The Devastating Consequences of World War II
The effects of World War II were devastating. The end of the war signified a definitive decline for Europe. The destructive power of new weapons and the determination of both sides of the conflict to continue until the end, regardless of human life, explain why World War II is considered the greatest catastrophe known to humankind. The conflict extended worldwide, and the concept of a safe rear disappeared.
The effects included the squatting of Nazi and Japanese territories, brutal and massive bombing of cities by both sides. In the war, approximately 55 million people died, but half of the victims were civilians. The USSR was among the most affected countries. Another human effect was large population movements. Some movements were provoked by the Nazis in the countries they squatted during the conflict. Others occurred just at the end of the war, as a consequence of the liberation of war prisoners in concentration camps. There were approximately 40 million homeless people in Europe searching for a place to settle.
The war also provoked intense moral trauma and questioning of the ethical values upon which Western civilization rested. The discovery of the Katyn graves, where the Soviets murdered over 4,500 Polish officials, the Allied bombing of German cities, and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were examples of the brutality of this tremendous war, in which the civilian population was the main target. The genocide in death camps, where the Nazis exterminated Jews, gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, and political opponents, was an application of their racial and totalitarian theories. Total numbers of genocide unknown.
For the first time, an international court was established, composed of judges from the four major Allied powers (USA, UK, USSR, France), which defined a new juridical concept: crimes against humanity. This took place during the Nuremberg trials, in which 12 Nazis were condemned to death. This process was followed to punish those responsible for the nationalist regime and achieve the denazification of Germany.
The end of the war presented a landscape of ruin and desolation all over Eastern Europe. In Western Europe and Japan, the greatest damage occurred in the infrastructures. The effects on industrial production were more irregular; Europe lost 50% of its industrial potential. The most serious problems, which made people think about the impossibility of reconstruction, were the destruction of cities, problems with food supplies and the helplessness of the civil population, the high volume of debt contracted to pay for the war, and rising prices.
The U.S. was passively involved in the war, which reverberated favorably for them. Their distance from the dislocation scenario converted them into the main center for armament production and supplies for the Allies, enabling them to maintain outstanding development of their industrial capacity and production. They experienced economic growth. The war accelerated the decline of the old European powers as the U.S. consolidated its powerful hegemonic position in the agricultural, industrial, and financial world. The USSR emerged as the third confirmed world power.
The Soviet policy of industrializing the eastern German territories avoided the potential destruction of their industry. They added to this the dismantling of German factories in other squatted countries of Eastern Europe, which were moved to the USSR. The defeat of the Axis powers marked the failure of fascist dictatorships. Europe remained close to the different ideologies. The occupation by the Allies divided Europe into two political zones.