Transcript World War II: Causes, Characteristics

WORLD WAR II: CAUSES,
CHARACTERISTICS
Mr. Peña AP World History
“Nature is cruel, so we may be cruel,
too… I have the right to remove
millions of an inferior race that
breeds like vermin”
-Hitler
Adolf Hitler
CAUSES OF WWII
 Political instability & economic devastation
 Depression
 High war debt owed by Germany
 High inflation
 Massive unemployment
 Rise of Fascism
 Fascism = militarist, dictatorial
 Germany – Adolf Hitler
 Italy – Benito Mussolini
 Japan – Hideki Tojo
*Became the Axis Powers (Rome-Berlin-Tokyo
Axis)
Rise of Hitler
 Nazi Party organized, 1920s
 Nazi party largest in Germany, 1932
 Hitler voted as chancellor, 1933
 New parliament created
 450, 000 members
 Larger than German army
Benito Mussolini in Italy
 Fascist leader who took
control of Italy in 1922
 Wanted to create another
Roman Empire
 Invaded Ethiopia in 1935
Japanese Expansion
 Sought total control of
Pacific (resources)
 1931- military
occupation of
Manchuria
 1936- Japan signs
Pact with Germany,
Italy
 Nanking MassacreDecember 1937
Immediate Causes of WW II
 In Germany Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 as a
fascist dictator.
 Hitler Hated the Treaty of Versailles and violated it.
First he built up the German military. Then he sent
troops into the Rhineland. This was a direct violation
of the Treaty of Versailles, which said in 1919 that
Rhineland was a demilitarized zone.
Immediate Causes of WW II
 Hitler wanted to conquer whoever he felt was inferior
to the Germans or Aryans. He wanted “living space”
for the Germans in Eastern Europe.
 On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland
without a declaration of war. This starts World War
II.
Immediate Causes of WW II
 Britain and France declared war on Germany on
September 3, 1939.
 Italy declared war on France and Britain on June 10,
1940.
“Blitzkrieg”
 In German blitzkrieg means “lightning war”.
 Hitler used blitzkrieg during his invasion of Poland.
 Blitzkrieg included surprise attacks, rapid advances
into enemy territory, and massive air attacks that
struck and shocked the enemy.
 Germany achieved most of its victories in World War
II with the Blitzkrieg tactic.
Blitzkrieg
“Phony War”
 Britain sent troops to wait with the French down
behind the Maginot Line.
 Reporters called this quiet time of not much action the
“phony war”
Maginot Line
 The Maginot Line was a defense for France against an
invasion of Germany.
 The Maginot Line was established after World War I.
 The line showed to be little use in 1940 when Germany
invaded France for the third time.
Maginot Line
“Blitzkrieg: German soldiers being parachuted into Holland - May 10, 1940”
Early Axis Triumphs
 In April 1940 the quiet time of the war exploded into
action.
 Hitler launched a series of blitzkriegs.
 Norway and and Denmark both fell.
 Germany had overrun the Netherlands and Belgium.
 Germany along with Italy forced France to surrender.
World War II in 1939/1942
Fall of France
Hitler’s Major Blunder
 The Germans invaded France in May 1940.
 Retreating Allied forces made it to Dunkirk and found
themselves trapped between the advancing Nazis and
the English Channel. The British sent every boat they
could get across the English Channel to pick up troops
off the beaches of Dunkirk.
Miracle at Dunkirk
 The event at Dunkirk is called a miracle because the
retreating allies had lost hope and then the British
pulled through for them and rescued 338,000 men.
France Surrenders (June 22, 1940)
 On June 22, 1940 France signs an armistice with
Germany in occupied France.
 An armistice is a cease fire or a truce.
 The Franco-German Armistice divided France into two
zones. One zone was under German military occupation
and the other was under French control.
 In 1942 Germans occupied all of France
June 22, 1940
Battle of Britain
 The Germans developed two plans to take Britain
 Operation Sea Lion, an amphibious landing on the British coast
 A great air offensive to gain air superiority and destroy the British
industrial base
 “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the
British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still
say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” (Winston Churchill)
WAR IN THE PACIFIC
 Japanese aggression in the East (China)
 December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor
 U.S. attacked without warning
 U.S. declared war on Japan
 Germany declared war on the United States
Pearl Harbor
is attacked on Dec. 7, 1941
U. S. Involved In War
World War II in the Pacific
Japan mounted combined
operations in 1941 in East
Asia, Southeast Asia, and
across the Pacific, opening a
war front from the borders of
India to Hawaii. This supremely
aggressive move was meant to
secure the resources and
markets needed to sustain the
“Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere.” It proved
impossible to defend: Chinese
resistance, a daring US islandhopping campaign in the
Pacific—culminating in the
explosion of atomic bombs
over Hiroshima and
Nagasaki—and Soviet assaults
on Manchuria defeated Japan
completely.
