On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies began the invasion of Normandy, France. The code name for the invasion was "Operation Overlord". The invasion was successful and led to the defeat of the German forces in France. Paris was freed in August 1944 and the Allies continued eastward while the German front collapsed. Operation Market-Garden was the combined aerial invasion of the Netherlands launched on September 17, 1944. The purpose of the invasion was to seize a series of bridges that included a bridge in Arnhem, which spanned the Rhine river. The airborne invasion was called Market. The ground invasion, named Garden, reached the Rhine river, but could not take the Arnhem bridge.
On June 22, the Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front, codenamed "Operation Bagration", almost destroyed the German Army Group Centre. Soon after, the Germans were forced to retreat and defend Ukraine and Poland. Arriving Soviet troops caused uprisings against the German government in Eastern European countries, but these failed to succeed unless helped by the Soviets. Another Soviet offensive forced Romania and Bulgaria to join the Allies. Communist Serbs partisans under Josip Broz Tito retook Belgrade with some help from Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. By early 1945, the Soviets attacked many German-occupied countries: Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. Finland switched to the side of the Soviets and Allies.
On December 16, 1944, the Germans tried one last time to take the Western Front by attacking the Allies in Ardennes, Belgium, in a battle is known as the Battle of the Bulge. This was the last major German attack of the war, and the Germans were not successful in their attack.
By March 1945, the Soviet army moved quickly from Vistula River in Poland to East Prussia and Vienna, while the Western Allies crossed the Rhine. In Italy, the Allies pushed forward, while the Soviets attacked Berlin. The allied western forces would eventually meet up with the Soviets at the Elbe river on April 25, 1945.
Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, two days after Mussolini's death. In his will, he appointed his navy commander, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, to be the President of Germany. Donitz surrendered to the allies and opposed Hitler's will to have Germany continue fighting.
German forces in Italy surrendered on April 29, 1945. Germany surrendered to the Western Allies on May 7, 1945, known as V-E Day, and was forced to surrender to the Soviets on May 8, 1945. The final battle in Europe was ended in Italy on May 11, 1945.
In the Pacific, American forces arrived in the Philippines on June 1944. And by April 1945, American and Philippine forces had cleared much of the Japanese forces, but the fighting continued in some parts of the Philippines until the end of the war. British and Chinese forces advanced in Northern Burma and captured Rangoon by May 3, 1945. American forces then took Iwo Jima by March and Okinawa by June 1945. Many Japanese cities were destroyed by Allied bombings, and Japanese imports were cut off by American submarines.
The Allies wanted Japan to surrender with no terms, but Japan refused. This resulted in the United States dropping two atomic bombs over Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). On August 8, 1945, the Soviets invaded Manchuria, quickly defeating the primary Imperial Japanese Army there. On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allies. The surrender documents were formally signed on board the "USS Missouri" on September 2, 1945, ending the war.
The Allies managed to occupy Austria and Germany. Germany was divided in half. The Soviet Union controlled the Eastern part, and the Western Allies controlled the Western part. The Allies began denazification, removing Nazi ideas from public life in Germany, and most high-ranking Nazis were captured and brought to a special court. Germany lost a quarter of the land it had in 1937, with the land given to Poland and the Soviet Union. The Soviets also took some parts of Poland and Finland, as well as three Baltic countries.
The United Nations was formed on October 24, 1945, to keep peace between countries in the world. However, the relationship between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had worsened during the war and, soon after the war, each power quickly built up their power over the controlled area. In Western Europe and West Germany, it was the United States, while in East Germany and Eastern Europe, it was the Soviet Union, in which many countries were turned into Communist states. The Cold War started after the formation of the American-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.
In Asia, Japan was put under American occupation. In 1948, Korea was divided into North and South Korea, each claiming to be the legal representative of the Koreans, which led to the Korean War in 1950. Civil war in China continued from 1946 and resulted in the KMT retreating to Taiwan in 1949. The communists won the mainland. In the Middle East, the Arab disagreement on the United Nations plan to create Israel marked the beginning of conflicts between the Arabs and Israel.
After the war, decolonization took place in many European colonies. Bad economies and people wanting to rule themselves were the main reasons for that. In most cases, it happened peacefully, except in some countries, such as Indochina and Algeria. In many regions, European withdrawal caused divisions among the people who had different ethnic groups or religions.
Economic recovery was different in many parts of the world. In general, it was quite positive. The United States became richer than any other country and, by 1950, it had taken over the world's economy. It also ordered the Marshall Plan (1948–1951) to help European countries. German, Italian, and French economies recovered. However, the British economy was badly harmed and continued to worsen for more than ten years. The Soviet economy grew very fast after the war was over. This also happened with the Japanese economy, which became one of the largest economies in the 1980s. China returned to the same production level as before the war by 1952.
There is no exact total number of deaths because many were unrecorded. Many studies said that more than 60 million people died in the war, mostly civilians. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people, almost half of the recorded number. This means that 25% of the Soviets were killed or wounded in the war. About 85% of the total deaths were on the Allies side, and the other 15% were on the Axis. Mostly, people died because they were sick, hungry to death, bombed, or killed because of their ethnicity.
The Nazis killed many groups of people they selected, known as "The Holocaust". They exterminated Jews, and killed the Roma, , , homosexuals and other groups. Around 11 to 17 million civilians died. Around 7.5 million people were killed in China by the Japanese. The most well-known Japanese crime is the Nanking Massacre, in which hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were raped and murdered. There were reports that the Germans and Japanese tested biological weapons against civilians and prisoners of war.
Although many of the Axis's crimes were brought to the first international court, crimes caused by the Allies were not.
Other than the Holocaust, about 12 million people, mostly Eastern Europeans, were forced to work for the German economy. German concentration camps and Soviet gulags caused a lot of death. Both treated prisoners of war badly. This was even the case for Soviet soldiers who survived and returned home.
Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also caused a lot of deaths. The death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1%, seven times that of prisoners under Germans and Italians. More than 10 million Chinese civilians were made slaves and had to work in mines and war factories. Between 4 and 10 million people were forced to work in Java.