Aim: How did WWII end and What is the legacy of WWII?

Do Now: When you think of the word legacy, what words come to

mind?

Legacy: something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or

predecessor or from the past

The End of the War in Europe and Asia

Tehran Conference, Nov.-Dec. 1943. The first of the “Big Three” Meetings

• Although all three of the leaders present arrived with differing objectives, the main outcome of the Tehran Conference was the commitment to the opening of a second front against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies. The conference also addressed relations between the Allies and Turkey and Iran, operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan as well as the envisaged post-war settlement. A separate protocol signed at the conference pledged the Big Three's recognition of Iran's independence.

Operation TORCH, November, 1942

Dwight D. Eisenhower George s. Patton

Allied attack on German-controlled North Africa.

Designed to set the stage for the invasion of southern Europe through Italy and open up a second front to reduce pressure on the Soviet forces fighting the Nazi’s in the East.

D-Day (Operation OVERLORD): June 6th, 1944

Europe, percent of pop. Killed in WWII

The Yalta (Crimea) Conference, Feb. 1945

• Second of the “Big Three” meetings.

• Purpose was to divide up Post-War Europe, particularly Poland and Germany.

• Creation of the United Nations, with Stalin initially agreeing to participate.

Potsdam Conference, July-August, 1945

• Primary goals were the punishment of Germany, the establishment of a postwar order, the creation of new Peace Treaties, and countering the effects of the war (war crimes trials, displaced persons (DP’s)

The Division of Poland

Europe, As a Result of Yalta, 1945

Europe by Late 1945

The Destruction of Japan• A combination of

firebombing Japanese cities (and Dresden, Germany), and the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is estimated to have killed over 1 million Japanese civilians between March and August, 1945.

The Surrender and American Occupation of Japan, 1945-1952

General Douglas MacArthur with Japanese Emperor Hirohito

Rep’s of the Japanese government surrender on board USS Missouri, Sept. 2, 1945

War Crimes Trials• Nuremberg, and other European sites, such as

Warsaw.

• Some Trials held in Asia, General Tojo was executed.

• Eight Judges determined the fate of those accused of various war crimes against humanity.

• 12 defendants (Nazi’s) sentenced to death, 7 were sentenced to prison, and 3 acquitted.

Legacy of Nuremberg Trials – Nov. 1945-Oct. 1946

• The Tribunal is celebrated for establishing that "[c]rimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced."

• It served as the model for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East which tried Japanese officials for crimes against peace and against humanity.

• It also served as the model for the Adolf Eichmann (1962)trial and for present-day International Criminal Court (ICC).

Nuremberg Trials. Defendants in the dock. The main target of the prosecution was Hermann Göring (at the left edge on the first row of benches), considered to be the most important surviving official in the Third Reich after Hitler's death.

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, Timothy Snyder (2011)

Aim: What is the legacy of WWII?

• 1. What contributions did Bloodlands make to the historiography of WWII?

• 2. Why do you think Very Nice People is such a controversial book in France?

The War in Pop Culture

Churchill’s Secret War

• In Bengal, between one and three million died of hunger in 1943.

• The man-made famine and the contrast between the plight of starving Indians and well-fed British officers dining in the city's many colonial clubs has been described as one of the darkest chapters in British rule on the Indian subcontinent.

World War II has sometimes been referred to as the “last

good war”. Was it???