Transcript WWII - US History II

Leading up to WWII
 After WWI many European
countries faced:
 Economic
depression/struggle
 Heavily tied to Great
Depression in U.S.
 Revolution
 Nationalism
 Failure of Treaty of Versailles
 Germany blamed for starting
WWI; had to pay reparation
costs
 Stripped of overseas colonies
and border territories
 Soviets resented the carving
up of Russia
League of Nations – No power to enforce its treaties
and sanctions
Dawes Plan (1924) & Young Plan (1929)
1. Reduced reparation payments
2. Created payment plan for Germany
3. Germany relied on loans from US banks to boost economy
Totalitarian leaders of Europe…
Hitler
Germany
Mussolini
Franco
Italy
Spain
Stalin
Russia
Japan Invades Manchuria (China) - 1931
Italy Invades Ethiopia
(October 1935 – May 1936)
Ethiopia annexed by Italy in May 1936
Spanish Civil War 1936 - 1939
The “Dress Rehearsal” for WWII…
“All propaganda must be popular and its
intellectual level has to be adjusted to the
most limited intelligence among those it
is addressed to.”
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
“Hitler is building. Help him. Buy German goods”
“The National Socialist movement must strive to
eliminate the disproportion between our population
and our area – viewing this latter as a source of food
as well as a basis for power politics…We must hold
unflinchingly to our aim…to secure for the German
people the land and soil to which they are entitled…If
we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily
have in mind only Russia and her vassal border
states.” – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
March 7, 1936 – Germany occupies the
Rhineland
Demilitarized zone – Breach of Treaty of Versailles!!
March 12, 1938 – Germany annexes Austria
September 29, 1938 – Munich Pact: Germany annexes
Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland
Appeasement!!
Munich Pact: Neville Chamberlain (British Prime Minister) and Adolf Hitler
Appeasement – A diplomatic policy aimed at
avoiding war by making concessions to an aggressor
May 22, 1939 – Pact of Steel
Agreement signed between Germany and
Italy promising each other support
August 23, 1939 – Non-Aggression Pact
Agreement between Germany and Soviet Union not to attack one another;
included secret protocol dividing Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia, and Finland into German and Soviet spheres of influence
September 1, 1939 – Germany invades
Poland
Blitzkrieg – “Lightning War”
September 27, 1940 - Tripartite Pact
Established Axis Powers of WWII – Germany, Italy and Japan
Other: Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Thailand, Japanese occupied China
Meanwhile in Germany…
Nuremberg Laws
Stripped Jews of their German
citizenship, jobs, and property
These included the Civil Service Law and the
Preservation of Blood and Honour Laws
ARTICLE 2
A citizen of the Reich may be only one who is of
German or kindred blood, and who, through his
behavior, shows that he is both desirous and
personally fit to serve loyally the German people
and the Reich.
Jewish people emigrate from Germany to
places all around the world, but often had
trouble finding nations that would accept them
United States accepted roughly
100,000 Jews. Why so few?
Great depression, lack of jobs,
anti-Semitism, fear of “enemy
agents”
Kristallnacht: “Night of Broken Glass”
November 9-10, 1938
Nazi storm troopers
attacked Jewish homes,
businesses and synagogues
across Germany. Part of
Nazi plan to “encourage”
Jewish emigration.
Around 100 Jews were killed,
hundreds more injured, and
roughly 30,000 were arrested
17 year old Jewish boy shot and killed
German embassy official, Ernst Von Rath,
in Paris. Nazi government used the killing
as a pretext for Kristallnacht.
Henry Grynszpan
Hitler’s Final Solution
Genocide – The deliberate and
systematic killing of an entire
population
Rested on the belief that Aryans were a
superior people and that the strength and
purity of this “master race” must be
preserved
Other than Jews the following
groups were also targeted:
Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill,
physically disabled, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Freemasons
Forced Relocation
Jewish Ghettos – Segregated Jewish
areas sealed off with barbed wire,
stone walls and armed guards
Concentration Camps
Labor Camps originally designed to
imprison political opponents, but later
expanded to detain and exterminate other
“undesirables,” specifically Jews.
