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40 Fascinating But Lesser Known Facts About WWII

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2019 25 min

World War II - European theatre of World War II — Raising the Red Banner over the Reichstag. Anarkismo

Germans signing surrender in 1945. Politico

15. Churchill Explored Attacking the Soviets in 1945

As the war in Europe neared its end, Winston Churchill grew exasperated by Soviet intransigence regarding Eastern Europe, which Stalin sought to transform into a Soviet empire. Britain had entered WWII to defend Polish independence, but Stalin was riding roughshod over the Poles, keeping a third of their country he had seized in 1939, extinguishing their independence, and turning them into a Soviet client state. Churchill saw that as an affront to British honor, so he ordered plans drawn to attack the Soviets soon as Germany surrendered, to push them back to the USSR’s borders, or at least force them to treat Poland fairly.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.