World War II

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a major conflict that took place from 1939 to 1945. Apart from a handful of neutral countries, it involved the whole of the Earth.

The Doctor stopped several groups from interfering with the war, including the War Lords, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) the Players, (PROSE: Players) and the Cybermen. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)

During the war, the Earth was also defended from alien attacks by Eileen Younghusband. (PROSE: The Last Duty)

Foreseeing
In 1903, after receiving a wealth of information from the future, Grigori Rasputin foresaw, among other things, the Second World War. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)

Treaty of Versailles
In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed at the peace conference at Versailles to end World War I. George Limb was among the attendees. Chief Inspector Patrick Mullen and the Seventh Doctor later suspected that he may have had a hand in sabotaging the treaty, sowing the seeds for another conflict. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) The treaty cost the defeated Germany all her colonies and much of her European territory. (PROSE: Just War) The Allies set war reparations that were obviously meant to be too high for Germany to pay off in order to cripple them economically and prevent recovery, a condition with which many Germans were not content. Kaiser Wilhelm II was gotten rid of, although his name remained for institutions such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)

The coming of Hitler
On 9 November 1923, Adolf Hitler led an unsuccessful coup against the German government, which became known as the Beer Hall Putsch. He was arrested for treason and spent six months in prison, although he was originally sentenced for five years. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Despite its failure, the incident brought Hitler to the attention of George Limb, who felt he had potential and was someone the British government ought to take seriously. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)

Economic and political strife afflicted Germany during the interwar years. Soviets attempted to spark a communist revolution in Germany after the war. The German economy collapsed in the 1920s with the Great Depression, and Germans began to feel neglected and abused by the United States. Jews received much of the blame for these problems, an attitude in Germany that dated back centuries.

An election was held in Germany in July 1932 which failed to deliver a majority. Another election was held in November of that year. Parties with the initials Z, DVP, KPD, SPD and NSDAP - the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei led by Hitler (PROSE: Just War) - were among those contesting the elections. All attacked the incumbent Chancellor Papen and vowed to fix the economy. Thälmann's party advertised him as “the workers' candidate.” Once again, there was no majority, resulting instead in unsuccessful and unpopular coalition governments. With no one in charge, authority effectively vanished and there was no way to deal with crime, unrest and unemployment. The thuggish Sturmabteilung (SA, or colloquially "Brownshirts"), a private army owned by Hitler who claimed the real army was too corrupt and lazy, filled the void left by the unreliable police force and clamped down on unrest and subversive elements such as Bolshevists. Hitler and Hindenburg were among the notable politicians of the period. The Nazis downplayed their image in public, allowing the population to grow content as improvements were made and order gradually restored.

Landing in Berlin in January of 1933, the First Doctor told Susan Foreman that the war was “in the wind” at this stage. Notable scientists of the period included Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, Eugene Wigner and Fritz Haber. With Hitler on the rise, Einstein left for the United States. Susan and the Doctor became entangled in a plot to kidnap Haber and learn the secret of how to extract gold from sea water. While German groups, including underground crime syndicates, sought the secret to aid in Germany's recovery, Pollitt, a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, sought the secret as well. Susan wrecked Pollitt's chances of discovering the secret and potentially changing the history of the coming war. Hitler finally came to power at the end of January 1933. The Doctor and Susan lamented that, if Germany had been in a better financial position, Hitler may not have come to power in the first place.

Haber fled Germany when Hitler came to power and died in exile in 1934. The Nazis later used his process to produce explosives and poisonous gases to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Meanwhile, scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute discovered how to split the atom, leading to the invention of nuclear weapons. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)

Later in 1934, Hitler struck against his own private army and eradicated the leadership of the SA in the Night of the Long Knives. Two thousand people were executed in one day. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich helped the Fifth Doctor chase the Master through Berlin as this was happening. A part of the Doctor regretted that he could not have killed both men before they could carry out the crimes they would eventually commit. (PROSE: The King of Terror)

The growing threat of Nazi Germany
George Limb attended another conference in Munich in 1936. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)

One of the earliest steps on the road to war was taken in 1938 when the Nemesis statue passed over Earth. It influenced Hitler to annex the country of Austria. (TV: Silver Nemesis) Hitler also defied the Versailles Treaty by reoccupying the Rhineland. Winston Churchill began to fear what plans he had for the rest of Europe, more immediately with Czechoslovakia and Poland. (PROSE: Players) Czechoslovakia was indeed later invaded by Hitler. Another conference held in Munich tried to settle the crisis peacefully. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attended, but George Limb thought he let Hitler walk all over him, highlighting the Allies' lack of resolve. Chamberlain returned to the United Kingdom where he announced, "I have in my hand a piece of paper..." (PROSE: Illegal Alien) which promised "peace in our time." The Fifth Doctor thought Chamberlain made wrong decisions on this occasion but sympathised with his reasoning. As time would tell, peace was not what Hitler wanted. (PROSE: One Wednesday Afternoon)

