World War II

Europe after WWI

• Europe was in ruins– Economic Depression

• Buildings destroyed

• Millions lost their lives

• Treaty of Versailles – Germany blamed for the war

– Italy lost territory• Winning side of the war…

• When people get desperate they are more willing to believe that a single person can solve their problems

Treaty of Versailles

• Strengths– League of Nations

– Self Determination• Nations can form their

own country– Do not have to controlled

by an Empire

» Poland, Hungry, Czechoslovakia

– Demilitarized zones• Countries around

Germany felt safer

– Signed by 45 countries

Weakness1. League of Nations was weak

No Military

Had no authority

USA didn’t join

2. Italy and Japan did not like the treaty

3. Germany blamed for the war

Reparations

War Guilt Clause

Rise of Dictators

• People in Europe and Asia were struggling and dissatisfied

• totalitarian state – led by absolute dictators

– leaders willing to use acts of aggression to invade other nations in order to enhance their own power.

• Use spies, Intimidation, secret police – to keep power– No individual rights

– Gov’t controls Media

– School teach state ideology

» (Mein Kompf)

– Looked for a leader• Express their bitterness

– Great motivational speaker

– Iconic Image

• Return greatness to their country– Willing to give up freedoms

History Brief : Roots of WWII

Joseph Stalin – “Man of Steel”

• Russian Revolution – 1917, First Totalitarian State – Vladimir Lenin

• Joseph Stalin – takes over after Lenin (1924)– Great Terror

• Purged rivals+ Traitors

• Killed Millions

• Media portrayed Stalin as an idol

• Transformed Soviet Union from a backward nation to an industrial power

– USSR

– United Soviet Socialist Republic

– Nationalized industries-farms and factories

– Many estimated that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 8 to 13 million people

Mussolini in Italy

• Rise of Mussolini – Direct Result of Treaty of Versailles

• Winning side– Lost land– Economic Depression – Hard to find Jobs

• Communist movement grew

• In 1919 Benito Mussolini started the Fascist Partyin Italy.

• “Make Italy Great Again”

– Fascism believes that the country is more important than the person.

• Mussolini pledged to take Italy back to the glory days of the Roman Empire.

– His nickname was il Duce which means “the leader.”• Outlawed political parties• Controlled Media + Organized Youth Groups

– The fascist militia (soldiers) were known as Blackshirts.– Fought against socialists + Communists

German Outrage

• Germany Post WWI– Weimar Republic – Democracy

• Failed to establish a functional Government– Economic Depression

• Economy and people effected

• People lost their nationalism– Treaty wasn’t fair

• Germany blamed for the war

» War Guilt Cause

– Pay Reparations

» Inflation = rapid increase in prices

– Limited Military

– Political trouble

• Communists and socialists– National Socialist German Workers’ Party - NAZI

» German Ethnic Solidarity

The Nazis take over Germany

• Adolf Hitler was a powerful public speaker that became the leader of the Nazi party

– Born in Austria, he believed in reuniting all German-speaking people of the world

• Most Austrians felt a connection to Germany» Spoke German

– Purification- Germans formed a “master race” that was destined to rule the world.

• Purify the World for German race

• Mein Kampf – “My Struggle”

– Identified problems German faced• Blamed people, political parties

• Communists, Jews

Hitler Takes Control

• In 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor and immediately dismantled Germany’s government– Great Depression had some 6 million Germans unemployed, Hitler rose to

power vowing to combat this

• “Scapegoat” - blame someone else for one's own problems, a process that often results in feelings of prejudice toward the person or group that one is blaming.

– Blame Jews for Economic problems• Jewish citizens still wealthy

• Jewish Citizens did not fight in WWI

• Threaten National Security

• The government was telling the people to represent and preserve national interest first and foremost

• “The Holocaust happened in large part because an over-powering government took advantage of a weak people who just wanted to be provided with direction during a time of disparity. The people followed their government whole-heartedly because their faith in their previous government, the government where they had lost their possessions and valuables, had been compromised.”

Julie Ghostlaw, Mount Holyoke College.

