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Oskar Schindler (German: [ˈɔskaʁ ˈʃɪndlɐ] ⓘ; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories in occupied Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He is the subject of the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark and its 1993 film adaptation, Schindler's List.

Schindler grew up in Zwittau, Moravia, and worked in several trades until he joined the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of Nazi Germany, in 1936. Before the beginning of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he collected information on railways and troop movements for the German government. He was arrested for espionage by the Czechoslovak government but was released under the terms of the Munich Agreement that year. He continued to collect information for the Nazis, working in Poland in 1939 before the invasion of Poland at the start of the Second World War. He joined the Nazi Party in 1939. That same year, he acquired an enamelware factory in Kraków, Poland, which employed at its peak in 1944 about 1,750 workers, of whom 1,000 were Jews. His Abwehr connections helped him protect his Jewish workers from deportation and death in the Nazi concentration camps. As time went on, he had to give Nazi officials ever larger bribes and gifts of luxury items obtainable only on the black market to keep his workers safe.

By July 1944, Germany was losing the war; the Schutzstaffel (SS) began closing down the easternmost concentration camps and deporting the remaining prisoners westward. Many were murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Schindler convinced Amon Göth, SS-Hauptsturmführer commandant of the nearby Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, to allow him to move his factory to Brněnec/Brünnlitz in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, thus sparing his workers from almost certain death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Using names provided by a Jewish Ghetto Police officer named Marcel Goldberg, Göth's secretary Mietek Pemper compiled and typed the list of 1,200 Jews who travelled to Brünnlitz in October 1944. Schindler continued to bribe SS officials to prevent his workers' execution until the end of the Second World War in Europe in May 1945, by which time he had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market purchases of supplies for his workers.

Schindler moved to West Germany after the war, where he was supported financially by Jewish relief organisations. After receiving a partial reimbursement for his wartime expenses, he moved with his wife, Emilie, to Argentina, where they took up farming. When they went bankrupt in 1958 Schindler left his wife and returned to Germany, where he failed at several business ventures and relied on financial support from Schindlerjuden ("Schindler Jews")—the people whose lives he had saved during the war. He died on 9 October 1974 in Hildesheim, Germany, and was buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only former member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way. Oskar and Emilie Schindler were named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1993.
Early life and education

Schindler was born on 28 April 1908, into a Sudeten German family in the city of Zwittau, then part of the Margraviate of Moravia within Austria-Hungary. His father was Johann "Hans" Schindler, the owner of a farm machinery business, and his mother was Franziska "Fanny" Schindler (née Luser). His sister, Elfriede, was born in 1915. After attending primary and secondary school, Schindler enrolled in a technical school, from which he was expelled in 1924 for forging his report card. He later graduated but did not take the abitur exams that would have enabled him to go to university. Instead, he took courses in Brno in several trades, including chauffeuring and machinery, and worked for his father for three years. A motorcycle enthusiast since his youth, he bought a 250-cc Moto Guzzi racing motorcycle and competed recreationally in mountain races for the next few years.[1]

On 6 March 1928 Schindler married Emilie Pelzl, daughter of a prosperous Sudeten German farmer from Maletein.[2] They moved in with Oskar's parents and occupied the upstairs rooms, where they lived for seven years.[3] Soon after marriage, Schindler quit working for his father and took a series of jobs, including a position at Moravian Electrotechnic and the management of a driving school. After an 18-month stint in the Czech army, where he rose to the rank of lance corporal in the Tenth Infantry Regiment of the 31st Army, he returned to Moravian Electrotechnic, which went bankrupt shortly afterward. His father's farm machinery business closed around the same time, leaving Schindler unemployed for a year. He took a job with Jaroslav Šimek Bank of Prague in 1931, where he worked until 1938.[4]

Schindler was arrested several times in 1931 and 1932 for public drunkenness. Also around this time, he had an affair with Aurelie Schlegel, a school friend. They had a daughter, Emily, in 1933, and a son, Oskar Jr, in 1935. Schindler later claimed the boy was not his son.[5] Schindler's father, an alcoholic, abandoned his wife in 1935. She died a few months later after a long illness.[3]
Spy for the Abwehr

Schindler joined the separatist Sudeten German Party in 1935.[6] Although a citizen of Czechoslovakia, Schindler became a spy for the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of Nazi Germany, in 1936. He was assigned to Abwehrstelle II Commando VIII, based in Breslau.[7] He later told Czech police that he did it because he needed the money; by this time, Schindler had a drinking problem and was chronically in debt.[8]

His tasks for the Abwehr included collecting information on railways, military installations and troop movements, as well as recruiting other spies within Czechoslovakia in advance of Nazi Germany's planned invasion.[9] He was arrested by the Czech government for espionage on 18 July 1938 and immediately imprisoned; he was released as a political prisoner under the terms of the Munich Agreement, the instrument under which the Czech Sudetenland was annexed by Germany on 1 October.[10][11] Schindler applied for membership in the Nazi Party on 1 November and was accepted the following year.[12]

After some time off to recover in Zwittau, Schindler was promoted to second in command of his Abwehr unit and relocated with his wife to Ostrava (Ostrau), on the Czech-Polish border, in January 1939.[13] He was involved in espionage in the months leading up to Hitler's seizure of the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March. Emilie helped him with paperwork, processing and hiding secret documents in their apartment for the Abwehr office.[14] As Schindler frequently travelled to Poland on business, he and his 25 agents were in a position to collect information about Polish military activities and railways for the planned invasion of Poland.[15] One assignment called for his unit to monitor and provide information about the railway line and tunnel in the Jablunkov Pass, deemed critical for the movement of German troops.[16] Schindler continued to work for the Abwehr until as late as fall 1940, when he was sent to Turkey to investigate corruption among the Abwehr officers assigned to the German embassy there.[17]
World War II
Emalia

Schindler first arrived in Kraków (Krakau) in October 1939 on Abwehr business and took an apartment the following month. Emilie maintained the apartment in Ostrava and visited Oskar in Kraków at least once a week.[18][19] In November 1939, he contacted interior decorator Mila Pfefferberg to decorate his new apartment. Her son, Leopold "Poldek" Pfefferberg, soon became one of his contacts for black market trading. They eventually became lifelong friends.[20]

The same month, Schindler was introduced to Itzhak Stern, an accountant for Schindler's fellow Abwehr agent Josef "Sepp" Aue, who had taken over Stern's formerly-Jewish-owned place of employment as a treuhänder (trustee).[21] Property belonging to Polish Jews, including their possessions, places of business, and homes, were seized by the Germans beginning immediately after the invasion, and Jewish citizens were stripped of their civil rights.[22] Schindler showed Stern the balance sheet of a company he was thinking of acquiring, an enamelware factory called Rekord Ltd[a] owned by a consortium of Jewish businessmen that had filed for bankruptcy earlier that year.[24] Stern advised him that rather than running the company as a trusteeship under the auspices of the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost (Main Trustee Office for the East), he should buy or lease the business, as that would give him more freedom from the Nazis' dictates, including freedom to hire more Jews.[25]

With the financial backing of several Jewish investors, including one of the owners, Abraham Bankier, Schindler signed an informal lease agreement on the factory on 13 November 1939 and formalised the arrangement on 15 January 1940.[b] He renamed it Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik (German Enamelware Factory) or DEF, and it soon became known by the nickname "Emalia".[27][28] He initially acquired a staff of seven Jewish workers (including Bankier, who helped him manage the company[29]) and 250 non-Jewish Poles.[30] At its peak in 1944, the business employed around 1,750 workers, a thousand of whom were Jews.[31] Schindler also helped run Schlomo Wiener Ltd, a wholesale outfit that sold his enamelware, and was leaseholder of Prokosziner Glashütte, a glass factory.[32]

Schindler's ties with the Abwehr and his connections in the Wehrmacht and its Armaments Inspectorate enabled him to obtain contracts to produce enamel cookware for the military.[33] These connections also later helped him protect his Jewish workers from deportation and death.[34] As time went on, Schindler had to give Nazi officials ever larger bribes and gifts of luxury items obtainable only on the black market to keep his workers safe.[35] Bankier, a key black market connection, obtained goods for bribes as well as extra materials for use in the factory.[36] Schindler enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and pursued extramarital relationships with his secretary, Viktoria Klonowska, and Eva Kisch Scheuer, a merchant specialising in enamelware from DEF.[37] Emilie Schindler visited for a few months in 1940 and moved to Kraków to live with Oskar in 1941.[38][39]
Schindler's factory in Kraków, 2011

Initially, Schindler was mostly interested in the business's money-making potential and hired Jews because they were cheaper than Poles—the wages were set by the occupying Nazi regime.[40] Later, however, he began shielding his workers without regard for cost.[41] The status of his factory as a business essential to the war effort became a decisive factor in enabling him to protect his Jewish workers. Whenever Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) were threatened with deportation, he claimed exemptions for them. He claimed wives, children, and even people with disabilities were necessary mechanics and metalworkers.[41] On one occasion, the Gestapo came to Schindler demanding that he hand over a family that possessed forged identity papers. "Three hours after they walked in," Schindler said, "two drunk Gestapo men reeled out of my office without their prisoners and without the incriminating documents they had demanded."[42]

On 1 August 1940, Governor-General Hans Frank issued a decree requiring all Kraków Jews to leave the city within two weeks. Only those who had jobs directly related to the German war effort would be allowed to stay. Of the 60,000 to 80,000 Jews then living in the city, only 15,000 remained by March 1941. These Jews were then forced to leave their traditional neighbourhood of Kazimierz and relocate to the walled Kraków Ghetto, established in the industrial Podgórze district.[43][44] Schindler's workers travelled on foot to and from the ghetto each day to their jobs at the factory.[45] Enlargements to the facility in the four years Schindler was in charge included the addition of an outpatient clinic, co-op, kitchen, and dining room for the workers, in addition to expansion of the factory and its related office space.[46]
Płaszów

In the autumn of 1941, the Nazis began transporting Jews out of the ghetto. Most of them were sent to the Bełżec extermination camp and murdered.[47] On 13 March 1943 the ghetto was liquidated, and those still fit for work were sent to the new concentration camp at Płaszów.[48] Several thousand not deemed fit for work were sent to extermination camps and murdered; hundreds more were murdered on the streets by the Nazis as they cleared out the ghetto. Aware of the plans because of his Wehrmacht contacts, Schindler had his workers stay at the factory overnight to protect them from harm.[49] He witnessed the ghetto's liquidation and was appalled. From that point, says Schindlerjude Sol Urbach, Schindler "changed his mind about the Nazis. He decided to get out and to save as many Jews as he could."[50]

The Płaszów concentration camp opened in March 1943 on the former site of two Jewish cemeteries on Jerozilimska Street, about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) from the DEF factory.[51] In charge of the camp was SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Göth, a sadist who shot inmates at random.[50] Płaszów's inmates lived in constant fear for their lives.[52] Emilie Schindler called Göth "the most despicable man I have ever met."[53]
Hujowa Górka ("Prick Hill"), the execution place in Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp (2007)

Göth's plan was that all the factories, including Schindler's, should be moved inside the camp gates.[54] But with a combination of diplomacy, flattery, and bribery, Schindler not only prevented his factory from being moved, but convinced Göth to allow him to build (at Schindler's own expense) a subcamp at Emalia to house his workers and 450 Jews from other nearby factories. There they were safe from the threat of random execution, well fed and housed, and permitted to undertake religious observances.[55][56]

Schindler was arrested twice on suspicion of black market activities and once for breaking the Nuremberg Laws by kissing a Jewish girl, an action forbidden by the Race and Resettlement Act. The first arrest, in late 1941, led to him being kept overnight. His secretary arranged for his release through Schindler's influential contacts in the Nazi Party. His second arrest, on 29 April 1942, was the result of his kissing a Jewish girl on the cheek at his birthday party at the factory the previous day. He remained in jail five days before his influential Nazi contacts could obtain his release.[57] In October 1944 he was arrested again, accused of black marketeering and bribing Göth and others to improve the conditions of the Jewish workers. He was held for nearly a week and released.[58] Göth had been arrested on 13 September 1944 for corruption and other abuses of power, and Schindler's arrest was part of the ongoing investigation into Göth's activities.[59] Göth was never convicted on those charges.[60][61]

