Films about the WWII

Some films have been filmed that tell really good the experience of many people during the WII and the WWII:
The diary of Anne Frank: the film was released in 1959, but it is based on the diary of a young jewish girl: Anne Frank. It relates her experience escaping from the Nazis hidding herself with her parents, sister and another familly in a fabric.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052738/

Thin red line: it was written and filmed in 1998. It tells the story of the battle of Gualdacanal in 1942 during the WWII.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120863/
Saving private Ryan: as the one before, it is from 1998. It describes all the WWII, from 1939 till 1945.
http://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film824508.html
Life is beautiful: It tells the story of a Jewish man that marries a "pure" german woman and have a son, and tells how they deal to survive during the last year of the WWII in a concentration camp.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/

The pianist: a film from 2002. It relates the life of a Polish pianist that spends years scaping from the Nazis, hidding himself in different abandomned houses.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pianist/

The boy in the striped pajamas: a film from 2008 based on a book with the same name. It tells the story of a German family, who have to move beside a concentration camp because of the father's work, who is a Nazi general. There the kid of the family meets a kid who is living in the concentration camp.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/

Aftermath

The consequences of the Second World War were many, but the main one were: The independence  movements in Asia and Africa, Soviet union lost over 27 million people which took them 30 years took regain the population, the biginning of the nuclaer asge started, the Cold War begun, there were still a lot of tension between the Soviet Veterans, even thouth they fought against each other, the capitalists and comunists couldn't coexist and this is what opened the path to the simbolic flag "Iron", the Germnas had to reconstruct their country, the Unired unions was created in 1945 to mantain peace and the human rights...

The Second World War was the war which left the biggest mark on people and the whole world.

The victory of the allies (1943-1945)

On the 6th June in 1944 (D-Day), allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy. This signaled the bigging of the Second World War. It was the first stage in the liberation of western Europe and a major step  towards the defeat of Nazi Germany. This was known as the D-Day Landing.


Fall of Berlin which was the 2nd of May 1945, was the day that the battle between the Soviet Veterans and Berlin ended. As the name says itself, Berlin lost.


On the 8th of August is 1945, the USA dropped two atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which they had secretly been developing during the war. These bombs made Japan surrender in the same year. They killed over 78,500 people.
The reason for which the USA done this was because they wanted to bring the war to a rapid end and prevent the loss of any more troops.

The Last Major German Offensive

The last Major German Offensive which went from the 16th of December 1944 till the 25th of January 1945, was also known as Ardennes Offensive at the Battle of Bulge. The Battle's name "Bulge" was given by the British, because on the map there is a bulge where the German forces broke the line.
The aim of this was to divide the allied troops in two to try and capture Antwerp and destroy the remaining axis, but luckily for the allies, the Germans plan didn't turn out, as the allies had a lot going for them. They had around 840,000 men on land fighting, good weather which allowed the air force to take part of the battle as well.  There were around 186,369 injuries in the Battle of Bulge.

Europe and the Big Depression

Europe and the Big Depression were all the consequences that the Second World War had on Europe. There were many consequences; banks failed, industry struggled and trade was very scarce. Another country which was also affected badly, that in 1932 had over 6 million people unemployed, was Germany, as they had been relying on the US loans. Dictatorships and totalitarian regimes appeared, because the Germans were blaming the democracy for this crisis. These caused a new period to start, called a new period of territorial expansion which the League of Nations couldn't control, for example Italy in Abyssinia, Germany in Poland...)

The country which was affected the least was the USSR, as they had a communist system.

“New Deal”

             The “New Deal” was the measures taken to try and end with the economic crisis. John Maynard Keynes, an English economist, decided that the state should take place in the economy, either developing the public sector or the economic legislation. These ideas were put to practice thanks to Franklin Roosevelt, though he had three main ideas to end with this, they were:

1.      1. To spend money: He had the state investing money on infrastructure, to create more jobs.

2.      2. To rebuild US trade and industry: He shut down the banks that were out of money and gave the ones which still had money, more so that they could trade.

3.      3. To improve the lives of ordinary people.

