4º British: Online World War II lesson. Stage 5: Victories of the Allies (Second part: Berlin and Hiroshima)

The following link will revise the last year of the war: the surrender of Berlin and the Atomic Bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In Europe, the allies start competing to conquer Berlin, for showing their political and military superiority, besides the enormous symbolism of such a victory. The Battle of Berlin took place in April 1945. As mentioned in my class, a very interesting and educative visit is the “Berlin underground”.

On April 30th 1945, when Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin two days before the Soviet took the city. Below, the iconic photo taken by the Russian photographer Yevgueni Jaldéi after the fall of Berlin:

  

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Front, it was necessary to fight every single island. Some episodes were sadly famous, such as the defense that Colonel Kuribayashi prepared in Iwo Jima (see the photo colecction in National Geographic). As told you in the online class last Monday, there are two movies about it, from the two different perspectives; you can watch the official trailers in the following links:

• Flags of our fathers (USA soldiers)
• Letters from Iwo Jima (Japan soldiers)

After years of research, called “The Manhattan project”, a big group of scientist created a powerfull weapon: the atomic bomb.

Above: photo of Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer. Einstein warned that the Germans were researching an atomic bomb and suggested that the United States do the same. Oppenheimer was the leading scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Finally, on the 6^th August 1945 President Harry Truman ordered to drop off the first atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. It killed 100,000 people; many more suffered injuries and illnesses for the rest of their lifes. You can watch a BBC-simulation video here (4 minutes). On the 9^th August, he ordered to drop a second bomb over Nagasaki, with similar dramatic results. Japan surrendered several days after that. But, was REALLY necessary to use such a destructive weapon? Even nowadays is still a controversial topic, although it seems to have more political that militar motivations (John Green video: 1’40 minutes only)

The Second World War officially ended on 2nd September, 1945

That’s all. As you attended my class on Teams last Monday, there are not “control questions” about this part :)