Today marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of World War II, the deadliest war in human history – at least the European theater of that war. That was particularly true of the war between the Germans and the Soviets on the Eastern Front in Europe.
Yet paradoxically, the war began on this day 80 years ago largely due to a non=aggression pact made between the two nations. Hitler knew that he had to do everything possible to avoid another two front war, like the one that Germany had fought in the last war. And this non-aggression pact made that seemingly remote possibility a reality. The Soviets agreed that they would not intervene in the German invasion of Poland, and for that, the Soviets themselves would take over the eastern half of Poland, and get a promise by the Germans not to take sides in their war against Finland.
That was the deal, and it set Hitler and the Germans free to pursue the invasion of Poland, which started World War II. France and Britain had promised to wage war against Nazi Germany in the event of a German invasion of Poland and, officially, they did. But that did not stop the Germans from taking over Poland very quickly.
At first, it hardly seemed like a real state of war even existed between the Germans and the French and British forces. Germany took over Poland, without interference, and within a few weeks.
After that, everything seemed to settle for the winter. But in the spring, the Germans launched an attack against the Allies in the West, and would quickly take over France and several other European nations, before eventually turning their attention to the East, breaking the non-aggression pact with the Soviets and betraying Stalin’s apparent faith in Hitler. It seemed to be going well for the Germans at first, to boot, and for a while, the Germans looked simply unstoppable and unbeatable.
We know, looking back at history, that the Soviets did stop them, and stopped them cold, at that. The Germans wanted the oil fields at Stalingrad, and the Soviets managed to halt their attack and, eventually, to beat them back. They surrounded hundreds of thousands of Germans at Stalingrad, who were then forced to surrender. It was the first major blow to the Germans during the war – the first of many to come.
Eventually, of course, the Soviets would beat the Germans back all the way to the borders of the Reich itself, and then beyond. In time, they would reach Berlin itself, where Hitler had holed up in his bunker, and would come to take his own life in the waning days of the war, when the outcome was clearly decided. Nazi Germany would officially surrender just days after that, with most German cities in rubble, and the nation on it’s knees.
Hitler was a gambler. He would gamble all or nothing, time and time again. Under him, Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, a huge gamble. But he won, as the Allied nations did nothing. Then, the Anschluss with Austria, and again, no one stood up to him. Next, he demanded the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, and British Prime Minister Chamberlain proudly declared peace in that time when Hitler signed an agreement with him to obtain the Sudetenland, and to forgo any further territorial ambitions. This was famously the policy of appeasement in order to avoid a war that the Allies followed. Shortly thereafter, Hitler took over all of Czechoslovakia, and again, the world did nothing. Then, he claimed that Germans in Poland were being mistreated, and that was when France and Britain, particularly, drew the line and said enough was enough, that this would mean war.
Hitler kept gambling. He gambled on strategy to the West, and he quickly took over numerous countries, the biggest of which was France. Then, he gambled on breaking the treaty with Stalin’s Soviet Union and invaded, another gamble. At first, it appeared that he was winning. Eventually, however, he would finally lose this gamble. Like Napoleon before him, Hitler found out just why it is such a bad idea to invade Russia, particularly when the winter comes. The Germans would stay on and fight for a few years, but would eventually be forced to retreat all the way back to the Reich and beyond. Hitler had gambled big, every step of the way. He did not seem to have any sense of moderation.
At first, it seemed to have brought the Germans a redemptive victory, a reversal of their defeat during the Great War. In time, however, his gambled would bring ruin to the nation and people that Hitler claimed to love so much. There was a noose that kept tightening over the former Nazi Empire, as the Soviets/Russians advanced from the East, and the Americans and British advanced towards Germany and Berlin in the West. As brilliant and unstoppable as the German military strategy and execution had seemed in the beginning, the gamble that eventually brought Hitler down was the invasion of the Soviet Union, which ultimately began the demise of his “thousand year Reich.” It was a gamble that would cost the German people everything.
It all started, though, with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, which happened exactly 80 years ago on this day.
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