CH. 32: WWII

Sec. 1: Hitler’s Lightening War

BACKGROUND

 - Hitler repeatedly violated the Treat of Versailles through the 1930’s but in the hope of peace, Great Britain and France did nothing. He now turned to Poland. Both Great Britain and France vowed war if Hitler were to invade Poland

NON-AGGRESSION

 Non-Aggression Pact – A promise between Germany and the Soviet Union not to invade each other  - A secret part of the pact was that Germany and the USSR would divide Poland between them.

 - This cleared the way for Germany to invade Poland

WAR

 September 1, 1939 – Germany invades Poland  September 3, 1939 – Great Britain and France declare war on Germany  - This declaration came too late to help Poland

BLITZKRIEG

 Blitzkrieg – “lightening war.” New German war tactic that involved fast moving tanks and planes followed by massive military forces.

 - It was designed to surprise and quickly overwhelm enemy defenders. In the case of Poland, it worked.

DIVIDED POLAND

 - Germany gained control of western Poland  - The USSR invaded and occupied eastern Poland  - Germany also occupied Denmark and Norway  - This gave them a strategic point to launch attacks on Great Britain

FRANCE

 May 1940 – Hitler took Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. This was designed to get to France  June 22, 1940 – France falls after only six weeks of battle

FRANCE

FRANCE

 Charles de Gaulle – The leader of the French government in exile in London  - He urged the French citizens to continue to fight against Germany  - The fall of France meant that Great Britain was now alone against Germany

CHURCHILL

 Winston Churchill – Was the British leader. He vowed that Great Britain would never surrender  - Hitler planned to knock out the British air force and then put 250,000 soldiers on the ground  Summer, 1940 – The German Luftwaffe began bombing Great Britain

LUFTWAFFE

 Luftwaffe – German air force  September 7, 1940 – Germany began to bomb London. This was designed to break the British morale but that did not happen  - The British weathered the German attacks and began to hot back

BATTLE OF BRITAIN

 Battle of Britain – The name of this air war campaign  May 10, 1941 – Hitler could not penetrate British forces so he called of the attack and focused on eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. He would deal with Great Britain later - It showed that Hitler’s attacks could be stopped

BATTLE OF BRITAIN

 - Although Hitler couldn’t see it, the Battle of Britain was a huge loss for Germany. Many planes were destroyed and many of Germany’s top pilots were killed

EGYPT

 September, 1940 – Italy invaded Egypt. Mussolini wanted to push the British out and control the oil fields of the Middle East  - The British stopped Mussolini but Hitler sent in help and pushed the British back

ROMMEL

 Erwin Rommel – The German commander in Africa  - His success in Africa earned him the nickname “The Desert Fox.”

BARBAROSSA

 June 22, 1941 – Hitler ignores the non aggression pact and invades the USSR  Operation Barbarossa – The code name of the attack  - The USSR had a large army but they were poorly trained and caught off guard by the attack  - At first, the Germans moved very quickly into the Soviet Union  - As the Soviets retreated , they used the same scorched earth policy they used against Napoleon

LENINGRAD

 Leningrad – The Germans launched a fierce battle to take the city  - The Germans had the city surrounded and cut off all supplies. Still, the citizens did not give in, even though they were starving  - Eventually Hitler gave up and moved on to Moscow, but the result was the same

LENINGRAD

RUSSIAN WINTER

 - The German military was caught out in the Soviet winter with only summer uniforms.  - It was a stalemate until march, 1943  - About 500,000 Germans died in that time

BRRRRR….

US

 - At this point in the war, the US was still claiming to be neutral, but was selling weapons to the allies. The US was also attacking German U Boats when they were encountered.

 - But it wouldn’t be Germany that drew the US into WWII

SEC. 2: JAPAN’S PACIFIC CAMPAIGN

BACKGROUND

 - Japan began its invasion of China in 1931 and launched a full invasion in 1937. The Japanese expected a quick victory but it didn’t work out that way. In need of resources for the war, Japan looked to the European colonies of Southeast Asia  - As Japan overran French Indochina, the US became worried about its colonies in the Philippines and Guam  - The US sent aid to China to help fight the Japanese and cut off oil shipments to Japan.

