-
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 a systematic destruction of Polish
intellectuals and the ruling classes, and by the end of World War Il 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. -
More about the image: In November 1937, people in Shanghal watch their city burn
following Japanese bombardment. By late December, the city had fallen. -
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 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 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. -
Austrian S 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 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 30,000 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.