US Involvement…
December 29, 1940: “Arsenal of
Democracy” Speech
FDR speech arguing for U.S. intervention in
the war in Europe
Lend-Lease Act
 Passed by Congress March 1941
 The U.S. agreed to lend/lease arms and other
supplies to the Allies
 Overturned several “Neutrality Acts” which the
United States had established during the 1930s
 August 1941 – US and Great Britain agree to the
Atlantic Charter: A joint pledge not to acquire
new territory as a result of WWII and to work for
peace after the war
Pearl Harbor – December 7th, 1941
“A date which will live in infamy…” - FDR
In response to continued Japanese aggression, its
withdrawal from the League of Nations, the signing of
the Tripartite Pact and continued militarization, the US
did the following:
1940: Embargoed scrap metal shipments to Japan and
closed the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping
1941: Froze Japanese assets (July 26th) and established an
embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan
The European Theatre
1939 – 1941: Axis Advances
Axis Conquests, Sept. 1942
November, 1942 - Allies Invade North
Africa
Battle of Stalingrad
August 23, 1942 – February 2, 1943
Casualties:
Germany: 841,000
Soviet Union: 1,129,619
Turning Point of the War!!! - Stopped Germany’s
advance on the Eastern Front
September 3, 1943 - Invasion of
Italy
June 6, 1944 (D-Day): Invasion of
Normandy
Allies’ invasion of France
December 16 – January 25, 1944: Battle of
the Bulge
Last German Offensive
– Victory for the Allies
April 12, 1945 – FDR Dies
Harry S. Truman becomes 33rd President
May 2, 1945: Fall of Berlin
Germany surrenders to the
US, May 2nd, 1945; to the
Soviets May 9th, 1945
April 28, 1945: Execution of Benito
Mussolini
April 30, 1945
Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his
Fuhrerbunker in Berlin
V-E Day
May 8th, 1945
General Eisenhower
accepts Germany’s
unconditional
surrender
The Pacific Theatre
Expansion of the Japanese Empire
Allied forces defeated
in the Philippines –
March, 1942
General Douglas MacArthur
Bataan Death March:
April, 1942
76,000 prisoners [12,000
Americans] Marched 60 miles in
the blazing heat to POW camps in
the Philippines.
“I shall return” – After leaving
the Philippines on March 11,
1942
Doolittle’s Raid
April 18, 1942
Lieutenant Colonel James
Doolittle leads air raid against
major Japanese cities.
One of 16 B-25’s used in the raid
Navajo Code Talkers
Navajo – Language spoken
primarily in the American
Southwest
Did not have an alphabet or
written symbols
Used as a code language by
American soldiers in the
Pacific
Received recognition in 1969
Battle Of Midway
June 4-6, 1942
U.S. Navy destroys four Japanese
aircraft carriers
Turning Point in the Pacific War
USS Yorktown, destroyed by
Japanese bombers
Battle of Midway Island:
June 4-6, 1942
Allied Counter – Offensive “Island Hopping”
Battle of Leyte: Philippines – October, 1944
Gen. MacArthur
“Returns” to the
Philippines! [1944]
Kamikaze – “suicide planes”
Iwo Jima
Fighting begins on February
19, 1945
Iwo Jima
Photographer: Joe Rosenthal,
2nd flag raising
Photographer: Lou Lowery, 1st
flag raising on Mt. Suribachi
- Over 6,000 U.S. Marines
died taking the island
- Only 200 Japanese Survivors
(out of 20,700)
Okinawa
April, 1945 – June 21, 1945
Death Estimates:
7,600 Americans
Over 100,000 Japanese
Over 100,000 Civilians
Memorial at Okinawa
The Manhattan
Project
Lead scientist: J. Robert Oppenheimer
“When you see something that is technically sweet,
you go ahead and do it and you argue about what
to do about it only after you have had your
technical success. That is the way it was with the
atomic bomb.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer
Col. Paul Tibbets & the A-Bomb
Little Boy
Fat Man
Hiroshima – August 6th, 1945
Nagasaki - August 9th, 1945
Estimated Death tolls
Source: “Children of the Atomic Bomb” – Research website developed by Dr.
James N. Yamazaki, UCLA professor - http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/index.html
V-J Day
August 15th, 1945 Japan
surrenders
Japanese representatives formally
surrender aboard USS Missouri on
September 2, 1945
“Tokyo Rose”
The name given by American GIs to
nearly a dozen women of American
descent who broadcast propaganda for
the Japanese during World War II.
