Description
The Allied victory had been achieved at a very high cost, WWII caused more death and destruction than any other conflict in history. By the end of WWII, Europe lay in ruins and close to forty million Europeans had died. The constant bombing and shelling had reduced hundreds of cities to rubble and the ground war had destroyed much of the countryside. Europe lay ravaged by the fighting, agriculture was disrupted, and means of transportation had been destroyed. Meanwhile the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan just three days apart from each other left Japan in ruins as well. Two million Japanese lives had been lost in the war and many of the country's major cities including its capital wreaked havoc due to the Allied raids and bombings. The two atomic bombs left the two cities as blackened wastelands. The Allies had torn Japan of its colonial empire and took away places that had been with the Japanese for centuries.
Articles
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005140
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005462
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nuremberg-trials
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/nuremberg_article_01.shtml
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuremberg-race-laws-imposed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/truman_01.shtml
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/may-7-1945-nazi-germany-surrenders-in-world-war-ii/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/ww2_summary_01.shtml
Primary Source Documents
http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/1944-easterbrook-diaries-Hoover.pdf
Maps
This shows Europe after the war and how it was divided. It also shows the iron curtain in 1948, which was a division between countries from the end of world war II and the cold war.
This map shows the division of Germany into Western and Eastern Germany after world war II. Western Germany was controlled by US, British, and French forces and later became an independent democratic nation. Eastern Germany was controlled by the Soviet Union and was never allowed to become sovereign.
This map shows the deaths of World War 2. in Europe. The size of the circle indicates how many have died. Yellow represents civilian death and green represents military deaths.
This shows Europe during the Cold War era. The green countries are NATO nations, red are Warsaw pact nations, and the white are not in alliances.
After the devastation of WWII on all of Europe many Europeans migrated after the war and here is a map showing that.
Videos
Winston Churchill announces German surrender.
The devastation in Berlin after the war.
This video is not on youtube, so click here to watch the video.
or click the link
http://vimeo.com/917240
or click the link
http://vimeo.com/917240
The US demilitarization of Japan.