Post-War (1945-Now)

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World War II had manifold important effects, many lasting to this day, and many of which may never be known. The immediate global cost in lives stood at approximately 55-62 million soldiers and civilians. Large parts of Europe and East Asia were devastated. Fascism as an international movement was largely both defeated and discredited. The following global organizations, events, and technologies are to various degrees rooted in the war:

Organizations: The United Nations, World Bank, WTO, and IMF; Events: The Cold War, the retreat of European colonialism, and the transition from Great Depression to Baby boom and Long Boom; Technologies: Nuclear fission, the computer and the jet engine.

The war can be identified to varying degrees as the catalyst for, or important influence upon, many continental, national and local phenomena, such as the redrawing of European borders, the birth of the United Kingdom's welfare state, the communist takeover of China and Eastern Europe, the creation of Israel, and the divisions of Germany and Korea.

For the first time in modern history, geopolitical power shifted away from western and central Europe. That multipolar world was replaced by a bipolar one dominated by the two most powerful victors, the United States and Soviet Union, which would go on to be labeled the superpowers.

Europe in ruins

At the end of the war, millions of refugees were homeless, the European economy had collapsed, and 70% of the European industrial infrastructure was destroyed.

Border revisions and population transfers

As a result of the new borders drawn by the victorious nations large populations suddenly found themselves in hostile territory.

The main beneficiary of these border revisions was the Soviet Union, which expanded its borders at the expense of Germany, Finland, Poland and Japan. A minor beneficiary was France, which in 1947 annexed the German state of Saar. Poland was compensated for its losses to the Soviet Union by receiving most of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line, including the industrial regions of Silesia.

The number of Germans expelees totaled roughly 15,000,000, most from the ceded German territories and from the Sudetenland. Germany officially states that 2,100,000 of these expelled lost their lives during the process, mainly due to violence on the part of the Russians, Polish and Czech. Polish and Czech historians claim a much lower death rate.

The repatriation, pursuant to the terms of the Yalta Conference, of two million Russian soldiers who had come under the control of advancing American and British forces, resulted for the most part in their deaths.

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