers were destroyed in June 1942. By the end of 1942, the British Army successfully drove out German and Italian forces from Egypt. The Battle of Stalingrad continued for a long while. November 1942, winter months once again. It became increasingly difficult for the German army to fight. At one point, in Stalingrad, the German army had almost won over total control. But the Soviets continued fighting till the very end.
The battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle during WORLD WAR II.
Finally, the Soviet soldiers were successful. Nearly 300,000 German troops present in Stalingrad were surrounded by Soviet soldiers. These soldiers surrendered in February 1943. This was the biggest turning point in WORLD WAR II. Some months later, in July 1943 the Italian citizens threw out dictator Mussolini. Literally. The anti-fascist movement emerged among the Italian masses. The civilians were fed up with their circumstances and so they revolted against their dictator. Mussolini was executed by Italian partisans living in villages. Partisans are the civilians who take up arms to fight for some cause.
An interesting fact here, Bella Ciao, the famous song, you would’ve heard it in the Money Heist series. This song originated in Italy during this period. If you’ve ever noticed, the song begins by addressing ‘O Partigiano’ Partigiano refers to the partisans. A new government was formed in Italy.
And this new government decided to stop fighting the Allied Forces. Steadily, the confidence among the Allied countries was rising that they could actually defeat Hitler. In November 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met in Tehran to discuss how WORLD WAR II could be ended. 6th June 1944, another historical day. Known as the D-Day. On this day, the Allied Forces began a terrifying operation to land on the battlefields.
More than 150,000 British, American, and Canadian soldiers landed on Normandy beaches in France. They were to fight the German army on land to free France. After the Dunkirk evacuation some years ago, this was the first time that the British army was on the ground to fight the German army. This was a dangerous situation for Hitler. Hitler had directed his army to focus on the Soviet Union. There they were facing losses due to the cold they couldn’t defeat the Soviet Union completely. And now they were being attacked from the Western front as well. So Hitler decided that it was better to withdraw the army from the Eastern front, and to focus the counterattack on the Allied forces moving in from the West. As soon as Hitler withdrew his army from the Soviet Union there was a major counterattack from the Soviets. Within 2 months, the Soviets regained around 600km of territory from Germany. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania were under the occupation of the Soviet Army.
On the other side, the Allied Forces landed in Southern France too. One after another, countries were being liberated. Hitler’s army was being thrown out. Yugoslavia threw out German troops on its own strength. Germany was being attacked from three sides. Hitler planned his last major offensive. The Battle of Bulge. In the forest region of Ardennes, The German army intended to drive out the Allied forces. Before formally invading Germany Allied Forces carried out devastating aerial bombings on German cities. In February 1945, Yalta Conference was held in Crimea. In it, it was announced that any country that would declare war on Germany can join the Allied forces in attacking Germany.
Venezuela, Uruguay, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Paraguay, all of them declared war on Germany. The last 4 months of WORLD WAR II were the most painful. Each day, almost 30,000 people were being killed. As the Allied Forces moved ahead, they found out about Hitler’s concentration camps. There hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews were cruelly killed. Allied forces continued bombing German cities. Later on, this was criticised by some. Claiming that it was unnecessary to bomb German cities that killed numerous civilians. Cities like Dresden crumbled to the ground.
It’s said that when Hitler could be killed on the ground, there was no need for the bombings. By this point in time, it was clear that Hitler was about to lose. Finally, in May 1945, Berlin was surrounded by the Soviet Army. 2 days before that. On 30th April 1945, Hitler killed himself. On 8th May 1945, Germany surrendered formally. German territories were divided. East Germany and West Germany were formed. Poland was recreated from a large part of East Germany. The borders of many countries were redrawn. Today, the map of Europe that you see it looks the way it is because of WORLD WAR II. The map before WORLD WAR II was completely different. When the new government was formed in Germany. They had cordial relations with France. The long enmity between the two countries was finally at the end. Initially, to foster cooperation between the two countries, The European Coal and Steel Committee was formed. So that they could trade in coal and steel.
Some years later, neighbouring countries like Italy and Britain became a part of it too. Trading was taken to the next step. And eventually in 2000, European Union was formed. An organisation that has erased borders between European countries. Thanks to which, till today, there has been no other war like WORLD WAR II. In October 1945, the United Nations was established. To ensure that there are no more World Wars. After this, the framework of World Bank, IMF, and NATO were set up. Friends, this is why you would have noticed, the permanent members of the United Nations were actually the countries which were the Allied Forces in WORLD WAR II. An interesting fact that I haven’t told you yet, is that after Germany’s surrender, WORLD WAR II was not over. Japan took another 2 months to surrender.
In July 1945, Japan was given the ultimatum to surrender. But this ultimatum was ignored after which America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.