World War I was called the "War to end all wars", were their similar sentiments post-WWII and if not was the reason for heightened fear of impending wars?

by Dinocrocodile
MoLoLu

Yes, no, and kinda. WW2 flowed more or less seamlessly into the Cold War and very quickly the advent of the atomic stalemate. Of course no one wanted that war once it became clear just how bad a nuclear exchange could be. On the other hand threat of war with the Eastern Bloc (or NATO if you were on the other side) was a very real danger and thus had to be prepared for.

In some countries, a "war to end all wars" sentiment did eventually develop (notably BRD - West Germany due to collective guilt) but any "hell no" sentiment was overshadowed by the bigger "oh hell no" of the atom bomb. The big difference between WW1 and WW2 was that in the former most fighting was "equally" barbaric. WW2 gave us Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany which were by most objective measure a slant crueler than the allies. Thus it was seen by many as a juster war, though again it fed directly into the Cold War and all its ills so there really wasn't a chance to dwell on what everyone might have done wrong. As bad as the holocaust and Japanese oppression had been, someone had to stand against what the West viewed as the communist threat and the east saw as capitalist imperialism. That - and the massive armies both sides commanded post 1945 - was a lot more worrying than the fallout of WW2, which was largely viewed as wrapped up.

Within a matter of years we got the first Soviet a-bomb, the Berlin Airlift, Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. Those were much more acute threats than the relatively prosperous 20s which followed the end of WW1. So there was no room to think WW2 had ended all wars, as another likely conflict already loomed on the horizon of public conscience. I don't quite know how this was percieved in the East, but in the West the situation was urgent enough that most states focused on impending war, and any reprisal (against Nazis or otherwise) quickly became a matter of vigilante justice after the Nurnberg trials wrapped up. Also, much of Europe was forced to deal with its now unstable colonies while rebuilding back home.

Unlike WW1, WW2 fundamentally shifted the geopolitical map of the world. No one really packed up and went home after Germany and Japan surrendered. Rather, they scrambled to untangle all the chaos caused by the war, occupation, and genocide, while at the same time rushing to hold the line between NATO and Warsaw Pact. Whereas none of that had happened post-WW1. The world of 1919 was not terribly different than in 1913 in terms of how the map was drawn. Whereas 1939 to 1945 saw huge shifts in power and military might, with no chance of returning to even an illusion of the status quo.