In 1943, Schindler was contacted by Zionist leaders in Budapest via members of the Jewish resistance movement. He travelled to Budapest several times to report in person on Nazi mistreatment of the Jews. He brought back funding provided by the Jewish Agency for Palestine and turned it over to the Jewish underground.[62][63]
Brünnlitz
Schindler's factory at the former site of Brünnlitz labor camp in 2004

As the Red Army of the Soviet Union drew nearer in July 1944, the SS began closing down the easternmost concentration camps and evacuating the remaining prisoners westward to Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Göth's personal secretary, Mietek Pemper, alerted Schindler to the Nazis' plans to close all factories not directly involved in the war effort, including Schindler's. Pemper suggested to Schindler that production be switched from cookware to anti-tank grenades in an effort to save the Jewish workers' lives. Using bribery and his powers of persuasion, Schindler convinced Göth and the officials in Berlin to allow him to move his factory and his workers to Brünnlitz (Czech: Brněnec), in the Sudetenland, thus sparing them from certain death in the gas chambers. Using names provided by Jewish Ghetto Police officer Marcel Goldberg, Pemper compiled and typed the list of 1,200 Jews—1,000 of Schindler's workers and 200 inmates from Julius Madritsch's textiles factory—who were sent to Brünnlitz in October 1944.[64][65][66][67]

On 15 October 1944, a train carrying 700 men on Schindler's list was initially sent to the concentration camp at Gross-Rosen, where the men spent about a week before being rerouted to the factory in Brünnlitz.[68] Three hundred female Schindlerjuden were similarly sent to Auschwitz, where they were in imminent danger of being sent to the gas chambers. Schindler's usual connections and bribes failed to win their release. Finally, after he sent his secretary, Hilde Albrecht, with bribes of black market goods, food and diamonds, the women were sent to Brünnlitz after several harrowing weeks in Auschwitz.[69]

In addition to workers, Schindler moved 250 wagonloads of machinery and raw materials to the new factory.[70] Few if any useful artillery shells were produced at the plant. When officials from the Armaments Ministry questioned the factory's low output, Schindler bought finished goods on the black market and resold them as his own.[71] The rations provided by the SS were insufficient to meet the workers' needs, so Schindler spent most of his time in Kraków obtaining food, armaments, and other materials. His wife Emilie remained in Brünnlitz, surreptitiously obtaining additional rations and caring for the workers' health and other basic needs.[72][73]

Schindler also arranged for the transfer of as many as 3,000 Jewish women out of Auschwitz to small textiles plants in the Sudetenland in an effort to increase their chances of surviving the war.[74][75] In January 1945, a trainload of 250 Jews who had been rejected as workers at a German mine in Goleschau in occupied Poland arrived at Brünnlitz. The boxcars were frozen shut when they arrived, and Emilie waited while an engineer from the factory opened them with a soldering iron. Twelve people were dead in the cars, and the remainder were too ill and feeble to work. Emilie took the survivors into the factory and cared for them in a makeshift hospital until the end of the war.[76][75] Schindler continued to bribe SS officials to prevent the slaughter of his workers as the Red Army approached.[77] On 7 May 1945 he and his workers gathered on the factory floor to listen to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announce over the radio that Germany had surrendered and that the war in Europe was over.[78]
After the war
Memorial plaque on the house where Schindler lived in Regensburg. As seen in 2015

As a member of the Nazi Party and the Abwehr intelligence service, Schindler was in danger of being arrested as a war criminal. Bankier, Stern, and several others prepared a statement he could present to the Americans attesting to his role in saving Jewish lives.[79]

After the liquidation of the Płaszów camp, the Schindlerjuden decided to give Schindler a memento. The original investors in the enamel factory canvassed the workers for ideas. Knowing there were several jewelers among their group, a man named Simon Yeret, formerly a prosperous timber merchant, offered a gold bridge from his own mouth. The bridge was removed and its metal melted with a few scavenged silver coins.[80] A jeweller named Jozef Gross cut a section of lead pipe and created a master signet ring out of which the gold version would be cast. Gross shaved two cuttlebones flat and squeezed the lead master between them until an impression had been pressed into the mould. This was filled with the gold from Yeret's bridge. Gross then filed and polished the gold ring. He engraved a paraphrase from the Talmud in Hebrew on the ring that said, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."[79][c] Despite his mixed feelings about Schindler's character, Gross kept the cuttlebone mold and lead master for the rest of his life. They are currently housed at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. The whereabouts of the actual ring have long been unknown, nor is it clear what Schindler did with it after the war.[81]


Escape to the American lines

To escape capture by the Soviets, Schindler and his wife departed westward in their vehicle, a two-seater Horch, initially with several fleeing German soldiers riding on the running boards. A truck containing Schindler's mistress Marta, several Jewish workers, and a load of black market trade goods followed. Soviet troops confiscated the Horch at the city of České Budějovice, which the Soviets had already captured. The Schindlers were unable to recover a diamond Oskar had hidden under the seat.[82] They continued by train and on foot until they reached the American lines at Lenora and then travelled to Passau, where an American Jewish officer arranged for them to travel to Switzerland by train. They moved to Bavaria in Germany in late 1945.[83]
Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. The Hebrew inscription reads: "Righteous Among the Nations"; the German inscription reads: "The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews".

By the end of the war, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market purchases of supplies for his workers.[84] Virtually destitute, he moved briefly to Regensburg and later Munich but did not prosper in postwar Germany. He was reduced to receiving assistance from Jewish organisations.[41] In 1948, he presented a claim for reimbursement of his wartime expenses to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and received US$15,000.[85] He estimated his expenditures at over $1,056,000, including the costs of camp construction, bribes, and black market goods, including food.[86]

In 1949, Schindler emigrated to Argentina, where he tried raising chickens and then nutria (coypu), a small animal raised for its fur. When the business went bankrupt in 1958, he left his wife and returned to Germany, where he had a series of unsuccessful business ventures, including a cement factory.[87][88] He declared bankruptcy in 1963 and suffered a heart attack the next year, which led to a monthlong hospital stay.[89] Remaining in contact with many of the Jews he had met during the war, including Stern and Pfefferberg, Schindler survived on donations sent by Schindlerjuden from all over the world.[88][90]

For his work during the war, on 8 May 1962, Yad Vashem invited Schindler to a ceremony in which a carob tree was planted in his honour on the Avenue of the Righteous.[91] Schindler received awards for his efforts, including the German Order of Merit in 1966.[92] Schindler died of liver failure on 9 October 1974.[93] He is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, possibly the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way.[41][88] On 24 June 1993, he and his wife were named Righteous Among the Nations, an award the State of Israel bestows on non-Jews who took an active role in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.[94] Schindler, along with Karl Plagge,[95] Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz,[96] Helmut Kleinicke,[97] and Hans Walz[98] is among the few Nazi Party members to be given this award.

The writer Herbert Steinhouse, who interviewed Schindler in 1948, wrote: "Schindler's exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him."[41] In a 1983 television documentary, Schindler is quoted as saying: "I felt that the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them; there was no choice."[99] In the former Czechoslovakia, his reputation is mixed, as he is negatively remembered for his service in the Abwehr and for his support of German separatism in the Sudetenland.[100]
Legacy
Films and book
Steven Spielberg, director of Schindler's List

In 1951, Poldek Pfefferberg approached the Austrian filmmaker Fritz Lang and asked him to consider making a film about Schindler. Also on Pfefferberg's initiative, in 1964 Schindler received a US$20,000 (equivalent to $203,000 in 2024) advance from MGM for a proposed film treatment titled To the Last Hour. Neither film was made, and Schindler quickly spent the money he received from MGM.[101][102] He was also approached in the 1960s by MCA of Germany and Walt Disney Productions in Vienna, but again nothing came of these projects.[103]

In 1980, the Australian author Thomas Keneally by chance visited Pfefferberg's luggage store in Beverly Hills, California, while en route home from a film festival in Europe, and Pfefferberg told him Schindler's story. He gave Keneally copies of some materials he had on file, and Keneally decided to make a fictionalised treatment of the story. After extensive research and interviews with surviving Schindlerjuden, he wrote his historical novel Schindler's Ark (published in the United States as Schindler's List), which was released in 1982.[104]

The novel was adapted as the 1993 movie Schindler's List by the American film director Steven Spielberg. Although Spielberg had acquired the film rights ten years earlier, he did not feel he was emotionally or professionally ready to tackle it, and he offered the project to several directors.[105] Later, after reading a script for the project prepared by Steven Zaillian for Martin Scorsese, he decided to trade him Cape Fear for the opportunity to do the Schindler biopic.[106] In the film, the character Itzhak Stern (played by Ben Kingsley) is a composite of Stern, Bankier and Pemper.[29] Liam Neeson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Schindler,[107] and the film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture.[108]

Other film treatments include a 1983 British television documentary produced by Jon Blair for Thames Television, Schindler: His Story as Told by the Actual People He Saved (released in the US in 1994 as Schindler: The Real Story),[109][110] and a 1998 A&E Biography special, Oskar Schindler: The Man Behind the List.[111]
Schindler's suitcase
Schindler's memorial in Svitavy, Czech Republic, his birthplace
Schindler's memorial in Hildesheim, where he died in 1974

In 1997, a suitcase belonging to Schindler containing historic photographs and documents was discovered in the attic of the apartment of Ami and Heinrich Staehr in Hildesheim. Schindler had stayed with the couple for a few days shortly before his death in 1974. Staehr's son Chris took the suitcase to Stuttgart, where the documents were examined in detail in 1999 by Wolfgang Borgmann, science editor of the Stuttgarter Zeitung. Borgmann wrote a series of seven articles that appeared in the paper from 16 to 26 October 1999 and were eventually published in book form as Schindlers Koffer: Berichte aus dem Leben eines Lebensretters; eine Dokumentation der Stuttgarter Zeitung (Schindler's Suitcase: Reports from the Life of a Lifesaver). The documents and suitcase were sent to the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem in Israel for safekeeping in December 1999.[112]
Copies of the list

In early April 2009, a carbon copy of one version of the list was discovered at the State Library of New South Wales by workers combing through boxes of materials collected by Keneally. The 13-page document, yellow and fragile, was filed among research notes and original newspaper clippings. The document was given to Keneally in 1980 by Pfefferberg when he was persuading him to write Schindler's story. This version of the list contains 801 names and is dated 18 April 1945; Pfefferberg is listed as worker number 173. Several authentic versions of the list exist, because the names were retyped several times as conditions changed in the hectic days at the end of the war.[113] One of four existing copies of the list was offered at a ten-day auction starting on 19 July 2013 on eBay at a reserve price of US$3 million.[114] It received no bids.[115]
Museum

Attempts to convert the factory site in Brněnec to a museum initially failed due to a lack of financial support.[100] However, after receiving additional funds from the regional government in Brněnec and from the European Union, the site opened as a museum in 2025 on the 80th anniversary of VE day.[116]
Other memorabilia

In August 2013, a one-page letter signed by Schindler on 22 August 1944 sold in an online auction for US$59,135. The letter noted Schindler's permission for a factory supervisor to move machinery to Czechoslovakia. The same unknown auction buyer had previously purchased 1943 construction documents for Schindler's Kraków factory for $63,426.[117]
See also

    Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust
    List of Righteous Among the Nations by country
    List of Germans who resisted Nazism

Schindler’s List

Oskar Schindler was born on April 28, 1908 at Zwittau/Moravia (today in the Czech Republic).

His middle-class Catholic family belonged to the German-speaking community in the Sudetenland. The young Schindler, who attended German grammar school and studied engineering, was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father and  take charge of the family farm-machinery plant. Some of Schindler’s schoolmates and childhood neighbors were Jews, but with none of them did he develop an intimate or lasting friendship. Like most of the German-speaking youths of the Sudetenland, he subscribed to Konrad Henlein’s Sudeten German Party, which strongly supported the Nazi Germany and actively strove for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and their annexation to Germany . When the Sudetenland was incorporated into Nazi Germany in 1938, Schindler became a formal member of the Nazi party.

