Transcript April 15 – April 19 Chapter 32

April 15 – April 19
Chapter 32
The Road to War
• Austria is Annexed by Germany, March 1938
• Hitler wanted to Annex parts of Czechoslovakia
– Leads to the Munich Conference
– Britain and France use “Appeasement”
• Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
– Wouldn’t attack each other
– Agreed to divide Poland
• USA adopts isolationism: doesn’t want to get into
another European War
World War II Begins in Europe
• Blitzkrieg: Lightning War
– Nazis invade Poland, September 1, 1939
– Soviet Union invades Poland on September 17
– Great Britain and France declare war
• Fall of France
– Nazis go around Allied forces, invade Belgium
– British troops evacuate France at Dunkirk, May 26 –
June 4, 1940
– Paris falls on July 14, 1940
– Vichy France (South), Occupied France (North)
World War II Begins in Europe
• Battle of Britain
– Starting in the summer of 1940, German Luftwaffe (air
force) begins bombing Britain
– Was considered a preparation for a possible invasion
– Royal Air Force (RAF), although outnumbered, slowly gains
the upper hand
– By May 1941, Hitler gives up on taking Britain, turns focus
elsehwere
• Eastern Europe
– Hitler allies with or takes over most of the Balkans by
spring of 1941
– Hitler invades the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 in
“Operation Barbarossa”
World War II
in the Pacific
• Japan conquers most of China, Manchuria, and starts
attacking European colonies by 1940 (Asia for the
Asians)
• US President Roosevelt cuts off oil shipments to Japan
in July of 1941
• Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7,
1941
• Early Japanese Victories:
– Guam, Wake Island, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia
and Burma all fall to Japan by spring of 1942.
– Bataan Death March: 20,000 Allied POWs killed
Who is Fighting Who
• Axis Powers
– Germany
– Italy
– Japan
• Allied Powers
– Great Britain
– France
– Soviet Union (after 1941)
– United States (after 1941)
Tide Turns in the Pacific
• Doolittle Raid: Bomb Tokyo, revenge for Pearl
Harbor
• Battle of Coral Sea: New type of naval battle,
fought from the air.
• Battle of Midway: Turning point in the Pacific,
June 7, 1942
• Battle of Guadalcanal, September 1942February 1943
– Going on the offensive, “Island of Death”
Tide turns in Europe
• Allies open second front:
– North Africa in late 1942, Italy in July 1943
• Battle of Stalingrad: August 1942 – February 1943
– 99% of the city destroyed
– Germans take the city, then surrounded by the Soviets
– Soviets loose over 1 million men but capture the
Germans
– After this battle, Germany is on the defensive
Victory in Europe
• D-Day Invasion, June 6, 1944
– British and American troops land on the beaches in Normandy,
Northern France
– By September of 1944, France has been liberated
• Battle of the Bulge
– Last military offensive by the Nazis
– December 16, 1944: Germans find weak point in allied lines
– Americans eventually turn the tide and push the Germans back
• Germany Surrenders
– Hitler commits suicide on April 30, 1945
– Germany surrenders on May 9, 1945
• President Roosevelt dies on April 12, Vice President Truman now in
charge.
Victory in the Pacific
• Philippines liberated in October, 1944
• Iwo Jima (March 1945), Okinawa (April 1945)
– Fierce fighting, hundreds of thousands killed
– Puts Allied forces 350 miles from Japan
• The Atomic Bomb
– Allied commanders feared that invasion of Japan
would cost too many lives
– First atomic bomb tested on July 16, 1945
– August 6, 1945: bomb dropped on Hiroshima
– August 9, 1945: bomb dropped on Nagasaki
– September 2, 1945: Japan surrenders.