11/19/25 - 12/3/25 WWII, Cold War, & Postwar Europe

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

  • Founded Italian Fascism

  • Motto: "Everything within the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state"

  • Political opportunist: used alliances to gain power

  • Organizations: Fascio di combattimento (Blackshirt paramilitary organization)

  • Prime Minister in 1922; fomented disorder to justify dictatorship to restore order

  • Title: Il Duce from 1926-1945

  • Never completely dominated Italy

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

  • Austrian / Loner / corporal in WWI

  • Leader of the Nazi party

  • Charismatic speaker

  • Political opportunist

  • Focused on the shame of Versailles / "stab in the back" myth

  • Anti-Semitism / Final Solution

  • Sought Lebensraum (living space) in the east

  • Began WWII in Europe

  • Believed himself to be invincible

  • Two Disastrous Mistakes:

    • Attacking Russia

    • Declaring war on the USA

Key Events Leading to WWII (1931-1939)

  • 1929: Wall street crash leads to Great Depression

  • 1931: Japan invades Manchuria

  • 1932: Nazis won 37% of votes

  • 1933: Hitler becomes Chancellor; Germany withdraws from the League of Nations; Germany withdraws from the Geneva Disarmament Conference

  • 1935: Luftwaffe announced; German conscription / rearmament; Anglo-German Naval Pact; Personal oath to Hitler (soldiers swore loyalty)

  • 1935: Mussolini invades Ethiopia

  • 1936: Rhineland reoccupied; Rome-Berlin Axis established; Anti-Comintern Pact (Germany & Japan)

  • 1937: Hossbach Conference; Japan invades China

  • 1938: Anschluss (annexation of Austria); Munich Conference

  • 1939: Occupation of Prague; Pact of Steel; Nazi-Soviet Pact; September 1 – Germany invades Poland (beginning of WWII)

Major Events of WWII (1939-1945)

Operation Barbarossa

  • 22 June 1941: German attack on USSR

  • Deep penetrations of USSR, many prisoners

  • Stalin faltered / disappeared for a time

  • Germans welcomed as liberators, but German brutality alienated Russians

  • Failure to focus on one objective defeated German plan

  • Russian front most costly for Germans and most important

  • Russia suffered 26 million dead

  • First and most important of Hitler's two greatest mistakes

Pearl Harbor

  • 7 Dec. 1941: Pearl Harbor attacked by Japan

  • Unified a divided US; US entered war

  • Beginning of US as world power

  • Forced US Navy to depend on aircraft carriers to carry brunt of war

  • Hitler declared war on US (Second of Hitler's two greatest mistakes)

Casablanca Conference

  • Jan 1943: Meeting of FDR, Churchill, and Free French

  • Decisions made for supplies to Russia, U-boat war, strategic bombing of Germany

  • Continue planning for second front

  • Unconditional surrender: Eliminated possibility of negotiated peace

    • Gave Goebbels propaganda against German dissidents because there was no hope of negotiating with Allies

    • Did it unnecessarily prolong the war?

The Bomb

  • Originally initiated to counter German nuclear efforts

  • Top secret Manhattan Project

  • Hiroshima: 6 Aug. 1945, Little Boy (uranium), \approx 80,000 killed

  • Nagasaki: 8 Aug. 1945, Fat Man (plutonium), \approx 40,000 killed

  • Consternation in Japanese cabinet; military recommended fighting to the last man, woman, and child

  • Cabinet deadlocked; Emperor Hirohito decided to surrender

  • Japan allowed to retain national essence – the emperor

Holocaust

  • 1942-1945: Final Solution [Endlösung] – destruction of European Jews

  • 6 million Jews, 5.5 million others (Russians, Gypsies, socialists, communists, homosexuals) killed

  • Wannsee Conference Jan 1942: Planned system for Final Solution

  • Final Solution was secret operation

  • All Germans knew Jews were being persecuted, but few knew about the full extent of the Final Solution

