When Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Winston Churchill immediately proposed an alliance to Joseph Stalin – despite fundamental differences in their politics – which in the end, after they were joined by Franklin D Roosevelt’s administration in the US, defeated Nazi Germany.
Britain’s military victory over the forces of Nazi Germany at El-Alamein in north Africa in November 1942 was complemented by the crushing of Hitler’s army at Stalingrad on the River Volga in February 1943. These defeats held Nazi Germany in check. Japan’s surrender to the US in September 1945 after the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki then brought World War 2 to an end.