Question: In 1938, at the outbreak of World War II, which had a larger population, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and British Dominions) or the European Axis (Germany and Italy)
About the article "World War II", section "Home fronts and production".

Candidate passages:
In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics.
In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and British Dominions) had a 30 percent larger population and a 30 percent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis (Germany and Italy); if colonies are included, it then gives the Allies more than a 5:1 advantage in population and nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP.
In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan, but only an 89 percent higher GDP; this is reduced to three times the population and only a 38 percent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included.
Though the Allies' economic and population advantages were largely mitigated during the initial rapid blitzkrieg attacks of Germany and Japan, they became the decisive factor by 1942, after the United States and Soviet Union joined the Allies, as the war largely settled into one of attrition.
While the Allies' ability to out-produce the Axis is often attributed to the Allies having more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to employ women in the labour force, Allied strategic bombing, and Germany's late shift to a war economy contributed significantly.
Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and were not equipped to do so.
To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers; Germany used about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe, while Japan pressed more than 18 million people in Far East Asia.
The Western Allies were a political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the First World War and Second World War.
It generally includes the British Empire, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and the Kingdom of Serbia and Kingdom of Montenegro and their successor state, Yugoslavia due to different economic, geographic and political circumstances, some of which arose after the wars.
Similarly, Poland and Czechoslovakia are often excluded from the term, because of their post-war forced inclusion in the Eastern Bloc, even though Polish and Czechoslovak armed forces fought alongside Western Allies (Poland fought against Germany before any of the Western Allies joined the war).
Most African and Asian allies not part of the British Commonwealth or France are often excluded from the term, though irregular Arabian and Ethiopian forces fought along the Western Allies.
France is also often counted among the Western Allies, because although the Vichy Regime collaborated with the Axis powers and fought the Allies, the Free French military forces played a major role against the Axis Powers throughout the war, similarly to many nations that endured military occupation and collaboration.
After the Second World War, some of the territory of the defeated Axis powers came under occupation by the Western Allies.
Germany and Austria were divided among American, British, French and Soviet control.
In 1949 the American, British and French sectors in Germany became the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany, while the Soviet sector became the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany.
All four of the Austrian occupation sectors became the Republic of Austria, or Second Austrian Republic.
Austria became a neutral state but Italy, West Germany and a mix of wartime Western Allies and some formerly neutral states taking in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Iceland, Portugal, Spain and Greece became the Western Bloc.
Canada, the United States, and the European countries among this group formed a military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, to oppose the Eastern Bloc and their military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, which was composed of the wartime Allies Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union, the ex-Axis powers of Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary and Romania as well as Albania.
The conflict between the Eastern and Western Blocs became known as the Cold War.
Though initially politically close to the Soviet Union, Albania, China, and Yugoslavia became nonaligned over the course of the Cold War.
Cuba, another one of the Allies during World War II, became aligned with the Eastern Bloc after 1959 as did Ethiopia after 1974. 
In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany both Mussolini and Hitler pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas from the 1930s through the 1940s culminating in World War II.
Mussolini called for irredentist Italian claims to be reclaimed, establishing Italian domination of the Mediterranean Sea and securing Italian access to the Atlantic Ocean, and the creation of Italian "spazio vitale" ("vital space") in the Mediterranean and Red Sea regions.
Hitler called for irredentist German claims to be reclaimed along with the creation of German "lebensraum" ("living space") in Eastern Europe, including territories held by the Soviet Union, that would be colonized by Germans.
From 1935 to 1939 Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs.
Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 resulting in condemnation by the League of Nations and widespread diplomatic isolation.
In 1936 Germany remilitarized the industrial Rhineland; the region had been ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles.
In 1938 Germany annexed Austria and Italy assisted Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims on Czechoslovakia by arranging the Munich Agreement that gave Germany the Sudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war, these hopes faded when Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by ordering the invasion and partition of Czechoslovakia between Germany and a client state of Slovakia in 1939.
At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain.
In 1939, Germany prepared for war with Poland, but attempted to gain territorial concessions from Poland through diplomatic means.
The Polish government did not trust Hitler's promises and refused to accept Germany's demands.
The invasion of Poland by Germany was deemed unacceptable by Britain, France and their allies, resulting in their mutual declaration of war against Germany that was deemed the aggressor in the war in Poland, resulting in the outbreak of World War II.
In 1940, Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis.
Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity to carry out a long war with France or the United Kingdom and waited until France was on the verge of imminent collapse and surrender from the German invasion before declaring war on France and the United Kingdom on 10 June 1940, on the assumption that the war would be short-lived following France's collapse.
Mussolini believed that following a brief entry of Italy into war with France, followed by the imminent French surrender, Italy could gain some territorial concessions from France and then concentrate its forces on a major offensive in Egypt where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces.
Plans by Germany to invade the UK in 1940 failed after Germany lost the aerial warfare campaign in the Battle of Britain.
The war became prolonged contrary to Mussolini's plans resulting in Italy losing battles on multiple fronts and requiring German assistance.
In 1941 the Axis campaign spread to the Soviet Union after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa.
Axis forces at the height of their power controlled almost all of continental Europe.
During World War II, the Axis Powers in Europe, led by Nazi Germany participated in the extermination of millions of Poles, Jews, Gypsies and others in the genocide known as the Holocaust.
After 1942, Axis forces began to falter.
By 1943, after Italy faced multiple military failures, the complete reliance and subordination of Italy to Germany, the Allied invasion of Italy, and the corresponding international humiliation, Mussolini was removed as head of government and arrested on the order of King Victor Emmanuel III who proceeded to dismantle the Fascist state and declared Italy's switching of allegiance to the Allied side.
