✡ Unit VII

With the rise of dictators in Europe and Japan, the world during the late 1930s and the 1940s became politically unstable. The quest for land, power, and resources using war as the medium would engulf all the world’s continents in the largest conflict in human history. At the outset, the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan would take the offensive and swiftly overtake nations. As the Allied powers began to mobilize, and with the entry of the U.S. later in the war, the tide began to turn. Some brilliant strategic maneuvers along with some Axis power mistakes would earn the Allied powers a victory which would forever change the political, social, and economic landscape of the world.

Holocaust

• program of mass murder

• 6 million Jews killed

• 1933-1945

Zionism

• Jews should go back to their homeland

• Bring Jews back into Israel where their history has roots

• World Zionist Organization (1929) - assist and encourage Jews worldwide to help develop and settle Israel

Anti-Semitism

• hatred towards Jews

• 500-1500 A.D. European dealing with Jews - when Christianity grew

  • Conversion - Roman empire adopts Christianity and Jews were attempted to be converted to Christianity

  • Expulsion & Separation (aka Segregation) - Jews were kicked out of Roman Empire → spread thoughout rest of Europe

  • Extermination - if methods above don’t work, Jews were exterminated

• 16th-19th Century Anti-Semitism

  • Martin Luther wrote a pamphlet titled “Jews and their lies“

  • Poland = one of the few refuges for Jews

    • King Casmir III = great and peaceful ruler of Poland

  • 19th Centural Liberalism: French Revolution promotes changes towards Jews

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

• Anti-semetic document printed in Russia

• wrote that Jews were planning on dominating the world

Dreyfus Affair

• 1894-1906

• Dreyfus (Jewish official in France) was accused for spying for the Germans

Enabling Act

• 1933

• Hitler’s proposal to strip parliament of power and give power to Hitler

• allow Hitler to introduce any laws he wanted

Nuremburg Laws

Jews are not allowed to:

• Marry or have sex with Aryans

• hire Aryan women as maids

• have rights of citizenship

Kristallnacht

• 1939 Night of Broken Glass

• Supposed cause = A german official was killed by a Jew

• Jewish places were burned down

• Even though many Jews had their property insured, they could not collect their payments after the Kristallnacht because the Nazis and the insurance companies conspired to fine the Jews 1 billion marks for all the damages

Zyclon-B

• Poisonous gas that killed 12,000/day

• used in gas chambers

• was originally used to kill rats and insects

Final Solution

• “Europe would be combed of Jews from East to West“

• Phase I: Shooting - Jews were rounded up and told to be relocated

  • taken to woods and shot one by one → buried in mass graves

• Phase II: Gas Vans - Told to be relocated in vans

  • Van’s exhaust pumped back into vans ← 7,000 killed

• Problems with Phase I and II

  • time consuming and wasted resources

  • psychological problems with soldiers

• Phase III: Camps - sped up Final Solution

  • Concentration or Extermination

Auschwitz

• complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps

• mass killings with Zyklon-B gas

• Dr. Josef Mengele = SS Doctor of life and death → experimented on prisoners

Madagascar Plan

• Plan to deport the Jews of Europe to Madagascar, a French island colony off the southeast coast of Africa

• briefly brought up in the summer of 1940 as a solution to the "Jewish question"

S.S. St. Louis

• Passenger ship with Jews

• turned away from US because the ship was fleeing Nazi Germany

• Refused after landing in Cuba

• ship returned to Europe, some refugees went to Belgium, England, etc, but others ended up in concentration camps

Polish Ghettos

• 1940

• Poland used as a holding area for German Jews deported there

• Ghettos - Lodz, Krakow, Warsaw = 600,000 Jews

• 1942 - Ghettos liquidated

Eizengruppen

• SS death squad

• caused mass murder of Jews through shooting

Reinhard Heydrich

• sped up emigration of Jews

• one of the masterminds of Final Solution (along with Heinrich Himmler)

Wannsee Conference

• Heydrich was ordered by Hermann Goering to prepare “Final Solution“

• Organized meeting with top Nazi officials in Berlin Jan 20, 1942

• Nazis would attempt to exterminate Jews

Concentration vs. Extermination Camp

Concentration Camp:

• prisoners used for forced labor

• lasted less than ½ year

• prisoners = Jews, communists, homosexuals, criminals, social-democrats

Extermination Camp:

• started out as ordinary concentration camps

• later modified with gassing installations

• Auschwitz - mass killings with Zyklon B gas ← 12,000 killed per day

• Dr. Josef Mengele = SS doctor of life/death → experimented on prisoners

Dr. Joseph Mengele

• SS doctor of life/death → experimented on prisoners

How many people were killed in the Holocaust?

