Transcript Document

1931 – 1941
Chapter 19
• What changes were taking place in the world after WWI and
how was America responding to those changes?
• What were the causes for WWII?
• What was the Holocaust?
• Why did the United States enter the war?
• Rise of Fascism in Italy
 Fascism – a very aggressive,
nationalistic socialism
 Fascists believed the state was
more important than the
individual
 Fascist states believed in
expansion through the military
 Fascist leader in Italy – Benito
Mussolini aka “Il Duce”
 Received support from Catholic
Church
• Stalin and the USSR
 Russian Revolution 1917 won by
Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin
 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
established (USSR) aka Soviet Union
 1926 Josef Stalin took over after
Lenin’s death and a subsequent
power struggle
 Stalin backed rapid industrialization
and the collectivization of agriculture
 Millions died during social turmoil
and famine
• Hitler and the Nazis
 Adolf Hitler admired Mussolini
 Hitler helped found the National
Socialist German Worker’s Party
(Nazi)
 1923 – Nazis attempted to seize
power in Munich – Hitler arrested
 In prison wrote Mein Kampf (my
struggle)
 The German Volk
 Aryans
 Lebensraum (living space)
 Hatred of Jews
 After prison, Hitler began political
rise in Nazi party
 1933 Hitler appointed Chancellor
 1934 Hitler could rule through
edict under Enabling Act
 Hitler also became president and
now in control of the German Army
 Der Fuhrer began to rebuild the
army in violation of the Treaty of
Versailles
• Militarists Gain Control of Japan
 Many Japanese military officers
blamed democracy and civilian
politicians for the Depression
 Japan needed resources for
industry – military wanted to take
them
 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria –
officers assassinated the Japanese
prime minister
 Military now in control
 Military backed by the Japanese
emperor, Hirohito
• American Neutrality
 Americans overwhelmingly
isolationist
 1935 Neutrality Act – illegal for US
to sell arms to any country at war
 1936 Spanish Civil War – Fascists
led by General Francisco Franco
supported by Italy and Germany;
Communists/Republicans
supported by Soviet Union
 US banned weapons sales to
countries in civil war
 Hitler and Mussolini signed
friendship pact
 Japan aligned itself with Germany
and Italy in Anti-Comintern Pact
 Japan, Germany, and Italy became
known as the Axis Powers
 1937 Neutrality Act – US still
banned arms sales but now any
sales of goods were “cash and
carry”
 FDR supported internationalism trade creates prosperity and helps
prevent war
• The Austrian Anschluss
 1938 – Hitler called for the
unification of German-speaking
peoples
 German troops marched into
Austria and united it with
Germany
 Hitler next demanded the
Sudatenland – a region of
Czechoslovakia dominated by
ethnic Germans
 Czech crisis resulted in Munich Conference
 Convinced Hitler would be satisfied, Britain
and France gave in to his demands
(appeasement)
 “Peace in Our Time” – British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain
 1939 Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia
• 1938 – Hitler demanded the
return of the city of Danzig
and transportation rights
through the Polish Corridor
• Britain and France announced
they would come to Poland’s
aid if Germany attacked
• 1939 – Germany and USSR
signed the Non-Aggression
Pact
• Secret deal would divide
Poland between Germany and
USSR
• September 1, 1939 – Germany
invaded Poland from the West
and USSR invaded from the East
• Britain and France declared war
on Germany
• Germany used mobile combined
arms warfare called Blitzkrieg
(lightning war)
• By October 1939 Poland was
defeated
• The Conquest of Western
Europe
 After fall of Poland Allies sat
facing Germany
 France defended with Maginot
Line
 April 1940 - Germany attacked
Norway and Denmark to
secure its iron supply from
Sweden
 May 1940 – Germany attacked
Netherlands, Belgium, and
Luxembourg
• French and British forces moved
north to confront German forces
in Belgium
• German armored units burst
through lightly defended border
at the Ardennes Forest –
bypassed Maginot Line
• French and British forces were
trapped in Belgium
• Trapped Allied forces evacuated
at Dunkirk using anything that
could float
• ~338,000 troops saved
• Allies had to leave behind all their
vehicles and heavy weapons
• June 1940 – France surrendered
• Northern France occupied by
Germans
• Rest of France placed under
control of French puppet
government at Vichy
• 1940 Battle of Britain
 Hitler expected Britain to
surrender – Britain refused
 British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill defiant
 Hitler prepared to invade –
needed control of the air for
success
 German Luftwaffe attacked
airfields then switched to cities
 British air force inflicted great
damage to Luftwaffe – invasion
called off
• Shoah – Jewish word for
catastrophe
• Anti-Semitism strong in Europe
since Middle Ages
• Hitler blamed Jews for Germany’s
defeat in WWI
• Nuremberg Laws – stripped Jews of
citizenship, restricted jobs and
freedoms, forbade marriages with
Jews
• Jew = anyone with at least one
Jewish grandparent
• Kristallnacht
 Night of broken glass
 Hitler sanctioned attacks on
Jewish people, businesses,
and synagogues
 Over 20,000 wealthy Jews
arrested by Gestapo
(German secret police)
 Jews forced to pay fines for
the “damages”
• Jews attempted to leave
Germany
• Some migrated successfully to
US including Albert Einstein
• Countries refused to take many
of them including US
• SS St. Louis, filled with Jewish
refugees, was turned back from
Cuba and the US – returned to
Europe
• The Final Solution
 Wannsee Conference – meeting
that arrived at decision to
exterminate Jewish population
 Concentration Camps – detention
centers where prisoners used as
slave labor
 Extermination Camps – usually
attached to concentration camps;
those not able to work: sick, old,
children were executed usually in
gas chambers
• Neutrality Act of 1939
 US officially neutral after
Europe went to war
 Despite neutrality, FDR did
what he could to help Britain
 FDR got Congress to lift ban
on arms sales but it had to
be “cash and carry”
• 1940 Destroyers-for-Bases
 US traded 50 WWI
destroyers fro bases in the
Caribbean
• Isolationism
 American public divided over
involvement in European affairs
 America First Committee strongly
opposed to helping Britain
 Election of 1940 – FDR walked
tightrope between neutrality and
helping Britain
 FDR re-elected to unprecedented
third term
• The Lend-Lease Act
 Britain out of money
 Under the Act, US lent war materiel
to Britain and, later, to the USSR
• Hemispheric Defense Zone
 Britain losing ships to German UBoats
 US could not directly help b/c it was
neutral
 US declared the eastern half the
Atlantic a Hemispheric Defense Zone
and used US military to patrol it
• The Atlantic Charter
 FDR and Churchill
discussed the
relationship between US
and Britain
 US promised to help
Britain more
 Fall 1941 German UBoats attacked US
warships
 USS Reuben James sank
with 115 sailors
• United States & Japan
 US angry at Japanese invasion of
China
 1940 Export Control Act – US
blocked sale of scrap metal and oil
to Japan
 US sent lend-lease materiel to
China
 US froze all Japanese assets in US
 US would not lift embargo until
Japan made peace in China
• Pearl Harbor
 Japan needed to secure resources in
Asia without interference from US
 Decided to knock out US fleet at
Hawaii
 December 7, 1941 – attacked US at
Pearl Harbor
 Attack knocked out bulk of US Pacific
fleet and killed 2,403 Americans
 US declared war on Japan – Germany
and Italy declared war on US