The Handy World War II Answer Book

The biggest and deadliest war. Over 50 countries involved. More than 100 million people mobilized. A death toll between 50 to 85 million—half of which were innocent civilians. Six bloody years. Countless atrocities and savageries. If you’re interested in the story and legacy of World War II, then this history book is for you!

From the Pearl Harbor attack and the D-Day invasion to the Holocaust and the Manhattan Project, World War II has had a lasting impact on the world. Larger-than-life heroes and villains were minted: Hitler, MacArthur, Stalin, and Churchill, to name a few. The ballistic missile, atomic bomb, radar, and other inventions were developed that came to define modern life. The impact of World War II cannot be underestimated. The Handy World War II Answer Book looks at the Blitzkrieg, Hiroshima, concentration camps, and the rest of the war’s history. It answers 550 of the most intriguing questions about the war, including …

Why did Italy and Germany become allies?

What was special about the Commando Fighting Knife?

What were the secrets of Station X?

Who were the Desert Rats?

Did the Allies know that the Holocaust was happening?

When was the first Enigma machine captured — and by whom?

What led to the Battle of Midway?

How was the fate of Stalingrad decided?

Who were the Flying Tigers?

Did Hitler really sleep through the D-Day invasion?

What was the biggest naval battle of World War II?

Why was Iwo Jima so difficult for the Americans to capture?

How did two of the Nuremberg prisoners evade justice?

What happened to Emperor Hirohito?

Fought all over the world, there were battles and operations, warships and warplanes, guns and bombs, attacks and sieges, soldiers and leaders. There was despair and victory, triumph and tragedy, struggle and sacrifice. Learn all about the conflict in The Handy World War II Answer Book! With more than 135 photos and graphics, this fascinating tome is richly illustrated. Its helpful bibliography and extensive index add to its usefulness.

Russia: Attacking the Bear

Why did Germany invade Russia?

An old military axiom holds that it is unwise to fight a war on two fronts. History is replete with supporting examples, yet the ego-driven and increasingly over-confident Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, insisted that he knew better. Despite his inability to capture the British Isles, and the possibility that the “sleeping giant” of the United States might enter the war and side against Germany, Hitler blithely ordered his generals to plan an invasion of the Soviet Union. A treaty was in place between himself and Stalin, but Hitler’s word was rarely worth the paper on which it was written. He saw the Russian people as being an inferior race, and his prejudices led him to believe that their soldiers would be unable to withstand the might of his Wehrmacht. The same blitzkrieg tactics which had proven so effective against Poland and Czechoslovakia would be every bit as devastating in Russia — or so he thought.

Germany lacked the resources to sustain war on a massive scale, resources that the Soviet Union possessed aplenty. Additionally, Nazi ideology declared that the principles of Bolshevism were abhorrent and must be wiped from the face of the Earth — along with the Slavic and Jewish peoples who lived in Soviet territory. The German invasion of Russia was therefore simultaneously a war for resources and a war of extermination. Hitler demanded nothing less than genocide, intending for the Wehrmacht to annihilate the Russian populace (any who survived would be used as slave labor and worked to death in the service of the Third Reich) and then use the captured land and resources to further his ambitions for Germany’s future.

What condition was the Russian military in before Germany invaded?

Unlike many of the western powers, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin maintained a large standing military between the First and Second World Wars. A primary reason for this was that the armed forces were a tool wielded by Stalin to further his aims and help maintain his position of power. Stalin poured vast fortunes into funding and modernizing the Russian military, which grew to become the largest size in the country’s history, outmatching that of every other army in the world. This ought to have put the Soviet Union in a strong position at the beginning of World War II, were it not for an outburst of Stalin’s characteristic paranoia and ruthlessness.

In 1937, suspecting a plot against him by senior members of his military, Stalin initiated a year-long string of torture and executions among the officer corps, which became known as the Great Purge or the Great Terror. In reality, the plot against Stalin never existed. The officers were completely shocked when they were arrested, placed in front of a firing squad, and shot.

Rarely a man to think through the potential consequences of his actions, or to restrain himself when emotion took over from rationality, Stalin failed to consider the effect that losing so many key officers would have on the effectiveness of the Red Army. Many had gained irreplaceable experience, which was lost forever — experience which would have benefited the army greatly in 1941 when Hitler attacked. In effect, Stalin had carried out a decapitation strike on his own army, only four years before it would be required to defend the Motherland against a brutal and aggressive invader.

What was the reason for Operation Barbarossa?