Shortly after the outbreak of war in September 1939, thirty-one-year-old Schindler showed up in occupied Krakow. The ancient city, home to some 60,000 Jews and seat of the German occupation administration, the Generalgouvernement, proved highly attractive to German entrepreneurs, hoping to capitalize on the misfortunes of the subjugated country and make a fortune. Naturally cunning and none too scrupulous, Schindler appeared at first to thrive in these surroundings.  In October 1939, he took over a run-down enamelware factory that had previously belonged to a Jew.  He cleverly maneuvered his steps- acting upon the shrewd commercial advice of a Polish-Jewish accountant, Isaak Stern - and began to build himself a fortune. The small concern in Zablocie outside Krakow, which started producing kitchenware for the German army, began to grow by leaps and bounds. After only three months it already had a task-force of some 250 Polish workers, among them seven Jews. By the end of 1942, it had expanded into a mammoth enamel and ammunitions production plant, occupying some 45,000 square meters and employing almost 800 men and women. Of these, 370 were Jews from the Krakow ghetto, which the Germans had established after they entered the city.

A hedonist and gambler by nature, Schindler soon adopted a profligate lifestyle, carousing into the small hours of the night, hobnobbing with high ranking SS-officers, and philandering with beautiful Polish women. Schindler seemed to be no different from other Germans who had come to Poland as part of the occupation administration and their associates. The only thing that set him apart from other war-profiteers, was his humane treatment of his workers, especially the Jews.

Schindler never developed any ideologically motivated resistance against the Nazi regime. However, his growing revulsion and horror at the senseless brutality of the Nazi persecution of the helpless Jewish population wrought a curious transformation in the unprincipled opportunist. Gradually, the egoistic goal of lining his pockets with money took second place to the all-consuming desire of rescuing as many of his Jews as he could from the clutches of the Nazi executioners. In the long run, in his efforts to bring his Jewish workers safely through the war, he was not only prepared to squander all his money but also to put his own life on line.

Schindler’s most effective tool in this privately conceived rescue campaign was the privileged status his plant enjoyed as a “business essential to the war effort” as accorded him by the Military Armaments Inspectorate in occupied Poland. This not only qualified him to obtain lucrative military contracts, but also enabled him to draw on Jewish workers who were under the jurisdiction of the SS. When his Jewish employees were threatened with deportation to Auschwitz by the SS, he could claim exemptions for them, arguing that their removal would seriously hamper his efforts to keep up production essential to the war effort. He did not balk at falsifying the records, listing children, housewives, and lawyers as expert mechanics and  metalworkers, and, in general, covering up as much as he could for unqualified or temporarily incapacitated workers.

The Gestapo arrested him several times and interrogated him on charges of irregularities and of favoring Jews. However, Schindler would not desist. In 1943, at the invitation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, he undertook a highly risky journey to Budapest, where he met with two representatives of Hungarian Jewry. He reported to them about the desperate plight of the Jews in Poland and discussed possible ways of relief.

In March 1943, the Krakow ghetto was being liquidated, and all the remaining Jews were being moved to the forced-labor camp of Plaszow, outside Krakow.  Schindler prevailed upon SS-Haupsturmführer Amon Goeth, the brutal camp commandant and a personal drinking companion, to allow him to set up a special sub-camp for his own Jewish workers at the factory site in Zablocie. There he was better able to keep the Jews under relatively tolerable conditions, augmenting their below-subsistence diet with food bought on the black market with his own money. The factory compound was declared out of bounds for the SS guards who kept watch over the sub-camp.

In late 1944, Plaszow and all its sub-camps had to be evacuated in face of the Russian advance. Most of the camp inmates—more than 20,000 men, women, and children—were sent to extermination camps. On receiving the order to evacuate, Schindler, who had approached the appropriate section in the Supreme Command of the Army (OKW), managed to obtain official authorization to continue production in a factory that he and his wife had set up in Brünnlitz, in their native Sudetenland. The entire work force from Zablocie—to which were furtively added many new names from the Plaszow camp—was supposed to move to the new factory site. However, instead of being brought to Brünnlitz, the 800 men—among them 700 Jews—and  the 300 women on Schindler’s list were diverted to Gross-Rosen and to Auschwitz, respectively.

When he learned what had happened, Schindler at first managed to secure the release of the men from the Gross-Rosen camp.  He then proceeded to send his personal German secretary to Auschwitz to negotiate the release of the women. The latter managed to obtain the release of the Jewish women by promising to pay 7 RM daily per worker. This is the only recorded case in the history of the extermination camp that such a large group of people were allowed to leave alive while the gas chambers were still in operation.

One of the most remarkable humanitarian acts performed by Oskar and Emilie Schindler involved the case of 120 Jewish male prisoners from Goleszow, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. The men had been working there in a quarry plant that belonged to the SS-operated company “German Earth and Stone Works.”  With the approach of the Russian front in January 1945, they were evacuated from Goleszow and transported westward in sealed cattle-wagons, without food or water. At the end of a seven-day grueling journey in the dead of winter, the SS guards finally stationed the two sealed cattle-cars with their human cargo at the gates of Brunnlitz. Emilie Schindler was just in time to stop the SS camp commandant from sending the train back. Schindler, who had rushed back to the camp from some food-procuring errand outside, barely managed to convince the commandant that he desperately needed the people who were locked in the train for work.

When the wagons were forced open, a terrible sight was revealed. The Schindlers took charge of the 107 survivors, with terrible frostbite and frightfully emaciated, arranged for medical treatment and gradually nourished them back to life. Schindler also stood up to the Nazi Commandant who wanted to incinerate the corpses that were found frozen in the boxcars, and  arranged for their burial with full Jewish religious rites in a plot of land near the Catholic cemetery, which he had especially bought for that purpose.

In the final days of the war, just before the entry of the Russian army into Moravia, Schindler managed to smuggle himself back into Germany, into Allied-controlled territory. The wartime industrial tycoon was by now penniless. Jewish relief organizations and groups of survivors supported him modestly over the years, helping finance his (in the long run, unsuccessful) emigration to South America. When Schindler visited Israel in 1961, the first of seventeen visits, he was treated to an overwhelming welcome from 220 enthusiastic survivors.  He continued to live partly in Israel and partly in Germany. After his death on 9 October 1974 in Hildesheim, Germany, the mournful survivors brought the remains of their rescuer to Israel to be laid to eternal rest in the Catholic Cemetery of Jerusalem. The inscription on his grave says: 'The unforgettable rescuer of 1,200 persecuted Jews".

Oskar Schindler (1908–1974) is one of the most famous rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. He helped more than 1,000 Jewish people survive. But in many ways, Schindler was an unlikely person to become a rescuer.

During the Holocaust, people chose to help Jews for a variety of reasons. Many rescuers cited their religious beliefs or their moral or ethical principles. But Oskar Schindler was not religious. Nothing in his biography suggests a man of moral integrity. He was a greedy opportunist, a German spy, and a member of the Nazi Party. He had numerous extramarital affairs. He repeatedly mismanaged his finances and failed to pay back loans. Schindler was 31 years old when he came to Kraków in German-occupied Poland, intent on getting rich.

Over the course of his years in Kraków, Schindler underwent a slow transformation. He eventually decided to use his new wealth and his position of influence to help Jews.

The apparent contradiction between Schindler’s character and his actions is one reason so many people are interested in Schindler.
Oskar Schindler: Background
Two men sit in the front row of an open top motor vehicle. A child sits in the back row. The driver sits on the left side wearing a large coat, gloves and a cap.
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Oskar and Hans Schindler (Photo)

Oskar Schindler (at wheel) with his father, Hans. Svitavy (Zwittau), Czechoslovakia, 1929.
Credits:

    USHMM, courtesy of Leopold Page Photographic Collection
    US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Oskar Schindler was born on April 28, 1908, in Zwittau, Austria-Hungary (today Svitavy, Czechia). When the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved at the end of World War I, Schindler became a citizen of newly-established Czechoslovakia. Schindler was an ethnic German. This meant that Schindler spoke German and considered himself a German.

In 1928, Schindler married Emilie Pelzl. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he held a variety of jobs. Like other male Czechoslovak citizens, Schindler served a brief, mandatory period in the military.
Schindler the Nazi

Even though Schindler did not live in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, his involvement in the Nazi movement dates to the mid-1930s. At that time, Nazi support was growing among ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia. In 1935, Schindler joined Konrad Henlein’s Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei). But Schindler’s involvement with Nazi Germany went beyond his membership in this political party.

By 1936, Schindler was working as a spy for Nazi Germany. He was an agent of the German military’s intelligence office, called the Abwehr. The Czechoslovak police imprisoned him for these traitorous activities in July 1938. Schindler, however, avoided further consequences for his crimes. Shortly after his arrest, Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland

(a largely German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia) as part of the Munich Agreement. As a result, Schindler was released from prison in October 1938. He promptly applied for membership in the Nazi Party. In February 1939, he received provisional membership.

After his release, Schindler continued to work for the Abwehr. He supported Nazi Germany’s territorial aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland. In March 1939, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied the Czech lands, which the Nazis then governed as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Then, on September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II.
Schindler’s Takeover of Jewish-Owned Businesses in Occupied Poland
Gated entrance of a concrete and brick building with many windows. A person is standing to the left of the entrance.
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Entrance to Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory (Photo)

View of the entrance to Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory in German-occupied Kraków. As part of the German authorities' expropriation of property, Schindler took over the factory, which became known as "Emalia." At Emalia, Schindler employed Jewish forced laborers from the the Kraków ghetto and the Plaszow forced labor camp. Eventually, a Plaszow subcamp was established on the factory complex grounds. At Emalia, Schindler treated his Jewish forced laborers well. Poland, 1943–1944. 
Credits:

    USHMM, courtesy of Leopold Page Photographic Collection
    US Holocaust Memorial Museum

    View Archival Details (External website) 

After the German invasion and occupation of Poland, Schindler moved to occupied Kraków. At the time, he was still working for the Abwehr as an intelligence asset, although his exact assignment is unclear.

In Kraków, Schindler became a war profiteer. The Nazi German authorities had quickly begun confiscating private property from both Jewish and non-Jewish Poles. Schindler joined this process of widespread plunder. He eventually took over several confiscated businesses, hoping to use them to make a fortune.

Most notably, Schindler leased and later purchased Rekord, Ltd., a Jewish-owned enamelware manufacturer. Schindler’s takeover of Rekord, Ltd. in fall 1939 was carried out through the official German expropriation process.

The Rekord, Ltd. factory produced enamel pots and pans. Schindler changed the business’s name to Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik (German Enamelware Factory, or DEF). The factory was often called “Emalia” (the Polish word for “enamel”). Schindler also ran two other businesses in Kraków, at least one of which he stole from its Jewish owners.

Schindler was not a particularly good businessman. He relied on some of the previous owners, in particular Abraham Bankier, to run Emalia. Bankier, who was Jewish, had been a part owner of Rekord, Ltd. and managed the factory before the war.
Jewish Forced Laborers at Schindler’s Emalia Factory, 1940–1943

Oskar Schindler took full advantage of the exploitative labor system that German authorities created in occupied Poland.

At first, most of Schindler’s factory workers were non-Jewish Poles. The only Jews he employed were Bankier and several other managers. At some point in 1941 or 1942, Schindler began to employ Jewish forced laborers from the Kraków ghetto at the Emalia factory.

Schindler used Jewish forced laborers because it was cheaper than paying non-Jewish Polish workers. In German-occupied Poland, factory owners like Schindler typically did not pay Jewish forced laborers for their work. Instead, they paid a daily rental fee to the SS.

Factory owners had free rein to abuse and overwork Jewish forced laborers. But survivor accounts indicate that Schindler treated his workers well at Emalia.
Krakow, Poland: Schindler's factory site
Map
Kraków, German-occupied Poland: Schindler's factory site (Map)

During World War II, Oskar Schindler ran an enamelware factory that employed Jewish forced laborers from the Kraków ghetto. The factory, commonly called "Emalia," was located in the Zabłocie suburb of Kraków. It was near the ghetto and several kilometers from the Plaszow camp. Eventually, a subcamp of Plaszow was established on the grounds of the Emalia factory complex. Jewish forced laborers lived in the subcamp and worked for Emalia and other nearby factories. Thanks to Schindler, conditions at the subcamp were much better than at the Plaszow main camp. Prisoners received additional food and were shielded from random acts of violence. 
Credits:

    US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Schindler’s Intervention in a Deportation Action, June 1942

The Germans’ mistreatment and murder of Jews directly affected Schindler and his factory. In the summer of 1942, German authorities began deporting thousands of Jews from the Kraków ghetto to the Belzec killing center. In June, fourteen of Emalia’s Jewish forced laborers, including Abraham Bankier, were rounded up for deportation. Schindler personally intervened to save them from deportation. It is clear that he needed them to keep his factory running. But it is unclear if at that time Schindler knew the train’s destination or about the Belzec killing center. Regardless of his motivations, Schindler’s intervention almost certainly saved their lives.
Schindler’s Contacts with a Jewish Rescue Group

In addition to his own efforts to help Jewish prisoners in Kraków, Schindler also established ties with a broader Jewish aid network.

