C

AP Euro: Unit 17.1-17.3 - WWII

AP Euro: Unit 17.1-17.3 - WWII

Unit 17: WWII

Appeasement and the Rise of the Axis Powers

Appeasement

  • Giving in to “reasonable” territorial demands of nations like Germany in order to avoid war.
  • In essence, you sacrifice all of the people in a given territory to avoid the horrors of another world war.
  • REALLY in essence, you allow nations like Germany a chance to gain more territory, make itself larger, and MORE PREPARED for a real war
  • The League of Nations will prove how powerless it is to deal with the territorial advances of power hungry nations when war is “an outdated instrument of national policy”

German Appeasement

  • Appeasement will start when France, England, and the US allow the remilitarization of the Rhineland (border with France).  They figure it won’t hurt in the long run, and will make Germany less unhappy.
  • Hitler’s second appeasement was when he annexed Austria (Aryan race) because of the shared German heritage they have (think back to the customs union and Prussia vs Austria)
  • Third territorial annexation is the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.  
  • Hitler spreads a story (in German papers no less) that Germans are being raped and he needs to defend them.  Appeased again when he annexes a full half of Czechoslovakia
  • Annexes Memel (Lithuania) and makes Slovakia a protectorate  

Japanese Appeasement

  • The Japanese, who already controlled the Korean Peninsula, invaded China in the area known as Manchuria in 1931 and annexing the territory it captured
  • The League of Nations officially condemned the move, but made no real move to stop the Japanese aggression. Thus began the policy of appeasement (giving into demands of the aggressor in order to keep the peace)
  • Japan simply withdrew from the LON as a result.
  • Japan and Germany work out a deal to eventually attack Russia from BOTH sides.

Italian Appeasement

  • Italy invaded and annexed Ethiopia in 1935.  
  • It used horrific tactics like striking at civilians and attacking red cross hospitals during the fighting. 
  • Haile Selassie pleaded to the LON for intervention.
  • LON tried unsuccessfully to economically sanction Italy but did nothing.
  • Later on in 1939, Italy would annex Albania (Balkan peninsula next to Serbia) in response to Hitler’s continued annexation of territories in the north.
  • Kind of a desperate move for Mussolini, but his dreams of making the Mediterranean an Italian lake began in Greece.

Spain Collapses

  • In 1936, Francisco Franco started a revolt that ultimately led to a Spanish Civil War.
  • Italy and Germany backed Franco, while the Soviet Union, France, England, and even the US sent troops to fight alongside their opposition.
  • Hitler uses the Spanish civil war to test out his new air force (the Luftwaffe) and conduct bombing campaigns.
  • Guernica completely destroyed
  • After a death toll of more than 500,000, Franco emerged victorious.  He set up a fascist regime based on the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini

American Neutrality

  • America could see the way things were headed so they tried to adopt policies that would help them remain neutral in any upcoming war. (Neutrality Acts 1939)
  • Wouldn't sell weapons to nations at war
  • No travel for Americans to nations at war 
  • Can’t travel on ships belonging to nations at war
  • FDR adopts Good Neighbor policy, attempts to mend fences with Latin America (US Imperialism)
  • Worried by the storm clouds brewing on the European front.

Axis Powers Form

  • In September of 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan formed an alliance called the Axis Powers (Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito) 
  • Mussolini and Hitler claim that their alliance is the “Axis upon which the world turns”
  • They agreed to help each other stop the spread of Communism
  • They agreed to not get in each other's way of territorial expansion.
  • Military alliance to help aid each other against nations that will surely stand in their way (US, France, UK, Russia)

WWII Begins

Treaty with Russia

  • Germany and Russia form a non-aggression pact and would divide up Poland between them.
  • Remember!  Japan and Germany fully intend to attack the Soviet Union later on and divide territory between them
  • Hitler actually doesn’t inform his allies that he plans to do this, catching them off guard and making them suspicious of one-another
  • Invasion of Poland began on September 1, 1939
  • This invasion started WWII as England and France declared war on Germany, bringing their alliances in as well

Blitzkrieg!

