World War IIChapter 29

By Kathryn Raia

Sec 1: Aggression, Appeasement and War

• Acts of Aggression– Japan

• Where did Japan invade in the 1930’s and why?

• What type of government did Japan develop in the 1930s?

– Italy invades Ethiopia• Why?• Haile Selassie appealed

to League of Nations– Effects?

Aggression & Appeasement Continued

• Germany– How did Hitler violate the Treaty of

Versailles?– How did the Western Democracies react?

• Appeasement• Why??

» France – unstable government» Britain – did not want to confront

the dictator» Also thought that his actions were

justified in reaction the harsh terms of the treaty

» Saw Hitler as a defense against Soviet communism

» Great depression zapped their energies

» Widespread PACIFISM – opposition to all war and disgust with the last war

Aggression & Appeasement Continued

– Reaction in the US• Neutrality acts – forbade

the sale of arms to a nation at war

• No loans to nations at war• GOAL OF ACTS ?

– Rome – Berlin – Tokyo Axis

• Germany, Italy and Japan form the Axis powers

– Agreed to fight Soviet communism

– Not to interfere with each other’s plans for expansion

Spanish Civil War 1936– Causes:

• Left Radicals and Communists – more reforms

• Right Conservatives and military rejected change

– Nationalists versus Loyalists• Right wing general (conservative) –

Francisco Franco led a revolt started civil war

• Loyalists – communists socialists, supporters of democracy, etc

• Hitler and Mussolini sent forces to help Franco

• Western democracies and the USSR sent forces to help the loyalists

– A Dress Rehearsal• Both sides committed unbelievable

atrocities• German air raid on Guernica – 1600

people killed – experiment with new airplane warfare

• 1939 – Franco triumphed – created a Fascist dictatorship

Hitler’s Foreign Goals• Two goals:

– Unite all German and Aryan people into one nation.

– Lebensraum or living space for them (eastern Europe)

• Hitler repudiates Versailles Treaty and begins massive rearmament in mid-1930s

• Anschluss: Germany annexes Austria, 1938

• Sudetenland: Hitler demanded the German-speaking province in Czechoslovakia or else there would be war

Czech Crisis• Munich Conference, 1938 arranged by British

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain

• Attended by Britain, France, Italy & Germany; Czechoslovakia or Russia not invited!

• British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain adopted a policy of appeasement

• Appeasement: making concessions to an aggressor in order to achieve peace

• Pacifism is prevalent in Britain and France: memories of horrors of WWI; don't want war

– Agreement: Czechoslovakia forced to give away Sudetenland

– In return Hitler guaranteed the independence of Czechoslovakia

– Also agreed no more territorial demands in Europe– If the Czechs refused to comply, they would get no

military help from France or Britain– Chamberlain returns to Britain a hero: "peace in

our time"

Movement Toward War• March 1939 Hitler took the rest of

Czechoslovakia – Western democracies promised to protect

Poland• Nazi – Soviet Pact

• August 1939 Hitler and Stalin sign an non-aggression pact

• Secretly the two agreed not to fight if the other went to war

• To divide up Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between the two

• Pact based on mutual need not friendship

• Invasion of Poland – September 1, 1939• 2 days later Britain and France declared

war on Germany

Sec 2: German Conquests 1939-1941• Blitzkrieg ("lightning war"): new form of

warfare used by Germany to quickly defeat an enemy by poking a hole in enemy line and cutting off front lines from the rear thus surrounding enemy.

– Used coordinated attack on one part of enemy line with airforce, tanks, and artillery

• Poland defeated in about a month; partition occurred when USSR attacked from east

• Stalin invades Finland (1939) and annexes Estonia, Latvia, & Lithuania (1940) to create a buffer zone, believing Hitler will one day invade Soviet Union

• sitzkrieg (“phony war”): After Poland, a 7-month lull ensued, causing some to say WWII was a myth. The world waited to see where Hitler might strike next.