• 6 million Jews

• 5 million non-Jews

Genocide

the annihilation of an entire race of people

UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide

• United Nations organization

• prevents and to punishes the crime of genocide

Rwanda Genocide

• 1994 after Rwanda independence

• Hutu rule resulted in widespread discrimination against Tutsi

Blitzkrieg

• “Lightning War“

• Germany’s plan = bomb Great Britain with Air Force until they surrender

Spain

• officially neutral in WWII

• however helped Axis by:

  • servicing their planes

  • allowing Axis agents to operate in Madrid

  • sent a military unit, "Blue Division," to fight with Germany against the Russians

Poland

• attack on Poland started WWII

• in the 6 months after the fall of Poland, there was no fighting (aka Phony War)

appeasement

• doing anything to avoid war

• Britain's policy in the 1930s of allowing Hitler to expand German territory unchecked in order to prevent WWII

Anschluss

• 1938

• Germany annexing (aka connecting) Austria with its powers

Liebensraum

• Hitler’s geographic concept

• wanted to expand his rule to provide more land to Germans, while also wanting to drive Jews out

Munich Conference

• Europe trades honor for peace

• Between Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy

• Agreed that Germany could take Sudentland and parts of Czechoslovakia as a form of appeasement

Sudentland

• a region with a majority of ethnicallly German population

• surrounding Czechoslovakia

Why did the British and French adopt the policy of appeasement?

• They wanted to maintain a state of peace rather than honor

• wanted to prevent war as much as possible

What were the causes of WWII?

• Treaty of Versailles

  • Germany violated the treaty by sending troops to occupy Rhineland

• Hitler demands return of Sudentland to German government

  • Munich Conference

• Germany takes over Czechoslovakia by force

• Nazi-Soviet nonaggression Pact

• Germany attacks Poland using blitzkrieg

• Key Cause: failure of appeasement

When and where did WWII start in Europe?

• September 1, 1939

• Germany invades Poland

Why did the U.S. enter WWII?

• Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941

• Congress declared war on Japan the day after the attack

What was U.S. foreign policy leading up to WWII 1939-1941?

• moved from isolation to intervention

Lend-Lease act

• March 11, 1941

• allowed US to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States."

Destroyer-Base Deal

• Exchange btwn US and Britain

• 50 Caldwell, Wickes, and Clemson-class US Navy destroyers transferred to Royal Navy

• British-possessed land rights were given to US

Nazi-Soviet Pact

• August 1939

• aka Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact

• also called for economic cooperation and territorial expansion

• pledged not to attack one another in case of war

• secretly divide up Eastern Europe and Poland

Chamberlain

• Great Britain leader

• Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940

• signed Munich Agreement for Nazi Germany to take over Sudentland

• Declared war on Germany

• replaced by Churchill

Daladier

• Edward Daladier of France

• Signed Munich Agreement for Nazi Germany to take over Sudentland

Churchill

• GB prime minister during WWII

• brought UK out of defeat by Germany

Stalin

• Russia’s leader in WWII

Mussolini

• Italy’s leader

Hitler

• Leader of Nazi Germany

Hirohito

• Japan’s emperor through:

• invasion of China

• Pearl Harbor

• surrender of Japan

FDR

• US president during all of WWII

Truman

• made decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan

De Gaulle

• led liberation of France in WWII

European Conflict

• Allied powers held policy of appeasement

  • Nazi Germany took over more land

• War in Europe officially started with the attack of Poland

Phony War

• 6 months after fall of Poland, there was no fighting

• Initial sides: Britain + France vs. Germany

Fall of France

• May 12 - June 22, 1940

• France thought war would be defensive

• German troops cut through Belgium, broke through fortifications

Maginot Line

• set of concrete fortifications built on France-Germany border

• ran Switzerland to Belgium

• consisted of underground areas, living quarters, and thousands of men

Dunkirk

• Allied soldiers retreated to English Channel shores (in France)

• troops trapped but successfully evacuated by ships

• May 23-June 4 1940

• over 300,000 saved by yachters and fishermen

• “Wars are not won by evacuations“ -Churchill

  • war is not over by a small retreating victory

• bad weather and clouds also saved English and French soldiers

Vichy France vs. Free France vs. occupied France

• German occupied north and west

• Vichy government = French sympathetics to Nazi’s

  • run by French but really by Germany

• Free France government = Charles de Gaule talked on radio from GB

  • French who escaped, many went to GB, resistance effort

Operation Sea Lion

• Battle of Britain

• Germany’s plan to take GB

• Germans failed because Hitler had bad intelligence

The Blitz

• The Blitz = plan to bomb GB (with air force) until they surrender

• Luftwaffe vs. Royal Air Force

Luftwaffe

German Air Force

RAF

• Royal Air Force

• Spitfire planes (British) shot down bigger bomber planes (German)

• 3:1 outnumbered but successful because they had radar to track German planes takeoff

What helped the British win the battle?

