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Alexander Fleming, Chain, Florey and the healing power of penicillin

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Alexander Fleming Biography, Discovery of Penicillin

A glass lid that slipped off a bowl, a researcher who became curious about what he saw and another researcher who ten years later read a forgotten article about the event. These are some of the unlikely coincidences that together led to the discovery of the penicillin. The discovery has led to hundreds of millions of human lives being saved and at the same time provided an explanation for why cobwebs and fungi have been used to treat wounds for thousands of years.

One day in 1938, Dr. Ernst Boris Chain was reading in Radcliffe’s library in Oxford.

Chain (1906-1979) was a biochemist, but that day he read in a ten-year-old journal about diseases. Chain’s eyes fell on the crisp headline “The antibacterial effect of penicillin cultures, especially with regard to their use in isolating B epidemics,” and he began to read.

When Chain had left, he was overjoyed. Here was the missing link he was looking for in vain – a description of a substance that killed bacteria.

The article was written by Dr. Alexander Fleming (1881-1955). It gave Chain the key to how the miracle drug penicillin was made, a drug that has saved hundreds of millions of lives and cured patients who were previously helplessly lost.

Alexander Fleming was born in 1881 on a Scottish farm. Fleming’s father died early, and his mother had to fight hard to provide food for the day for her eight children. Every school day, Fleming went to school, 6 kilometers there and 6 kilometers back. The mother understood that the son was talented, and at the age of 14 he was sent to a technical school in London. Alexander soon realized that it was medicine he wanted to study.

The bacteria and their enemies

Alexander Fleming took a job in an office, worked there for four years and saved as much as possible. Then he received a small inheritance, which together with the savings made it possible to pay for a medical education.

St. Mary’s Hospital in London received paying students, and Fleming applied here. When Fleming graduated with high marks, he was offered a place as an assistant to Sir Almroth Wright. He researched how bacteria were destroyed by their natural enemies.

When animals die, the bacteria immediately begin their destructive work, and a body that has been dead for a while is full of bacteria. Since all living things sooner or later return to becoming earth, the earth should not really consist of anything but bacteria. But why is it not so? The answer turned out to be that different microorganisms live off each other. A war of all against all is waged uninterrupted on a microscopic scale.

– Life hinders life, Louis Pasteur had said, when he described his discovery that different bacteria can fight each other.

Maybe it was possible to find an organism that attacked bacteria?

Doctors tried to use the new knowledge through various experiments. Often they preferred themselves to subjects rather than patients. At St. Mary’s Hospital, two doctors who tested new methods on themselves died. Fleming himself became very ill when he subjected himself to a similar experiment.

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Bullets caused sore fever

In 1914, World War I broke out and Fleming and Wright traveled to France to try to help the thousands of soldiers who were at risk of dying from wound fever. Fleming discovered that one of the most common causes of wound fever was that soldiers were wounded by bullets and shrapnel that had passed through their bacteria-filled uniforms and taken bacteria with them into the body. There, the bacteria multiplied rapidly and even made small wounds dangerous through infections.

After the war, Fleming returned to work. He discovered that human tears contained a substance that killed bacteria. However, the substance, which was named lysozyme, was too weak. Fleming had nevertheless made an important discovery – it was possible to find substances that attacked bacteria.

In 1928, the coincidence that would save so many human lives occurred. Fleming had prepared a series of glass bowls with cultures of staphylococcal bacteria. Staphylococcus causes pimples, boils and inflammation, among other things. Fleming placed the bowls on the workbench to travel on vacation. This was the end of July.

Zone without bacteria

During the holidays, Fleming was appointed professor and returned to his laboratory. He started sorting his crops and was just about to wash them away when he saw something strange. On a bowl the lid had slipped off and in it a lump of mold had formed on a plate. This was not unusual, but what caught Fleming’s interest was that the staphylococcal bacteria did not appear raw on the mold. A clear zone around the mold was completely free of bacteria!

This was a fantastic coincidence. Apparently some mold had landed on the bacteria at the right moment. In addition, the weather was perfect. A cold week was followed by strong heat. In the cold, mold grows faster than bacteria. In the test, the mold could only grow strong enough during the cold week to be able to affect the bacteria. Had it been hot all the time, the mold would have been engulfed by the bacteria.

– It was clear that something unusual was happening, Fleming himself said and continued:

– This interested me much more than the experiments with staphylococci, so I ended them immediately. Now I am glad that I have been particularly interested in antiseptics and that a few years earlier I had come across a similar antiseptic in nature: lysozyme. Without this previous experience, I would probably have thrown out the dish, which many other bacteriologists must have done before …

Instead of throwing out the contaminated bowl, Fleming did new research. There are thousands of different types of mold and thousands of different types of bacteria. The chance that this mold ended up in the right place at the right moment was as small as winning the highest prize.

Mold penicillin

What had fallen into the bowl was a trace of the mold fungus penicillium notatum, and when Fleming had found out, he continued his experiments.

It turned out that even if the mold was diluted 500-800 times, the growth of the bacteria was hindered. The fungus was thus two to three times more effective than the phenol that Joseph Lister used in his attempts to eradicate bacteria.

Penicillin also had few side effects and attacked a number of different diseases.

But it was one thing to kill bacteria in a glass bowl, quite another to eradicate staphylococci that have taken root in a patient’s body. The penicillin Fleming had was weak and gave no results in patients. Fleming could not produce enough pure penicillin but got stuck. His discovery was forgotten for ten years until the day Dr. Ernst Boris Chain read Fleming’s article.

Chain and Florey

Chain worked with biochemist Howard Walter Florey (1898-1968) to find a natural enemy of bacteria, but the results were poor. Chain was about to give up and engage in something else when he found the article.

“It was pure luck,” Chain said afterwards. I am a biochemist, not a pathologist, and no chemist would come up with the idea of ​​reading a journal in pathology (pathology = the study of diseases) to help his chemical research. But in Oxford the two subjects are gathered under one roof, and that thought made me go through the magazines.

Chain and Florey took an evening walk in Oxford, and Chain persuaded Florey. They would examine the penicillin more closely.

Experiments on mice …

In 1939, World War II broke out . The researchers realized what help penicillin would be for wounded soldiers and increased their efforts. By May 1940, Florey and his assistant, Norman Heatley, had obtained a brown powder, the first penicillin salt. The salt contained only one percent penicillin – would that be enough?

Eight mice received a lethal dose of streptococcal bacteria. One hour later, four of the mice received penicillin. Late into the night, Florey and Heatley sat at the mice’s cages. In the morning, the four mice that did not receive penicillin died. The others survived.

Fleming found out the news eight weeks later, when he read the report on the experiment in the medical journal The Lancet at breakfast . He traveled straight to Oxford – without finishing his breakfast.

… And on people

Now the penicillin must be produced on a larger scale to be able to be used at the fronts. Heatley discovered that penicillin, the active ingredient in the mold, could be extracted at low temperatures with a solution of ether and acid.

A group of girls, students and nurses, were called to the university. Dressed in coats, gloves and earmuffs, the so-called penicillin girls worked in cold rooms rolling bottles of mold so that the ether could draw out the penicillin. In the winter, bottles were rolled in the snow on the laboratory roof. But the petition went too slowly.

In 1941, the first experiment was performed on a human – a policeman who was dying of blood poisoning. He received penicillin and steadily got better. But then the penicillin ran out, the police got worse again and died after a few weeks.

Adversity took Dr. Florey hard.

– No more attempts until we have enough penicillin, he decided.

A few weeks later, the doctors got another chance, when a 15-year-old boy with blood poisoning was taken to hospital. Penicillin was inserted, and this time the patient was saved.

Patent

Florey and Heatley realized that war-torn Britain could not invest enough resources. They traveled to the United States with samples of the mold.

They did not patent the petition themselves, as they considered that their discovery belonged to the public. In the United States, researchers were less careful. The patent was applied for, and the United Kingdom was subsequently forced to pay to use the manufacturing methods.

In 1943, Chain, who had stayed in the United Kingdom, was able to obtain one hundred percent pure penicillin, and in October of that year he was able to map its chemical composition.

In the United States, a program to develop penicillin had been launched, and in 1943, 500 people could be treated.

Nobel Prize in Medicine

By the end of World War II, thousands of people had already been given penicillin, which is still one of the most important drugs in the world today. About 30 percent of Sweden’s population is treated with penicillin for one year.

In 1945, Fleming, Florey and Chain received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Fleming and Florey were knighted in Britain.

When Fleming later in Paris lectured on his discovery, he repeatedly emphasized the series of happy circumstances that led to the discovery. Had Fleming not inherited his small inheritance, he might never have had the opportunity to study medicine. Had the mold not ended up in his bowl and Chain would not have read his article, penicillin might have been undetected even today.

It has been known for thousands of years that fungi and herbs could be used to treat wounds, including in ancient Egypt , ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire . The reason why the treatment worked was often that bandages with fungi and herbs molded and the mold counteracted bacteria. But that bacteria caused diseases was unknown until the second half of the 19th century when Louis Pasteur mapped the connection. Before that, no one knew why fungi and herbs could soothe wounds.

In the Roman Empire, soldiers used cobwebs to heal wounds on horses. In Europe, wounds were treated with soaked bread mixed with cobwebs. Cobwebs often contain substances that have similar properties to penicillin. Sometimes even mold spores may have stuck to the sticky cobwebs.

Alexander Fleming died of a heart attack in 1955. He was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Penicillin may have saved the lives of up to 200 million people. The discovery also prompted others to continue the work begun by the penicillin discoverers.

Other cures …

When penicillin was discovered, researchers soon began trying to find other remedies for the diseases that penicillin did not bite.

In 1943, the American Selman Waksman isolated streptomycin. It turned out to be effective against tuberculosis . Sixty years after Robert Koch found the bacillus, scientists had also found a cure for it. Yet another of humanity’s great torments could be fought.

Unlike penicillin, streptomycin is toxic and must be used with caution. In 1952, Waksman received the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

The next step was the discovery of a series of drugs called tetracyclines. These are today one of the most widely used drugs against infections.

At the same time as humans have been getting better and better remedies for infections, new bacterial strains have emerged that the old remedies do not bite on. New ones must be constantly researched.

In 1939, all cases of meningitis could be cured with antibiotics, as these medications are called. Twenty years later, only half of the cases could be cured with the antibiotics known in 1939.

