Axis Powers

The Axis powers (German: Achsenmächte, Italian: Potenze dell'Asse, Japanese: 枢軸国 Sūjikukoku), also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was the alignment of nations that fought in the Second World War against the Allied forces. The Axis grew out of the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anti-communist treaty signed by Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan in 1936. The Kingdom of Italy joined in 1937. The "Rome–Berlin Axis" became a military alliance in 1939 under the Pact of Steel, with the Tripartite Pact of 1940 leading to the integration of the military aims of Germany and its two treaty-bound allies. At their zenith during World War II, the Axis powers presided over empires that occupied large parts of Europe, Africa, East and Southeast Asia, and islands of the Pacific Ocean. The war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers and the dissolution of the alliance. Like the Allies, membership of the Axis was fluid, with nations fighting and not fighting over the course of the war.

The Axis made various justifications for their war against the Western and Eastern Allies. Adolf Hitler in 1941 described the outbreak of World War II as the fault of the intervention of Western powers against Germany during its war with Poland, describing it as the result of "the European and American warmongers". In particular, Hitler focused his blame on British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, claiming that Churchill had wanted a war with Germany. Benito Mussolini described Italy's intervention in the war against the Western Allies as the following: "We are going to war against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West who have invariably hindered the progress and often threatened the very existence of the Italian people...".