Transcript File

WORLD WAR II
1939 - 1945
Road to War
EUROPE
 Totalitarianism governments flourish – Hitler, Stalin,
Mussolini due to economic depressions and treaties
from WWI
 Rome-Berlin Axis forms/non-aggressive pact with Russia
 Fascism
 Government controls business, but encourages growth and
maximum profits
 Nation is greater than individual
 Private ownership allowed, but individual freedoms are
limited
 Religion and state are not divided
 Often certain groups and minorities are singled out and seen
as enemy of government
Road to War
EUROPE
 Mussolini – Il Duce – Totalitarian government
 Uses Black shirts as fear
 Bitter about WWI reparations
 Hitler
 Joins Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party – NAZIS
 Imprisoned for trying to take over German government
 Writes Mein Kampf - calls for imperialism, Aryan nation,
down with Jews, Slavs, gays, gypsies, etc.
 Wins support because of the poor shape of the economy,
and most Germans were bitter from WWI reparations
 Popular dictator – Der Fuehrer
Foreign Influence
 Washington Conference of 1921 – reduction of fleets
proposed
aggression)
5 Power pact, 9 power pact (prevent
 Kellogg Briand Pact – 48 nations – made war ‘illegal’
 Nye Committee – arms manufactures and their influence
 Finances – 11 billion in debt in Europe from WWI
 Dawes – U.S. loans to Germany – only circulated the money
 U.S. dependent on European Economy
 Europe couldn’t get U.S. to buy products – high tariffs
 Money sent to Latin America
 Hoover
 Debt – large nationalism
 Refused to cancel war debt
 Collective security with Kellogg Briand Pact
Isolationism for U.S.
 FDR stops Hoover’s loans for reparations
 Good Neighbor Policy
 Economic and political relations with Latin America
 Montevideo Convention (Uruguay) – opposes armed
intervention in inter-American affairs
 Neutrality Acts of 1935
 Arms embargo against victim and aggressors in military
 Cash and Carry – only non-military items to ‘friends’
 Finances – 11 billion in debt in Europe from WWI
 Quarantine of Aggressors – trade embargo on Japan
(oil)
 Rome Berlin axis formed in 1936
 Fascism – nationalistic, autocratic, political parties create
havoc; religion and state boundaries don’t exist
Road to War
JAPAN
 Leading up to Pearl Harbor attack…
 Japan needed resources for expanding empire:
 Still suffering from Great Depression
 Japan invades Manchuria and most of Eastern China –
military takes over civilian government
 Sets sites on French Indochina after signing neutrality pact
with Russia
Road to War
GERMAN EXPANSION
 Munich conference – makes war ‘illegal’
 Appeases Hitler’s expansion of Sudetenland
 Move to Rhineland – violation of Versailles Treaty
 Non- Aggression Pact signed with Russia
 Secret deal to divide Poland evenly between Hitler and
Stalin
 France not prepared and defeated- Maginot Line
 Evacuation at Dunkirk – spares some Allies
 Germany moves and annexes/unifies Austria first, then
Czech – Anschluss
 Britain and France promise to defend Poland
 Poland invaded September 1, 1939; Allies declare war
shortly after
Berlin Olympics
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dyns367ExE&bpct
r=1454463911
German Aggression
 Blitzkrieg – ‘lightening war’
 Unleashed so fast and furious no one could defend or
prepare for the attack
 Tanks, air, and massive lines of offense
 German forces push through Maginot Line and defeat
Belgium, Netherlands and France
 Great Britain only one left standing
 Hitler uses Luftwaffe for massive air strike on Britain
 Royal Air Force (RAF) fought invasion; not successful for
Germans, but thousands were killed in England
 20,000 in London alone – The Battle of Britain
 Winston Churchill remains defiant to Hitler’s demands
The Holocaust
 1935, Nazis install Nuremburg Laws
 Jewish businesses boycotted
 Jewish assets froze, and later become property of state
 No inter-marriage
 Segregation – would lead to ghetto neighborhoods
 Jewish ID and star of David required
 Sarah and Israel became middle names of all Jews
 SS (Schutzaffel) paramilitary death squads:
Einsatzgruppen (responsible for mass killings, primarily by
shooting)
The Holocaust
 After Laws were put in place, concentration camps were
built
 Held “undesirables” who could not contribute to success
of nation
 Jews, gays, gypsies, handicapped, homeless, Slavic peoples,
Jehovah Witnesses, those who helped Jews, etc.