  • Was too horrendous to be credible – at that time

  • FDR, Churchill had some idea of this

  • Pope Pius XII knew and acted quietly to save Jews

  • Current debate over role of pope in Holocaust

    • Never condemned Hitler by name

Yalta Conference

  • February 1945: Meeting of FDR, Churchill, Stalin

  • FDR's plan for United Nations discussed

  • Declaration on Liberated Europe:

  • Eastern governments freely elected but to be pro-Soviet

  • Provisional Polish government of both Polish governments in exile (communist and free) established / Polish borders moved west

  • Postwar Germany to have four occupation zones

  • USSR to enter war against Japan in return for Sakhalin and Kurile Islands

  • Berlin in Soviet Zone

  • Controversy: Was it a sellout to Stalin?

Post-WWII / Cold War Era

Truman Doctrine

  • 1947: Communist insurgencies in Greece and Turkey

  • US policy to support free peoples resisting subjugation

  • US policy to provide money to countries who claimed to be threatened by communist expansion

  • Money provided to Greece and Turkey, stopping communism in these two countries

  • Origin of active US role to counter communist expansion

  • Mentality of stopping communism before it spreads (Proto-domino theory)

Marshall Plan (ERP)

  • 1947-1952: European Recovery Program

  • Proposed in 1947, approved for 1948-1952

  • Context: European economies in shambles / Major threat of communism

  • Purpose: foster European cooperation and economic recovery to stop communism

  • Offered to all (West, East, USSR); West accepted, East wanted it but Stalin said no

  • Tremendous success: 13 billion spent, every dollar yielded 6 dollars worth of goods

  • Led to Western European recovery, Eastern European stagnation

German Question

  • 1945-1955: What kind of Germany?

  • Germany's geostrategic position was a central question in bipolar tension in Europe

  • USSR wanted weak, neutral, demilitarized Germany

  • Allied position matured from punishing Germany to rebuilding/rearming Germany to help stop communism

  • Federal Republic of Germany established in 1949

  • NATO needed rearmed Germany; West Germany used rearmament as lever to regain sovereignty

  • West Germany rearmed in 1955

Berlin Blockade

  • 1948-1949: Berlin inside USSR zone but occupied by 4 powers

  • US, England, France merged occupation zones in 1949, creating West German Federal Government

  • USSR treated Germans harshly; payback for the war

  • West Berlin reflected differences between East and West, embarrassed Stalin

  • Blockade of all ground access to West Berlin

  • Total resupply by air: From June 1948 to May 1949, 4,500 tons/day, flights 24/7, 277,000 flights

  • Strengthened Western solidarity, increased bipolar tension

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

  • 1949-Present: Western defensive alliance

  • Attack on one is attack on all

  • Rationalize, standardize, integrate plans/equipment/procedures

  • Many political and military organizations, committees, commands throughout Europe & US

  • Soviet response: Warsaw Pact

  • NATO's mission post-Cold War: Associate status for East European nations

  • First US military alliance outside Western hemisphere

NSC 68

  • 1950: Top secret US plan for fighting Cold War

  • Basic myths/mistakes:

    • Soviet plot to dominate world

    • All-powerful USSR

    • Monolithic communist world

  • Plan to mobilize economy, diplomacy, military, culture to counter communist threat

  • Means became ends in themselves: emphasis on military

  • Mentality of stopping communism everywhere gave initiative to USSR

  • Failed to take advantage of communist weakness

  • Continually altered/modified

European Economic Community & European Union

  • 1957-Present: European Union

  • European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 (Benelux, West Germany, France, Italy)

  • Treaty of Rome 1957: Created EEC (Same 6 countries)

    • Eliminate trade barriers, circulation of capital, labor

    • Creation of Common Market

  • Constant expansion; 1994 European Union replaced EEC

  • Eventual total economic integration, including common currency: Euro dollar

  • Great success; rivals US

Berlin Wall

  • 1961-1989: Allies in Berlin were constant source of embarrassment to USSR & East Germany

