World War Two: A Bare Bones History

In the early hours of 1 September 1939, the big guns of the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish garrison of Westerplatte. Adolf Hitler had ordered his armed forces into battle against Poland, and in doing so he sparked a wider conflict which would lead to the deaths of tens of millions of people and destruction on an unparalleled scale.

World War Two changed the world forever, brought about an unlikely alliance between a brutal communist dictator and the Western democracies, and ultimately left two of the world’s most powerful nations utterly defeated and at the mercy of the victors.

World War Two: A Bare Bones History tells the story of the most destructive war ever fought.