!!!Weltkrieg, Zweiter
World War II, 1939-1945. General development: From the early 1930s
Germany, Italy and Japan increasingly pursued more aggressive policies
with the aim of gaining markets, sources of raw materials and
settlement areas. Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, the
Japanese-Chinese war officially broke out in 1937, Italy conquered
Ethiopia in 1935/36 and occupied Albania in April 1939, Germany under
A. Hitler freed itself from the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of
Versailles (Saarland plebiscite in 1935, re-militarisation of the
Rhineland 1936, introduction of general compulsory military service in
1935/36) and encroached on neighbouring countries in 1938 (Austrian
Anschluss and annexation of Sudetenland in 1938, occupation of what is
today the Czech Republic and Memelland/Klaipeda in 1939). Despite the
British government´s guarantee of Polish national independence
of March 31, 1939 and a French-Polish military alliance, Germany
began the war against Poland on September 1, 1939, after having
concluded a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union (August
23, 1939), which envisaged the partition of Poland and the Baltic
states according to spheres of interest. Thereupon Great Britain and
France declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939.
\\
The Polish troops were defeated quite quickly (the battle over Warsaw
ended on September 27, the last Polish units capitulated on October
6), the Soviet Union entered the war on September 17, occupied parts
of Poland, deployed troops in the Baltic states and waged war on
Finland over the Karelian Isthmus in the winter of 1939/40. Poland
fell victim to a German-Soviet policy of exploitation and deportation.
\\
The Western Powers (French troops and British Expeditionary Forces)
remained passive behind the Maginot line in 1939/40, although
preparing the occupation of bases in Norway. Germany occupied Denmark
on April 9, 1940, launched an attack on Norway and had occupied
it by June 10. On May 10, 1940 Germany started the offensive in
the west, with the invasion of the Netherlands (capitulation on May
14), Luxembourg and Belgium (capitulation on May 28), broke through
the Maginot line in the Ardennes and severed the British troops from
the French; 340,000 British, Belgian and French soldiers escaped to
Great Britain. By way of the armistice of Compiègne of June
22, 1940 three-fifths of France became the German-occupied zone,
while a dependent French government was established at Vichy and C. de
Gaulle acted as spokesman of the Free French in exile. Italy had
entered into war on the side of Germany in June 1940 and the Soviet
Union annexed the Baltic states and parts of Romania (Moldavian
S.S.R.).
\\
Hitler was at the peak of his power in the second half of the year
1940. Great Britain, where W. Churchill became prime minister on May
10, 1940, rejected peace offers; the Germans did not dare to land
in Britain, but instead intensified submarine warfare and started air
raids.
\\
Germany, Italy and Japan concluded a pact of mutual support in the
event of an attack by the USA on September 27, 1940 and recognised
their spheres of interests (Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined in
November 1940, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in March 1941). The USA
increased their support for Great Britain from the autumn of 1940,
while Germany started to prepare an attack on the Soviet Union. At the
beginning, however, these preparations were slowed down by the defeats
of the Italians in the Mediterranean. Italy had attacked Egypt from
Libya in September and Greece on October 28, 1940, but it lost
part of its fleet and suffered severe defeats. The Italians
capitulated in Ethiopia in May 1941, from February 1941 German troops
had to support them in Libya. After a coup d´etat in Belgrade,
Germany declared war against Yugoslavia and Greece on April
6, 1941. Yugoslavia fell to Germany on April 17, Greece with its
islands on May 11 (Crete May 20-31). Most of Greece was put under
Italian military administration, Serbia fell subject to German
administration, Croatia became a satellite state (nationalist
Usta<!SZ<!-hatschek>se under A. Pavelić), the remaining parts
divided among Germany, Italy and Bulgaria.
\\
The German Wehrmacht (together with Romanian, Hungarian, Italian and
Finnish allies) invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, to put
the bulk of the Soviet troops (4.7 million soldiers) out of action in
what was called a blitz attack. Despite the rapid advance towards
Leningrad (besieged until 1944) and Moscow and 1.5 million Soviets
taken prisoner, no decisive victory was achieved. The policy of
violence in the occupied areas (Commissar Decree: on the instruction
of Hitler the German High Command issued an order to shoot all Soviet
commissars who had been taken prisoner; this was mostly carried out by
task forces) led to resistance and partisan activity; favoured by the
mild winter, the Red Army launched a highly successful
counteroffensive on December 5, 1941.
