World War 2

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Lead Up:

TADA:

• The Treaty of Versailles had caused lots of tension.
  • This led to many countries disliking each other.
• Also many nations lost money and went into depression.
• Some dictators were also rising up (Hitler, and Mussolini).
• The League of Nations was also weak, and couldn’t stop certain problems.

The four main reasons for the war can be shown through the acronym: TADA

• Treaty of Versailles
• Aggression
• Depression
• Appeasement

Appeasement:

→ Giving into an aggressor, hoping to solve an issue.

• This is how the League of Nations dealt with Hitler.
  • When he wanted to get more “living space” for Germany. (He wanted to invade and get more land.)
  • He would invade, and the League would let him, but they would set certain boundaries on it.
• The Munich Conference- When Hitler wanted to invade Czechoslovakia, and then both France and England let him.
  • But they said he could only take the part of the countries with Ethnic Germans.
  • At first it worked, but Hitler would later invade the rest of Czechoslovakia.

The Spark:

• Hitler wanted to take out Poland, and needed help to do so.
  • He asked Stalin, and they made a non-aggression agreement.
• Hitler also knew that by siding with Russia, if war broke out he wouldn’t have to fight a two front war.
• Then when Germany and Russia invade Poland, the allies (France and Britain) declare war on them.

The War:

The Two Sides:

The Allied Powers:

• The UK (Great Britain)
• France
• Russia (After Germany betrayed them)
• The U.S (After Pearl Harbor)

The Axis Powers:

• Germany
• Italy
• Japan

The Beginning:

• Hitler first goes to take out France, going through the Arden, and they very quickly defeat France.
  • Germany was also beginning to use a new type of war Blitzkrieg, which means “Lightning War”
  • This was done by them moving very quickly, whilst also having little casualties. This helped them avoid trenches.
• Once France was done they focused on Britain.
  • Hitler tried to break their moral through constant bombings. He wanted to invade Great Britain, but it would cost way too many soldiers.
  • During this time Mussolini took the British colonies in Africa while Britain was preoccupied with bombings.
  • Hitler did fail in breaking he British moral.
• Hitler also decided to turn his back in Russia, invading Stalingrad.
  • Russia sent all of their troops to the city and defeated Germany.
  • This cost Hitler a lot of sliders.
  • Russia then switched sides.

The U.S:

• The United States didn’t want to fight in this war at first.
• But they had also stopped trading oil with Japan, which Japan viewed as them picking a side.
  • Japan then also realized that Hawaii had Pearl Harbor, which held lost of aircraft carriers. They thought this base could be used to attack Japan.
  • Admiral Yamamoto, decided to bomb the base to deal with the threat.
• When the attack was carried out, most of the ships were out on a mission, and so most of the ships were spared.
  • Japan still dropped their bombs, killing many, and this forced the U.S to join the Allied Powers.
  • The attacks also had many Kamikaze pilots, who would crash their own planes as bombs.
• When the U.S joined they decided to fight Germany first, as they were the bigger threat. They would deal with Japan later.

D-Day and Germany’s End:

• The Allied powers launched an attack on Normandy, and its goal was to make Germany fight a multiple front war.

  • This is known as the D-Day invasion

• They Allied powers succeed, and Germany starts to lose. Their strategies of

  Blitzkrieg stopped working.

  • The Hitler decided to make one last attack at the battle of the bulge.
  • Germany loses, and Hitler commits suicide in a bunker. This leads to Germany leaving the war.

The End of the war:

• Italy had also been defeated so the last problem was Japan.
• The U.S started using a strategy called Island Hopping.
  • They would strategically take certain Japanese Islands in order to get closer to Japan.
• Finally when they landed on the Island of Iwo Jima, they were close enough to attack.
  • There was a huge fight on the island, but the U.S ended up winning.
• President Truman of the United States, realized that too invade Japan, it would cost them way too many soldiers.
  • Prior to this, a project known as the “Manhattan Project” was being done.
  • Here they developed the first Atomic bombs.
  • Truman decided to drop the bombs on Japan, in order to get them to surrender.
  • The first was dropped on Hiroshima, and the second on Nagasaki.
  • After this, Japan unconditionally surrendered.
• Afterward The U.S did help Japan set up a new democratic government, and gave them lots of money to rebuild.
• After WWII, there was lots of death and destruction. Many new governments were also made in some countries.

The Holocaust:

• About 9 million people were killed in this genocide
  • Around 6 million of them were Jewish.
  • Genocide →The mass killing of a certain group of people.
• Hitler ranked the races in Germany, Aryans were at the top, and the Jewish were put at the bottom.
  • Aryan’s were straight nosed, had blue eyes, blond hair, and were protestant.
• The reason why Hitler targeted the Jews was because they were easy targets
  • They had a different look which made them stand out.
  • They were extremely successful, which made people dislike them more.
  • He was also able to make the point that the Jewish had killed Jesus.
• Hitlers plan was as follows:

1. Immigration → send them to other countries.
2. Consolidation → Force the remaining to live in ghettos or camps
3. Elimination → To kill them.

• Nuremberg Laws →Laws which stripped Jews of their rights
  • They always had to carry identification, and wear the star of david on their clothes so they would stand out even more.
• Kristallnacht →”The Night of Broken Glass”, Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses and homes, and start taking Jews to concentration camps.
• There were other people who were in charge of the Holocaust, some of these men are:
  • Himmler →Head of the Gestapo
  • Goebbels → Head of public relations, known as the “seller of death”
  • Mengele →Experimental doctor at the camps.
  • Eichmann →Designer of the camps
• Nuremberg Trials →Trails for the Nazi leaders during the holocaust, where some were charged with ‘Crimes Against Humanity”
  • This showed that you could get in trouble for things done during war, “war crimes”
  • Also proved that you couldn’t use the excuse “they told me to do it” to get out of taking responsibility for one’s actions.

Next Lesson: The Cold War