Militarists Gain Control

• Japan Post WWI– Reduce military power, Legalize Unions, All men allowed to vote, several political

parties formed

• Military leaders were taking over the imperial government of Japan– Solve Economic problems

– Expand Asia + Pacific Islands• Natural Resources

– Continued to have a constitutional Monarchy

• Hideki Tojo

• Japan lacks many resources– Relied on Imports

• Oil from USA

– The military and the people blamed the political system and corrupt politicians

• More living space for a growing people– Invades Manchuria (1931)

– Invade China – 1937• Nanjing – Massacre of Najing – Killed Hundred of thousands of Chinese to take over the city

Aggression in Europe & Africa

• Hitler violates Treaty of Versailles– Built military

– Sent troops to Rhineland• Demilitarized zone between Germany & France

– Hitler invades Austria and Czechoslovakia – League of Nations did nothing

• Munich Conference (1938)– Attempt to stop Hitler and dictators from expanding

• Prevent war

• Appeasement- or giving in to aggressive demands to maintain peace, had prevented the outbreak of a needless war– British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

• Prevent war

– Others did not trust Hitler• Hitler wouldn’t stop after taking the Sudetenland

• Winston Churchill (P.M 1940-45)

– Appeasement was a cowardly act• Hitler wouldn’t stop

German Offensive

• German and Soviet Neutrality

– Non-Aggression Pact

• USSR & Germany would not attack each other

– Stalin – stay out of Germany’s expansion

– Hitler – Not attack Soviet Union

• Divide up Poland

– Poland fell

– Great Britain and France were shocked the two sides agreed to terms

Hitler Attacks Poland• September 1 1939 (Start of WWII)

– German prisoners sent to Poland

• Dressed in Polish Uniforms

– Staged an attack from Poland

» Hitler used this to invade other countries

• Blitzkrieg

– “Lightning War”

– Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpYpbiIZDGw

• September 3 1939

– France and Great Britain declare war on Hitler

– Allies

• Phony War- time where Germany didn’t attack France

• France was preparing for a German invasion

The Battle of Britain

• Germany vs. Great Britain• Britain was left alone to defeat Hitler

• Hitler planned to invade Britain– Winston Churchill Prime Minister of Great

Britain

• Never negotiate with Hitler – British Royal Air Force (RAF)

» Vs.

– Luftwaffe

– USA listened to radio broadcasts of the events in Europe

Axis Powers Expand

LESSON 2

HOLOCAUST

How it Started

• 1933 Jews denied public jobs and Jewish businesses boycotted

• Nuremberg Laws defined Jews by the religious affiliation of Grandparents

• The Kristallnacht “ Night of Broken Glass” November 9, 1938

• Jewish Homes & Businesses attacked and destroyed across Germany

• Hitler’s Final Solution• Genocide – The deliberate and systematic killing of an entire population

• The Condemned-Gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Homosexuals

• Forced relocation into Ghettos

Refugees

• Hitler favored immigration out of GR

• France accepted 25,000

• British accepted 80,000

• Latin America 40,000

• U.S. 100,000 – The St. Louis

• All refused Jews

Auschwitz - Poland

CONCENTRATION CAMPS

• GERMANS EFFICIENT

• LABOR CAMPS

• SYSTEMATIC EXTERMINATION

• GAS CHAMBERS-Bullets to expensive

LESSON 3

AMERICA MOVES TOWARDS WAR

American Isolationism

• Isolationist

– Desire to avoid involvement in foreign wars

– American unwilling to join League of Nations

• Preserve America’s Freedom

– Choose time and place for military action

– American’s more concerned with economy

• Neutrality Act 1935 -1937

– Prevent US from entering War

• No loans to warring countries

• Keep American Neutral

Balancing Isolationism and Intervention

• Europe or the economy

• Roosevelt concentrated on the New Deal

– American people worried about the economy

• Italy Invades Ethiopia 1935

• Neutrality Act prevented America from

helping

• Japan Invades China 1937

• America’s Isolationist feelings start to fade

– Not aiding any side clearly supported the

Fascists

Preparing for War

• US starts to build naval ships

– Roosevelt changes Neutrality Laws.

• Cash-and-Carry 1939

– Countries at war were allowed to buy American goods

• Pay in cash and pick up from America

• Roosevelt trades 50 naval ships for 8 bases in Britain

– Meanwhile- Germany, Italy and Japan sign non-aggression pact

• Axis Powers

– America would have to fight across two oceans

Hitler’s Plan to Invade

Election of 1940• Roosevelt wins Election of 1940

• “arsenal of democracy”

• Lend and Lease Act 1941

– Lend and lease supplies to any country that opposed Hitler

• Send weapons to Great Britain

• Atlantic Charter 1941

– Roosevelt and Churchill• Both meet and agree to oppose Hitler and the Axis powers

– Isolationists in America oppose the Charter

– German U-Boats start to bomb US supply ships

Japanese Aggression• War with Japan was on the

horizon– France Indochina

– Alliance with Germany

– Hideki Tojo was threatening

• Tried to negotiate with Japan

• After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they thought America would avoid further conflict with them

– The Japan Times newspaper said America was “trembling in their shoes”

• But if America was trembling, it was with rage, not fear

• “Remember Pearl Harbor” was the rallying cry as America entered WWII– Dec 7, 1941

– Dec 8, 1941

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFhY6IaUJ40

Pearl Harbor

LESSON 4

WAR EFFORT & HOME FRONT

AMERICANS RUSH TO ENLIST

• After Pearl Harbor – 5 million Americans enlisted to fight in

the war

• The Selective Service expanded the draft and eventually provided an additional 10 million soldiers

– Fight a two front war• Europe and Japan

• GI’s – enlisted person in the Military (Government Issued)

• Need to Expand the military– Army Chief of Staff General George

Marshall

– Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC)• Under this program women worked in non-

combat roles such as nurses, ambulance drivers, radio operators, and pilots

• Despite discrimination, minorities help the war effort

– 1,000,000 African Americans served in the military

– 300,000 Mexican-Americans

– 33,000 Japanese Americans

– 25,000 Native Americans

– 13,000 Chinese Americans

Manhattan Project

• Top Secret Program• Plan to build the atomic Bomb

» Robert Oppenheimer

– Feared that Germany was also building an A-Bomb

» Many German scientists defected

» 2 Billion Dollars

» 200,000 people worked on project

– A-Bomb Test• New Mexico 1945

– Truman warned Japanese

» http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/trinity-test/videos/manhattan-project

Women and the Armed Forces• Played an important part in WW2

– Women in the work place• Freed up men to fight in war

– WAVES• Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service

– Clerical jobs in the navy

– WASP• Women Air force Service Pilots

– Tested and delivered Aircraft

– WAC

• Women’s Army Corps– Repair equipment, electricians,

– Eventually were allowed to serve overseas

– No combat

Rosie the Riveter

• High demand for workers

– Women started to work in

the factories

• Men off to war

– 6.5 Million women

A PRODUCTION MIRACLE

Americans converted their industry into a war industry

• Office of War Mobilization– Oversee wartime production

• Office of War Information– Spread propaganda to influence support for war effort

• Office of Price Administration– Controlled prices of goods / fixed prices

• Froze prices on most goods

• Raise Income Tax

• Encouraged people to buy war bonds

• War Production Board– Convert peace time companies to war time production

– Scrap drives• Iron, tin cans, paper, cooking fat

Opportunity, Discrimination, Adjustment

• Civil Rights Protests

– CORE – Congress of Racial Equality• Confront urban discrimination

– Detroit Riots of 1940’s

• Mexican Americans– “Zoot-suit” riots – Los Angeles

• Mexican Americans wore zoot-suits– Violence against Mexican Americans

• Native Americans• Many still prohibited from voting

• Native American reservations turned into military bases

• Not paid enough $ by fed govt for valuable land

INTERNMENT OF

JAPANESE AMERICANS• When the war began, 120,000 Japanese

Americans lived in the U.S. – mostly on the West Coast

• In 1942, FDR ordered Japanese Americans into 10 relocation centers– Executive Order 9066

• Created “war zones” where anyone could be removed for any reason

– 100,000 Asian Americans uprooted from their homes.

• Internment Camps –– Temporary imprisonment members of a specific

ethnicity • Japanese Americans + Asian Americans.

Japanese Americans felt the sting

of discrimination during WWII

Location of

the 10

Internment

camps

In the late 1980s, President Reagan signed into law a

bill that provided $20,000 to every Japanese American

sent to a relocation camp

The checks were sent out in 1990 along with a note

from President Bush saying, “We can never fully right

the wrongs of the past . . . we now recognize that

serious wrongs were done to Japanese Americans

during WWII.”

Korematsu v. United States 1944Fred Korematsu and his family were ordered to relocate.

Fred failed to submit the relocation.

Arrested for violating military order.

Court upheld Korematsu's conviction. "Pressing public necessity,“

In Korematsu's case, the Court accepted the U.S. military's argument that

the loyalties of some Japanese Americans resided not with the United

States but with their ancestral country, and that because separating "the

disloyal from the loyal" was a logistical impossibility, the internment order

had to apply to all Japanese Americans within the restricted area.

LESSON 5

WAR FOR EUROPE AND AFRICA

Battle of the Atlantic

• Germany started to attack US Merchant ships• Lend and Lease Act

– Some attacks occurred close to the US Shore line

– Eventually the allies would control the Atlantic Ocean

Battle of the Atlantic• Wolf packs of subs continued to attack our

ships right off our coast.

