Explain how World War II devastated Europe and Asia, led to the occupation of Eastern Europe and Japan, and began the atomic age

Learning goal: Describe the main course of World War II, explain how it devastated most of Europe and Asia, explain how it led to the occupation of Eastern Europe and Japan, and explain how it began the atomic age.

The course of the war in brief. In Europe, Germany conquered Poland in 1939 and in 1940 overran Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France; Britain held out in the Battle of Britain. On 22 June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In Asia, Japan had been at war with China since 1937; on 7 December 1941 it attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor and within hours struck British Malaya, Hong Kong and the American-ruled Philippines, then invaded the Dutch East Indies from January 1942; Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war. Turning points followed in 1942–1943: the U.S. naval victory at Midway (June 1942), the Soviet victory at Stalingrad (ending February 1943) and Allied victories in North Africa. The Allies landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944 while the Soviet army advanced from the east. Germany surrendered in May 1945 (Victory in Europe Day, 8 May). Japan announced its surrender on 15 August 1945 and signed the formal surrender on 2 September.

Devastation of Europe and Asia. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history. No exact total exists. Published estimates differ with what is counted (for example, whether deaths from war-related famine and disease are included), and commonly cited figures run from about 50 million to more than 70 million; a majority of the dead were civilians. The Soviet Union and China suffered the largest numbers of dead; Poland lost a larger share of its population than almost any other country. Causes of death included battle, bombing of cities, siege and starvation (the siege of Leningrad lasted from 1941 to 1944), deliberate murder in the Holocaust and other atrocities, forced labor, and disease. Cities from Warsaw and Stalingrad to Dresden, Manila and Tokyo were heavily destroyed. Works of art and libraries were looted or destroyed. Factories, railways, bridges and farms were wrecked, leaving severe food and fuel shortages after 1945. Tens of millions of people were displaced: refugees, survivors of camps, prisoners of war, forced laborers, and, after the war, ethnic Germans expelled from eastern Europe. Devastation was not uniform: the United States, whose cities and factories in the forty-eight states escaped the destruction seen in Europe and Asia (U.S. territories did not: Hawaii was bombed at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines and Guam were invaded, while a few small Japanese attacks on the West Coast did little damage), emerged with its economy stronger than before.

Occupation of Eastern Europe. As the Soviet army drove Germany back in 1944–1945, it occupied Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and eastern Germany; the Baltic states, taken in 1940, were reincorporated into the Soviet Union. At the Yalta Conference (February 1945) Stalin promised free elections in liberated Eastern Europe, but over the next few years Soviet-backed communist parties took control through pressure, rigged elections and police power, completing the process by 1948 with the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia. Germany itself was divided into four occupation zones (American, British, French and Soviet), with Berlin, inside the Soviet zone, also divided. Austria was similarly occupied until 1955. This occupation created the division of Europe that Winston Churchill in 1946 described as an "iron curtain".

Occupation of Japan. Japan was occupied by Allied forces under U.S. General Douglas MacArthur from 1945 until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation disarmed Japan, held war-crimes trials, carried out land reform, broke up some large industrial combines, and oversaw a new constitution, in effect from 1947, which made the emperor a symbol rather than a sovereign, established parliamentary democracy and guaranteed equal rights, including the vote for women, who had first voted in April 1946 under an electoral law of December 1945, and in Article 9 renounced war as a sovereign right. Korea, a Japanese colony since 1910, was divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet and American zones.

The atomic age. Fearing that Nazi Germany might build an atomic bomb, the United States, with Britain and Canada, ran the Manhattan Project. The first test, code-named Trinity, took place in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. On 6 August 1945 an atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima, and on 9 August a second destroyed Nagasaki; tens of thousands died instantly in each city and many more died by the end of the year from injuries and radiation. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on 8 August. Japan announced its surrender on 15 August. The Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb in 1949, beginning a nuclear arms race; from then on, war between great powers carried the risk of destruction on a new scale.

Interpretation, labeled. Whether using the bombs was necessary to end the war without an invasion of Japan is debated by historians. That is interpretation. The dates, the cities and the fact of mass civilian death are not in dispute.

Worked model: linking the war to the postwar world. Devastation left Europe weak and dependent on aid; occupation placed Soviet troops in Eastern Europe and American troops in Japan and western Germany; the atomic bomb gave the United States, and from 1949 the Soviet Union, a new kind of power. Together these produced the Cold War between two superpowers.

Worked evidence of devastation: A student must support the claim "World War II devastated most of Europe and Asia" without using any statistic they cannot verify. Solution: cite specific places and processes—the siege of Leningrad (1941–1944), the destruction of Warsaw (1944), the bombing of Tokyo (1945), the Holocaust, and millions of refugees and displaced persons—and, if a death total is used, give it as a range taken from a named reference work or museum, with the date of the estimate and what it counts (for example, whether deaths from famine and disease are included). Writing "most estimates" without naming any of them does not verify anything.

Worked comparison of occupations: Eastern Europe: Soviet military occupation (Soviet troops left some countries, such as Romania in 1958, but stayed in others, such as East Germany, where a 1990 treaty set the end of 1994 as the deadline for their withdrawal from a united Germany) led to communist governments, one-party rule and Soviet domination that lasted until 1989–1991. Japan: American-led occupation led to demilitarization, a democratic constitution in 1947 and land reform, and ended in 1952 with Japan as a U.S. ally. Both occupations reshaped the political systems of the occupied countries in the occupier's image.

Worked atomic-age sequence: Order and explain: Soviet test (1949); Trinity (16 July 1945); Hiroshima (6 August 1945); Japanese surrender signed (2 September 1945); Nagasaki (9 August 1945). Solution: Trinity → Hiroshima → Nagasaki → surrender signed → Soviet test. The U.S. monopoly lasted about four years; the 1949 Soviet test turned a single nuclear power into a nuclear arms race.

Postwar map task: On an outline map of Europe and East Asia, shade the areas occupied by Soviet forces, the four occupation zones of Germany and Berlin, the U.S.-led occupation of Japan and the division of Korea at the 38th parallel. Add labels with the dates the lesson gives (Germany's zones from 1945, Japan 1945–1952, Austria until 1955), and for Eastern Europe mark 1948 as the year communist control was complete rather than an occupation end date.

Independent performance: Write a 350-word explanation of "How did World War II create the world of 1949?" Success criteria: specific evidence of devastation in both Europe and Asia; the occupation of Eastern Europe explained with Yalta and at least two countries named; the occupation of Japan explained with at least two reforms; the atomic age explained with correct dates for Trinity, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the 1949 Soviet test; and one labeled interpretation.