World War II (1939-1945)

▪ The Rise of rulers with total power in Europe & Asia led to WWII. Using the sudden mass attack called blitzkrieg, German invaded and quickly conquered many European countries. During the Holocaust, the Nazis systematically executed 6 million Jews and 5 million other “non-Aryans.” In response to the fighting in Europe, the U.S. provided economic & military aid to help the Allies achieve victory.

Essential Question

How did the rise of dictators contribute to the outbreak of World War II?

Objectives

▪ Identify the types of governments that took power in Russia, Italy, Germany and Japan after World War I.

▪ Explain Hitler’s motives for expansion and how Britain & France responded.

▪ Describe the blitzkrieg tactics that Germany used against Poland.

▪ Describe the American response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Dictators threaten world peace.

▪ 1930s’ Europe was led by dictators in Germany (Adolf Hitler), Italy (Benito Mussolini), and the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin). Mussolini ruled his country through fascism, which stressed nationalism & placed the interests of the state above those of individuals. Hitler combined fascism with Nazism, extreme nationalism and racial superiority, to his style of government. Stalin ran a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens.

Comparing Totalitarian RegimesFascist Italy Nazi Germany Communist USSR

Extreme nationalism

Extreme nationalism & racism

Strong communist state waiting for revolution

Militaristic Expansion

Militaristic Expansion

Workers revolt

Charismatic leader Forceful leader Working class rule (Supposedly)

Private property w/ strong government control

Private property w/ strong government control

State ownership of property.

Anticommunist Anticommunist

War in Europe▪ Hitler united Germany with Austria and began to reclaim

territory from France and Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, tried to use appeasement, giving up principles to pacify and aggressor, to halt Hitler’s expansion. Hitler then reached the nonaggression pact, agreement to not attack, with Stalin. Winston Churchill, the new British Prime Minister, stood up to Hitler and his blitzkrieg, utilizing fast tanks & more powerful aircraft.

Major European Battles (1939-1941)Battle Overview Outcome

Blitzkrieg in Poland -September 1, 1939

Starting battle of WWII and 1st use of Germany’s “Lightning War.” The Soviet Union then attacked the eastern part of Poland.

Germany conquered Poland in 3 weeks along with its millions of Jews. Britain and France declare war on Germany.

Fall of France - Spring 1940

Germans swarm through France & trap 400,000 British and French soldiers at Dunkirk. June 22, 1940 France surrenders.

France controlled by Germany. Charles de Gaulle leads Free-France from England. Germans set to attack England from French coast.

Battle of Britain - Summer 1940

Germans attack England from the skies bombing London for 2 months straight. England used Radar to beat back the German Luftwaffe.

Germans abandoned their planned invasion of England and looked towards Russia. -”Never was so much owed by so many to so few.”

The Holocaust

▪During the Holocaust, the Nazis systematically executed 6 million Jews and 5 million other “non-Aryans.”

Objectives

▪Explain the reasons behind the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews and the problems facing Jewish refugees.▪Describe the Nazis’s “final solution” to the Jewish problem and the horrors of the Holocaust.▪ Identify and describe the profound and lasting effects of the Holocaust on survivors.

Defining the Holocaust

▪ Textbook: The systematic murder of 6 million Jews across Europe.

▪ U.S. Holocaust Museum: The systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

▪ Yad Vashem: Unprecedented genocide, total and systematic, perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, with the aim of annihilating the Jewish people.

▪ Imperial War Museum: The systematic and wholesale slaughter of 2/3 of Jews in Europe by the Nazis and their collaborators between 1939-1945.

Anti-Semitism: Hatred of Jews as a group or Jews as a concept.

In the beginning…

▪ Kristallnacht–Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish

homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany & Austria.

▪ Ghetto–Segregated Jewish areas in certain Polish

cities.

Hitler’s “Final Solution”

▪ Concentration Camps–Originally prisons for political opponents

turned into death camps by the SS (Hitler’s Bodyguards).

▪ Genocide–The Deliberate and systematic killing of

an entire population.

Exit Slip

1.What happened during Kristallnacht?

2.Briefly describe the ghettos into which many Jews were forcibly relocated?

3.Briefly describe the conditions for prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.

4.What is Genocide?

5.Describe the “Final Solution”.