World War II occupations

World War II occupations
Name	World War II occupations
Date	1939–1945
Location	Europe, Asia, Africa, Pacific, Atlantic
Result	Armistices, annexations, puppet regimes, decolonization

Contents

World War II occupations

The occupations during the global conflict from 1939 to 1945 transformed sovereignty, borders, and societies across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Axis and Allied occupations involved armed forces such as the Wehrmacht, Imperial Japanese Army, Red Army, United States Army, and Royal Navy, producing administrations ranging from direct annexation to puppet states like the Vichy France regime and the Provisional Government of Free India. These occupations shaped key events including the Battle of Britain, Operation Barbarossa, Pacific War, Battle of Stalingrad, and the Normandy landings and set the stage for postwar conferences such as Yalta Conference, Potsdam Conference, and the onset of the Cold War.

Background and causes of occupations

Territorial ambitions and ideological doctrines drove occupations: Nazi Germany pursued Lebensraum, Fascist Italy sought Mediterranean dominance, and Imperial Japan enacted the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of leaders like Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo accelerated expansion that included invasions of Poland, France, China, and Manchuria. Strategic campaigns—Invasion of Poland (1939), Operation Sea Lion, Operation Barbarossa, and the Attack on Pearl Harbor—transformed conquest into occupation, while agreements such as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and instruments like the Tripartite Pact shaped spheres of control.

Axis administrations implemented varied policies: Nazi occupation of Poland employed the General Government and collaboration with organizations like the Gestapo and SS, while Italian occupation of Greece and Axis occupation of Yugoslavia used military governors and client regimes such as the Independent State of Croatia. Imperial Japan established administrations in Manchukuo and Philippine Republic (Second Republic) under Jose P. Laurel and used institutions like the Kempeitai. Allied occupations created military governments in liberated zones: the Soviet military administration in Germany, United States occupation of Japan, and British Military Administration of Malaya implemented policies informed by negotiations at Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference and by leaders including Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Winston Churchill.

Europe saw diverse occupations: German occupation of France produced the Vichy France regime and the French Resistance; German occupation of the Soviet Union encompassed the Siege of Leningrad and the Holocaust in Ukraine; Occupation of Norway led to collaboration under Vidkun Quisling. In Asia and the Pacific, Second Sino-Japanese War occupations included the Nanjing Massacre and the Burma Campaign with puppet regimes like the Reorganized National Government of China. Colonial theaters involved North African Campaign occupations of Libya and Tunisia, and occupations in Dutch East Indies produced Indonesian National Revolution precursors. Case studies include Warsaw Uprising, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Greek Resistance, and Philippines campaign (1944–45).

Occupations devastated civilians through reprisals, forced labor, and massacres perpetrated by units like the Einsatzgruppen and administrations such as the General Government. Populations experienced deportations to sites like Auschwitz concentration camp, Majdanek, and Sachsenhausen and endured famine exemplified by the Hunger Plan and the Dutch famine of 1944–45. Resistance movements—Polish Home Army, French Forces of the Interior, Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito, Chinese National Revolutionary Army elements, and the Philippine Commonwealth guerrillas—conducted sabotage, intelligence for Special Operations Executive, and uprisings, intertwining with Allied operations like Operation Overlord and Operation Market Garden.

Occupying powers exploited industry and agriculture through requisition, forced labor from POWs and civilians, and seizure of raw materials such as oil from the Caucasus, rubber from Dutch East Indies, and minerals from Norway and France. German economic agencies like the Reichswerke Hermann Göring redirected production; Imperial Japan utilized entities such as the South Seas Mandate administrative systems and corporations to extract resources. Financial measures included looting of art held in Louvre and Rijksmuseum, imposition of occupation currencies, and reparations schemes later adjudicated at forums such as the Paris Peace Conference and addressed in treaties including the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany lineage.

Occupations produced legal ambiguities resolved through military government decrees, expulsions like the Expulsion of Germans after World War II, and territorial adjustments ratified at Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference, affecting borders involving Poland, East Prussia, and the Baltic states. Occupied territories underwent denazification overseen by Allied Control Council institutions and legal reckoning at the Nuremberg Trials and national trials such as the Tokyo Trials. Transitional administrations—Allied Control Council, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan under Douglas MacArthur, and United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration—managed repatriation, reconstruction, and steps toward sovereignty and decolonization.

The legacy includes demographic shifts from the Holocaust, population transfers, and the emergence of the United Nations and human-rights frameworks like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. War crimes prosecutions at Nuremberg Trials and International Military Tribunal for the Far East set precedents for international law, influencing later institutions such as the International Criminal Court. Occupations accelerated the collapse of European empires leading to independence movements in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Algeria and contributed to geopolitical divisions marking the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, and long-term security arrangements like NATO and the Warsaw Pact.