Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Did you mean...?

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), leader of Nazi Germany, attacked the USSR on 22 June 1941 with the largest army ever assembled. The Axis offensive of June-December 1941 was code-named Operation Barbarossa ('Redbeard') after Frederick Barbarossa...

The origins of the Second World War (1939-45) may be traced back to the harsh peace settlement of the First World War (1914-18) and the economic crisis of the 1930s, while more immediate causes were the aggressive invasions of their neighbours...

The corpse of Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946) who was found guitly of war crimes and hanged 16 October 1946 after the Nuremberg Trials (1945-46).

A map of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 which marked the beginning of the Second World War (1939–1945). The campaign demonstrated the devastating effectiveness of Blitzkrieg, a new form of fast, coordinated warfare combining armor...

The policy of appeasement towards the demands of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) regarding Nazi Germany's territorial expansion ultimately failed when the Second World War (1939-45) began. The reasons appeasement was adopted by Britain and France...

One of the most coveted projects of Italian colonial policy was to secure an African colony in the Mediterranean. For this reason, Italy fought and won the Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912 for the control of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. These...

The Anschluss ('fusion') of 12 March 1938 was the annexation and formal union of Austria with Germany. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the Nazi leader of Germany, dreamed of an empire which enclosed all German speakers, his 'Greater Germany'. Hitler's...

The Munich Agreement, signed on 30 September 1938 at the Munich Conference attended by the leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, handed over the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany in the hope that this act of appeasement would...

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) was the founder of fascism and dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943. He led the country into a highly authoritarian regime and then dragged it into the Second World War (1939-45) on the side of Nazi Germany. Mussolini...

A photograph taken in the 1920s of Aristide Briand (1862-1932), the French statesman who had been prime minister and instigator of both the Locarno Pact of 1925 and the Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928, international attempts to ensure future world...