 - Japan responded by attacking the US

PEARL HARBOR

 December 7, 1941 – Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii  - 19 ships were sunk or damaged. 2,300 Americans were killed and 1,800 were wounded  - The US declared war on Japan the next day

PEARL HARBOR

STUFF

 - Japan took several lightly defended islands in the Pacific such as Guam and wake Is. But they also took the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, and Burma  - Japanese treatment od citizens of the conquered areas was brutal. The treatment od captured soldiers was worse  Read Primary Source – p. 932  - At first the Japanese made gains and seemed unstoppable, but much of that was due to the element of surprise

JAPANESE AGGRESSION

BATTLES

 April, 1942 – The US bombed Tokyo under the leadership of James Doolittle  - The raid itself did little damage but made an important psychological point to both sides: Japan was vulnerable to attack

MIDWAY

 Battle of Midway – (June 1942) – The US scored a huge victory over Japan at Midway Is. This was an early turning point in the war with Japan  - After Midway, the US went on the offensive  - The war in the Pacific covered vast distances and the Japanese were dug in to several islands

MACARTHUR

 Douglas MacArthur – Was the allied forces commander in the Pacific  - MacArthur decided not to attack heavily defended islands but to take smaller less defended islands closer to Japan first

GUADALCANAL

 Battle of Guadalcanal – A deadly six month battle to take the island of Guadalcanal. Japan lost 24,000 of 36,000 soldiers on the island  - It was an important American victory, but other islands would prove to be very costly  - read Primary Source – p. 935

SEC. 3: THE HOLOCAUST

HOLOCAUST

 - The Nazis proposed a new world order as part of their vision for Europe  Aryan – Germanic people were the “master race.”  - The Nazis claimed that all non Aryan people, especially the Jews, were inferior

HOLOCAUST

 Holocaust – The attempted extermination of Europe’s Jews  - To gain support for racist ideas, Hitler knowingly tapped into a hatred of the Jews that had deep roots in European history  - Jews had been targeted for years in Europe

NUREMBERG LAWS

 - Hitler made the targeting of Jews government policy by passage of the Nuremberg Laws. These laws deprived Jews of their right to German citizenship, forbade marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and eventually limited the type of work they could do

KRISTALLNACHT

 - To avenge his uncle’s deportation to Poland, a Jewish youth shot a German diplomat in Paris.  - This set off a night of destroying Jewish property and burning synagogues in Germany.

 Kristallnacht – “Night of Broken Glass”  Read Primary Source – p. 937  - Many Jews tried to flee Germany after kristallnacht but most stayed in Germany thinking Hitler would be gone soon  - Germany occupied several countries with large Jewish populations so he decided to isolate them

GHETTO

 Ghetto – Segregated Jewish areas. Most were overcrowded and filthy. Many Jews died in the ghetto of starvation and disease  Final Solution – This was Hitler’s answer to the Jewish question. All of the Jews in Germany and the occupied territories would be killed  Genocide – The killing of a race of people

GHETTO

MURDER

 - Hitler actually did not do the planning for the Final Solution, he just gave the order  - Hitler also ordered the deaths of the Roma (Gypsies), Poles Russians, homosexuals, and the mentally and physically disabled  - He felt those groups were inferior and would ruin racial purity

MURDER

 - In the beginning, the Nazis used “killing squads” to go from village to village to round up Jews and shoot them.

MURDER

 - This was a slow and pshychologically difficult process for the killers

MURDER

 - Eventually extermination camps were built that used gas to kill thousands a Jews a day

HOLOCAUST

HOLOCAUST

 Mr. Hager will explain the Holocaust in greater depth in class  Read – Primary Source – p. 939

SEC. 4: THE ALLIED VICTORY

BACKGROUND

 - The USSR was fighting the Germans in the east, but Stalin was desperate for the US to attack from the west and force Germany to fight on two fronts. He felt this would split the German military and weaken them.

 - Stalin wanted the second front to be in France, but the US and Great Britain decided to attack in Africa instead.

 - The British were able to push Rommel’s forces back with a huge attack force  - The US attacked from the west and had Rommel’s troops pinned in between the US and the British  May, 1943 – Rommel’s troops were defeated

STALINGRAD

 Battle of Stalingrad – Was a fierce battle fought between the USSR and Germany beginning on August 23, 1942  - Stalingrad was an industrial center and it was the last defense between the German army and the oil fields in the east  - It also had psychological importance as Stalin’s namesake city

STALINGRAD

 - The Germans held 90% of the city but could not control it all  - On February 2, 1943, against Hitler’s orders, 90,000 German troops surrendered. That is all that was left of the 330,000 that invaded  - Stalingrad was 99% destroyed

STALINGRAD

 - After this battle the USSR began to push the Germans back and turned the tide of the war against Germany

ITALY

 July 10, 1943 – The allies landed on the island of Sicily and began the takeover of Italy  September 3, 1943 – Italy surrendered and declared neutrality, but Germany still controlled northern Italy and continued fighting  June 4, 1944 – The allies took Rome, but Germany continued to fight in Italy until the war ended in May, 1945

MUSSOLINI HANGING OUT

 April 27, 1945 – Mussolini was arrested then shot.