Beginning in late 1942, Schindler began to work with the Relief and Rescue Committee. This was a Jewish aid organization based out of Budapest, Hungary. It was led by Hungarian Jews, including Joel Brand and Rudolf Kasztner. Schindler served as a courier. He helped Jewish prisoners by passing them money, letters, and information.

In November 1943, Schindler traveled to Budapest. There, he gave the committee information about the mass murder of Jews in German-occupied Poland.
Schindler’s Protection of Jews During the Destruction of the Kraków Ghetto, March 1943

Schindler became more directly involved in helping Jews in 1943. That March, the Germans dissolved the Kraków ghetto and murdered many of its remaining residents. During the liquidation of the ghetto, Schindler protected his Jewish workers by instructing them to stay at the factory overnight. As a result, these Jewish workers survived the brutal and deadly action. Afterwards, those prisoners who worked at Emalia were sent from the ghetto to the nearby Plaszow forced labor camp.

    The driving motives for my actions and my inner change were the daily witnessing of the unbearable suffering of Jewish people and the brutal occupation… in the occupied territories.
    —Oskar Schindler

Emalia as a Refuge for Jewish Prisoners of Plaszow, 1943–1944

After the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto, Schindler continued to use Jewish forced laborers at Emalia. At first, these forced laborers lived at the Plaszow labor camp and traveled to work at Emalia several kilometers away. Later, they were housed in a camp at Schindler’s factory.
Schindler’s Friendship with Plaszow Commandant Amon Göth

At Plaszow, prisoners were subjected to extreme hardship and random acts of violence under SS commandant Amon Göth. Göth ran Plaszow from February 1943 to September 1944. He was infamous for his excessive and sadistic cruelty. He often shot at prisoners from the balcony of his villa. He also carried out arbitrary executions. Schindler befriended Göth and attended drunken parties at Göth’s villa. Schindler used this personal relationship and bribery to get favors from the commandant. This allowed Schindler to operate his factory more successfully, as well as to help Jewish prisoners.
A man with short dark hair and light skin tone stands on a balcony while smoking and balancing a rifle on his shoulder. He appears to be wearing a white tank top and dark pants. Buildings can be seen in the background.
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Plaszow camp commandant Amon Göth (Photo)

Nazi SS Officer Amon Göth, the infamous commandant of the Plaszow camp in German-occupied Poland, on the balcony of his home near the camp. Kraków, Poland, between February 1943 and September 1944.
Credits:

    USHMM, courtesy of Leopold Page Photographic Collection
    US Holocaust Memorial Museum

    View Archival Details (External website) 

Schindler’s Camp at Emalia, 1943–1944

At some point in 1943, Schindler convinced Göth to allow Jewish forced laborers to live full time outside of Plaszow in a camp at Emalia. The camp was located on the Emalia factory complex grounds.

The Jewish forced laborers who lived in the camp worked for Emalia and three other nearby factories.

Conditions at the Emalia camp were much better than at the Plaszow main camp. Schindler and Austrian factory owner Julius Madritsch obtained extra food for the prisoners on the black market.

In January 1944, the SS changed the designation of Plaszow from a forced labor camp to a concentration camp. The Emalia camp was officially called the Zabłocie subcamp. There were about 1,450 Jewish prisoners in the subcamp in summer 1944.

At some point in 1943 or 1944, Schindler added an armaments factory to Emalia. Jewish prisoners built the factory, which was completed in late summer 1944.
The End of Schindler’s Emalia Camp, Summer 1944

In summer 1944, the Soviet army advanced into Poland and toward Kraków. The German authorities began to evacuate prisoners from Plaszow and its subcamps, including Emalia. The authorities also ordered the relocation of armaments factories in German-occupied Poland into the interior of Germany. This included Schindler’s armaments factory at Emalia.

Hundreds of Jewish prisoners were removed from Schindler’s protection when they were sent from Emalia back to Plaszow. Many were immediately placed in overcrowded freight cars. They were then transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Some prisoners recalled how Schindler tried to help them in a small but meaningful way, even at the last moment. He bribed Göth and the SS guards to give the prisoners water at the station in Plaszow and en route to Mauthausen. Once the train left Plaszow, Schindler could no longer help these people.

Schindler’s efforts at Emalia were still important. Schindler had ensured that the Emalia prisoners had been protected and relatively well-fed at the factory. This meant they had a better chance of surviving the extreme conditions at Mauthausen. 

At this point, only about 300 male Jewish prisoners remained at Emalia with Schindler. Their task was to help Schindler take down the armaments factory and prepare to move it to another location.
Moving the Armaments Factory to Brünnlitz, Fall 1944
Construction of Oskar Schindler's armaments factory in Bruennlitz.
Photo
Building Schindler's factory (Photo)

Jewish forced laborers constructed Oskar Schindler's armaments factory at Brünnlitz, a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. In fall 1944, Schindler relocated his factory from German-occupied Kraków to a village near his hometown in the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovakia annexed to Nazi Germany). At Brünnlitz, Schindler devoted himself to saving its approximately 1,000 Jewish prisoners. This was a difficult and risky endeavor that required him to spend the fortune he had made in Kraków. Czechoslovakia, October 1944.
Credits:

    US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Leopold Page Photographic Collection

    View Archival Details (External website) 

In fall 1944, Schindler received permission to relocate his armaments plant to the town of Brünnlitz (Brněnec) in the Sudetenland.

The Brünnlitz factory camp was a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. German authorities transferred about 1,000 Jewish prisoners from Plaszow to Brünnlitz to work in Schindler’s factory there. This included 700 men and 300 women. For the Jewish prisoners of Plaszow, being transferred to Brünnlitz meant a greater chance of survival. Those sent to other concentration camps faced more dire conditions.
Did Oskar Schindler Create a List?

Oskar Schindler did not create a list. The concept of “Schindler’s list” is a shorthand for Schindler’s rescue efforts during the Holocaust. It is commonly understood to mean a list of prisoners rescued by Schindler. More specifically, it is often associated with the names of the prisoners who were transferred from the Plaszow concentration camp to Schindler’s Brünnlitz factory.

There was not just one Plaszow-to-Brünnlitz transfer list. There were separate lists for men and women. The names on the lists changed several times. Furthermore, these transfer lists were not written by Schindler, and Schindler did not have final say over the names. The lists were actually prepared by Marcel Goldberg. Goldberg was a Jewish prisoner functionary who served as a clerk for the SS in the Plaszow main camp. He compiled separate lists of male and female prisoners to be transferred to Schindler’s factory in Brünnlitz.

The lists compiled by Goldberg included some of the Jewish workers from both Schindler and Madritsch’s factories, as well as their family members. The lists also included prominent Jewish prisoner functionaries and their families. Some prisoners bribed Goldberg to be added to the list. Others were just lucky.

Most people transferred from Plaszow to Brünnlitz had not worked for Oskar Schindler at Emalia. At the time, Schindler did not know most of them personally.
The Prisoner Transports to Brünnlitz, Fall 1944

The process of transporting prisoners from Plaszow to Brünnlitz was chaotic. During the transport, the prisoners were temporarily removed from Schindler’s supervision, and he could not protect them.

The male prisoners were transferred to Brünnlitz by way of Gross-Rosen. They arrived in Brünnlitz after just a few days. However, the women were transferred by way of Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were held there for three weeks. For the female prisoners, the time they spent in Auschwitz-Birkenau was terrifying, dangerous, and degrading. One older female prisoner contracted Typhus and died. The women eventually arrived at the Brünnlitz camp in mid-November 1944. It is likely that Schindler intervened via a messenger to secure their release. Contrary to popular misconception, he did not go in person.

At both Gross-Rosen and Auschwitz, a few prisoners were removed from the Brünnlitz transport lists and replaced with other prisoners.
Schindler’s Rescue Efforts at Brünnlitz

Schindler’s most significant rescue efforts took place at the Brünnlitz camp, during the last desperate months of World War II. From the establishment of the camp in October 1944 until its liberation in May 1945, Schindler devoted himself to saving its Jewish prisoners. This was a difficult and risky endeavor that required him to spend the fortune he had made in Kraków.
Protecting Prisoners from the SS

Because Brünnlitz was a subcamp of Gross-Rosen, it was run by an SS commandant and guarded by SS men. Schindler constantly feared that the SS commandant would decide to liquidate the camp and murder the Jewish inmates. To protect the Jewish prisoners from the SS, Oskar and Emilie Schindler lived in an apartment on site.
Acquiring Food and Medicine at Brünnlitz

At Brünnlitz, Emilie Schindler helped Oskar acquire scarce food and medicine. Schindler paid for these from his earnings. This was Emilie’s first significant role in Oskar’s rescue efforts. Locals also helped secretly supply the prisoners with food.
Falsifying Production Numbers to Save Jews

The Brünnlitz plant was classified as an armaments factory. This was essential to its continued existence. Schindler claimed that the prisoners were all skilled workers producing armaments for the German war effort. In reality, not everyone was working in the factory. Those who were did not accomplish much. In total, the factory produced only one wagonload of ammunition.

With the help of Jewish prisoners Itzhak Stern and Mietek Pemper, Schindler created fake production figures to deceive the Nazi German authorities. This deception was necessary to prevent the SS from shutting down the camp.
Helping Other Prisoners
Oral History
Ludmilla Page describes arrival at the Brünnlitz munitions factory (Oral History)

Ludmilla was born to an assimilated Jewish family in Kishinev, Romania. She and her mother, a physician, were living in Poland when the Germans invaded on September 1, 1939. They were taken to Krakow. Ludmilla was forced to live in the Krakow ghetto; her mother was sent to the Warsaw ghetto. Ludmilla worked in a factory at the Plaszow labor camp for a businessman who was a friend of the German industrialist Oskar Schindler. In October 1944, Schindler attempted to save some Jewish workers by relocating them to a munitions factory in Bruennlitz, in the Sudetenland. Ludmilla was among those on Schindler's list to be relocated. She and about 300 other women were detained briefly in Auschwitz before reaching Bruennlitz. There, some of the workers sought to sabotage the production of munitions. Ludmilla was liberated in early May 1945.
Credits:

    US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

    View Archival Details (External website) 

When other prisoners arrived in the area, the Schindlers chose to care for them at Brünnlitz. In total, three transports of prisoners arrived from other camps. The Schindlers brought them into Brünnlitz, where they received medical care and food.

On April 18, 1945, a prisoner list for Brünnlitz showed 1,098 names (801 men and 297 women). It included both the names of Jews transferred from Plaszow and the new arrivals. This list is also sometimes considered “Schindler’s list.”
Liberation

The Brünnlitz camp was liberated in May 1945. The Schindlers left Brünnlitz on May 9, 1945, just before the Soviet troops arrived at the camp. They fled west, fearful of falling into Soviet hands. Before he left, the Jewish prisoners gave Oskar a gold ring and a signed statement attesting to his efforts to help them. The Schindlers eventually made it to the American Zone of Allied-occupied Germany.
Schindler’s Life After World War II

After World War II, Schindler and his wife could not return to Czechoslovakia. His prewar activities as a German spy made him a war criminal there. His ethnic German background also made him unwelcome in postwar Czechoslovakia. After World War II, the country expelled its ethnic German population.

The Schindlers settled for several years in the town of Regensburg, in the American occupation zone of Germany. There, they struggled financially. Schindler repeatedly turned to his former Jewish prisoners and Jewish aid organizations for help. He sought financial compensation from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint) for the money he had spent to rescue Jews. Schindler claimed he had spent 2.64 million Reichsmarks (about one million US dollars at the time). Later, he also applied for compensation for his factory losses with the West German government.

In 1949, Oskar and Emilie immigrated to Argentina. There, Oskar tried and failed to establish a successful business. He fell into debt. In 1957, Schindler returned alone to Germany. He permanently separated from Emilie, but they did not divorce. Schindler died in Germany in October 1974. He is buried in Israel.

Many of the Jewish people whom Schindler had helped remained devoted to him after the war. They are often referred to as Schindlerjuden or Schindler Jews.
Making Schindler a Household Name

Oskar Schindler was not famous during World War II. He became a well-known name after the war, thanks to the efforts of the Schindler Jews.

