ABSTRACT
When Adolf Hitler, having annexed the Sudetenland in September 1938, seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, it became clear that he did not aim solely at uniting territories that could be considered German into a single nation. The British and French then decided to guarantee Poland's territorial integrity. World War II proved to be the deadliest conflict in all of human history, eclipsing by far World War I in total number of deaths and casualties. The Soviet Union suffered the greatest losses of population, overwhelmingly-an estimated 25 million, more than double the total number of deaths in World War I. Unlike in the First World War, civilians died at a rate almost equal to that of those involved in combat. The United States adopted the Marshall Plan, providing economic assistance to the war-devastated countries of Europe in an attempt to discourage the spread of communism.