– By grouping our ships into convoys, we could

better track & defend against them

Battle of Stalingrad• Hitler wanted to wipe out Stalingrad – a

major industrial center

• In the summer of 1942, the Germans took the offensive in the southern Soviet Union

– The first great turning point was the Battle of Stalingrad

• For weeks the Germans pressed in on Stalingrad

• Then winter set in and the Germans were wearing summer uniforms

• The Germans surrendered in January of 1943

• The Soviets lost more than 1 million men in the battle (more than twice the number of deaths the U.S. suffered in all the war)

Battle of Stalingrad was a huge

Allied victory

THE NORTH AFRICAN

FRONT• Stalin requests help from US

and England

“Operation Torch” – an invasion of Axis -controlled North Africa --was launched by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1942– Allied troops landed in

Casablanca, Oran and the Algiers in Algeria

– They sped eastward chasing the Afrika Korps led by German General Edwin Rommel

American tanks roll in the deserts

of Africa and defeat German and

Axis forces

Allied

troops

landed

in Casa-

blanca,

Oran

and the

Algiers

ITALIAN CAMPAIGN –

ANOTHER ALLIED VICTORY

• The Italian Campaign got off to a good start as the Allies easily took Sicily

• However, Hitler’s forces continued to resist the Allies in Italy

• Italy was finally taken over by the Allies

– May 1944

TUSKEGEE

AIRMEN• Among the brave men

who fought in Italy were pilots of the all-black 99th squadron –the Tuskegee Airmen– The pilots made

numerous effective strikes against Germany and won two distinguished Unit Citations

ALLIES LIBERATE EUROPE

• Even as the Allies were battling for Italy, they began plans on a dramatic invasion of France

• It was known as “Operation Overlord” and the commander was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Also called “D-Day,” the operation involved 3 million U.S. & British troops and was set for June 6, 1944

Allies sent

fake coded

messages

indicating they

would attack

here

D-DAY JUNE

6, 1944

• D-Day was the

largest land-sea-air

operation in

military history

• Despite air support,

German retaliation

was brutal –

especially at

Omaha Beach

• Within a month, the

Allies had landed

1 million troops,

567,000 tons of

supplies and

170,000 vehiclesD-Day was an amphibious landing – soldiers

going from sea to land

OMAHA BEACH 6/6/44

Landing at Normandy

FRANCE

FREED• By September 1944,

the Allies had freed

France, Belgium and

Luxembourg

BATTLE OF THE BULGE• In October 1944, Americans

captured their first German town (Aachen)– the Allies were closing in

– Tough troops like the 101st Airborne held on until the Germans had to retreat

• Russians took Berlin in April 1945, came across concentration camps along the way

• VE Day- May 8, 1945

LESSON 6

WAR IN THE PACIFIC

THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY

• Japan’s next thrust was toward Midway Island –a strategic Island northwest of Hawaii

• The Americans won a decisive victory as their planes destroyed 4 Japanese aircraft carriers and 250 planes

•The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the war – soon the

Allies were island hopping toward Japan

The Philippines• The Japanese took the islands & our

military base there while Gen. MacArthur

fled

– Our troops were force marched to POW

concentration camps

• That event is now called the “Bataan Death

March”

The Pacific

• Doolittle’s April 1942 surprise bombing of

Tokyo was seen as a U.S. revenge for Pearl

Harbor

– Doolittle Raids

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJ6LSnNKjg

KAMIKAZE

PILOTS ATTACK

ALLIES• The Americans

continued leapfrogging across the Pacific toward Japan

• Japanese countered by employing a new tactic – Kamikaze (divine wind) attacks

• Pilots in small bomb-laden planes would crash into Allied ships

In the Battle for the Philippines, 424

Kamikaze pilots sank 16 ships and

damaged 80 more

IWO JIMA• General MacArthur and the Allies next turned to the Island of Iwo Jima

• Critical position for US to attack JAPAN

• It was called the most heavily defended spot on earth

American soldiers plant the flag on

the Island of Iwo Jima after their

victory

THE BATTLE FOR OKINAWA

• In April 1945, U.S. marines invaded Okinawa

• The Japanese unleashed 1,900 Kamikaze attacks sinking 30 ships and killing 5,000 seamen

• Okinawa cost the Americans 7,600 marines and the Japanese 110,000 soldiers

INVADE JAPAN?

• After Okinawa, MacArthur predicted that a Normandy type amphibious invasion of Japan would result in 1,500,000 Allied deaths

• President Truman saw only one way to avoid an invasion of Japan . . .