Beginning in the 1940s, some Schindler Jews began publicizing Schindler’s story. In the twentieth century, the story of Schindler appeared in newspapers, books, and films. In 1957, an essay by Schindler was included in a German book about rescuers during the Holocaust.

The 1993 movie Schindler’s List made Oskar Schindler into a household name. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film received popular and critical acclaim. It won seven Oscars, including Best Picture at the 1994 Academy Awards. Spielberg’s film was based largely on the 1982 novel Schindler’s List (originally titled Schindler’s Ark) by Thomas Keneally. Keneally worked closely with Leopold Page, one of the Jewish men saved by Schindler.

The novel and the film introduced the American public to Schindler’s story. However, both accounts contain some inaccuracies.
Schindler as Rescuer

Oskar Schindler’s unscrupulousness and opportunism made him an effective protector of his Jewish prisoners. But these same traits also led Schindler to behave in less honorable ways. Because of this, his status as a rescuer has been controversial.

For example, in the 1960s, his nomination as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel’s national institution of Holocaust commemoration, was contentious. Many Schindler Jews supported his nomination. However, two Jewish men from Kraków credibly accused Schindler of theft and abuse during the early years of World War II. Despite these accusations, Schindler was invited by Yad Vashem to plant a tree in his honor. His planting ceremony took place on May 8, 1962.

World War II[b] or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes.

The causes of World War II included unresolved tensions in the aftermath of World War I, the rise of fascism in Europe and militarism in Japan. Key events preceding the war included Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Spanish Civil War, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and Germany's annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, after which the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany. Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In 1940, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania. After the fall of France in June 1940, the war continued mainly between Germany, now assisted by Fascist Italy, and the British Empire, with fighting in the Balkans, Mediterranean, and Middle East, the aerial Battle of Britain and the Blitz, and the naval Battle of the Atlantic. Through campaigns and treaties, Germany gained control of much of continental Europe and formed the Axis alliance with Italy, Japan, and other countries. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front and initially making large territorial gains.

In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories in Asia and the Pacific, including at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, leading the United States to enter the war against Japan and Germany. Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia, but its advances in the Pacific were halted in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway. In early 1943, Axis forces were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union, and that year their continued defeats on the Eastern Front, an Allied invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy that resulted in the fall of Fascist Italy; and Allied offensives in the Pacific forced them into retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France at Normandy, as the Soviet Union recaptured its pre-war territory and the US crippled Japan's navy and captured key Pacific islands. The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories; invasions of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which culminated in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops; and Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. On 6 and 9 August, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Faced with an imminent Allied invasion, the prospect of further atomic bombings, and a Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August, and signed a surrender document on 2 September 1945.

World War II transformed the political, economic, and social structures of the world, and established the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The United Nations was created to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US—becoming the permanent members of its security council. The Soviet Union and the US emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the half-century Cold War. In the wake of Europe's devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and of Asia. Many countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion.
Start and end dates
See also: List of timelines of World War II
Timelines of World War II
Chronological
Prelude

    Events (in Asiain Europe)

    Aftermath

    1939 1940 1941 1942
    1943 1944 1945 Aftermath

By topic

        Causes (Diplomacy)
    Declarations of war
        BattlesOperations

By theatre

    Battle of Europe air operations
        Eastern FrontManhattan Project
    United Kingdom home front
    Surrender of the Axis armies

    vte

Most historians agree that World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939[1][2] and the United Kingdom and France's declaration of war on Germany two days later. Dates for the beginning of the Pacific War include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937,[3][4] or the earlier Japanese invasion of Manchuria, on 19 September 1931.[5][6] Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who stated that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously, and the two wars became World War II in 1941.[7] Other proposed starting dates for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935.[8] The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939.[9] Others view the Spanish Civil War as the start or prelude to World War II.[10][11]

The exact date of the war's end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 15 August 1945 (V-J Day), rather than with the formal surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945, which officially ended the war in Asia. A peace treaty between Japan and the Allies was signed in 1951.[12] A 1990 treaty regarding Germany's future allowed the reunification of East and West Germany to take place.[13] No formal peace treaty between Japan and the Soviet Union was ever signed,[14] although the state of war between the two countries was terminated by the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, which also restored full diplomatic relations between them.[15]
Background
Main article: Causes of World War II
Aftermath of World War I
The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland (1930)

World War I had radically altered the political European map with the defeat of the Central Powers—including Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire—and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, which led to the founding of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the victorious Allies of World War I, such as France, Belgium, Italy, Romania, and Greece, gained territory, and new nation-states were created out of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Turkey).[16][failed verification]

To prevent a future world war, the League of Nations was established in 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference. The organisation's primary goals were to prevent armed conflict through collective security, military, and naval disarmament, as well as settling international disputes through peaceful negotiations and arbitration.[17]

Despite strong pacifist sentiment after World War I,[18] irredentist and revanchist nationalism had emerged in several European states. These sentiments were especially pronounced in Germany due to the significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all its overseas possessions, while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country's armed forces.[19]
Germany and Italy

The German Empire was dissolved in the German revolution of 1918–1919, and a democratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic, was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the political right and left. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into the war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left-wing, and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive expansionist foreign policy aimed at making Italy a world power, promising the creation of a "New Roman Empire".[20]
Adolf Hitler at a German Nazi political rally in Nuremberg, August 1933

Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, eventually became the chancellor of Germany in 1933 when President Paul von Hindenburg and the Reichstag appointed him. Following Hindenburg's death in 1934, Hitler proclaimed himself Führer of Germany and abolished democracy, espousing a radical, racially motivated revision of the world order, and soon began a massive rearmament campaign.[21] France, seeking to secure its alliance with Italy, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany, and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme, and introduced conscription.[22]
European treaties

The United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front in April 1935 in order to contain Germany, a key step towards military globalisation; however, that June, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The Soviet Union, concerned by Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of Eastern Europe, drafted a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect, though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless.[23] The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year.[24]

Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno Treaties by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936, encountering little opposition due to the policy of appeasement.[25] In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome–Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy joined the following year.[26]
Asia

The Kuomintang party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allies[27] and new regional warlords. In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Empire of Japan, which had long sought influence in China[28] as the first step of what its government saw as the country's right to rule Asia, staged the Mukden incident as a pretext to invade Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo.[29]

China appealed to the League of Nations to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai, Rehe, and Hebei, until the Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.[30] After the 1936 Xi'an Incident, the Kuomintang and CCP forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan.[31]
Pre-war events
Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935)
Main article: Second Italo-Ethiopian War
Benito Mussolini inspecting troops during the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War was a colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war began with the invasion of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia) by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia), which was launched from Italian Somaliland and Eritrea.[32] The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana); in addition it exposed the weakness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did little when the former clearly violated Article X of the League's Covenant.[33] The United Kingdom and France supported imposing sanctions on Italy for the invasion, but the sanctions were not fully enforced and failed to end the Italian invasion.[34] Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorbing Austria.[35]
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
Main article: Spanish Civil War

When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis: Mussolini sent more than 70,000 ground troops, 6,000 aviation personnel, and 720 aircraft to Spain.[36] The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis.[37] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front.[38]
Japanese invasion of China (1937)
Main article: Second Sino-Japanese War
Imperial Japanese Army soldiers during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Peking after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China.[39] The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior cooperation with Germany. From September to November, the Japanese attacked Taiyuan, engaged the Kuomintang Army around Xinkou,[40] and fought Communist forces in Pingxingguan.[41][42] Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937. After the fall of Nanking, tens or hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by the Japanese.[43][44]

In March 1938, Nationalist Chinese forces won their first major victory at Taierzhuang, but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by the Japanese in May.[45] In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, but the city was taken by October.[46] Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war.[47][48]
Soviet–Japanese border conflicts
Main article: Soviet–Japanese border conflicts

In the mid-to-late 1930s, Japanese forces in Manchukuo had sporadic border clashes with the Soviet Union and Mongolia. The Japanese doctrine of Hokushin-ron, which emphasised Japan's expansion northward, was favoured by the Imperial Army during this time. This policy would prove difficult to maintain in light of the Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol in 1939, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War[49] and ally Nazi Germany pursuing neutrality with the Soviets. Japan and the Soviet Union eventually signed a Neutrality Pact in April 1941, and Japan adopted the doctrine of Nanshin-ron, promoted by the Navy, which took its focus southward and eventually led to war with the United States and the Western Allies.[50][51]
European occupations and agreements
Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured just before signing the Munich Agreement, 29 September 1938

In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming more aggressive. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers.[52] Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement, which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands.[53] Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed the Trans-Olza region of Czechoslovakia.[54]

Although all of Germany's stated demands had been satisfied by the agreement, privately Hitler was furious that British interference had prevented him from seizing all of Czechoslovakia in one operation. In subsequent speeches Hitler attacked British and Jewish "war-mongers" and in January 1939 secretly ordered a major build-up of the German navy to challenge British naval supremacy. In March 1939, Germany invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a pro-German client state, the Slovak Republic.[55] Hitler also delivered an ultimatum to Lithuania on 20 March 1939, forcing the concession of the Klaipėda Region, formerly the German Memelland.[56]
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (right) and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939

Greatly alarmed and with Hitler making further demands on the Free City of Danzig, the United Kingdom and France guaranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to the Kingdoms of Romania and Greece.[57] Shortly after the Franco-British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.[58] Hitler accused the United Kingdom and Poland of trying to "encircle" Germany and renounced the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression.[59]

The situation became a crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. On 23 August the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany,[60] after tripartite negotiations for a military alliance between France, the United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had stalled.[61] This pact had a secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the Soviet Union), and raised the question of continuing Polish independence.[62] The pact neutralised the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of a two-front war, as it had in World War I. Immediately afterwards, Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that the United Kingdom had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it.[63]

In response to British requests for direct negotiations to avoid war, Germany made demands on Poland, which served as a pretext to worsen relations.[64] On 29 August, Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig, and to allow a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor in which the German minority would vote on secession.[64] The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a confrontational meeting with the British ambassador Nevile Henderson, Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected.[65]
Course of the war
For a chronological guide, see List of timelines of World War II.
See also: Diplomatic history of World War II and World War II by country
War breaks out in Europe (1939–1940)
Main article: European theatre of World War II
A German propaganda photograph reenacting the removal of the Polish border crossing in Sopot[66]

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the invasion.[67] The first German attack of the war came against the Polish defences at Westerplatte.[68] The United Kingdom responded with an ultimatum for Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, Britain and France declared war on Germany.[c] During the Phoney War period, the alliance provided no direct military support to Poland, outside of a cautious French probe into the Saarland.[69] The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort.[70] Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.[71] On 8 September, German troops reached the suburbs of Warsaw. The Polish counter-offensive to the west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by the Wehrmacht. Remnants of the Polish army broke through to besieged Warsaw. On 17 September 1939, two days after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviet Union invaded Poland[72] under the supposed pretext that the Polish state had ceased to exist.[73] On 27 September, the Warsaw garrison surrendered to the Germans, and the last large operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October. Despite the military defeat, Poland never surrendered; instead, it formed the Polish government-in-exile and a clandestine state apparatus remained in occupied Poland.[74] A significant part of Polish military personnel evacuated to Romania and Latvia; many of them later fought against the Axis in other theatres of the war.[75]

Germany annexed western Poland and occupied central Poland; the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland. Small shares of Polish territory were transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia. On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to the United Kingdom and France but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected[65] and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France,[76] which was postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather.[77][78][79]
Mannerheim Line and Karelian Isthmus on the last day of the Winter War, 13 March 1940

After the outbreak of war in Poland, Stalin threatened Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania with military invasion, forcing the three Baltic countries to sign pacts allowing the creation of Soviet military bases in these countries; in October 1939, significant Soviet military contingents were moved there.[80][81][82] Finland refused to sign a similar pact and rejected ceding part of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939,[83] and was subsequently expelled from the League of Nations for this crime of aggression.[84] Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet military success during the Winter War was modest, and the Finno–Soviet war ended in March 1940 with some Finnish concessions of territory.[85]

