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Setting the scene
After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh penalties on Germany, including territorial losses, disarmament, and reparations. The Weimar Republic struggled with hyperinflation in 1923 and the Great Depression. Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party exploited resentment, promising to overturn Versailles. After becoming chancellor in 1933, Hitler rearmed Germany, remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, annexed Austria in March 1938, and took the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia at Munich in September 1938. Britain and France pursued appeasement, hoping to avoid war.
What happened
On September 1, 1939, at 4:45 a.m., Germany invaded Poland using blitzkrieg—coordinated tanks, planes, and infantry. The Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and 1.5 million German troops crossed the border. Britain and France had guaranteed Poland's security and, after an ultimatum expired, declared war on Germany on September 3. The Soviet Union, which had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Germany on August 23, invaded eastern Poland on September 17. Poland fell in 35 days, partitioned between Germany and the USSR.
Why it still matters
World War II became the deadliest conflict in history, killing 70-85 million people, including 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. It ended with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the division of Europe into American and Soviet spheres, starting the Cold War. The war destroyed European empires, led to decolonization, created the United Nations, and established the United States and Soviet Union as superpowers. Germany's invasion of Poland, justified by a false-flag attack at Gleiwitz, began six years of global war that reshaped the modern world.
Background
The war expanded into a truly global conflict over the next years.