Iva Toguri D'Aquino
[AKA: “Orphan Ann”
Sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason
 5 million Americans
volunteered for war
 Selective Service System
expanded, 10 million
Americans were drafted
“Why die for democracy
for some foreign country
when we don’t even have
it here? – Editorial in an AfricanAmerican newspaper
“Just carve on my tombstone,
“Here lies a black man killed
fighting a yellow man for the
protection of a white man.” – African
American upon receiving his draft notice
 Women’s Auxiliary Army
Corps (WAAC)
 Women allowed to serve
in non-combat
positions: nurses,
ambulance drivers,
radio operators…
 Across the nation factories were converted to war
production
 Tanks
 Planes
 Boats
 Weapons
 Ammunition
 By 1944 nearly 18 million
workers were laboring in
war industries
 More than 6 million
were women
 More than 2 million
minority workers
 Lower wages, menial
jobs
A. Philip Randolph
Respected African-American labor
leader, fought against racial
discrimination in the workplace
Penicillin becomes available
for mass production
Manhattan Project - atomic
bomb
Office of Scientific Research and Development
(1941) – Agency created by the federal government to
improve wartime technologies (i.e. weapons, medicine)
Established fixed allotment
of goods deemed essential
for the military
Agencies and Laws
What the regulations did
Office of Price Administration (OPA)
Fought inflation by freezing wages, prices
and rents
Rationed foods such as meat, butter,
cheese, vegetables, sugar and coffee
National War Labor Board (NWLB)
Limited wage increases, allowed negotiated
benefits
War Production Board (WPB)
Rationed fuel and materials vital to the war
effort, such as gasoline, heating oil, metals,
rubber and plastics
Department of the Treasury
Issued war bonds to raise money
Revenue Act of 1942
Raised top personal-income tax rate;
Added lower and middle-income
Americans to the income-tax rolls
Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act (1943)
Limited the right to strike in industries
crucial to war effort; gave the president
power to take over striking plants
Justified? Violation of
Civil Rights?

Majority Opinion: “Exclusion of those of
Japanese origin was deemed necessary because
of the presence of an unascertained number of
disloyal members of the group, most of whom
we have no doubt were loyal to this country. It
was because we could not reject the finding of
the military authorities that it was impossible
to bring about an immediate segregation of
the disloyal from the loyal…compulsory
exclusion of large groups of citizens from their
homes, except under circumstances of direct
emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our
basic governmental institutions. But when
under conditions of modern warfare our
shores are threatened by hostile forces, the
power to protect must be commensurate with
the threatened danger…To cast this case into
outlines of racial prejudice, without reference
to real military dangers with were presented,
merely confuses the issue.” Justice Hugo Black

Dissenting Opinion: “We must accord great
respect and consideration to the judgements of
the military authorities who are on the scene and
who have full knowledge of the military facts…At
the same time, however, it is essential that there
be definite limits to military discretion, especially
where martial law has not been declared.
Individuals must not be left impoverished of their
constitutional rights on a plea of military necessity
that has neither substance nor support…In
support of this blanket condemnation of all
persons of Japanese descent, however, no reliable
evidence is cited to show that such individuals
were generally disloyal, or had…furnished
reasonable ground for their exclusion as a
group…No adequate reason is given for the failure
to treat these Japanese Americans on an individual
basis by holding investigations and hearings to
separate loyal from disloyal, as was done in the
case of persons of German and Italian ancestry…I
dissent, therefore, from this legalization of
racism.” Justice Frank Murphy
V-E Day
V-J Day
May 8th, 1945 Germany
surrenders
August 15th, 1945 Japan
surrenders
After victory in both fronts,
what happens next? How does
the world rebuild?
Rebuilding…
The Yalta Conference:
February 4th ,1945 - February 11th, 1945
The “Big Three” meet:
Churchill
Roosevelt (FDR)
Stalin
The Yalta Conference:
February 4th ,1945 - February 11th, 1945
Division of Germany into 4 zones
controlled by the allies
Borders of Poland are shifted to
satisfy Soviet Union
Stalin agreed to join war against Japan
Stalin agreed to collaborate with the
establishment of the United Nations
Organization
Nazi Concentration Camps found,
war criminals will be hunted down
Liberated countries will hold free
elections
West Germany
controlled by England,
France and U.S., East
Germany controlled by
USSR
Established Eastern
Europe as USSR’s
zone of influence, the
dividing line was
recognized as the
“Iron Curtain”
Boundaries of Poland shifted West
United
Nations
Designed to be
more effective
than the
“League of
Nations”
Nuremberg Trials
After the discovery of Hitler’s
death camps Nazi leaders were
put on trial for:
-Crimes against the peace
-War crimes
-Crimes against humanity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsOpcMFkrFs
Occupation of Japan
 Japan occupied by U.S. forces
under the command of
General Douglas MacArthur
 Introduced free-market
practices that led to quick
economic recovery
 Created democratic form of
government, Japanese
Constitution still referred to
as the “MacArthur
Constitution”
General MacArthur