In June 1940, the Soviet Union occupied the entire territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,[81] as well as the Romanian regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region. In August 1940, Hitler imposed the Second Vienna Award on Romania which led to the transfer of Northern Transylvania to Hungary.[86] In September 1940, Bulgaria demanded Southern Dobruja from Romania with German and Italian support, leading to the Treaty of Craiova.[87] The loss of one-third of Romania's 1939 territory caused a coup against King Carol II, turning Romania into a fascist dictatorship under Marshal Ion Antonescu, with a course set towards the Axis in the hopes of a German guarantee.[88] Meanwhile, German–Soviet political relations and economic co-operation[89][90] gradually stalled,[91][92] and both states began preparations for war.[93]
Western Europe (1940–1941)
Main article: Western Front (World War II)
German advance into Belgium and Northern France, 10 May – 4 June 1940, sweeping past the Maginot Line (shown in dark red)

In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off.[94] Denmark capitulated after six hours, and despite Allied support, Norway was conquered within two months.[95] British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who was replaced by Winston Churchill on 10 May 1940.[96]

On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France. To circumvent the strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.[97] The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through the Ardennes region,[98] which was mistakenly perceived by the Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles.[99][100] By successfully implementing new Blitzkrieg tactics, the Wehrmacht rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the Franco-Belgian border near Lille. The United Kingdom was able to evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although they had to abandon almost all their equipment.[101]

On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom.[102] The Germans turned south against the weakened French army, and Paris fell to them on 14 June. Eight days later France signed an armistice with Germany; it was divided into German and Italian occupation zones,[103] and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime, which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. France kept its fleet, which the United Kingdom attacked on 3 July in an attempt to prevent its seizure by Germany.[104]

The air Battle of Britain[105] began in early July with Luftwaffe attacks on shipping and harbours.[106] The German campaign for air superiority started in August but its failure to defeat RAF Fighter Command forced the indefinite postponement of the proposed German invasion of Britain. The German strategic bombing offensive intensified with night attacks on London and other cities in the Blitz, but largely ended in May 1941[107] after failing to significantly disrupt the British war effort.[106]

Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic.[108] The British Home Fleet scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck.[109]

In November 1939, the United States was assisting China and the Western Allies, and had amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies.[110] In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased. In September the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases.[111] Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention in the conflict well into 1941.[112] In December 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the United States to become an "arsenal of democracy" and promoting Lend-Lease programmes of military and humanitarian aid to support the British war effort; Lend-Lease was later extended to the other Allies, including the Soviet Union after it was invaded by Germany.[113] The United States started strategic planning to prepare for a full-scale offensive against Germany.[114]

At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as the Axis powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country—with the exception of the Soviet Union—that attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three.[115] The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania joined.[116] Romania and Hungary later made major contributions to the Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the Soviet Union.[117]
Mediterranean (1940–1941)
Main article: Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II

In early June 1940, the Italian Regia Aeronautica attacked and besieged Malta, a British possession. From late summer to early autumn, Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt. In October, Italy attacked Greece, but the attack was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within months with minor territorial changes.[118] To assist Italy and prevent Britain from gaining a foothold, Germany prepared to invade the Balkans, which would threaten Romanian oil fields and strike against British dominance of the Mediterranean.[119]
German Panzer III of the Afrika Korps advancing across the North African desert, April 1941

In December 1940, British Empire forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa.[120] The offensives were successful; by early February 1941, Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission after a carrier attack at Taranto, and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.[121]

Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy an expeditionary force to North Africa; at the end of March 1941, Rommel's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back Commonwealth forces.[122] In less than a month, Axis forces advanced to western Egypt and besieged the port of Tobruk.[123]

By late March 1941, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact; however, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days later by pro-British nationalists. Germany and Italy responded with simultaneous invasions of both Yugoslavia and Greece, commencing on 6 April 1941; both nations were forced to surrender within the month.[124] The airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete at the end of May completed the German conquest of the Balkans.[125] Partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, which continued until the end of the war.[126]

In the Middle East in May, Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria.[127] Between June and July, British-led forces invaded and occupied the French possessions of Syria and Lebanon, assisted by the Free French.[128]
Axis attack on the Soviet Union (1941)
Main article: Eastern Front (World War II)
European theatre of World War II animation map, 1939–1945 – Red: Western Allies and the Soviet Union after 1941; Green: Soviet Union before 1941; Blue: Axis powers

With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations for war. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany, and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941.[129] By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, massing forces on the Soviet border.[130]

Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany.[131] On 31 July 1940, Hitler decided that the Soviet Union should be eliminated and aimed for the conquest of Ukraine, the Baltic states and Byelorussia.[132] However, other senior German officials like Ribbentrop saw an opportunity to create a Euro-Asian bloc against the British Empire by inviting the Soviet Union into the Tripartite Pact.[133] In November 1940, negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would join the pact. The Soviets showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December 1940, Hitler issued the directive to prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union.[134]

On 22 June 1941, Germany, supported by Italy and Romania, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, with Germany accusing the Soviets of plotting against them; they were joined shortly by Finland and Hungary.[135] The primary targets of this surprise offensive[136] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with the ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan line—from the Caspian to the White Seas. Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate communism, generate Lebensraum ("living space")[137] by dispossessing the native population,[138] and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals.[139]

Although the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war,[140] Operation Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt strategic defence. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By mid-August, however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the 2nd Panzer Group to reinforce troops advancing towards central Ukraine and Leningrad.[141] The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made possible further advance into Crimea and industrially-developed eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov).[142]
Russian civilians leaving destroyed houses after a German bombardment during the siege of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), 10 December 1942

The diversion of three-quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front[143] prompted the United Kingdom to reconsider its grand strategy.[144] In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany[145] and in August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter, which outlined British and American goals for the post-war world.[146] In late August the British and Soviets invaded neutral Iran to secure the Persian Corridor, Iran's oil fields, and preempt any Axis advances through Iran toward the Baku oil fields or India.[147]

By October, Axis powers had achieved operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region, with only the sieges of Leningrad[148] and Sevastopol continuing.[149] A major offensive against Moscow was renewed; after two months of fierce battles in increasingly harsh weather, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops[150] were forced to suspend the offensive.[151] Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.[152]

By early December, freshly mobilised reserves[153] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.[154] This, as well as intelligence data which established that a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East would be sufficient to deter any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,[155] allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December all along the front and pushed German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–155 mi) west.[156]
War breaks out in the Pacific (1941)
Main article: Pacific War
Japanese soldiers entering Hong Kong, 8 December 1941

Following the Japanese false flag Mukden incident in 1931, the Japanese shelling of the American gunboat USS Panay in 1937, and the 1937–1938 Nanjing Massacre, Japanese-American relations deteriorated. In 1939, the United States notified Japan that it would not be extending its trade treaty and American public opinion opposing Japanese expansionism led to a series of economic sanctions—the Export Control Acts—which banned US exports of chemicals, minerals and military parts to Japan, and increased economic pressure on the Japanese regime.[113][157][158] During 1939 Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, but was repulsed by late September.[159] Despite several offensives by both sides, by 1940 the war between China and Japan was at a stalemate. To increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan invaded and occupied northern Indochina in September 1940.[160]

Chinese nationalist forces launched a large-scale counter-offensive in early 1940. In August, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China;[161] in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists.[162] Continued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.[163] In March, the Japanese 11th army attacked the headquarters of the nationalist Chinese 19th army but was repulsed during the Battle of Shanggao.[164] In September, Japan attempted to take the city of Changsha again and clashed with Chinese nationalist forces.[165]

German successes in Europe prompted Japan to increase pressure on European governments in Southeast Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan with oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, but negotiations for additional access to their resources ended in failure in June 1941.[166] In July 1941 Japan sent troops to southern Indochina, threatening British and Dutch possessions in the Far East. The United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western governments reacted to this move with a freeze on Japanese assets and a total oil embargo.[167][168] At the same time, Japan was planning an invasion of the Soviet Far East, intending to take advantage of the German invasion in the west, but abandoned the operation after the sanctions.[169]

Since early 1941, the United States and Japan had been engaged in negotiations in an attempt to improve their strained relations and end the war in China. Japan advanced a number of proposals which were dismissed by the Americans as inadequate.[170] At the same time the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands engaged in secret discussions for the joint defence of their territories, in the event of a Japanese attack against any of them.[171] Roosevelt reinforced the Philippines (an American protectorate scheduled for independence in 1946) and warned Japan that the United States would react to Japanese attacks against any "neighboring countries".[171]
The USS Arizona was a total loss in the Japanese surprise air attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Sunday 7 December 1941

Frustrated at the lack of progress and feeling the pinch of the American–British–Dutch sanctions, Japan prepared for war. Emperor Hirohito, after initial hesitation about Japan's chances of victory,[172] began to favour Japan's entry into the war.[173] As a result, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe resigned.[174][175] Hirohito refused the recommendation to appoint Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni in his place, choosing War Minister Hideki Tojo instead.[176] On 3 November, Nagano explained in detail the plan of the attack on Pearl Harbor to the Emperor.[177] On 5 November, Hirohito approved in imperial conference the operations plan for the war.[178] On 20 November, the new government presented an interim proposal as its final offer. It called for the end of American aid to China and for lifting the embargo on the supply of oil and other resources to Japan. In exchange, Japan promised not to launch any attacks in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces from southern Indochina.[170] The American counter-proposal of 26 November required that Japan evacuate all of China without conditions and conclude non-aggression pacts with all Pacific powers.[179] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in China, or seizing the natural resources it needed in the Dutch East Indies by force;[180][181] the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[182]

Japan planned to seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific. The Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.[183][184] To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter, it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet and the American military presence in the Philippines from the outset.[185] On 7 December 1941 (8 December in Asian time zones), Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific.[186] These included an attack on the American fleets at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, as well as invasions of Guam, Wake Island, Malaya,[186] Thailand, and Hong Kong.[187]

These attacks led the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia, and several other states to formally declare war on Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, being heavily involved in large-scale hostilities with European Axis countries, maintained its neutrality agreement with Japan.[188] Germany, followed by the other Axis states, declared war on the United States[189] in solidarity with Japan, citing as justification the American attacks on German war vessels that had been ordered by Roosevelt.[135][190]
Axis advance stalls (1942–1943)

On 1 January 1942, the Allied Big Four[191]—the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States—and 22 smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, thereby affirming the Atlantic Charter[192] and agreeing not to sign a separate peace with the Axis powers.[193]

During 1942, Allied officials debated on the appropriate grand strategy to pursue. All agreed that defeating Germany was the primary objective. The Americans favoured a straightforward, large-scale attack on Germany through France. The Soviets demanded a second front. The British argued that military operations should target peripheral areas to wear out German strength, leading to increasing demoralisation, and bolstering resistance forces; Germany itself would be subject to a heavy bombing campaign. An offensive against Germany would then be launched primarily by Allied armour, without using large-scale armies.[194] Eventually, the British persuaded the Americans that a landing in France was infeasible in 1942 and they should instead focus on driving the Axis out of North Africa.[195]

At the Casablanca Conference in early 1943, the Allies reiterated the statements issued in the 1942 Declaration and demanded the unconditional surrender of their enemies. The British and Americans agreed to continue to press the initiative in the Mediterranean by invading Sicily to fully secure the Mediterranean supply routes.[196] Although the British argued for further operations in the Balkans to bring Turkey into the war, in May 1943, the Americans extracted a British commitment to limit Allied operations in the Mediterranean to an invasion of the Italian mainland, and to invade France in 1944.[197]
Pacific (1942–1943)
Map of Japanese military advances through mid-1942

By the end of April 1942, Japan and its ally Thailand had almost conquered Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners.[198] Despite stubborn resistance by Filipino and US forces, the Philippine Commonwealth was eventually captured in May 1942, forcing its government into exile.[199] On 16 April, in Burma, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during the Battle of Yenangyaung and rescued by the Chinese 38th Division.[200] Japanese forces achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea, and Indian Ocean,[201] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. In January 1942, the only Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha.[202] These easy victories over the unprepared US and European opponents left Japan overconfident, and overextended.[203]

In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The planned invasion was thwarted when an Allied task force, centred on two American fleet carriers, fought Japanese naval forces to a draw in the Battle of the Coral Sea.[204] Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier Doolittle Raid, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.[205] In mid-May, Japan started the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign in China, with the goal of inflicting retribution on the Chinese who aided the surviving American airmen in the Doolittle Raid by destroying Chinese air bases and fighting against the Chinese 23rd and 32nd Army Groups.[206][207] In early June, Japan put its operations into action, but the Americans had broken Japanese naval codes in late May and were fully aware of the plans and order of battle, and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imperial Japanese Navy.[208]

