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Japan, which joined Germany in the Anti-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. -
After the Germans conquered Poland, they began a systematic destruction of Polish intellectuals and the ruling classes, and by the end of World War II had killed a total of three million Poles (in addition to an equal number of Polish Jews). -
The British and French had given Poland guarantees of military support in the event of an attack by Germany. -
In the summer of 1940, as a result of an agreement with the pro-German Vichy government of France, Japan gained access to raw materials from French Indochina. -
Invading France on May 10, the Germans made an effective use of mechanized forces and air power to rapidly defeat the French; German troops entered Paris on June 14. -
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. -
In November 1941, people in Shanghai watch their city burn following Japanese bombardment. By late December, the city had fallen. -
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. -
After a rapid advance across North Africa toward British-held Egypt, a German offensive was halted at el-Alamein during the summer of 1942. By mid-October, a British counteroffensive began to push the Germans back. In November, "Operation Torch," an Allied amphibious invasion, landed on the coasts of Morocco and Algiers. By May 1943, all of North Africa was in Allied control.
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The Japanese continued their occupation of China until the end of World War II. -
Participating in “Operation Overlord,” the Allied invasion of northern France, U.S. troops leave landing craft and wade ashore 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. -
In mid-December 1944, a German counteroffensive halted the Allied drive toward the German frontier at the Rhine River, resulting in the so-called “Battle of the Bulge.” By mid-January 1945, the Germans had been forced to withdraw, and the Allies continued their advance toward the Rhine, which they crossed in March. -
Austrian SS chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner oversaw the Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe. Captured by a U.S. patrol shortly after the German surrender, he was indicted on August 29, 1945 by the international military tribunal at Nuremberg on charges of war crimes. Here Katlenbrunner is shown addressing the court during his trial. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed on October 16, 1946.