Fascinating Facts About World War II.

26-06-2018

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1. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement toward Hitler is generally thought to have been a mistake, but his defenders claimed that it bought Britain time to prepare for war. 
2. In the 1928 elections, less than 3% of Germans voted for the Nazi party. In 1938, Hitler wasTime magazine’s man of the year. 
3. That Nazi salute was modeled on the salute of Italian Fascists, the ancient Romans, as well as ancient Germans. The raised arm resembles a raised spear. 
4. Hitler designed the Nazi flag. Red stood for the social idea of Nazism, white for nationalism, and the black swastika for the struggle of the Aryan man. 
5. Large, inflatable barrage balloons were used to protect major towns and cities in Britain from air raids. The balloons were launched before a raid and trailed a network of steel cables beneath them. Bombers had to fly high to avoid becoming tangled in the cables, thus reducing their accuracy. 
6. The main success of the Blitzkreig or “lightening war” was due to tank units supported from the air by dive-bombers, such as the Junkers Ju87 (Stuka). The Stukas were fitted with sirens, which sounded like screaming to terrify the population. 
7. Because the Norway leader Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945)  actively collaborated with Germany after its occupation, his name has entered the Norwegian language as a word for “traitor.” 
8. Throughout occupied Europe, many people actively collaborated with the Germans. As their countries were liberated, some locals took revenge against the collaborators by beating or shooting them or by shaving the female traitors’ heads.  

9. Hiroo Onoda was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who fought in World War II and was a Japanese holdout who did not surrender in August 1945. After the war ended Onoda spent 29 years holding out in the Philippines until his former commander traveled from Japan to informally relieve him from duty in 1974. He held the rank of second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army. Onoda died of heart failure on 16 January 2014, old age 91 at St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, due to complications from pneumonia.Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga commented on his death: “I vividly remember that I was reassured of the end of the war when Mr Onoda returned to Japan” and also praised his will to survive
   

     

10. Japan and Russia never formally ended hostilities after WWII. Plans for them to sign an official peace treaty in 2000 failed because Japan wanted Russia to return four offshore islands it had taken after the war.