World War II Reading Questions

In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered most of Europe, and by the summer of 1940, Germany had conquered most of __Europe.

Western (Denmark, Norway, Holland and parts of France), continental

What type of fighting occurred in the Battle of Britain and what were the results?

Ariel battles with bombs between the British and Germans, British won by over-powering German Air Force which makes an invasion of GB impossible for Hitler and forces him to turn east and invade USSR. Royal Air Force vs. Luftwaffe. Germans hit airfields and key factories during the Blitz.

Germany invaded what European nation in June of 1941?

Soviet Union in operation Barbarossa.

Explain the geographic organization of occupied France during World War II.

North- Nazi occupied and controlled including Paris, Southeast- independent Vichy government under Petain.

Although occupied, France did undertake a to fight the German occupation.

resistance

Nazi persecution of the Jewish population began with what three general means?

Social, legal, economic

The German invasion of what two Eastern European nations from 1939-1941, placed most of the pre-World War II European Jewish population under Nazi control?

Poland and Soviet Union

What Nazi organization was in charge of the systematic persecution and murder of millions of European Jews?

SS

What terminology did the Nazis use to describe their decision to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe?

“final solution of the Jewish question”

What was the most infamous of the Nazi extermination camps?

Auschwitz-Birkenau

What did Holocaust survivor Primo Levi mean by what he called the “gray zone” of moral compromise?

Blurry between rights and wrong, German people wanted to do something but couldn’t because it was too late to stop it from continuing to happen, if they spoke out they would be killed.

For most of World War II, what did Stalin want most from the Western Allies?

For them to open a western front in France to relieve stress on Soviet Forces.

What battle was the turning point in the World War II struggle in North Africa?

Second battle of El Alamein.

The Allies used their victory in North Africa as a “launching pad” toward the invasion and liberation of what European nation?

Italy

What battle was the turning point in the Nazi-Soviet struggle in Eastern Europe?

Battle of Stalingrad.

The D-Day landings took place in what region of northern France?

Normandy

What Allied nation was the first to reach and occupy Berlin?

Soviet Union

The US used atomic bombs against what two Japanese cities at the end of World War II?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki