World War II Timeline: June 27, 1948-January 10, 1950

With events like the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), World War II continued to have a global effect in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The timeline and headlines below describe the war's aftermath in 1948-1950.

World War II Timeline: June 1948-January 1950

June 27, 1948: The United States, Britain, and France respond to the Soviet blockade of Berlin by effecting an airlift of supplies to the two million people in the city's western sector.

December 9, 1948: The United Nations General Assembly enacts the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

January 25, 1949: The trial of Axis Sally, who was a Nazi propagandist to American troops in Europe, begins in Washington, D.C.

April 4, 1949: The United States, Canada, and several Western European nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty, establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

May 1949: Realizing that their blockade of western Berlin has strengthened the resolve of the other Allies and led directly to the formation of NATO, the Soviets decide to lift it.

July 20, 1949: Israel signs the third of three armistice agreements, with Syria, to end the 1948 war. Agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, and Transjordan were signed earlier in the year.

August 29, 1949: The Soviet Union detonates an atomic bomb at its Kazakhstan test site.

October 1, 1949: In a resounding victory for China's Communist Party, Mao Zedong proclaims the People's Republic of China.

January 1950: The USSR and China recognize the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

January 10, 1950: The Soviet delegate walks off the Security Council in disgust after the UN retains Nationalist China as the holder of China's Council seat.

World War II Headlines

Postwar news in 1948-1950 included the trials of prominent Nazi leaders for war crimes. The headlines below summarize these events.

22 Nazi leaders tried for war crimes in Nuremberg: A total of 13 war crime trials against more than 200 persons were held in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949. The trial that received the most attention was the first, which involved 22 prominent Nazi leaders -- all of whom were tried on one or more of four war-crime counts. Throughout the trial, Hermann Göring was a leader of the defendants, often dictating their responses to prosecution witnesses. Göring used his skills in manipulation to try to outwit the American prosecutor.

Julius Streicher, editor of Der Stürmer, among those hanged: Julius Streicher was the editor of Der Stürmer, the most popular anti-Semitic publication in Germany before and during the war. The June 1939 edition was a typical issue, depicting on the front page a "Jewish devil-snake" attacking a topless Aryan maiden. Streicher was one of the 22 defendants in the first Nuremberg trial -- and among the 12 sentenced to death. He was the most defiant of those hanged, exclaiming "Heil Hitler" moments before his death on October 16, 1946.

The Nuremberg Trials
From November 1945 to October 1946, the Allies imposed their judicial retribution upon those leading Nazis who had plunged the world into war in 1939--those who had inflicted unprecedented devastation, untold misery, and death on an industrial scale upon so many nations. Twenty-two prominent Nazis were tried for crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It was considered poetic justice that the International Military Tribunal convened at Nuremberg -- the city that had hosted spectacular party rallies during the Nazis' consolidation of power in the 1930s.

Judges and prosecutors were represented equally by the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. The accused Nazi leaders, military commanders, ministers, and other key figures are listed below, with sentence.

  • Martin Bormann (in absentia), deputy Führer (death)
  • Karl Dönitz, navy supreme commander (10 years)
  • Hans Frank, governor-general of Poland (death)
  • Wilhelm Frick, interior minister (death)
  • Hans Fritzsche, head of radio for the propaganda ministry (acquitted)
  • Walther Funk, president of the Reichsbank (life)
  • Hermann Göring, Reichsmarschall and head of the Luftwaffe (death)
  • Rudolf Hess, deputy Führer (life)
  • Alfred Jodl, chief of the Wehrmacht operations staff (death)
  • Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the security police (death)
  • Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Wehrmacht high command (death)
  • Constantin von Neurath, foreign minister and protector of Bohemia and Moravia (15 years)
  • Franz von Papen, chancellor of Germany (acquitted)
  • Erich Raeder, navy supreme commander (life)
  • Joachim von Ribbentrop, foreign minister (death)
  • Alfred Rosenberg, minister for occupied Soviet territory (death)
  • Fritz Sauckel, labor plenipotentiary (death)
  • Baldur von Schirach, Hitler Youth leader (20 years)
  • Hjalmar Schacht, economics minister (acquitted)
  • Arthur Seyss-Inquart, interior minister and governor of Austria, then commissioner for the Netherlands (death)
  • Albert Speer, armaments minister (20 years)
  • Julius Streicher, anti-Semitic publisher (death)

The tribunal also cited the Nazi leadership, the SS, the SD, and the Gestapo as criminal organizations. Robert Ley, head of the German labor front, was also indicted, but he committed suicide in prison before being brought to trial. The most prominent of those condemned cheated the hangman, as Göring committed suicide in his cell on October 15, 1946.


Next, read about more post-World War II happenings, from the start of another war -- this time in Korea -- to the division of postwar Germany.

For more timelines and information on World War II events, see: