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Western Civilization · Chapter 13

Where the War Was Decided, 1939–1945

Popular memory of the Second World War runs through Dunkirk, the Blitz and D-Day. The arithmetic runs somewhere else. Drag the scrubber through twelve moments and watch three things at once: how far Axis control reached, where the German army actually was, and what the factories of four countries were producing.
September 1939Moment 1 of 12

1939194119431945

How far Axis control reached, west to east

Extent of Axis control across Europe A schematic west-to-east line from the Atlantic through Paris, Berlin and Warsaw to Moscow and Stalingrad, with a shaded band showing how far German control reached at the selected moment.
A schematic slice of Europe, Atlantic on the left, Volga on the right. The shaded belt is territory under German control.

Where the German army was

Eastern FrontAll other fronts and garrisons
0%100%
Keep this in view
Between 1941 and 1944 roughly three-quarters of German ground forces were engaged against the Soviet Union, and about four out of five German military deaths happened there. That does not diminish the convoys, the bombing or Normandy — it explains why the postwar map of Europe looked the way it did.

Military aircraft built this year

United States Soviet Union Britain Germany
Approximate annual output of military aircraft, all types. Germany’s peak year, 1944, was still below Soviet output and less than half of American — and by then it was building fighters to defend its own cities.