countries First he wanted to make Germany the most powerful country in Europe He also wanted to take back lands that Germany had been forced to give up after losing World War I 1914 1918 Hitler also wanted to rule over people who he considered inferior to Germans such as the Poles He believed Germans were superior to most other people and had a right to deny those people even their basic human rights He particularly hated Jews and anti Semitism fueled many of his government's actions Shortly after Hitler's Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933 they passed laws that limited the freedom of Germany's Jewish citizens Some were sent to prisons called concentration camps As he conquered countries across Europe Hitler sent millions of
European Jews to these camps Some of the camps were death camps By the time World War II ended the Germans had killed more than 6 million Jews two thirds of the entire Jewish population in Europe at the time Prisoners at concentration camps were given very little to eat Two men in front are holding up a friend who is too weak to stand on his own Hitler also imprisoned non Jewish people across Europe Some were his political opponents Others were from religious groups he didn't like And some
were imprisoned simply because they were physically or mentally disabled Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3 1939 These and other nations that fought Germany were called the Allies The Soviet Union joined the Allies in June 1941 Germany and the countries that supported it including Italy and Japan were known as the Axis Powers At first the United States did not send troops to the war front After World War I many Americans did not want to take part in another European war Congress even passed laws that limited when the United States could help other countries at war However President Franklin Roosevelt saw the danger Hitler posed to the people of Europe and their
freedom In 1940 he convinced Congress to give the Allies weapons and military supplies The war finally came to the United States on December 7 1941 On that day waves of Japanese planes attacked U S naval ships stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii The next day the United States declared war on Japan On December 11 Hitler declared war on the United States In the blink of an eye the United States had been pulled into the deadliest war the world had ever known SEEKING A SECOND FRONT By the end of 1941 Germany had conquered 11 countries in Europe including France which had surrendered in June 1940 A year later Germany