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Tasks and questions

Questions to the text:

  1. When and where was Alexander Fleming born?
     
  2. What is the name of the substance in human tears that attacks bacteria?
     
  3. What is penicillin?
     
  4. Why did Fleming realize that penicillin could counteract bacteria?
     
  5. Why could not Fleming use his discovery to produce effective drugs?
     
  6. In what year could a patient be saved for life for the first time penicillin?
     
  7. How large a part of Sweden’s population is treated every year with this form of penicillin?
     
  8. How did you go about extracting the penicillin in pure form?
     
  9. Name some types of drugs other than penicillin and explain what diseases they are used for.
     
  10. Why do new drugs have to be developed all the time for various diseases?

Robert Oppenheimer – the father of the atomic bomb

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The light from a thousand suns would resemble the radiance of the Almighty.
The lines from the Indian work Bhagavadgita appeared in the head of Robert Oppenheimer, who after years of research witnessed the test explosion of the world’s first atomic bomb in July 1945. Shortly afterwards, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, ending World War II. Oppenheimer, who led the researchers’ work, later began to dread the forces that had been released. He then said that a few other words from the poem also echoed in his head at the explosion:
– I have become Death, the destroyer of the worlds.

On October 11, 1939, banker Alexander Sachs visited US President Franklin D. Roosevelt . Sachs had with him a letter signed by none other than Albert Einstein . The letter told of a recent discovery: that atomic nuclei could be split and huge amounts of energy released. This made it possible to create a weapon that surpassed anything seen so far. Einstein also warned that Nazi Germany was probably already developing such a weapon. Germans first, Hitler’s victory would be secured.

The letter called on the President of the United States to order large-scale nuclear research. But the letter did not turn out to be the success Sachs had hoped for. Roosevelt was tired that day and did not consider the matter urgent.

However, Sachs managed to get an invitation to the president’s breakfast table the next morning and during the night he had devised the following anecdote:

“Once upon a time there was a man named Robert Fulton ,” Sachs told the president. During the Napoleonic Wars , he took precedence over Napoleon and offered to build a fleet of steamships that would help the French invade Britain.

Several of the researchers who made the greatest contribution to the Manhattan Project had been forced to flee Hitler and Italian dictator Mussolini – either because they were of Jewish descent or because they opposed Nazi policies. Among those who fled was the Italian Enrico Fermi, who in the United States carried out the first controlled nuclear fission and thus laid the foundation for the modern nuclear power plants.

But even though thousands of scientists were driven into exile, prominent physicists such as Werner Heisenberg remained in Germany. His colleagues in the United States did not doubt that Heisenberg could construct an atomic bomb.

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Los Alamos

In 1942, General Groves met the physicist Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967). He had come to the idea that it was extremely impractical for the work to take place in several laboratories scattered throughout the United States. The best thing would be to build a new large research center and gather the most important research there. Groves accepted the idea, and in 1943 Oppenheimer was appointed head of the new research laboratory. To avoid the risk of German saboteurs who could be landed on the Atlantic coast by submarine, a site in the state of New Mexico was selected. The scenic spot is called Los Alamos, and for a few years it became the most secretive area in the United States.

From the beginning, the wilderness was pure here, but soon an entire community grew up, and within two years, 6,000 people lived in Los Alamos. Research was also conducted in other places and a total of about 130,000 people worked on the project.

Oppenheimer had studied in Göttingen with the famous Max Born and received his doctorate in 1927. When Oppenheimer was commissioned to lead Los Alamos, he worked at the University of California at Berkeley. In the United States, he was a role model for many younger physicists. The students were happy with Oppenheimer’s way of coughing, keeping his head tilted and holding his hand to his mouth as he spoke.

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Uranium 235

The researchers had discovered that a large amount of the element uranium was needed to build an atomic bomb. Now it is the case that there are elements whose atoms differ slightly. The different variants of the same atom are called isotopes. Uranium occurs in an isotope called U 238 – this is the most common. But there is also an unusual type called U 235.

To produce an atomic bomb, large quantities of U 235 were needed, which so far have only been produced in fractions of a gram.

If you add up a sufficiently large amount of uranium 235, nuclear fission begins by itself, resulting in an atomic explosion. The smallest possible amount that explodes by itself is called “the critical mass”. But how big should the amount be? Oppenheimer, who heard Bohr’s lecture in 1939, had worked with a method of producing U 235 on a large scale and also made studies of the critical mass. The critical mass for U 235 turned out to be around 25 kilos.

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A security risk

In 1937, Oppenheimer’s father died, and he inherited a fortune. It had enabled him to support various left-wing organizations, and several of his friends were Communist sympathizers. All this aroused the interest of the security service.

But when Oppenheimer heard that scientists were being persecuted in the Soviet Union , he and his wife withdrew from left-wing politics. In any case, Oppenheimer claimed that, but the security service was not convinced.

In 1943, in the middle of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer contacted the FBI and told them that the Soviet Union was trying to obtain information about Los Alamos.

Oppenheimer said he knew the name of a scientist who had been urged to act as an intermediary for Soviet agents.

At first Oppenheimer did not want to reveal the name, but it later emerged that he was referring to his friend Haakon Chevalier. He was fired from his post at Los Alamos and had his scientific career ruined.

Much later, in 1954, Oppenheimer distanced himself from his earlier claims, calling them “a bundle of lies.”

Although the FBI demanded that Oppenheimer be fired from his post, General Groves could not be persuaded. Oppenheimer was necessary for the bomb to be completed.

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The bombs

In May 1945, Germany capitulated, its ally Japan was still undefeated but hard-pressed. Now Groves pushed his scientists to the limit. The bomb must be completed before Japan surrenders. Several of the researchers had been seized by conscientious objections – especially as it turned out that the Germans had not worked on an atomic bomb at all. Japan could be defeated anyway – maybe a demonstration of the bomb would suffice.

But for Groves, such thoughts were completely foreign. An invasion of Japan would cost the lives of 1 million Americans, according to the most pessimistic estimates, and thousands of US soldiers had already died in the Pacific. In addition, the work on the bomb had cost $ 2 billion – would this money just be thrown into the lake?

Stronger than the sun

On July 16, 1945, the test bomb was ready to be detonated. The observers, including Oppenheimer and Groves, were gathered 9 kilometers from the blasting area, and at half past five in the morning it would happen. There was a long wait, and hardly a word was said.

Suddenly a white light appeared to strike the mountains and the sky. A sponge-shaped cloud grew larger and larger and eventually reached all the way to the sky. The nuclear age had begun.

– The whole area was lit up by an intense light, many times stronger than the midday sun, said General Farell. Only 30 seconds later did the explosion occur, the air pressure hit people and objects hard, and then almost immediately followed a loud, persistent thunderous thunder, as a warning of the last day.

The experiment was successful.

On August 6, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan and on August 9, one on Nagasaki . In Hiroshima, 100,000 people were killed and the entire city was reduced to ashes. Japan capitulated, and World War II ended.

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The Cold War

Immediately after the war, the development that Niels Bohr, among others, had warned about and tried to avert, began. The Soviet Union and the United States became bitter enemies. The Americans, who thought they were alone in the secret behind the atomic bomb, discovered after a few years that the Soviet Union had also learned it and started making nuclear weapons .

Physicists and other scientists in the East and West were also involved in the battle. Before the Second World War, independent of security interests, they could have sent each other interesting research findings and discoveries without thinking that it could be of security policy interest. Now the superpowers’ suspicion of each other made this impossible. Much of what the physicists came up with was automatically classified as secret.

In the United States, government officials were forced to sign a declaration of loyalty, and anyone suspected of being disloyal could be fired. In the Soviet Union, the result could be a concentration camp or execution.

New charges

After World War II, Oppenheimer was famous across all borders, and the awards rained down on him. But the security services had not forgotten their suspicions, and by the end of 1953, the FBI had compiled an indictment. Oppenheimer was accused of being a communist friend and of delaying the disclosure of the names of Soviet agents. He had also worked to avert a proliferation of nuclear weapons and an arms race with the Soviet Union . In addition, Oppenheimer had opposed the design of the hydrogen bomb, which would be even more powerful than the atomic bomb. This, too, was blamed on him.

In 1953, communist terror was widespread in the United States, and a number of people in various areas lost their jobs on the mere suspicion that they sympathized with the Soviet Union or communism . Oppenheimer was immediately deprived of all access to classified material, and his case was heard in a hearing before a special secret committee.

The interrogations with Oppenheimer attracted enormous attention, even though what was said was classified.

During the war, Oppenheimer had increasingly transformed from a scientist to an administrator, and he associated with the leading circles of the government and the military. His colleagues did not recognize him.

-He began to believe that he was God the Father himself, who would put everything right, writes one of his co-workers.

Support for Oppenheimer

Many of the former employees still supported Oppenheimer. As a researcher, he had been asked to give an opinion on the hydrogen bomb. If Oppenheimer’s view could then be turned against him, the same could happen to any other researcher whose conclusions did not suit the government.

The interrogation ended with Oppenheimer not being found guilty of treason, but he lost the right to take part in classified material.

Oppenheimer lost his government duties and gradually began to think about the moral issues raised by nuclear physics and the threat posed by nuclear bombs to humanity. Other researchers had done the same.

Lise Meitner was offered to participate in the Manhattan project but declined with the words:

– I do not want anything to do with any bomb.

Albert Einstein regretted signing the letter to Roosevelt in 1939.

– I do not know with what weapons the Third World War will be fought, but the fourth will be fought with stones.

It is a statement that is often attributed to Einstein, but it is not certain if he really said so.

When the worst communist terror subsided, Oppenheimer was restored. In 1963, he received the Atomic Energy Commission’s medal from US President Lyndon Johnson.

Robert Oppenheimer died in 1967 of throat cancer.

Adolf Hitler Short Biography, Early life and Education, suicide

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Adolf Hitler Short Biography

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the leader of the German Nazi Party (NSDAP) and was the dictator of Nazi Germany between 1933-1945. He came to power by playing on the general discontent and distress that prevailed in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period in connection with the economic depression. Hitler’s aggressive foreign and domestic policies led to World War II and the Holocaust when millions of Jews and other people were murdered.

Early Life and Education of Hitler

Adolf Hitler was born in the Austrian city ​​of Braunau , the son of a customs officer. During his first years of schooling, Hitler was a good student, but it got worse as he got older and his family moved to the city of Linz. Hitler became increasingly tired of school and was forced to take two classes before leaving school at the age of 16 without graduating.

