never again war that was the dream after the first world war and the first world war was even called The Great War the great war because people thought that it couldn't get any bigger than this but then comes the second world war it's longer It's worse more people die and more countries are affected the biggest conflict in world history where a few dictatorships managed to take over a large part of the world in just a few years and also the Holocaust a systematic murder with the goal of exterminating an entire people group How could it be like this we take it from [Music] the beginning the second world war lasted from 1939 to 1945 So six years in the middle of the 20th century and was somewhere Yes It mainly in Europe North Africa and the Pacific but most countries in the world were affected or involved so all the great powers in the world were involved and fought in two pacts there were the allies and the axis powers of the largest countries in the axis powers there were Japan and Italy and Germany and all these three were dictatorships and Germany was a Nazi dictatorship just Nazism and Germany we'll look a little closer at it was actually the which started the Second World War and it is important to understand why at the beginning of the 20th century Germany was a great power an empire But then came the First World War in which Germany lost a lot and was blamed for the whole war and lost important lands the emperor resigned and democracy was introduced but after the war many Germans were both poor and angry and wanted revenge then came the Nazi party and their leader Adolf Hitler and promised to make sure that Germany would become great again the Germans need more space to live on Hitler said levens raum and he promised that all Germans would get better Who did n't think that was good so they voted for Hitler but the Nazi party abolished democracy and Hitler he became a dictator political opponents were imprisoned and Jews were persecuted None of this is particularly surprising actually Nazism is an ideology that is against democracy it is also racist and also very nationalistic and Hitler's goal was a greater Germany a world power and it had already started Look here already in 1938 the Nazis had taken over Austria and Czechoslovakia but Hitler wants more than that on September 1, 1939, Germany attacks the neighboring country of Poland and here comes that second Pact in. The allies Poland was in alliance with Great Britain and France so they declare war on Germany then it sounds like this on Swedish radio The terrible thing has happened a new big war has broken out World War II has started war again just 20 years after World War I this came as a shock to many but Germany they were well prepared for war for several years they had built up a large army but they had a problem on the other side of Poland was the Soviet Union a super large country and a communist dictatorship and Germany did not want to risk ending up in war with this giant like during World War I when Germany was forced to fight on two sides at the same time against two big enemies It didn't go well So now they had made a deal with the Soviet Union a pact where they promised not to attack each other a non- aggression pact They had also already decided that they would divide the land between them half was nice and fair smart of Germany because Germany is not satisfied with Poland of course the Nazis are going to build a greater Germany and their tactic is to attack other countries Blitz quickly and that tactic just came to be called blitzkrieg or in German Blitzkrieg and blitzkrieg it turns out to be a successful strategy Look here during the first years of the war things are going very well for Germany in a short time they attack and occupy Denmark Norway Netherlands Belgium Luxembourg and France bang just then Greece and Yugoslavia follow and In addition Germany had the Axis Pact with Italy which was a fascist dictatorship and several other countries support Germany in addition German troops enter northern Africa There seems to be no stopping Germany also attacks Great Britain and tries to use the same blitzkrieg strategy where thousands of German aircraft fully loaded with bombs are used but Great Britain resists and is therefore one of the few countries that can handle it this means that in the summer of 1941 the Nazis had control over almost all of Europe except for Great Britain and the Soviet Union and so the countries that were neutral for example Sweden so it did n't look so fun for the world in 1941 but now Hitler does something it will have a great impact on how the war ends and it will also play a big role for Sweden hang in there Here you'll see it's summer in Sweden count carefully early in the morning The day before Midsummer Eve 1941 and here sits Sweden's Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson and he's hungover the night before he and some friends sat in the bright summer night playing cards and drinking grog but early in the morning the phone rang and woke the Prime Minister and that's where what's called the Midsummer Crisis begins what happened is that Nazi Germany suddenly broke its pact with the Soviet Union and instead has chosen to attack them and Hitler's goal is to quickly take over the vast country and that's the information that our hungover Prime Minister has just received but that's not what creates a crisis in neutral Sweden look here here is Norway occupied by the Nazis and here is the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany demanded to transport almost 15,000 soldiers through Sweden to Finland to attack the Soviets but also to help Finland which was at war with the Soviets both Norway and Denmark were occupied by Nazi Germany and both Norway and Denmark had been neutral just like Sweden but still attacked by Nazi Germany What would happen if Sweden said no is the question that has just landed in the lap of the Prime Minister The Germans were seen at this time as completely unstoppable and many Swedes