Transcript Europe at War

Europe at War
• The 1939 invasion of Poland by
Germany took just four weeks.
• The speed and efficiency of the
German army stunned the world.
• Called blitzkrieg (“lightning war”),
the Germans used panzer divisions
(strike forces of about 300 tanks and
soldiers) that were supported by
airplanes.
• On September 28, 1939, Germany and
the Soviet Union divided Poland
• In the spring of 1940, Hitler invaded Denmark
and Norway
• In May, Germany attacked the Netherlands,
Belgium, and France.
• The German armies broke through French
lines and moved across northern France.
• The French had fortified their border with
Germany along the Maginot Line, but the
Germans surprised them by going around it.
• The Germans trapped
the entire British army
and French forces on
the beaches of Dunkirk.
• The British navy and
private boats were able
to evacuate 338,000
Allied troops, barely
averting a complete
disaster.
• On June 22, the French signed an armistice with
the Germans, who occupied three-fifths of
France.
• An authoritarian French regime under German
control was set up to govern the rest of the
country.
• Led by Marshal Henri Pétain, it was named Vichy
France.
• Germany now controlled western and central
Europe.
• Only Britain remained undefeated.
• On June 22, the French
signed an armistice with the
Germans, who occupied
three-fifths of France.
• An authoritarian French
regime under German
control was set up to govern
the rest of the country.
• Led by Marshal Henri Pétain,
it was named Vichy France.
• Germany now controlled
western and central Europe.
• Only Britain remained
undefeated.
• The British asked the United States for help.
• The United States had a strict policy of
isolationism.
• A series of neutrality acts passed in the 1930s
prevented the United States from involvement
in European conflicts.
• Though President Franklin D. Roosevelt
denounced the Germans, the United States
did nothing at first.
• Roosevelt wanted to repeal the neutrality acts
and help Great Britain.
• Over time, the laws were slowly relaxed, and
the United States sent food, ships, planes, and
weapons to Britain.
• Hitler understood that he could not attack
Britain by sea unless he first controlled the air.
• In August 1940, the Luftwaffe–German air
force–began a major bombing offensive
against military targets in Britain.
• Aided by a good radar system, the British
fought back but suffered critical losses.
• In September, Hitler retaliated to a British attack on
Berlin by shifting attacks from military targets to
British cities.
• He hoped to break British morale. However, the shift
in strategy allowed the British to rebuild their air
power and inflict crippling losses on the Germans.
Britain would be lead through this trying time by the
man that replaced Nevell Chamberlain-Winston
Churchill.
• Having lost the Battle of Britain, Hitler postponed the
invasion of Britain indefinitely at the end of
September.
• We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas
and the oceans, we shall fight with growing
confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall
defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the
landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the
streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never
surrender.
• Winston Churchill
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by
so many to so few.”
Winston Churchill (speaking about the Royal Air Force)
“Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: "We
are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our
souls."
Winston Churchill
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear
ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth
last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their
finest hour.”
Winston Churchill
• Hitler was convinced that the way to defeat
Britain was to first smash the Soviet Union.
• He thought that the British were resisting only
because they were expecting Soviet support.
• He also thought that the Soviets could be
easily defeated.
• He planned to invade in the spring of 1941 but
was delayed by problems in the Balkans.
• After the Italians had
failed to capture Greece
in 1940, the British still
held air bases there.
• Hitler seized Greece and
Yugoslavia in April 1941.
• Then Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June
1941.
• The attack on the Soviet Union stretched out
for 1,800 miles.
• German troops moved quickly and captured
two million Russian soldiers by November.
• The Germans were within 25 miles of
Moscow.
• However, winter came early in 1941 and,
combined with fierce Russian resistance,
forced the Germans to halt.
• This marked the first time in the war that the
Germans had been stopped.
• The Germans were not equipped for the bitter
Russian winter.
• In December, the Soviet army
counterattacked.
• Why did Hitler decide to attack the Soviet
Union after the two countries had signed a
nonaggression pact?
• On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked
the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
• They also attacked the Philippines and the
British colony of Malaya.
• Soon after, they invaded the Dutch East Indies
and other islands in the Pacific Ocean.
• In spite of some fierce resistance in places
such as the Philippines, by the spring of 1942,
the Japanese controlled almost all of
Southeast Asia and much of the western
Pacific.
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• The Japanese created the Greater East-Asia
Co-prosperity Sphere, which included the
entire region under Japanese control.
