Chapter 36

New Conflagrations: World War II and the Cold War

1Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

The Second World War Allies vs. Axis powers: Italy, Germany, and Japan are the

main ones, but also Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania “Revisionists”: The Axis powers wished to revise post-

World War I peace treaties Allies initially follow policy of appeasement. Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939: Weak support of

democratically elected government by the West; strong support of fascists by Italy and Germany

Full-scale war erupts with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, in Europe with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and goes global by 1941 with the entry of the U.S.

Ends in August 1945

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Japan’s War in China Conquest of Chinese Manchuria 1931-1932 Japan withdraws from the League of Nations in 1933 Full-scale invasion of Chinese mainland in 1937 The Rape of Nanjing (Dec. 1937 through Jan. 1938)

City falls on Dec. 13, 1937, followed by six weeks of terror As many 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians slaughtered: two

Japanese soldiers held a “contest” to see if they could behead 100 Chinese with swords; soldiers used civilians for bayonet practice; many people were buried alive and mutilated in horrible ways. Women, men, and even children killed in horrific sexual attacks.

A third of all homes in Nanjing were destroyed by arson. Japan signs Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy (1940);

neutrality pact with Soviet Union (1941)

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Chinese Resistance

Chinese Communists and Nationalists agree to a “united front” against the Japanese in Dec. 1936

Chiang Kai-Shek did not want an alliance, but was forced to agree to one after being kidnapped by a rival general.

Guerilla warfare ties down half of the Japanese army Yet continued clashes between Communists and

Nationalists make the resistance less effective than it could have been. Communists gain popular support and have the upper hand by

end of the war, in part due to their better treatment of civilian populations and effective guerilla fighting against the Japanese

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Italian Aggression

Benito Mussolini invades Ethiopia with an overpowering force in October 1935. 2,000 Italian troops killed compared to 275,000 Ethiopians killed Emperor Haile Selassie’s troops put up a brave resistance despite

terrible odds. Selassie is forced into exile by March 1936 and appeals to the

League of Nations for sanctions.

Italy had been colonizing Libya since 1911 but encountered resistance; Mussolini’s forces crushed all resistance by 1934.

Italy invaded Albania in 1939

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Germany Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) withdraws from League of

Nations in 1933. Remilitarizes Germany, reviving armaments

industries in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Anschluss (“Union”) with Austria in March 1938 Pressure on Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia) beginning

in April 1938 and intensifying in August and September. Ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia begin agitating for autonomy and then express desire to join the German Reich.

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Sudetenland Crisis of 1938

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Munich Conference - Sept. 1938 Leaders from Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany

meet over the Sudetenland crisis. Allies follow policy of appeasement and give the

Sudetenland to Germany, leaving Czechoslovakia virtually defenseless.

Hitler promises to halt expansionist efforts in return. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869-

1940) promises “peace for our time” and is celebrated as a hero upon his return to England.

Russians and Germans shock the world by signing a Treaty of Nonaggression on August 23, 1939.

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Munich Conference - Sept. 1938

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Left to right: Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain, Prime Minister Édouard Daladier of France, Hitler, Mussolini, and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano

Germany Conquers Europe

Invades Poland, Sept. 1, 1939, a week after Non-Aggression Pact is signed

Blitzkrieg: “lightning war” strategy Air forces soften up target,

armored divisions rush in German U-boats

(submarines) patrol Atlantic, threaten British shipping

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German dive-bombers over Poland in 1939

The Fall of France

April 1940: Germany invades Denmark and Norway. May 1940: Germans invade the Low Countries and

France. France falls by mid-June without offering much resistance.

British and French troops evacuate across the Channel at Dunkirk from May 26 – June 4, 1940.

June 22: Hitler forces the French to sign armistice agreement in same railroad car used for the armistice imposed on Germany in 1918. Northern France is occupied and southern France is ruled by the Vichy government, sympathetic to the Nazis.

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The Fall of France

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Hitler in Paris on June 22, 1940, with architect Albert Speer and sculptor Arno Breker.

The Battle of Britain & “The Blitz” Battle of Britain: The German Luftwaffe tries to gain air superiority

over the Royal Air Force (RAF) in an air war beginning in July 1940 in preparation for an invasion. RAF inflicts heavy damage on the Luftwaffe and prevents Germans from invading.