\\
The war became a world war in late autumn 1941, when the Japanese
attacked the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December
7, 1941 and Germany and Italy declared war against the USA on
December 11, 1941. Great Britain was able to stock up its
munitions under the USA Lend-Lease act of March 11, 1941; on
August 14, 1941 F. D. Roosevelt and W. Churchill proclaimed
the Atlantic Charter, aiming at the final destruction of the Nazi
tyranny. Great Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Iran on August
25, 1941 and signed an Anglo-Soviet agreement which pledged the
signatories to assist one another. After the USA entered the war,
common strategies were worked out with Great Britain, Germany
remaining the main enemy.
\\
In 1942, the Soviet Union was most affected by the burden of war.
Although, by that time, the power of the German army was limited,
Germany launched a large-scale offensive, conquering Sebastopol on
July 2, and Rostov on July 23, and started the battle of
Stalingrad in late August. In the course of the Russian
counteroffensive started on November 19/20, the Sixth German Army was
encircled and had to surrender between January 31 and
February 3, 1943. Retreat from the Caucasus and stabilising
the front proved very difficult. In July 1943 the Red Army eventually
started to take the initiative on the eastern front.
\\
German troops advanced in northern Africa as far as Al-Alamein near
Cairo in the summer of 1942, British troops drove the Germans back to
Tunis from October 1942 to February 1943, fighting in northern Africa
ended on May 13, 1943. Meanwhile the Allies had occupied Morocco
and Algeria, the Germans southern France. The Allied conquered Sicily
from July 10 to August 17, 1943, Mussolini was overthrown on July
25, the Allies landed in Italy on September 3, the Italian government
capitulated on September 8 and subsequently declared war against
Germany on October 13. This provided the Allies with airports and
enabled them to attack targets in Austria from the air.
\\
German submarine warfare was successful until well into the summer of
1942, when the defensive measures taken by the Allies (control of the
high seas from the air, radar equipment) cost the Germans heavy
losses, at the same time facilitating supplies to Great Britain and
the merging of large troops. From 1942 the Allies increased the number
and volume of bomb attacks launched from England on targets in
northern Germany, day raids by the Americans began in 1943, Wiener
Neustadt was the first Austrian town to be attacked by bombs on August
13, 1943, and other towns followed; the most important German
industrial centres were systematically destroyed.
\\
The Red Army accelerated its advance in 1944, forcing Romania
(September 12, 1944), Finland (September 19, 1944) and
Bulgaria (October 28, 1944) to conclude cease-fire agreements,
German troops had to evacuate Greece, from 1943 increasingly larger
parts of Yugoslavia came under the control of Tito's partisans, who
took Belgrade on October 20, 1944. By the end of 1944 Soviet
troops had enclosed Budapest and conquered East Prussia.
\\
The Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, established a
bridgehead and set about their advance in August 1944. They occupied
Paris on August 25, Brussels on September 3, Aix-la-Chapelle on
October 21. A second invasion army advanced from southern France to
the Rhine. The German Ardennes offensive of December 16-24, 1944
failed.
\\
In Germany an attempt by a military resistance group to assassinate
Hitler failed on July 20, 1944; Hitler subjected the armed forces
completely to Nazi control and called up the Volkssturm (People's
Army) in September 1944; defensive structures were built at the
south-eastern border. Armament factories and railway junctions in
Germany and Austria were systematically bombed. The war conferences of
the Allies in Moscow (October 19-30, 1943), Tehran (November
28-December 1, 1943), Quebec (September 11-16, 1944) and
Yalta (February 4-11, 1945) already dealt with the post-war
order, while Germany was invaded by the Red Army from the east and the
Allies from the west from mid-January. At Torgau an der Elbe American
and Soviet troops first met on April 25, 1945, Berlin, where
Hitler had committed suicide on April 30, capitulated on May 2. The
German Wehrmacht surrendered to the Western Powers in Reims on May 7
and to the Soviet Union in Berlin-Karlshorst on May 9.
\\
In the Pacific, World War II was ended after the dropping of atom
bombs on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and on Nagasaki on August
9, 1945, which resulted in Japan's capitulation on September
2, 1945.
\\
In World War II, 27 million soldiers died and 25 million
civilians were killed (among them 6 million Jews), 3 million
people remained missing. The Soviet Union lost 20 million people,
Germany 4.8 million (another 2.5 million fled, were expelled
or deported immediately after the war).