The largest military offensive of all time, Operation Barbarossa heralded Germany’s ambitious but ultimately flawed attempt to capture and pacify the Soviet Union. Although a cooperative agreement existed between the two nations, Adolf Hitler had initiated planning for an invasion of Soviet territory months before, in 1940. Just like the vast tracts of territory that were its objectives, the sheer scale of Barbarossa were massive. The Germans and their allies committed in excess of 3.5 million troops to the operation.

The relatively new concept of Blitzkrieg had never been attempted en masse to such an extent before. Thousands of panzers and mechanized infantry units would punch through the outer defenses and push into the Soviet rear areas, with thousands of artillery pieces and Luftwaffe bombers providing support. Slower infantry formations would hold the ground that had been taken and consolidate the German gains, while also supporting the vast logistical tail that such a massive army required. On paper, and in the mind of Adolf Hitler, it was a workable plan. In reality, it failed to take into account a number of variables, such as the fanatical resistance that would be encountered from both the military and civilian populace, and the effects of bitter winter weather during the later months of the year.

What happened to the civilian population during Operation Barbarossa?

It is a sad truth that virtually every war has its atrocities. World War II was no different. In addition to seizing land and resources from the Soviets, one of Hitler’s primary objectives was the elimination of ethnic groups he considered to be sub-human…which included practically the entire civilian population of the territories his armies invaded. Although taking prisoners and shipping them out for use as slave labor was an option, such a route would cost time, effort, and resources that the Wehrmacht simply did not have to spare. As an alternative, the Germans employed death squads named einsatzgruppen to commit mass murder, specifically targeting Jews and Red Army commissars — political officers who espoused an ideology that the Nazis found antithetical.

Comprised of near-fanatical SS members, the einsatzgruppen roamed behind German lines during Operation Barbarossa, killing prisoners at will. They did not care whether their victims were in uniform or not. Such mass murder groups did not originate with the invasion of Russia — einsatzgruppen committed the mass murder of civilians during the invasion of Poland in 1939 — but Barbarossa saw them deployed in the largest numbers to that point in the war. They were not soldiers or part of the traditional military hierarchy, having been given autonomy by Hitler and empowered to act independently of German army units.

Did Barbarossa achieve its objectives?

In some regards, it came close; in others, not so much. In the first few months of the campaign, Stalin downplayed the severity of the situation. By the summer’s end, with the German advance moving inexorably toward Moscow, there was no longer any realistic chance of hiding the truth. The Soviets threw unit after unit into the fight, spending the blood of their soldiers in an effort to delay the invaders for another day. They traded space for time, knowing that the weather conditions would soon turn cold, something for which the Red Army was far better prepared than the Wehrmacht was. The only way that Barbarossa could realistically have succeeded would have required the Soviet forces to undergo a complete collapse in the early stages of the operation. Although the defenders suffered extremely heavy losses, they continued to retreat eastward, bleeding the advancing Germans as they went.

By October, with the Panzer formations threatening Moscow itself, Stalin had changed his tune, demanding that every man, woman, and child be put to work in defense of the city. Although there was widespread panic and even some looting in the streets of the Russian capital, requiring order to be restored at the point of a gun or bayonet, many Muscovites banded together and worked for the common good, digging ditches and setting traps for the anticipated German assault.

It was backbreaking work, but knowing the way in which the Wehrmacht and the SS tended to treat the civilians who fell into their hands was a strong motivator. Many citizens fled the city. Stalin himself refused to leave, perhaps recognizing the huge blow to morale his departure would have been, and instead hunkered down to maintain overall command of the situation. His gamble paid off; the vanguard German units never made it as far as Moscow. By November, the weather had worsened — which worked in the defenders’ favor — and the Wehrmacht, slowed down by logistical shortfalls, steadily increasing casualties, and worsening morale, was finally forced to admit that it had bitten off more than it could chew.

Ill-equipped without adequate winter clothing, frostbite was rife among the German ranks. The soldiers were exhausted, with nothing left to give. Throughout history, armies have withdrawn into winter quarters during periods of extremely cold weather. Unwilling to accept the loss of his territorial gains (which he saw only on maps in his headquarters) Hitler predictably threw a tantrum when his field officers began ordering the spent German units to retreat and recuperate. Rather than acknowledge the role played by the freezing conditions, poor supply situation, or tenacious resistance of the defenders, Hitler placed the blame for failing to break the Red Army and capture Moscow squarely on the shoulders of his own generals, who had lost almost a million men in the grand push eastward.