Hitler during Childhood

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in the Austrian city of Braunau. His father, Alois Schickelgrüber-Hitler, worked as a customs officer.

Alois had become a widower twice and had several children. The third wife, the maid Klara Poelzl, became the mother of Adolf. It was a strange family. Klara gave her child a lot of love and pampered him. She claimed that Adolf was ill and she was afraid of losing him. But the nanny remembered Adolf as a healthy, lively child. Surely he was not normally brought up. He was neurotic and motherly. Klara confused his judgment by constantly telling him how different he was from other children. The father, on the other hand, was harsh on his children and Adolf was often beaten.

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The dreamer Hitler

On the way to school, Adolf Hitler passed the castle Kürnberg, where it was said that the Nibelungenslied had been composed. Hitler’s school road went over steep hills, through forests and villages with churches. All this affected his national romantic mind. The supernatural atmosphere over the alpine landscape around his homeland made him a dreamer. In southern Germany, some of the shimmer of the Middle Ages remained and here there had always been dreamers and romantics. The population lived in a fabulous alpine world where the houses looked like theatrical scenes. For Hitler, it was like living in a Wagnerian opera. According to a later observer, Hitler had to force himself out of his dreams.

In 1908 he went to Vienna. There he had a hard time getting a permanent job. Hitler wanted to be an artist or an architect, but did not enter the Academy of Fine Arts or the School of Architecture. Instead, he was forced to support himself on various casual jobs, including painting postcards.

Hitler and the First World War

On January 18, 1914, a uniformed Austrian policeman handed a letter to Hitler asking him to go to Linz for enlistment on January 20. Hitler was suspected of leaving Austria to avoid military service. Hitler wrote a letter saying it was impossible for him to come to Linz due to financial problems. Therefore, he underwent enlistment in Salzburg on February 5, but was declared unfit as a soldier. The Austrian authorities wrote: “Unsuitable for weapons and rescue services, too weak. Unable to carry a weapon ”.

Glad the war started

When Adolf Hitler was in prison in Landsberg, after his failed coup in 1923, he looked back with warmth on the weekend when the war began, for him it was the best weekend of his life. In the book Mein Kampf he wrote: “I do not hesitate now either to admit that I, overwhelmed by stormy rapture, sank to my knees and with an overflowing heart thanked the sky for giving me the happiness of experiencing this time.”

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Since Hitler was an Austrian citizen, he became a German citizen shortly before he was appointed Chancellor, he was not called up to any of the regular regiments. Therefore, at the age of 25, he enlisted in a voluntary regiment set up in Bavaria. Hitler later wrote: “I did not want to fight for the Habsburg state, but was prepared to die for my people and the kingdom that these people embodied.”

The regiment, called the Regiment List, was usually deployed in sections of the front where it was fairly calm. As the stockpile of helmets was depleted, Hitler and his comrades fitted oilcloth caps of gray cotton casing that would make the hats look like helmets. There were 25 Jews in Hitler’s regiment, and at that time all Germans believed that the Jews were pulling their strings during the war effort.

Ordinance of the Regiment Staff

Hitler served the first two weeks as a marksman, but then served as a regular in the regimental staff. It was a quiet existence compared to the soldiers who lay in the trenches . The regimental staff was always 10 kilometers behind the front and there they were always clean, got good food, unlike the front soldiers who suffered in the wet, dirt and grenade rain in the trenches in front of the front lines.

Hitler’s task was to deliver messages to and from the battalion staffs, which were admittedly closer to the front, but at a reasonable distance.

On October 29, 1914, Hitler came into contact with battles, it was during the short period he was a marksman. Hitler’s regiment was in Belgium and British troops attacked the regiment. Hitler later claimed in the book Mein Kampf that the soldiers sang what would become Germany’s national anthem in 1922: “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt”.

It was probably a lie by Hitler because no other soldier could confirm this. Hitler later claimed that he was the only one in the Haufen group who survived today’s battles, which has also proved to be a lie. After a day of fighting, the Germans were forced to withdraw. This did not stop Hitler from portraying the battle as a triumph.

Hitler’s mission is described in a Nazi children’s book

In Nazi school books and children’s books, Hitler’s duties during the war were described as a very dangerous job where he had to carry messages through machine gun fire from trench to trench while the other soldiers could seek refuge in the trenches. From a children’s book published in 1935, Hitler was described as follows: “Hitler was always one of the bravest soldiers of all kinds. Because he was so brave and trustworthy, he was appointed ordinance. He must run right through the hail of bullets and pass news from one officer to another. This was a very dangerous job, but Hitler always did it bravely and humbly. “

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Hitler was wounded

On October 5, 1916, on the fourth day of the Somme offensive , Hitler and two of his ordinance’s colleagues were injured when a British grenade hit their shelter. A shrapnel hit Hitler in the upper left thigh. The shelter they were in was far away from the front itself.

Long afterwards, Hitler lied that he was at the very front when he was injured. After Hitler was taken to hospital, fighting at the Somme increased and as many as 78 percent of the soldiers in Hitler’s regiment were killed. Hitler was taken to an army hospital near Berlin where he stayed for almost two months.

Did you know that:

  • When World War I broke out in 1914, Hitler was overjoyed. He was one of the first to volunteer. “I fell on my knees and thanked heaven with an overflowing heart that it had given me the happiness of living in this time,” he wrote in Mein Kampf.
  • Hitler is often described as short, but he was of normal height. He was 173 cm tall and weighed about 70 kg. The surroundings thought from the beginning that his mustache was outdated and they suggested that he let it grow to the sides. But he replied: “If short mustaches are not popular now, they will be later, because I wear one.”

During World War I , he served as an ordinance (messenger) for a regimental staff.

Hitler experienced the collapse of Germany in 1918 as a disaster. He was convinced that Germany would have won the war if the politicians and the Jews had not betrayed the motherland. This was a common perception among many Germans.

In 1919 he joined a political party which in 1920 adopted the name “National Socialist German Workers’ Party” (NSDAP). In 1921 he became its leader. Now he had a platform from which he could spread his political ideas and worldview that was marked by racist master ideas and Greater German nationalism .

In 1923, Hitler led a failed coup attempt in Munich . Shortly afterwards, he was accused of high treason and sentenced to five years in prison. In prison, he wrote the book Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in which he reveals his future plans for Germany, which would dominate the world. In the book, Hitler also develops his racial ideology and believes that there are genetic differences between different races. The most developed is the Aryan Germanic race to which the German and Nordic peoples belonged. The lowest of the Nazi race scale was the Jewish race. Hitler also takes the opportunity to accuse the Jews of many of the accidents that befell Germany at the end of the war and in the years that followed.

During the Depression of the 1930s, Hitler emerged as the man who could solve Germany’s economic problems. Hitler used force, cunning and fraud to gain power. In 1933, the Nazis received 44 percent of the votes in the parliamentary elections. Shortly afterwards, all other political parties were banned.

As a dictator, Hitler tried to realize his dream of the “millennial kingdom” ( Third Reich ) where the Germans would rule. The persecution of dissidents gained momentum, as did the preparations for war. Hitler wanted to create a Greater Germany with extra lebensraum (living space) in the east. In September 1939, World War II broke out .

Hitler’s last days

On January 15, 1945, Hitler traveled in his special train from his western headquarters in Ziegenberg to Berlin. That was the last time he came to Berlin. Hitler was disappointed with the failed successes in the West and now the Soviet offensive in the East was the most important issue. Hitler arrived in a bombed-out capital and traveled directly to the Chancellery, where he received his generals to discuss the Soviet offensive. On Tuesday, January 30, 1945, Hitler gave his last radio speech. Despite the withdrawal of German troops on all fronts, Hitler spoke carelessly about the successes of National Socialism, about miracle weapons and about the final victory.

April 1945 – doom approaches

On April 15, 1945, Hitler sank in his bunker in Berlin. Adolf Hitler was then 56 years old and a decomposed physical wreck. He could not use one arm after the assassination attempt he was subjected to in 1944. Officers belonging to the resistance movement had detonated a bomb at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia. Hitler survived the attack but was seriously injured. A large number of officers involved in the attack were executed. The body shook. Hitler also suffered from the severe Parkinson’s disease that was breaking him down.

At this time, the population of Berlin was plagued by violent Allied attacks. In the mornings came the American bomb fleets, after midnight the British night bombers. In the west, the Allies pushed forward . Hitler had just lost the offensive in the Ardennes . In eastern Germany , millions of Soviet soldiers advanced. ..

When Russian troops began to infiltrate Berlin , Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on April 30, 1945, along with his mistress Eva Braun, whom he had married the day before.

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When Did the Vietnam War Start and End

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The Vietnam War was an extended and expensive armed clash that pitted the communist command of the North Vietnam and its southern allies known as the Viet Cong, against the South Vietnam and its major ally, currently known as The United States of America. The Vietnam War started in 1955 and ended in 1975 when the North Vietnamese forces captured the Saigon. More than 2 million people lost their lives during the The War Against Communist Aggression from which 58000 people were American and more than half were Vietnamese civilians. A study showed more than 500,000 military individuals were involved in is battle. keep reading to get answer of the question When Did the Vietnam War Start and End ? Below are the complete details on Veitnam War.

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What were the main causes of Vietnam War?

Although there is, still a battle going on in Vietnam yet that is beside the point we discussing now. If we go back in the history, it is clearly visible to everyone that United States joined the Second Indochina War because communism was threatening to expand all over the south-east Asia. In addition, it was the major cause of this conflict.

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Number of factors caused this battle and the most factors were the different beliefs held by people who wanted to prevent this nation to become an independent country. The civil conflict between the Viet Minh and French was one of the major causes for this The Hot Battle of the Cold War. keep reading the topic When Did the Vietnam War Start and End and main causes behind it.

The causes of Vietnam War traced their roots back to the end of World War II. A French colony, Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) had been occupied by Japan during the battle. In 1941, a Vietnamese national movement that is known as Viet Minh was established by the Ho Chi Minh to defend against the occupiers. Later on, with the help of United States, Ho chi waged a guerrilla war against the Japan. This national movement played a vital role for the nation and Japanese granted a nominal independence to the country.

