Transcript World War II

(or should we say the “Great War Part II”?)
WORLD WAR II
Prelude to The Great Depression
 WWI expensive
 Two countries relied on American credit:
France and Germany
October 1929 – Stock Market
Crash
 International Catastrophe
 Americans stopped issuing credit
 Germany had no way to pay reparations
 France therefore had no money either
 U.S. and Germany hit hardest – 1/3 out of work
Response
 United States
 Germany (and Italy)
 1932 elected Franklin
 Democratic elective
Delano Roosevelt
 Strong political
structure allowed for
change
assemblies still shaky
 Fascism takes root
Fascism – Common Ideas
 Destroy the individual in favor of “the people”
 Unify society
 Not concerned with eliminating identity characteristics
such as class or private property
 New identity pushed – relied on extreme nationalism and
racial identity
 Fascism (ideology)
 Extreme nationalism
 Single party (or person) control
 Appeals to middle and upper classes, as well as unemployed
(anti-communist)
 Law, order and hard work at the expense of individuality
 Nazism is a form of fascism, only more racist/anti-Semitic
Italy: Rise of Mussolini
 1919 - Founder of the National Fascist Party
 “Blackshirts” fought socialist and communist
organizations, winning support from factory and
land owners
 1921 – many seated in parliament, Mussolini
named Prime Minister
 As the post-war economy failed to improve,
Mussolini seized the opportunity to create a
totalitarian regime by 1926
Germany: Rise of Hitler
 The Weimar Republic replaced Kaiser Wilhelm II
after WWI. (last kaiser of Germany)
 As Germany's economy collapsed (Treaty of
Versailles), people lost faith in the “Reichstag”
 Watch this video on the formation of Germany
and its two houses of government.
 Germany Unification
 As head of the Nazi Party, Hitler rose to power
inspiring extreme nationalism
 Espousing ideas of Social Darwinism and racism,
Hitler called for the deportation (later
elimination) of Slavs and Jews, and the takeover
of Europe by Germans
“Fuhrer”
 By 1923, Nazis dominated German government
 1933, Hitler became “chancellor” of the
Reichstag
 Hitler seizes full control of the government,
establishing the “Third Reich”, and set out to
take over Europe
 1933 – began militarizing in clear violation of the
Treaty of Versailles and withdrew from the
League of Nations
Similarities
 Mussolini and Hitler’s Rise to Power
 Fear of Communism
 Democratic government failed to address economic
depression (more so in Germany)
 Appeal to Nationalism (it’s everyone else’s fault)
 Lack of democratic tradition in respective countries
 Used totalitarian means to gain power: terror &
intimidation, secret police, censorship, propaganda
Totalitarianism
 What Fascist Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and
Communists Lenin and Stalin all have in
common:
 Government where state (or one person/party) has
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ALL the power
While promising liberty, abolishes freedom (press, etc)
Police state
Propaganda vital
Grows usually where democracy fails
Communist and Fascist leaders can be totalitarian
rulers
Differences
 Fascism under
Mussolini
 Fascism (Nazism)
under Hitler
 Winner in WWI – upset
 Loser in WWI – anger at
about lack of land
granted after war
 Heavy taxes to pay for
war hurt economy
 Inflation due to lack of
goods
 Less racist/anti-Semitic
until end of war
land loss
 Reparations to pay after
war hurt economy
 Inflation due to printing
too much money
 More racist/anti-Semitic
Appeasement
 Nations of Europe ignored Hitler’s buildup, fearing
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another war
Germany and Italy supported Nationalists in Spain under
Francisco Franco in overthrowing the Spanish Monarchy
and parliamentary democracy, France and Britain turned
a blind eye
Germany took back the Rhineland in 1935
1937 – German alliance with Japan
1938 – Germany annexed Austria (Anschluss), threatened
Sudetenland
ALL DONE UNDER THE CONCEPT OF “LEBENSRAUM”
Lebensraum
 The Nazis supported
territorial expansionism to gain Lebensraum
 A law of nature for all healthy and vigorous
peoples of superior races to displace people
of inferior races
 Especially if the people of a superior race
were facing overpopulation in their given
territories
Munich Conference of 1938
(more appeasement)
 1938 – Hitler, Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain
(PM of England) all in attendance
 Hitler given Sudetenland without the consent
of the Czechs, as long as expansion stopped
 Expansion stops (for 1 whole year!) before
Hitler takes all of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Hitler Vocab Wkst – READ your copy
and follow directions on the notes
European Response
 Britain and France signed a non-aggression
pact with Greece, Turkey, Romania and
Poland as Italy invaded Albania
 Germans signed the Nazi-Soviet pact,
insuring the Soviets would not intervene in
German affairs, and a plan for dividing up
parts of Europe between the both of them
 Secret agreement to split Poland
 Sept. 1939, Germany invaded Poland
Guess What Happened Next?
