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70 years have passed since start of World War II

01 September 2009 10:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Today 70 years have passed since the start of World War II. According to APA, the war started on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. It lasted for six years and officially ended On September 2, 1945. 62 countries were involved in the war, which covered the territories of 40 countries or 80 percent of world population. Some sources said the war involved the mobilization of 110 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. Estimates for the total casualties of the war vary, but most suggest that some 50-70 million people died in the war, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians. USSR, China, Germany, Japan and Poland are the most suffering countries. The participant countries spent 4 trillion dollars for military expenditures in six years. It was 60-70 percent of GDP of those countries. USSR, USA, Britain and Germany produced 652.700 warplanes, 285.700 tanks and armors, more than one million artillery mounts, 4.8 million machine guns, 53 million rifles, carbines and sub-machine guns.

The war weakened the role of West European countries in the world policy and made USSR and USA the most powerful countries of the world. The war also resulted with the independence of some African and Asian countries. One of the most important results of the war was the Organization of United Nations. The war divided Europe to two different ideological camps â€“ Eastern and Western Europe, which gave a start to the Cold War. The World War II war criminals were sentenced by Nuremberg international tribunal in Germany.