Transcript World War II - Binghamton City School District

World War II
The Impact of Total War
Economic Damage: Western Europe
Dresden After Allied Bombing
• Impact of Strategic
Bombing
• 75% of Berlin
Uninhabitable
• 20 million homeless in
Germany
• Dutch lose 219,000
hectares of land
• French lose 40% of prewar transportation
systems
• Norway lost 14% prewar capital
The Human Cost
36½ million Europeans die!
Deadliest and Most Destructive
Conflict in Human History
Military Deaths
COUNTRY MILITARY
DEATHS
USSR
8.6 million
D-Day Invasion
Germany
4 million
Italy
400,000
Rumania
300,000
COUNTRY
Civilian
Deaths
USSR
Poland
Yugoslavia
Greece
France
Hungary
Netherlands
Rumania
ALL EUROPE
CIVILIAN
DEATHS
16 million
5 million
1.4 million
430,000
350,000
270,000
204,000
200,000
19 million
Eastern Europe
• Soviet troops physically
occupied E. Europe at
end of WWII.
• USSR viewed E. Europe
as essential to its
security… It wanted a
sphere of influence.
Yalta
(February, 1945)
• U.S. & GB formally
accept Soviet domination
of Eastern Europe
• Left out issue of Germany
b/c it was so divisive
• Did FDR sell out?
The “Big Three” at Yalta
Potsdam
July 17-August 2, 1945
• Agreement to prosecute Axis
war criminals (Nuremberg
Trials)
• Temporary division of
Germany into 4 zones
Atlee
(GB)
Truman
• German question to be decided at
final peace conference, which
never occurs.
Stalin
(USA) (USSR)
Divided by Default
• US came to favor a unified
Germany w/ reconstructed
economy.
Divided
Berlin
• USSR still saw a restored
Germany as a major threat.
• Britain, France, USA
merged zones to form West
Germany (May, 1949).
• USSR established East
Germany as a satellite state
(Oct. 1949).
East Germany
West Germany
The Nuremburg Trials
(1946)
• First known war
crimes trial.
• No clear legal
precedent.
• Most suspects claimed the court had no
jurisdiction… Claimed it was “victor’s justice”
• In all, about 1800 Germans tried after WWII
• Similar trials were held in Japan & Italy
The United
Nations
Truman Addresses the UN
Conference (1945)
• UN founded Oct. 1945
• Security Council
– Five permanent members w/ vetoes:
United States, Great Britain, France, USSR & China