Leaders of the Interwar Period + Causes of WWII and Leaders of WWII

Leaders of the Interwar Period:

Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power:

Led the National Socialists (Nazis); criticized the current government for signing the Treaty of Versailles and for the handling of the depression.

  • Promised German people that the Nazis would get nation out of the depression and rebuilt its prestige that it had prior to world War I (appealed to nationalism, pride in one's country)

Hitler’s Policies:

  • Reforms and revitalizes the German economy shortly after he gained control in 1932, Germans were desperate for the depression to end
  • Incites anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) and blames them for Germany’s problems
  • Builds up Germany’s military despite it being against the Treaty of Versailles

Actions Prior to WWII

  • Hitler began efforts to round up Jewish Germans and inter them in Ghettos, a walled in section of the city that was cut off from the rest of the city, later concentration camps were work camps designed to work minority groups to death
  • Hitler sought to reunite nations with ethnic Germans with Germany (i.e. takes over Czechoslovakia, Austria)
  • Hitler created the SS and the Gestapo: specialized groups in the military that were designed to round up minority groups, or anyone who resisted and send them to the ghettos and later concentration camps, as well as serve as the guards at these camps.

Stalin’s Rise to Power

Took over an established dictatorship when Lenin died in 1924

Stalin’s Policies

  • Collectivization of farms (took all private farms and made them communal farms), all food sources belonged to the government, people worked the farms and the State (government) distributed it to the people.
  • Five-Year Plans to build economic infrastructure, Stalin had a plan to build up industry and farms in order to improve the economy, these plans led to a lack of consumer goods and good shortages across the U.S.S.R
  • Continued state owned industrialization: The state owned all aspects of industry which includes, raw materials, the factories and the manufactured goods.

Actions Prior to WWII: USSR

  • Stalin used secret police (KGB) to maintain order; executed or exiled millions of citizens to prison camps in Siberia known as Gulags.
  • “The Great Purge” – executed or exiled “disloyal” members of his government, these were members of the government that opposed Stalin, or he saw them as a threat.   * Historians estimate that about 750,000 people were executed and over a million were sent to the Gulag.

Benito Mussolini’s Rise to Power

  • Took advantage of massive unemployment in Italy; promised people a better future
  • Appealed to nationalism which is pride in one’s country
  • Wanted to restore the “glory of Rome” bring them back to the powerful Empire that they once were

Mussolini’s Policies

  • Established a fascist government - a government system which has complete power, forcibly suppresses opposition and criticism, regulates all industry and emphasizes aggressive nationalism and often racism
  • Revitalizes economy which is key to controlling and carrying out his plans to restore Italy to power
  • Builds up Italian military (Black Shirts are the paramilitary group for Mussolini’s government)

Actions Prior to WWII: Italy

  • Mussolini engages in imperialist policies; successfully invades Ethiopia, in retaliation from losing the Battle of Adowa, which kept Ethiopia from Italian colonization during the Age of Imperialism
  • Allied with Germany; close ties to Hitler

Tojo’s Rise to Power

  • Emperor Hirohito was largely powerless; used as a symbol of Japan’s power
  • Tojo Hideki becomes Prime Minister in 1941 of what already was a military controlled state

Tojo’s Policies

  • Supported militarism in Japan
  • Intensified Japanese imperialism because they needed resources; was very suspicious of USSR
  • Sponsored industrial development for military production

Actions Prior to WWII: Japan

  • Tojo continued efforts to take China as a colony
  • Tojo supported Germany and eventually signed a cooperative treaty
  • Tojo began mobilization to attack Pearl Harbor

Causes of WWII and Leaders of WWII

Economic and Political causes of WWII

  1. Aggression by the totalitarian powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan
  • Japan invades Manchuria and rest of China
  • Italy invades Ethiopia
  • Germany invades Rhineland, annexes Austria, Czechoslovakia and Sudetenland

\

  1. Nationalism: Dictators use pride and loyalty for one’s country in their propaganda and to hold on to power!

\

  1. Failures of the Treaty of Versailles
  • Left Europe in bad economic conditions and left Germany with hyperinflation as they struggled to pay their war reparations!

\

  1. Appeasement
  • European countries don’t want to go to war after their experiences in World War I, so they let Hitler take land in the hopes that he would stop and they’d keep the peace.

\

  1. Tendencies towards isolationism and pacifism (strong anti-war attitudes) in Europe and the United States

US Presidents during WWII

Franklin D. Roosevelt: US President at the start of war. Declares war after the attack on Pearl Harbor!

\ Harry S. Truman: President after Roosevelt dies. Makes the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

US Commanders during WWII

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and planned the D-Day Invasion to free Europe from Nazi Control!

Douglas MacArthur: US General and Allied commander in the Pacific that fought the Japanese

George C. Marshall: US General (Chief of Staff) and later became known for the Marshall Plan during the Cold War.

Winston Churchill: British Prime Minister, symbol of strength. Speeches during the Battle of Britain kept the morale up at home.