(Alliances – Not Again!!)
Allied Powers
 Great Britain
 France
 Later – Soviet Union and
U.S.
 (non-aggression pact with
Greece, Turkey, Romania
and Poland)
Axis Powers
 Germany
 Italy
 Japan
 (non-aggression pact –
Soviet Union)
World War II: Tens of Millions
Dead
 Eastern Europe - Germany’s
“blitzkrieg” devastating. Within 10
days Poland divided between
Germany and Russia
 Blitzkrieg is “lightening war” where
a dense concentration of armored
tanks and troops backed up by close
air support
“Phony War”
 Western Europe - 1939- April, 1940 - British
and French strategy – await a German attack
(defensive war) behind the “Maginot Line”
along the Franco-German border
 Maginot Line: series of fortifications along
the border of Germany/France.
 Germany went around and through
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(you know this!)
Battles of France and
Britain
 Maginot Line failed to protect the border
between France and Belgium
 April, 1940 – Germany attacked Holland and
Belgium, then France (Vichy Regime – Marshall
Petain), controlling most of continental Europe
by June
 The British military was spared due to the
evacuation at Dunkirk
 Next stop for Germany: Great Britain itself
A Word about the Vichy Govt
 Marshal Petain, savior of France at Battle of
Verdun (WWI) in charge
 After Germany invades and embarrasses the
“best world army of the time” he pulls France
out of the war and creates Authoritarian
government=Vichy Regime
 Collaborates with German occupying forces
in exchange for not dividing France
 Germany kept French soldiers
 Rounded up Jewish and other “undesirables”
 Backlash against Vichy France for collaborating
with the enemy
Charles de Gaulle
 Charismatic General who wasn’t a “defeatist”
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like most other French generals and Petain
Issues a call for French soldiers in colonies to
form a new French army
Wanted to retrieve their national honor
Labeled as a traitor
Eventually de Gaulle and the Maquis (French
resistance) fought both Germany and the
Vichy Government.
Winston Churchill
 Hitler anticipated peace negotiations with its
“German” brother
 Resolute and fierce Prime Minister Winston
Churchill refused a deal with Germany
 “Nothing to offer but Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat”
 Only goal for Britain was to “wage war against a
monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark,
lamentable catalogue of human crime”
 1940 – Battle of Britain – air bombing
campaign by Hitler (Luftwaffe), bravely
fought by the British with the help of radar
The Battle of Britain
 German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, had many
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more planes and trained pilots
British radar, developed at Cambridge
University detected oncoming planes and
gave an advantage.
British plans also better than the German
planes.
Also, Britain had cracked the German secret
military code.