Mussolini was rescued from arrest by German forces and led the German client state, the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945.
Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945.
On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian communist partisans.
On 30 April 1945, Hitler committed suicide.
Shortly afterwards Germany surrendered and the Nazi regime was systematically dismantled by the occupying Allied powers.
An International Military Tribunal was subsequently convened in Nuremberg.
Beginning in November 1945 and lasting through 1949, numerous Nazi political, military and economic leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes, with many of the worst offenders receiving the death penalty. 
World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war.
It is generally considered to have lasted from 1939 to 1945, although some conflicts in Asia that are commonly viewed as becoming part of the world war had begun earlier than 1939.
It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.
It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people, from more than 30 different countries.
In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources.
Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust, the Three Alls Policy, the strategic bombing of enemy industrial and/or population centers, and the first use of nuclear weapons in combat, it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities.
These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history.
The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937, but the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany formed the Axis alliance with Italy, conquering or subduing much of continental Europe.
Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories between themselves their European neighbours, including Poland, Finland and the Baltic states.
The United Kingdom and the other members of the British Commonwealth were the only major Allied forces continuing the fight against the Axis, with battles taking place in North and East Africa as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic.
In June 1941, the European Axis powers launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which tied down the major part of the Axis' military forces for the rest of the war.
In December 1941, Japan joined the Axis, attacked the United States and European territories in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific.
The Axis advance was stopped in 1942, when Japan lost a critical battle at Midway, near Hawaii, and Germany was defeated in North Africa and then decisively, at Stalingrad in Russia.
In 1943, with a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasion of Italy which brought about that nation's surrender, and American victories in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts.
In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies.
During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese began suffering major reverses in mainland Asia in Burma and South Central China whilst the United States defeated the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.
The war in Europe ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August respectively.
With an invasion of the Japanese archipelago (known as Operation Downfall) imminent, and the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Japan with the invasion of Manchuria, Japan surrendered, 15 August 1945.
Thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies over the Axis.
World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world.
The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts.
The great powers that were the victors of the war—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and France—became the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years.
Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline, while the decolonisation of Asia and Africa began.
Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery.
Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to stabilise postwar relations and cooperate more effectively in the Cold War. 
The Second World War was a global military conflict that took place in 1939–1945.
It was the largest and deadliest war in history, culminating in the Holocaust and ending with the dropping of the atom bomb.
Even though Japan had been fighting in China since 1937, the conventional view is that the war began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the Drang nach Osten.
Within two days the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany, even though the fighting was confined to Poland.
Pursuant to a then-secret provision of its non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union joined with Germany on September 17, 1939, to conquer Poland and to divide Eastern Europe.
The Allies were initially made up of Poland, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, as well as British Commonwealth countries which were controlled directly by the UK, such as the Indian Empire.
All of these countries declared war on Germany in September 1939.
Following the lull in fighting, known as the "Phoney War", Germany invaded western Europe in May 1940.
Six weeks later, France, in the mean time attacked by Italy as well, surrendered to Germany, which then tried unsuccessfully to conquer Britain.
On September 27, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed a mutual defense agreement, the Tripartite Pact, and were known as the Axis Powers.
Nine months later, on June 22, 1941, Germany launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, which promptly joined the Allies.
Germany was now engaged in fighting a war on two fronts.
This proved to be a mistake by Germany - Germany had not successfully carried out the invasion of Britain and the war turned against the Axis.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, bringing it too into the war on the Allied side.
China also joined the Allies, as eventually did most of the rest of the world.
China was in turmoil at the time, and attacked Japanese armies through guerilla-type warfare.
By the beginning of 1942, the major combatants were aligned as follows: the British Commonwealth, the United States, and the Soviet Union were fighting Germany and Italy; and the British Commonwealth, China, and the United States were fighting Japan.
From then through August 1945, battles raged across all of Europe, in the North Atlantic Ocean, across North Africa, throughout Southeast Asia, throughout China, across the Pacific Ocean and in the air over Japan.
Italy surrendered in September 1943 and was split into a northern Germany-occupied puppet state and an Allies-friendly state in the South; Germany surrendered in May 1945.
Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered, marking the end of the war on September 2, 1945.
It is possible that around 62 million people died in the war; estimates vary greatly.
About 60% of all casualties were civilians, who died as a result of disease, starvation, genocide (in particular, the Holocaust), and aerial bombing.
The former Soviet Union and China suffered the most casualties.
Estimates place deaths in the Soviet Union at around 23 million, while China suffered about 10 million.
No country lost a greater portion of its population than Poland: approximately 5.6 million, or 16%, of its pre-war population of 34.8 million died.
The Holocaust (which roughly means "burnt whole") was the deliberate and systematic murder of millions of Jews and other "unwanted" during World War II by the Nazi regime in Germany.
Several differing views exist regarding whether it was intended to occur from the war's beginning, or if the plans for it came about later.
Regardless, persecution of Jews extended well before the war even started, such as in the "Kristallnacht" (Night of Broken Glass).
The Nazis used propaganda to great effect to stir up anti-Semitic feelings within ordinary Germans.
After World War II, Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence.
Western Europe later aligned as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact.
There was a shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to the two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
These two rivals would later face off in the Cold War.
In Asia, the defeat of Japan led to its democratization.
China's civil war continued through and after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
The former colonies of the European powers began their road to independence.