All of this was known as the “New Deal”.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression  was a huge economic disaster which went from 1929-1934, causing hardship all over Europe, the United States and in the overseas empires. There were decrease of prices; low production of goods and unemployment increased. In 1929 the USA, stopped lending money and asked for all the loan money back. In 1930 banks closed and firms went out of business. This was really noticed in the USA, three years later, as there were over 12 million people unemployed.

"Black Thursday"

"Black Thursday" was the name given to the 24th of October 1929, a day when businesses all over the U.S.A collapsed, leaving thousands of people ruined. This disaster was caused by the "Wall Street Crash" which took place in New York in 1929. As people were running out of money and they could see that the prices for the shares were coming down, in September, they started to rush to sell their shares so not to lose too much money on them. The poblem was that no one wanted to buy shares because the prices of the shares were going down very quickly. People hoped that maybe the banks would buy thier shares and keep the high value of it, but they couldn't as they were also short of money.

The origins of the financial crisis

      The origins of the financial crisis began in 1919. They were caused because the Americans had over-produced, consequently there was too much supply and not enough demand. As they couldn’t sell their products, they weren’t receiving money, so people such as farmers couldn’t buy. This crisis ended in 1929.

1920's decade

              1920’S decade featured economic and for many people, care free living. This decade began with a roar and ended with a big crash, giving it the name “the booming twenties and the financial crash”.

After the First World War the economy was stagnant in Europe and America. Europe had a great dependency on America, as they provided Europe with cheap credit. After the war all the countries had to pay the money back to America, but Germany had to pay much more, for the reparations of the warThis war benefited the U.S.A, as it increased industrial production and gave American firms new markets lost by the Europeans. As it also benefited the government, they increased salaries; wealthy people taxes were cut, so that way they had more money, being able to invest it... This was known as the “Booming Twenties”

Soon after that, their luck came to an end. Nearly half of the American population were forced to live below the poverty line. Duties on products were a must, to try and protect them from U.S. imports. As the companies in the U.S were doing really well people started to borrow money to buy lots of shares. Europeans depended on U.S. loans. This was known as the “financial crash”

The First World War

The First World War was a conflict that lasted four years, between 1914 and 1918. This was an armed confrontation between Germany, the Austro-Hungary Empire, Turkey and Bulgaria against France, England, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, Japan, Italy, Rumania, the USA and some other countries. 


The break out was the murder of the archduke Francisco Fernando, the next to the Austro-Hungary throne, in Saravejo, on June 28^th 1914, however before this, many tensions had been created between the European powers because of the fighting for those places rich in raw materials and the colonies. The sum of all these tensions ended in the WWI.
The Great War finished four years later, which may seem to be a short period of time, but it was actually quite much and the results were terrible. Fortunateley, things could be solved thanks to the fourteen points of Woodrow Wilson[1], the last of these points suggested the creation of an organization between the nations to provide alternative solutions to wars[2].
Thanks to these fourteen pints, today we have the sexual equality, there is less racism and there are no wars as the Great War or the Second World War.

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[1] Woodrow Wilson: american president during the WWI.

[2] It was called the League of Nations.

The postwar period

The period after this war, was really hard as the deadly victims were around 9 million in total. It also had a big impact on the economy, the most affected were France, Russia and Belgium, however the USA was not affected at all, in fact it became the creditor of all of them. 

The treaty of Versailles

·      When the treaty of Versailles was signed[1], it established Germany as the guilty for the WWI, and as so, it was obligated to: reduce all the army (aerial, marine and normal); renounce to their colonial territories (which were shared between the winning nations); leave Russia; leave and restore Belgium and France; pay for all the losses it had caused; and the king William II was forced to abdicate. With this, Germany became a Republic and in January of 1919 the Weimar Republic was created[2].

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[1] June 28th 1919. Between Germany and the winning countries in the Mirror room of the Versailles Palace. There were present the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, the Italian Minister Giorgio Sonnino, the French politician George Clemenceau and the USA president Woodrow Wilson.

[2] Gustav Stresseman: prime minister of the Weimar republic.