 St Louis – refugees refused entry to U.S. and most
returned to Germany – died in Auschwitz
 Kristallnacht – night of broken glass – all Jewish
businesses were vandalized, and the round up began in
the next days
 Gestapo – Nazi secret police
The Holocaust
 Wannsee Conference – “final solution” to Jewish
problem decided
 Death Camps
 Zyklon B showers – gas
 Experimentation – pregnancy, twins, skin tests
 Mass graves
 Tattoo on arm
 Sex segregated; starvation and disease rampant
 Auschwitz, Daucau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Birkenau
– most famous
 MOST ARE FOUND IN POLAND TODAY
Public Opinion
 Peacetime draft – Burke Wadsworth Act --- 1.2 million
troops and 800,000 reserves
 U.S. has 12th ranked army in world in 1940
 Lend Lease Act – borrow weapons only those who are
vital to U.S.
 We sent 50 billion worth of arms and equipment,
especially to Great Britain
 Abandonment of our neutrality policy
 “Arsenal of Democracy” - FDR
 U Boat warfare in Atlantic for merchant ships
 Atlantic Charter with Churchill – FDR and Churchill vow to
destroy all Axis powers, whatever the cost
America: 1938 – 1941
 America First Committee - influenced election of 1940
 U.S. gives old destroyers to Britain
 U.S. Congress passes peacetime draft – Burkes
Wadsworth- 2.1 million men
 Atlantic Charter – FDR and Churchill agree on
unconditional surrender of Axis
 Japan invades French Indochina (Vietnam) and FDR cuts
off trade and freezes Japanese financial assets
 OIL EMBARGO ON JAPAN
 U.S. demands Japan cease and desist further invasion
 Japanese seize Philippines and other colonies in
Southeast Asia
Prior to Pearl Harbor…
 Tripartite Pact – Japan joins Axis
 Japanese aggression in Vietnam = FDR oil embargo and trade
 Tojo and Japanese diplomats said war was only solution
 Week before attack – Japanese diplomats meet to discuss
peaceful solutions
 December 7, 1941 – Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, killing
and injuring thousands of American service men and women
and civilians
 2,000 Dead
 USS Arizona
 Japanese Zeros used
 First and second waves used
 leads to anti -Japanese sentiment and prejudice here in U.S. -
internment camps
 3 days later, Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.
Prior to Pearl Harbor…
 Tripartite Pact – Japan joins Axis
 Japanese aggression in Vietnam = FDR oil embargo and trade
 Tojo and Japanese diplomats said war was only solution
 Week before attack – Japanese diplomats meet to discuss
peaceful solutions
 December 7, 1941 – Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, killing
and injuring thousands of American service men and women
and civilians
 2,000 Dead
 USS Arizona
 Japanese Zeros used
 First and second waves used
 leads to anti -Japanese sentiment and prejudice here in U.S. -
internment camps
 3 days later, Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.
December 8, 1941 – U.S. at War
 Atlantic Charter – Churchill and FDR meet in secret to
discuss complete defeat of Axis
 U.S. geography offers advantages and disadvantages
 Isolation from oceans, ‘friendly’ border countries, BUT
getting soldiers and supplies across is difficult
 American GIs
 Motivated from Pearl Harbor
 From all ethnicities, but still segregated, and mostly white
young men in fighting
 Tuskegee airmen – did not lose a single airplane in battle
 350,000 women – WACs, and WASPs – women would
assume new roles in military, as well as other minorities in
order to fill jobs that men had so they could go fight…
On the Homefront
MUST FIND A WAY TO SUPPLY THE WAR!
 U.S. business still suffering from Depression in 1941
 U.S. business supply for war, War Production Board,
consumer goods halted
 Rationing
 Cost plus system - gives bigger profits to companies that
produce more at greater rate
 Consumer supplies used for war materials – tires, scrap
metal, kitchen fat, nylons
 Higher taxes paid to cover costs
 DEFICIT SPENDING!
 War bonds
 Rest of money needed paid with war bonds and
borrowed money
led to large deficit
On the Homefront
MUST FIND A WAY TO SUPPLY THE WAR!