Ultra = GB code-breaking group → broke Enigma

Spitfire

• Spitfire planes (British) shot down bigger bomber planes (German)

Total War

• civilians become part of fighting

Ultra

• intercepted German messages

  • broke Enigma

Operation Barbarossa

• Germany’s Invasion of Soviet Union

• June 22, 1941

• Russia surprised because it was allies with Germany through non-agression pact

• Germany’s reasons

  • would provide “living space“ for so called German master race

    • rich resources (grain, oil) in Soviet Union

  • Hitler despised communism

  • Britain would sue for peace after Soviets defeated Russia

  • his army would easily defeat USSR before winter

    • turned out to be unsuccessful

  • a lot of Jews in Soviet Union

Battle of Leningrad

• 900 day seige

• Russians were almost starved to death

• Importance: had many factories and home of Russia’s baltic fleet

Battle of Stalingrad

• August 1942

• Stalin “defend it at all costs“

  • filled with oil - can’t let it fall

• house to house fighting

  • soldiers go room to room to fight

• winter comes

• counterattack traps German in city without supplies

  • Russians baited German soldiers

• Hitler = “stay and fight!“

• Germans surrender Jan 31, 1943

• Reasons for failure:

  • scorched earth policy (similar to Napoleon)

  • winter - metal doesn’t work well in cold

  • long supply lines

• Germany never will be on offensive side after this

Battle for Moscow

• middle of Russia and capital

Operation Husky

• taking over Sicily

Operation Avalanche

take over Italy’s peninsula

• battles = Salerno, Anzio, Monte Cassino

Gustav Line

heavily defended to protect North Italy and Rome

“Soft Underbelly“

• used to describe Italy

• Allies wanted to invade Italy as a starting point of invading Germany-invaded Europe

Allied Bombings

• Bombing of Dresden = Allies bombing factory city of Germany

D-Day

• June 6, 1944

• Invasion of France

Dieppe

• aka Operation Rutter → Operation Jubilee = Raide of Dieppe

• August 19, 1942

• huge failure - test out invasion of France

Operation Fortitude

• fake operation to divert Germans from knowing real D-Day info

• convinced Germans that the invasion would be at Calais and not Normandy

Fighting in the hedgerows

• During D-Day invasion

• hedgerows were so thick in France

• hard to fight, even when enemies were very close

Dwight D. Eisenhower

• supervised D-Day

George Patton

• US genral

• led victories in North Africa, Sicily, and all over Europe

Operation Dragoon

• full French army to participate in liberation of France from Germany

• Part of D-Day invasion

Battle of Arnhem

• German victory

Operation Market Garden

• Allied operation to invade northern Germany

• fought in German-occupied Netherlands

Battle of the Bulge

• major German offensive

• tried to create a “bulge“ in Belgium

• unsuccessful for Germans because their supplies ran short

Bastogne

• part of later Battle of Bulge

• successful Allied defense of small Belgium town of Bastogne

Crossing the Rhine

• Allies captured Ludendorff bridge

• quickly crossed into inner Germany and defeated them

Fall of Berlin

• Berlin fell into USSR hands

• Germans shortly after surrendered unconditionally

Hitler’s death

• committed suicide on April 30, 1945

• Berlin, before Soviet Union could hunt him down

VE- Day

• Victory in Europe Day

• May 4, 1945

• Celebrated Allies’ acceptance of Germany’s unconditional surrender

North Africa

• Operation Torch

• Oct 1942

• Fighting for the Suez Canal

• Alles don’t want Germany to have control and get to Japan

• Suez Canal = access to oil

• Important bc it was launching pad to Axis power’s underbelly

General Erwin Rommel

• Desert Fox

• Nazi-Germany general

• Tank Warfare Genius

• vs. Montgomery in North Africa

Battle of El Alamein

• British pushed back East towards Suez Canal, but GB wins

Operation Torch

• Norch Africa

• important bc = launching pad to Axis power’s underbelly

Pacific Theater

• Fighting in Pacific

• Dec 7, 1941-Sept 2, 1945

Co-Prosperity Sphere

Who did Japan attaack in 1937?

• controlled many parts of China

Isoroku Yamamoto

• created Pearl Harbor attack

Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?

• Dec 7, 1941

• Japan wanted to cripple US enough to weaken it

• then take over more area in Asia, then sue for peace

Who were some of the leaders blamed for not being prepared for the attack?

• they saw japanese planes on radar

• intercepted busy japanese code lines

In the early part of 1942 what was happenening in the war in the pacific?

japan covered a lot of Asia

Doolittles raid

• air raid on Japan

• boost us morale

Battle of coral sea

neither side’s ships saw each other