World War II: Prewar Time
The years before the declaration of war between the anti-Hitler coalition and the countries of the Nazi bloc in 1939 were scary for people around the world. The Great Depression began ten years ago, leaving most of the world without work and livelihood. Germany was seized by Nazism, and the country was raging against the punitive measures of the Versailles Treaty, which ended the First World War. China and Japan have been mired in war since Japanese forces invaded Manchuria in 1931. Germany, Italy and Japan experienced the newly formed League of Nations with numerous invasions and occupations of neighboring countries, gaining confidence when they met no resistance. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out, becoming a kind of rehearsal for the upcoming World War II - Germany and Italy supported nationalist rebels led by General Francisco Franco, and about 40 thousands of foreign nationalists arrived in Spain to fight the greatest war against fascism. In the past few pre-war years, Nazi Germany has been burning its way to conflict — rearming, signing a non-aggression pact with the USSR, annexing Austria and seizing Czechoslovakia. In the meantime, the United States has adopted several laws on maintaining neutrality, trying to avoid involvement in the global conflict, as it has not yet become stronger after the consequences of the Great Depression and the Dusty Cauldron. Below are some photos of the events that led to World War II. ©
Adolf Hitler, at the age of 35 years after his release from prison Landesberg 20 December 1924. Hitler was accused of treason for participating in an attempt to organize a revolt in 1923 under the name "Beer Putsch". This photo was taken shortly after Hitler finished dictating the book “Mein Kampf” to Rudolf Hess. Eight years later, Hitler will become German Chancellor in 1933. (© Library of Congress)
A Japanese soldier on duty at a unit captured by the Great Wall of China in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese Empire and the Republic of China fought intermittently from 1931 onwards, but the conflict escalated in 1937. (© LOC)
The bombing of China by Japanese aircraft in 1937 year. (© LOC)
Japanese soldiers during a street shootout in Shanghai in 1937. The second Shanghai battle lasted from August to November 1937, with nearly a million soldiers taking part in it. As a result, Shanghai fell before the Japanese armed forces after almost 150 thousands of deaths on both sides. (© LOC)
The first pictures of the Japanese occupation of Beijing in China are 13 August 1937. Under the banner of the rising sun, Japanese troops entered Beijing through the main gate of Cheng-man, leading to the palaces of the Forbidden City. Just a few steps from them is the building of the American Embassy, where the Americans were hiding, when the Japanese were particularly cruel. (© AP Photo)
Japanese soldiers executed Chinese colleagues in a trench. (© LOC)
The head of the Nanking government in Canton, the Chinese general Chiang Kai-shek (right) and the governor of Yunnan province Lon Yun in Nanking 27 Jun 1936 of the year. (© AP Photo)
Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini (center) hands on the side with fascist party representatives in Rome on October 28 on 1922, after the March on Rome. This march was an act of intimidation, during which thousands of black-shirt fascists took strategic positions throughout Italy. After the march, King Emmanuel II asked Mussolini to form a new government, clearing his way to dictatorship. (© AP Photo)
Four Italian soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935, during the Second Italian-Ethiopian War. The Italian forces led by Mussolini captured and annexed Ethiopia, making it a colony called Italian East Africa, along with Eritrea. (© LOC)
Raising the flag by Italian troops over McAlla, Ethiopia, in 1935. The appeal of Emperor Haile Selassi to the League of Nations for help remained unanswered, and Italy could quietly rape in East Africa. (© LOC)
Loyalist soldiers train women to defend the city of Barcelona against the fascists of General Francisco Franco during the Spanish 2 Civil War on June 1937. (© AP Photo)
In this explosion of the five-storey building Casa Blanca in Madrid, three hundred fascists of March 19 of the year 1938 were killed. Government loyalists dug a tunnel into 548 meters in half a year to lay mines. (© AP Photo)
