By the end of 1945 the Second World War was over.

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2024). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [1] It was how the Americans won control across the Pacific.
2. [1] It was a military strategy.
3. [1] It involved bypassing Japanese strongholds.
4. [1] It involved seizing lightly defended islands.
5. [1] It allowed the US to make raids on Japanese positions.
6. [1] It allowed them to move across the central Pacific quickly.
7. [1] US forces moved from island to island, using each as a base for capturing the next.
8. [1] Island hopping started at the Battle of Tarawa.
9. [6] (Level 4) They did this because they wanted to denazify Germany. They wanted to show what terrible things the Nazis had done so that they would be discredited in the eyes of the German people. They wanted to get rid of any support for the Nazis in Germany and make sure that Nazis did not get important jobs in Germany in the future.
10. [5] (Level 3) The Allies considered war crimes trials crucial for denazifying Germany by exposing and discrediting the Nazis' atrocities, thereby eradicating support for Nazism and preventing former Nazis from holding influential positions in post-war Germany.
11. [1] (Level 2) This was because the war crimes of the Nazis had been so terrible.
12. [1] (Level 2) To deter future aggression and war crimes.
13. [1] (Level 2) To educate the German people of the true extent of the atrocities.
14. [1] (Level 2) To discredit Nazism and denazify Germany.
15. [1] (Level 1) They thought this was an important thing to do. Nazis like Goering went on trial. After this there were several other trials in Germany. There were also similar trials in Japan.
16. [10] (Level 5) The reason Germany collapsed in 1945 was because it was being attacked from the east and the west. The linking of the Russians and the Americans on the River Elbe in April made German defeat inevitable. Both the Russians and the Western Allies had marched to Berlin as quickly as possible to take as much territory as possible. This double attack on Germany made it inevitable it would collapse.
17. [6] (Level 3) The Russian advance from the east was crucial. The fighting on the Eastern Front was far bigger than on the Western Front. More troops were involved and more died. In fact, it was the main front in the war. Without it, the Allies would have needed double the number of troops on the Western Front. The Russians moved as quickly as possible because Stalin wanted to take as much territory as possible for negotiations after the war. He certainly wanted to take Berlin before the Western Allies. In April an enormous number of Russian soldiers and amounts of armaments attacked central Germany. By the end of the month, they had broken through German lines and encircled Berlin. The Soviet forces fought their way into the centre of Berlin and in May, Berlin was surrendered to the Russians. Faced with this massive onslaught, Germany was bound to collapse.
18. [6] (Level 3) The Allied advance from the west was most important. The D-Day landings gave them a foothold and from there they advanced towards Germany. The Allies outnumbered the German troops and made rapid progress through France. By September 1944, they had reached the German border. Germany's last chance was its counter-offensive in the Ardennes. When this failed, the Allies crossed the Rhine and were capturing vast numbers of German soldiers.
19. [1] (Level 2) By 1945, Germany was being attacked on two fronts at once.
20. [1] (Level 2) By 1945, Germany was exhausted and did not have the resources to defend itself.
21. [1] (Level 2) Allied bombing had done terrible damage to German industry and people.
22. [1] (Level 2) The Russians had enormous numbers of men and resources to throw at Germany.
23. [1] (Level 2) After D-Day, the Allies advanced quickly through France to the German border.
24. [1] (Level 1) The Russian advance from the east was very important but there were several other reasons why Germany collapsed in 1945. By this time Germany was very weak and in a terrible state.