• Japan announced its intention to liberate
colonial nations in Southeast Asia, but it first
needed their natural resources.
• The Japanese treated the occupied countries
as conquered lands.
• The Japanese thought that their attacks on the
U.S. fleet would destroy the U.S. Navy and
lead the Americans to accept Japanese
domination in the Pacific.
• However, the attack on Pearl Harbor had the
opposite effect.
• It united the American people and convinced
the nation that it should enter the war against
Japan.
• Hitler thought that the Americans would be
too involved in the Pacific
to fight in Europe.
• Four days after Pearl Harbor, he declared war
on the United States.
• World War II had become a global war.
• How did the Japanese miscalculate the
response of the United States to the bombing
of Pearl Harbor?
• A new coalition was formed called the Grand
Alliance.
• It included Great Britain, the Soviet Union,
and the United States.
• The three nations agreed to focus on military
operations and ignore political differences.
• They agreed in 1943 to fight until the Axis
Powers–Germany, Italy, and Japan–
surrendered unconditionally.
• At the beginning of 1942, the
Germans continued to fight
the war against Britain and
the Soviet Union.
• The Germans were also
fighting in North Africa.
• The Afrika Korps under
General Erwin Rommel broke
through British lines in Egypt
and advanced on Alexandria.
• During the spring, the
Germans captured the entire
Crimea in the Soviet Union.
• By the fall of 1942, the war had turned against
the Germans.
• In the summer of 1942, the British in North
Africa had stopped the Germans
at El Alamein.
• The Germans retreated.
• In November, British and American forces
invaded French North Africa and forced the
German and Italian troops to surrender by
May.
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• In his diary Joseph Goebbels recorded how
he expected a quick victory in the Soviet
Union (July 1941)
• The Führer thinks that the action will take only 4 months;
I think - even less. Bolshevism will collapse as a house of
cards. We are facing an unprecedented victorious
campaign.
• Cooperation with Russia was in fact a stain on our
reputation. Now it is going to be washed out. The very
thing we were struggling against for our whole lives, will
now be destroyed. I tell this to the Führer and he agrees
with me completely.
• On the Eastern Front, Hitler decided to attack
Stalingrad, a major Soviet industrial center.
• Between November 1942 and February 1943 the
Soviets counterattacked.
• They surrounded the Germans and cut
off their supply lines.
• In May, the Germans were forced to surrender.
• They lost some of their best troops.
• Hitler then realized that he would not defeat the
Soviet Union.
Statistics on Stalingrad
• German Army Led by
Paulus
• 1,011,500 men
• 10, 290 artillery guns
• 675 tanks
• 1,216 planes
• Russian Army Led by
Zhukov
• 1,000,500 men
• 13,541 artillery guns
• 894 tanks
• 1,115 planes
• "My hands are done for, and have been ever since
the beginning of December. The little finger of my
left hand is missing and - what's even worse - the
three middle fingers of my right one are frozen. I
can only hold my mug with my thumb and little
finger. I'm pretty helpless; only when a man has lost
any fingers does he see how much he needs then
for the smallest jobs. The best thing I can do with
the little finger is to shoot with it. My hands are
finished."
Anonymous German soldier
Why was this battle so important?
• The failure of the German Army was nothing
short of a disaster. A complete army group
was lost at Stalingrad and 91,000 Germans
were taken prisoner. With such a massive loss
of manpower and equipment, the Germans
simply did not have enough manpower to
cope with the Russian advance to Germany
when it came.
• Despite resistance in parts – such as a Kursk –
they were in retreat on the Eastern Front from
February 1943 on. In his fury, Hitler ordered a
day’s national mourning in Germany, not for
the men lost at the battle, but for the shame
von Paulus had brought on the Wehrmacht
and Germany. Paulus was also stripped of his
rank to emphaisze Hitler’s anger with him.
Hitler commented:
• "The God of War has
gone over to the other
side.“ Adolf Hitler
• In 1942, the Allies had their first successes in
the Pacific.
• In the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, American
naval forces stopped the Japanese and saved
Australia from invasion.
• In June, the Battle of Midway Island
was the turning point in the Pacific war.
• U.S. planes destroyed four Japanese aircraft
carriers and established naval superiority.
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• Why was the Battle of Midway Island so
important?
• U.S. planes destroyed four Japanese aircraft
carriers and established naval superiority in
the Pacific.
