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Nazi-Soviet Pact
Hitler made the Nazi-Soviet Pact with Stalin - a promise not to go to war with each other and (secretly) a promise to invade Poland and split it between them. -
Germany Invades Poland
In the first phase of World War II in Europe, Germany sought to avoid a long war. Germany's strategy was to defeat its opponents in a series of short campaigns. Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years by relying on a new military tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons (such as tanks, planes, and artillery) along a narrow front. The blitzkrieg tactic was used during the invasion -
Auschwitz Opens
Built by the Nazis as both a concentration and death camp, Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi's camps and the most streamlined mass killing center ever created. It was at Auschwitz that 1.1 million people were murdered, mostly Jews. Auschwitz has become a symbol of death, the Holocaust, and the destruction of European Jewry. -
Nazis Begin Killing Adults and Children With Mental and Physical Disabilities as Part of Their Aktion T-4 Program
T4 Program, also called T4 Euthanasia Program,
T4 Program [Credit: Dralon]Nazi German effort—framed as a euthanasia program—to kill incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly people. Adolf Hitler initiated this program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the military defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. -
Japanese-Americans Held in Internment Camps
Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the secretary of war to designate military zones within the U.S. from which "any or all persons may be excluded." The order was not targeted at any specific group, but it became the basis for the mass relocation and internment of some 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, including both citizens and non-citizens of the United States. In March 1942, Lieutenant General John L. DeWit -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Beginning on April 19, 1943, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland fought valiantly against the German soldiers who intended to round them up and send them to the Treblinka Death Camp. Despite overwhelming odds, the resistance fighters, known as the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organization; ZOB) and led by Mordechai Chaim Anielewicz, used their small cache of weapons to resist the Nazis for 27 days. -
Battle at Okinawa
The battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of World War II. It also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies.
