World War II

The Second World War, a global military conflict from 1939 to 1945, involved the majority of the world's nations and resulted in the deaths of between 50 to 70 million people and was the deadliest conflict in human history.

The conflict resulted in a major shift in the balance of power in the 20th century. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the new dominant powers in the post-war world.

From the time the first shots were fired in Poland in 1939, the Second World War has become ingrained in the fabric of international popular culture in every kind of media that we consume.

The conflict began with Nazi propaganda machine already in full swing, producing vast quantities of posters, movies and radio newsreels, to convince the Germany people to commit to a war that would have disastrous consequences for millions of people around the world.

This prolific stream of dramatization, documentation and glorification of the staggeringly tragic story of World War Two has not abated in the seventy years since the end of the war.

In recent years we have seen the war move into the realm of computer games, delivering the horrors and the thrill of war with an intimacy previously unimagined.