“The Blitz”: Strategic bombing campaign by the Luftwaffe from September 1940 until May 1941. After October 1940, the raids only happen at night. London is bombed for 57 nights in a row during one stretch; people

take shelter in the “tube.” Industrial centers like Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Sheffield,

Glasgow and Manchester were targeted. Ports cities of Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, Plymouth and Southampton

were also targeted. 40,000 British civilians were killed in urban bombing raids.

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The Battle of Britain & “The Blitz”

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Two German bombers over London in 1940

The Battle of Britain

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Bombed out London street in 1940

The Battle of Britain

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Iconic image of St. Paul’s Cathedral undamaged but surrounded by smoke during the Blitz in December 1940

Operation Barbarossa Lebensraum: “living space” for Germanic peoples across the

European continent. June 22, 1941, Hitler double-crosses Stalin and invades Soviet

Union. Stalin didn’t expect this timing, but was not completely

unprepared: the Soviet Union had been rapidly industrializing; it actually had more tanks and planes than the Germans did (although most were outmoded).

Severe winter and long supply lines weakened German efforts. Soviets regroup and attack in spring 1942. Turning Point: Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February

1943); Soviets win one of the bloodiest battles in history, with a total of two million casualties.

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High Tide of Axis Expansion in Europe and North Africa, 1942-1943

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U.S. Involvement in WWII before Pearl Harbor

U.S. initiates “cash and carry” policy to supply Allies with arms

“Lend-lease” Program: U.S. lends war goods to Allies, Britain leases Caribbean naval bases in return

July 1941: FDR freezes all Japanese assets in U.S.and places embargo on oil shipments to Japan in protest of Japanese moving into French Indo-China

Japanese Defense Minister Tojo Hideki (1884-1948) plans for war with U.S.

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Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941 FDR: “A date which will live in infamy” Japanese military command sought to cripple the U.S. Navy to

prevent it from interfering with the planned expansion into Southeast Asia.

Attack consisted of 353 planes launched from six different aircraft carriers in two waves, as well as several five midget subs.

U.S. radar detected the initial approach of the aircraft, but they were mistaken for U.S. bombers; the attack had been too quick for even a correct reading to have made much of a difference.

Over 2,400 Americans were killed and almost 1,250 wounded. Most losses were on the battleship U.S.S. Arizona: 1,177 killed.

All eight battleships in “Battleship Row” were damaged, and four were sunk; 188 U.S. aircraft were destroyed at nearby airfields.

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Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941

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This map reads “December 8” since it is in Tokyo time, which is on the other side of the International Date Line from Hawai’I and the U.S.

Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941

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Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941

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Sinking of the battleship U.S.S. Arizona (commissioned 1916)

U.S. Entry and Japanese Victories

Hitler and Mussolini declare war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941.

U.S. joins Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Japanese Empire dominates southeast Asia and

most South Pacific islands. Japanese Empire establishes “Greater East Asia

Co-Prosperity Sphere,” with the slogan of “Asia for Asians.”

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World War II in Asia and the Pacific

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Defeat of the Axis Powers

Key factors: personnel reserves and industrial capacity of Allies were greater than those of the Axis powers.

Soviets absorb massive amount of punishment and inflict huge casualties on German forces

U.S. joining the war adds tremendous industrial capacity: U.S. shipbuilding, automotive, and aircraft production were

especially important. U.S. at the peak of its industrial powers: Industrial regions

(what is now the “Rust Belt”) produced massive amount of materiel for the war effort.

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Allied Victory in Europe Red Army (Soviet Union) gains offensive after Stalingrad

(February 1943). Soviets absorb massive punishment and break the back of the seemingly invincible Wehrmacht.

British and U.S. forces attack in North Africa in November 1942, and then invade Italy in Sept. 1943.

D-Day: June 6, 1944, British and U.S. forces land in a northwestern part of France known as Normandy.

