The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most crucial and gruesome battles fought in Europe during World War Two. There were numerous reasons that Hitler saw fit for invading Stalingrad on September 1st, 1942 including his obsession for conquering the city named after his biggest rival, Josef Stalin. As the battle waged on both sides suffered immense casualties as they tried to gain a strangle hold on the important industrial city of Stalingrad. After 199 days of fighting, the Battle of Stalingrad concluded, beginning what many historians view as the turning point in Hitler’s European conquest as the Germans began their retreat from Russia. By 1942, Hitler had assumed control of the German Army (an army that no longer had the strength and resources seen in Operation Barbarossa) and he listened to his generals much less than he had in previous years.
Three reasons that led up to this turning point was the failure of Operation Barbarossa, the first major victory of World War Two for the Russians, and how weak the German Army had become. These three events in order show what led to this significant turning point of World War Two. In June 1941, Hitler embarked on Operation Barbarossa which was the conquest of the Soviet Union. During this operation Hitler released a new Blitzkrieg with three million Germans soldiers flooding into the Soviet Union. This Blitzkrieg caught Stalin by surprise because he was still recovering from the purges that had wiped out a great amount of his top officers.
His book, The Origins of the Final Solution focuses on Nazi policy towards the Jews from September 1939-March 1942. Browning agrees with Hilberg and ads, that the combination of anti-Semitism with a power struggle among middle-level bureaucrats within the Nazi hierarchy caused immense pressure for an escalation of Nazi policy toward the Jews leading to the “Final Solution.” In addition to the seemingly endless debate, some historians argue about the timing of the “Final Solution” or the exact moment the Nazis made the decision. One of these historians is Professor Richard Breitman. Breitman teaches at Harvard University and also currently works as Director of Historical Research for the federally funded Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group. Breitman contends that it is crucial for the historian to accurately determine the chronology of events leading to the decision in order to narrow whatever disagreements exists over its causes and motivations.
The question as to when Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union comes under similar causes. Some argue that Hitler’s decision came as part of his ‘Final Solution’ package whereas others suggest the USSR was simply the next viable target to further his territorial conquest once it had been decided that Britain would be an unrealistic option. A policy that was central to Nazi rule and its manifesto was that of Lebensraum. The policy itself was to invade other lands to create ‘Living space’ for the people of Germany. It was this policy that Hitler used to justify most of his foreign conquest and it was declared in the official German WW2 history that Lebensraum was the first priority of the Third Reich .
Explain your answer. [6 marks] Source A A 1942 Soviet poster reads: "The Big Three will tie the enemy in knots." Source C For months we have been suffering under the torture of a problem, which the Versailles Diktat created - a problem that has deteriorated until it becomes intolerable for us. Danzig was and is a German city. The Corridor was and is German.
Assess the view that the disagreements about the Second Front were the most significant cause of tension between Russia and the Western Allies between 1941 and 1945 It can be argued that the single most important cause of tension between the Allies during WW2 were the on-going disagreements over the opening of a Second Front in Europe by the Western Allies. However some historians have suggested that other factors were the primary cause of tension, including the core ideological differences between Russia and the West, the disagreements over Poland and Eastern Europe and finally the change in American leadership in 1945. We can begin to measure the amount of tension caused by each factor during the war by using as our principal criterion the intensity and longevity of any tensions caused, as well as looking at the reactions of the leaders from primary evidence. The disagreements over the second front were arguably the most significant cause of tension between the Western Allies and Russia between 1941 and 1945. This interpretation is presented by McCauley who argues that “the question of the second front was to bedevil tensions between the Allies during the war”.
In this question, I will look at the relations between the USA and the Soviet Union and explore why they dramatically deteriorated because of the results of the peace conferences which occurred during World War Two. I will look at the three conferences which were Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam and make a conclusion saying which was the most important reason and why it was. The first conference was Tehran which was held in Iran, November 1943. The USA and the UK promised to send troops to the Western Europe by spring 1944. However, they never did it and broke their promise.
There were a combination of reasons as to why relations between the USA and the USSR grew worse by 1948, but the underlying cause were the ideological differences between the two superpowers; USA (capitalism) and the USSR (communism). Once Germany was defeated, the joint aim of the allies was achieved and they were no longer forced to cooperate in an, “Marriage of Convenience”. From then on, the relationship between the USA and the USSR worsened. One main reason as to how the relationship between the Soviet Union and the USA grew worse was because of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. At the Yalta conference, Roosevelt’s death in 1945 brought an end to any superficial unity that still existed at the end of 1943 and Stalin had promised free elections in the countries of Eastern Europe.
Hitler’s strategy incompetence, the Allied bombings and losing the Battle of The Atlantic were all also important factors in the defeat of Germany. This essay will aim to judge to what extent the failings of the economy contributed to Germany’s defeat in conjunction with various other factors that led to the downfall of Germany. The Nazi’s economic policy did nevertheless, have significant contribution to the defeat and fall of Germany during the war. The Four-Year Plan of 1936, which was major part of their economic policy, was meant to make Germany ‘fit for war within four years’. However, the German economy was not really ready for a long war and was struggling by 1939; its capacity was only strong enough to sustain a couple of short campaigns.
Why did the cold war start? The cold war is the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union over ideologies, through other countries, without direct armed conflicts, which was first used by a English author and journalist called George Orwell at the end of The World War II. This essay is going to focus on main reasons for the beginning of the cold war. One major cause of the cold war was a distrust of the Soviets by the United States and the same distrust of the United States from the Soviet Union. Though the need to defeat the Germans had made USSR a partner in the Allied forces from 1941 onwards, Stalin had displayed the tendency that he wanted to dominate the world, and he used dictatorial powers and military powers towards people of his own country as well as others.