World War II

While both World War I and World War II were similar in the application of modern technology to warfare, they fundamentally differed in their character. World War II was conceived off by Adolf Hitler not as a normal war but as a racial war against the Jewish and Slavic races. Eastern Europeans, considered as part of the Slavic race, were subject to expulsion and annihilation. Soviet POWs were, therefore, not treated as enemy combatants but rather as members of an inferior race, which made them subject to mistreatment and murder. Furthermore, traditional distinctions between soldiers and civilians were ignored. When it became clear to Hitler that Germany could not win the war against the United Kingdom, he ordered the German air force to attack civilian targets as much as military targets. Air warfare entered a spiral of violence that led to the destruction of English cities such as Coventry by the German air force and the firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden by English and American bombers. These attacks were intended to weaken the resolve of the civilian population but instead contributed to the prolonging of war.