 Read – The allied home fronts – p. 941-943

D DAY

 June 6, 1944 – A huge allied force landed at Normandy in northwestern France and began the push to Berlin. This finally opened the second battle front that Stalin wanted  Operation Overlord – The code name for the Normandy invasion  D Day – More common name for the attack

D DAY

 - The allies suffered heavy casualties but they gained a foothold in France  - Mr. Hager will explain this more in class

D DAY

NEARING THE END

August, 1944 – Paris is liberated September, 1944 – France, Belgium, and Luxembourg were liberated Battle of the Bulge – (December 16) – The last German offensive of WWII. The Germans surprised the allies with a counterattack, but the allies recovered and held the Germans off

THE END FOR GERMANY

 April, 1945 – The allies were approaching Berlin from the west and the Soviets were approaching from the east  April 30, 1945 – Hitler commits suicide  May 7, 1945 – Dwight Eisenhower accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender

 Dwight Eisenhower – Was the supreme commander allied forces in Europe  - The war in Europe was over but the US was still fighting the Japanese in the Pacific

IKE

PACIFIC BATTLES

 Fall 1944 – The US retakes the Philippines  March 1945 – The US takes the strategic island of Iwo Jima  April, 1945 – The US takes another strategic island, Okinawa

DEATH TOLL

 - The Japanese were ordered to fight to the death. On Iwo Jima, out of 22,000 soldiers, only 216 surrendered. The rest were killed. Out of 70,000 Americans, 6,821 were killed and 19,217 were wounded  - Okinawa – Japan suffered 100,000 killed; the US had 12,000 killed

THE MAINLAND

 - The next target for the US was the Japanese mainland, but after witnessing the Japanese fighting attitude on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, President Truman knew that a land invasion of Japan would be a bloodbath

THE BOMB

 Manhattan Project – The top secret development of a nuclear bomb  - Japan refused to surrender despite a warning of a new US weapon  August 6, 1945 – The US drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (population 350,000)  - Truman’s advisors felt this would be the quickest way to end the war with the fewest American casulties

DEATH TOLL

 - The bomb killed 70,000 – 80,000 people  - Japan did not reply to a surrender request

NAGASAKI

  August 9, 1945 – The US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki (population 270,000) - The bomb killed 70,000 people  - Many more would die of radiation poisoning in the future

SURRENDER

 September 2, 1945 – Japan officially surrenders and WWII was over

SEC. 5: EUROPE AND JAPAN IN RUINS

FACTS

 - After six years of war, the allies finally were victorious. The cost was nearly 60 million killed world-wide (22 million in the Soviet Union) and billions of dollars  - Another 50 million had been uprooted from their homes and had nowhere to live  Read – Devastation in Europe – p. 948-948  Read – Post-war Governments and politics – p. 949

NUREMBERG TRIALS

 Nuremberg Trials – Putting Nazi criminals on trial in Germany  - 22 Nazi leaders were charged with waging a war of aggression  - Several Nazi leaders committed suicide before the trials could begin (Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Goering)

NAZI LEADERS

 - 10 Nazi leaders were executed. The rest received various prison sentences

JAPAN

 - The US would occupy Japan until 1952. Douglas MacArthur was in charge  - He was determined to be fair and not plant the seeds of another war  Demilitarization – Disbanding of the Japanese military  - 25 Japanese leaders were brought to trial. 7 were condemned to death  Democratization – The process of bringing democracy to Japan  - MacArthur drew up a new constitution for Japan and helped revive the economy

POST-WAR

 - Emperor Hirohito would not stand trial as a war criminal but he would be stripped of his power   - He also had to admit to his people that he was not a divine ruler as they had believed  - He would become a symbolic figure

POST-WAR

 - The Japanese government would be set up much like the government of Great Britain where the king/queen is largely symbolic with no real power  - The power rests with the people  - The US and Japan became allies. The US still has a presence in Japan today  - The US and the Soviet Union would become enemies

THE END!