  • Refugees fled from East Germany through Berlin

  • Put up suddenly overnight to stop flow of educated East Germans to West Europe

  • Symbol of the bipolar world and communist tyranny

  • Many attempts to flee over, through, under it; some successful

  • Its fall in 1989 symbolized the fall of communism

Cultural Revolutions of the 1960's

  • Preconditions: Baby Boom, Youth, Generation Gap, Vietnam War, Political upheaval

  • Revolutions (interrelated, also in Europe):

    • Civil Rights: Dr. King and desegregation, Great Society, War on Poverty (primarily in US)

    • Student revolution: Multiculturalism, student activism, non-traditional courses (in Europe and US)

    • Sexual revolution: The pill, free love, soaring divorce, alternative lifestyles (in Europe and US)

    • Women's movement: Equal pay, more opportunities, radical feminism, bra burning (in Europe and US)

Cuban Missile Crisis

  • Oct 1962: Closest world came to nuclear world war

  • USSR planted medium-range missiles in Cuba

  • These missiles threatened US, cut down warning time for nuclear attack (cut from 15 to 5-10 minutes)

  • US airplane surveillance detected buildup

  • Kennedy established naval quarantine/blockade of Cuba

  • Khrushchev backed down; pulled missiles out

  • Later, US pulled out missiles from Turkey that threatened USSR in similar fashion

Vietnam War

  • 1954-1975: Unpopular/divisive first war US lost; 60,000 dead

  • Failed to understand nature of war: internal civil war caught up in Cold War rivalries

  • US fought unconventional (guerrilla) war using conventional means

  • Part of Revolutions of the 60's: My Lai, Tet Offensive 1968, Pentagon Papers

  • Students protested against the Vietnam War.

  • Legacy: Vietnam Syndrome, hollow military (lack of military discipline), voluntary military, loss of respect for authority, voting age dropped to 18

Postwar Terrorism in Europe

  • Irish Republican Army / Northern Irish Protestant extremists in Ireland: Continuing terrorism

  • ETA (Basque) in Spain: Continuing terrorism

  • Red Army Faction in Germany: 1970s bombings and assassinations

  • Red Brigade in Italy: 1970s assassinations

  • PLO / Muslim extremists: 1972 PLO attack on Israelis during Olympics, continuing terrorism

John Paul II

  • 1978-2005: First non-Italian pope in 4 centuries

  • Lived through Nazism and communism

  • Participated in Second Vatican Council

  • Most traveled pope in history; first pope to visit mosque and synagogue

  • Progressive social teachings: Dignity of man and woman, apologized for sins of Catholics throughout history

  • Provided the moral authority / inspiration to topple the Soviet Union

  • Papal visit to Poland in 1979 provided moral inspiration behind establishment of Polish labor union Solidarity

  • Events in Poland later spread to rest of East Europe

  • Third pope to be called “the great”?

Solidarity

  • First free labor union behind iron curtain

  • Major crack in communist control in europe

Mikhail Gorbachev

  • 1985-1991: Last leader of USSR

  • Moderate; wanted to retain and change USSR

  • Initiated glasnost = openness & perestroika = restructuring

  • Vacillated between hard line and moderate position; lost control of change, downfall of USSR

  • Claims Ronald Reagan and John Paul II brought down communism (Reagan outspent USSR in defense; John Paul II provided moral authority)

INF Treaty

  • 1987: Intermediate (range) Nuclear Forces Treaty between Reagan and Gorbachev

  • First time entire category of weapons was eliminated by treaty during Cold War

  • US ground-launched missiles, Soviet SS – 20s removed

  • Triumph of diplomacy: "Trust but verify"

  • INF Treaty verified by no-notice on-site inspections by both sides

  • Example of US building and deploying weapons systems as bargaining chips for diplomatic leverage