World War II Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards for review of WWII lecture notes.

Fascism

A political movement that promotes an extreme form of nationalism and militarism.

Benito Mussolini

Newspaper editor and politician that created the fascist movement.

Nazism

German form of fascism founded by Adolf Hitler.

Mein Kampf

Book written by Hitler while in jail that outlined his beliefs and goals for Germany.

Lebensraum

Living space.

Adolf Hitler

Austrian dictator who founded the Nazi party and was responsible for starting World War II.

Il Duce

The leader; title taken by Mussolini.

Der Führer

Leader of the Nazi Party.

SS (Schutzstaffel)

Elite, black-uniformed unit loyal only to Hitler.

Gestapo

Nazi secret police.

Anti-Semitism

Prejudice against Jews.

Kristallnacht

Night of the Broken Glass; Nazi mobs attacked Jews in their homes and on the streets and destroyed thousands of Jewish-owned buildings.

Final Solution

Hitler’s plan to eliminate the Jewish population in Europe.

Holocaust (Shoah in Hebrew)

The systematic mass slaughter of Jews.

Hirohito

Emperor and head of state of Japan.

Appeasement

Giving in to an aggressor to keep peace.

Axis Powers

Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Francisco Franco

Leader of the Nationalist forces that overthrew the Spanish democratic republic in the Spanish Civil War.

Isolationism

The belief that political ties to other countries should be avoided.

Third Reich

German Empire under Fascists.

Munich Conference

Meeting between Germany, Italy, France, and Great Britain proposed by Mussolini.

Nonaggression Pact

10-year pact between Germany and the USSR.

Blitzkrieg (Lightning War)

Form of warfare in which surprise attacks with fast-moving airplanes are followed by massive attacks with infantry forces.

Charles de Gaulle

Leader of the French government-in-exile and the Free French.

Winston Churchill

New British Prime Minister.

Battle of Britain

A series of battles between German and British air forces, fought in Britain in 1940-1941.

Erwin Rommel

“Desert Fox”; German general (Afrika Korps) who seized Tobruk, Libya.

Atlantic Charter

Declaration of principles issued in August 1941 by British PM Winston Churchill and US president Franklin Roosevelt, on which the Allied peace plan at the end of World War II was based.

Isoroku Yamamoto

Japanese naval strategist who planned the Pearl Harbor attack.

Pearl Harbor

U.S. naval base in Hawaii attacked by the Japanese; the attack led to the U.S. entering World War II.

Battle of Midway

A 1942 sea and air battle of WWII in which American forces defeated the Japanese forces in the central Pacific.

Douglas MacArthur

Commander of the Allied land forces in the Pacific.

Battle of Guadalcanal

1942-43 battle of WWII in which Allied troops drove Japanese forces from the Pacific Island of Guadalcanal.

Aryan

A “master race.

Kristallnacht

“Night of Broken Glass”; night of November 9, 1938, in which Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues throughout Germany.

Ghetto

City neighborhoods in which European Jews were forced to live.

Final Solution

Hitler’s program of systematically killing the entire Jewish people.

Genocide

The systematic killing of an entire people.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Commander of Allied forces in Europe.

Battle of Stalingrad

A 1942-1943 battle of WWII in which German forces were defeated in their attempt to capture the city of Stalingrad in the Soviet Union.

D-Day

June 6, 1944, the day on which the Allies began their invasion of the European mainland during WWII.

Battle of the Bulge

1944-1945 battle in which Allied forces turned back the last major German offensive of WWII.

Kamikaze

Japanese suicide pilots.