\\
The situation of Austria: After the Anschluss to the German Reich on
March 13, 1938, Austria no longer existed as a state in its own
right. Almost 66,000 members of the Austrian Armed Forces (Bundesheer)
were sworn in and taken over by the German Wehrmacht. Compulsory
military service of a duration of two years had been introduced in
Germany in 1936 and, after the Anschluss, also applied to Austrians in
the two new Defence Districts, Wehrkreis XVII (Vienna) and
Wehrkreis XVIII (Salzburg); The leaders of the Wehrmacht tried to
avoid maintaining units that consisted exclusively of Austrians and
sought to form army divisions and air force units with Germans from
the Reich, a task which was almost fully realised in the following
years. However, there were still a number of units with a high
percentage of Austrians. The new divisions, recruited in 1938, were
already used in the campaigns against Poland, Norway and France:
44%%sup th/% and 45%%sup th/% Infantry Divisions, 2%%sup nd/%
and 3%%sup rd/% Mountain Infantry Divisions (Gebirgsjaegerdivision),
4%%sup th/% Tank Division (Panzer Division), 4%%sup th/%
Light Tank Division (Leichte Panzer Division, name changed into
9%%sup th/% Panzer Division from late 1939). Altogether around
30 large army units were recruited on Austrian territory during the
war, some of which consisted largely of Austrians. The 2%%sup nd/%
Panzer Division, which was transferred to Austria at the time of the
Anschluss, counted many Austrians among its members. The same holds
true for air force units and the navy as well as for the Waffen-SS
(Armed SS), which recruited tens of thousands of Austrians. A total of
around 1.25 million Austrians (including women as "Wehrmacht
helpers") were engaged in military service during World War II
(along with the Wehrmacht, the Volkssturm/People's Army, the
Reichsarbeitsdienst/State Labour Service, the "Todt Organisation"
and others). Around 15,000 Austrians who had fled and wanted to
contribute to the liberation of their country, fought on the side of
the Allies.
\\
Soon after the Anschluss, the Austrian economy was largely integrated
in the development of the arms industry of the German Reich. By the
summer of 1939, more than 300,000 unemployed had been taken on by the
German industry, which was beset by a shortage of labour. Armament
factories received large orders (Steyr-Daimler-Puch, Boehler), new
factories had been established until 1942, such as the
"Hermann-Goering-Werke" in Linz (steel), the Nibelungenwerke
in Sankt Valentin (tanks), the Ostmark engine works (aircraft engines)
in Wiener Neudorf and the Messerschmittwerke (bombers) in Wiener
Neustadt, the Heinkelwerk (bombers) in Schwechat. From then on, demand
for workers became too great to be satisfied by people from inside
Austria, so an increasing number of foreign workers from western
Europe were brought in as well as forced labour convicts from eastern
Europe and eventually also tens of thousands of concentration camp
detainees from Mauthausen, who, forced to work under inhuman
conditions, had to build bunkers and underground armament factories
and produce arms and armaments. Tens of thousands died of exhaustion
or were deemed "unable to work" and killed in Mauthausen. Around
500,000 people were working for the arms industry on Austrian
territory at the beginning of 1945.
\\
Many factories had already been located by the Allies due to the
activities of agents and air reconnaissance at the beginning of 1943.
In order to destroy them the Allies extended their air raids to
Austria, which was quite wrongly referred to as the "air-raid
shelter of the Reich", with an attack on Wiener Neustadt by the
9%%sup th/% US air fleet (from northern Africa) on August
13, 1943. The 15%%sup th/% US air fleet and the British
205%%sup th/% bomber group launched increasingly heavy attacks from
southern Italy (Foggia) on Austrian targets from November 1943. Until
May 1944 the main targets of those attacks were the aircraft
factories, the ball-bearing factories (Steyr) from February 1944 and
Greater Vienna, with its six refineries and fuel tanks, from April.
The Allies started heavy attacks on transport systems from January
1945 to stop supplies and the transfer of troops to the front, which
was steadily moving towards the borders of the Reich. Low-level
attacks caused serious damage to bridges and railway systems and
subjected the civilian population to increasing danger. The German air
defence (around 150 bombers were deployed in Austria until the summer
of 1944) and the anti-air units (the 24%%sup th/% anti-air
division in Vienna had more than 432 heavy anti-air guns in the autumn
of 1944) did not succeed in preventing the attacks by the US forces
with their up to 800 four-engine bombers. The air raids cost more than
20,000 lives (at least 8,769 dead were counted in Vienna alone after
the 52 air raids). Public supply and transport systems and industrial
sites were severely damaged, 75,959 homes destroyed and another
101,096 damaged.