With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan attempted to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.[209] The Americans planned a counterattack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[210]

Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the Battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna–Gona.[211] Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.[212] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first was a disastrous offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942 that forced a retreat back to India by May 1943.[213] The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese frontlines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved mixed results.[214]
Eastern Front (1942–1943)
Red Army soldiers on the counterattack during the Battle of Stalingrad, February 1943

Despite considerable losses, in early 1942 Germany and its allies stopped a major Soviet offensive in central and southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year.[215] In May, the Germans defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov,[216] and then in June 1942 launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy the Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A advanced to the lower Don River and struck south-east to the Caucasus, while Army Group B headed towards the Volga River. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad on the Volga.[217]

By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting. The Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad,[218] and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[219] By early February 1943, the German army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been defeated,[220] and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front line around the Soviet city of Kursk.[221]
Western Europe/Atlantic and Mediterranean (1942–1943)
American Eighth Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombing raid on the Focke-Wulf factory in Germany, 9 October 1943

Exploiting poor American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.[222] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive in North Africa, Operation Crusader, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.[223] The Germans also launched a North African offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala line by early February,[224] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.[225] Concerns that the Japanese might use bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.[226] An Axis offensive in Libya forced an Allied retreat deep inside Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.[227] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the failed Dieppe Raid,[228] demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.[229]

In August 1942, the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Alamein[230] and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta.[231] A few months later, the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya.[232] This attack was followed up shortly after by Anglo-American landings in French North Africa, which resulted in the region joining the Allies.[233] Hitler responded to the French colony's defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France;[233] although Vichy forces did not resist this violation of the armistice, they managed to scuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by German forces.[233][234] Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies in May 1943.[233][235]

In June 1943, the British and Americans began a strategic bombing campaign against Germany with a goal to disrupt the war economy, reduce morale, and "de-house" the civilian population.[236] The firebombing of Hamburg was among the first attacks in this campaign, inflicting significant casualties and considerable losses on infrastructure of this important industrial centre.[237]
Allies gain momentum (1943–1944)
US Navy SBD-5 scout plane flying patrol over USS Washington and USS Lexington during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, 1943

After the Guadalcanal campaign, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. In May 1943, Canadian and US forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians.[238] Soon after, the United States, with support from Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islander forces, began major ground, sea and air operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.[239] By the end of March 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives and had also neutralised the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.[240]

In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 preparing for large offensives in central Russia. On 5 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' well-constructed defences,[241] and for the first time in the war, Hitler cancelled an operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.[242] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July, which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.[243]

On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby nearly completely dispelling any chance of German victory or even stalemate in the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk marked the end of German superiority,[244] giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.[245][246] The Germans tried to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther–Wotan line, but the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and the Lower Dnieper Offensive.[247]

On 3 September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following Italy's armistice with the Allies and the ensuing German occupation of Italy.[248] Germany, with the help of the fascists, responded to the armistice by disarming Italian forces that were in many places without superior orders, seizing military control of Italian areas,[249] and creating a series of defensive lines.[250] German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German-occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic,[251] causing an Italian civil war. The Western Allies fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November.[252]
Red Army troops in a counter-offensive on German positions at the Battle of Kursk, July 1943

German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.[253] In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.[254] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory[255] and the military planning for the Burma campaign,[256] while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would invade Europe in 1944 and that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.[257]

From November 1943, during the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese awaited Allied relief as they forced Japan to fight a costly war of attrition.[258][259][260] In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and tried to outflank it with landings at Anzio.[261]

On 27 January 1944, Soviet troops launched a major offensive that expelled German forces from the Leningrad region, thereby ending the most lethal siege in history.[262] The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay slowed subsequent Soviet operations in the Baltic Sea region.[263] By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops.[264] The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the cost of allowing several German divisions to retreat, Rome was captured on 4 June.[265]

The Allies had mixed success in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japanese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against Allied positions in Assam, India,[266] and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima.[267] In May 1944, British and Indian forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Japanese troops back to Burma by July,[267] and Chinese forces that had invaded northern Burma in late 1943 besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina.[268] The second Japanese invasion of China aimed to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields.[269] By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a new attack on Changsha.[270]
Allies close in (1944)
American troops approaching Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944

On 6 June 1944 (commonly known as D-Day), after three years of Soviet pressure,[271] the Western Allies invaded northern France. After reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, they also attacked southern France.[272] These landings were successful and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated on 25 August by the local resistance assisted by the Free French Forces, both led by General Charles de Gaulle,[273] and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in western Europe during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Germany spearheaded by a major airborne operation in the Netherlands failed.[274] After that, the Western Allies slowly pushed into Germany, but failed to cross the Roer river. In Italy, the Allied advance slowed due to the last major German defensive line.[275]

On 22 June, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus that nearly destroyed the German Army Group Centre.[276] Soon after that, another Soviet strategic offensive forced German troops from Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The Soviet Red Army however halted in the Praga district on the other side of the Vistula and watched passively as the Germans quelled the Warsaw Uprising initiated by the Home Army (the main faction of the Polish resistance, loyal to the non-communist government-in exile).[277] The national uprising in Slovakia was also quelled by the Germans.[278] The Soviet Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered a successful coup d'état in Romania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries' shift to the Allied side.[279]
General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte, 20 October 1944

In September 1944, Soviet troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off.[280] By this point, the communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who had led an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the occupation since 1941, controlled much of the territory of Yugoslavia and engaged in delaying efforts against German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Soviet Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on 20 October. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.[281] Unlike impressive Soviet victories in the Balkans, bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviets occupation of Finland and led to a Soviet-Finnish armistice on relatively mild conditions,[282] although Finland was forced to fight their German former allies.[283]

By the start of July 1944, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River[284] while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In September 1944, Chinese forces captured Mount Song and reopened the Burma Road.[285] In China, the Japanese had more successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August.[286] Soon after, they invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November[287] and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by mid-December.[288]

In the Pacific, US forces continued to push back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944, they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands and decisively defeated Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. These defeats led to the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister, Hideki Tojo, and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.[289]
Axis collapse and Allied victory (1944–1945)
Yalta Conference held in February 1945, with Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin

On 16 December 1944, Germany made a last attempt to split the Allies on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes and along the French-German border, hoping to encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and prompt a political settlement after capturing their primary supply port at Antwerp. By 16 January 1945, this offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled.[290] In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Red Army attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.[291] On 4 February Soviet, British, and US leaders met for the Yalta Conference. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and on when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.[292]

In February, the Soviets entered Silesia and Pomerania, while the Western Allies entered western Germany and closed to the Rhine river. By March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling the German Army Group B.[293] In early March, in an attempt to protect its last oil reserves in Hungary and retake Budapest, Germany launched its last major offensive against Soviet troops near Lake Balaton. Within two weeks, the offensive had been repulsed, the Soviets advanced to Vienna, and captured the city. In early April, Soviet troops captured Königsberg, while the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across western Germany capturing Hamburg and Nuremberg. American and Soviet forces met at the Elbe river on 25 April, leaving unoccupied pockets in southern Germany and around Berlin.

Soviet troops stormed and captured Berlin in late April.[294] In Italy, German forces surrendered on 29 April, while the Italian Social Republic capitulated two days later. On 30 April, the Reichstag was captured, signalling the military defeat of Nazi Germany.[295]

Major changes in leadership occurred on both sides during this period. On 12 April, President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by his vice president, Harry S. Truman.[296] Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on 28 April.[297] On 30 April, Hitler committed suicide in his headquarters, and was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (as President of the Reich) and Joseph Goebbels (as Chancellor of the Reich). Goebbels also committed suicide on the following day and was replaced by Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, in what would later be known as the Flensburg Government. Total and unconditional surrender in Europe was signed on 7 and 8 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.[298] German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May.[299] On 23 May all remaining members of the German government were arrested by Allied forces in Flensburg. On 5 June all German political and military institutions were placed under Allied control through the Berlin Declaration.[300]

In the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April 1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and recaptured Manila in March. Fighting continued on Luzon, Mindanao, and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.[301] Meanwhile, the United States Army Air Forces launched a massive firebombing campaign of strategic cities in Japan in an effort to destroy Japanese war industry and civilian morale. A devastating bombing raid on Tokyo of 9–10 March was the deadliest conventional bombing raid in history.[302]
Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on board USS Missouri, 2 September 1945

In May 1945, Australian troops landed in Borneo, overrunning the oilfields there. British, American, and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May.[303] Chinese forces started a counterattack in the Battle of West Hunan that occurred between 6 April and 7 June 1945. American naval and amphibious forces also moved towards Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June.[304] At the same time, a naval blockade by submarines was strangling Japan's economy and drastically reducing its ability to supply overseas forces.[305][306]

On 11 July, Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany,[307] and the American, British and Chinese governments reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender of Japan, specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction".[308] During this conference, the United Kingdom held its general election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister.[309]

The call for unconditional surrender was rejected by the Japanese government, which believed it would be capable of negotiating for more favourable surrender terms.[310] In early August, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Between the two bombings, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, declared war on Japan, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the largest Japanese fighting force.[311] These two events persuaded previously adamant Imperial Army leaders to accept surrender terms.[312] The Red Army also captured the southern part of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. On the night of 9–10 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced his decision to accept the terms demanded by the Allies in the Potsdam Declaration.[313] On 15 August, the Emperor communicated this decision to the Japanese people through a speech broadcast on the radio (Gyokuon-hōsō, literally "broadcast in the Emperor's voice").[314] On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed at Tokyo Bay on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war.[315]
Aftermath
Main articles: Aftermath of World War II and Consequences of Nazism
Defendants at the Nuremberg trials, where the Allied forces prosecuted prominent members of the political, military, judicial, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany for crimes against humanity

The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany, both initially divided between western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, respectively. However, their paths soon diverged. In Germany, the western and eastern occupation zones officially ended in 1949, with the respective zones becoming separate countries, West Germany and East Germany.[316] In Austria, however, occupation continued until 1955, when a joint settlement between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union permitted the reunification of Austria as a democratic state officially non-aligned with any political bloc (although in practice having better relations with the Western Allies). A denazification program in Germany led to the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg trials and the removal of ex-Nazis from power, although this policy moved towards amnesty and re-integration of ex-Nazis into West German society.[317]

Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war (1937) territory. Among the eastern territories, Silesia, Neumark and most of Pomerania were taken over by Poland,[318] and East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union, followed by the expulsion to Germany of the nine million Germans from these provinces,[319][320] as well as three million Germans from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. By the 1950s, one-fifth of West Germans were refugees from the east. The Soviet Union also took over the Polish provinces east of the Curzon Line,[321] from which two million Poles were expelled.[320][322] North-east Romania,[323][324] parts of eastern Finland,[325] and the Baltic states were annexed into the Soviet Union.[326][327] Italy lost its monarchy, colonial empire, and some European territories.[328]

In an effort to maintain world peace,[329] the Allies formed the United Nations,[330] which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[331] and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 as a common standard for all member nations.[332] The great powers that were the victors of the war—France, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States—became the permanent members of the UN's Security Council.[333] The five permanent members remain so to the present, although there have been two seat changes, between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China in 1971, and between the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over.[334]
Post-war border changes in Central Europe and creation of the Communist Eastern Bloc

Besides Germany, the rest of Europe was also divided into Western and Soviet spheres of influence.[335] Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to the establishment of Communist-led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, East Germany,[336] Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Albania[337] became Soviet satellite states. Communist Yugoslavia conducted a fully independent policy, causing tension with the Soviet Union.[338] A communist uprising in Greece was put down with Anglo-American support and the country remained aligned with the West.[339]

Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.[340] The long period of political tensions and military competition between them—the Cold War—would be accompanied by an unprecedented arms race and number of proxy wars throughout the world.[341]

In Asia, the United States led the occupation of Japan and administered Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.[342] Korea, formerly under Japanese colonial rule, was divided and occupied by the Soviet Union in the North and the United States in the South between 1945 and 1948. Separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel in 1948, each claiming to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, which led ultimately to the Korean War.[343]

In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces prevailed and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949.[344] In the Middle East, the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the creation of Israel marked the escalation of the Arab–Israeli conflict. While European powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to decolonisation.[345][346]

