Transcript 57-War_in_Europe_Slides

Allies Fight Germany and Italy
Page 57
NCSCOS Goal 8
War Plans
-Roosevelt and British leader Churchill meet
• Now officially fighting together as Allied
forces
-Germany is top priority
• Defeat Hitler first, then worry about
Japan in the Pacific
-only an unconditional surrender is
acceptable
-Battle of the Atlantic
Allied Navies Battle Germany for Control
of the Atlantic Ocean
convoy system
Surround important ships with ships with
combat capabilities for protection
Liberty ship building program was
producing great numbers of ships to supply
war
•140 ships produced each month
-Allies begin strategic bombing of Germany
to destroy war capabilities
Bombing of Hamburg, Germany
Eastern Front
- initial victories in USSR turn into
stalemate and the Russian winter stops
German advances
• Hitler wants oil fields and the
industrial Stalingrad
“Stalingrad is no longer a town. By day it is an
enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke; it is
a vast furnace…Animals flee this hell; the
hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only
man endures.”
Lt. Weiner, German Officer
-Germany surrounds key city of
Stalingrad, 1942
• Germany won 9/10 of the city until
winter; with no supplies, Germans
surrounded and forced to surrender
- Germany is defeated at Stalingrad at
great cost
turning point of the European war
• Soviets begin moving toward Germany,
Germany on defense
- Stalin wants another “front’ to occupy
Germany
• Russia asks Allies to attack in Western
Europe to divert Hitler; Allies not
ready yet
Africa/Italy
- invasion of Northern Africa by British
and American troops to fight against
Germany’s Africa Corps led by Erwin
Rommel, the Desert Fox
• Allies launch operation in North Africa,
led by Eisenhower
- Rommel’s forces eventually defeated at
El Alamein
• Allies surround Germans, forced to
surrender
-”Soft underbelly” campaign
attack Germany through Italy
• Mussolini stripped of power and forced
to leave Italy
- German troops make Italian campaign
last many months
• Hitler does not want to fight in
Germany; keeps attacking in Italy until
1945
D-Day
-Allies had planned an invasion of the
mainland
• Invade France and free European
mainland from Hitler
-Operation Overlord
-planned by Dwight Eisenhower
• 3 million British, U.S., Canadian troops
invade France at Normandy
-June 6, 1944
- paratroopers invaded behind enemy lines,
thousands stormed beaches of Normandy,
France
Omaha Beach
Utah Beach
• Germans massacred thousands during
invasion
-France liberated within weeks
General George Patton
Headed towards Germany to invade
Hitler’s Atlantic Wall
D-Day~June 6, 1944
D-Day Invasion Map
“People were yelling, screaming, dying, running on
the beach, equipment was flying everywhere, men
were bleeding to death, crawling, lying everywhere,
firing coming from all directions…we dropped down
behind anything that was the size of a golf ball”
Omaha soldier Felix Branham
The End is Near
• Allies took the first German town
-Battle of the Bulge Dec. 1944
last German counter-offensive
• Attempt to break Allied lines in
Germany; succeeds at first but later
fails
Germany is now in retreat
• Lost troops, tanks, planes
-massive bombing raids
• Wearing Germany down
-Roosevelt wins 4th term with Harry
Truman
-Soviet armies pushing into Germany
from the east
• Liberating concentration camps as
they do so
“We started smelling a terrible odor and suddenly we were at the concentration camp
at Landsberg…we saw hundreds of burned and naked bodies…for the first time I truly
realized the evil of Hitler and why this war had to be waged.”
Soldier Robert Johnson
“When they told me yesterday about
Roosevelt’s death, I felt like the
moon, the stars, and all the planets
had fallen on me.”
Harry Truman
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us
move forward with strong and active faith.”
Franklin Roosevelt
V-E Day
-Big 3 Continue to discuss end of war
-U.S. British forces pushing toward Berlin
• Trapping Germany
-death camps found and Holocaust is
revealed
• Nazis try to cover up crimes but cannot kill more in doing so
-Roosevelt dies and Truman becomes
President
• Never sees V-E day; dies by a stroke
while getting portrait
-Hitler commits suicide as Russians invade
Berlin
-Germany surrenders May 1945
-V-E Day (Victory in Europe)
• War not over yet; still must deal with
Japan in the Pacific
V-E Day
In his underground quarters in Berlin, Hitler prepared for the end. On April 29,
he married Eva Braun, his longtime companion. The same day, he wrote out his
last address to the German people. In it he blamed the Jews for starting the war
and his generals for losing it. “I die with a happy heart aware of the
immeasurable deeds of our soldiers at the front. I myself and my wife choose to
die in order to escape the disgrace of…capitulation. The next day, Hitler shot
himself while his wife swallowed poison. In accordance with Hitler’s orders, the
two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned.
A Family PortraitNazi propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels brought his wife, Magda,
and their six children with him to the bunker.
The children became the delight of the
inmates, a diversion from the dreariness and
boredom of bunker life. But after Hitler's
death, in what can only be described as
something written for a horror story, Magda
killed her children using cyanide capsules.
While Joseph once commented, "Neither my
wife, nor a single one of my offspring, will be
among the survivors of the coming debacle,"
it was Magda who did the dirty work. Taking
her children into a small room as if to tuck
them into bed for the night, Magda gave
each a cyanide capsule. Later, evidence of
the remains showed that in all probability the
five youngest died unknowingly, while the
eldest had put up a fight.
National World War II Memorial: Atlantic View
“Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our
country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude.
America will never forget their sacrifices.”
Harry Truman