• By the fall of 1942, Allied forces
were about to begin two major
operation plans against Japan.
• One, led by General Douglas
MacArthur, would move into
the Philippines through New
Guinea and the South Pacific
Islands.
• The other would move across
the Pacific, capturing some of
the Japanese-held islands and
ending up in Japan.
• By November 1942, after fierce
battles in the Solomon Islands,
the Japanese power was
diminishing.
Island Hopping in the Pacific
• To defeat the Japanese the United States would have
to take back Japanese controlled islands one by one.
This strategy was referred to as island hopping.
• Fighting in the Pacific Theater was terrible and
extremely costly. One reason was the terrible
weather conditions-at times weeks of monsoon like
rain, volcanic ash on islands, and thick rainforests.
• On each island we faced an enemy that had been
preparing defenses for years and that refused to
surrender. Often fighting did not end until almost
every Japanese soldier was killed or committed
suicide.
• Islands like Peleliu and Guadalcanal were
death traps. Allied forces would fight for
weeks and months to control the island only
to develop a false sense of security before
fighting would erupt after short periods of
stoppage. Civilian casualties were high in
many of these locations and soldiers were
faced to make gut-wrenching decisions during
combat.
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Last Years of the War
• By early 1943, the tide
had turned against the
Axis forces.
• In May, the Axis forces
surrendered in Tunisia.
• The Allies then moved
north and invaded Italy
in September.
• Winston Churchill called
Italy the “soft
underbelly” of Europe.
• As the bombing campaign increased against
Germany, the invasion of Sicily moved ahead
as well.
• General Dwight D. Eisenhower was placed in
overall command of the invasion. General
Patton and General Montgomery of England
controlled the troops on the ground.
• In July of 1943, despite bad weather the Allied
troops made it ashore with few causualties. A
new vehicle the DUKW an amphibious truckproved to very effective at bringing in supplies
and artillery to troops on beaches
• Eight days later Patton’s troops smashed
through enemy lines and captured the
western half of the country-while his troops
advanced Montgomery’s took the southern
half-by August the Germans had evacuated
• After the Allies captured Sicily, Mussolini was
removed from office.
• The king arrested him.
• A new Italian government offered to
surrender to the Allies.
• However, the Germans rescued Mussolini and
set him up as dictator of a puppet German
state in northern Italy.
• The allies would have to take this territory
back. Allied troops landed behind enemy lines
in Anzio. The German troops were not
surprised and surrounded the allies. It took
five months to break through the German
lines at Cassino and Anzio. Fighting would
continue until May of 1945. This campaign
was one of the bloodiest of the war costing
the allies 300,000 lives.
• The Germans established a strong defense
south of Rome.
• The Allies had very heavy casualties as they
slowly advanced north.
• They did not take Rome until June 4,
1944.
Roosevelt Meets Stalin at Tehran
• Roosevelt met with Stalin
before the invasion of
France. In late 1943
Churchill, Roosevelt and
Stalin met in Tehran, Iran
• They agreed to several
things-Soviets would
attack German’s after
invasion of France; Break
up Germany after the
war; Defeat Japan; create
organization to keep
peace.
• Churchill and Roosevelt met in Egypt to plan
the invasion-the first decision was to chose
the leader of the campaign. Most expected
George Marshall to lead the invasion, however
Roosevelt depended on him for military
advice. Dwight D. Eisenhower was chosen to
lead the greatest military invasion in history.
This invasion would be named Operation
Overlord
• The Germans realized that eventually the Allies
would invade-they heavily fortified the coast of
France
• However the allies advantage was surprise-the
Germans did not know when or where the invasion
would be-they considered the most reasonable place
was Pas-de-Calais-the area closest to France-to
convince the Germans they were right the allies
placed inflated tanks, tents and landing craft along
the coast of Calais-to German spy planes the decoys
looked real-the Germans were fooled and would not
realize the actual target was Normandy
• By the spring of 1944 everything was ready-over 1.5
million soldiers, 12,000 airplanes and more than 5
million tons of equipment had been sent to England.
• The only thing left was to pick the date and give the
command to go. The invasion would begin at night
and arrive at low tide so that beach obstacles could
be seen. The low tide had to come at dawn so the
gunners bombarding the coast could see their target.
Before the landing paratroopers would be dropped
behind enemy lines. A date would have to be chosen
when all of the conditions could be met. Bad
weather would be disastrous to the mission.
