The World at War

Abstract

In the summer of 1941, the world trembled in fear. The Axis Powers of Germany, Italy and Japan had unleashed devastating force in campaign after successful campaign. Adolf Hitler had launched his blitzkrieg on Europe two years back, taking Poland, France and the Netherlands, and had now begun a major assault on the Soviet Union, in contravention of the Hitler-Stalin pact. German and Italian forces were spread throughout Northern Africa. And Japan, already deep inside China, was pushing into Southeast Asia.1 How had it come to this?