Did The Second World War End In Berlin? – Mythbusting Berlin

“The British and French peoples have advanced to rescue not only Europe but mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them – behind us – behind the armies and fleets of Britain and France – gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians – upon all of whom, the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.”
Winston Churchill speaking on the BBC on May 19th 1940 in a speech entitled: ‘Be Ye Men of Valour’

Historians still debate whether the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 could be classified as the exact start of the Second World War; Czechoslovakia, occupied in 1938, would beg to differ. As would the citizens of Austria in 1937 – not all of them welcoming of a German annexation of that country.

Others have pointed to the start of the Spanish Civil War, and the consequences of the proxy involvement of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, as the start of the great ideological clash of the 20th century between Fascism and Soviet Stalinism. Further back still, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the beginning of the fight against China.

As the First World War on the Western Front ended not with a great peace treaty but with an armistice and imposed penalties on the greatest perceived belligerent (Germany) – a popular argument of the 1920s and 30s that greatly influenced the rise of National Socialism was that the First World War had not even truly ended.

The German army, had it been able to unleash the full power of its reserves, could have conquered what the politicians were so eager to surrender in 1918 – and ‘Stab In The Back’ the brave soldier with cultivated political unrest at the front and at home.