In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which incited a frenzy of worry in London and Paris. Hitler had long planned an invasion of Poland, a nation to which Great Britain and France had guaranteed military support if it were attacked by Germany. The pact with Stalin meant that Hitler would not face a war on two fronts once he invaded Poland, and would have Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.
On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Under attack from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended to the Nonaggression Pact. Stalin’s forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-Finnish War. During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a “phony war.” At sea, however, the British and German navies faced off in heated battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II.
By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler’s conquest of the Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master race the “Lebensraum” it needed. The other half of Hitler’s strategy was the extermination of the Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the “Final Solution” were introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three years more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied Poland.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly outnumbered the Germans’, Russian aviation technology was largely obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.
World War II proved to be the deadliest international conflict in history, taking the lives of 60 to 80 million people, including 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Civilians made up an estimated 50-55 million deaths from the war, while military comprised 21 to 25 million of those lost during the war. Millions more were injured, and still more lost their homes and property.
The legacy of the war would include the spread of communism from the Soviet Union into eastern Europe as well as its eventual triumph in China, and the global shift in power from Europe to two rival superpowers–the United States and the Soviet Union–that would soon face off against each other in the Cold War.
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So it was today, September 1st, 83 years ago, that World War Two started. What is the ROOT CAUSE of the war? What was it about??
Very simple. BAD MIDDOS. Very very very bad middos. Evil people who want territory and power and are willing to kill millions of innocent people for it. Evil people who also kill even though they will get no territory such as the 6 million of our people who were exterminated just b/c they were Jews.
Mikhael Gorbachev croaked today. He was a רשע מרושע like the rest of them. He was a die-hard communist and communists are generally evil people. Natan Sharansky said that he only freed Jews b/c of world pressure. He was no lover of the Jewish people. The press is lionizing him but it is fake news. That being the case we still have gratitude to him for freeing the Jews from their misery.
10's of millions killed b/c of the bad middos of evil people. So many more suffered indescribably. After the war, communism spread and it rears its ugly head until this day.
So what is the lesson for us?
That we humans can be really rotten, cruel, malicious, vicious, pernicious, malevolent beings. If we work on ourselves we can be holier than angels. It is our choice.
Which brings us to ELUL. Do we want to stay the same? With all of our bad habits, faults, jealousies, petty hatreds, negative thought patterns, etc. etc. Or do we want to be transformed into much much better people???
It is really our choice and no one else's.
