WWII Study Guide

Causes of WWII

W: WWI and the Treaty of Versailles

A: Appeasement

R: Rise of Totalitarianism

Appeasement

Giving someone something to make them happy and leave you alone

Totalitarianism

• A system in which the state and its leader have nearly TOTAL control

• Individual rights are not viewed as important as the needs of the nation

Axis Powers

• Germany

• Italy

• Japan

Allied Powers

• Great Britain

• Soviet Union

• United States

• France(surrendered to Germany in 1940 after 6 weeks)

Prelude to War

• Germany moves troops into Rhineland(area in Germany near France)

• Germany annexes Austria and Sudetenland(area of Czechoslovakia)

• Hitler + Stalin sign peace agreement(Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)

Blitzkrieg

German war fighting tactic using aircraft and tanks to shock and weaken the enemy before sweeping in with ground forces

means “lightning war” in German

Italy Invasions

Italy mainly focused on southern Europe and northern Africa

Japan Invasions

Japan mainly focused on islands and nations in the Pacific

December 7th, 1941

Pearl Harbor Attack - Japan attacks the U.S. by bombing Pearl Harbor

Adolf Hitler

• leader of Nazi Germany

• extreme nationalist and racist

• expansion to create “living space

• abolished civil liberties of his people

• force used on people that opposed him

Hideki Tojo

• Japan

• extreme nationalist

• military control of civilian government

• expansion of raw materials

Benito Mussolini

• Fascist Italy

• extreme nationalism

• no individual liberties for citizens

• the state above everything else

• bring back to greatness of Rome

Joseph Stalin

• USSR - Communism

• communist party - government control

• state/government planning of the economy

• state-owned collective farms

• “Purges to maintain political control

GI’s

Government Issued

soldiers referred to as GI’s

Executive Order 9066(Roosevelt)

Military zones could be set up to house people deemed potentially dangerous

Korematsu vs. United States

civil rights can be set aside during times of war

Women’s Army Corps(WAC)

new roles for women in the military

Army Air Corps

first African-American combat unit

Tuskegee Airmen

Pilots, mainly bomber escorts(very dangerous!)

Kristallnacht

Night of Broken Glass

Jewish business, homes and synagogues destroyed along with many Jews being transported to concentration camps

1944 War Refugee Act(Roosevelt)

Jewish refugees areas established in North Africa and Italy

Bracero Program

Mexicans received short term contracts to come to the U.S. to work

Zoot Suit

brimmed hat, long suit coat, baggy pants

Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles

Pachuchos

(Teenagers) and local Navy servicemen fought

Pachuchos beaten badly, suits stripped off

November 1942

Allied forces led by Eisenhower and Bradley begin sweep through Northern Africa and liberate them

January 1943

Germans surrender to USSR

Precision bombing

focusing on certain targets

Saturation Bombing

rapid release of many bombs over a wide area

June 6, 1944

Operation Overlord - invade France, enter Europe

D-Day

Troops arrived by ships onto beaches and were under heavy German fire

They landed on 5 beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword

June 6th, 1944

Allies led by Eisenhower

August 1944

Allies liberate Paris

September 1944

allied troops cross into Germany

Battle of the Bulge

Germans surprise attack allied forces after their arrival into Germany

The attack forces the allied lines back, creating a bulge in their line

Air and ground support help drive the Germans back

Last German offensive on the Western front

April 30th, 1945

Hitler commits suicide with the allies surrounding Berlin

V-E Day

Germans surrender

May 8th, 1945

April 12th, 1945

President Roosevelt dies and President Truman takes over

Doolittle Raid

16 bombers take off 650 miles from Japan and bomb strategic areas of Tokyo

Battle of the Coral Sea

warships never come within sight of each other

U.S. stops Japanese expansion to the South

The Battle of Midway

U.S. victory

Last Japanese offensive launched

Leapfrogging

bypassing heavy armed islands to capture islands that were not well defended

General MacArthur

U.S. Commander of the Pacific fleet

1944

Marines take the Mariana Islands

Huge victory for the U.S.

Manhattan Project

top secret program to develop the atomic bomb

August 6th 1945

the first atomic bomb is dropped in Hiroshima, Japan

August 9th, 1945

Second atomic bomb is dropped in Nagasaki, Japan

August 14th, 1945

Japan surrenders

V-J Day

World Bank was created to..

• provide loans to struggling countries recovering from war

• countries trying to rebuild, and redevelop their economies

  *much of the funding came from the U.S.

United Nations

1944 - U.S., China, Soviets, Britain discuss a replacement for the League of Nations

50 Nations signed on in June of 1945

4 essential freedoms

• speech + expression

• worship

• from want

• from fear

Universal Declaration of Rights(1948)

• basic human rights affirmed(religion, expression, assembly)

• rights to life, liberty, equality before the law

Nuremberg trials

• Nazi officers tried in Nuremberg, Germany

• Judges and court came from Allied Powers

• 22 Nazi Defendants tried(12 condemned to death, 7 went to prison, 3 acquitted

Japanese Trials

• held in Tokyo

• 25 defendants found guilty

• 7 put to death, 16 received life sentences, 2 received light sentences

• Tojo executed by hanging

The Holocaust

• Nazi policy of persecution directed at minority groups in Europe(mainly Jews)

Antisemitism

hatred of Jewish people

Nurmeberg Laws

• legal segregation of Jews

  *Similar to Jim Crow laws in the U.S.

Concentration Camp

prison camp where prisoners were often forced to do hard labor and suffered starvation, disease, and often death

“Final Solution”

• Genocide

• Germans made extermination camps in which their main purpose was to kill

  Ex: Auschwitz-Birkenau