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French rule was cruel and only the government was permitted to generate and sell the salt and alcohol. Number of Vietnamese did not have adequate luggage to eat, the labor working in mines was not authorized to leave their jobs, and the taxes of all kinds multiplied. Then the French shared the management of Vietnam with the Japanese during the World War II.

English imposed some trade restrictions on America that affected its trade relations with France and America has to start this battle.

Another cause for the America’s Longest War was to help the French people because they were being raped.

Before this great battle, the South Vietnam could not handle the North Vietnamese military so just to support the South Vietnam this conflict started.

Vietnam War Casualties StatisticsVietnam war casualties Statistics

The spilled over into the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia. The casualties of this battle vary but a most authentic estimate showed the 3.8 million violent war deaths.

Second Indochina War Statistics  
Number of wounded from both sides 2.094 million
Total  U.S. soldiers deployed to Vietnam 536,100
Age of the oldest person killed during the Vietnam War 62
Total number of injured U.S. soldiers 303,644
KIA’s soldiers having less than 20 years age 11,465
No.of  U.S. casualties during ht Vietnam War 58,220
No. of  civilian casualties from the both sides 4 million
Total military casualties from the both sides 1.475 million

Vietnam Soldier Casualties by Race

It is the total number of killed military persons during the second Indochina war belonging to the basis of their race.

Soldier Casualties by Race Percentage
casualties who were Caucasian 86
casualties who were black 12.5
casualties who were other races 1.2

Vietnam War Veterans statistics

A Vietnam Veteran is a person who served in the armed forces of countries that participated in the Second Indochina War. The term is used just to describe the veterans who were in the armed forces of South Vietnam, United States armed forces and countries allied to them.

Vietnam War Veterans statistics Percentage
Veterans who say their glad they served 91%
Veterans who were discharged under honorable conditions 97%
vets who said they’d serve again knowing the outcome 74%
Vets who made a successful transition to civilian life 85%
veterans who voluntarily signed up 66%
Veterans who’ve been jailed for crimes 0.5%
Extra income made by Vietnam Vets than non-veterans 18%

 Worst  Effects of Vietnam War

The America’s Longest War was one of the most costly wars in the history of the world. It not only affected the people during this war but also left the worst effects on the people living around the world. About 58000 Americans dead and more than 1, 50,000 were injured during this battle.

North Vietnam was victorious over the South Vietnam and the allied forces. On 30 April 1975, the fall of Saigon showed the end of a much bloody war. It left the long-lasting effects on the veterans who fought for the America during the long time of 1950’s to 1970’s.

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Judaism religion history, origin, facts, definition

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Judaism is monotheistic (= one believes in onegod) and is considered one of the oldest religions in the world. Judaism is the basis for both Christianity and Islam . According to Judaism, the Israelites are God’s chosen people.

The Jews of the world

There are a total of almost 15 million Jews in the world [ Jewish population ]. In addition to Israel, there are also larger Jewish groups in the United States and in Russia. In the United States alone, there are almost as many Jews as in Israel (about 6 million). In the city of New York live about 2-3 million Jews.

Abraham – the ancestor of the Jews

The history of the Jews began over 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq ). The Bible tells of a man named Abraham . God appeared to Abraham and appointed him and his descendants to his chosen people.

God told Abraham that he and his family would go to the land of Canaan – the Promised Land (present-day  Israel and Palestine ). God made a covenant (agreement) with Abraham. The covenant meant that God would protect the Jews who had been chosen to spread the message of God throughout the world.

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The agreement also meant that the Jews would follow God’s law.

Abraham and his descendants then gave birth to the twelve tribes of Israel. Abraham is therefore considered the ancestor of the Jews.

Since Judaism also forms the basis of Christianity and Islam, the three religions together are usually called the Abrahamic religions.

Moses – the founder of Judaism

The real founder of Judaism was Moses. Sometimes the Jews mark it by calling themselves Mosaic believers instead of Jews.

Moses lived in the 14th and 13th centuries BC. As an adult, he was commissioned by God to lead his people out of  Egypt where they lived in slavery . The reason for slavery was that for several generations after Abraham, the Jews had stopped believing in God. God had therefore punished his people by enslaving them in Egypt.

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During the wilderness trek, after leaving Egypt, Moses met God on Mount Sinai. On the mountain, God made a new covenant with the Jews and Moses received a law from God. Its core was the Ten Commandments (or God’s commandments). Even today, most of the earth’s cultures are rooted in these commandments.

The new covenant meant that the Jews would forever follow all the rules that Moses received from God, and in return, God would protect them.

The Jewish faith

The Jews believe in one God. They perceive God as personal, but not in the sense that God would look like a human being. God is a spirit, the Jews believe.

God is good and requires people to be good too.

According to Judaism, man was created in the image of God and those who follow God’s commandments will be rewarded for this. Those who are evil will be punished.

The Jews consider notthat Jesus was the Messiah (see important concepts). They are still waiting for a Messiah who in the future will unite all the people under God’s rule and who will create eternal peace on earth .

The love of all fellow human beings is the most important thing in Judaism. Therefore, this religion is basically bright, happy and hopeful. The Jews believe that man was created for a life of joy.

In Judaism, there are different views on life after death. In the Torah (Deuteronomy) there is nothing written at all about life after death. Judaism focuses on life here and now. Since the world that God has created is good, people should not give up the good things in life.

Who is a Jew?

Who exactly are Jews? This issue has caused many debates. One definition says that a person who professes the Jewish religion is a Jew.

According to the Orthodox view, only those who have a Jewish mother should be counted as Jews, even if the person himself is not religious.

Judaism is a way of life and thinking

For many Jews, Judaism is not just a religion, but also a way of life and thinking. The Jews believe that God has a plan for what is happening in the world. That is why history plays   a major role in Judaism.

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God’s plan is that there will one day be peace and happiness on earth. When that happens, the “kingdom of the Messiah” is here. To achieve the goal, God has appointed the Jewish people to help him, therefore the Jews consider themselves the chosen people.

The Jewish people spread their knowledge of God to the whole world by bearing their suffering, following God’s commandments, and showing love.

The Holy Scriptures

The Jewish Bible is called the Tanak (Old Testament in the Christian Bible). In it, the Torah (Deuteronomy) is the most important part. Tora describes, among other things, Moses’ life and deeds.

It is in the Torah that the basis for Jewish everyday life is written down.

In the Torah there are 613 commandments and prohibitions. By following them, you become God’s helper in his quest to make the world good.

Another important scripture is the Talmud. It is a collection of books that interpret the rules of life in Tanak. It covers more than six thousand pages and there are hundreds of rules about how a Jewish life should be lived in large and small.

In the Talmud there are lots of rules that the pure-minded Jews (Orthodox) follow. It is e.g. forbidden to make a fire during the Sabbath (see below) or to cook food. You are also not allowed to toast bread, because then you break the fire ban. You are not allowed to write anything, not even a signature.

Jewish food rules

The Jews follow the regulations of the five books of Exodus concerning food. Torah allows all vegetarian foods for humans, but you are not allowed to eat any meat, only the meat from herbivores.

The rules are very clear on this point. The animals must be ruminants (paired ungulates) and have split hooves. Thus you get not eat pigs , because they are not ruminants.

Animals must be slaughtered in a certain way if orthodox Jews are to eat the meat. The animals must not be stunned when they are slaughtered.

At slaughter, a specially trained person must make a sharp incision over the animal’s throat. The blood is then allowed to drain from the animal that dies. This method, which is called shaking, is banned in Sweden. This means that an orthodox Jew in Sweden must buy shredded meat imported from other countries.

Before preparing the meat, it must be placed in salt water to be completely freed from blood. The blood is considered synonymous with the soul or life. Meat that still contains blood is not considered pure meat because the animal is then not counted as a dead animal.

Allowed food is called kosher and forbidden food is treiff.

Synagogue

The synagogue is a Jewish gathering place where services are held, students study and meet acquaintances.

The most important thing in the synagogue is the ark, which is the cupboard where the Torah scrolls are kept. It stands against the wall facing Jerusalem.

Before the men enter a synagogue, they must wear small hats called kippa.

During worship in the synagogue, men and women are kept separate.

Prayer and worship

A Jew should read his prayers three times a day. If it happens in the synagogue, at least ten men must be present in order to be able to read prayers together.

The Torah reading is structured so that it will last a whole year. On the day when the last part is read, you start again by reading from the first book. This is how it continues from year to year.

It is the rabbi who leads the service. He is the church leader and teacher.

Even if the sermon occurs during the service, the reading from the Torah scrolls is the most important element. The Jewish services have not changed much in the last two thousand years.

The Sabbath – a festive family holiday

Every seventh day the Jews celebrate the Sabbath. It begins on Friday night and lasts for 24 hours until dusk falls on Saturday night.

According to the Bible, God created the world in six days. On the seventh day he rested. According to Judaism, that day was a Saturday, and therefore people should also rest on Saturdays.

The Sabbath is a happy and festive family holiday. Then the women of the family have cleaned the home and cooked good food while the men and boys go to the synagogue. When they get home, the dining table is set with good food, candles and Sabbath bread.

The Sabbath candles should be lit about 20 minutes before the sun goes down, and it is usually the mother in the house who performs this task. The person who lit the candles should also read a blessing. Then those present are greeted with the words shabbat shalom, which means “Good Sabbath”. The father in the house also usually reads the prayer kidush, which means “sanctification”.

After this, the father in the family breaks a piece of the Sabbath bread, dips it in salt, reads a blessing over it and eats the piece of bread. Then each of the others around the table gets their piece of bread with salt. Thus the Sabbath is consecrated and sanctified.

Among Jews, the Sabbath is the week’s great day of joy when they are given extra time to spend with each other. Many believe that it was the Sabbath observance that kept the Jews together throughout history.

All unnecessary work is forbidden during the Sabbath, then you should spend time with family and friends in peace and quiet. In the Talmud there are many rules about what one may and may not do during the Sabbath.

Types in Judaism

The  Orthodox  (pure doctrines) adhere to Jewish traditions and do not want to know of any changes. They follow all rules in Jewish doctrine . The men are recognizable by their black hats, corkscrew caps, prayer mantles and prayer capsules. A prayer capsule is a small box with Bible quotes in it, which they attach to the arm and forehead with leather straps. The Orthodox follow all Sabbath rules and eat only kosher food.