Shortly before the outbreak of war, Stalin and Hitler signed a pact of non-aggression between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: An Eye For Murder) Once again, George Limb was present in Russia just before the deal was struck. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)

Poland became Germany's next target. The Nazis viewed Poland as a state created in a draconian treaty in order to punish Germany after the last war. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) The war formally began on 1 September 1939 with the German and Russian invasion of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The Matrix recorded this event as being a part of the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland)

The war
The invasion of Poland lasted one month before the nation was crushed. Brigadeführer Kraus, an officer in the Schutzstaffel earned the reputation during the invasion as the Butcher of Cracow. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)

The immortal Jack Harkness, (TV: Utopia) his namesake, and Ian Gilmore served in the war as RAF pilots; (TV: Captain Jack Harkness, PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) Sergeant Benton's father served in the British Army. (HOMEVID: Wartime); Fey Truscott-Sade served as a British spy and special operative in occupied Europe; (COMIC: Me and My Shadow) and Toshiko Sato's grandparents worked as code-breakers at Bletchley Park, (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts) as did Rachel Jensen, alongside Alan Turing. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) Professor Alec Palmer served in the war as a spy. (TV: Hide) Famous pilot Amy Johnson died flying for the RAF Auxiliary Service in the war. (COMIC: A Wing and a Prayer) The German Hans Engel also joined the war. (COMIC: The Instruments of War) Sam Bishop's great-grandfather fought with the Eighth Army in North Africa during World War II, serving in battlefronts such as El Alamein, Tobruk, and Gazala. Following the war, he would regale the young Sam Bishop with war stories of his time there, inspiring him to eventually join UNIT. (AUDIO: Earthfall)

The Seventh Doctor ensured Hitler would fail to prevent the British evacuation of Dunkirk, making it possible for Britain to remain in the war. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) An earlier incarnation of the Doctor managed to cheer up Winston Churchill who was distraught by the Durkirk defeat. He advised Churchill to be truthful to the British people and tell them the situation looked bleak, but Britain would fight on regardless. He suggested this could be Churchill's "finest hour." After this, the Sixth Doctor claimed that Churchill "went out and won the war." (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure)

Fear of a German invasion of Britain set in after Dunkirk. Soon afterwards, a faction of the British government encountered and made a secret pact with the Shakers. The Shakers conducted a terrorist war on the German troops preparing to occupy mainland Britain, reducing the possibility of invasion. In exchange, the British promised to give the Shakers India as, ironically, Lebensraum, a promise which they had no intention of keeping. Scientists in Britain found a way of adapting Shaker principals of oscillation adjustment, allowing them to seal Shakers inside some select buildings of the BBC. They believed the laughing audience that regularly attended recording sessions were happy German occupiers and began secretly killing them until the First Doctor stopped them in 1955. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)

In 1940 and 1941, Germany conducted bombing raids over Great Britain, the most famous of which was the London Blitz. (TV: The Empty Child, Victory of the Daleks) Children were evacuated to the countryside. (TV: The Curse of Fenric, The Empty Child) Welsh families took care of children from London. (WC: ) The Royal Air Force carried out its own systematic bombings of Germany, which resulted in millions of German civilian deaths, far more than the British had lost in the Blitz. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The bombardment of Germany crippled Reverend Wainwright's faith. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)

In 1939, a force of time travelling Cybermen from the 30th century arrived in Jersey in the Channel Islands and set up operations there, using the Le Mur Engineering factory as a base. The war began shortly afterwards and the Nazis invaded the Channel Islands in 1940, the only British soil that would be occupied by Germany during the war, forcing the Cybermen to retreat northwards to mainland Britain where the Cyber-Leader was hit by a Luftwaffe bomb during the Blitz and went rogue. The Cybermen brought in Wall, the owner of Le Mur (which was French for "Wall"), as a replacement figurehead and they set up in the Peddler Electronic Engineering factory in London. George Limb, by this point having strong connections to London's criminal underground, betrayed his country by aiding the Nazis and the Cybermen so that he could gain the knowledge of time travel and Cyber-technology.

