World War II

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"We are going to win this war because we have the best men. And they, personally, will escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of Hell."

- Chester Phillips

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global war that was under way by 1939 and ended in 1945. It involved a vast majority of the world&apos;s nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies (led by the USA) and the Axis (led by the Nazi Third Reich Germany). Various advanced weapons were made during the war, and the Axis conquered many countries of Europe and Asia. The Allied response was the creation of the first super soldier, Captain America, who became a symbol of freedom and justice. The war became much more complicated when the Nazi general Johann Schmidt separated his HYDRA division from his Nazi backers to start his own global conquest. The war ended with the complete wictory for the Allies, who defeated both the Axis and HYDRA.

Leading up to World War II
"You know, after the last war, they... My people struggled. They... they felt weak... they felt small. Then Hitler comes along with the marching, and the big show, and the flags, and the, and the..."

- Abraham Erskine

The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at the time) had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In particular, political and economic instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party.

After becoming Reich Chancellor in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated power, apointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called "Aryan," Hitler believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary "Lebensraum," or living space, for that race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he began the rearmament of Germany, secretly and in violation of the Versailles Treaty. After signing alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler's open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain (the two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were eager for confrontation.

Outbreak of World War II (1939)
"The Third Reich represents the greatest threat to liberty and justice the world has ever seen."

- Chester Phillips to Howard Stark

In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which incited a frenzy of worry in London and Paris. Hitler had long planned an invasion of Poland, a nation to which Great Britain and France had guaranteed military support if it was attacked by Germany. The pact with Stalin meant that Hitler would not face a war on two fronts once he invaded Poland, and would have Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.

On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Under attack from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended to the Nonaggression Pact. Stalin's forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-Finish War. During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a "phony war." At sea, however, the British and German navies faced off in heated battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II.

World War II in the West (1940-41)
"You know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris?" "How many, Dugan?" "I dunno. They've never tried."

- Dum Dum Dugan and Gabe Jones On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied Denmark, and the war began in earnest. On May 10, German forces swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as "blitzkrieg," or lightning war. Three days later, Hitler's troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French forces at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line, an elaborate chain of fortifications constructed after World War I and considered an impenetrable defensive barrier. In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and planes and continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south French forces mounted a doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse, Benito Mussolini of Italy put his Pact of Steel with Hitler into action, and Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10. On June 14, German forces entered Paris; a new government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain (France's hero of World War I) requested an armistice two nights later. France was subsequently divided into two zones, one under German military occupation and the other under Petain's government, installed at Vichy. Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which had the defensive advantage of being separated from the Continent by the English Channel. To pave the way for an amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation Sea Lion), German planes bombed Britain extensively throughout the summer of 1940, including night raids on London and other industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage. The Royal Air Force (RAF) eventually defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in the Battle of Britain, and Hitler postponed his plans to invade. With Britain's defensive resources pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving crucial aid from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in early 1941.

The war behind the scene
"But...we're not at war with Germany." "The general consensus in the White House and the War Department is that that this is a temporary condition."

- Howard Stark and Chester Phillips

Seeing that Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich are the greatest threat to the free world, the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the formation of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, an Allied deep science agency which would battle Nazi super weapons. The commander of the SSR was Colonel Chester Phillips of the United States Armed Forces, who persuaded the industrialist Howard Stark to join the agency.

In November 1940, at Castle Kaufmann in the Bavarian Alps, Johann Schmidt, the commanding officer of the Nazi Schutzstaffel's research division HYDRA, injected himself with the Super Soldier Serum made by professor Abraham Erskine. The serum made him stronger, but it also disfigured his face, and he became known as the Red Skull. Erskine was rescued from the castle by Peggy Carter, the British agent who infiltrated HYDRA. Erskine was brought to the US where he joined the SSR.

Operation Barbarossa (1941-42)
"The Reich shall win because we are unified. In blood as in purpose. While our enemies...are the polyglot peasants of Europe and the mongrel masses of North America."

- Colonel Lohmer

By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler's conquest of the Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master race the "Lebensraum" it needed. The other half of Hitler's strategy was the extermination of the Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the "Final Solution" were introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three years more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied Poland.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly outnumbered the Germans', their air technology was largely obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.

Discovery of the Tesseract
"The energy we have just collected could power my designs. All my designs. This will change the war." "Doctor Zola, this will change the world."

- Arnim Zola and Johann Schmidt

After researching history, Johann Schmidt learned about the mythical Tesseract, an object of unlimited power which was left on Earth by the Asgardians centuries earlier. Believing it to be real he began searching for it, knowing it would give him power. In March 1942, Schmidt and his army invaded Tønsberg, Norway, looking for the Tesseract. After entering a church, Schmidt encountered the church keeper who refused to tell him where the object was. However, Schmidt found the Tesseract in the wall and shot the church keeper with his gun.

After gaining the Tesseract, Schmidt returned to his base in the Alps and gave the object to his top scientist, Arnim Zola, for studying. The Tesseract was shown to be so powerful that its energy could help the Axis powers conquer the entire world.

