The consequences of the Second World War (1939-45) were many and varied. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and military-dominated Japan were all defeated. Many occupied countries were liberated and regained their freedom while others were obliged to bear overrule by the USSR or the United States. The old world order was turned upside down as empires fell and former colonies won independence. Victory had cost 60 million lives and caused millions more casualties. Still more millions had escaped death or injury but were made homeless or refugees. Never before had a war affected so many people in so many places in so many ways.
The main consequences of WWII were:
- The aggressive Axis dictatorships of Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated
- 60 million deaths
- The Holocaust, which resulted in the death of 6 million European Jews
- Millions of wounded, homeless, and displaced people
- Europe was divided into democratic Western Europe and Communist Eastern Europe
- Germany was divided into two separate countries, and Berlin was divided into zones ruled by various powers
- Japan was occupied by forces of the USA
- Britain, France, and other European states lost their grip on their colonial empires
- The United States and the USSR were established as two superpowers who could dominate global politics
- The USA and the USSR were mutually suspicious of each other's intentions, and so the Cold War developed
- The use of the atomic bomb on Japan made everyone fear a coming nuclear war
- Western European states were determined to form closer economic and eventually political ties that would help prevent another war in Europe
- There was a desire to create internationally applicable laws, such as those regarding war crimes and genocide, and rules that could help settle territorial disputes peacefully
- There was a desire to foster global cooperation in the areas of trade, health, and education through the creation of the United Nations
- There were social changes, such as in eating habits, fashion, and an increase in the rights and opportunities for women
- Technological innovations like the jet engine, radar, and general purpose computers
Death & Destruction
According to the Imperial War Museum, the Second World War caused around 60 million deaths. This compares to 11 million in the First World War (1914-18). The exact numbers will never be known, such was the scale of the carnage, which involved 56 combatant nations. The Holocaust killed an estimated 6 million Jews in death camps like Auschwitz, labour camps, and through the actions of the Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads. Other specific groups targeted in territories controlled by Nazi Germany included Romani people, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Communists, to name just three from a very long list.
Civilians accounted for perhaps half of the 60 million deaths. A great number of civilians died in their homes as a result of indiscriminate bombing campaigns carried out by all sides. Many more men died than women in the war, and so the sex ratio of some populations was altered dramatically, with a consequent, albeit relatively short-term effect on fertility rates.
Figures for the wounded and injured are even more difficult to determine. There were, too, different types of casualties since many who had participated in or witnessed combat, bombings, and atrocities found it difficult to overcome the mental trauma of such experiences. For many soldiers, reintegrating into society proved far from easy.
During the war, millions of civilians had fled areas where there was front line fighting, while millions more people were forcibly moved by governments. Jewish people, in particular, escaped persecution when they were still able to, which led to tens of thousands moving to countries like the United States, Argentina, and South Africa, to name only the top three destinations. In short, "the dislocating effects of the 1939-45 war had repercussions on the ethnic and nationalities mix in many regions, storing up explosive material for conflicts still unresolved today" (Dear, 227). Such upheavals have also made accurate statistical analysis difficult.
Many cities and towns suffered tremendous physical damage to buildings and infrastructures. Bomb-damaged buildings remained a familiar sight in many places right through the 1950s. Transport and communication networks that connected those towns also had to be rebuilt. Millions of children had lost their parents. Health systems were put under tremendous strain. Epidemics of infectious diseases broke out because of breakdowns in sanitation systems. Food and essential items like clothing were rationed in many countries during the war, and this situation continued for many years. In Britain, for example, rationing of clothing continued until 1949, while meat was rationed until 1954.
Societal Changes
Societies, at least in some countries, were also changed from within by the war, sometimes positively, such as an increased freedom for women. In Britain, for example, women had worked in arms factories and taken over many of the everyday jobs that men had done before they joined the military. Everyone had been obliged to work together in a nation's war effort, and so attitudes and opportunities changed for women and others such as the working or poorer classes and immigrants. On the other hand, certain nationals like Germans and Japanese suffered prejudice and distrust, often, too, physical displacement. Those who were considered collaborators with former occupiers were often harshly treated, too. In some countries, leaders were now held more accountable for their actions, diets had changed with more convenient foods available, and fashion changed, generally becoming more informal and with a greater space for individual expression.
Many societies would also benefit from technological innovations made during the war for military purposes but then exploited for wider use, such as the jet engine for passenger planes, synthetic rubber for car parts and tyres, and radar for weather reporting. There were, too, many developments in the field of medicine, such as better surgical procedures and treatment of bacterial infections and a wider use of blood transfusions.
