21.1: Conclusion
- Page ID
- 182392
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World War II was the culmination of the vision of total war the world had first encountered in World War I, but it was generalized to vast stretches of the planet, including Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The promise of technology was realized in weapons of mass slaughter. The war was also the setting for the Holocaust, an incidence of industrialized mass murder.
Approximately 55 - 60 million people died, of which 25 million were Soviets and 6 million were the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. While nationalist rivalries and international tensions certainly led to the war in some ways, the primary cause of WWII was Adolf Hitler's personal obsession with creating a vastly expanded German empire. While Europe had stumbled into World War I through a vast alliance system, World War II was a war of aggression launched by a single belligerent, Germany, supported by its allies.