WW2

U.S. History (History 17B) Study Guide

World War II (1939–1945)

• Adolf Hitler (1889–1945): Dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, whose aggressive expansionism led to World War II in Europe. Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 sparked the war, and his regime’s genocidal policies resulted in the Holocaust, the murder of approximately 11 million people (including 6 million Jews) Significance: As the primary instigator of WWII and architect of Nazi atrocities, Hitler’s defeat in 1945 ended Nazi tyranny but left Europe devastated and set the stage for the Cold War.

• Winston Churchill (1874–1965): British Prime Minister during WWII (1940–45) who steeled British resolve during the Blitz and led the country from the brink of defeat to victory over Nazi Germany . Churchill helped shape Allied strategy and, in the war’s later stages, warned of Soviet expansionism (famously noting an “Iron Curtain” dividing Europe). Significance: Renowned for his leadership and oratory, Churchill was a central Allied leader whose vision and alliance with the U.S. and USSR were crucial to defeating Hitler, and his postwar speeches influenced the emerging Cold War climate.

• Joseph Stalin (1878–1953): Communist dictator of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s through WWII and into the early Cold War . An Allied leader in WWII, Stalin’s Red Army bore the brunt of fighting Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front, eventually capturing Berlin in 1945. He forcibly industrialized and collectivized Soviet agriculture at horrific human cost, using purges and the Gulag camp system to cement totalitarian control . Significance: Stalin’s USSR was critical in defeating Hitler, but he later imposed communist regimes across Eastern Europe, initiating the Cold War division of Europe . His rule transformed the Soviet Union into a superpower, albeit through ruthless policies that caused millions of deaths

• Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941): A surprise attack by the Japanese Navy on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii . The strike destroyed or damaged numerous U.S. warships and killed over 2,400 Americans. Significance: The next day, the United States declared war on Japan, officially entering WWII . Pearl Harbor ended American isolationism and unified the country for war; President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy.” The U.S. entry was a turning point that helped lead to the defeat of the Axis Powers .

• D-Day (June 6, 1944): The Allied invasion of Normandy, France, during WWII – the largest seaborne invasion in history . In Operation Overlord, some 156,000 American, British, and Canadian troops landed on five heavily fortified beaches, preceded by airborne assaults, to break into Germanoccupied Western Europe . Significance: D-Day opened a western front against Nazi Germany, beginning the liberation of France and Western Europe . This massive offensive, achieved at high cost (over 4,000 Allied fatalities on D-Day alone), proved a decisive step toward Allied victory in Europe in May 1945

• Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943): A brutal, months-long battle between Hitler’s army and Soviet forces for the city of Stalingrad (Volgograd) in southern Russia . Marked by ferocious close quarters combat and immense casualties (perhaps the bloodiest battle in history, with over a million combined casualties) , Stalingrad ended with the encirclement and surrender of the German 6th Army in February 1943 . Significance: Often cited as the turning point of WWII in Europe, the Soviet victory at Stalingrad halted the German advance in the East and put Germany on the defensive . It boosted Allied morale and ensured that Hitler could not conquer the Soviet Union, greatly contributing to the Nazis’ ultimate defeat.

• “Final Solution”: The Nazi regime’s plan during WWII to exterminate the Jewish people of Europe . Formulated by Hitler’s officials (notably at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942), the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” involved the deportation of Jews to death camps and their systematic mass murder, primarily by gas chambers and mass shootings . Significance: Implemented from 1941–45, the Final Solution resulted in the genocide of approximately six million Jews (the Holocaust) . This state-engineered atrocity remains one of history’s gravest crimes, leading to global efforts to prevent genocide and bringing about the word “genocide” and the Genocide Convention after the war

• Holocaust Victims: The millions of people targeted and killed by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust (c. 1933–1945). The primary victims were European Jews (about six million murdered), but other groups included Roma (Gypsies), disabled persons, Slavic peoples (Poles and Soviet POWs), Jehovah’s Witnesses, and LGBTQ individuals . In total, roughly 11 million people were murdered by the Nazis as part of their racial and political “purification” policies . Significance: These victims’ suffering exemplifies the extreme consequences of racism and totalitarianism. The memory of the Holocaust’s victims underpins modern human rights discourse, leading to vows of “Never Again,” Holocaust education, and remembrance and reparations efforts in the postwar world.

• Zyklon B: A cyanide-based pesticide (hydrogen cyanide in pellet form) infamously used by the Nazis as a lethal poison gas in extermination camps during the Holocaust . Pellets of Zyklon B, when exposed to air, released toxic gas; at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps, it was poured into gas chambers from above, killing those inside within minutes . Significance: Zyklon B became a symbol of the industrialized mass murder of the Holocaust. Originally a pest control chemical, its repurposing to kill humans demonstrated the regime’s chilling efficiency in genocide . The postwar trials held those involved in Zyklon B gassings accountable, and the chemical’s name remains synonymous with the horrors of the Holocaust.

• Rosie the Riveter: A cultural icon representing the American women who worked in war industries during WWII to support the home front. Often associated with the famous “We Can Do It!” propaganda poster (featuring a bandanna-clad woman flexing her arm), “Rosie” symbolized the millions of women who took up jobs in factories and shipyards while men were fighting overseas. Significance: Rosie the Riveter became a symbol of female strength and patriotism , showing that women could perform “men’s work” and helping break gender stereotypes. After the war, many women were pushed out of these jobs, but the Rosie image lived on, later inspiring the women’s rights movement by highlighting women’s capabilities beyond the domestic sphere.

