World War II. Driven by the ideals of war and power, Hitler started expanding Germany in 1933. The Saarland was incorporated in 1935. Annexation of The Sudetenland was permitted in hopes of appeasing Hitler. In 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was taken over by Germany. The German invasion of Poland in September, 1939 forced France and England to declare war. The French capitulated in June, 1940. When the 2nd World War broke out, Mussolini joined Hitler, a longtime ally, in its war effort and invaded Greece, the Balkans and North Africa, but could not hold them. He lost his own country to the Allies. He was captured and executed by the Italian partisans. Germany turned on its ally, The Soviet Union, in 1941 in an unsuccessful invasion. The United States invaded Germany in June, 1943 and the Third Reich surrendered to the Allies on August, 1945. World War I and II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs. The Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc were separated by the “Iron Curtain” – a huge, long concrete wall (miles?). Europe established the NATO alliance and later, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe established the Warsaw Pact. The two new superpowers, US and The Soviet Union became locked in a 50 year Cold War, centered on nuclear proliferation. The decolonization that started in WW I continued and gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa. In the 1980’s, the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Solidarity Movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the end of the Cold War. Germany was reunited after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Once again, The Map of East Europe was redrawn. The treaty of Rome 1957 established the European Economic Community of 6 western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and common market. In 1993, this integration became the European Union (EU) which established a parliament, court and central bank together with a unified currency, the Euro. The EU has 27 European nations making Europe once more a major economic and political center of power.
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