• Given all of these conditions there were only a few
days each month that the mission could be launched.
The first opportunity was between June 5-7, 1944.
Eisenhower’s staff referred to any day that a mission
began by the letter D. The date for invasion became
known a D-Day. Bad weather made June 5th
impossible, the next day the weather improved
slightly. Eisenhower had to make a difficult decision
and finally decided to move forward with the
invasion.
The Longest Day
• Nearly 7,000 ships carried more than 100,000 troops towards
the beaches, while 23,000 paratroopers were dropped behind
enemy lines on June 6, 1944. Allied bomber and fighter
planes raced up and down the coast hitting bridges, bunkers,
and radar sites. As dawn broke warships let loose with a
massive barrage of shells down on five beaches code namedGold, Omaha, Juno, Sword, Utah
• The landing went well at Utah with only 200 troops being lostwithin three hours the beach had been taken-however at
Omaha things went horribly wrong-An evacuation was almost
ordered at this beach as men were killed by the thousandsAmazingly the tide slowly turned and when reinforcements
arrived the German defenses broke and the beach was taken.
By the end of the day over 100,000 allied troops had landed
and the invasion was a major success.
• . . . these men came here - British and our allies, and
Americans - to storm these beaches for one purpose only, not
to gain anything for ourselves, not to fulfill any ambitions
that America had for conquest, but just to preserve freedom.
. . . Many thousands of men have died for such ideals as
these. . . but these young boys. . . were cut off in their prime.
. . I devoutly hope that we will never again have to see such
scenes as these. I think and hope, and pray, that humanity
will have learned. . . we must find some way . . . to gain an
eternal peace for this world. Eisenhowersenhower: A
Soldier's Life
• After the breakout, the Allies moved south
and east.
• French resistance fighters rose up in Germanoccupied Paris.
• Paris was liberated by the end of August.
• On 17 September 1944 thousands of paratroopers
descended from the sky by parachute or glider up to
150 km behind enemy lines. Their goal: to secure the
bridges across the rivers in Holland so that the Allied
army could advance rapidly northwards and turn
right into the lowlands of Germany, hereby skirting
around the Siegfried line, the German defense line. If
all carried out as planned it should have ended the
war by Christmas 1944.
• Unfortunately this daring plan, named
Operation Market Garden, didn't have the
expected outcome. The bridge at Arnhem
proved to be 'a bridge too far'. After 10 days
of bitter fighting the operation ended with the
evacuation of the remainder of the 1st British
Airborne Division from the Arnhem area.
Battle of the Bulge
• As the Allies closed in on
Germany, Hitler decided to
stage one last desperate
offensive. His goal was to cut
off Allied supplies coming
through the port of Antwerp,
Belgium.
• December 16,1944 the battle
began with six inches of snow
on the ground and bitter coldGerman soldiers caught
Americans by surprise-as the
Germans moved west their
lines bulged outward-the
attack became known as the
Battle of the Bulge
• Part of the German plan called for the capture of the town of
Bastogne, where several important roads converged. If the
Allies held Bastogne, it would greatly delay the German
advance.
• At this town Germans surrounded the American forces that
refused to surrender-Eisenhower sent Patton to rescue themIn three days-through a snowstorm-Patton’s troops slammed
into German lines-when the weather cleared Allied aircraft
began hitting German depots
• On Christmas Eve out of fuel and weakened by heavy lossesthe Germans were forced to stop their move towards
Antwerp. Two days later Patton’s troops were in Bastogne.
The United States won the Battle of the Bulge and with the
German arm being weakened there was little to stop the
Allies from entering Germany
• In March of 1945, the Allies crossed the Rhine
River.
• In the north they linked up with the Soviet
army that was moving from the east.
• In the north, Soviet troops occupied Warsaw
in January 1945 and entered Berlin in April.
• Along a southern front, the Soviets swept
through Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
• The Soviets had turned the tables on the
Germans in 1943.
• They soundly defeated German troops in July
at the Battle of Kursk in a huge tank battle.
• Then they moved steadily westward.
• By the end of 1943, they had reoccupied
Ukraine.
• By early 1944, they had moved into the Baltic
states.
• Germany was now under attack from the East
and West. Soon the Americans would cross
the last line of defense-the Rhine River and
enter the heart of the Nazi war machine.
The Death of Hitler?
• As German defenses
crumbled-Americans closed in
on Berlin.