In November 1940, with the aid of Cybermats, the Cybermen began to gather up citizens for conversion but the Seventh Doctor, Patrick Mullen and Cody McBride lit up the Peddler factory one night during a bombing raid, destroying the Peddler factory and the main Cyberman operations. The Doctor then left for Jersey to the Le Mur factory where Limb and Nazis led by Captain Hartmann were attempting to revive the Cybermen left in hibernation from before the Nazi takeover. With Ace a Nazi hostage, the Doctor was forced to revive the Cybermen but he was able to order them to attack the Nazis, resulting in a fierce skirmish at Jersey which ended with the factory's destruction caused by the Doctor, killing Nazi and Cyberman alike, although Limb escaped in the Cyberman time capsule. Nevertheless, the whole incident gained the Cybermen a foothold in London and hundreds of them remained inactive and hidden within the sewers, waiting to be revived to launch an invasion that would come many years after the end of the war. (PROSE: Illegal Alien, TV: The Invasion) The Germans would also continue to occupy the Channel Island until 1945. (PROSE: Just War)

In 1941, Edwin Bracewell approached a desperate Winston Churchill, offering what to all appearances were robotic war machines of a futuristic design that Churchill could use first to fend off Luftwaffe air raids on London and later, in numbers, take the war to Germany. Churchill summoned the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond to view the new weapon. The Doctor realised immediately that the "Ironsides" Bracewell had "created" were actually the Daleks. They were using themselves as bait to get the Doctor to aid in the recreation of the Dalek race. A small number of Spitfire fighters were briefly upgraded with Dalek technology to fight a Dalek flying saucer that was turning on the lights and letting the German bombers see their targets, but all alien tech was subsequently removed by the Doctor to prevent wide-scale tampering with history. The Daleks attempted to destroy Earth with a powerful explosive within Edwin Bracewell, who was actually an android of their construction. The Doctor and Amy defused it. The Daleks escaped and Bracewell presumably lived a normal, human life. (TV:Victory of the Daleks) Later that year, Churchill tried to telephone the Doctor, but instead reached River Song in Stormcage. He told her of a mysterious van Gogh painting he and Bracewell had found. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)

For a short time on both sides, the Cardiff rift linked 1941 and 2008, allowing Jack Harkness and Toshiko Sato of Torchwood Three to meet with the original Captain Jack Harkness and to cause suspicions in the members of the institute about Bilis Manger. On the day following their meeting, the original Jack Harkness would inevitably be killed in a firefight. The present-day Jack did not interfere with his final fate to preserve the timeline. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)

During the war, when it appeared that the United Kingdom would be invaded by Nazi Germany, four citadels were built under the surface of London. They were intended to allow the British government to continue operations if the worst happened. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel)

In 1941, the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler landed in London during the Blitz. While there, they defeated the Empty Child plague and met Jack Harkness. (TV: The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances)

In January 1941, Nazis in France forced Pierre Vedrun to build them a machine to travel to England. His daughter, Monique Vedrun used it to escape, but actually also travelled through time to the 1970s. There, the Third Doctor met the Nazis and her, secretly following them back to 1942. He attempted to stop the Nazis from becoming knowledgeable time travellers, tricking them into going through it again, but this time to a British jail in 1942. (COMIC: Timebenders)

In June 1941, a small group of Germans, assisted by Miss Wyckham, entered the south coast of England. They used a piece of Chronosteel found in the Rhineland to block early warning systems, which they hoped would allow the Germans to invade Great Britain in full force. Clyde Langer and George Woods stopped them, with Clyde returning the Chronosteel to its rightful place with the Shopkeeper and Captain in 2010. (TV: Lost in Time)

In 1941, the British and Australian forces fought against the Germans in the North African campaign with Matilda tanks. The tanks were so good that some were captured so that they Germans themselves could use them. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)

In December 1941, both the Allies and Axis were ordered to strike the Sontaran world engine weapon the Warsong from both sides in order to buy time for the Twelfth Doctor and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to break through the defences of the Warsong. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)

Britain invented the computer during the war. However, this would not become public knowledge, and computers would not become household items until many decades after the war had ended. (PROSE: Silhouette)

In 1943, Fenric was working with his Haemovores at Maiden's Point. Russia and Britain, while nominally allies, were plotting against each other in preparation for post-war conflicts. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)

In June 1944, the allied troops staged the Normandy landings to invade mainland Europe. (PROSE: The Taint) The Twelfth Doctor and Clara visited the liberated Paris, where they thwarted a plan by the Darapok Empire to brainwash humanity into destroying itself by destroying their transmitter on the Eiffel Tower, and then frightening them off. (COMIC: Trust)

During October of that year, the Seventh Doctor and Ace arrived at Colditz. (AUDIO: Colditz)

