Other smaller powers also later joined the Axis throughout the war.
Japan and Germany had already signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936, to counter the perceived threat of the communism of the Soviet Union. Later, the Empire of Japan, under the government of Hideki Tojo, would also join as an Axis power. Many Germans blamed their country's post-war economic collapse on the treaty's conditions and these resentments contributed to the political instability which made it possible for Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party to come to power.Īfter Hitler took Germany out of the League of Nations, Mussolini of Fascist Italy and Hitler formed the Rome-Berlin axis, under a treaty known as the Pact of Steel. Germany was humiliated in front of the world and had to pay very large war reparations. Germany was defeated in World War I, and the Treaty of Versailles placed punitive conditions on the country, including significant financial reparations, the loss of territory (some only temporarily), war guilt, military weakening and limitation, and economic weakening. Main articles: Events preceding World War II in Europe and Causes of World War II The Allied powers fought the Axis powers on two major fronts (the Eastern Front and Western Front) as well as in a strategic bombing offensive and in the adjoining Mediterranean and Middle East theatre. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the Western Allies conquering most of Western Europe, the Soviet Union conquering most of Eastern Europe and Germany's unconditional surrender on (9 May in the Soviet Union) but the fighting continued until the end of the Battle of Odzak on 25 May.
The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II.