WH2 Exam #2

Lebensborn

permitted & encouraged relations of suitable girls with SS men for stock rearing (Aryan-breeding program)

SS

elite corps of the Nazis (guards detachment: personal guards to Hitler)

The Final Solution

the Nazi plan, under the direction of Himmler, for the elimination of European Jews

Charles de Gaulle

French general during WWII - organized the Free French movement

Heinrich Himmler

Nazi leader - oversaw the program of systematic genocide

Joseph Goebbels

Nazi leader and politician - became Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda

Winston Churchill

part of his contribution to victory was to maintain British morale – after victory in the war, he was defeated in the general election

Totalitarianism

applied both to fascist & communist governments

Facism

an ultra-nationalistic & anti-communist ideology - the state runs the economy

under fascism:

private property is not abolished – the state does not own all property

Adolf Hitler’s Background

born in Austria - rejected by the Vienna Academy of Arts

Nazi Outlook:

Germans were entitled to conquer/subjugate other races (Aryan superiority)

National Socialist German Worker’s Party

Hitler becomes leader of NSDAP – commonly called: NAZI

Mussolini

made Italy the first Fascist State

Hitler attempts:

attempts to seize power with others in support (Ludendorff, Rohm. etc.) - leads the Beer Hall Putsch (coup) in Munich

Hitler dictates:

dictates his worldview in Mein Kampf (My Struggle)

Germany

Hitler is appointed Chancellor here

President Paul von Hindenburg (WW I fame)

appointed Hitler as Chancellor

DT - Enabling Act is passed

the act permitted the Chancellor to enact legislation (laws) independently of the Reichstag - Hitler is thus dictator

DT – the Night of the Long Knives

Hitler wanted to garner support from the army

Hitler called for a meeting of the SA leadership – would move against them

The SS rounded up high-ranking SA members

SA leaders and other individuals were executed

Hitler thus “purged” the SA

SA

storm-troopers: paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party

Germany occupies & re-militarizes the Rhineland 

French troops did nothing when…

Max Schmeling (DT) 

knocks out Joe Louis (US) in the 12th round at Yankee Stadium

Spanish Civil War

“dress rehearsal” for further conflict - Soviet Union supports the loyalist Spanish regime

“Rape of Nanjing” (aka Nanking)

in this Chinese city, JP troops run wild among the civilians (civilians murdered, women raped)

DT annexes Austria

termed the “Anschluss” - Austria is “reunited” with Germany

Munich Conference

Appeasement - “peace for our time” - GB & FR sign the Munich Pact

At the Munich Conference:

Hitler promised the Sudetenland would be “the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe”

DT – Kristallnacht

“The Night of Broken Glass” - Nazis attacked Jewish persons & property

Nazi-Soviet Pact

Germany & the USSR pledge non-aggression against one another

Germany attacks Poland

launches its Blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) at dawn

Einstein Letter:

FDR receives _____ , outlines atomic threat

The Manhattan Project

a top-secret atomic program

For the Manhattan Project:

refugee scientists will assist America with its atomic weapons preparation program

EU – the Phony War (aka: Sitzkrieg)

Germany pauses - they relocate from their victorious eastern position to the western area

Germany attacks France

DT cuts through the “impenetrable” Ardennes Forest - out-flanked the FR Maginot defense line

Italy declares war on FR

invades from the south

FR – “Miracle of Dunkirk”

evacuation of BR/FR troops pinned down in France - DT had a “Panzer pause”

The Battle of Britain

RAF (Royal Air Force) bombed DT late August - DT offensive was diverted to BR cities - had the Luftwaffe not shifted to city bombing, the RAF may have lost

US – Lend-Lease Act

explained by FDR’s garden hose metaphor,

Operation Barbarossa

Germany invades the Soviet Union/Russia, the largest military operation in human history

Moscow

DT forces stop c. 20 miles from:

Einsatzgruppen (SS commando units)

following DT troop invasions were the mobile killing squads

Leningrad – Moscow – Stalingrad

Russian Campaign – the Russians/Soviets will win 3 major battles: 

siege of Leningrad:

civilians starve

Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

Germany declares war on the US

carrier-borne aircraft (carrier radio silence)

JP pulls off a surprise attack using:

the US strategy after Pearl Harbor

finish Germany first – maintain/hold off Japan 

“Bataan Death March”

US surrender Philippine Islands

Battle of Midway

middle of the Pacific

D-Day

the invasion of Normandy (France)

Operation Overlord

launched by the Allies, under Gen. Eisenhower

Background of D-Day

Atlantic Wall, Rupert, Higgins boat, a sleeping Hitler

EU – Battle of the Bulge

a last-gasp, surprise DT offensive - 101st Airborne encircled (surrounded) at Bastogne using armored support, General Patton’s forces liberated (rescued/relieved) the 101st

Fire-bombing of Tokyo

US B-29 bombers using napalm (incendiary jelly) & other incendiaries

Battle of Okinawa

Kamikaze attacks

US - Manhattan Project Tests

spearheaded by J. Robert Oppenheimer

Hiroshima hit with Atomic Bomb

explodes slightly above the city center

Holocaust definiton

systematic state-sponsored extermination of “undesirables” by the Nazis & collaborators – in total, c. 6 million Jews & c. 6 million others (figures estimated/vary by source) became victims

Nazi racial ideology

characterized Jews (& others: Poles, Slavs, etc.) as Untermenschen (sub-human)

Nazi policy moved from:

persecution to ghettoization, to liquidation, to factory-like annihilation

Liquidation

Einsatzgruppen (SS) estimated to have killed over 1 million people

Annihilation

Reinhard Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conference

purpose: to organize the “final solution to the Jewish question”

Extermination camps

Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland

Witness

to prevent the actions from being labeled as Allied propaganda (& later “Holocaust Denial”), \n General Eisenhower wanted DT civilians, military personnel, journalists, etc. to pass through the camps