world war 2

[silverdale5]

how did it break out??????? really need to know a.s.a.p!!

[shammydodger]

Germany invaded Poland on September 1st 1939, on the false pretext that some Poles had crossed the border and murdered some Germans in a radio outpost (I think that's what it was, but will happily stand corrected.) Great Britain and France were duty bound to declare war on Germany, because of guarantees they had given to Poland in treaties. They duly did so 2 days later. There were several underlying and contributing factors, such as the previous year's invasion of Czechoslovakia. Also, about 1 week before Germany invaded Poland, Hitler cynically did a deal with Stalin to keep the Soviets out of any conflict, until Adolf invaded the Soviet Union in July 1941.

[B00]

Also look here

[shammydodger]

For more about the simulated attack that gave Hitler his "excuse", see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident

[jno]

depends where you are... Czechs think it broke out earlier, Americans think it broke out later (with Pearl Harbour, 1941). I'm not sure how Germans date it, but 1939-45 is the British dating.

[vehelpfulguy]

I could also be argued that the punishing reprisals placed on the Germans at the end of the first world war also helped cause the second world war.

Land was taken from them, they had to pay money to the allies, and this helped to drag down the country causing massive unemployment and rampant inflation..

This gave room for the democratic (ha!) party under Hitler to come to power on a nationalistic cause, leading to the second world war.

[Octavius]

Concentrating on Europe and putting the rest of the world aside (Pacific, Africa etc). World War II started when some bloke called Adolf and his Nasty (Nazi) party 'staged' a Polish attack on a minor German radio station in order to justify a German invasion of Poland. On September 1, this geezer right, declared war on Poland stating one of his reasons for the invasion was because of "the attack by regular Polish troops on the Gleiwitz transmitter."

This forced France and Britian to declare war on Germany, on September 3, due to their defensive pact with Poland.

Adolf's first major foreign policy initiatives after coming to power was to sign a nonaggression pact with Poland in 1934. This was not popular with many Germans who supported him but resented the fact that Poland had received the former German provinces of West Prussia, Poznan, and Upper Silesia under the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. However, Adolf sought the nonaggression pact in order to neutralize the possibility of a French-Polish military alliance against Germany before Germany had a chance to rearm. Instead of this happening because of the British/French interference Adolf dismembered the Czechoslovak state in March 1939 in violation of the Munich agreement. Britain and France responded by guaranteeing the integrity of the Polish state. Adolf responded by negotiating a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1939, and thwn proceded to stage the false attack to allow his troops to goosestep all over Poland.

[kopend]

germany invaded poland. this was the point when british declared war on nazis

[Dolly1308]

vehelpfulguy imho one should not start a war if one does not take into consideration the fact that there will be consequences e.g. reprisals if one does not win the war .They deserved all they got .

[cole13uk]

Ask an American and the answer wil be Pearl Harbour!