什么是第二次世界大战

World War II，亦作Second World War。

1939～1945年间发生的国际冲突。交战国为轴心国（德国、义大利和日本）与同盟国（法国、英国、美国、苏联以及中国）。德国对第一次世界大战失败的怨恨、凡尔赛和约的严酷条款导致希特勒和纳粹党的崛起。1933年，希特勒开始秘密重新武装德国。德国、义大利与日本缔结反共产国际协定。并干预西班牙内战。1938年，希特勒派兵占领奥地利（参阅Anschluss）。1939年，并吞捷克斯洛伐克。在签订「德苏互不侵犯条约」後，1939年9月德国入侵波兰。两天後，英法对德国宣战。1939年底，德国与苏联将波兰瓜分，苏联占领巴尔干国家。此外还进攻芬兰。在海上，德国对驶往英国的商船进行的有效的潜艇战。1940年4月，德国占领了挪威港口和整个丹麦。5月，德国以闪电战越过荷兰与比利时进入法国。6月被迫投降，建立维琪法国政权。接着德国空军大规模轰炸英国，准备实行横渡英吉利海峡的入侵。英国获得「不列颠战役」的胜利。1941年希特勒将匈牙利、保加利亚、罗马尼亚和斯洛伐克拉入轴心国；6月，希特勒废除1939年的「德苏互不侵犯条约」，向苏联发动大规模的突袭。德国机械部队深入俄国领土，一度达到莫斯科郊外。在东亚，日本因对华战争旷日持久而无结果，决定利用欧洲局势以夺取欧洲国家在远东的殖民地。1941年日本袭击夏威夷珍珠港和菲律宾。数日内，美国对所有轴心国宣战。日本迅速占领菲律宾、东南亚大部地区和缅甸、荷属东印度群岛及许多太平洋岛屿，但於1942年中途岛战役中惨败。美国逐岛进攻，向日本逼近。在北非，1943年英国击败义大利和德国。盟军从北非登陆西西里岛，入侵义大利，法西斯政权被推翻，德军进攻史达林格勒而未获胜。红军开始将德军逐出苏联。1944年6月6日，盟军在法国北部诺曼第登陆。盟军拥有制空权，迅速向东逼近，占领德国本土。同时苏军将德军完全逐出苏联，进入波兰、捷克斯洛伐克、匈牙利和罗马尼亚。1945年5月8日德军投降。在太平洋地区，盟军於1944年占领菲律宾。雷伊泰湾战役几乎消灭了日本海军。1945年占领硫磺岛与冲绳。同年8月对广岛和长崎的原子弹轰炸使战争突然戏剧性地结束。9月2日，日本签署了正式投降条约。据估计战争中死亡人数为3,500万～6,000万，其中包括六百万死於大屠杀的犹太人。在欧洲和东亚有数百万平民受伤和无家可归。亦请参阅Anti-Comintern Pact、Atlantic Charter、Alamein, battles of el-、Atlantic, The、Bulge, Battle of the、Philippine Sea, Battle of the、Casablanca Conference、Potsdam Conference、Tehran Conference、Yalta Conference、Dunkirk Evacuation、lend-lease、Munich agreement、Nuremberg Trials、Leningrad, Siege of、Bradley, Omar、Churchill, Winston、Eisenhower, Dwight David、MacArthur, Douglas、Montgomery, Bernard Law、Mussolini, Benito、Patton, George、Rommel, Erwin、Roosevelt, Franklin、Stalin, Joseph、Yamamoto Isoroku、Zhukov, Georgy Konstantinovich。

1939～1945年

World War II

International conflict principally between the Axis Powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allied Powers—France, Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union. Political and economic instability in Germany, combined with bitterness over its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, allowed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to rise to power. In the mid-1930s, Hitler began secretly to rearm Germany, in violation of the treaty. He signed alliances with Italy and Japan to oppose the Soviet Union and intervened in the Spanish Civil War in the name of anticommunism. Capitalizing on the reluctance of other European powers to oppose him by force, he sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 (see Anschluss) and to annex Czechoslovakia in 1939. After signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany. Poland's defeat was followed by a period of military inactivity on the Western front (see Phony War). At sea Germany conducted a damaging submarine campaign by U-boat against merchant shipping bound for Britain. By early 1940 the Soviet Union had divided Poland with Germany, occupied the Baltic states, and subdued Finland in the Russo-Finnish War. In April 1940 Germany overwhelmed Denmark and began its conquest of Norway. In May German forces swept through the Netherlands and Belgium on their blitzkrieg invasion of France, forcing it to capitulate in June and establish the Vichy France regime. Germany then launched massive bombing raids on Britain in preparation for a cross-Channel invasion, but after losing the Battle of Britain Hitler postponed the invasion indefinitely. By early 1941 Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops quickly overran Yugoslavia and Greece in April. In June Hitler abandoned his pact with the Soviet Union and launched a massive surprise invasion of Russia, reaching the outskirts of Moscow before Soviet counterattacks and winter weather halted the advance. In East Asia, Japan expanded its war with China and seized European colonial holdings. In December 1941 Japan attacked U.S. bases at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, and the U.S. declared war on Japan and all the Axis Powers. Japan quickly invaded and occupied most of Asia, Burma, the Netherlands East Indies, and many Pacific islands. After the crucial U.S. naval victory at the Battle of Midway (1942), U.S. forces began to advance up the chains of islands toward Japan. In the North Africa Campaigns, the British defeated Italian and German forces by 1943. The Allies then invaded Sicily and Italy, forcing the overthrow of the Fascist government in July 1943, though fighting against the Germans continued in Italy until 1945. In the Soviet Union, the Battle of Stalingrad (1943) marked the end of the German advance, and Soviet reinforcements in great numbers gradually pushed the German armies back. The massive Allied invasion of Western Europe began with the Normandy Campaign in western France (1944), and the Allies' steady advance ended in the occupation of Germany in 1945. After Soviet troops pushed German forces out of the Soviet Union, they advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania, and had occupied the eastern third of Germany by the time the surrender of Germany was signed on May 8, 1945. In the Pacific, an Allied invasion of the Philippines (1944) was followed by the successful Battle of Leyte Gulf and the costly Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (1945). The war in the Pacific ended quickly after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Japan's formal surrender on September 2 ended the war. Estimates of total military and civilian casualties varied from 35 million to 60 million killed, including about 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Millions more civilians were wounded and made homeless throughout Europe and East Asia. See also Anti-Comintern Pact; Atlantic Charter; Battles of El Alamein, the Atlantic, the Bulge, Guadalcanal, and the Philippine Sea; Casablanca, Potsdam, Tehran, and Yalta conferences; Dunkirk Evacuation; lend-lease; Munich agreement; Nürnberg Trials; Siege of Leningrad; Sino-Japanese Wars; Omar Bradley, Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Bernard Law Montgomery, Benito Mussolini, George Patton, Erwin Rommel, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Yamamoto Isoroku, Georgy K. Zhukov.