World War II Time Line     |   home
Nov 11, 1918 - World War One ends with German defeat.   |   Sept 14, 1930 - Germans elect Nazis making them the 2nd largest political party in Germany.   |   Jan 30, 1933 - Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.   |   May 10, 1940 - Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister.   |   June 22, 1941 - Germany attacks Soviet Union as Operation Barbarossa begins.   |   Dec 5, 1941 - German attack on Moscow is abandoned.   |   Dec 7, 1941 - Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor   |   Dec 8, 1941 -   States and Britain declare war on Japan.   |   Dec 11, 1941 - Germany declares war on the United States.   |   Feb 2, 1943 - Germans surrender at Stalingrad in the first big defeat of Hitler's armies.   |   May 13, 1943 - German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa   |   July 9/10, 1943 - Allies land in Sicily.   |   June 6, 1944 - D-Day landings.   |   Oct 11, 1944 - U.S. air raids against Okinawa.   |   Dec 16-27, 1944 - Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes.   |   April 30, 1945 - Adolf Hitler commits suicide.   |   May 2, 1945 - German troops in Italy surrender.   |   Aug 6, 1945 - First Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima from a B-29 flown by Col. Paul Tibbets.   |   Aug 9, 1945 - Second atomic bomb dropped, on Nagasaki, Japan.   |   Sept 2, 1945 - Formal Japanese surrender ceremony on board the MISSOURI in Tokyo Bay as 1000 carrier-based planes fly overhead; President Truman declares VJ Day.
Nov 11, 1918 - World War One ends with German defeat.
At the end of WWI in 1918 the German Army was not forced to admit their defeat by surrendering.  U.S. General George Pershing wanted the opposite.  He said it would be better for the germans to admit defeat so there could be no doubt.  The french and the British thought that Germany would not be a threat again.

Not forcing the Germans to admit defeat had a huge impact on the Germans future.  The German General Staff Would support the false idea that the army had not been defeated on the battlefield and could have fought on to victory in WWI.