World War II part I

World War II Part I

The audio is available for part I and part II, tomorrow I am going to update the part II. Like this post? Twit it and share it for friends.





Search: Originally posted by Actual English magazine


On the Stage of Destruction Part I

I would seem like a suicide mission to ride a train, bound for its final destination, in a trajectory that would have to cross Germany – the last place a reasonable person would want to be travelling at that moment with the Great War already underway. Yet the man that rode that train car at the Zurich station in Switzerland on April 9, 1917, with a one-way ticket to his homeland, was not too worried about the war. He knew that the German government had a great deal of interest in guaranteeing that he arrived safe and sound two his destination and that he would complete the purpose of that trip: to lead a new revolution and bring down the Provisional Government that had governed Russia since the abdication of Czar Nicholas II in February of that same year. His name was Vladimir Lenin.

It seems ironic that Germany, in searching for a way to weaken the Russians and to force them to exit the First World War, would support a Bolshevik leader and further – although indirectly –contribute to the founding of the first communist state in the world – the Soviet Union –which would become the great nemesis of the Nazis two decades later. Likewise at the end of that First World War, the Allied Powers wanted to bury the bellicose military ambitions of the Germans once and for all, and, by means of the Treaty of Versailles, impose severe measures that would help to create the Stab-in-the-Back Legend and serve as an important factor in Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power.

As the historian Norman Davies mentioned, in Europe at war 1939-1945: No Simple Victory, “it’s right enough to see WWII as the final stage of a succession of wider conflicts that began in 1914…An opera in two acts with a long intermission is a perfectly viable concept. Because by large (though not completely) the Second World War came about due to unfinished business from WWI.” In other words, it was to have been the War to End All Wars, as US President Woodrow Wilson would have predicted, it served to set the groundwork for a conflict of proportions even more frightening. Even though there is not a consensus and the numbers, depending on the source, fluctuate a great deal, it is estimated that WWII has caused about 60 million deaths.

NOT THAT UNLIKE

One of the principle legacies of WWI was to have made possible the rise of Communism and Nazism – polar opposites in the ideological spectrum (left and extreme right); however, with many elements in common, such as heavy-handed leaders and pillars of support based on strong sentiments about being excluded from the international political scene. So, it was not for nothing that the Soviets and the Germans ended up making close ties

After the success of the Bolshevik Revolution by Lenin in 1917, the Russians sank into a period of civil war between the government and the new regime and their opponents. At the same time, the deterioration o the regime leader’s health brought about a dispute for the succession of power. When Lenin died in 1924, who emerged as leader of the communist nation was Joseph Stalin – who showed himself even more brutal than his predecessor, and pushed through an aggressive policy of expansion.

In the meantime, in Germany, Hitler as leader of the Nazi Party, embarked on a frustrate attempt to seize power in a military coup in 1923. With the failure, the future dictator decided to adopt a new strategy: to win popular support. “The Germans blamed both the great inflation of 1923, which eventually made German currency worthless and so brought economic life to a halt…(by) the vengeful policies of foreigners (at the end of WWI),” affirms historian R.A.C. Parker in the book The Second War –A Short History (Not yet published in Brazil).

As a result of his nationalistic discourse in 1933, the Nazi Party had already celebrated their victory at the polls and the nomination of Hitler as a chancellor – a year later he would become the Fuher. Up until then communism was considered the main factor of instability on the European political scene. A dictatorship from the far right was not new. After all, since 1922 Benito Mussolini controlled Italy: however, the rise of the Third Reich soon became a great source of concern for the other nations on the continent.

THE SCALE OF THE CONFLICT

“1938 was Hitler’s year. In March, be occupied and annexed Austria without firing a single shot, even receiving the enthusiasm of the mass of the Austrian people. Immediately he turned on Czechoslovakia, which he succeeded in breaking up, adding a large portion of it,” states historian John Lukacs in Five Days in London: May 1940 (Cinco Dias em Londres, Jorge Zahra, 2001). The next target was Poland. Before taking on the rest of the world, however, t would be necessary to guarantee the support of Stalin. In August 1939, the Nazis and Soviets signed a treaty, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which paved the way for Hitler to invade Poland on the 1^st of September. Two days later Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. The USSR went after its part in the bargain –the eastern section of the Publish territory, the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), and later Finland. A political and military crisis arose and once again the stage was set in Eastern Europe. In 1940, Germany launched a series of military actions that demonstrated the force of their Blitzkrieg. The Anglo-French troops failed at preventing the Nazi advance, which would win important victories in Norway, Denmark, Holland and Belgium. The biggest blow, however, was the fall of France. The surrender was announced on July 22, and, by Hitler’s insistence was signed in the same train car where the armistice of World War I was signed in 1918.  The next step was to invade the island of King George VI. Avoiding a clash with renowned Royal Navy –renowned to be superior, the Germans began a series of bombings on British soil right away in that same month, the campaign, however would drag on until October. Great Britain was able to resist, but came out of it somewhat weakened.

A little before the 10^th of July, Italy, which had maintained an agreement of mutual cooperation with Germany from the previous year, officially entered the conflict and declared war against Great Britain and France. On the 27^th of September, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with the two other fascist powers, establishing the Axis Powers, which would be reinforced two months later by the addition of Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania. The USSR would also receive an offer to join the Axis Powers, but refused to join due to disputes and irreconcilable differences with Germans over territory and ideology. Faced with having to put off his definitive victory over the British, Hitler, who in his first speeches had said that Germany’s future lay to the east and not the west, decided on June 22, 1941 to launch an attack against the Soviets. It was the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.

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