Also in 1944, with the failure of the Blitz to break Britain three years earlier, the Germans launched V1 and V2 attacks against London. The city survived that too and was not attacked again on such a scale until the 22nd century Dalek invasion. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)

In 1945, an amnesiac Eighth Doctor, Alan Turing and Graham Greene were involved in an unexplained alien conflict and survived the annihilation of Dresden by British and American bombers. (PROSE: The Turing Test) Ian Gilmore witnessed Dresden's destruction during a flight and tried to put it out his mind after. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

The Eleventh Doctor was in a German prisoner of war camp and tried to escape. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)

The Allies' victory over Germany in World War II was marked by VE Day on 8 May 1945. A major celebration took place in Trafalgar Square in London. (PROSE: Magic of the Angels) The Seventh Doctor and his companions Ace and Hex were present in London for the celebrations. Prior to this visit, Hex had never heard of VE Day. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)

The Japanese surrendered after atomic bombs were dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war. A third bomb was planned to be dropped on Kyoto, but the aircraft carrying the bomb, the Sky Jack, fell into a black hole. (COMIC: Sky Jacks)

Aftermath
After the war, heightened tensions between capitalist Western nations, particularly the US and the UK, and communists nations, most notably the USSR, created an uneasy period known as the Cold War. Britain's four citadels set up in case of a Nazi invasion were maintained due to the threat posed by the Soviet Union. (PROSE: First Frontier, Endgame; TV: Dreamland, Cold War; AUDIO: Threshold, Protect and Survive, The Fifth Citadel)

Despite Hitler's suicide and the collapse of the Nazi regime, Nazism survived as an ideology and neo-Nazis still sought to make Hitler's vision of Earth a reality. (TV: Silver Nemesis, PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass, Down, Illegal Alien)

During the war, a large number of alien spacecraft was shot down, causing a black market of alien artefacts. Norton Folgate and his colleagues at the Torchwood Institute had to deal with this, and still were in 1953. (AUDIO: Ghost Mission)

By 1966, certain parts of London were still in the process of being rebuilt. (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond) One of them was Bermondsey. (AUDIO: Threshold)

The next World War was World War III which was fought at some point prior to the 25th century, as was World War IV. (AUDIO: Frostfire)

Alternative timelines
While on a fishing trip to an island to the Pacific Ocean on 25 July 1963, the Fifth Doctor discovered that the TARDIS had materialised in an alternative timeline in which World War II had never ended. After being held at gunpoint by an American fighter pilot native to this timeline named Angus "Gus" Goodman, the Doctor offered him the chance to get off the island, which was Japanese territory. Goodman accepted the Doctor's offer and became a short-lived companion. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon, COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) However, he was killed by the Moderator, a hitman in the employ of Josiah W. Dogbolter, before he could be returned in the United States in his timeline. (COMIC: The Moderator)

In another alternative timeline accidentally created by the Seventh Doctor and Ace's arrival in Colditz Castle in October 1944, Nazi scientists used the laser technology contained in Ace's Walkman to refine uranium and create nuclear weapons. They subsequently bombed New York City and Moscow, forcing the surrender of the United States and the Soviet Union and winning Germany the war. This timeline was negated by an alternative version of the Eighth Doctor who, while posing as a German scientist named Johann Schmidt, fabricated a "flight log" for the TARDIS and manipulated Elizabeth Klein into travelling back in time to Colditz in October 1944 on the pretext of retrieving the Doctor so that he could teach her to pilot the TARDIS. Her lover Major Jonas Faber saw through Schmidt's trickery but was too late as Klein had already decided to disobey his orders and make the trip into the past. Unfortunately for Klein, her arrival in Colditz alerted the Seventh Doctor to the impending alteration of history and he and Ace were able to prevent it. (AUDIO: Colditz, AUDIO: Klein's Story)

In an alternative timeline in which Hitler did not lose the power of the Timewyrm, Germany had conquered the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe by 1941. After visiting the occupied London in May 1951 in this timeline, the Seventh Doctor and Ace prevented this from coming to pass. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)

Parallel universe
In a parallel universe visited by the Third Doctor, the Republic of Great Britain and White Russia were able to crush Nazi Germany by intimidating Adolf Hitler into backing down from his sabre-rattling. Consequently, World War II never took place. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)

Behind the scenes
According to the non-narrative book Doctor Who The Official Annual 2011, in an alternative timeline in which the Doctor did not find the Ironsides, they turned the tide of the war and took the fight to Germany. After the war was won, Churchill was pressured by Stalin and Truman into having the Ironsides destroyed by a nuclear bomb.