Reformed , or Reform Jews, are the opposite of the Orthodox Jews and view change positively. Reform Jews do not follow the food laws or Sabbath rules so closely.

The  conservative  Jews go a middle way between Orthodox and Reform Jews. Their goal is to preserve the genuine and necessary in the Jewish faith.

Some Jewish holidays

The Jewish Passover, Pesach , is one of the main festivals of the year. The Jews celebrate Easter in memory of the liberation from slavery in Egypt more than three thousand years ago. The Easter feast begins with the so-called cedar meal which includes a variety of special dishes. On the table should be vegetables, bitter herbs (eg horseradish), ground apples, nuts, a fried marrow bone of sheep and a boiled egg that has been roasted on the shell. There should also be wine and unleavened bread.

All of these things are reminiscent of the time of the Jews in Egypt when they were slaves. The celebration includes songs, prayers and readings that follow a certain order. The word “customs” means order. After this introduction, a good meal is served.

Yom Kippur  is the “Day of Atonement” and it falls ten days after New Year’s Day. This is a very serious holiday. Then the believers will fast for a day, confess their sins and seek reconciliation with God again. At the same time, one should promise to try to live according to God’s will.

Sukkot  is the “ leaf feast”. It is a happy harvest festival that lasts for eight days. It is celebrated in memory of the Israelites’ forty-year wilderness trek (after fleeing Egypt), when they were allowed to live in simple huts.

Brief chronology of the history of Judaism

According to Jewish tradition, the present state of Israel is located in the land known in the Old Testament as Canaan. 

It was from captivity in Egypt that Moses (sometime in the 13th century BC) took his people out to migrate to Canaan, which was “the promised land” that God had promised to the Jews. The wilderness trek there must have taken a full 40 years, and Moses himself died before his people crossed the Jordan River, which formed the border with Canaan.

The conquest of Canaan took place under the leadership of the so-called “judges”, who were chiefs of the twelve Jewish tribes. Of the peoples already living in Canaan, the Philistines were the most difficult opponents.

The Jewish conquest succeeded, and the Jews had now united under a common king. The most famous kings who followed were David and Solomon.

David is the great hero. It was i.a. he who with his stone-throw killed the giant Goliath (a feared warrior among the Philistines).

Solomon ,who was the son of King David, is instead better known for his wisdom. It was Solomon who had the temple built in Jerusalem – later known as Solomon’s Temple.

The kingdom was divided in 936 BC, some time after Solomon’s death. The northern part was named Israel and lasted until 722 BC when half of the kingdom was conquered by Assyria .

The southern part was called Judah and lasted until 586 BC when it was conquered by the New Babylonian Empire . The leading layer among the Jews was then taken away in the so-called “Babylonian captivity” or “exile”. It was during this time that many of the texts in the Old Testament were written down and that Judaism was shaped as a religion. It was also then that the Jews began to meet in synagogues, which during the exile served as a replacement for the temple in Jerusalem, which had also been destroyed in connection with the Babylonian conquest of the city.

In 539 BC, Babylon fell to the Persian conqueror Cyrus. The Jews were now allowed to return home to Judah and rebuild their temple.

In the 300s BC, Judah was conquered by Alexander the Great . Judah then became part of the Seleucid Empire (the Seleucids were a Hellenistic dynasty founded by Seleucus, one of Alexander’s generals and successors).

In 165 BC, the Jews’ liberation struggle against the Seleucid empire began. After the so-called Maccabees uprising of 167 BC, Jewish autonomy was finally achieved.

Between 145-63 BC there was an independent Jewish state.

In 63 BC, it was conquered by the Romans led by the general Pompey (who later became Julius Caesar’s rival).

The birth of Christ – year “1” – took place during the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus .

In 70 AD, a large-scale Jewish uprising against the Romans began. The uprising was eventually crushed after great war efforts by the Romans. The Romans punished the Jewish rebels by demolishing their holy temple, which was the only place where, according to Jewish tradition, they were allowed to sacrifice to God. The temple of the Jews has since never been rebuilt and the only thing that remains today is the Western Wall (which is now the holiest site of Judaism). As a further punishment, the Romans drove a large part of the Jewish elite into exile. In connection with this, the Jewish diaspora or emigration began when the Jews spread over large parts of the world.

135 AD A new violent uprising against Roman rule took place. This revolt was also brutally crushed by the Romans, led by Emperor Hadrian. The punishment became even harsher this time when the Romans had Jerusalem completely destroyed, after which they carried out a ban on Jews living in the new Roman city (Aelia Capitolina) built on the ruins of Jerusalem. Now liveall judar i diaspora.

In the 6th century, the area became Arab during the Muslim conquests .

During the 12th and 13th centuries, the area was conquered by the Crusaders .

In 1291, the Crusaders’ last stronghold – the important and well-fortified city of Acre for Christians – fell in the Holy Land .

In the 16th century, the area was conquered by the Ottoman Turks .

After the First World War , the area was managed by the British.

1933-1945 The Holocaust takes place, which is the Swedish name for the genocide that the Nazis carried out on just over six million Jews and about seven million other people. The Holocaust took place in the shadow of World War II and was hidden by the war.

In 1948, the state of Israel was proclaimed.

Persecution of Jews throughout history

The persecution of the Jews has been going on for several thousand years. Already in the time after the flight from Egypt, the Jews had to fight for the land that Abraham made theirs.

When Christianity became a world religion, the Jews were persecuted because they were considered guilty of Jesus’ crucifixion and death , even though it was a Roman governor who convicted him.

When the  Christian church  became strong, the Jews who lived in Europe after the diaspora were largely isolated (the Jewish diaspora began in connection with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD).

Around the year 600, Pope Gregory the Great wrote down rules for the Church’s attitude toward the Jews. According to the pope, Christians should try to convert Jews, but not by force. At the same time, the pope decided that it was the Jews who caused Jesus’ death, but since they were bearers of the Old Testament faith, they would have the freedom to worship their God. They would also be allowed to keep their synagogues. However, the Jews were not allowed to recruit people to their faith and they were also denied a number of important professions.

During the  Crusades  , the Crusaders started mass murder of the Jews. Wherever the crusades took place, the Jews were faced with the choice of being baptized or dying. Many Jews chose death. During the first crusade alone, 12,000 Jews were murdered along the way. When the Crusaders arrived in Jerusalem, the Jewish congregation that remained there was exterminated. The Jews were burned inside their synagogue.

During the 12th and 13th centuries, insane rumors spread that Jews murdered Christian boys to mix their blood in the Passover bread. Several Jewish congregations were massacred for these alleged crimes.

In 1215, a law was introduced by Pope Innocent III that forced Jews to wear the Jewish mark on their clothing. The Jews were forced to wear the cloth mark on their chests or on their backs. The Jewish badge was a round note symbolizing Judah’s silver coins. The punishment for a Jew who did not wear the Jewish sign was death.

In 1347, the Great Death came   to Europe. No one knew what the plague was due to and what caused the pandemic . The panic spread among people who at the same time sought an explanation for the disaster. The Jews were now accused of being the cause of mass death. During torture, many Jews were forced to confess that they had poisoned wells and springs and thus spread the plague . Thousands of Jews were burned at the stake around Europe.

On July 12, 1555, Pope Paul IV issued a bull (a papal letter with information to the people), stating that the Jews would live separated from Christian quarters and isolated from other parts of the city by a wall. The pope also decreed that the Jews should wear the Jewish badge. In addition, the men would wear a yellow hat and the women would wear a veil.

The word  ghetto  comes from Venice. There the Jews were placed on an island where there was an old foundry which in Italian is called ghetto.

In 1543,  Martin Luther  published the book The Jews and Their Lies . In the book, Luther accused the Jews of ritual murder, black art and espionage. He believed that the houses of the Jews should be burned and that all money should be taken from them. During this time the Jews were expelled from many lands. In the 17th century, for example, many Jews were forced to flee Sweden because they did not want to be (forcibly) baptized.

During the 1830s, Jews gained human and legal rights in most of the Western European countries. At the same time, an anti-Semitism emerged that reversed against the Jews as “race” compared to earlier when the Christians had persecuted the Jews for their deviant faith. The anti-Semitic ideas of the 19th century later became the basis for Nazism’s plans for the total extermination of the Jews.

The Holocaust

When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he introduced a law that meant that all Jews in public service would be fired. At the same time, the Nazis tried to boycott Jewish businessmen, doctors and lawyers.

In November 1938, the authorities organized the worst persecution of Jews to date. It was the so-called crystal night , which got its name from all the windows that were smashed. As a result, hundreds of Jews were murdered, Jewish property was looted, and many synagogues were set on fire. At the same time, about 30,000 Jews were taken to concentration camps . In addition, the German state took over all Jewish companies, which meant that the Jews were completely excluded from economic life.

The most nasty thing was that the outside world did not protest more strongly against this persecution of Jews. The western world was in the middle of an economic crisis and therefore they did not want to receive Jews who came from Germany .

In 1942, the Nazis decided on “the final solution to the Jewish problem”. That meant exterminatingalljudar. The 30 largest concentration camps were supplemented by a series of extermination camps. In total, the Nazis murdered about six million Jews before and during  World War II . Most came from Poland , the Soviet Union ,  Czechoslovakia ,  Ukraine  and  Romania . The genocide of six million Jews – and seven million other people whom the Nazi regime considered deviant – is called the Holocaust .

In 1948, the state of Israel was formed, which could thus also offer state protection and prevent future persecution of Jews.

Courageous Women Scientists in History, Inspirational Story

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In science, men have always dominated. Until the end of the 19th century, women who wanted to pursue science were largely relegated to the home. Usually they worked with their husband, father or brother. In the middle of the 19th century, some organizations with the aim of disseminating scientific discoveries realized that women could be interested in science. They were welcome to sit in the audience but not study. The differences have survived. The Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine has gone 596 times to men and 23 times to women.

When women wanted to be admitted to higher research, it came to a standstill. Neither the Royal Society in London nor the Academy of Sciences in Paris allowed women to become members until well into the 20th century. Scientists and university teachers could refer to the fact that universities were once founded in the monastic system where women and men were separated. Several universities in the United Kingdom did not accept female students until the end of the 19th century.

The first women to gain access to higher education often had to fight against ingrained prejudices that teachers and male students had against female students. In 1636, Anna Maria van Schurman became the first woman in the Netherlands to start at a university. But it was an exception. Women were actually banned from universities and Anna Maria van Schurman was allowed to sit behind a screen so that the male students would not see her.