 Prosperity
 War had caused production to rise to 100 billion – officially
out of Depression
 Demand of wartime goods produced scarcity with
consumer goods – with nothing to buy, we all saved our
money during war years, and they spend it all in 50s
 War and West
 40 billion of production was put into Western plants –
responsible for development of western states
 Kaiser ships - shipbuilding, steel, and aluminum
production skyrocketed
 Pacific coast became hub for aircraft production
On the Homefront
LABOR AND THE WAR
 15 million leave work force for armed forces – filled by
unemployed, aging, women
 War gave huge boost to union membership
 Government wanted to prevent inflation – came up with
no-strike pledge which said that union could not stop
production during war time
 Still, there were 15,000 strikes during war – often
replaced with scabs
 Smith Connaly Act said unions could not strike unless 30
days of negotiations had passed
On the Homefront
LABOR AND THE WAR
 Prices of items were frozen to prevent inflation, including
wages, salaries, and rents
 Office of Price Administration – enforcement of price
freezing
 Never very popular
 Also responsible for rationing campaigns – coffee, sugar,
meats, gas, tires, shoes, oil, kitchen fats
 National debt tripled in first years of war
 Selling war bonds – provided income to government and
seen as patriotic thing to do
On the Homefront
MOBILIZATION
 War Productions board – never fully able to control and
regulate the military costs and spending
 WPB became the Office of War Mobilization – regulated
new factories, new industries for war supplies
 Science and Technology
 National Defense Research committee
 Auto industry, as well as appliance industry, converted into
producing ships, tanks, bullets, planes
 Radar and sonar technology – advanced compared to Axis
 American Boeing produced B 17 bomber, the ‘flying
fortress’
 Broke Japanese coding system in war
On the Homefront
MINORITIES
 Rosie the Riveter
 All ethnicities, ages, economic classes for most part
 Patriotic, boredom, needed money while men away
 Paid less, children left at home, first latchkey kids
 Go back to kitchen (for most part) after the war
 Military - women recruited so men could fill fighting
positions – pilots, secretaries, radar
 WACs, WAVES, WASPS
 AAPGBL – Women’s baseball
On the Homefront
MINORITIES
 African Americans
 Congress of Racial Equality – organized sit ins and





demonstrations
Still segregated in war – menial jobs only
Double V Campaign
By end of war, more black men were being sent into combat
Tuskegee airmen
Black WAVES division
 American Indians
 25,000 – some served as code talkers from Navajo tribe
 Mexicans
 Many came due to labor shortages, especially in West
 Many factory/farming jobs filled – Bracero Program
 300,000 served in military
 Zoot suit riots with Mexican teens
racial tensions high
On the Homefront
MINORITIES
 JAPANESE INTERNMENT
 Fear of espionage on West coast
 EX. Order 9066 ; February 19, 1942 – all those with
Japanese ancestry will be taken from West coast to
interment camps in mountains
 2/3 of prisoners were Nisei (a Japanese-language term used
in countries in the Americas to specify the children born in the
new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called
Issei); born in U.S.
 Japanese propaganda was high
 War Relocation Authority – 110,000 sent to ‘relocation
centers’
 Japanese did fight in war – some of the most highly
decorated officers – 442nd
On the Homefront
MINORITIES
 JAPANESE INTERNMENT
 Korematsu vs. U.S. – relocation was constitutional; based
on national security
 1945, were allowed to return, but most of property and
business had been seized or destroyed – start over from
scratch
 1988 – Congress approves reparations, but small minority
are paid
 Why so hated/confined?
 Manchuria invasion
 Pearl Harbor
 Over 150,000 US soldiers held and tortured in POW camps
 Japanese culture – knew they would ‘never surrender’
On the Homefront
MINORITIES
 Chinese
 1943 – Congress repealed the Chinese exclusion acts
 Some went to work, some were drafted, seen as ‘better’
than Japanese
A Personal Look…
http://io9.gizmodo.com/george-takei-describes-hisexperience-in-a-japanese-int-1533358984
On the Homefront
AMERICAN SUPPORT AT HOME
 Most Americans directly affected by war
 Economy – more consumer spending gradually
 Books, movies, and sports national past times related to
war somehow
 Shortages of items – pantyhose, gasoline, luxuries
 Office of Price Admin. Started price freezing and ration
books
 “Loose lips sink ships” propaganda
 Victory gardens and recycling drives
 Divorce down, and birth rate down
 PATRIOTISM AND MORALE IS THE HIGHEST NOW THAN
DURING ANY OTHER WAR
On the Homefront
AMERICAN CULTURE AT HOME
 Dance halls, big bands, radio shows, Saturday Evening
Post
 Pin up girls, war time sweethearts
 USO dances – many girls grew up fast as result
 Victory Gardens
 Neighborhood Rationing clubs
 Hose, tires, kitchen fat from the sink
 Propaganda
 Films, posters, Moviescope news
An Education for Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l14WDZCnz-w
European Theatre
 Europe led by George Marshall; Allies led by Eisenhower
 Create a “Nazi Sandwich”
 RUSSIA
 Hitler broke with Stalin, and tries to invade USSR
 June 1941, advance on USSR
 Stalingrad: August 1942 – February 1943
 Hitler pushes into Russia – Operation Barbarossa
 Stalin uses slash and burn
 Red Army defeats the Nazis and seen as turning point in
war
 Hitler sees this as the way to break the Soviet economy
*ONE OF HITLER’S GREATEST MISTAKES*
European Theatre
 ITALY & NORTH AFRICA
 North Africa – U.S. and Britain trap Rommel, (the Desert
Fox,) Axis out of Africa all together by 1943
 Allies move up the boot of Italy, and defeat Mussolini next
 Rome is considered strong hold
 Defeated in July of 1943
*ITALY SWITCHES TO ALLIES*
European Theatre
 GERMANY
 Casablanca – attack on Sicily and carpet bombing of
Germany discussed by Churchill and Roosevelt
 Bombing – incendiary bombing of Dresden and Leipzig
 Thousands killed, but many military targets in these cities
 Teheran - first meeting of “big 3” (Roosevelt, Churchill and
Stalin)
 Germany split up after war
 Stalin would continue attacks of Germans during Normandy
*WOULD FIGHT JAPAN 3 MONTHS AFTER NAZIS
SURRENDER*
European Theatre
 NORMANDY & D-DAY
 Preparation
 Carpet bombing by RAF
 Allied troops en masse towards English coast
 ‘Fake out’ at Pas de Calais
 JUNE 6, 1944 – 150,000 Allied troops invade France and
Normandy/Utah; Operation Overlord – Omaha and Utah
beach
 Allies push through France, then to Belgium Battle of the
Bulge – 80,000 Allies killed
 “Nazi Sandwich” strategy
 Soviets push from East
 U.S. from the West
Help For the Jews?
