Transcript World War II - Cobb Learning

World War II
Georgia Studies
Start of the War
 World
War II resulted from two regional
conflicts between Europe and East Asia.
 During the 1930’s, Germany and Japan
wanted to expand their borders, but in
order to expand, they had to conquer other
countries.
 With each country they invaded and
occupied, the area of conflict expanded.
Each
country either defended their
own borders, or acted in defense of an
ally.
Eventually, the two sides of the war
were the Allied Powers (Britain,
France the Soviet Union and the
United States) and the Axis Powers
(Germany, Italy, and Japan.)
World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945.
Germany’s Third Reich
 Adolf
Hitler created the National
Socialist German Workers’ Party
(the Nazi Party) and brought it to
power in 1933.
 In 1936, Germany formed
alliances with Japan and Italy
(each country wanted more
resources.)
 In
1938, Germany took over Austria to
create what Hitler called “Greater
Germany.”
 Next, Germany took over Czechoslovakia.
 Hitler then wanted Poland to become the
next part of the German empire (the Third
Reich.)
 At this point, Great Britain and France
declared they would defend Poland’s
independence.
 France
nor Great Britain could move their
troops fast enough to Poland in order to stop
Germany's invasion.
 The British informed Germany that if it didn’t
stop it’s attack on Poland, that it would declare
war.
 Germany disregarded Great Britain’s warning,
and the British declared war.
 In less than a year, Germany had conquered
almost all of Europe.
 Denmark,
Norway, the Netherlands,
Belgium, and France were all defeated.
 The German armies overrunning country
after country was known as a blitzkrieg, a
German word meaning “lightning war.”
 The Germans used fast-moving tanks and
other motorized equipment that made it
easy for them to complete their blitzkrieg
attack on the European continent.
The Holocaust
 At
first, Hitler began to discriminate
against German Jews, and Jewish
businesses were boycotted and Jews
were fired. Jewish children were
forbidden to go to schools.
 The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s
systematic killing of Jews, Gypsies,
communists, intellectuals, and
political dissenters.
Kristallnacht
 Known
as “Night of Broken Glass.”
 On the evening of November 9, 1938, antiJewish rioters began looting, burning, and
destroying Jewish synagogues, businesses and
homes.
 Nazi police arrested more than 30,000 Jewish
men and sent them to concentration camps
(Nazi prison camps.)
 Hitler’s ultimate goal was to eliminate all Jewish
and minority groups in Germany.
 At
the same time of the tragedies in Europe,
Jewish communities in the U.S faced
discrimination in their own homes.
 The U.S. was not engaged in the war, but local
communities organized support efforts,
 Atlanta’s Jewish social service agencies raised
money to combat discrimination abroad. (Which
was successful)
 The Holocaust ended in 1945, when the allied
powers won the war and freed the people held
captive in the concentration camps.
Japan Builds an Empire in the
East
Japan invaded China in 1937, for the
second time during the decade.
 Japan’s plan was to capture as much of
China as it could, and control Southeast
Asia’s resources.
 When Germany defeated France, Japan
was successful in gaining control of the
French colonies in SE Asia.
 The U.S. opposed Japan’s aggression. (It
threatened to cut off Japan’s oil supplies.)

U.S. Involvement
The U.S. followed a policy of isolationism
in which it kept itself politically and
militarily apart from the rest of the world.
(*Great Depression*)
 President Franklin D. Roosevelt was
concerned with the effect with the fighting
in Asia and Europe could have on the U.S.
if it continued to grow.
 In 1940, he announced that the U.S. would
sell weapons to its allies- Great Britain and
France.

 As
the war grew, the U.S.’s European allies
found it hard to pay for the weapons they
needed. In 1941, Congress passed the LendLease Act, which gave Roosevelt the right to
send weapons to allies who were fighting a
common enemy, but couldn’t pay.
 Diplomacy
between the U.S. and Japan
was failing,
and Japan attacked the
U.S. Pearl Harbor naval base
in Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.
 The
attack on Pearl Harbor led to the U.S
entrance into WW II.
 The U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on
two Japanese cities in August 1945.
 The Soviets declared war against Japan
during the same month.
 These events motivated Japan to the end
of the war, and Japan surrendered and the
Allies won the war.
Georgia During the War
 Before
World War II, GA was mostly a
rural state. Most people worked on
farms and were having a hard time
recovering from the Great
Depression.
 GA played a significant role in the in
the war effort, and three men in
particular helped shape GA’s
experience during the war……. (see
next slides.)
Carl Vinson
Was
a congressman who helped to
build the U.S. navy in the years
leading up to WW II. From 1934 until
1941, Vinson wrote many bills that
expanded the U.S. Navy. This
expansion enabled the U.S. to-
-Ship supplies to Allies during the Lend-Lease Act
-Overcome the attack of Pearl Harbor
-Send troops to battle
Richard B. Russell, Jr.
 Senator
who served on the Senate
Naval Affairs Committee. He worked
to bring wartime opportunities to GA.
He also helped to bring over a dozen
military bases to GA, including the
largest infantry in the United States.
 Senator Russell traveled to both the
Pacific region and Europe during the
war, and became an expert in
military strategy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
 By
the beginning of WW II, Roosevelt had a
close relationship with Georgia. The Bell Aircraft
plant in Marietta was built in honor of his close
relationship with the state. The plant produced
military planes and created jobs for over 28,000
Georgians. Once the war ended, plant
employees used their skills to find other jobs
instead of farming.
 Roosevelt died in Warm Springs while he
was still president in 1945.