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European theatre of World War II

This article is about a World War II geographical area. For the respective U.S. military command, see European Theater of Operations, United States Army.

European theatre of World War II
Part of World War II
From left to right, top to bottom
Date1 September 1939 – 8 May 1945[nb 16]
(5 years, 8 months and 1 week)
Location
Europe and adjoining regions
Result
Belligerents
Allies:
Former Axis powers
 Denmark (1940)		 Axis:
Axis puppet states
 Kingdom of Yugoslavia (for two days)
Commanders and leaders
Strength
44,150,000+ troops (total that served)[4][5][6] Nazi Germany 18,000,000+ troops (total that served)[7][8][6]
Fascist Italy 2,560,000 troops (total that served)[9]
Casualties and losses
Killed:
9,007,590–10,338,576
Captured:
5,778,680[nb 17][nb 18][14]		 Killed:
5,406,110–5,798,110[nb 19][15][16]
Captured:
8,709,840[16][nb 20]
19,650,000–25,650,000 civilians killed[nb 21][27]

The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat[nb 22] during World War II, taking place from September 1939 to May 1945. The Allied powers (including the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union) fought the Axis powers (including Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy) on both sides of the continent in the Western and Eastern fronts. There was also conflict in the Scandinavian, Mediterranean and Balkan regions. It was an intense conflict that led to at least 39 million deaths and a dramatic change in the balance of power in the continent.

Throughout the mid-to-late 1930s, Adolf Hitler, the leader of fascist Nazi Germany, expanded German territory by annexing all of Austria and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938. This was motivated in part by Germany's racial policy that believed the country needed to expand in order for the pseudoscientific "Aryan race" to survive. They were aided by Italy, another fascist state which was led by Benito Mussolini. World War II started with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, joined the invasion later that month. They partitioned Poland so the country was split up among the two nations.

Poland's allies, France and the United Kingdom, declared war on Germany days after the invasion of Poland but did not want to actually engage in conflict. This changed after Germany invaded Norway, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The six countries were taken over, and Germany began two successive aerial bombardments of the United Kingdom, in the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill led his country's war effort. Germany also began a widespread genocide of Jews in the Holocaust. In 1940, Italy invaded Greece, and in 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. Germany then began an invasion of the Soviet Union, breaking the countries' non-aggression pact, and Germany declared war on the United States after Imperial Japan did so. The United States was led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1942, the Soviets stopped further invasion of their country at the Battle of Stalingrad. Meanwhile, the Allies engaged in a mass bombing campaign of German industrial targets. In 1943, the Allied powers began an invasion of Italy, causing the end of Mussolini's regime, but Germans and Italians loyal to the Axis continued fighting. The Allies liberated Rome in 1944. In June 1944, the Allied powers began an invasion of German-occupied western Europe, as the Soviets launched a massive counterattack in eastern Europe in Operation Bagration. Both campaigns were successful for the Alies. In 1945, Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman. The Soviet Union conquered most of Eastern Europe including the German capital Berlin, as Mussolini was hanged and Hitler committed suicide. Concentration camps that were used in the Holocaust were liberated. Germany unconditionally surrendered on 8 May 1945,[nb 23] although fighting continued elsewhere in Europe until 25 May. On 5 June 1945, the Berlin Declaration, proclaiming the unconditional surrender of Germany to the four victorious powers, was signed.

The Allied powers then moved to finishing the Pacific War against Japan. Once World War II ended, the Allies occupied the continent, giving some countries back to their pre-war leaders or creating new governments, before funding their nations' economic recovery. German military leaders were subject to the Nuremberg criminal trials. Western Europe became a series of capitalist governments and eastern Europe became communist, beginning the Cold War among the former Allied nations. Germany was split into the capitalist West Germany and the communist East Germany.


Cite error: There are <ref group=nb> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Claus Kreß, Robert Lawless, Oxford University Press, 2020, Necessity and Proportionality in International Peace and Security Law, p. 450
  2. ^ David Stahel, Cambridge University Press, 2018, Joining Hitler's Crusade, p. 78
  3. ^ Robert Bideleux, Ian Jeffries, Routledge, 2007, The Balkans: A Post-Communist History, p. 84
  4. ^ Frieser, Karl-Heinz (2013)The Blitzkrieg Legend. Naval Institute Press
  5. ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 478.
  6. ^ a b Glantz & House 2015, pp. 301–303.
  7. ^ Overmans, Rüdiger (2004). Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg (in German). München: Oldenbourg. p. 215.
  8. ^ Total German soldiers who surrendered in the West, including 3,404,950 who surrendered after the end of the war, is given as 7,614,790. To this must be added the 263,000–655,000 who died, giving a rough total of 8 million German soldiers having served on the Western Front in 1944–1945.Ellis 1993, p. 256
  9. ^ Regio Esercito: The Italian Royal Army in Mussolini's Wars, 1935–1943, Patrick Cloutier, p. 211.
  10. ^ a b Ellis 1993, p. 255.
  11. ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 478: "Allied casualties from D-day to V–E totaled 766,294. American losses were 586,628, including 135,576 dead. The British, Canadians, French, and other allies in the west lost slightly over 60,000 dead".
  12. ^ a b Ellis 1993, p. 256.
  13. ^ U.S. Army Casualties in World War II 1951.
  14. ^ Vadim Erlikman, Poteri narodonaseleniia v XX veke: spravochnik. Moscow 2004. ISBN 5-93165-107-1; Mark Axworthy, Third Axis Fourth Ally. Arms and Armour 1995, p. 216. ISBN 1-85409-267-7
  15. ^ George C Marshall, Biennial reports of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army to the Secretary of War : 1 July 1939 – 30 June 1945 Washington, DC : Center of Military History, 1996. p. 202 Archived 1 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine.
  16. ^ a b
  17. ^ Niewyk, Donald L. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-231-11200-9, p. 421.
  18. ^ Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1960 Bonn 1961 p. 78
  19. ^ Bundesarchiv Euthanasie" im Nationalsozialismus, bundesarchiv.de; accessed 5 March 2016.(German)
  20. ^ Frumkin 1951, pp. 58–59.
  21. ^ "Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Netherlands" (PDF). Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  22. ^ Frumkin 1951, pp. 44–45.
  23. ^ Commonwealth War Graves Commission Annual Report 2013–2014, page 44.
  24. ^ Frumkin 1951, p. 144.
  25. ^ "Hvor mange dræbte danskere?". Danish Ministry of Education. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  26. ^ Frumkin 1951, p. 59.
  27. ^ Krivosheev 1997.

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