Democracy in danger

In this period of time, as a consequence of the active participation of women and the “low classes” during the war, the universal suffrage had to be accepted. On the other hand, many new parties appeared, the most of them were radical as the socialists, the communists and the social democrats.

Democracy in danger: Italy

·      When the war finished, the king in the throne was Victor Manuel II, however he had no political power at all as the government was a democracy. In these right moments, a lot of radical parties started to form and to get strength, one of those was Mussolini’s fascism.

Mussolini wanted to rule Italy under a fascist regime where they were the only political force and there was no right for vote; in other words, he wanted a dictatorship. In such a way that nobody could take his power away by any means, neither by choosing another member of another political party, nor by giving a coup d’état.

He got the political power that he wanted after the March on Rome. When the king Victor Manuel II named him Prime Minister, which he shouldn't, as in that time, the king had no political power, which meant that he could not take any decision over the State.

 

Victor Manuel III and Mussolini.

Democracy in danger: Spain

·      During and after the WWI, Spain was reigned by Alfonso XIII, until 1923, when Miguel Primo de Rivera gave a coup d’état which was accepted by the king and did nothing to help it. However, when Primo de Rivera had definitely
      failed in 1930, Alfonso XIII tried to restore the Republic, 
      but all the radical parties opposed the monarchy, so one
      year later, the April 14^th 1931, to avoid a Civil War, left the country.

His intentions were good and worked for some time, but as
 a consequence of the majority of socialist and republican parties through Spain, in 1936, the war the king tried to avoid, started.

                                                                                            Alfonso XIII and Miguel Primo de Rivera.

The Locarno Agreements

·      The Locarno Agreements were a series of treaties signed by France, Germany, the U.K, Italy and Belgium in London in 1925 to maintain the peace. It involved leaving the borders and frontiers as they were arranged with the Treaty of Versailles, that they would not attack each other unless it was for self-defense; that they would solve their problems by pacific means and that if one of them broke the agreement, the others will join against him.

With the signing of these agreements Germany could enter in the League of Nations in 1926. 
After all that had happened during the WWI, and Germany being blamed for leading all Europe to it, Stressman thought it was the best idea to stablish peaceful relations with other countries and to improve the countrie's situation by respectable means. During his time in power, he carried out this plan, however, it was not reallu succesful, this is the reason for the which Hilter could convince people and change their minds easily and win the elections.

These agreements were broken by Hitler in 1936.

A new European Balance: League of Nations

After the Great War, the winning countries met to sign the Treaty of Versailles; the last point of this treaty established a new system by the which they wanted to avoid any conflict that could end in war. In the beginning it excluded Germany, however when the Locarno Agreements were signed, it supposed the entrance of Germany in the League of Nations. In one way or another this was one of the reasons that led to the Second World War, because one of the main points of the League of Nations was that if any of the members did anything against the rest, they would ally against him, so after all Germany had done and other problems, the war broke out once again. This system existed since 1920 until 1946.

Thanks to it, today we have what we know as the United Nations.

The rise of the totalitarism

The totalitarianism appeared in the postwar period in many European countries in many different forms of governments; in Italy it was Fascism with Mussolini, in Germany it was the Nazism with Hitler, in Russia the Communism with Stalin…

The rise of the totalitarism: Italian Fascism

·      In Italy, the Fascism appeared in 1922 when Victor Manuel II, king of Italy, named Mussolini as the Prime Minister. This occurred after the March on Rome that same year, whose purpose was to force the constitutional government to give up and to impose Mussolini, which they got.

During his mandate he made sure to have as little enemies as possible; he made a treaty with the Catholic Church, and imposed the religion, so that all the religious people supported him, he also had a secret police dedicated to murder to the members of the other political parties. This secret police was called OVRA[1].

In meetings and public acts, he usually explained that he wanted to create a unified Italy which could be self-sufficient, however, what he really wanted to get was a country feared and respected by its neighbors, in such a way that no other country dared to attack him.
Mussolini to power video

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[1] OVRA: Organization for Vigilance and Repression of  Anti-Fascism.