World War II in the Pacific (1941-43)
"At approximately eight A.M. local time, Japanese aircraft attacked the main base of the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, just outside Honolulu..."

- Radio broadcast

With Britain facing Germany in Europe, the United States was the only nation capable of combating Japanese aggression, which by late 1941 included an expansion of its ongoing war with China and the seizure of European colonial holdings in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, taking the Americans completely by surprise and claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II, and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan with only one dissenting vote. Germany and the other Axis Powers promptly declared war on the United States. President Roosevelt declared that the United States would build fifty thousand planes to fight the armies of Hirohito and Hitler. Howard Stark supported the American war effort by building one hundred thousand planes for the United States Armed Forces. After a long string of Japanese victories, the U.S. Pacific Fleet won the Battle of Midway in June 1942, which proved to be a turning point in the war. On Guadalcanal, one of the southern Solomon Islands, the Allies also had success against Japanese forces in a series of battles from August 1942 to February 1943, helping turn the tide further in the Pacific. In mid-1943, Allied naval forces began an aggressive counterattack against Japan, involving a series of amphibious assaults on key Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. This "island-hopping" strategy proved successful, and Allied forces moved closer to their ultimate goal of invading the Japanese homeland.

The Tide of War Turns (1943)
"Hitler speaks of a thousand year Reich, but he cannot feed his army for a month. His troops spill their blood across every field in Europe. But he is still no closer to achieving his goals." "And I suppose you still aim to win this war through magic?" "Science. But I understand your confusion. Great power has always baffled primitive men. HYDRA is assembling an arsenal to destroy my enemies in one stroke, wherever they are, regardless of how many forces they possess, all in a matter of hours."

- Johann Schmidt and Roeder

In North Africa, British and American forces had defeated the Italians and Germans by 1943. An Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy followed, and Mussolini's government fell in July 1943. However, the German troops immediatelly occupied northern and central Italy, slowing the advance of the Allies.

On the Eastern Front, a Soviet counteroffensive launched in November 1942 ended the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, which had seen some of the fiercest combat of the war. The approach of winter, along with dwindling food and medical supplies, spelled the end for German troops there, and the last of them surrendered on January 31, 1943.

In June 1943, as part of the SSR's Project Rebirth, Abraham Erskine recruited the sickly Steve Rogers into the US Army. Rogers and other potential candidates for the Super Soldier experiment were moved to Camp Lehigh. Col. Phillips and Peggy Carter put the candidates through a series of physical tests. Meanwhile, Schmidt, who discovered Erskine's whereabouts, sendt his agents to kill him. Following a week of evaluation, Erskine picked Rogers as the subject for the Super Soldier experiment based on his strength of character, knowing that the serum will react to that character. Phillips was not impressed with the choice. A day later, Steve undergoes Erskine’s Super Soldier treatment and undergoes a transformation which increased his strength and stamina. Heinz Kruger, an assassin sent by Schmidt, infiltrated the secret SSR laboratory in Brooklyn where the experiment was held and killed Erskine. Kruger escaped but was captured by Rogers who was unable to stop Kruger from killing himself rather than be interrogated.

Meanwhile, the three SS officers came to Schmidt's base to question him about HYDRA's failure to deliver promised weapons to the German armies. Schmidt showed them his Tesseract powered laser cannon. But when they discovered that Schmidt intends to nuke Berlin and overthrow Hitler, Schmidt vaporized them all to silence them.

Rather than risk their only super soldier in combat, the US military leaders decided to use Rogers as a public relations tool, having him appear around the country at War Bond rallies and in comic books and a Saturday matinee serial. Eventually, he became known as Captain America. Meanwhile, President Roosevelt ordered the SSR to concentrate its efforts on combating HYDRA.

Soon, Rogers’ War Bond show turned into a USO Tour show and was sent into Italy. In December 1943, Cap's was met with derision from soldiers who have actually been through months of grueling combat. When Steve found out about the casualties sustained by the 107th, the unit of his friend Bucky Barnes, he planned an impulsive rescue mission. Aided by Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, he flew behind the German lines into Austria, where he parachuted near one of HYDRA's bases in the Austrian Alps, halfway between Kitzbühel and Klagenfurt. Cap sneaked into the base and freed 400 captured Allied troops including Barnes, Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, James Montgomery Falsworth, and Jacques Dernier. During the battle between the freed prisoners and HYDRA guards, Cap confronted Schmidt and his top scientist Arnim Zola. After attacking Rogers and punching a hole in his shield, Schmidt ripped off his face mask to show him what Erskine's serum did to his face. While Rogers and Barnes were stunned, Schmidt escaped in a plane while Zola took his car. Cap and Bucky were able to escape from the facility before it blew and walked with the released prisoners all the way back to Colonel Phillips' base in Italy.

Toward Allied Victory in World War II (1944)
"So, let's get this straight." "We barely got out of there alive, and you want us to go back?" "Pretty much." "Sounds rather fun, actually."

- Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Steve Rogers, and James Montgomery Falsworth

Steve Rogers gathered some of the freed prisoners and formed an elite unit to battle HYDRA, the Howling Commandos.