German dive bombers that are part of the Condor Legion, in flight over Spain 30 May 1939, during the Civil War. The black and white sign X on the tail and wings of the aircraft denotes the cross of St. Andrew - a sign of the nationalist forces of the Franco Air Force. The Condor Legion consisted of volunteers from the German army and air force. (© AP Photo)
Dozens of families are hiding underground in the metro in Madrid during the bombing of the city by Franco troops 9 December 1936 of the year. (© AP Photo)
Aerial bombardment of Barcelona in 1938 by the nationalist air force. In the Spanish Civil War, one of the first to use aerial bombardment of civilian objects and the development of new methods of terrorist bombing. (© Italian Airforce)
The surrendered Spanish rebel lead to a disciplinary military court 27 July 1936 of the year in Madrid. (© AP Photo)
Fascist machine-gunners with the support of experienced shooters in positions along the rocky front of Huesca in northern Spain 30 December 1936. (© AP Photo)
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt darkly promises the country to maintain the country's neutrality at all costs, in the White House in Washington 3 September 1939. On the eve of the war, the US Congress passed several laws on maintaining neutrality, trying not to touch the conflict. (© AP Photo)
Florence Thompson with her three children. This photo is known as "Migrant Mother". This famous shot is one of a series of photographs of Florence Thompson and her children from Dorothy Lang at the start of 1936. (© LOC / Dorothea Lange)
The Hindenburg airship flies past the Empire State Building skyscraper over Manhattan August 8 1936. German airship was heading to Lakehurst. New Jersey, from Germany. The airship will later explode with a powerful fireball over Lakehurst 6 May 1937. (© AP Photo)
England’s largest demonstration of its readiness for the 16 gas attack in March 1938. Two thousand volunteers in Birmingham put on gas masks and passed difficult military exercises. These three firefighters are fully equipped - from rubber boots to gas masks - to simulate a gas attack. (© AP Photo)
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini greet each other at a meeting at the airfield in Venice 14 June 1934. Mussolini and his fascists staged a show for Hitler, but the details of their subsequent conversation were not reported. (© AP Photo)
Four Nazis sing in front of the Berlin branch of the Woolworth Co. store during the movement as a sign of a boycott of the Jewish presence in Germany in March 1933. The Nazis believed that the founder of the store - a Jew. (© AP Photo)
Nazi booth at radio exhibition in Berlin 19 August 1932. The stand was designed as a propaganda of the Nazi gramophone industry, in which only the national socialist movement was recorded. (© AP Photo)
Thousands of young guys came to listen to the words of their leader Reichsführer Adolf Hitler, who addressed the convention of the National Socialist Party in Nuremberg, September 11 1935 of the year. (© AP Photo)
Adolf Hitler is greeted on the streets of Munich on November 9 1933 of the year during the celebration of the 10 anniversary of the national socialist movement. (© AP Photo)
Young Nazis honor the memory of an unknown soldier lined up in the form of a swastika, 27 August 1933, in Germany. (© AP Photo)
The German army demonstrates its power to more than a million inhabitants during the Bückeburg harvest festival, near Hanover, on October 4, 1935. In the photo: dozens tanks before the demonstration. The defensive parties to the Treaty of Versailles quickly began to rearm, shortly after Hitler took power in 1934. (© AP Photo)
Thousands of Germans at the Grand National Socialist Assembly in Berlin 9 July 1932. (© AP Photo)
Germans in the ranks before the music lesson under the auspices of the Nazi youth movement in Berlin 24 February 1936. (© AP Photo)
Congress of the Nazi Party of Hitler in Nuremberg 10 September 1935 of the year. (© AP Photo)
British Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain is on his return from Germany after negotiations with Hitler at Heston airfield in London on September 24 of 1938. Chamberlain brought with him the terms of the plan, which would then be called the Munich Agreement, under which Germany could annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. (© AP Photo / Pringle)
