Transcript WWII
Intro to WWII 1920 - 1939 Introduction: • Most devastating war in human history • 55 million dead • 1 trillion dollars • Began in 1939 as strictly a European Conflict • Widened to include most of the world How It Began • Lots of factors • WWI leftovers • Germany defeated in and had to pay cost of war. In huge economic depression • Italy victorious but wanted more territory • Japan victorious but wanted China • Outside factors… What Were These Outside Factors? • • • • Germany reduced size Organized League of Nations French and Britain unsure U.S. isolationist Kellogg-Briand Pact 1928 • Countries agreed to condemn wars and settle quarrels peacefully – No enforcement • Pacifism German Depression • The German Mark v. the U.S. Dollar • • • • • 1914: $1 = 4 Marks 1921: $1 = 75 Marks 02/1923: $1 = 48,000 Marks 10/1923: $1 = 440,000,000 Marks (440 million) 11/1923: $1 = 4,200,000,000,000 Marks (4.2 trillion) Rise of Hitler Weimar Republic – Reparations ($33 billion), Rhineland, and weak military Nazi Party organized, 1920s – workers’ party • Nazi party largest in Germany, 1932 • Hitler voted as chancellor, 1933 – The Reichstag burns down and Hitler blames the Communists • New parliament created • 450, 000 members • Larger than German army Hitler Gets Busy • Gestapo Created -- April, 1933 • Jewish Boycott – April, 1933 • Nuremburg Laws – (yellow star) Strip Jews of their citizenship and property. Jewish Books Banned & Burned – May, 1933 • 27,000 People in Camps – July, 1933 • 60,000 People in Camps – 1938 • Illegal to Leave Germany – October, 1941 Spanish Civil War 1937 • Monarchy to Republic – Democracy vs. Fascism • Germany enters war to test out its war machine and blitzkrieg tactics – Guernica • Franco becomes the new fascist leader • West sits back and watches - Appeasement Appeasement • Austria – March, 1938 – West does nothing • Germany enters Rhineland – West does little • Sudetenland in Czech.(80% Germans)– Sept., 1938 – self-determination? Munich Conference • All of Czechoslovakia – March, 1939 – West prepares for war • Poland – Sept., 1939 – official start of war • By Summer of 1940, Germany Controlled Most of Europe • World shocked as France falls to Germans Italy and Mussolini • Fascism – Political philosophy that advocates the glorification of the state, a single party system with a strong leader and an aggressive form of nationalism Post WWI Italy • They wanted more land, high war debts and high unemployment • Threat of Communism • Democracy Uprisings • Peasants and workers want more land and money • Blackshirts make Fascism the only party by 1924 Corporate State • Bring workers and owners together and put an end to all parties. • Unemployed men become the military • Rebuild A Glorious Rome. Italy attacks Ethiopia • Use of Gas • The League of Nations place sanctions on Italy, allowed them to have oil, coal, and iron. Haile Selassie I • Appeasement Those Dumb Enough To Ally • Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939 • Stalin fears Hitler, so he tries to ally with GB and France. Stalin wants land from Finland to Bulgaria. West says no way. • Mussolini and Italy, 1939 • Off and on betrayed until Italian defeat in 1943 Alliance That Changes War • Germany “allies” with Japan • Japan was “China Hungry” • Japanese angry over U.S. support of China