 January, 1944 – War Refugee Board helped Jews get out
of Europe, but only in lower 1000s recorded
 U.S. liberates camps in May of 1945
 Nuremburg trials
 24 Nazis tried for crimes against humanity
 12 escaped death – following orders
 Many Nazis flee to South America
*10 – 11 MILLION killed in Holocaust –
6 MILLION Jews*
The European Theatre
 April 30, 1945 – Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide,
and we storm the Eagle’s nest in Berlin
 May 8, 1945 – VE DAY(Victory in Europe Day)!
 Potsdam conference – leaders meet and tell Japan,
‘surrender or else face total destruction…”
 Truman demands Japan’s surrender
 ‘Mentions’ atom bomb to Stalin
 Japanese refuse to give up emperor – code of honor
The Pacific Theatre
 Many losses at first, then big gains
 Americans first go to Bataan Peninsula (in Philippines),
led by MacArthur – Japanese capture thousands, and
leads to Death march
 Battle of Midway – led to Japanese disarm with air
strikes
 Japanese wanted to destroy American fleet
 Battle of Guadalcanal
 Jungle warfare
 Americans unprepared, Japanese sneak away
The Pacific Theatre
 Pacific – led by Douglas MacArthur
 Island hopping
 Leyte Gulf – largest naval battle
 Philippines
 Iwo Jima – 20,000 Marines killed
 Midway – seen as ‘turning point’ in war
 Guadalcanal – jungle warfare
 Okinawa – kamikaze first used – 50,000 dead
 Tokyo - firebombing/napalm - 50,000 dead
 Japanese winning at first – major U.S. defeats
 Fighting strategies – jungle warfare, POWs, naval and
combat troops
The Pacific Theatre
JAPAN
 Iwo Jima – 60,000 Americans invaded
 10,000 died that day
 Deadliest day for Marines in U.S. history – VERY important
because from there, we could bomb Japan
 Okinawa – 12,000 U.S. soldiers killed, last stop to
invading Japan
 Tokyo – Doolittle air raid in factories, napalm
 Idea for Allies was to island hop, leading up to the main
islands of Japan
 Allies were mostly alone
*Japanese determined to protect Emperor
Hirohito – plus financial assets still
frozen from U.S.*
The Nuclear Decision
 Einstein informs FDR that Nazis are developing atom bombs
 Fermi – does first nuclear fission – leads to chain reaction
 FDR dies in April 1945 – Truman inherits the war and thus
decision
 Manhattan Project – led by Oppenheimer
 Truman has no knowledge of technology
 Trinity test
 Interim Committee agreed bomb should be used
 DECISION Rests with Truman…
 REASONS:
 No invasion of Japan
 Keep USSR out of war
 Intimidation
 Japanese code of honor will not be broken…
The Nuclear Decision
 Aug 6, 1945 – Hiroshima – Little Boy
 Plane flown called Enola Gay, after pilot’s mother
 Major industrial center
 Aug 9, 1945 – Nagasaki – Fat Man
 Estimated that over 250,000 Japanese civilians perished
from blast and radiation
 VJ DAY – September 2, 1945
 Japan insists on letting emperor remain ceremonial ‘head’
of country
SIGNIFICANCE OF WWII
 Cold War begun in Yalta
 Foreign relations – NATO, UN
 Nuclear race among countries
 Jews given reparations – Israel
 World wide depression over
 Yalta decisions – Japan and Germany not allowed
‘standing army’
 322,000 Americans, 55-75 million killed globally –
mostly civilians
 Women and minorities assume different role in the U.S.
 U.S. assumes role of ‘big brother’
 Roots and existence of Fascism realized and
discouraged