German Conquests 1940

• Spring 1940: Hitler invaded Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg

• Fall of France, June 1940 occurred in less than six weeks

– Dunkirk: thousands of French and British soldiers trapped on beaches of France

– Before Germans came in for the kill, thousands were rescued by armada of British vessels

• Vichy France: Hitler did not wish to waste time subduing all of France

– Puppet gov't created in southern France

• “Free French” led by General Charles De Gaulle, who fled to Britain

European Theatre

Operation Sea Lion

• Battle of Britain: one of most critical battles of the war

• Hitler sought to soften Britain up for an invasion ("Operation Sealion")

• Luftwaffe sent to destroy Royal Air Force (RAF)

• Winston Churchill emerged as inspirational war leader of Britain

• After almost defeating RAF, Hitler ordered bombing of London: fatal error (London Blitz)

• RAF recovered and ultimately defeated Luftwaffe: Hitler forced to call off invasion of Britain

• Significance: Hitler had to guard against a future two-front war; D-Day launched from Britain

North Africa• Mussolini sends troops from his

colony of Libya into British Egypt• Hitler sends General Erwin

Rommel or “Desert Fox” into assist

• He pushed the British back toward Cairo and the British were nervous about the Suez canal

• Mussolini goes into Greece

Operation Barbarossa June 1941

• Hitler's attempt at "lebensraum“

• Einstagruppen (mobile killing units of SS) move eastward

• "Scorched Earth": Soviets destroyed anything of value as they withdrew to deprive German army of resources; 1,000's of towns disappeared!

• By winter, Germans at the gates of Moscow; lay siege to Leningrad (lasted two years)

American Involvement• Atlantic Charter: Churchill and FDR meet secretly after invasion of Soviet

Union– Decide once Axis Powers defeated, there would be no territorial changes contrary to

the wishes inhabitants (self-determination)– Called for “a permanent system of general security”: later became the United Nations– Stalin endorsed the agreement soon thereafter– U.S. neutrality

• Neutrality Acts in 1930s prevented FDR from drawing U.S. into the conflict earlier

• Lend-Lease Act (1941) gave large amounts of money and supplies to help Britain and Soviets; effectively ended U.S. neutrality

Japanese Expansion 1939-1941

• Did the United States have any reason to fear Japanese Expansion?

• How did they plan to stop them?– Banned the sale of materials such

as iron, steel and oil to Japan– Japanese leaders saw this move

as an attempt to interfere in Japan’s sphere of influence in Southeast Asia

– Any other reasons for Japanese dislike of the US? (think immigration)

Boxed In?Boxed In?

December 7, 1941December 7, 1941• General Tojo Hideki ordered a surprise

attack on December 7th.• In two waves of terror lasting two long

hours, they killed or wounded over 3,500 Americans and sank or badly damaged 18 ships– including all 8 battleships of the Pacific

Fleet - and over 350 destroyed or damaged aircraft.  At least 1,177 lives were lost when the Battleship U.S.S. Arizona exploded and subsequently sank.

• How is this invasion similar to the invasion of Poland?

Bataan Death March• April 9th, 1942, US commander

Gen. Edward King, surrendered to the Japanese– Numbering more than 70,000

(Filipinos and Americans), • While the Japanese pounded

Corregidor (which would surrender on May 6), they led their prisoners on a forced march out of Bataan.

• Before the "Death March" was over, those who survived would march more than sixty miles through intense heat with almost no water or food.

• Somewhere between 5,000 and 11,000 never made it to POW Camp O'Donnell, where fresh horrors awaited.

US Enters the War• Hitler declared war on U.S.:

another fatal blunder! Instead of focusing on Japan, U.S. (along with Britain) would instead focus on defeating Germany first.

• The Grand Alliance formed in 1942: Britain, Soviet Union and U.S. and 2 dozen other countries

Section 3: Allied Successes

Nazi Empire in Europe• Nazis exploited Europe for its economic

value• Nordic peoples – Dutch, Norwegians, and

Danes received preferential treatment as they were racially related to the Germans

• Hitler heavily taxed the French as they were seen as “inferior” Latin people

• Slavs in eastern Europe were seen as “subhuman”– Seized en and women for slave labor in

German factories– Hitler planned that the poles, Ukrainians

and Russians would be enslaved and forced to die out while Germanic peasants resettled the resulting abandoned lands

– Polish workers and Soviet pows were transported to Germany where they did most of the heavy labor and were systematically worked to death

• Genocide of the Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses and communists– See Holocaust PowerPoint

Japanese Expansion• Co-Prosperity Sphere –

– Japan – anti-western imperialism

– Mission was to help Asians escape western colonization

– Goal – Japanese empire in Asia

– Japanese treated conquered people Brutally – killing torturing

– Seized food crops and make local people slave laborers

The Home Front – Total War• Government – increased political power

– Industry – forced factories to turn out war materials– Rationed important materials– Democratic governments limited the rights of their citizens– Censored press and used propaganda– Women– US and the Japanese Internment camps

Turning Points in the War1. El Alamein: British (under General

Montgomery) drove the Germans (under General Rommel, aka Desert Fox) out of Egypt

• “Operation Torch”, 1943: U.S. and British forces landed on North Africa

• 1943 - Germany eventually defeated and suffered mass casualties and surrenders.

