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World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. In a total war directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and the only two uses of nuclear weapons in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, a majority being civilians. Tens of millions of people died due to genocides, starvation, massacres, and disease. In the wake of the Axis defeat, Germany and Japan were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
Crimes against humanity are certain acts that are purposefully committed as part of a widespread or systematic policy, directed against civilians, in times of war or peace. They differ from war crimes because they are not isolated acts committed by individual soldiers but are acts committed in furtherance of a state or organizational policy. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place at the Nuremberg trials. Initially being considered for legal use, widely in International Law, following the Holocaust a global standard of human rights was articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Political groups or states that violate or incite violation of human rights norms, as found in the Declaration, are an expression of the political pathologies associated with crimes against humanity.
The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference and codenamed Argonaut, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The four states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Général de Gaulle and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union, within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov Palaces.
The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II.
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II, as well as the overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, took place in late April and early May 1945.
Sir Antony James Beevor, is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works on the Second World War and other wars during the 20th century.
Adolf Hitler, the Austrian-born German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer ('Leader') of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945, committed suicide by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. Eva Braun, his wife of one day, committed suicide with him by taking cyanide. In accordance with his prior written and verbal instructions, that afternoon their remains were carried up the stairs through the bunker's emergency exit, doused in petrol, and set alight in the Reich Chancellery garden outside the bunker.
The evacuation of East Prussia was the movement of German civilian population and military personnel from East Prussia between 20 January and March 1945, that was initially organized and carried out by state authorities but quickly turned into a chaotic flight from the Red Army.
Helmuth Otto Ludwig Weidling was a German general during World War II. He was the last commander of the Berlin Defence Area during the Battle of Berlin, and led the defence of the city against Soviet forces, finally surrendering just before the end of World War II in Europe.
The High Command Trial, also known initially as Case No. 12, and later as Case No. 72, was the last of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone of Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S. military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal, but took place in the same rooms at the Palace of Justice. The twelve U.S. trials are collectively known as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" or, more formally, as the "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals" (NMT).
Kurt Meyer was an SS commander and war criminal of Nazi Germany. He served in the Waffen-SS and participated in the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, and other engagements during World War II. Meyer commanded the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend during the Allied invasion of Normandy, and was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.
Allied war crimes include both alleged and legally proven violations of the laws of war by the Allies of World War II against either civilians or military personnel of the Axis powers. At the end of World War II, many trials of Axis war criminals took place, most famously the Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo Trials. In Europe, these tribunals were set up under the authority of the London Charter, which only considered allegations of war crimes committed by people who acted in the interests of the Axis powers. Some war crimes involving Allied personnel were investigated by the Allied powers and led in some instances to courts-martial. Some incidents alleged by historians to have been crimes under the law of war in operation at the time were, for a variety of reasons, not investigated by the Allied powers during the war, or were investigated and a decision was taken not to prosecute.
Command responsibility, also called superior responsibility, the Yamashita standard, or the Medina standard, is the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes. The legal doctrine of Command Responsibility was codified in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and is partly based upon the American Lieber Code, a war manual for the Union forces, authorized by US President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, two years into the course of the American Civil War. The legal doctrine of command responsibility was first applied by the German Supreme Court, in the Leipzig War Crimes Trials (1921), which included the trial of Imperial German Army officer Emil Müller for the war crimes that he committed during the First World War (1914–1918).
The war crimes which were perpetrated by the Soviet Union and its armed forces from 1919 to 1991 include acts which were committed by the Red Army as well as acts which were committed by the NKVD, including acts which were committed by the NKVD's Internal Troops. In some cases, these acts were committed upon the orders of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in pursuance of the early Soviet Government's policy of Red Terror. In other instances they were committed without orders by Soviet troops against prisoners of war or civilians of countries that had been in armed conflict with the USSR, or they were committed during partisan warfare.
The United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) initially called the United Nations Commission for the Investigation of War Crimes, was a commission of the United Nations that investigated allegations of war crimes committed by Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers in World War II.
Bruno Bräuer was a general in the paratroop forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. He served as a commander on Crete and then commanded the 9th Paratroop Division. After the war, Bräuer was convicted of war crimes and executed, along with Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, on the anniversary of the German invasion of Crete.
Berlin: The Downfall 1945 is a narrative history by Antony Beevor of the Battle of Berlin during World War II. It was published by Viking Press in 2002, then later by Penguin Books in 2003. The book achieved both critical and commercial success. It has been a number-one best seller in seven countries apart from Britain, and in the top five in another nine countries. Together this book and Beevor's Stalingrad, first published in 1998, have sold nearly three million copies.
Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during armed conflict, war, or military occupation often as spoils of war; but sometimes, particularly in ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has broader sociological motives. Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. A war crime, it is distinguished from sexual harassment, sexual assaults, and rape committed amongst troops in military service.
As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of Germany. Scholars agree that the majority of the rapes were committed by Soviet occupation troops. The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence.
Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a governmental agency created in 1945 in Poland. It is tasked with investigating German atrocities and communist ones. In 1999 it was transformed into the main organizational unit of the investigative department of the Institute of National Remembrance.
References
- ↑ Neal, Stephan D. Yada-Mc (2018). Places of Shame - German and bulgarian war crimes in greece 1941-1945. BoD – Books on Demand. ISBN 9783744850735.
- ↑ Tauber, Kurt P. (1967). Beyond eagle and swastika: German nationalism since 1945. Wesleyan University Press. p. 784.
- ↑ "DöW - Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes". de.doew.braintrust.at. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
- ↑ "Some Noteworthy War Criminals" Archived April 1, 2012, at the Wayback Machine (archived here), Source: History of the United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Development of the Laws of War, United Nations War Crimes Commission. London: HMSO, 1948, p. 526, updated 29 Jan 2007 by Stuart Stein (University of the West of England), accessed 22 January 2010
- ↑ Beevor, Berlin, the downfall 1945, p. 236