What Was The Impact Of War On Civilian Populations In Europe And The Asia–Pacific?

The Second World War was not fought only by soldiers. For the first time on this scale, ordinary people far from any battlefield became targets: bombed in their homes, starved under siege, worked and murdered in occupied lands. To understand the war fully you have to look beyond the front lines to the cellars of London, the ruins of Dresden, the streets of occupied Poland and the camps where millions died.

This lesson examines what war did to civilians on both sides and in both theatres: the bombing of Britain and of Germany, life under Nazi and Japanese occupation, the Holocaust, and the resistance movements that fought back. Many of the figures here are uncertain and disputed, so you will also learn the historian's habit of handling contested numbers honestly, which is exactly the judgement Cambridge rewards.