\\
From the autumn of 1944 it was foreseeable that the Red Army would
soon reach the border of the Reich from Hungary. The "South
Eastern Wall", leading along the present-day border between
Austria and Hungary, was reinforced in October 1944; units of the
Wehrmacht together with the Volkssturm, which was recruited at the
same time from all men fit to fight between 16 and 60 years of age,
were mobilised to defend the wall. However, since it had not been
completed and not enough soldiers were available, this barrier was
taken over by units of the 3%%sup rd/% Ukrainian Army Front (Marshall
F. I. Tolbuchin) within a very short period of time after the
last failure of the German offensive in Hungary (March
6-16, 1945). The first units of the Red Army crossed the border
at Guens/Koeszeg on March 29, 1945. The remains of the
6%%sup th/% German (SS) Panzer Army were driven back to the area south
of Vienna within a few days, while the 6%%sup th/% German Army was
trying to set up a new front in eastern Styria. Vienna was enclosed on
the west by the 6%%sup th/% Soviet Tank Army, who, together with
units of the 2%%sup nd/% Ukrainian Army Front (Marshall R. I.
Malinovskij), advancing towards Vienna from the Marchfeld Plain, tried
to encircle Vienna, but failed. A resistance group tried to prevent or
shorten the battle over Vienna by means of a military resistance
action, which remained unsuccessful. The fighting lasted from April
6-13, 1945 and caused heavy losses on both sides as well as among
civilians, many buildings were destroyed (St. Stephen´s
Cathedral severely damaged by fire). While the advance of the Red Army
from the Vienna Woods south of Vienna was quite slow, units of the
4%%sup th/% Guard Army had advanced into the region of Sankt
Poelten and taken defensive positions by April 15. In the Weinviertel
Region fights involving the 8%%sup th/% German Army and units of the
2%%sup nd/% Ukrainian Army Front continued until the German
capitulation.
\\
After a rapid advance through southern Germany the 7%%sup th/% US
Army reached the Tirolean border in the Ausserfern region on April
28, 1945. Encountering only slight resistance by the Germans
(remains of the Army Group/Heeresgruppe G) the US troops took
Innsbruck on May 3, which had been liberated by a resistance group,
and occupied all of Tirol within four days. Vorarlberg was occupied by
troops of the French 1%%sup st/% Army from April 30, 1945, again
with the Germans (Army High Command 24) offering little resistance.
Apart from a few small encounters, the city of Salzburg surrendered to
the US troops without fighting on May 3, 1945. Units of the
3%%sup rd/% US Army had occupied almost all of Upper Austria by May
6, 1945, after some heavy fighting with relatively few losses on
the American side. Carinthia was occupied by British troops advancing
from Venetia and by Yugoslav units invading from Slovenia only on May
8, 1945.
\\
The establishment of the Renner Provisional Government in Vienna on
April 27, 1945, which could not extend its competence to all of
Austria until October 20, represented the first step on the road to
the reestablishment of Austrian sovereignty.
!Literature
J. Ulrich, Der Luftkrieg ueber Oesterreich 1939-45, 1967;
N. Schausberger, Ruestung in Oesterreich 1938-45, 1970; O. Tuider, Die
Wehrkreise XVII und XVIII 1938-45, 1976; Das Deutsche Reich und der
Zweite Weltkrieg, ed. by Militaergeschichtliches Forschungsamt
(Research Office for Military History), 1979ff.; O. Tuider, Die
Luftwaffe in Oesterreich 1938-45, 1985; H. G. Dahms, Die
Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkriegs, 1989; Der Zweite Weltkrieg.
Analysen, Grundzuege, Forschungsbilanz, ed. by Militaergeschichtliches
Forschungsamt (Research Office for Military History), 1989; I. Pust,
Traegoedie der Tapferkeit. Oesterreicher als Soldaten im Zweiten
Weltkrieg, %%sup 3/%1992; R. D. Mueller and G. Ueberschaer,
Kriegsende 1945, 1994; M. Rauchensteiner, Der Krieg in Oesterreich
1945, 1995.
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