The Eastern Front (in Europe)
 Hitler had strategic and ideological reasons for
invading Russia
 Strategically he knew that the Soviet Union and the
US were critical to Britain’s willingness to keep
fighting
 He also felt he needed the agricultural and raw
material resources of Eastern Russia
 Ideologically he viewed the Soviet Union as an
amalgamation of his greatest enemies, the Jews and
the Slavs
Operation Barbarossa
 Hitler based his plan on the assumption he could
destroy the Soviet Union within one year
 Critical to his success would be to catch and
destroy the Soviet Army at the border areas
 If that did not occur, the Russians could use their
vast territory to trade space for time and cause the
Germans huge logistical problems
Operation Barbarossa
 On June 22, 1941, Hitler
invaded Russia in
Operation Barbarossa
 The operation
encompassed a total
troop strength of about
4 million men, making it
the biggest single land
operation ever
 Benefiting from initial
surprise, by the end of
July Hitler had occupied
a portion of Russia twice
the size of France
Operation Barbarossa: Battle of Moscow
 Despite dropping
temperatures and
critical supply
shortages, the German
high command pressed
on with the attack
 The German soldiers
were still in summer
uniforms and suffered
terribly
German soldier during the
battle of Moscow
Operation Barbarossa: Battle of Moscow
 By Dec 4 the Germans
had clawed their way to
Moscow’s outskirts,
but they could not
continue
 That night temperatures
were -25 degrees
Fahrenheit
 One infantry regiment
suffered 300 frostbite
casualties
 On Dec 6 the Soviets
counterattacked
Stalingrad (1942)
 On June 28 the Germans
launched their summer
offensive
 The Germans made good
headway with one advance
moving east toward
Stalingrad and the Volga
River and another moving
south into the Caucasus
 In August Hitler’s erratic
attention swung from the
Caucasus to Stalingrad
Stalingrad
 On Aug 24 the Germans
attacked Stalingrad’s
suburbs and began fighting
their way into the city
 Hitler began shifting forces
from the Caucasus to
Stalingrad
 The nature of the urban
fighting favored the
defenders and the Soviets
mounted a stubborn
defense
 Stalingrad began to drain
the German army but Hitler
would not back off
Stalingrad
Stalingrad
Stalingrad
Stalingrad
Stalingrad
Stalingrad
 On Nov 19 the Soviets
launched a massive
counterattack north of
Stalingrad
 Hitler’s overly centralized and
completely out-of-touch
command system broke down
in the face of the Soviet
onslaught
 The Soviets encircled
Stalingrad and Hitler ordered
his commanders to stand fast
anyway
 By this point in the war, no
one was willing to confront
Hitler
Stalingrad (1943)
 All attempts to breakout
or break through failed
and on Feb 2 the Germans
surrendered
 Out of 250,000 soldiers
trapped in the Stalingrad
pocket, approximately
90,000 became prisoners
 Barely 5,000 survived the
war
German POWs
Greatest Extent of Axis Control
The Eastern Front
 Ultimately enormous logistical shortcomings made
Barbarossa a failure
 Germany proved capable of fighting battles very well,
but was less capable of fighting a war of prolonged
duration
 In the total four years of fighting on the Eastern Front, an
estimated 4 million Axis and 9 million Russians were killed
in battle
 20 million Soviet civilians were killed as a result of
extermination campaigns against Jews, communists and
partisans, casual massacres, reprisal killings, diseases, and
(sometimes planned) starvation.
Battle of Stalingrad Losses
1,400,000
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
Germany
Soviet Union
600,000
400,000
200,000
0
1st Qtr
Allies push back into Europe
D-Day
June 6, 1944 - Landing on Normandy
Beach
Normandy Invasion,
D-Day June 6, 1944
Allies United:
U.S.S.R, England and The U.S.
Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, & Winston Churchill