Reshaping Europe: The Cold War
The Allied victors of Western democracies and the totalitarian USSR had very little in common, and from a position of distrust fueled by misconceptions and outright myths, there soon arose a feeling of open hostility. The first major sticking point was the fate of Poland. This was the very state Britain and France had sought to protect, and so they declared war on Germany when it was invaded. The Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), however, had his troops in Poland already, and a precedent had been set by the United States in Italy (and then Japan) that the state which conquered a territory then had some sort of exclusive right to control it and exclude other powers. Stalin was also determined to hold on to Poland since it had so often been the doorway through which a European army had attacked Russia. The tragic irony, then, was that the state for which the West had made a stand would not be free at the end of the conflict. Poland, though, was only one of many states, such as Greece and Turkey, whose ultimate fate hung in the balance, that is, would they become a part of the Eastern bloc or the Western one?
While free and democratic elections were encouraged in the western half of Europe, the eastern half became the USSR's "exclusive zone, a satellite empire" (Dear, 204). Germany was divided into East Germany and West Germany, with the USSR controlling the former and democracy restored in the western half. The German capital of Berlin was itself divided into zones, and eventually, the Berlin Wall was built in the city to divide the east and west zones. The larger division between Eastern and Western Europe was memorably described by Britain's war leader Winston Churchill (1974-1965) in 1946 as the "Iron Curtain".
Through the 1947 Marshall Plan, the US helped Western European states rebuild their economies after the huge costs of the war. Western Germany's economic recovery was also encouraged, seen as a necessary step if Europe were to become more unified. However, there was still suspicion that Germany might rise and try yet again to invade its neighbours. One method to try and prevent this eventuality was to include Germany in some sort of economic and perhaps even political union with other Western European states. This idea of cooperation led to the European Community, which, after a steady expansion of membership, became what we today call the European Union.
Meanwhile, what happened in the other half of Europe remained a concern for everyone, East and West. In order to ensure the Soviet empire did not grow in the direction of the West, the United States, now by far the most powerful and richest state on Earth, installed military bases across Western Europe, including many with a nuclear capability. This was despite President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) promising in 1945 that all US troops would withdraw from Europe within two years of the end of the conflict. This move, along with the US promise to help democratic countries defend themselves against communism (the Truman Doctrine) and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949 – a treaty of mutual defence should any one member be attacked by a third party – convinced the USSR that the USA and its Western allies were actually intent on one day attacking the Soviet Union. Such mutual distrust led to the Cold War, where the world's two superpowers, both of which had a nuclear capability by 1949, jostled for the control of other countries but never directly confronted each other. Behind all of the posturing and proxy wars was the very real fear that a nuclear war between the superpowers would result in unimaginable destruction and loss of life.
The Fall of Empires
The Allies made serious efforts to restore the other most devastated losing state: Japan. In Japan itself, the United States effectively established an occupation (until 1952), which was a virtual dictatorship with a very strong emphasis on commercialism. Like Germany, Japan's economy recovered well and outperformed its pre-war capabilities.
The Japanese military had invaded many European colonies in South-East Asia during the war, but the old order was not restored, despite some serious attempts otherwise from countries like Britain, France, and the Netherlands. A notable and lasting conflict arose in former French Indo-China (which ultimately led to the Vietnam War, 1955-75).
In China, the civil war resumed but was ultimately won by the Chinese Communist Party, which took power in 1949. Korea became two separate countries, North Korea and South Korea, in 1945. The arbitrary split along the 38th parallel north did not help resolve deeper issues, and when the North invaded the South, the Korean War began in 1950, which saw the United States and the USSR indirectly facing each other, since the USA supported the South and the USSR the North.
In the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, European colonial rule was severely weakened by the war, and the process of decolonisation, which had already been underway in states like British India, was greatly accelerated. India, for example, gained independence in 1947. By the mid-1970s, all of Africa's states were independent. In the Middle East, the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 as a permanent home for Jewish people and the discovery of new oil fields made the region more unstable than before the war, a situation that is still ongoing today.
International Law & Community
In the desire to bring to justice those who were felt to have started the war and those who had committed crimes during it, certain trials were held. The Nuremberg Trials and the Far East War Crimes Trials not only achieved these aims but also had two other consequences: the horrors of the war were revealed and documented, and a system was established whereby laws could be applied across national boundaries. For example, crimes against humanity, such as the murder of civilians during wartime, could be identified and restricted by laws that all nations had an interest in upholding.
In a similar vein, the United Nations (UN) was created in October 1945, with its headquarters in New York. Like its predecessor, the League of Nations, it was hoped this organisation could help prevent wars by encouraging diplomacy and establishing certain international rules of conduct. The UN was also designed as a means for closer cooperation between nations on such key issues as citizen rights, healthcare, and education, areas where it has been successful. Unfortunately, wars have proved difficult to eradicate in the 80 years since WWII ended. The hope for global peace and stability, which was so strong when the horrors of war were fresh in millions of minds in 1945, have remained desirable but nonetheless elusive objectives.
