Transcript Effects of the War

Effects of the War
24.5
• After the WWI, the US Senate opted out of
joining the League of Nations, while taking an
isolationist approach with its foreign affairs.
• Why after WWII would the US choose a
proactive role in its foreign policy?
Planning for Peace
• Americans vowed to make a peace that would
ensure a postwar world free from economic
depression, totalitarianism, and war.
• U.S. goals included Open Door Policy and lower
tariffs, self-determination for liberated peoples,
avoidance of debt-reparations fiasco that plagued
Europe after WWI, gradual decolonization, and
management of world affairs by the “four
policemen”
• Soviet Union, US, GB, China
Political Ideologies and Aims
The United States
USSR
Democracy
Human Rights
Judeo-Christian God
Dictatorship
No personal freedom
Atheism
Recovery
Protect Democracy
Reparations
Buffer states to Protect Communism
The Yalta Conference
• A host of political questions
remained as the war came to
and end, including what to do
with Germany.
• FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met
in Feb. of 1945.
• Stalin was able to heavily
influence the outcome of the
conference. Boundary issues
were very favorable for the SU.
• Yalta marked a high point for
the “grand alliance”.
• Each of the allies came away
with something they wanted.
• But the agreements at Yalta
did not hold for long.
Potsdam Conference
• Leaders of the Big 3 meet again in July 1945
outside of Berlin.
• Truman (US), Clement Atlee (GB), and Stalin (SU)
• Agreed on general policies toward Germanycomplete disarmament, dismantling military
industry, dissolution of the Nazi institution and
laws, and war crimes trials.
• Formalized decision to divide Germany into 4
zones- US, GB, FR, and SU.
•“There
are moments when the drama
of our times seems to focus on a single
scene. The meeting at Potsdam
[Germany] is one of those moments.
We can hardly take in the sense of
what happened until it is spelled out in
a picture like this. The picture of three
men walking in a graveyard. They are
the men who hold in their hands most
of the power of the world.”
•Anne O’Hare McCormick,
Truman, David McCullough
• Agreed to new borders,
free elections in Poland,
and the Soviet’s right to
claim reparations from
Germany.
• Called for the
“unconditional
surrender” of Japan.
What territory is Berlin located?
A New World Takes Shape
• After the War, differences between the Allies
began to puts divides on the map and in
political and economic policies.
• Germany would divided into 2 countries- a
communist East Germany and a democratic
West Germany.
• Nearly all of Eastern Europe fell to
communism.
The Occupation of Japan
• The United States occupied defeated Japan
from 1945 to 1952.
• Worked to end Japanese militarism and
establish a democratic government.
• Emperor Hirohito remained in the imperial
palace, but Allied Commander Douglas
MacArthur ran the country.
• Zaibatsu -huge corporate families that
dominated Japan’s economy
Zaibatsu
Emperor Hirohito
Shift in Power
2 Superpowers
Shift in Power
• After WWII, a power vacuum was created- the US
and Soviet Union quickly emerged at the world’s
two superpowers.
• Of the two- the US was clearly stronger- no battle
(other than Pearl Harbor) took place on US soil.
• American industry boomed during the war and
were very confident.
• The US had the bomb- the Red Army was the
largest military in the world.
International Cooperation
• The US began to push for an international
Monetary Fund and a World Bank.
• In 1948 they signed the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade- designed to encourage
world trade.
United Nations
• The United Nations (UN) is an organization
that would succeed where the League of
Nations had failed.
• In April 1945 the Senate approved the
Charter and its permanent home was
established in NYC.
• It is organized with the basis of cooperation
amongst the world powers.
Charter of the U.N.
April, 1945- 50 nations met in San
Francisco to draw up a Charter of the
United Nations
-General Assembly -All member nations
-Security Council -15 members/ 5
permanent members -U.S., Soviet,
Britain, France, and China
-10 rotating members
Headquarters
• October 24, 1945,
the United Nations
official headquarters
was in New York City
and Trygve Lie of
Norway was the first
secretary general
Ban Ki Moon
Criminals of War
• The Axis Powers repeatedly violated the
Geneva Convention-an international
agreement governing treatment of wounded
soldiers and prisoners of war.
• The Allies tried more than a 1,000 Japanese
citizens for their atrocities against China,
Korea, and SE Asia.
• Hideki Tojo was executed (Bataan Death
March)
Nuremberg Trials
– international court that tried war
criminals
• 4 charges: planning the war,
committing war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and
conspiring to commit crimes
• 12 Nazi leaders were
sentenced to death; 7 were
jailed; thousands were
acquitted.
• Adolf Eichmann -architect of
Jewish extermination programsought refuge in Latin America
NAZI WAR CRIMINALS
•Three of the 19 camp guards tried and convicted by a general military court at Dachau
(separate from the Nuremberg one) for atrocities committed at Mauthasen await execution by
hanging at Landsberg prison.
•Their names are Rudolf Mynzak, Wilhelm Mueller and Kurt Kleiwitz
•Nuremberg Gaol, Germany 16 October 1946 "The Execution of Nazi War Criminals"
Trials in Tokyo
• International Military Tribunal for the Far East 1946
• It conducted trials against suspected war criminals20 leaders of Japanese military
• Hideki Tojo - Japanese premier-sentenced to death
• “For months, for years we had one wish only:
the wish that some of us would escape alive.
In order to tell the world what the Nazi convict
prisons were like. . . . There was the
systematic . . . urge to use human beings as
slaves and to kill them when they could work
no more.”
• Marie Vaillant, Justice in Nuremberg, Robert Conot
The Founding of Israel
– Palestine -small eastern
Mediterranean region
claimed by Jews and Arabs
– Despite Arab protest, many
Jews after WWII left Europe
and moved to Palestine
– The United Nations, after
early conflict, divided
Palestine into two states, one
for the Jews and one for the
Arabs, but the Arabs
objected
Israel
• Palestine was ran by
Britain and could not
resolve territory
conflicts.
• The issue was handed
over to the U.N. in 1947.
• Arabs were a majority
with 67% of population.
Zionism
– Movement seeking a
Jewish homeland in
Palestine – David Ben
Gurion– 1948-British forces left
Palestine and he
proclaimed Israel -the
United States
recognized the state.
David Ben Gurion-
The Arab-Israeli War
– The Arabs rejected recognition and raised
the military forces to reclaim Palestine
– 1949- Ralph Bunche persuaded both
sides to accept armistice-first African
American to receive Nobel Peace Prize
•Ralph Bunche
Arab-Israeli War - 1948
•
•
Jews accepted partition and the Arabs
did not.
Britain’s control of Palestine was
terminated on May 14, 1948.
Immediately, the Jewish State
declared the new country of Israel.
Both U.S. and USSR recognize the
country.
Arab-Israeli War
• Armies of Egypt,
Transjordan, Syria,
Lebanon, and Iraq as well
as Palestinian guerrillas
attacked Israel assuming
an easy victory.