Many universities did not award degrees to women even though they had studied at the university and completed their studies.

The woman would take care of the home

The woman’s place was considered to be in the home; she would be wife and mother. Electron’s discoverer JJ Thompson married one of her female students in 1890. The agreement included that she would abandon her research to devote herself to their home instead.

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Even in cases where the wife continued to cooperate with her husband, she was often considered a helper. “She did not get the slightest recognition for it. Just because if a man and a woman work together, no one thinks the woman is really doing anything.”

This is how the researcher Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923) wrote about a friend’s work in astronomy . Hertha Ayrton was the first woman to be nominated for election to the Royal Society. But she was refused membership on the grounds that the society’s statutes did not allow married women to be elected.

Prejudices survived

The great breakthrough for women’s opportunities to study came with the end of the First World War in 1918. But prejudices survived, and even today women are underrepresented in science. In 1906, Hertha Ayrton received the prestigious Hughes Medal for her studies of electricity. Since 1902, the medal has been awarded annually by the Royal Society. By 2020, only one more woman had received the award – space scientist Michele Dougherty. She received the award in 2008 – 102 years after Ayrton.

Women are especially underrepresented when it comes to science subjects. Until the beginning of the end of 2020, only 23 women had received any of the Nobel Prize in Science in Chemistry, Physics and Medicine, which with certain exceptions has been awarded every year since 1901. Several of these women have been married to Nobel laureates. Prices are often shared by several people.

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Four women and 211 men have received the Nobel Prize in Physics. The corresponding figures for the chemistry price are 178 men and seven women and for the medicine price the figures are 207 men and twelve women. In total, it gives an overweight for men with 596 prices against 23 (less than 4%).

Marie Curie Won Nobel Prize

Marie Curie has received the prize twice, in 1903 in physics with her husband Pierre and in 1911 in chemistry as the sole winner. In 1935, the couple Curies’ daughter Irène received the prize in chemistry together with her husband Frédéric.

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner (1878-1968) received her doctorate in Vienna in 1906 and then began studying radioactivity with Otto Hahn in Germany . During thirty years of work, they both discovered the element protactinium and the decay caused by radioactive radiation.

In the 1930s, Meitner and Hahn began investigating what happened when uranium was bombarded with neutrons. But Meitner did not have time to complete the work. She was of Jewish descent and therefore had to flee Germany in 1938 from the Nazis. She settled in Sweden . Here she received the message that Hahn had discovered that the element barium was formed in the uranium bombarded with neutrons.

For a few days at New Year’s in Kungälv just north of Gothenburg , Meitner and his nephew Otto Frisch were able to find out what had happened.

Atoms had split and new elements had emerged. She suggested that the newly discovered process be named fission. Meitner’s and Hahn’s discovery was a cornerstone of the research that would soon lead to the first atomic bomb .

Lise Meitner never received a Nobel Prize. Hahn received it alone in 1944. Lise Meitner is perhaps the most prominent female researcher who has never received the Nobel Prize. She is the only woman to have an element, no. 109 meitnerium, named after her. The element no. 96, curium, is named after both Pierre and Marie Curie.

Lise Meitner has also had a long line of streets named after her in Germany and Austria and in 2014 a sculpture of her was erected in front of Humboldt University in Berlin . Even a crater on the moon and an asteroid bear her name.

Dorothy Hodgkin First Nobel Prize Winner Lady in Chemistry

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964, among other things for her research into vitamin B12. She began studying X-ray photography of molecules in Oxford in 1929. In 1934, she was able to take the first X-ray image of the protein pepsin.

Between 1942 and 1949, Dorothy Hodgkin worked to investigate and map the structure of penicillin. In 1948, she and her colleagues were able to take the first X-ray plate of vitamin B12. Gradually, they were able to describe exactly how the atoms in the vitamin were arranged.

Sofia Kovalevskaya

Sofia Kovalevskaya, also known by the nickname “Sonja”, (1850-1891) could not study at the university in her native Russia . The universities did not allow female students. She got married – primarily to be able to come to Germany and study. But even there she had to take private lessons, because women were not allowed to attend higher education there either. Finally, she managed to take a doctorate in philosophy in Göttingen for a work on differential equations.

In 1884, Sofia Kovalevskaya became professor of mathematics at Stockholm University. She was the first female professor in Stockholm and the world’s second woman with that title.

Sophie Germain First Female Mathematician

When Sophie Germain (1776-1831) grew up, the French Revolution collapsed . The Germain family was wealthy but unknown enough to escape persecution. During the revolutionary years, Sophie had to stay indoors for a long time and then discovered her father’s library. But the fact that a young girl wanted to do research and science aroused the parents’ anxiety and reluctance. Sophie would ruin her health, lose her mind and in any case never get properly married.

Sophie refused to give up, even though she did not get light or heat in her bedroom, because she could not study. Wrapped in a woolen blanket, she read mathematics in the glow of tallow candles she had kindly avoided. Finally, the parents have to give way.

In 1794, the French Institute of Technology opened. But women did not have access. Sophie Germain got some samples and sent in the solutions along with comments. For safety, she used the pseudonym M. le Blanc. The teacher who received her answer realized the talent of the letter writer, and it was not long before he found out that it was a woman who had sent in the excellent answers. Sophie Germain received support and praise from the teacher. Her talent blossomed in earnest.

Sophie Germain exchanged letters with the great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and made several important contributions to various mathematical works. Gauss only found out after a long time, due to a mistake, that it was a woman he had corresponded with. 

Despite the custom of the time to look down on women who wanted to do research, Gauss understood how to appreciate his pen pal even after he turned out to be a woman. Gauss even tried to give her an honorary doctorate at Göttingen University, where he worked. But even Gauss had a hard time penetrating the wall of misogyny that surrounded the universities.

Sophie Germain died in 1831 – before her honorary doctorate was established. She is the first female mathematician to independently work out important mathematical proofs. Admittedly, several women before her have made great mathematical contributions. But these women have mainly commented on and further developed the work done by men.

In 2003, the French Academy of Sciences has awarded the Sophie Germain Prize to French mathematicians who have made valuable contributions.

Ada Lovelace First Computer Programmer

Ada Lovelace (1816-1852) was the daughter of the famous British author Lord Byron. She collaborated with Charles Babbage, who designed a calculator. But as Babbage worked, he came up with the idea for a completely new machine that could be programmed – simply a mechanical computer. 

But Babbage did not have access to today’s electronics, but his computer had to be mechanical. It would work with a variety of gears and with great precision. The engineering of that time was not sufficiently developed to construct Babbage’s machine. It therefore stayed on the drawing board.

Lady Ada Lovelace translated an article about Babbage’s work into French but came up with her own additions which showed that she clearly understood how such a machine should be programmed. The additions were longer than the article itself and many scientists, among them Michael Faraday , explained that they appreciated her work.

Ada Lovelace is seen as the first to understand what strengths were available in computers and how they could be programmed.

The programming language Ada is named after Ada Lovelace to honor her memory.

Thank you! for reading this article, please must share it for giving us credit.

Questions to the text:

  1. How many have received the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry and medicine by 2020? How many of these Nobel Laureates were women?
     
  2. Why are there almost no women among history’s most famous scientists?
     
  3. Who was Marie Curie and what is she best known for discovering?
     
  4. Why is Lise Meitner perhaps the most prominent female researcher to ever receive the Nobel Prize?
     
  5. Give some examples of some of the obstacles that Sophie Germain had to overcome in order to engage in research.
     
  6. Why has Ada Lovelace been so important to the development of the computer?

Find out:

  1. How many of those who most recently received the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry and medicine were men and women respectively?

What is the longest word in the world?

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Is it a German word? I can already hear you asking me the question. German is famous for its long words, but it is not the language with the longest word in the world. And, frankly, the longest word in the world is a bit controversial. If you are suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (fear of long words), be strong because we are about to take a look at some of the longest words in the world.

Longest words in the world in different languages

German

German is a well-known language for having very lengthy words since it is an agglutinating language. That is, a language that puts short words together to create longer, more descriptive words. Finding the longest German word is difficult because, like in English, there is a lot of debate around what a word really is. The longest accepted German word is Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän which means “captain of the Danube steamboat company”. Cool job, cool word. It is made up of 42 letters. (I’m ready for the Germans among you to tell me what other long words you have. The real question is: have you ever really used them ?!)

Also Read: Top 10 most spoken languages in the world

Finnish

German is not the only agglutinating language; there are actually quite a number of them and Finnish is one of them. Their longest accepted word is a word 61 letters long! And, as in German, it is also a profession. Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas means mechanical non-commissioned officer specializing in aircraft jet engines. Imagine having to say what you do for a living with a title like this!

Korean lengthy word

The lengthy Korean word is 청자 양인 각연 당초 상감 모란문 은 구 대접 . It contains 17 characters that don’t look very long for those who don’t know Korean. However, it has 46 Hangeul letters so it’s rather long! The word describes a kind of ceramic bowl. Another very useful word in everyday life.

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Afrikaans

Tweedehandsemotorverkoopsmannevakbondstakingsvergaderingsameroeperstoespraakskrywerspersverklaringuitreikingsmediakonferensieaankondiging is the longest word in Afrikaans, with 136 letters! It means “announcement of a media conference at a press conference regarding the speech of the host of the meeting at a strike meeting of the union of a used car dealership”. Unfortunately, it’s a word that was coined to make it a long word so we’re not sure if it really matters. It’s also extremely specific and unlikely to be used much.

Lengthy Bulgarian Word

The longest Bulgarian word has 39 letters and is Непротивоконституционствувателствувайте . We would translate it into French as “Do not act against the constitution!”. I wonder if there are many Bulgarian rebels who need this word to express this idea.

Ojibwe

Ojibwe is an indigenous language spoken in Canada and the United States that contains 66 letters. Miinibaashkiminasiganibiitoosijiganibadagwiingweshiganibakwezhigan is a descriptive term for what you would call blueberry pie. I think that makes it my longest favorite word.

Longest English word

The longest word you will be able to find in the English dictionary has 45 letters and is the name of the silicosis disease: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis . Nice, no? There is controversy surrounding this word as it was created specifically to be the longest words in the English dictionary. And it’s not really useful for Mr. Everybody.

