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How did World War 2 and why? What were the causes of it? Who were the leaders of the countries that fought in the war?

User Willjcroz
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World War 2 started because at World War 1, Germany was on the losing side and they had to pay a LOT of money. So, Adolf Hitler decided to restore Germany to its former glory. The leaders of Germany that time were weak, so no one supported them. After Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch, he was jailed. He was freed a few months later, this time, he decided to run for President of Germany. At the 1932 German Election, Hitler won more than 30% of the vote. But Paul Von Hindenburg, a German war veteran, won 50% of the vote, so he became President. Hitler was elected Chancellor after a year. Suddenly, the Reichstag, the lower house of the German Parliament, was set on fire, and Hitler blamed the Communists. Hindenburg enacted the Reichstag Fire Decree, which gave Hitler even more power. After Hindenburg died at 1934, Hitler put together the powers of Chancellor and President, he became the Fuhrer (leader) of Germany, setting a dictatorship. He made an alliance with Italy and Japan, the Axis powers. He decided to annex some parts of Europe with a lot of ethnic Aryan (ethnic Germans) people. He annexed Austria in 1938 and Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939. He decided to annex Poland too, but France and Britain had an alliance with Poland. Hitler told Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union (Communist) to help him invade Poland from the East. Stalin agreed, and the two unlikely allies settled on a treaty that they wouldn't attack each other for ten years. When they invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, France and Britain declared war on Germany. The Polish tried to defend their country, but they were no match for the combined forces of the Soviets and the Germans. After Poland fell, Hitler attacked France. The French and British had mobilised in the Maginot Line (French-German border) and after just a few weeks, France fell. Germany thought that if France fell, Britain would surrender. But they didn't. In 1941, Hitler broke the Soviet-German Pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Hitler was too confident in invading it that he forgot to give his troops some winter gear, the military commander Napoleon Bonaparte also made this grave mistake, and the German forces were defeated at the 1943 Battle of Stalingrad. A year ago, Facist Italy, and ally of Germany and under the control of Benito Mussolini, attacked Egypt. They tried to take British territory but they were pushed back. Hitler sent his best general, Erwin Rommel (AKA the Desert Fox), to fight the British. Rommel made staggering progress, beating the British so many times until the Battle of El Alamein, which resulted with the Axis out of Egypt. In 1941, Japanese bombers destroyed the American naval base of Pearl Harbour to make them stay neutral, but instead the U.S. joined the Allies to fight Japan, Germany and Italy. At 1943 Italy was taken over after Mussolini got overthrown, and they surrendered so that the Allies could continue their invasion of Germany. Back at 1942, Japan was winning a lot of battles against China and USA, and they annexed Korea. Finally at the Battle of Midway U.S. forces defeated Japan and started to close in the the Japanese mainland. At June 6th, 1944, the Canadian, British and American forces landed in Normandy's beaches (Normandy is in France), with their goal to liberate France. Rommel wasn't there because he thought the weather would be bad, so he went back to Germany. The landings were extremely brutal, because the Allied troops were immediately gunned down by Germans. But the Allies tricked Hitler to make him think that the REAL invasion was gonna be at Calais, so he sent his best troops there. The Normandy Invasion, or D-Day was a big success, France was liberated. In 1945, Hitler died and Germany surrendered after the Soviets surrounded Berlin. Japan surrendered after the U.S. dropped two nuclear bombs on two of its cities. The war was finally over.

User Boeledi
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The main reason ww2 exists is because hitler was extremely ambitious and hated jewish people
User DavidXYZ
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