Nazi youths burn books in Salzburg, Austria, 30 April 1938. Public burning of books that were considered non-German, or Jewish-Marxist, was commonplace in Nazi Germany. (© AP Photo)
Mass gymnastics was held as part of the Community Day in Nuremberg 8 September 1938, and Adolf Hitler attended a demonstration at the Zeppelin field. (© AP Photo)
General view of one of the main workshops of the Rheinmetall-Borsig weapons plant in Düsseldorf on August 1, 1939, where the main products were weapons trunks. Before the start of the war, German factories produced military equipment hundreds of a year. Soon, their number grew to tens of thousands. In 1944 alone, more than 25 thousand fighters were built. (© AP Photo)
Adolf Hitler, at the age of 35 years after his release from prison Landesberg 20 December 1924. Hitler was accused of treason for participating in an attempt to organize a revolt in 1923 under the name "Beer Putsch". This photo was taken shortly after Hitler finished dictating the book “Mein Kampf” to Rudolf Hess. Eight years later, Hitler will become German Chancellor in 1933. (© Library of Congress)
A Japanese soldier on duty at a unit captured by the Great Wall of China in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese Empire and the Republic of China fought intermittently from 1931 onwards, but the conflict escalated in 1937. (© LOC)
The bombing of China by Japanese aircraft in 1937 year. (© LOC)
Japanese soldiers during a street shootout in Shanghai in 1937. The second Shanghai battle lasted from August to November 1937, with nearly a million soldiers taking part in it. As a result, Shanghai fell before the Japanese armed forces after almost 150 thousands of deaths on both sides. (© LOC)
The first pictures of the Japanese occupation of Beijing in China are 13 August 1937. Under the banner of the rising sun, Japanese troops entered Beijing through the main gate of Cheng-man, leading to the palaces of the Forbidden City. Just a few steps from them is the building of the American Embassy, where the Americans were hiding, when the Japanese were particularly cruel. (© AP Photo)
Japanese soldiers executed Chinese colleagues in a trench. (© LOC)
The head of the Nanking government in Canton, the Chinese general Chiang Kai-shek (right) and the governor of Yunnan province Lon Yun in Nanking 27 Jun 1936 of the year. (© AP Photo)
Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini (center) hands on the side with fascist party representatives in Rome on October 28 on 1922, after the March on Rome. This march was an act of intimidation, during which thousands of black-shirt fascists took strategic positions throughout Italy. After the march, King Emmanuel II asked Mussolini to form a new government, clearing his way to dictatorship. (© AP Photo)
Four Italian soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935, during the Second Italian-Ethiopian War. The Italian forces led by Mussolini captured and annexed Ethiopia, making it a colony called Italian East Africa, along with Eritrea. (© LOC)
Raising the flag by Italian troops over McAlla, Ethiopia, in 1935. The appeal of Emperor Haile Selassi to the League of Nations for help remained unanswered, and Italy could quietly rape in East Africa. (© LOC)
Loyalist soldiers train women to defend the city of Barcelona against the fascists of General Francisco Franco during the Spanish 2 Civil War on June 1937. (© AP Photo)
In this explosion of the five-storey building Casa Blanca in Madrid, three hundred fascists of March 19 of the year 1938 were killed. Government loyalists dug a tunnel into 548 meters in half a year to lay mines. (© AP Photo)
German dive bombers that are part of the Condor Legion, in flight over Spain 30 May 1939, during the Civil War. The black and white sign X on the tail and wings of the aircraft denotes the cross of St. Andrew - a sign of the nationalist forces of the Franco Air Force. The Condor Legion consisted of volunteers from the German army and air force. (© AP Photo)
Dozens of families are hiding underground in the metro in Madrid during the bombing of the city by Franco troops 9 December 1936 of the year. (© AP Photo)
Aerial bombardment of Barcelona in 1938 by the nationalist air force. In the Spanish Civil War, one of the first to use aerial bombardment of civilian objects and the development of new methods of terrorist bombing. (© Italian Airforce)