Antidisestablishmentarianism is often taught to English children as the longest word in English but as we just saw above, this is not true. Deinstitutionalization and counterrevolutionaries are the two longest words you will find in a general English text. So these are the ones you really need to learn. These two words have 22 letters.

Longest word in the world

The longest word in the world is English. It contains 189,819 letters and takes more than 3 hours to pronounce. It is the chemical name for the titin protein. Unfortunately, it’s not a very useful word since we wouldn’t really use it on a daily basis.

According to Guinness World Records, the longest word is a Sanskrit word that has 195 characters. Here it is :

निरन्तरान्धकारित-दिगन्तर-कन्दलदमन्द-सुधारस-बिन्दु-सान्द्रतर-घनाघन-वृन्द-सन्देहकर-स्यन्दमान-मकरन्द-बिन्दु-बन्धुरतर-माकन्द-तरु-कुल-तल्प-कल्प-मृदुल-सिकता-जाल-जटिल-मूल-तल-मरुवक- मिलदलघु-लघु-लय-कलित-रमणीय-पानीय-शालिका-बालिका-करार-विन्द-गलन्तिका-गलदेला-लवङ्ग-पाटल-घनसार-कस्तूरिकातिसौरभ-मेदुर-लघुतर-मधुर-शीतलतर-सलिलधारा-निराकरिष्णु-तदीय-विमल-विलोचन- मयूख-रेखापसारित-पिपासायास-पथिक-लोकान्.

Beautiful, isn’t it? It first appeared in literature and describes an area of ​​Tamil Nadu in India. So, officially, it’s the longest word in the world.

And There you go ! Here are some of the longest words in the world. Which will you learn? If I had to choose, it would be the objibwe word for blueberry pie because it might come in handy someday!

Thanks for reading the article having and getting know about the world’s lengthy words in different languages. Please share the article.

World War 2 History, Summary, Interesting Facts

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World War 2 History, Summary

World War II (1939-1945) is the most extensive and bloodiest conflict in human history to date. During the war, between 50 and 60 million people lost their lives, of which about 13 million in the Holocaust .

World War II involved several small and large conflicts fought in different parts of the world. On one side stood the Axis powers, which consisted primarily of Germany , Italy and Japan . The other side consisted of the Allies, who were mainly Britain , France , the Soviet Union and the United States .

The prelude to the Holocaust 

In interwar Germany, Adolf Hitler was able to use the recession to strengthen his power. He turned to the economically vulnerable groups in German society and blamed the scapegoats instead of pointing to the recession. Nazi election propaganda also exploited the widespread communist terror. Adolf Hitler was portrayed as the savior and the only alternative before the Communists.

In 1933, the  Nazis were able to take power  in Germany with Adolf Hitler as leader. Hitler immediately set about equipping Germany for war. At the same time, Nazi discrimination and persecution of Jews and other ethnic groups from which they distanced themselves increased.

First, they tried to get the Jews to flee or emigrate (emigrate) to other countries. But it was difficult because many countries did not accept Jewish refugees . The Jews who did not leave the country eventually ended up in labor camps and  concentration camps .

The persecution of Jews and other designated ethnic groups would later escalate into a well-organized genocide.

Hitler expands Germany’s borders and concludes a pact with Stalin

In the mid-1930s, Hitler began to demand that various German-dominated areas around Germany’s borders be united with the “German core country” in order to create a Greater Germany. 1938 was annexed (incorporated) Austria and soon afterwards marched German troops into Sudetområdena (which is largely inhabited by German speakers), Czechoslovakia (today’s Czech Republic and Slovakia ).

Also Interesting to Read: World War I History, amazing facts

Britain and France were initially passive but eventually promised to help Poland if attacked. The Allies also expected the Soviet Union to stand in the way of a German attack on Poland. It therefore became a cold shower for the Allies when Germany and the Soviet Union concluded a pact in 1939. According to the agreement in the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was to be divided between the two great powers. The Soviet Union was also promised free rein in the Baltics ( Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania ) and Finland .

Hitler’s goal

Hitler’s first goal was to regain the territories lost in connection with the Peace of Versailles after the First World War  and to unite all German-speaking peoples in one kingdom. Thereafter, the territory of Germany was to be extended to the east to create habitats for the German people . The logical goal of the latter was to seize the large natural resources that existed in the east and thereby make Germany self-sufficient in many important raw materials such as. oil. Hitler therefore had plans from the beginning to attack the Soviet Union.

But before the great attack on the Soviet Union, Poland would first be incorporated into the German Empire. By conquering Poland, Hitler intended to create a free passage to German-owned East Prussia, which lay some distance to the east and had been separated from Germany since the Peace of Versailles (see map on the right). At the same time, the German armed forces would have an important area of ​​march ahead of the planned attack on the Soviet Union. Hitler took advantage of the fact that many Germans wanted to reunite the “lost” East Prussia with the German core country and that Poland was in the way.

After the conquest of Poland, the German armed forces would attack to the west, including against France to get their backs free (both Britain and France had promised to help Poland if the country was attacked by Germany). Not until this was clear would the East be conquered. The German military leadership thus wanted to avoid getting caught up in a multi-front war as during the First World War.

When did World War 2 begins and ended?

On September 1, 1939, Germany launched its offensive against Poland . A few days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War 2 had begun.

At the outbreak of the war, the German army was a well-equipped and efficient war machine drilled in modern warfare. To avoid ending up in a sluggish war of position as during the First World War, ” lightning war ” was applied . The blitzkrieg was to soften the enemy by bombing strategic positions. Then tanks were used to break the enemy’s lines. Finally, the infantry came and cleared away any remaining resistance.

Also Read: Major Battles of the World War I

The Soviet Union found it difficult to keep up after the German ally’s lightning attack on Poland. The Red Army was thrown into Poland, which had already been virtually defeated by the Germans. When Poland capitulated, the country was divided between the Soviet Union and Germany under the current Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

On November 30, 1939, Finland was attacked  by the Soviet Union. The Finnish army offered stubborn resistance for three long winter months , but was eventually forced to surrender to the Red Army.

1940 – Country after country is occupied by the German armed forces

On April 9, 1940, the German army attacked Denmark and Norway . In this way, Germany wanted to acquire protected submarine bases in the deep Norwegian fjords, but even more important was to secure the important iron ore supply from Sweden to Germany that went via Narvik in northern Norway.

On May 10, the German army attacked the Netherlands , Belgium and Luxembourg to reach France . A few weeks later it was France’s turn. Britain had previously sent over a large expeditionary force (a smaller army) to help France in the event of an attack. But both the British and the French were ill-prepared for the German blitzkrieg tactics. The French army was soon forced to retreat, after which the British evacuated their remaining forces via the French port city of Dunkirk.

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On June 14, Paris was occupied by German troops, and on June 22, a ceasefire was signed between France and Germany.

The Germans divided France into two zones for better control. Northern France was occupied by German troops and the southern part of the country came to be ruled by an appointed German-friendly puppet government, the so-called  Vichy regime.

Hitler is the winner in the West … only Britain remains

In June 1940, the German Armed Forces emerged victorious in the West. The back was almost free. All that remained now was to make peace with Britain. But Britain refused . Hitler therefore had no choice but to try to subjugate the dictatorial island nation by force.

The German military leadership knew they were not in control of the British navy. A direct invasion of the island was therefore not possible. Germany, on the other hand, had a very large and state-of-the-art air force – the Luftwaffe. Hermann Göring , who was Hitler’s closest man and commander of the German air force, promised to quickly force the British to the negotiating table.

Britain would be bombed to submission

The Battle of Britain began in August 1940. However, the German air raids became very costly for the Luftwaffe, which suffered heavy losses. The British had, among other things, better fighter planes (mainly Spitfire) and an efficient radar system that could detect where the Germans would strike.

Hitler eventually had to give up the invasion plans. In May 1941, the last units of the Luftwaffe were withdrawn from the area to be used instead in the long-planned attack on the Soviet Union.

The attempt to get Britain to withdraw from the war had failed. Like the course of events during the First World War, the German armed forces did not succeed in keeping their backs free. History seemed to repeat itself.

1941 – German military forces clean up after Italy’s failure

Mussolini’s fascist Italy , Germany’s ally, also wanted to show muscle. After declaring war on the Western Allies, Italian troops invaded Egypt in September 1940. Just over a month later, Mussolini invaded Greece to give Italy some “living space” in the east. The Italians’ war effort was a thunderous failure. Hitler was therefore forced to send military aid to clean up after the adventures of his furious ally.

Also Interesting: What Countries were Involved in World War 1

In February 1941, the German Africa Corps under Erwin Rommel arrived in North Africa, where it immediately gained the upper hand in the Desert War against the British. Shortly afterwards, the German army invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. Large German military resources thus had to be set aside in several places in the south, which Hitler probably had not expected from the beginning.

Hitler attacks the Soviet Union

On June 22, 1941, the long-planned invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, began . The attack is the largest ever carried out in world history. Several million German soldiers with allies participated on a broad front.

The Soviet Union was surprised. Stalin did not expect an attack, at least not so soon. The Soviet Red Army was also ill-equipped and poorly managed due to previous clerical rallies carried out on Stalin’s orders. The Germans therefore achieved great success in the beginning. But the Russian resistance gradually hardened.

The Holocaust is intensifying

In connection with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the persecution of Jews turned into systematic annihilation.

The extermination camps were located mainly in Poland, within a comfortable distance from Germany and the German people. When they were ready to move in, European cities began to be emptied of Jews, Roma, homosexuals and opponents of the Nazi regime being transported to the camps. Those who were not fit for slave labor were killed. Children, the elderly and many of the women were often sent directly to the gas chambers.

It is estimated that up to 13 million people (of which about 6 million Jews) were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust .

The United States is drawn into the war

In 1941, the war spread to Asia, where the colonies of the Western powers were conquered by Japan, which was Germany’s ally in the east. Japan , like Germany, wanted to expand its territory. The only obstacle was the United States.

When the Japanese then attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor , December 7, 1941, the United States was drawn into the war. Shortly afterwards, Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States. The war had now become a world war.

1942 – the great triumph of the Axis powers

In 1942, the Axis powers seemed unbeatable. Germany was victorious on all fronts while Japan conquered large parts of Southeast Asia. Nothing seemed to stop their military advance around the world.