Paris liberated on August 25, 1944 U.S. and Britain bomb German cities

Dresden, February 1945: 135,000 Germans killed , many in shelters Russians rush toward Berlin from East; U.S. and British forces

rush toward Germany from the West April 30, 1945: Hitler commits suicide May 8: Germany surrenders

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Allied Victory in Europe

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Inmates at the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany celebrate their liberation by U.S. forces on April 29, 1945.

A Russian soldier raises the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin on May 2, 1945, just five days before the German surrender on May 7.

Turning the Tide in the Pacific U.S. code-breaking operation Magic deciphered the Japanese

encryption machine code used for diplomatic and naval communications and thus gave the U.S. an important advantage.

Battle of Coral Sea: May 4-8, 1942 – First time aircraft carriers engage each other; two forces never came within sight of each other. This battle was a nominal Japanese victory, but it stopped the momentum of Japanese expansion.

Battle of Midway: June 4-7, 1942 – Turns the course of the war through air power. U.S. Navy inflicts irreparable damage on the Imperial Navy: four aircraft carriers and one cruiser sunk, along with 248 aircraft destroyed. U.S.N. loses one carrier and one destroyer.

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Turning the Tide in the Pacific

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Aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise on June 4, 1942, at the start of the Battle of Midway

Turning the Tide in the Pacific Island-Hopping through 1943-1944: U.S. takes the offensive, engages

in island-hopping strategy toward the Japanese islands: just attacking the most strategic islands and leaving the other alone, cut off.

U.S. Army: Led a push through the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, into the Philippines.

U.S. Navy and Marines: These forces pushed up through the Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline and Mariana Island chains.

Iwo Jima and Okinawa: The Japanese increasingly fought to death as U.S. forces approached the Japanese mainland. Iwo Jima (Feb.-Mar. 1945) and Okinawa (Apr.-June 1945) convinced the Americans that an invasion of Japan would be a bloody affair. Okinawa was especially savage, with 100,000 Japanese casualties and 65,000 Allied casualties.

Japanese use kamikaze suicide attacks beginning in October 1944: planes loaded with explosives and a full tank of gas that attempt to ram into Allied ships.

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki U.S. firebombs Tokyo in March 1945

100,000 killed in a ferocious firestorm A quarter of the city’s buildings are destroyed

Atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 Why Hiroshima? Not previously bombed, had many military and

industrial targets, and its flat topography would enhance the bomb’s effects. The bomb used, “Big Boy, used uranium as fuel.

Why Nagasaki? The port city of Kokura was the first choice for the second bomb, but it was covered by clouds as the B-29 flew over it. The port and ship-building city of Nagasaki was a not a preferred target since its hilly topography would lessen the effect of the bomb, and previous recent conventional bombings would make the damage hard to assess. The “Fat Man” bomb used plutonium rather than uranium fuel; it was more powerful than “Little Man,” but Nagasaki was damaged less.

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“Little Boy” Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima

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Hiroshima after the Bomb

34Color U.S. Army photo from 1946

Japanese Surrender

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Unofficial “V-J Day” was August 15 (August 14 in the U.S) when Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989) broadcasts over the radio that Japan would cease to fight.

The Japanese foreign minister signs an official “instrument of surrender” on September 2, 1945, on the deck of the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo harbor.

Japanese delegation on the deck of the Missouri

Varieties of Wartime Occupation

Independent states with enforced alliances: invaded but allowed to keep its own political system and institutions Thailand, Denmark (until 1943)

Puppet states: nominally independent states really controlled by a foreign power Manchukuo, Vichy France, Slovakia, Croatia

Military administration Indochina, Poland, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

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Collaboration

Collaboration with occupiers allowed for a degree of independence which appeared to some as a lesser evil than direct military administration with no control.

Collaborators were punished and humiliated after the war; women who had relationships with occupiers especially.

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Some collaborators found an opportunity for social mobility under the conquerors.

Woman having her head shaved after the liberation of Marseilles in August 1944.

Resistance Military forms of resistance: guerilla fighting,

blowing up bridges, assassinations, etc. French maquis were rural guerilla fighters.

Intelligence gathering: Belgian resistance cells used secret transmitters to convey information to the British

Protecting refugees: Resistance hid airmen who had been shot down.

Propaganda: Underground non-violent Munich university student group known as the White Rose disseminated anti-Nazi pamphlets; six were executed.

