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Japan, which joined Germany in the Ant-Comintern Pact of 1936, which was directed against the Soviet Union, was outraged when Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin. However, in September 1940, Japan joined with Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact that created the Axis Powers. More about the image: This American cartoon satirizing the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact was published the day before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union-
June 22. 1941. -
After the Germans conquered Poland, they began systematic destruction of Polish intellectuals and the ruling classes, and by the end of the World War 2 had killed a total of three million Poles (in addition to an equal number of Polish Jews). More about the image: As head of the secret police, Heinrich Himmler was the chief architect of Nazi programs of terror and genocide. -
For “Operation Barbarossa” their campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans assembled the largest invasion force in history, totaling almost 150 divisions (or about three million men), 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft, in addition more than 30 divisions of Finnish and Romanian troops supported this massive German force. -
More about he image: in November 1937, people in Shanghal watch their city burn following Japanese bombardment. By late December, the city had fallen. -
More about the image: The forward magazines of the USS Shaw, an American destroyer, explode during the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. -
American naval dive bombers fly in formation over the Midway atoll. -
More about the image: Participating in ‘Operation Overlord’ the Allied invasion of northern France, U.S. troops leave landing craft and wade asshore at Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6 1944. -
Intensive attacks using incendiaries were made against the Japanese positions on Iwo Jima but the defenders were so well dug into the island’s caves that the bombing raids produced little effect. -
Austrian S. Chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner oversaw the Nazi concentration camps thoughout Europe, Captured by a U.S. patrol shortly after the a German surrender, he was indicted on August 29,1945 by the international military tribunal at Nuremberg on charges of war crimes. Here Katienbrunner is shown addressing the court during his trial. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed on October 16, 1946. -
The atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima killed 70,000 people immediately; by the end of 1945 an additional 30,00 had died. -
The combination of the threat of further U.S. attacks with atomic weapons, together with the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan on August 8, caused the Japanese to surrender.