• Hitler’s decision to invade USSR instead of defeat British in Mediterranean now proved to be a disastrous mistake.

2. Stalingrad, Dec. 1942: first Nazi defeat on land; Soviets began the 2.5 year campaign of pushing the German army back to Berlin

• Wanted Stalingrad en route to taking the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains

• German armies were eventually surrounded by Soviet forces – Germans not permitted to surrender

• 21/2 year campaign of the Soviets pushing the Germans back to Berlin

• February 1945 Soviet forces penetrated outskirts of Berlin

Turning Points in the War3. Invasion of Sicily and Italy, 1943• Opened another front that the Germans had to fight in the South.4. D-Day, Operation Overlord, June 6, 1944: invasion of Normandy (northern French coast)• 12,000troops crossed the English Channel from southern England and invaded France in an

amphibious assault on Normandy. • Western front established; spelled end of Nazi domination of Europe; Paris liberated 1

month later• Hitler now fighting on three fronts: east against Russians, west against U.S. and Britain (&

France) and Italy against U.S. and Britain

• Battle of the Bulge, Dec. 1944: Hitler's last gasp offensive to drive Allies away from western German border; after it failed, Allies quickly penetrated deep into Germany in 1945.

• V-E Day, May 8, 1945: Germany surrenders (Hitler committed suicide a few days earlier)

Section 4: Toward Victory

Japanese Possessions 1942

Onward to Victory• May and June 1942 –

Successes at battles of Coral Sea and Midway Island

• Midway– Allies took offensive– General Douglas MacArthur –

tried to recapture some Japanese – held islands while bypassing others “stepping stones” to get closer to Japan

– The Americans set up military bases to help them refuel and prepare for the war in the Pacific

– October 1944 – MacArthur begins to take back the Philippines, and the jungles of Burma and Malaya

– NO SURRENDER from the Japanese

End of War in the Pacific• Defeat of Japan

– Allies now focused their resources into defeating Japan

• Invasion versus the bomb– Officials estimated that an invasion of Japan would

have cost an estimated 1 or more million causalities

– Bloody battles – Okinawa and Iwo Jima – Japanese will fight until the end – die to save their homeland

– Kamikaze – pilots who flew suicide missions– Manhattan Project

• Nazi, soviet and American scientists

• FDR dies, Truman president– Warns Japan if they do not surrender “face utter

and complete destruction”– Japan doesn’t surrender – Drop first atomic bomb

on Hiroshima on August 6 1945– Hiroshima – radiation sickness / mass destruction– August 9th Nagasaki

• August 10th, Emperor Hirohito intervened and forced government to surrender

• Peace treaty signed on USS MISSOURI

Results of World War II• About 55 million dead (including missing); 22

million in USSR alone• Poles, Ukrainians, lost their lives as slave

laborers• 4 million Soviet POWs were killed in captivity

– Holocaust resulted in deaths of 6 million Jews and 6 million others

– Hitler's "Final Solution" to the Jewish problem

– Formal plan came at Wanasee Conference in 1942

– Six death camps built in Poland in addition to hundreds of concentration camps

– Auschwitz was most notorious – 90% of the Jewish populations of Poland, the

Baltic counties and Germany were exterminated

• Millions homeless and millions relocated (especially Germans living outside Germany)

• Much of Europe lay in ruins: would take years to rebuild economy

• Women played even larger role in the war economy than in WWI (gained more rights after war)

• The U.S. and Soviet Union emerged as the two dominant powers in the postwar world.

Results of World War II• War Crimes Trials in

Nuremberg – The Nuremberg Trials brought

some of those responsible for the atrocities of the war to justice.

– There were 22 Nazi criminals tried by the Allies in the International Military Tribunal.

– Twelve subsequent trials followed as well as national trials throughout formerly occupied Europe.

– The International Military Tribunal took place in Nuremberg, Germany in 1945 and 1946.

– 12 prominent Nazis were sentenced to death.

– Most claimed that they were only following orders, which was judged to be an invalid defense.

Results of World War II• Japan turned into

democracy• Allied Division of

Germany• Beginning of the Cold

War

Why did the Germans Lose?1. Three-Front War2. German Occupation Territory

too large3. Major Blunders

• Left the Battle of Britain without a victory

• Invasion of the USSR• Declaration of War against US

4. Industrial Capacity not equal to Allies

5. Axis Alliance proved to be a liability

• Mussolini was more of a liability than ally.

6. Grand Alliance proved overwhelming

American Memorials