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Nazi Genocide and the Jews

Jews primary target of Nazi genocidal efforts Other groups also slated for killing: Roma (gypsies),

homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses Nazis initially encouraged Jewish emigration

Few countries willing to accept Jewish refugees Aborted plans to deport Jews to Madagascar or

create a reservation in Poland

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The Final Solution

Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) follow German army into Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa

Round up of Jews and others and execute 1.4 million by machine-gun between 1941 and 1945

Later in 1941 decided on “final solution”: deportation of all European Jews to death camps: machine gunning is too inefficient

Plans for death camps are solidified at Wannsee Conference in January 1942 in Berlin

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The Holocaust

Jews deported from ghettos all over Europe in cattle cars beginning in spring 1942.

Destinations: Six specially-designed death camps in eastern Europe: Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), Chełmno, Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka.

Technologically advanced, assembly-line style of murder through poison gas (Zyklon B).

Corpses burned to ash in crematoria. Estimated number of Jews killed in these camps: 5.7

million.

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The Holocaust in Europe, 1933-1945

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The Holocaust in Europe, 1933-1945

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The gas chamber at Auschwitz shortly after liberation in 1945

Jewish Resistance German policy of collective punishment hamper Jewish

resistance efforts: one German soldier killed would result in tens or even hundreds of deaths in retaliation.

Yet ghetto uprisings and armed conflict nevertheless arise. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Spring 1943: armed resistance to the

last round up of Jews being sent to Treblinka; about 16 Germans killed and 85 wounded and about 13,000 Jews massacred in retaliation

About 20,000 to 30,000 Jews fought in partisan guerilla units, mostly in Eastern Europe.

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Women and the War

WAVES (Women Appointed for Volunteer Emergency Service) and WACS (Women Army Corps) created in 1942 for women to serve in the U.S. Navy and Army.

U.S. and Great Britain bar women from serving in combat units; most serve in support roles.

Soviet and Chinese forces include women fighters.

Women very active in resistance movements.

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Women’s Roles

Women occupy jobs of men away at war Also take on “head of household” duties Temporary: men returning from war displace

women in the postwar era: propaganda moves from “Rosie the Riveter” to domestic women. Yet WWII had a lasting impact on women’s movement:

housewives of the 1950s recall this period of independence.

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Women’s Roles

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Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller’s famed 1942 poster

Lyrics from the 1942 song “Rosie the Riveter” by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb

All the day long,Whether rain or shineShe’s part of the assembly line.She’s making history,Working for victoryRosie the Riveter Norman Rockwell’s famous

Saturday Evening Post cover

“Comfort Women”

Asian women forced into prostitution by Japanese forces

Forced to have 20-30 men per day in war zones “Comfort houses” or “consolation centers”

Killed when infected with venereal disease Large-scale massacres at end of war to hide

crimes Social ostracism for survivors

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Origins of the Cold War

Creation of United Nations in October 1945 in San Francisco (NY headquarters finished in 1952) Five permanent Security Council members: U.S., Great Britain,

France, Soviet Union, and China

Differences over the future of Poland and Eastern Europe

Soviets help bring communist governments to power, 1946-1947 Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland Albania and Yugoslavia already communist-controlled

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The Truman Doctrine (1947)

Doctrine claimed that the world was divided into free and enslaved states.

U.S. to support all movements for democracy; commits to interventionist foreign policy.

U.S. pursues a “containment” strategy toward communism.

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The Marshall Plan

Named for George C. Marshall (1880-1959), U.S. Secretary of State

Proposed in 1947, the plan sends $13 billion to reconstruct Western Europe

Soviet Union establishes Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in 1949 to balance the Marshall Plan

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Military Alliances

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) founded in 1949. Collective defense Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, United

Kingdom, United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

Warsaw Pact formed in 1955 Countermeasure consisting of seven communist European

nations: Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia.