were terrified that Sweden would also be occupied This is what Per Albin thought What could happen if we say no We don't know but the safest thing is to assume the worst One we do know is that the Swedish people do not want to be drawn into the war and just after seven o'clock in the morning the Prime Minister takes the tram to meet the government today So we know what the decision was Sweden approved Germany's demands They were allowed to transport their soldiers through Sweden But it is important to know that this was not the first time that neutral Sweden gave in to Nazi Germany For example, they were allowed to use the Swedish telephone network That is telephone cables to send messages from Norway to Berlin and this is something that we historians have analyzed for years v the right to give in to Hitler Yes, morality may be debatable but no one wants to be responsible for dragging the country into war and Per Albin managed to avoid that You have to give him Hitler on the other hand he had big problems so far it has gone great for Hitler Check here It was the SS in the summer of 1941 that Germany started its invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa it is called And it starts well They thunder in as usual but Blitz war doesn't work here the Soviet Union is too big and has lots of soldiers we the city of Stalingrad then it stops and it becomes a turning point for Nazi Germany's rise what was supposed to go fast drags on and the Russian winters are Cold very cold Not only that the same year that Germany attacks the Soviet Union in 1941 so G Japan something that will also be decisive for how the war ends Japan cooperates with Nazi Germany in those Axis powers Japan was also a military dictatorship and in 1941 they had control of almost the entire Pacific but they wanted more Check here Japan attacks the USA more specifically the American naval base at Harbor here in Hawaii But why does Japan want to attack the USA So over there Yes we are used to seeing the map like this but the Earth is round so if we look like this we see that Japan and the USA They are basically neighbors with the Pacific Ocean which is a common sea and that sea Japan wants to control so Without warning they attack p Harbor boom The Americans of course go crazy and that makes the USA join the war with the allies and against Japan and then also against Hitler the Axis powers you know so the USA this great power sends soldiers also to Europe so the Allied countries they are becoming more and more numerous and stronger at the same time as things are getting worse and worse for the Axis powers but they did not intend to give up without Fighting so the war raged on for several years Then comes D-Day on June 6, 1944 so lots of Allied soldiers landed in occupied France it is that day which is called D-Day or Dday so now Germany has to fight from two sides the USA British and French on one side and then the Soviets on the other exactly what Hitler did not want and you see how it goes in 1945 the Soviet army reaches the capital Berlin and there There is a hitter sitting in a shelter and giving the word that everyone must fight to the last man if the Soviets are only 500 me away then Hitler makes a decision he commits suicide April 1945 then he shoots himself in his Bunker and look here when Aftonbladet from May 7, 1945 writes general German surrender So this newspaper is from that day here peace is celebrated on the streets of Stockholm Per abin Hansson can breathe out but wait now Peace the war is not over Japan continues to resist the USA so the war continues in the Pacific area what definitely ends the war is a new invention the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 the USA drops the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan never before had the world seen such a powerful weapon three days later another atomic bomb is dropped on the city of Nagasaki over 200,000 people died from the two bombs alone it makes Japan surrender the deadliest conflict in history is over almost 50 million people had died soldiers civilians and also deliberate murder of ethnic groups that the Nazis did not think would live But how could it be like this that hateful dictators actually thought they had the right to take over the world Yes Hitler's way of reasoning was not really new imperialism had characterized the world for several hundred years so that Is Other other countries It was nothing new racism was an obvious part of imperialism and exterminating entire ethnic groups was not new either so what Hitler did it was really the same thing but he did it in Europe and now it was Europeans who were affected it is worth pointing out that this was before the UN there were no rules about crimes against humanity on the contrary the UN declaration of human rights and things like that come after the war precisely because of the war we also get a word for what Hitler did genocide and The reason was of course the Holocaust concentration camps and pure death factory Jews were murdered precisely because they were Jews and also Roma homosexuals and many others as part of the Nazi policy after the war there were trials against leading Nazis and many were convicted but far from all But what happened to the country itself in Germany after the war those who had such dreams of becoming something great it becomes the opposite Germany was divided by the victorious powers and it then becomes two completely different countries West Germany and East Germany and the fact that all of Europe is being divided The Soviet Union does not want to give up control over the countries they had conquered so we get an Eastern Europe and a Western Europe and that becomes the basis for a whole new conflict The Cold War A divided world with two superpowers that stand against each other The USA and the Soviet Union And then you can ask yourself what would have happened if Nazi Germany had not been defeated How would the world have looked in that case today Think about what you h [Music]