The surrendered Spanish rebel lead to a disciplinary military court 27 July 1936 of the year in Madrid. (© AP Photo)
Fascist machine-gunners with the support of experienced shooters in positions along the rocky front of Huesca in northern Spain 30 December 1936. (© AP Photo)
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt darkly promises the country to maintain the country's neutrality at all costs, in the White House in Washington 3 September 1939. On the eve of the war, the US Congress passed several laws on maintaining neutrality, trying not to touch the conflict. (© AP Photo)
Florence Thompson with her three children. This photo is known as "Migrant Mother". This famous shot is one of a series of photographs of Florence Thompson and her children from Dorothy Lang at the start of 1936. (© LOC / Dorothea Lange)
The Hindenburg airship flies past the Empire State Building skyscraper over Manhattan August 8 1936. German airship was heading to Lakehurst. New Jersey, from Germany. The airship will later explode with a powerful fireball over Lakehurst 6 May 1937. (© AP Photo)
England’s largest demonstration of its readiness for the 16 gas attack in March 1938. Two thousand volunteers in Birmingham put on gas masks and passed difficult military exercises. These three firefighters are fully equipped - from rubber boots to gas masks - to simulate a gas attack. (© AP Photo)
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini greet each other at a meeting at the airfield in Venice 14 June 1934. Mussolini and his fascists staged a show for Hitler, but the details of their subsequent conversation were not reported. (© AP Photo)
Four Nazis sing in front of the Berlin branch of the Woolworth Co. store during the movement as a sign of a boycott of the Jewish presence in Germany in March 1933. The Nazis believed that the founder of the store - a Jew. (© AP Photo)
Nazi booth at radio exhibition in Berlin 19 August 1932. The stand was designed as a propaganda of the Nazi gramophone industry, in which only the national socialist movement was recorded. (© AP Photo)
Thousands of young guys came to listen to the words of their leader Reichsführer Adolf Hitler, who addressed the convention of the National Socialist Party in Nuremberg, September 11 1935 of the year. (© AP Photo)
Adolf Hitler is greeted on the streets of Munich on November 9 1933 of the year during the celebration of the 10 anniversary of the national socialist movement. (© AP Photo)
Young Nazis honor the memory of an unknown soldier lined up in the form of a swastika, 27 August 1933, in Germany. (© AP Photo)
The German army demonstrates its power to more than a million inhabitants during the Bückeburg harvest festival, near Hanover, on October 4, 1935. In the photo: dozens tanks before the demonstration. The defensive parties to the Treaty of Versailles quickly began to rearm, shortly after Hitler took power in 1934. (© AP Photo)
Thousands of Germans at the Grand National Socialist Assembly in Berlin 9 July 1932. (© AP Photo)
Germans in the ranks before the music lesson under the auspices of the Nazi youth movement in Berlin 24 February 1936. (© AP Photo)
Congress of the Nazi Party of Hitler in Nuremberg 10 September 1935 of the year. (© AP Photo)
British Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain is on his return from Germany after negotiations with Hitler at Heston airfield in London on September 24 of 1938. Chamberlain brought with him the terms of the plan, which would then be called the Munich Agreement, under which Germany could annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. (© AP Photo / Pringle)
Nazi youths burn books in Salzburg, Austria, 30 April 1938. Public burning of books that were considered non-German, or Jewish-Marxist, was commonplace in Nazi Germany. (© AP Photo)
Mass gymnastics was held as part of the Community Day in Nuremberg 8 September 1938, and Adolf Hitler attended a demonstration at the Zeppelin field. (© AP Photo)
General view of one of the main workshops of the Rheinmetall-Borsig weapons plant in Düsseldorf on August 1, 1939, where the main products were weapons trunks. Before the start of the war, German factories produced military equipment hundreds of a year. Soon, their number grew to tens of thousands. In 1944 alone, more than 25 thousand fighters were built. (© AP Photo)
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