• Deep inside a Berlin bunker,
Adolph Hitler knew the end
was near. On April 30, 1945,
he put a pistol in his mouth
and pulled the trigger. His
secretary carried his body
outside and burned it.
• The United States ordered an
unconditional surrender. On
May 7, 1945 Germany
surrendered. The next day
May 8, 1945 was declared V-E
Day-the war in Europe was
over
• Sadly Franklin Roosevelt
would not live to see the
defeat of Germany-On April
12, 1945 while vacationing
in Warm Springs, Georgiahe suffered a stroke and
died
• Vice President Harry S.
Truman was now president .
He at once began making
decisions. Truman would
have to make some of the
most difficult decisions of
the war.
• On November 24, 1944 bombs began falling
on Tokyo for the first time since the Doolittle
raid. Unfortunately the bombing was
ineffective because the bombs kept missing
their targets. Japan was to far away and by
the time the bombers got there coordinates
were inaccurate due to changes in winds or
navigational errors.
• It was determined that the best solution was
to invade a nearby island-they chose Iwo Jima
Uncommon Valor on Iwo Jima
• The island was perfectly located, but was covered with
rocky terrain, caverns, and dozens of caves, as well as a
dormant volcano Mount Surabachi
• The Japanese had built a network of tunnels on the
island and concrete bunkers
• On February 19, 1945- 60,000 U.S. Marines landed on
Iwo Jima. As the troops left there amphtracs they sank
up to their ankles in soft ash as Japanese artillery
began to pound the invaders ( quote pg. 768 )
• The Marines would crawl inch by inch, fighting their
way with flamethrowers and explosives destroying
Japanese bunkers-6,800 Marines would die on Iwo
Jima-Admiral Chester Nimitz would say “ uncommon
valor was a common virtue”
• Curtis LeMay-the commander of the B-29’sdecided to use a new strategy to help the
bombers hit their targets-they dropped bombs
filled with napalm-a kind of jellied gasolineeven if they missed the fire would spread to
the targets
• The use of these firebombs was very
controversial-the fires would kill civilians-but
there was seemingly no other way to destroy
Japanese production facilities-strong winds
spread the fires and thousands asphyxiated80,000 would die and 250,000 buildings were
sestroyed-67 cities were bombed
The Invasion Of Okinawa
• Despite the bombing by the spring of 1945
there were no signs that Japan was ready to
surrender-It became clear Japan would have
to be invaded
• Okinawa was chosen as the site-Japanese
soldiers took positions in the mountains of
Okinawa-facing constant machine and artillery
fire, American soldiers fought there way up
steep slopes and by June 22, 1945 the island
was captured at the expense of 12,000
The Terms of Surrender
• Shortly after Okinawa was captured the emperor
urged the government to find a way to end the war.
The problem is that America was demanding an
unconditional surrender. The Japanese were willing
to surrender, but the emperor would have to stay in
power. Most Americans blamed the emperor for the
war and demanded he be removed. Truman did not
wish to go against public opinion. He also knew that
the United States was developing a new weapon that
would force Japan to surrender-the weapon was the
atomic bomb.
The Manhattan Project
• In 1939 Leo Szilard, one of the worlds top
physicists, learned that German scientist had
split the uranium atom. He believed that this
could release an enormous amount of energy.
• Worried that the Germans were gone to
develop a weapon using this energy, he asked
the worlds most famous physicists Albert
Einstein to sign his letter to President
Roosevelt warning that by using uranium-”
extremely powerful bombs of a new type may
be constructed.”
• Roosevelt responded by setting up a scientific
committee to study the issue. They were skeptic until
they met with British scientists and 1941 that were
already working on the bomb-they were so impressed
they began to work on building a bomb.
• The American project was called the Manhattan
Project and was headed by General Leslie R. Groves.
After the first nuclear reactor was built at Chicago
University-Groves organized a team of engineers and
scientists to build and test an atomic bomb at a secret
lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico-the team was lead by
Robert Oppenheimer-On July 16, 1945-they detonated
the worlds first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New
Mexico.
• “I have become death,
the destroyer of
worlds.”-from the
Mayan Book of Death
• J Robert Oppenheimer
• Faced with such massive destruction and the
shock of the Soviets entering the war-Japan
surrendered-August 15, 1945-V-J Day
On the other side of the world Americans
celebrated. Quote pg. 771
The long war was finally over.