• Propaganda (WWII): Systematic communication – posters, films, radio broadcasts, etc. – used by governments to influence public opinion during the war. All major powers employed propaganda: the U.S. issued optimistic posters (like Rosie the Riveter’s “We Can Do It!” ) to boost production and morale, while Nazi Germany spread hateful, anti-Semitic propaganda to justify genocide and glorify Hitler. Significance: Propaganda helped mobilize entire societies for total war . It sustained civilian support (or acquiescence) for wartime policies and demonized the enemy. However, it also sowed lies and hatred – for example, Nazi propaganda facilitated the Holocaust by dehumanizing Jews. WWII propaganda techniques ushered in a new era of mass media influence on public perception, a legacy that carried into the Cold War and beyond.

• Women & War Work: During WWII, American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers to fill roles left vacant by men in military service . From 1942 onward, women worked in munitions factories, built ships and aircraft, and served in auxiliary military units. More than six million women took wartime jobs in industry, three million volunteered with the Red Cross, and 200,000 served in the armed forces (in units like the WAC and WAVES) . Significance: Women’s labor was vital to Allied victory – they kept economies running and war supplies flowing. The experience broadened societal views of women’s capabilities and laid groundwork for postwar women’s rights. However, many women were laid off after 1945 as men returned, and it would take future movements to further expand women’s workforce equality.

• Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP): A corps of civilian female pilots who flew military aircraft under U.S. Army Air Forces direction during WWII. From 1943 to 1944, nearly 1,100 WASP pilots ferried 12,000+ aircraft across the country, tested new planes, towed targets for gunnery practice, and performed other non-combat flying duties . They took on risks (38 WASPs died in service) but were not granted official military status until decades later. Significance: The WASPs proved that women could pilot high-performance aircraft as capably as men, helping to free male pilots for combat roles . Though disbanded in 1944 and long overlooked, the WASP program was a pioneering step for women in aviation, eventually leading to the inclusion of women as military pilots and astronauts (Sally Ride, for instance, would benefit from this legacy).

• Secret Agents (WWII): The spies and covert operatives who gathered intelligence and conducted sabotage during the war. The Allies ran extensive espionage networks – Britain’s SOE parachuted agents (including women like Virginia Hall) into occupied Europe, and the American OSS coordinated resistance behind enemy lines . These “secret agents” obtained vital information (e.g. plans of enemy operations), helped sabotage German supply lines, and fed misinformation to confuse the Axis. Significance: Espionage was an often invisible but crucial front in WWII. Intelligence gathered by secret agents (and codebreakers) informed major decisions – such as the D-Day invasion timing – and saved lives. The success of wartime spy efforts also led to the postwar establishment of permanent intelligence agencies (the OSS evolved into the CIA ) and a new age of Cold War espionage

• Amy Elizabeth Thorpe (“Cynthia”) (1910–1963): An American-born spy who worked for British intelligence (MI6) during WWII. Codenamed “Cynthia,” Thorpe used her charm and ingenuity to obtain Axis secrets – most famously seducing a Vichy French embassy official in Washington, D.C., in 1942 and stealing naval code books that assisted the Allied invasion of North Africa . Earlier, she had helped secure Italian naval ciphers for the British, aiding victory in the Battle of Cape Matapan (1941) . Significance: Amy “Cynthia” Thorpe’s daring espionage provided critical intelligence to the Allies, demonstrating the often-undervalued role of women in covert operations. Her successes – including the French naval codes heist – likely shortened the war . Thorpe’s story remained classified for decades, but she is now recognized as one of WWII’s most effective secret agents, illustrating how intelligence work could decisively tip the scales of war.

• Manhattan Project: The top-secret Allied project (1942–1945) to develop the first atomic bombs . Led by the United States with British and Canadian support, it assembled many of the world’s leading scientists in labs like Los Alamos, New Mexico (directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer). The project culminated in July 1945 with the successful Trinity test of an atomic bomb . In August 1945, two atomic bombs (developed under Manhattan Project) were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, forcing Japan’s surrender and ending WWII. Significance: The Manhattan Project ushered in the nuclear age – it gave the Allies a war-ending weapon, but at a terrible human cost in Japan. It also sparked ethical debates and an arms race for nuclear weapons in the ensuing Cold War. The project’s scientific breakthroughs transformed warfare and international politics, making nuclear weapons a central element of global power (and global fear) thereafter .

• Japanese Internment (1942–1945): The forced relocation and incarceration of about 120,000 Japanese Americans (the majority U.S.-born citizens) in camps during WWII . After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 (February 1942), authorizing the army to exclude people from West Coast areas. In practice, this meant people of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and sent to remote internment camps, surrounded by barbed wire and guards. Significance: Internment, motivated by wartime hysteria and racism, is now recognized as a grave violation of civil liberties. In 1944 the Supreme Court upheld the internment’s constitutionality (in Korematsu v. U.S.), but in 1988 Congress formally apologized and granted reparations to survivors . The episode stands as a warning of how fear can lead to injustice: an entire ethnic group was deprived of property and freedom without due process, shaping modern views on citizens’ rights in wartime