Highway to Battle | |
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Directed by | Ernest Morris |
Written by |
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Produced by | |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Stephen Dade |
Edited by | Spencer Reeve |
Music by | Bill LeSage |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Paramount British Pictures (UK) |
Release date |
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Running time | 71 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Highway to Battle is a 1961 British thriller film set just prior to the Second World War. [1]
Before the Second World War, a Nazi party member starts to have misgivings about the Nazis' plans. He attempts to defect to England, but is chased by the Gestapo.
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. It was the largest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa, a 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor and Crusader, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism, and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories, including Ukraine and Byelorussia. Their ultimate goal was to create more Lebensraum for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the native Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide.
World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries, including all the great powers, fought as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Many participating countries invested all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities into this total war, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. It was by far the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70–85 million fatalities. Millions died due to genocides, including the Holocaust, as well as starvation, massacres, and disease. In the wake of Axis defeat, Germany, Austria, and Japan were occupied, and war crime tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
Lebensraum is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, Lebensraum became a geopolitical goal of Imperial Germany in World War I (1914–1918), as the core element of the Septemberprogramm of territorial expansion. The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. Lebensraum was a leading motivation of Nazi Germany to initiate World War II, and it would continue this policy until the end of the conflict.
Robert Ley was a German politician and labour and trade union leader during the Nazi era, who headed the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He also held many other high positions in the German Nazi Party, including Gauleiter, Reichsleiter and Reichsorganisationsleiter. He committed suicide while awaiting trial at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the Western Allies conquering most of Western Europe, the Soviet Union conquering most of Eastern Europe including the German capital Berlin, and Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 although fighting continued elsewhere in Europe until 25 May. On 5 June 1945, the Berlin Declaration proclaiming the unconditional surrender of Germany to the four victorious powers was signed. The Allied powers fought the Axis powers on two major fronts, but there were other fronts varying in scale from the Italian campaign, to the Polish Campaign, as well as in a strategic bombing offensive and in the adjoining Mediterranean and Middle East theatre.
Richard James Overy is a British historian who has published on the history of World War II and Nazi Germany. In 2007, as The Times editor of Complete History of the World, he chose the 50 key dates of world history.
The Eastern Front was a theatre of World War II fought between the European Axis powers and Allies, including the Soviet Union (USSR) and Poland. It encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans), and lasted from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. Of the estimated 70–85 million deaths attributed to World War II, around 30 million occurred on the Eastern Front, including 9 million children. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European theatre of operations in World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis nations. It is noted by historian Geoffrey Roberts that "More than 80 per cent of all combat during the Second World War took place on the Eastern Front".
The Battle of the Rails is a 1946 French war film directed by René Clément. It depicts the efforts by railway workers in the French Resistance to sabotage German military transport trains during the Second World War, particularly during the Invasion of Normandy by Allies. Many of the cast were genuine railway workers. While critics have often historically treated it as similar to Italian neorealism, it is closer to the traditional documentaries on which the director had worked on.
Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but only a relative few nations remained neutral to the end. The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers. It is generally estimated that a total of 74 million people died, with the lowest estimate being 40 million dead and the highest estimate being 90 million dead. The leading Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Italy; while the British Empire, the United States, the Soviet Union and China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.
Captain Nazi is a Fawcett Comics and DC Comics supervillain, and rival of Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr.
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated the European theatre of World War II by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet governments, by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during World War II, administered by the Nazi regime under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.
The Axis leaders of World War II were important political and military figures during World War II. The Axis was established with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1940 and pursued a strongly militarist and nationalist ideology; with a policy of anti-communism. During the early phase of the war, puppet governments were established in their occupied nations. When the war ended, many of them faced trial for war crimes. The chief leaders were Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy, and Hirohito of Imperial Japan. Unlike what happened with the Allies, there was never a joint meeting of the main Axis heads of government, although Mussolini and Hitler met on a regular basis.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to World War II:
The Wehrmacht were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.
After the Munich Agreement, the Soviet Union pursued a rapprochement with Nazi Germany. On 23 August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany which included a secret protocol that divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, starting World War II. The Soviets invaded eastern Poland on 17 September. Following the Winter War with Finland, the Soviets were ceded territories by Finland. This was followed by annexations of the Baltic states and parts of Romania.
A hypothetical military victory of the Axis powers over the Allies of World War II (1939–1945) is a common topic in speculative literature. Works of alternative history (fiction) and of counterfactual history (non-fiction) include stories, novels, performances, and mixed media that often explore speculative public and private life in lands conquered by the coalition, whose principal powers were Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy.
Events in the year 1942 in Germany.
15th Panzergrenadier Division was a mobile division of the German Army in World War II.
This is a bibliographyof works on World War II.