18 CONSEQUENCES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR - HISTORY - 2025

The political, economic and social consequences of World War II affected the lives of millions of people in the years after its end and shaped the world today. The war ended with a toll of between 50 and 70 million victims. It was the first war that took place simultaneously with the participation of countries from all continents.

On September 1, 1939, Germany led by Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. This fact served as the starting point for World War II, after the declaration of war by Great Britain and France against the German country.

The war lasted for six years and a day and two blocks were formed. One of them was the Axis powers, made up of Nazi Germany, Benito Mussolini's fascist Italy, and the Empire of Japan, led by Hirohito, in addition to all the puppet states created after the occupations.

On the Allied side, the main powers, in addition to Great Britain and France, were the United States, the Soviet Union and China in the Asian area.

In the first part, Germany managed to occupy practically all of continental Europe, and its withdrawal began after its invasion of the Soviet Union.

The war in Europe culminated in the Soviet takeover of Berlin in 1945 and in Asia with the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan by the United States, which resulted in the surrender of the island in September. This was the only nuclear bomb attack against the civilian population in the history of mankind.

In addition to the political-military part, the war was led by the Nazi holocaust that persecuted Jews, as well as homosexuals, gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses.

With the end of World War II, the Cold War began, which would confront the two victorious superpowers: the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Political consequences of World War II

1- Creation of the United Nations (UN)

After World War I and as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the League of Nations was created, which sought to bring together all the states of the world. Although this organization achieved some victories, it finally failed in its attempt to maintain international peace relations and World War II was caused.

That is why on October 24, 1945, after just over a month after the war ended, fifty countries came together at the San Francisco Conference and formed the United Nations (Yépez, 2011).

This institution has since governed the international relations of its member states, which today number 193.

2- Creation of the State of Israel

On May 14, 1948 in the city of Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion realized the Zionist aspiration to have a Jewish state in the Holy Land. This region was a British mandate from the League of Nations.

After World War II and because of the Nazi Holocaust that killed millions of Hebrews, there was a massive emigration to the area.

This ended up forcing the abandonment of the British and the creation of the Jewish state. The UN determined that two states should be created, one Jewish and one Arab.

The Palestinians, who initially opposed the creation of a Jewish state, are still unable to have sovereignty over their state.

3- Territorial divisions

With the defeat of Germany and Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union became the two great superpowers of the world. As a result of this, they came to dominate and divide the territory into a large number of countries.

The Soviet Union maintained control of all of Eastern Europe, establishing socialist republics in Hungary, Albania, Yugoslavia or Poland, among others.

The most relevant was the division of Germany, constituting the West German Federal Republic and the Eastern Marxist German Democratic Republic.

Something similar happened in Korea, occupied by Japan since 1910. In this Asian peninsula a division was applied through the 38th parallel, in which the north, previously occupied by Soviet troops, was constituted as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, while in the south, an area occupied by the Allies, the Republic of Korea was formed. This territorial division continues to this day (Yépez, 2011).

4- Nuclear weapons

World War II ended with the two nuclear attacks perpetrated by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These bombs have been the only ones that have been dropped against the civilian population.

However, from then on, the use of nuclear weapons by the United Nations was controlled, being only allowed to the five great winners of the war: United States, France, United Kingdom, China (then nationalist, today replaced by communist) and the Soviet Union (now Russia).

Since then there have been no nuclear attacks but throughout the Cold War the tension in this regard and the risk of nuclear war remained.

5- Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials

The hierarchs of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan did not go unpunished. Although Adolf Hitler committed suicide the day the Soviets arrived in Berlin and Benito Mussolini was assassinated along with his lover Clara Petacci, many others did not have that end.

Between November 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946, a series of trials were carried out in the German city of Nuremberg that ended up condemning more than a dozen German soldiers to hanging and many others to life imprisonment.

These trials were divided into several processes. Among them were the trial of the doctors, against 24 doctors who experimented with humans, practiced forced sterilization and other crimes.

The trial of the judges also took place, which charged 16 judges and lawyers who covered all the actions perpetrated by the Nazi government. Referring to the extermination part, in this process the Pöhl Trial was developed, which was in charge of convicting those in charge of the concentration and extermination camps, in addition to the Einsatzgruppen Trial, which convicted the SS officials in charge of the Jewish persecution.

In the Japanese case, a process very similar to the Nuremberg Trials was developed. The International Military Criminal Tribunal for the Far East exercised justice against the Japanese military who had played a significant role in the war.

In the Tokyo Trials he was tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, war plot and genocide.

Among those sentenced to death were the one who was Prime Minister of Japan during part of the war, Hideki Tōjō.

However, what stands out most of this process was that Emperor Hirohito was totally exonerated of the guilt and responsibilities that he had and continued to reign Japan until his death in 1989.

American generals such as MacArthur were the architects in keeping Hirohito on the throne to ensure the cohesion of the Japanese people and their re-entry into the world of international relations.

From 1946, Japan was transformed into a constitutional monarchy, leaving its reign in mere symbolism.

Economic consequences

6- Application of the Marshall Plan

Officially called the European Recovery Program, but commonly known as the Marshall Plan, it was an American program that consisted of providing economic aid of 12 billion dollars to western Europe, which had been largely destroyed by the bombings carried out in World War II.

The Americans were fearful of the threat of the communist outpost and the establishment of socialist republics on the continent, so they decided to invest money in the physical reconstruction of the area and also in industrial development.

Its common name is due to the then secretary of state, George C. Marshall, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 (Office of the Historian, nd).

