The years leading up to the declaration of war between the countries of the Nazi bloc and the anti-Hitler coalition in 1939 were difficult for many countries of the world. Ten years earlier, the Great Depression began, which left most of the population of Europe and America unemployed. Nationalism swept over Germany, which was outraged by the harshness of the punitive measures of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which ended the First World War. China and the Empire of Japan have been at war since Japanese troops invaded Manchuria in 1931. Germany, Italy and Japan have all enjoyed the advantages of joining the newly formed League of Nations, carrying out numerous incursions into neighboring states without much negative consequences for themselves. In 1936, a civil war broke out in Spain, which became a kind of rehearsal for the coming World War II. Germany and Italy supported the nationalist movement under the command of General Francisco Franco, and about 40,000 foreigners arrived in Spain to fight fascism. Several years before the outbreak of World War II, Nazi Germany began to create the prerequisites for the conflict. The country rearmed itself, signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR, annexed Austria and invaded Czechoslovakia. During this time, the United States passed several laws on neutrality, trying to avoid interference in international conflicts: the country was recovering from the Great Depression and the consequences of years of dust storms. This photo story highlights the events leading up to World War II. (45 photos) (See all parts of the series "Chronicles of the Second World War")
In the photo: Adolf Hitler at the age of 35 after his release from Landsberg prison, December 20, 1924. Hitler was found guilty of high treason for organizing the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. This photo was taken shortly after he finished dictating My Struggle to his deputy Rudolf Hess. After 8 years, in 1933, Hitler will become the Reich Chancellor of Germany. (Library of Congress)
A Japanese soldier stands guard at the captured section of the Great Wall of China during the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. The confrontation between the Japanese Empire and the Republic of China continued since 1931, but in 1937 the conflict escalated. (LOC)
Japanese aircraft bombing targets in China in 1937. (LOC)
Japanese soldiers participate in a street battle in Shanghai, China, 1937. The Battle of Shanghai, which lasted from August to November 1937, involved about a million troops. As a result, Shanghai fell, and human losses on both sides amounted to 150 thousand killed. (LOC)
One of the first photographs of the Japanese occupation of Beiping (Beijing) in China, August 13, 1937. Japanese troops flying the flag of the rising sun pass through the Chen-meng gate leading to the palaces of the Forbidden City. Literally a stone's throw away is the building of the American Embassy, where US citizens hid during the fierce hostilities. (AP Photo)
Japanese soldiers impale captured Chinese soldiers with bayonets. Their companions are watching the execution from the edge of the ditch. (LOC)
The head of the Nanjing government, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek (right), sits next to General Lung Yun, chairman of the Yunnan provincial government, in Nanjing, June 27, 1936. (AP Photo)
A Chinese woman examines the bodies of her relatives who died during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing on February 5, 1938. All of her family members were most likely brutally killed by Japanese soldiers. (AP Photo)
Buddhist monks from the Asakusa Temple prepare for the Sino-Japanese War and future air attacks in Tokyo, Japan, May 30, 1936. (AP Photo)
Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini (center) stands with members of the Fascist Party after a march in Rome, Italy, October 28, 1922. Thousands of fascist blackshirts occupied strategically important positions throughout most of Italy. After the march, King Emmanuel III asked Mussolini to form a new government that opened the way for the dictatorship. (AP Photo)
Italian soldiers take aim during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in Ethiopia in 1935. Italian troops under the command of Mussolini annexed Ethiopia and united it with Eritrea, establishing the Italian East Africa colony. (LOC)
Italian soldiers raise the national flag over Makalle, Ethiopia, 1935. Emperor Haile Selassie sent a call for help to the League of Nations, which went unanswered, and Italy was given freedom of action against East Africa. (LOC)
Loyalist soldiers train women in shooting so they can defend Barcelona against General Francisco Franco's fascist army during the Spanish Civil War, June 2, 1937. (AP Photo)
An explosion under the five-story Casa Blanca building in Madrid, Spain, kills 300 fascists on March 19, 1938. For more than six months, government supporters have been building a tunnel about 550 meters long in order to plant explosives under the building. (AP Photo)
A rebel throws a hand grenade over a barbed wire fence at loyalist soldiers aiming with machine guns in Burgos, Spain on September 12, 1936. (AP Photo)
German Stuka dive bombers of the Condor Legion fly over Spain during the Civil War, May 30, 1938. The black-and-white X-shaped badge on the tail and wings of the plane is the St. Andrew's Cross, the emblem of Franco's Nazi Air Force. (AP Photo)
Dozens of families hide in an underground metro station in Madrid during the Franco bombing of the city on December 9, 1936. (AP Photo)
The bombing of Barcelona by the Nazi Air Force under the command of Franco in 1938. During the Spanish Civil War, bombing of civilian targets was the first to be so widely used. (Italian Airforce)
Relatives of people trapped in the rubble after the Madrid air attack await news, January 8, 1937. The faces of the women reflected the horror that the civilians had to endure. (AP Photo)
Popular Front volunteers mock a surrendered Spanish rebel as they accompany him to a court-martial in Madrid, Spain. (AP Photo)
