It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to measure the full extent of Hitler's devastation of Europe. There are concrete measurements, such as the decimation of Poland's Jewish population, which has only recently seen a resurgence. There are also more abstract and less easily discernible measurements, such as the psychic impact on the continent and particularly on Germany. The nation which elevated Hitler to power is once again the most powerful in Europe and has taken the responsibility of atoning for its past support of a maniac by keeping concentration camps, such as Dachau, open as museums, banning the swastika from public display, and implementing rigorous education on the history of the Holocaust.

After the war, many people were displaced from their homelands, particularly as a result of the division of Germany. Some families lost the small fortunes they had worked to build and hundreds of pieces of precious works of art, some of which were seized from museums and others from families, went missing due to the pillages by SS officers.

The fall of the Third Reich also signaled the beginning of a new international order which united Western powers in the effort to buffer democracy against perceived tyranny. This new order united against Communism and led to the creation of the United Nations, an organization designed to foster international cooperation.