The Second World War can be traced back to the imperial ambitions of National Socialist Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy. During the Great Depression, all three powers developed large-scale ideals aimed at conquering or dominating vast territories – in some cases referred to as ‘living space’. This was true of Hitler’s idea of conquering large parts of the Soviet Union, the Japanese ‘Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere’ – an expansion concept taking in China and South East Asia – and Mussolini’s ‘mare nostrum’ concepts, which were plans to dominate the Mediterranean region and the Horn of Africa.
Although these expansionist policies was first initiated by Japan in 1931/32 and then by Italy in 1935, it was Hitler’s policy of alliances and warfare that was pivotal in unleashing a global war. Based on the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, the German-Italian Steel Pact of 1939 and the Three-Power Pact of 1940, a loose ‘Axis’ alliance was created – the ‘global political triangle of Berlin – Rome – Tokyo’. Hitler originally intended to wage war in Europe against Czechoslovakia with the approval of Great Britain, but turned against Poland after the Sudeten crisis and the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in 1938/39.
Germany then invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, causing Britain and France to enter the war two days later. With the incorporation of the colonies and dominions, a global conflict was already looming. German troops conquered the western half of Poland in 1939, while in accordance with secret agreements concluded under the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Soviet Union took over the eastern part of the country and attacked Finland in December. The Wehrmacht occupied Denmark and Norway in April 1940, followed by the Netherlands, Belgium and large parts of France in May/June 1940; the plan to occupy Great Britain was abandoned in the fall of 1940. The Italian attack on Egypt in 1940 was supported by German troops from January 1941 onwards, and in March 1941 the two countries conquered Yugoslavia and Greece. The only planned German ‘blitzkrieg’ against the Soviet Union started in June 1941 but failed after just a few months; the war then lasted another four years.
The camp of the Allies was formed in 1940/41, with Stalin also joining in the summer of 1941. The final stage in the global spread of the conflict came with the Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Germany’s declaration of war on the USA in December 1941.
The ‘Axis’ suffered its first defeats as early as May 1941 in the Horn of Africa, while a turning point finally became apparent in November 1942 in North Africa (El Alamein) and in the Soviet Union (Stalingrad). In North Africa, German-Italian troops surrendered in May 1943. The defeat of Germany in the submarine war in the Atlantic in 1943 was also of vital importance in terms of maintaining the line of supply to Great Britain. Japanese forces had to accept defeat at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and were gradually pushed back from the Pacific islands, though they were able to hold on to the Asian mainland (with the exception of Burma) until the end of the war.
The landings of the western Allies in Sicily (July 1943) and Normandy (June 1944) were important stages in the protracted reconquest of Europe, as were the Soviet offensives at Kursk in 1943 and in the central section of the front in the summer of 1944 Allied troops in the west and east reached the territory of the Third Reich In October 1944, finally conquering it by May 1945. The German leadership surrendered on May 8/9, 1945, while the Japanese capitulated on September 2, 1945, after the Red Army had conquered Manchuria and two American atomic bombs had destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The defeat of the Axis was primarily due to the scarcity of resources in the areas under their control, while from the end of 1942 the USA began to deploy its superior potential. Given the limited military resources of the Axis powers, it was not possible for them to wage a multi-front war in the long term. What is more, the Axis regimes were not prepared to end the war by negotiation.
The Second World War was the largest and bloodiest conflict in world history. Around 110 million soldiers were mobilized, 62 countries officially took part in the war, and the colonies were also severely affected by personnel recruitment and economic exploitation. During certain periods, the Axis powers dominated huge territories with some 700 million inhabitants – almost a third of humanity. The populations of the warring countries were involved in the events to an unprecedented extent – on the ‘home fronts’, as a result of aerial warfare and in the occupied territories. The German war in Eastern Europe in particular involved the perpetration of extreme crimes, as did the Japanese war in China to some extent. A total of around 60 to 70 million people died in the Second World War, 35 to 40 million of them in Europe.
Munich was essentially affected by the Second World War in a similar way to other major German cities, although the Bavarian capital was not targeted by the Allied bombing campaign until relatively late. The population was significantly reduced by recruitment and evacuation, especially from mid-1943 onwards; by May 1945 only 550,000 of the original population of 830,000 were still living in the city. 150,000 to 180,000 men from Munich joined the Wehrmacht, 22,000 of whom were killed in action at the frontline, while a further 11,000 were reported missing in action. Shortages, food supply management and the growth of the black market were developments that were typical of all major German cities. The armaments industry was concentrated at the BMW aircraft engine factories, but there were many other companies that were likewise involved in manufacturing to support the war effort.
In total, some 120,000 foreigners were coerced into foreign labor or forced labor in Munich; in the second half of the war this was also the case at satellite camps of Dachau Concentration Camp in the Munich area. Of the approximately 4,000 Jews in Munich at the beginning of the war, most were deported to occupied Eastern Europe and murdered there, while hundreds of Munich psychiatric inmates were likewise murdered at Eglfing-Haar sanatorium and nursing home. Public life in Munich was severely restricted from the beginning of 1944. The city suffered 74 Allied air raids killing 6,600 people and wounding 15,800; approximately 90% of the historic old town was destroyed. US Army troops entered Munich on the afternoon of April 30, 1945, bringing the war to an end in the city.