7- Bipolarization of the global economy

The superpowers were not only so politically. In terms of industry, the United States and the Soviet Union monopolized industrial and economic power throughout the Cold War, influencing the products and services offered in the countries that were in their respective orbits.

For example, LADA cars were widely marketed in countries of the Soviet axis, although they were far away as in the case of Cuba.

Social consequences

8- The Holocaust

In what is known as the Holocaust, the German government murdered more than six million Jews that it captured in the different countries it invaded and sent to the different concentration camps established for this purpose (Sneyder, 2010).

This fact has been one of the main characteristics of World War II. Within the national socialist ideology of Adolf Hitler, the Jews did not enter the Aryan race, chosen to dominate humanity.

Exterminating the Jewish population was the final solution posed by Nazism for those who professed that religion. The Holocaust has been labeled a genocide. In concentration camps, Hebrews died from hunger, torture, by medical experiments or in gas chambers.

Besides Jews, gay men and Gypsies were also exterminated in concentration camps.

It is estimated that more than 1% of the victims killed during the Holocaust were homosexuals, as well as more than 3% belonged to the gypsy ethnic group. None of these people was considered to belong to the Aryan race and for that reason they were exterminated in concentration camps.

Anyone who did not meet Aryan purity was to be exterminated. It was also the case of disabled people, who did not comply with the parameters established by Nazism and were consequently exterminated in concentration camps.

On the other hand, as Nazism and Fascism are movements that tend to be on the extreme right, the German Communists and Social Democrats who had previously been outlawed were persecuted and killed. Many of them suffered extermination in concentration camps.

9- Displacement and adaptation of the population

World War II produced many territorial changes. In the course of the conflict, the Axis powers occupied much of the European and Asian continent.

Once this was finished, the map changed and the defeated powers underwent geographical changes in their territories, which produced displacement of the population of those nationalities to other areas. One of the great territorial gains was received by Poland at the expense of Germany.

The Soviet Union also took territories from Romania. Between France and the United Kingdom they seized the entire Italian colonial empire in Africa. The United States took possessions in Oceania. Some of today still remain, such as Guam, American Samoa or the Northern Mariana Islands.

Much of all these territorial changes were sponsored by protectorates or missions assigned by the nascent United Nations.

This implied that the population of territories that changed sovereignty had on many occasions to emigrate to others or adapt to a new colonizing power, with all the burden that this implies, such as language, customs, symbols, traditions, laws and different cultural practices.

10- Destruction of infrastructure

Much of the European continent was destroyed. World War II was a predominantly aerial war, where the bombings were part of everyday life. Countries like the United Kingdom were affected throughout the conflict by German bombings.

But also Germany itself, especially in the last years of the war, was razed. The main victims of the bombings were the civilian population.

The Marshall Plan helped rebuild the affected cities and towns. In Japan, the destructive impact was even greater after the nuclear bombings that made the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki practically cease to exist.

Current consequences

1- Change in food culture

Although World War II took place more than 70 years ago, today the citizens of the United States recognize it had a determining effect on the emergence of the fast foods that we know today.

An example of this is the fast food chain Mc Donald's. It was born as a traditional hamburger joint in the 1940s, and evolved into the fast food model we know today, inspired by the assembly lines of weapons from World War II.

Mc Donalds is the pioneer of fast food culture worldwide and one of its biggest contributors, even today (Hampson, 2015).

2- Birth of technological trends

World War II sowed the seeds of trends that would take decades to fully develop. This includes the integration of global economies, the use of digital communications, and technological disruptions and reinventions.

3- Technological refinement

During World War II, numerous governments paid their scientists to refine technological products, such as televisions, air conditioners, and other electronic devices.

For example, the computer was introduced at MIT in 1942, with a weight of 100 tons and 2,000 electronic tubes, 150 motors, and 320 kilometers of cable.

This artifact, created during the war, is today one of the most important in the course of the daily life of the majority of human beings in the world.

4- Manufacture of weapons

Thanks to World War II, the United States became one of the largest arms producers in the world. Today it is recognized for being the largest producer of ammunition in the world.

However, in 1938, the United States did not manufacture any type of weaponry.

5- Applications of nuclear energy

Nuclear power was developed during World War II, bringing devastating consequences to the world.

However, the development of this type of energy made it possible to impact various fields, such as medicine, the food industry, mining, space exploration and even art.

The uses of nuclear energy today are diverse and beneficial.

6- Change in China's policy

Before the war, China lived in a corrupt and nationalistic political system. After the war, their state policy changed and the people were in favor of the implementation of a communist system, which is in force to this day.

7- Political change in Europe

The European countries that participated in World War II spoke of the future with pessimism before the war took place. Once this ended, dialogues were held to rebuild societies in a new and better way.

These dialogues led to the implementation of social and democratic systems in Europe. This is how political parties were born in favor of the workers, important and influential today.

8- Universality of human rights

As previously noted, the UN was created after the war ended. Also, a human rights treaty was implemented. Both the UN and the human rights treaty are essential for conflict resolution today.

The Second World War left in this sense a legacy of universal standards on human well-being, which is valid to date (MacMillan, 2009).

References

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2. Berembaum, M. (sf) The World Must Know. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
3. Hunt, N. and Robbins, I. (2001). The long-term consequences of war: the experience of World War II. Aging & Mental Health, 5 (2), 183-190. doi: 10.1080 / 13607860120038393
4. Office of the Historian (nd). Marshall Plan, 1948. Office of the Historian. Retrieved from history.state.gov.
5. Snyder, T. (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic Books.
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