World War II The Road to Catastrophe
Nazis at a Berlin book burning. On the night of May 10, 1933 some 20,000 books from outlawed authors such as Lion Feuchtwanger, Erich Kästner or Sigmund Freud went up in flames.
Stormtroopers from the SA marching in Berlin in 1938. The banners they carry read: "Germans defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!"
The Munich Accord of 1938 was signed by Adolf Hitler, Arthur Neville Chamberlain, Edourad Daladier, and Benito Mussolini. It allowed Germany to annex the German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland.
German soldiers opening up the Polish boarder. On September 1, 1939, Hitler announced told the Reichstag that German troops were defending themselves against the Poles. In reality, they were attacking.
On November 8, 1939, Johann Georg Elser planted a bomb in a Munich beerhall in an attempt to assassinate Hitler. The device exploded, but Hitler had already left. Elser was murdered in Dachau just a few days before the end of the war.
King George VI und Queen Elizabeth in front of a bombed-out house in London. Between summer and December 1940, around 14,000 died in the "Blitz" on the British capital.
Surprise attack on the US Pacific fleet. Japanese pilots bomb the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
Russian prisoners of war in transport near Smolensk. Hitler's army attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
Stalingrad. Soviet troops surrounded the German 6th Army on November 22, 1942, though they didn't surrender until late January. Around 150,000 soldiers died in the combat, and of the 91,000 German soldiers led by General Friedrich Paulus who surrendured, only 6,000 made it home after the war.
Destruction in Hamburg. The allies dubbed the air campaign against the Hanseatic city "Operation Gomorrha". During one bombardment kduring the night of July 25 1943, 18,000 people were killed and half of all private homes were destroyed.
Student resistance: Hans Scholl, left, and his sister Sophie and Christoph Probst. All were executed on February 22, 1943 for their participation in the Munich resistance group known as the "White Rose".
Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Jewish uprising began on April 19, 1943, and it lasted several weeks before being mercilessly crushed by the SS on May 8.
On July 20, 1944 Count Klaus von Stauffenberg and Werner von Haeften attempted to assassinate Hitler with a bomb planted in his eastern heatquarters. But the Führer was only lightly wounded The plotters were promptly executed in a Berlin military building.
D-Day. On June 6, 1944, allied forces landed in Normandy, France. Some 60,000 allied and 75,000 German soldiers died in the ensuing battle, along with 20,000 civilians. The "second front" long awaited by the Soviets was opened.
The German name for a Polish town that became a synonym for brutality and mass murder: Auschwitz. The Nazis killed between 1.2 and 1.6 million at the camp before it was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. Soldiers found around 6,000 survivors in the camp.
Starting in 1942, the Allies, above all the British, ran constant bombing raids on German cities. On February 13-14 1945, Dresden was reduced to ashes. Between 25,000 and 35,000 were killed in the bombings.
Russian soldiers in front of the Brandenburg Gate. After Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945. The guns were silent in Europe.
The atomic mushroom cloud over Nagasaki. The US attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, took the lives of more than 200,000. Japan surrendured a month later.