1943 – War breaks out

It was on the eastern front that the war was decided. This was where the Germans put in almost all their resources. It was also where most fell. After a large army from the German armed forces in Russia was surrounded by the city of Stalingrad – the city was named after Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union and therefore extra important to defend – around the turn of 1942-1943, the Red Army was able to counterattack on the eastern front . The war now began to turn in favor of the Allies.

In 1943, the Germans lost two decisive battles in Russia – first the battle of Stalingrad and then the great armored battle of Kursk.

After 1943, it was no longer just a matter of survival for the Soviet Union, now it was also a matter of revenge. In addition, Stalin had plans to create a Soviet buffer zone in Eastern Europe as a future protection against Germany.

1943 was also the year the Germans were expelled from North Africa.

After expelling the Axis powers from North Africa, the Western Allies landed in Sicily in July 1943 . Shortly afterwards, Mussolini was deposed, after which Italy passed to the Allies.

That same year, the Allies escalated the bombing war against Germany . The English and American air flotillas now made sure that the bombs fell both day and night over the German cities.

The bombings hit the German civilian population extremely hard. Entire cities were razed to the ground and more than half a million people lost their lives. The German people had to pay a high price for Hitler’s war.

1944 – The Western Allies open a front in the West

In June 1944, the Allies succeeded in landing Normandy in France. A front in the west had finally opened. The incident came to shorten the war. Hitler was thus obliged to fail to bring Britain to the negotiating table before. From now on, as in the First World War, Germany would have to fight a two-front war.

The German armed forces now had to move large forces from the eastern front to the new front in the west. It was not long after that before the German army in the east gave way completely and began to retreat towards Germany.

German Soldiers during World War 2

The United States gains an advantage over Japan in the Pacific

In 1944, the war in the Pacific had also turned in favor of the Allies. Japan could not match the enormous resources of the United States. But the Japanese military was still far from defeated.

Hitler refuses to surrender

By the end of 1944, Hitler was desperate. To get Britain out of the war, England was bombarded with Hitler’s new superweapons: V1 and V2 missiles (the forerunners of today’s short- and long-range robots). But the effect was absent. Britain continued to fight.

In a last desperate attempt to stop the Allied advance in the West, Hitler bet everything on one card – a massive surprise attack through the forested mountain range of the Ardennes in southern Belgium. The plan was to cut off the Allies’ maintenance lines to get the Western Allies to make peace with Germany. The German armed forces could then continue the war on the eastern front undisturbed.

In the Ardennes Offensive, which began in December 1944, Hitler threw in his last military reserves. But it was too late. The Allies already had too many resources and dominated the airspace with their air forces. The attack failed. Thus, Germany had used up its last opportunities to lead an organized resistance.

Hitler nevertheless forbade all Germans to capitulate. The war therefore continued for several more long months, with a huge loss of human life and material destruction as a result.

1945 – World War 2 ends … Cold War begins

By the end of March 1945, the Western Allies had crossed the Rhine and were thus in western Germany. And in mid-April, the Soviet Red Army launched its final offensive against Berlin . Two weeks later, Hitler committed suicide in a bunker located under the German Chancellery in the city. Germany surrendered shortly thereafter on May 7, 1945. The war in Europe was finally over.

However, the fighting between Japan and the United States in the Pacific continued for a few more months.

In early August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan capitulated shortly thereafter, on September 2, 1945. World War 2 was finally over.

At the end of World War 2, the Soviet Union retained all territories under its control in the final stages of the war. Europe was therefore divided into two blocs of power – one democratic and capitalist in the West, and one communist in the East.

The Cold War between the two power blocs that followed then came to dominate world politics for most of the remaining 20th century.

World War Causalities Graph

What are some Interesting facts about World War 2 (WW II)

Did you know that:

  • World War II is the bloodiest war in history. About 56.4 million people lost their lives. The total number of dead was greatest in the then Soviet Union, which lost 26.6 million inhabitants.
  • On June 4, 1940, the BBC broadcast what would become Winston Churchill’s most famous speech during World War II. It was the speech that included the words: “We will fight on the beaches.” In 1979, it was revealed that it was the British actor Norman Shelley who spoke this famous speech. On the same day, Churchill had given a speech in Parliament in London . He was supposed to repeat it on the radio, but since Churchill did not have time, actor Shelley had to imitate his voice. Churchill approved the imitation and the speech was broadcast as planned to the nation on June 4, 1940.
  • The Blitz is the bombing operation carried out by the Germans from 7 September 1940 to 16 May 1941 against London and other English cities. During the attacks, 43,000 Britons were killed and the number of wounded was 139,000. About one million houses were destroyed. During the Blitz, hundreds of German bombers flew over England. But the British persevered. “Never before in the history of the peoples’ struggles have so many had so little to thank for so much,” Winston Churchill said in a famous speech.
  • The last cavalry shock occurred in November 1941 when a Mongol cavalry unit attacked German troops outside Moscow. About 2,000 riders fell during the attack. No German soldiers died.
  • The Germans’ most terrifying plane during World War II was the Ju-87 Stuka bomber . The plane could carry a bomb load of 1000 kg. Stukan’s victim gave it the name “The Screaming Game”. Many of these planes were equipped with sirens that howled when they dived.
  • In 1942, the Nazis decided on “the final solution to the Jewish problem”, which meant that all Jews would be exterminated. The 30 largest concentration camps were supplemented by a series of extermination camps. In all, the Nazis executed about 6 million Jews.
  • Auschwitz was an extermination camp built by the Germans in central Poland during World War II. About 2.5 million people were killed in Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945.
  • Landing in Normandy during World War II is the largest invasion in world history. From D-Day on June 6, 1944 onwards, 1.1 million soldiers, 200,000 vehicles and 750,000 tons of supplies were landed.
  • Towards the end of World War II, the Germans threatened the Allies (England and France) with a secret weapon that they would use against the Allied cities. One week after the Allied invasion of Normandy, the new rockets were ready to be fired. They came to be known as V1, which was an abbreviation of Vergeltungswaffe 1 (Retaliation Weapon 1), and were Hitler’s revenge for the Allied terror bombings of cities such as Hamburg and Berlin.
  • On September 8, 1944, a weapon came that was even worse than the V1: V2 rocket, which went five times faster than the sound. Unlike V1, it was impossible to shoot down. You neither heard nor saw it. It only got smaller and then many people died. The first attacks with the V2 rockets were aimed at London and Antwerp. Before the end of the peace in May 1945, thousands of V2 rockets had gone down in London. In total, the V1 and V2 rockets claimed over 37,000 victims in a few months. However, the accuracy of the rockets was poor and the two weapons of retaliation never had any military significance that affected the outcome of the war.
  • The Japanese almost never gave up when they fought. The Battle of Iwo Jima Island in the Pacific Ocean in 1945 showed that. When the United States conquered the island, 20,000 Japanese soldiers fought to the end, only 216 survived.
  • In April 1945, the Red Army approached Berlin. All roads from the city were closed and Hitler decided to take his own life. He was extremely afraid of being captured by the Russians. He believed that Soviet leader Stalin would show him in a cage on Red Square. Therefore, he wrote his will and said goodbye to his closest men at a simple meal that consisted of spaghetti and salad. It was April 30, 1945. At 15.00, Adolf and Eva went into their private room together. Nobody knows what happened in the closed room. It is known that both Hitler and Eva had hydrocyanic acid capsules (Hitler had tried the hydrocyanic acid on his German Shepherd bitch Blondi) and pistols with him. Eva probably took her life with a poison capsule and Hitler shot himself in the temple with his pistol.

Useful concepts

The Axis Powers: A pact that consisted mainly of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Lightning war: A form of warfare that was used successfully by the Germans at the beginning of World War II, e.g. during the attack on Poland in 1939 and France in 1940 , but also during the Desert War in North Africa and in the initial phase of the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.

The principles of the blitzkrieg were to attack and break through the enemy’s lines of defense with planes, tanks and other motorized troops. The remaining resistance was then cleared away by the infantry. The use of the radio was important, as it made it possible to quickly send out orders to, for example, call in combat flights.

The German military Heinz Guderian became known as the “father of the blitzkrieg” because he introduced tanks and mobile blitzkrieg-type warfare into the German army in the 1930s. The most obvious example of a successful German blitzkrieg was the attack on France, where the Germans quickly defeated allied forces based on an outdated doctrine based on the battles of the First World War.

Allied : An ally, aide, brother in arms.

The Allies: An alliance consisting mainly of Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States.

The term “allied” usually refers to when states are linked to each other by agreement. This usually means that the states promise to help each other in war.

The Holocaust: The Swedish name for the genocide that the Nazis carried out in 1933-1945 on just over six million Jews and about seven million other people. The Holocaust took place mainly in the shadow of World War II and was hidden by the war.

Living space : The concept (living space) became one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite political and agitational ideas and a cornerstone of Nazi ideology . The doctrine, which Hitler had borrowed from some other contemporary “theorists”, aimed to divide the world into so-called great spaces (grossräume) where each great power could decide. Hitler considered that the Germans in particular and the Germans in general constituted a “master people” and thus were superior to “subhumans”. Slaves (Russians, Poles, etc.) were subhumans of Nazi ideology. According to Hitler’s ideology, the lords deserved “living space” (living space) at the expense of the slaves.

Occupation: In international law and military contexts, occupation means that a state militarily occupies the territory of another state for a longer period and that the occupying state takes over all or part of the occupied state’s functions as a legal authority.

Tasks and questions

Questions to the text:

  1. Which states fought against each other during World War II?
     
  2. Why did Hitler attack Poland?
     
  3. Why did the Germans attack France?
     
  4. What is meant by lightning war?
     
  5. Why did the German military not succeed in invading Britain ?
     
  6. Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union?
     
  7. What was the Holocaust?
     
  8. Why did Japan attack the United States?
     
  9. World War II was largely fought in Russia, where it was also decided. Briefly describe at least one important event that can be described as a turning point in the war.
     
  10. How did the landing of the Western Allies in France in 1944 affect Germany’s situation and the course of the war?
     
  11. How did World War II end in Europe?
     
  12. How did World War II end in Asia?

Find out:

  1. Briefly tell about the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland.
     
  2. Who were the following people:

    a) Adolf Hitler

    b) Winston Churchill

    c) Josef Stalin

    d) Benito Mussolini
     
  3. What was SS ?
     
  4. What happened during the Nuremberg trials ?

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