  • The Nazis launched an invasion of France in May of 1940 after Poland had been conquered.
  • Blitzkrieg or "Lightning War" started with an artillery barrage/bombing, followed by the advancement of tanks, then infantry.
  • Showcased Hitler’s new air force, the Luftwaffe
  • Strategy was designed to strike at an enemy before they could "dig in" for another round of trench warfare.  Hugely effective!   
  • German armies push through Belgium and into France without a hiccup this time, and France is unprepared for the onslaught (Maginot Line points the OTHER WAY)

France Collapses

  • Italians invaded from the southeast.
  • THOUSANDS of allied troops are pushed back to the sea
  • Would have been captured, but then the Miracle at Dunkirk happens! 
  • English civilian ships cross the channel to save THOUSANDS of soldiers on the beaches of France.
  • France is left largely defenseless
  • France officially surrenders in late June 1940
  • Southern France (Vishy) becomes a puppet government to Germany 

England: the Last Stronghold

  • After Germany's successes, England is alone in Western Europe
  • Before Germany could land troops on the shores of Britain to invade, it had to deal with the Royal Air Force (RAF).
  • Germany staged bombing raids on England from June-October of 1940, dropping thousands of bombs to try to destroy England's ability to fight back.
  • England is the last free nation in Western Europe

The Battle of Britain

  • German bombs destroyed much of southern Britain (targeted cities as well as military targets)
  • Though hugely outnumbered, the RAF proved their superiority with their faster planes and awesome kill rates.
  • Allied forces (even america) send pilots to help defend the skies over Britain
  • Known as the “Battle of Britain”
  • By October, RAF forces had shot down so many German planes that Hitler abandoned his plan of capturing England

New Allies for the Axis

  • While Spain did not formally join the Axis powers, Franco allowed volunteers to join the German forces.
  • Hungary (former all of Austria) joins the axis in 1940
  • Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Finland (after winter war with Soviets) will also join the Axis powers in 1941 
  • The Germans annex all remaining territory in Eastern Europe.
  • Germany will also break its non-aggression treaty by attacking the Soviet Union!

Nazis in Africa

  • After the fall of France, many French citizens continued to live in their Northern African imperial colonies.
  • A joint force of Germans and Italians invaded Northern Africa.
  • Nazis have a TON of success super early
  • Italians give them a base to invade from Libya
  • Rommel (the Desert Fox) proves to be a supremely capable general
  • Rolls over allied forces with ease
  • Axis forces pushed Allied troops all the way to Egypt, but were turned back in the second battle of El Alamein

Operation Barbarossa

  • When the German invasion of England failed, Germany turned it's army loose on Russia.
  • Russia had been taking territory from smaller nations.  Totally unprepared for this attack.
  • The Russians lost everything they had gained in the west, and German forces pushed deep into Russian territory. 
  • However, Germany has re-opened the two-front war
  • Doesn’t seem to remember the lesson of Napoleon when his troops invaded Russia (harsh winters)

The Battle of Stalingrad

  • Has come to epitomize the suffering of the Russian people as they dug in to resist the Nazis.
  • Rations were 2 pieces of bread a day
  • When bread couldn’t be found, some even scraped wallpaper off the walls and boiled it because they thought it contained potato flour.
  • Ate ANYTHING, so many were starving
  • Despite this suffering, the Russians held their ground.  With temperatures plunging to -40 degrees, many Germans died or surrendered. 
  • Russia and England form an alliance, and England tries to take Hitler’s attention from Stalingrad and the Russian front.

Japan in the East

  • Japan had also been busy claiming territory.
  • In addition to the land it took from China, Japan set about removing all western powers from the Far East.
  • Japan wanted to be seen as liberators of Asian countries, but usually ended up torturing and enslaving the people they freed
  • America had broken its stance of neutrality and began to sell weapons to England to fight against the Germans (Lend-Lease Act, we don’t get the money up front)
  • U.S. refuses to sell weapons to Japan because they will use them to conquer
  • Japan viewed this as a threat to its territorial expansion in the east. 