The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although participating nations were affected differently. The United States emerged much richer than any other nation, leading to a baby boom, and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much greater than that of any of the other powers, and it dominated the world economy.[347] The Allied occupational authorities pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western Germany from 1945 to 1948.[348] Due to international trade interdependencies, this policy led to an economic stagnation in Europe and delayed European recovery from the war for several years.[349][350]

At the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, the Allied nations drew up an economic framework for the post-war world. The agreement created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which later became part of the World Bank Group. The Bretton Woods system lasted until 1973.[351] Recovery began with the mid-1948 currency reform in West Germany, and was sped up by the liberalisation of European economic policy that the US Marshall Plan economic aid (1948–1951) both directly and indirectly caused.[352][353] The post-1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle.[354] Italy also experienced an economic boom[355] and the French economy rebounded.[356] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin,[357] and although receiving a quarter of the total Marshall Plan assistance, more than any other European country,[358] it continued in relative economic decline for decades.[359] The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increases in production in the immediate post-war era,[360] having seized and transferred most of Germany's industrial plants and exacted war reparations from its satellite states.[d][361] Japan recovered much later.[362] China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.[363]
Impact
Main article: Historiography of World War II
Casualties and war crimes
Main article: World War II casualties
Further information: War crimes in World War II
World War II deaths

Estimates for the total number of casualties in the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded.[364] Most suggest 60 million people died, about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians.[365][366]

The Soviet Union alone lost around 27 million people during the war,[367] including 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths.[368] A quarter of the total people in the Soviet Union were wounded or killed.[369] Germany sustained 5.3 million military losses, mostly on the Eastern Front and during the final battles in Germany.[370]

An estimated 11[371] to 17 million[372] civilians died as a direct or as an indirect result of Hitler's racist policies, including mass killing of around 6 million Jews, along with Roma, homosexuals, at least 1.9 million ethnic Poles[373][374] and millions of other Slavs (including Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), and other ethnic and minority groups.[375][372] Between 1941 and 1945, more than 200,000 ethnic Serbs, along with Roma and Jews, were persecuted and murdered by the Axis-aligned Croatian Ustaše in Yugoslavia.[376] Concurrently, Muslims and Croats were persecuted and killed by Serb nationalist Chetniks,[377] with an estimated 50,000–68,000 victims (of which 41,000 were civilians).[378] Also, more than 100,000 Poles were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the Volhynia massacres, between 1943 and 1945.[379] At the same time, about 10,000–15,000 Ukrainians were killed by the Polish Home Army and other Polish units, in reprisal attacks.[380]
Bodies of Chinese civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Nanjing Massacre in December 1937

In Asia and the Pacific, the number of people killed by Japanese troops remains contested. According to R.J. Rummel, the Japanese killed between 3 million and more than 10 million people, with the most probable case of almost 6,000,000 people.[381] According to the British historian M. R. D. Foot, civilian deaths are between 10 million and 20 million, whereas Chinese military casualties (killed and wounded) are estimated to be over five million.[382] Other estimates say that up to 30 million people, most of them civilians, were killed.[383][384] The most infamous Japanese atrocity was the Nanjing Massacre, in which fifty to three hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered.[385] Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported that 2.47 million casualties occurred during the Three Alls policy. General Yasuji Okamura implemented the policy in Hebei and Shandong.[386]

Axis forces employed biological and chemical weapons. The Imperial Japanese Army used a variety of such weapons during its invasion and occupation of China (see Unit 731)[387][388] and in early conflicts against the Soviets.[389] Both the Germans and the Japanese tested such weapons against civilians,[390] and sometimes on prisoners of war.[391]

The Soviet Union was responsible for the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers,[392] and the imprisonment or execution of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners by the NKVD secret police, along with mass civilian deportations to Siberia, in the Baltic states and eastern Poland annexed by the Red Army.[393] Soviet soldiers committed mass rapes in occupied territories, especially in Germany.[394][395] The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million,[396] while figures for women raped by German soldiers in the Soviet Union go as far as ten million.[397][398]

The mass bombing of cities in Europe and Asia has often been called a war crime, although no positive or specific customary international humanitarian law with respect to aerial warfare existed before or during World War II.[399] The USAAF bombed a total of 67 Japanese cities, killing 393,000 civilians, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and destroying 65% of built-up areas.[400]
Genocide, concentration camps, and slave labour
Main articles: The Holocaust, Nazi concentration camps, Extermination camp, Forced labour under German rule during World War II, Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany, Nazi human experimentation, Soviet war crimes § World War II, Japanese war crimes, and Prisoners of war in World War II
Schutzstaffel (SS) female camp guards removing prisoners' bodies from lorries and carrying them to a mass grave, inside the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 1945

Nazi Germany, under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, was responsible for murdering about 6 million Jews in what is now known as the Holocaust. They also murdered an additional 4 million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet prisoners of war, Romani, homosexuals, Freemasons, and Jehovah's Witnesses) as part of a program of deliberate extermination, in effect becoming a "genocidal state".[401] Soviet POWs were kept in especially unbearable conditions, and 3.6 million Soviet POWs out of 5.7 million died in Nazi camps during the war.[402][403] In addition to concentration camps, death camps were created in Nazi Germany to exterminate people on an industrial scale. Nazi Germany extensively used forced labourers; about 12 million Europeans from German-occupied countries were abducted and used as a slave work force in German industry, agriculture and war economy.[404]
Prisoner identity photograph of a Polish girl taken by the German SS in Auschwitz.[405] Approximately 230,000 children were held prisoner and used in forced labour and Nazi medical experiments

The Soviet Gulag became a de facto system of deadly camps during 1942–1943, when wartime privation and hunger caused numerous deaths of inmates,[406] including foreign citizens of Poland and other countries occupied in 1939–1940 by the Soviet Union, as well as Axis POWs.[407] By the end of the war, most Soviet POWs liberated from Nazi camps and many repatriated civilians were detained in special filtration camps where they were subjected to NKVD evaluation, and 226,127 were sent to the Gulag as real or perceived Nazi collaborators.[408]

Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also had high death rates. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found the death rate of Western prisoners was 27 percent (for American POWs, 37 percent),[409] seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[410] While 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from the United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number of Chinese released was only 56.[411]

At least five million Chinese civilians from northern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by the East Asia Development Board, or Kōain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million.[412] In Java, between 4 and 10 million rōmusha (Japanese: "manual labourers"), were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese labourers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in Southeast Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.[413]
Occupation
Main articles: German-occupied Europe, Resistance during World War II, Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, Collaboration with Imperial Japan, and Nazi plunder
Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before being massacred by German soldiers in Palmiry forest, 1940

In Europe, occupation came under two forms. In Western, Northern, and Central Europe (France, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and the annexed portions of Czechoslovakia) Germany established economic policies through which it collected roughly 69.5 billion reichsmarks (27.8 billion US dollars) by the end of the war; this figure does not include the plunder of industrial products, military equipment, raw materials and other goods.[414] Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 percent of the income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to nearly 40 percent of total German income as the war went on.[415]
Soviet partisans hanged by the German army. The Russian Academy of Sciences reported in 1995 that civilian victims in the Soviet Union at German hands totalled 13.7 million dead, twenty percent of the 68 million people in the occupied Soviet Union

In the East, the intended gains of Lebensraum were never attained as fluctuating front-lines and Soviet scorched earth policies denied resources to the German invaders.[416] Unlike in the West, the Nazi racial policy encouraged extreme brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavic descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass atrocities and war crimes.[417] The Nazis killed an estimated 2.8 million ethnic Poles in addition to Polish-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.[418] Although by 1942 resistance groups formed in most occupied territories,[419] the assessments of the effectiveness of Soviet partisans[420] and French Resistance[421] suggests that they did not significantly hamper German operations until late 1943.

In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples.[422] Although Japanese forces were sometimes welcomed as liberators from European domination, Japanese war crimes frequently turned local public opinion against them.[423] During Japan's initial conquest, it captured 4,000,000 barrels (640,000 m3) of oil (~550,000 tonnes) left behind by retreating Allied forces; and by 1943, was able to get production in the Dutch East Indies up to 50 million barrels (7,900,000 m3) of oil (~6.8 million tonnes), 76 percent of its 1940 output rate.[423]
Home fronts and production
Main articles: Military production during World War II and Home front during World War II
Allies to Axis GDP ratio throughout the war

In the 1930s, Britain and the United States together controlled almost 75% of world mineral output—essential for projecting military power.[424]

In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and the British Dominions) had a 30 percent larger population and a 30 percent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis powers (Germany and Italy); including colonies, the Allies had more than a 5:1 advantage in population and a nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.[425] In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan but only an 89 percent higher GDP; this reduces to three times the population and only a 38 percent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included.[425]

The United States produced about two-thirds of all munitions used by the Allies in World War II, including warships, transports, warplanes, artillery, tanks, trucks, and ammunition.[426] Although the Allies' economic and population advantages were largely mitigated during the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and Japan, they became the decisive factor by 1942, after the United States and Soviet Union joined the Allies and the war evolved into one of attrition.[427] While the Allies' ability to out-produce the Axis was partly due to more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to employ women in the labour force,[428] Allied strategic bombing,[429] and Germany's late shift to a war economy[430] contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and had not equipped themselves to do so.[431] To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers;[432] Germany enslaved about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe,[404] while Japan used more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.[412][413]
Advances in technology and its application
Main article: Technology during World War II
A V-2 rocket launched from a fixed site in Peenemünde, 21 June 1943

Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers, and ground-support, and each role developed considerably. Innovations included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment, and personnel);[433] and strategic bombing (the bombing of enemy industrial and population centres to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war).[434] Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery, in particular the introduction of the proximity fuze. The use of the jet aircraft was pioneered and led to jets becoming standard in air forces worldwide.[435]

Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines. Although aeronautical warfare had relatively little success at the start of the war, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital ship (in place of the battleship).[436][437][438] In the Atlantic, escort carriers became a vital part of Allied convoys, increasing the effective protection radius and helping to close the Mid-Atlantic gap.[439] Carriers were also more economical than battleships due to the relatively low cost of aircraft[440] and because they are not required to be as heavily armoured.[441] Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the First World War,[442] were expected by all combatants to be important in the second. The British focused development on anti-submarine weaponry and tactics, such as sonar and convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with designs such as the Type VII submarine and wolfpack tactics.[443] Gradually, improving Allied technologies such as the Leigh Light, Hedgehog, Squid, and homing torpedoes proved effective against German submarines.[444]
Nuclear Gadget being raised to the top of the detonation "shot tower", at Alamogordo Bombing Range; Trinity nuclear test, New Mexico, July 1945

Land warfare changed from the static frontlines of trench warfare of World War I, which had relied on improved artillery that outmatched the speed of both infantry and cavalry, to increased mobility and combined arms. The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon.[445] In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced than it had been during World War I,[446] and advances continued throughout the war with increases in speed, armour and firepower.[447][448] At the start of the war, most commanders thought enemy tanks should be met by tanks with superior specifications.[449] This idea was challenged by the poor performance of the relatively light early tank guns against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding tank-versus-tank combat. This, along with Germany's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France.[445] Many means of destroying tanks, including indirect artillery, anti-tank guns (both towed and self-propelled), mines, short-ranged infantry antitank weapons, and other tanks were used.[449] Even with large-scale mechanisation, infantry remained the backbone of all forces,[450] and throughout the war, most infantry were equipped similarly to World War I.[451] The portable machine gun spread, a notable example being the German MG 34, and various submachine guns which were suited to close combat in urban and jungle settings.[451] The assault rifle, a late war development incorporating many features of the rifle and submachine gun, became the standard post-war infantry weapon for most armed forces.[452]

Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security involved in using large codebooks for cryptography by designing ciphering machines, the most well-known being the German Enigma machine.[453] Development of SIGINT (signals intelligence) and cryptanalysis enabled the countering process of decryption. Notable examples were the Allied decryption of Japanese naval codes[454] and British Ultra, a pioneering method for decoding Enigma that benefited from information given to the United Kingdom by the Polish Cipher Bureau, which had been decoding early versions of Enigma before the war.[455] Another component of military intelligence was deception, which the Allies used to great effect in operations such as Mincemeat and Bodyguard.[454][456]

Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world's first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons, operations research, the development of artificial harbours, and oil pipelines under the English Channel.[457][458] Although penicillin was discovered before the war, the development] of industrial production technology as well as the mass production and use began during the war.[459]