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NATO Flag

A Divided Germany Division of

postwar Germany, especially Berlin Western powers

merge occupation zones by 1949

Soviet blockade of Berlin begins 1949: breakdown of East-West cooperation

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Occupation Zones in Germany in 1945

Occupied Germany, 1945-1949

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Berlin Airlift

Eleven months of air shipments to Berlin, beginning June 1948

Cold war did not go “hot” Soviets lift blockade in summer 1949 East Berlin becomes the capital of the “German

Democratic Republic” (GDR) Bonn becomes the capital of “Federal Republic of

Germany” (FRG)

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Berlin Airlift

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Berliners watching a C-54 landing atTemplehof Airport during the airlift

Planes lined up at Templehof unloading supplies

Construction of the Berlin Wall 1949-1961: 3.5 million

East Germans flee to West Especially younger,

highly-skilled workers August 1961: East

German authorities construct a wall separating East and West Berlin

The wall becomes a prominent symbol of the Cold War

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The People’s Republic of China

Civil war between Communists and Nationalists erupts after defeat of Japan

Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) forced to retreat to island of Taiwan with Nationalist forces Takes most of China’s gold reserves

Mao Zedong proclaims People’s Republic of China in 1949. Begins dramatic transformation of Chinese society into

communist mold

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Beijing-Moscow Relations

Both China and Soviet Union felt threatened by U.S. in the post-WWII period.

Both had concerns over the U.S. rehabilitation of Japan

Beijing recognizes primacy of Moscow as leader of the communist world and receives military and economic aid in return

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Division of Korea Korea divided along

38th parallel after WWII

In 1948, two Koreas were created: Republic of Korea

(South, capital Seoul) People’s Democratic

Republic of Korea (North, capital Pyongyang)

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Korean War North Korea invades in 1950 and captures South

Korean capital of Seoul U.S. forces lands and drive North Koreans back to

38th parallel, then go on to capture Pyongyang. Chinese invade and push U.S. back to 38th parallel. Three million killed until ceasefire reached in

summer 1953. No peace treaty signed; continued tensions:

creation of a DMZ (de-militarized zone) between the two countries that still exists today.

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Containment Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO),

Asian version of NATO, is created by the “Manila Pact” in 1954: Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan (including East Pakistan, now Bangladesh), the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“Domino theory” moves President Eisenhower (1890-1969) to consider nuclear weapon use in Korea: belief that communism in one country would infect surrounding countries.

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Soviet-Chinese Tensions

Chinese believe Soviet aid programs are too modest with too many strings attached.

Both powers compete for influence throughout Africa and Asia

Successful nuclear testing in 1964 elevates Chinese prestige; the People’s Republic became the fifth nuclear power (after the U.S., the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France).

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Cuba Fidel Castro Ruz

(1926-): His 1959 revolution ousts corrupt U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Accepts massive Soviet aid

Supports U.S.S.R’s foreign policy

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Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1960

The Bay of Pigs

Castro declares undying allegiance to Soviet foreign policy in 1960

Kennedy and CIA send 1,500 Cubans into Bay of Pigs to spur revolution in April 1961

American air support does not appear; Castro’s troops destroy the force in three days

U.S. suffers international embarrassment; seen as a huge black eye of JFK’s administration.

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Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion

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Captured Anti-Castro forces after the Bay of Pigs invasion fails

Cuban Missile Crisis In October 1962, the Soviets begin assembling

missiles in Cuba that could hit most of the continental U.S.; a U-2 spy plane captured images of the missiles.

President Kennedy publicly challenges Soviet Union to pull the missiles out.

“Quarantines” Cuba: essentially a naval blockade, but called a quarantine for legal reasons.

Soviets concede, but U.S. guarantees noninterference with Castro regime. U.S. also secretly agrees to pull out intermediate-range missiles in Turkey and Italy.

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Soviet Intervention

De-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), who is in power from 1954 to 1964. Political thaw in governmental control

Emboldens experimentation by other communist leaders Hungarian uprising of 1956 ends with Soviet invasion “Prague Spring” of 1968 in Czechoslovakia

Brezhnev doctrine (socialist countries have limited sovereignty when socialism in threatened) used to crush Prague Spring in 1968.

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Soviet Intervention

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Czech Protester confronts a Soviet tank in 1968

Détente in the 1970s

Reduction in hostility between the nuclear superpowers.

Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) negotiated between 1968-1971: reduces number of nuclear warheads on both sides.

State visit by President Nixon (1913-1994) to China in 1972.

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