(the) World War II

[milan2003_07]

Dear guests,

The sentence #1 is as follows:

1) Saint Petersburg was never occupied by Germans during the Second World War.

Here we need "the".

2) Saint Petersburg was never occupied by Germans during the World War II.

Do we need "the" in this case?

Thanks

 

[Raymott]

I'd use "the Germans" meaning the armed forces. There may have been Germans in Saint Petersburg.

 

[Skrej]

I'm going to respectfully partially disagree with Raymott.

While I do agree 'the Germans' does work well, what with the context of WW II and the verb 'occupied', I don't think there's any danger of anyone mistaking it as a reference to German civilians, or anything other than a martial nature.

I think that either 'by Germans' or 'by the Germans' work equally well here.