The loss of life at Iwo Jima and Okinawa

convinced Allied leaders that an invasion of

Japan was not the best idea

Okinawa

Manhattan Project

• Team of scientists, led by JR Oppenheimer,

who developed the atomic bomb

– Our first test went off in New Mexico in July

1945

– Not all the nuclear scientists agreed that this

new power should be used for war...

ATOMIC BOMB

DEVELOPED• Japan had a huge

army that would

defend every inch of

the Japanese

mainland

• So Truman decided to

use a powerful new

weapon developed by

scientists working on

the Manhattan Project

– the Atomic Bomb

U.S. DROPS TWO

ATOMIC BOMBS

ON JAPAN

• Truman warned Japan in late July 1945 that without a immediate Japanese surrender, it faced “prompt and utter destruction”

• On August 6 (Hiroshima) and August 9 (Nagasaki) a B-29 bomber dropped Atomic Bombs on Japan

The plane and crew that dropped an

atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan

August 6, 1945

HIROSHIMA

August 9, 1945

NAGASAKI

JAPAN SURRENDERS

At the White House, President Harry Truman

announces the Japanese surrender, August

14, 1945

• Japan surrendered

days after the second

atomic bomb was

dropped

• General MacArthur

said, “Today the guns

are silent. The skies

no longer rain death . .

.the entire world is

quietly at peace.”

LESSON 7

End of WW2

Planning the Postwar World

• VE Day – Victory in Europe Day

– May 7, 1945

• VJ Day – Victory in Japan Day

– Aug 15, 1945

• WWII – Turning point in the world

– End the largest war in human history

• Start the era of the Cold War– USA v. USSR

– America takes an important role in the world• Spread Democracy.

• Planning Peace

– Yalta Conference (February 1945)

• Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet to discuss post

WWII Peace Talks

• 2) Stalin agreed to free elections in Eastern Europe

• 3) Stalin agreed to help the U.S. in the war against

Japan and to join the United Nations

– Potsdam Conference (July 1945)

• Truman, Clement Atlee, Stalin

• 1)They agreed to divide Germany into 4 occupied

zones after the war– While at Potsdam – Truman learns of a successful test of the

Atomic Weapon

Planning the Postwar World

Analyze Data Why were U.S. civilian deaths so low? Why do you think

U.S. military deaths were higher than Britain’s even though Britain had

been fighting longer?

International Impact of the War

• Worldwide political changes - (Leads to the Cold War)

– Differences between Allies and USSR• Divide Germany (East/West)

• Communist vs. Non-Communist– China

– Occupation of Japan• Created new constitution for Japan

– No military only for defense, women right to vote, democratic reforms

– Created economic recovery.

• Gen. Douglas McArthur – leads military occupation

• War weakens imperialism– Countries seek independence

• Major European nations not longer as strong as they were

• Japan reduced their power

• France looses colonies in Indochina (India, Vietnam)

International Impact of the War

World War II altered the map of Europe, especially Eastern Europe. Analyze Maps What

happened to Germany between the end of World War II and 1950?

Superpowers

EAST v. WEST

• United States

– Spread Democracy

• USSR – United Socialist of the Soviet Republic

– Spread Communism

International Organizations and Treaties

• America’s new role in the world• International superpower

– Economy + Military

• Peace keeper

– Reflect on the failure of Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations

– Economy

• Ended Great Depression

• International Monetary Fund and World Bank

– Establish international economic stability

• General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

– Reduce tariffs

» Increase international trade

– World Trade Organization (1995)

» Replace GATT

United Nations

• United Nations –• International peace keeping organization

– 50 + nations meet

» Lead by the World Powers – (US, USSR, Britain, France, China)

» Permanent seats in the Security Council.

• Universal Declaration of Rights

– Rights to all people

» All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights

» Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

» No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

» No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

War Crimes

• Geneva Convention• International agreement governing humane treatment of

wounded and prisoners of war

• Nuremberg Trials• Prosecuted Nazis for War Crimes

– Hermann Gorig - highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg

» It was Goring who ordered Security Police chief Reinhard

Heydrich to organize and coordinate a "total solution" to the

"Jewish question.“

» Sentenced to death – eventually committed suicide in cell.

– Hediki Tojo – waging war

» Sentenced to death

Domestic Impact of the War

• Leader on a Global stage– International relations

• No longer could America be truly “isolated”

• Leader of the Free world

• Economy and Government– Ended America’s Great Depression

• International Postwar economic growth – GATT

– Greater Government influence on economy• NEW DEAL + Lend Lease + War Production Board

– Power of the Presidency• War Powers Act – gave the president broad military powers

• Executive Orders

• Censorship Board –

• Banned discrimination in hiring process.

– Equal rights• African Americans –

• Fought against Racism and Communism