German air force led by a drug addicted
Hermann Goring
The Blitz
 Began bombing British towns instead of
military bases
 This bombing of cities is The Blitz
 Germany realized they couldn’t take Britain
 Refocused goals on Russia
The Holocaust-what you need to know
for this test
 Anti-Semitism is at the heart of Nazi ideology
 Nuremberg Laws-deprived citizenship and
forced Jews to wear yellow Star of David
 Kristallnacht – “Night of Broken Glass” when
glass from Jewish stores and homes were
broken
 Significance – proved that Germans were
interested in eliminating the Jews
The Jewish Question
 When Germany wasn’t able to defeat Russia,
they still diverted resources to exterminate
the Jews instead of focusing the resources on
Russia
 Poland had largest concentration of Jews –
was the site of most of the concentration
camps
 The Final Solution – slaughtering of the Jews
in concentration camps
1941
OTHER REGIONS OF THE
“ATLANTIC (EUROPEAN)
THEATER”
North Africa and the Balkans
 Italy attacked and later defeated Greece with the help of
Germany (remember the Mussolini video)
 Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox”, controls North African war
 The takeover of the Balkan state violated the pact with
Russia who was promised the Balkan state an earlier
non-aggression pact
 Germany moved into Russia, relieving pressure on the
British
1941
PACIFIC THEATER
1941 - Pacific Theater
 Japan invaded Indochina and the US issued
sanctions
 Japan entered the Tripartite Pact with Rome
and Berlin
 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor after the US
refuses to lift sanctions
 US declares war on Japan, Germany declares
war on US
Japanese History: A Quick
Review
 By 1905: Kicked out the Europeans (again), Industrialized,
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defeated China and Russia for territory
Fought with allies in WWI, economy and military was thriving
By 1930, severely impacted by the Great Depression;
Claimed “empire building” would help Japan economically
1931 – Invaded Manchuria, withdrew from the League of
Nations, signed the Anti-Comintern pact with Germany in
1936
1937 Invaded China – “Rape of Nanjing” (250,000
slaughtered)
1941-1942
 Allies fought Japan in the Pacific, and
Germans and Italians in Africa
 US secretly worked on Manhattan Project
Finally – An Allied Assault
 1943 - US and Britain begin offensive in Italy
 1944 – British, Canadian and US forces land on
the beaches of Normandy, France (D-Day), with
the help of French forces liberate France
 Meanwhile – 1942, Red Army defeated the
Germans at Stalingrad and advance west for the
next 3 years
 1945 - Hitler closed in on from the eastern and
western fronts, reaching Berlin – Hitler commits
suicide
War in the Pacific
 Battle of Midway cripples Japan
 Dragged on a few more months as the allies
defeated Japan from island to island at a
great economic and human cost
 Japanese refused to surrender, President
Truman reasons that dropping an atomic
bomb was the answer to ending a prolonged
war
The Atomic Bomb
 August 6, 1945 – dropped on Hiroshima,
100,000 died immediately, Japan refused to
surrender
 August 9 a second bomb is dropped on
Nagasaki and Japan surrenders
 The impact of the bomb continues to be felt
years later
Atomic Bomb
=
Three Turning Points of the War
 Battle of Britain
 US Enters the war
 Russian invaded by Germany
 Can you discuss why these are turning points?
Consequences
 Holocaust revealed, sympathy for a Jewish state rose sharply
 The peace settlement made the US and the Soviet Union
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superpowers
Europe torn to shreds, US institutes the Marshall Plan
Decline of Colonialism
Changes for Women
Creation of International Organizations
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United Nations
World Bank
International Monetary Fund
General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
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And THE COLD WAR
Nuremberg Trials
 November 20, 1945 – October 1, 1946
 Hitler and Goebbels committed suicide;
Goring swallowed poison in his cell
 Leading industrialists, military commanders,
judges and ppl involved in Final Solution
faced trial
 Significance-first time leaders are held
responsible for their “crimes against
humanity” Crimes are committed by men,
not abstract entities
 Model for future International Courts
Goring
Quite a different scene from
Hitler’s Nuremberg Rally 1933
Nuremberg Rally 1933
View “Triumph of the Will”
movie trailer. Director Leni Riefenstahl
The Marshall Plan
 US will give economic aid to countries in
order to prevent the spread of communism
 Used WITH the Truman Doctrine
 Aid to Turkey and Greece (monetary AND
military) to prevent Soviet control
 Considered the start of the Cold War
Windows to the Holocaust
Graphic pictures to follow