Pearl Harbor

  • 1941: Japan bombed the US naval installation at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
  • The goal was to cripple America's ability to intervene in Japanese expansion in the Pacific.
  • Without the American fleet and air force, Japan intended to create a sphere of influence over the Pacific.
  • There has been speculation that our fleet was POSITIONED here so that Japan would bomb us!  (so it could be used as propaganda)
  • This would let us get our factories producing at full capacity, put people back to work, and finally shake the Great Depression.

American Response to Pearl Harbor

  • After the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US forcibly relocated thousands of Japanese immigrants as well as Japanese Americans. (Japanese Internment)
  • Many forced to sell businesses before relocation
  • Suffered economic and cultural hardships as a result of America's internment
  • Forced relocation was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1944 because it was a "reasonable emergency wartime measure."  Internment lasted from 1942 until 1945.
  • In 1988, the United States reversed its position and called the relocation "unnecessary and unjust." Congress issued a formal apology and also awarded $20,000 per living internee in 1988

Darkest Time

  • 1941 saw the darkest time for the Allies, but also the beginnings of hope.
  • The bombing of Pearl Harbor brought America into the war
  • The British were able to hold off Hitler's invasion of England.
  • Operation Barbarossa's failure had halted German advance eastward. 
  • Russia enters the war on the side of the allies

The Holocaust

Hitler Begins the Holocaust

  • As Hitler conquered new lands, he plundered their wealth (art, metals, etc).
  • Brutally crushed any resistance, and used violence and torture to stop them before they even started.
  • To make more room for the Aryans to move into these new conquered territories, people HAD TO GO!
  • At first, Slavs, Poles, Jews, Gypsies, Soviets, Homosexuals, ANYONE not deemed Aryan enough were forcefully moved into Ghettos (walled off sections in cities) in large cities.
  • The Ghettos were bad, but it wasn’t really an efficient way of dealing with the sheer number of people that needed killing.
  • A new plan called the “Final Solution” was engineered.
  • Germans had used work camps (called concentration camps, like Gulags) to put conquered people to work. Slight tweak
  • Now, people will come to camps to be worked to death.
  • Arrive on trains.  Separated from family, had heads shaved, gold fillings removed, all wealth stripped
  • Old, young, sick, disabled are killed within days (sent to gas chambers)
  • Those healthy enough are literally worked to death.  Given such little food and water that they just literally wither away.
  • To destroy evidence of these crimes, Nazis often cremated bodies en masse (people often mistook this falling ash for snow)
  • This systematic elimination (especially 6 million Jews) is known as the Holocaust.
  • most notorious of the death camps - Auschwitz in Poland.

Nazi Concentration Camps: Sorting

  • Different symbols were put on people’s uniforms to show why they were in the camp b/c Hitler had different levels of hatred for different groups (more lenient to some groups)

War Crimes Trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo

  • In 1945/46, war crimes trials were held in Nuremberg for the 22 highest ranking Nazi officials remaining, by allied forces.  
  • (Hitler/Himmler/Goebbels all commited suicide)  
  • These were the people we were sure that had knowledge of the Holocaust (final solution) or were instrumental in the planning or execution of it.  
  • Of the 22 tried, 12 were sentenced to death 
  • They all had above average IQs which means they clearly knew what they were doing

Trials Didn’t Go Far Enough

  • They do not include the MILLIONS of people killed by the Japanese military
  • “The Asian Holocaust” anywhere between 3 and 11 million Chinese were killed by Japan as it conquered territory.
  • Horrible treatment of POWs (prisoners of war)
  • Both Japan and Nazi Germany used prisoners of war to conduct horrifying medical experiments.
  • A lot of Nazi doctors/scientists end up in the US after the war (more than 1600 of them).   Called “Operation Paperclip”