World War Two is one of the major events of the Twentieth Century. The official date for the start of this war is September 1, 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. But many events occurred before that date that could be considered part of World War II. Some of these events are discussed below.
In the chart for the start of World War Two, when Germany invaded Poland, we see the typical Saturn square Pluto. Saturn is opposite the North Node of the Moon, and thus conjunct the South Node, suggesting that this conflict will involve the whole world. Uranus is closely trine Neptune, and this is the aspect that will color the whole period of the war, as we will see below. It is shown most clearly in the graphical ephemeris discussed at the end.
The war involved countries on both sides of the world, namely Germany and Japan. Germany had only been its own country a little more than 60 years, and Japan had begun to adopt Western methods about the same time. Germany had already been involved in the First World War (as had been Japan), and Japan had been involved in a war with Russia at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Both wanted to expand their power.
Germany had been a democracy since the end of World War One, but at the beginning of 1933 a soldier from World War I became Chancellor of Germany, and after that things began to change. In the chart of his assumption of power we see Uranus square Pluto. This can indicate revolutionary activity, as was the case in the Depression-era US, but Hitler’s rise to power was also revolutionary in its own way.
The Japanese were also on the move long before the Second World War officially started. They had learned from the Chinese that you do not want to be ruled by Western powers, and so they weren’t, but they had desires on that mainland continent. In 1931 they invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria and took control. Here is the chart for that invasion. Neptune is semisquare Pluto, the same aspect as we saw in the Depression and indeed this invasion was taking place at the same time as the Great Depression and much of the world was focussed on other things. At the same time Saturn was square Uranus — this often indicates a conflict between the forces of conservatism and more radical ideas, but of course that can play out on many levels.
The Japanese did not treat the Chinese well, and one of the most notorious incidents was called the Rape of Nanking. In this incident, which started on December 13, 1937 and extended into the next year, the Nazis were the good guys. At one time during this incident the German embassy in Nanking served as a refuge to the Chinese that were being persecuted by the Japanese. A good study of this is The Rape of Nanking by Iris Murdock. In the chart for the start of this event the first thing we notice is that Saturn is at the Aries point, and it will get closer over the next few weeks. Planets at the Aries point have world wide implications. The rest of the world was fairly Saturnian at this time and in China things were about to become even more so. Pluto is opposite Jupiter, and both aspect that Saturn on the Aries point. Jupiter-Pluto can be seen as a whole lot of Pluto, and in this case Pluto indicated dark forces that suddenly came into play. Pluto had been discovered a few years ago, and is said to rule, among other things, the dark conditions around the world in the Thirties.
In Europe, Hitler was not the only fascist — defined originally in an Italian encyclopedia as corporatism — to take power. In Italy there was Benito Mussolini, and in Spain the was Francisco Franco, who managed to rule Spain until his death in 975, although he had relinquished some power in the years up to his death. But Franco was involved in a lead up to the Second Word War called the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 to 1939. The Spanish Civil War is seen as a “test-run” for the official war to come, and many “premature antifascists” from Western countries went to Spain to fight against the fascists whom the rest of the world either ignored or thought would defeat the Communists. At one time Harry Truman, who would eventually become President of the United States, declared that if the Fascist were wining we should support the Communists, and if the Communists were winning we should support the Fascists. Such an attitude did not endear him to Stalin. A recent book about the Spanish Civil War and the well-known people who were there, such as Ernest Hemingway, is Hell and Good Company by Richard Rhodes. A group of people from America under the name “Abraham Lincoln Brigade” fought in the war, since they realized that a victory for Franco (backed by Hitler and Mussolini) would bode badly for the future of the world, and they were correct.
In the chart for the start of this civil war, we see that again Pluto raises its ugly head, with Sun conjunct Pluto on that day. Pluto is also widely trine Saturn, another example of the problems with Saturn/Pluto, and Mars is approaching a conjunction with Pluto which would only get tighter. The well-known painting by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, Guernica, depicts the horror seen during this war. In this massacre, the German air force bombed a town in the Basque region of Spain, killing and terrifying many defenseless civilians.
The chart for the end of the Spanish Civil War looks completely different. The only aspect lasting more that a few hours is the Jupiter opposite Neptune. For these two planets Ebertin says “apparent happiness”. There was a happiness because the war had ended, but as we know with hindsight, the big War was about to start, rendering any happiness as only temporary.
In this graphical ephemeris overview of the years of the Second World War, we see the prominent aspect is the Uranus-Neptune trine. Since this a third harmonic graphical ephemeris, this aspect looks like a conjunction, with the lines moving in and out of orb. It slowly came into orb in the middle of the decade of the Thirties, and was first exact in the summer of 1939. It continued to be exact through 1944 and then started to widen in 1945, just as the war was drawing to a close.
This graphical ephemeris represents the ten year period from about October 1935 to the end of September 1945. Some important events are marked on the graph: the black arrow just to the left of the center line is the official start of the war with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. You can see that the trine first became exact just before that time, which is hidden by the white arrow. The Rape of Nanking is indicated by the green arrow. The Spanish Civil War extends from the blue arrow to the white arrow. The German forces invaded Rhineland at the yellow arrow and invaded the Sudetenland at the azure arrow. The Pearl Harbor attack, which was followed closely by the American decision to enter the war, is shown by the brown arrow. The Battle of Midway, which was a decisive moment in the Pacific War, is indicated by the dark blue arrow. The D-Day Battle, June 6, 1944, is shown by the dark green arrow, and was discussed previously. Finally, the surrender of Germany is indicated by the red arrow to the far right of the graph. The bombing of Japan at Hiroshima will be discussed at a later point.
In the chart for Victory in Europe — VE – Day, when Germany surrendered, we see Sun trine Jupiter. Great luck, as can be seen by photo of the crowds in America reacting to the news. In the same chart, but as transits to the US chart, Saturn is conjunct the US Sun and sesquiquadrate the US Moon. What should have been a happy event seems to be tinged with a Saturninan sadness, and in fact President Roosevelt, who had been in that position for over ten years, had died less than a month previously.
