Under the Shadow of Stalin and Hitler (World War II and the Fate of the European Nations, 1939-1941)

Abstract

The book deals with practically all the European countries during the provisional alliance between Stalin and Hitler from the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, to the preemptive assault of National Socialist Germany on Communist Russia on June 22, 1941. Events and developments are examined in a strictly chronological order, in order to demonstrate the links and influences between them. The author tries to give an answer to such questions as who bore the main responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, who was more aggressive: Stalin or Hitler, what brought the Soviet-Nazi alliance to an end. Special attention is paid to the annihilation of many European countries chiefly by Hitler and Stalin, to the impact of totalitarian aggression on the every day life of most Europeans, to the extermination practices of Russian Communism and German National Socialism, as well as to the fundamental identity of the two ideologies and political regimes to each other.