A detachment of experienced Nazi machine gunners takes up a position along the front line near the town of Huesca in northern Spain, on December 30, 1936. (AP Photo)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation by radio from the White House in Washington, DC, September 3, 1939. Roosevelt solemnly promised that he would make every effort to maintain neutrality. The US Congress has passed several neutrality laws mandating formal non-intervention in the conflict. (AP Photo)
Riette Kahn sits in an ambulance provided to the Spanish government by the American film industry in Los Angeles, California on September 18, 1937. The first Spanish tour in the United States to raise funds "to help the defenders of Spanish democracy" during the Spanish Civil War was called "The Hollywood Caravan to Spain". (AP Photo)
Two American Nazis in uniform stand at the door of their party's newly opened New York headquarters on April 1, 1932. The name "National Socialist German Workers' Party" or "NSDAP" (from German "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei") is usually abbreviated to "Nazi Party". (AP Photo)
A huge dust cloud approaches a small ranch in Boise City, Oklahoma. During the years of dust storms, the "Dust Cauldron" in central North America was destroyed by the arable layer of soil. Severe drought, flawed farming practices and devastating storms have rendered millions of acres of farmland unusable for growing crops. This picture was taken on April 15, 1935. (AP Photo)
The photo, known as the Migrant Mother, shows Florence Thompson and her three children. The famous photograph is part of a series of portraits of Florence Thompson and her children taken by photographer Dorothea Lange in Nipomo, California, in early 1936. (LOC / Dorothea Lange)
The Zeppelin Hindenburg flies over Manhattan past the Empire State Building on August 8, 1936. The German airship was heading to Lakehurst, New Jersey, from Germany. On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg exploded in the skies over Lakehurst. (AP Photo)
On March 16, 1938, England staged a massive demonstration of its readiness for a gas attack. Two thousand volunteers from Birmingham donned gas masks and took part in the exercise. During the impromptu gas attack, these firefighters wore full gear, from rubber boots to gas masks. (AP Photo)
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini greet each other during a meeting at an airfield in Venice, Italy, June 14, 1934. Mussolini and his associates staged a performance for Hitler, but little is known about the details of their subsequent conversations. (AP Photo)
Four Nazi soldiers singing outside the Berlin branch of the Woolworth Co. in protest against the presence of Jews in Germany in March 1933. The Nazis believed that the founder of the Woolworth Co. was a Jew. (AP Photo)
The Nazi stand is on display at an exhibition that opened in Berlin on August 19, 1932. The stand advertised the Nazi gramophone record industry, which produced recordings made exclusively by members of the National Socialist movement. (AP Photo)
Thousands of young people came to listen to their leader, Reichsfuehrer Adolf Hitler, who spoke at the National Socialist German Workers' Party Congress in Nuremberg, Germany on September 11, 1935. (AP Photo)
People greet Adolf Hitler as he rides in a motorcade through the streets of Munich, Germany, during the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the National Socialist Movement, November 9, 1933. (AP Photo)
The Nazis pay tribute to the memory of the unknown soldier in a swastika line, Germany, August 27, 1933. (AP Photo)
The German army demonstrates its power to over a million inhabitants during a nationwide harvest festival in Bückeburg near Hanover, Germany, October 4, 1935. In the photo: dozens of tanks lined up in rows before the demonstration began. Shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany began to rearm at an accelerated pace, ignoring the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. (AP Photo)
Thousands of Germans attend a National Socialist meeting in Berlin, Germany on July 9, 1932. (AP Photo)
A group of German girls line up before a music culture lesson with the assistance of the Hitler Youth movement in Berlin, Germany, February 24, 1936. (AP Photo)
Congress of the Nazi Party in Nuremberg, Germany, September 10, 1935. (AP Photo)
American Jesse Owens (center), who defeated Nazi Germany's Lutz Long (right) in the long jump, salutes during the medal ceremony at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The third place went to the Japanese Naoto Tajima. Owens took first place in the 100 and 200 meters, long jump and 4x400 meters relay. He became the first athlete to win four gold medals in one Olympic Games. (AP Photo)
British Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain was photographed on his arrival from Germany at the Heston airfield in London after negotiations with Hitler on September 24, 1938. Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. (AP Photo / Pringle)
Members of the Hitler Youth organization burn books in Salzburg, Austria, April 30, 1938. The public burning of books convicted of anti-German or Jewish-Marxist ideology was widespread in Nazi Germany. (AP Photo)
Mass gymnastics classes at the "Zeppelin Field" in Nuremberg, Germany, September 8, 1938. (AP Photo)
Jewish-owned shops were shattered during an anti-Jewish demonstration in Berlin called "Kristallnacht" on November 10, 1938. Stormtroopers and civilians smashed the windows of Jewish shops with hammers, leaving the city streets strewn with shards of glass. 91 Jews were killed and 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps. (AP Photo)
One of the largest workshops at the Rheinmetall-borsig arms factory in Düsseldorf, Germany, August 13, 1939. Before the start of the war, German factories produced hundreds of units of military equipment per year. This figure soon increased to tens of thousands. In 1944 alone, 25,000 fighters were built. (AP Photo)
Annexed Austria prepares for the arrival of Adolf Hitler. City streets were decorated and renamed. A worker carries a sign with the new name of the "Adolf Hitler Place" in Vienna, March 14, 1938. (AP Photo)
