Germany: A World Power?
Throughout our years of learning about world wars, we all knew that Germany lost both wars. There is also that saying “what if.” What if Germany and the axis powers could have won the Second World War? There could have been a totally different outcome if the United States would have never joined the war and if Germany could have really dominated this war.
Adolf Hitler loved expansion, he wanted to continue to move eastward to continue on expanding the Nazi empire. Without a fight, he successfully took over two countries. Austria and Czechoslovakia were the two countries. France and Great Britain allowed Hitler to take over them without a fight, because they did not want to see a repeat of bloodshed like the First World War (“Hitler’s Ambition”). Hitler also knew that he needed to keep going, so there was the invasion of Poland. With that being said, Hitler needed to make sure that the Soviet Union would not show any aggression; so they signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact on August 23, 1939 (“German-Soviet Pact”). Less than two years after signing the pact, Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 (“Germany-Soviet Pact”). Soon after the invasion of Poland, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany which begun world war two.
On April 6, 1941, the Germans invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. Although Yugoslavia’s capital was pronounced an open city, the Luftwaffe made sure it hit Belgrade with heavy attacks. Then Greece ended up surrendering on April 24, 1941(“This Week”). Germany continued to dominate on the battlefield up until the winter of 1942-1943. The battle for the city of Stalingrad in late 1942 turned out to be a turning point (“World War II’). German troops were halted by the Soviet forces. After months of brutal fighting and great casualties, the German forces that survived—only about 90,000—surrendered. In April 1945, the city of Berlin was encircled by Soviet forces, who launched a final offensive toward Berlin (“World War II”). Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 in his command bunker. Within days, Berlin fell to the Soviets. West Berlin fell on May 7, 1945 and East fell on May