Transcript WWII - Cobb Learning

World War II
1939 - 1945
Totalitarian Governments
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Italy – Fascist Party - Benito Mussolini
 Il Duce – The Leader
 Blackshirts
Germany – Adolf Hitler
 Nazi Party
 Der Fuhrer – The Leader
 Beer Hall (Munich) Putsch 1923 – attempts to take over
govt.
 In jail, writes Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
 Consolidates power (over Weimar Republic)
 Black Shirts, Brown Shirts (SA, Storm Troopers), Gestapo
 Chancellor in 1933
 Terror and intimidation; propaganda (Joseph Goebbels),
Hitler youth, education, media
USSR & Japan
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Joseph Stalin (Man of Steel)
Control over industry, farms
5 Year Plans to industrialize
Great Purge – destroys enemies (Siberia)
Millions die under forced labor, collective farms,
prisons
Japan – Emperor Hirohito
Heideki Tojo – military leader
Invades Manchuria (1931), China (“Rape of
Nanjing”) 1937
Territorial expansion for resources and power
Europe Goes to War
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1. 1936 - German troops
occupy the Rhineland
2. 1938 – Germany annexes
Austria – Anschluss
3. Sudetenland
(Czechoslovakia)
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Germany needs lebensraum
Munich 1938 – appeasement
Neville Chamberlain gives in
4. Germany takes rest of
Czechoslovakia
Europe Goes to War
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5. Germany signs
non-aggression pact
(Nazi-Soviet Pact)
with USSR 1939
6. Sept. 1, 1939 –
Germany invades
Poland
WWII begins
Europe Goes to War
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Blitzkrieg (“lightening war”)
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Hitler crushes Poland
Stalin takes half of Poland for
USSR (communist)
French build up Maginot Line
- defenses
April 9, 1940 –
Denmark,
Norway, Netherlands, Belgium fall
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Takes Paris in June, 1940 in
less than one year
Evacuation (“Miracle”) at
Dunkirk to England
Over 330,000 rescued
War cont.
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Battle of Britain
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Luftwaffe vs. Royal Air
Force (RAF)
Great acts of individual
bravery
June 1940 – June 1941 –
30,000 Londoners killed
Winston Churchill rallies
England
Hitler’s first defeat
“We shall never
surrender!”
Americans Debate
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Was WWI a mistake?
Was it about big industries making money off
war?
Isolationists debate the interventionists
Neutrality Act 1939
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Cash & carry – nations could buy from U.S. if they
paid cash & used own ships (pro ally)
Lend Lease Act - loans to allies
Atlantic Charter – deepening alliance w/Britain; self
determination of nations
Hitler orders attacks on U.S. ships
Japan
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Japan Builds an Empire
 Invades Manchuria; other
Pacific Islands 30’s & 40’s
American Response
 FDR moves Pacific fleet to
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
 Threatens Japan’s expansion
 America remains neutral
Embargo on oil; Japanese assets
frozen
Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor
 December 7, 1941 – “a date
which will live in infamy”
 U.S. enters World War II
 http://www.history.com/topics/w
orld-war-ii/pearl-harbor/videos
Pearl Harbor
Fighting in Italy and North Africa
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German General
Erwin Rommel –
“Desert Fox”
Leads Afrika Corps
Panzer units (tanks)
Defeated by GB at
Battle of El Alamein
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George Patton takes
Sicily; North Africa
“Bloody Anzio”, Italy
Italy surrenders
Mussolini killed by
anti-fascists
War in the Soviet Union
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3.6 million Germans
attack in 1941
Operation Barbarossa
Scorched earth policy
Bitter winter
Battle of Stalingrad
Red Army launches
massive assault; victory
for USSR
Turning point in war
Invasion of Western Europe
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Build up of troops in GB
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
 Operation Overlord
 Largest landing force in
history invades Normandy,
France
 Dwight D. Eisenhower –
Supreme Allied Commander
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http://www.history.com/shows/america-thestory-of-us/videos/d-day-invasion
Battle of the Bulge
 1944 – Hitler’s last chance to
defend Germany
 Costly for U.S.
 Patton stops Germans
War Ends in Europe
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The Soviets Advance
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Move on Berlin
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U.S. moves from west
Soviets move from east
Soviets take Berlin in
April 1945
Germany Surrenders
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Hitler commits suicide
on May 1, 1945
Germany surrenders
on May 8, 1945
V-E Day (Victory in
Europe Day)
War Ends in Europe cont.
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The Yalta Conference
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Stalin, Churchill, and
FDR (the big three)
make postwar plans
Potsdam Conference
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Divided Germany (4
zones)
Stalin promised to
enter war in the Pacific
War in the Pacific
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The Japanese
advance
The Philippines fall
General Macarthur
forced to leave (“I
shall return”)
Bataan Death March
The Battle of Coral
Sea
First aircraft carrier
battle
Prevented attack of
Australia
War in the Pacific
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Allied victories turn the
tide
The Battle of Midway
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Iwo Jima and Okinawa
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Destroy Jap. ships
Key victories
http://www.history.com/sh
ows/wwii-inhd/videos/battle-iwo-jima
Kamikaze fighters
Island hopping to Japan
War Ends in Pacific
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The Manhattan Project –
secret project to develop
an atomic bomb
Los Alamos
FDR dies – Truman makes
decision to drop the bomb
August 6, 1945 - “Little Boy”
dropped on Hiroshima
August 9, 1945 - “Fat Man”
dropped on Nagasaki
Sept. 2, 1945 – Japan
signs surrender
Liberation
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Soviet and American
troops come upon
Nazi concentration
camps
World begins to learn
about the Holocaust
Genocide
http://www.history.com/shows/wwii-inhd/videos/concentration-camp-liberation