World War II

Chapter 27

Matching
World War II Journal

Notes

Notes:  World War II

Spielvogel Chapter 27

  • Prelude to War (1933-39)
      • Divided Societies -  World situation of 1930s offers dictatorships great opportunity to make trouble
      • Dissatisfied Nations – Germany, Japan, Italy, USSR
        • Wanted to change balance of power set in 1919-20
        • Thought unfavorable to them
        • All were dictatorships
        • Willing & able to use armed force
      • Satisfied nations – France, Britain, U.S., smaller New Nations – Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland
        • Belief that they would prosper under the treaties of 1919-20
        • Govts. Of France & Britain not vigorous (pacifists)
        • Lacked understanding of strength and vigor of dictatorships
        • Held back by fear of war – WWI a mistake that shouldn’t happen again
      • Three political ideologies exist
        • Communism, Fascism, Republicanism
          • Fascism most aggressive
    • Fascist Aggression
      • Hitler continues demand for lebensraum (living space)
        • Excuse for economic and political expansion
      • 1933 – Hitler begins verbal attack on Versailles Treaty – everyone else’s fault
      • 1933 – demands Germany be allowed to fully rearm – refused – withdraws from League of Nations – first major aggressive act
      • 1934 – tries to unite Germany and Austria – Mussolini mobilizes in protest – Hitler stops attempt – no one else says or does anything
      • Hitler openly builds armed forces by 1935 – mild protest
      • Oct. 1935-May 1936 – Mussolini takes Ethiopia – uses modern warfare and poison gas – Emperor (Haile Selassie) appeals to League
      • League denounces Mussolin but no action (Britain afraid embargoes against Italy would unite Hitler and Mussolini)
      • March 1936 – Hitler marches army across Rhine into Western Germany – against Versailles Treaty – takes Rhineland
        • Britain and France protest (move is against Locarno) – but no action – Hitler willing to withdraw – weak German military
      • 1936 – Hitler & Mussolini enter into alliance – Rome-Berlin Axis 1937 – joined by Japan – becomes anti-Comintern Pact – directed at USSR – (organization set up by Lenin for world communist revolution) could pressure unsure democracies
      • March 1938 – Hitler moves into Austria (plebiscite run by Nazis) and completes “Anschluss” – union of Germany and Austria-ineffective protest from Britain & France
      • Nazis stir up demands for annexation by Germans in Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia
      • Munich Conference (appeasement) – Sept. 1938 – France, Britain, Italy, Germany meet-agree Sudentenland goes to Hitler-annexed
        • Neville Chamberlain (British PM 1937-40) thinks Hitler will be satisfied “peace in our time”
        • Edouard Daladier of France agrees
        • Opposed by Winston Churchill
        • Oct. 1938 – turning point – could Hitler have been stopped here?
      • March 1939 – Hitler takes rest of Czech and part of Lithuania
      • April 1939 – Mussolini takes Albania
      • France and Britain promise to step in if Hitler invades Poland (Hitler wants “Polish Corridor”)
      • Aug. 1939 – Germany & USSR sign non-aggression pact – Nazi-Soviet Pact
      • Sept. 1 – Hitler invades Poland
      • Sept. 3 – Britain & France declare war – it’s on! As had happened 25 years earlier
  • WWII
    • Triumph of the Axis Powers (1939-40)
      • The fate of Poland
        • New warfare revealed
        • Heavy bombing to disrupt supplies and communications – softening up
        • Germans introduce Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) – tanks, trucks, airplanes
          • Luftwaffe – air force
          • Wehrmacht – armored, mechanized ground force
          • Panzer – tanks
        • Poland occupied by Germans within a month
        • WWII to be a war of movement – not like trenches of WWI
      • Fate of Western Europe
        • French confident because of “Maginot Line” along eastern border – invincible
        • Winter of 1939-40 – called the “Phony War” (Sitzkrieg – sitting war)
        • Spring 1940 – Germans take Denmark, Norway – do not want blockade as in WWI
        • British are shocked – elect Winston Churchill P.M-1940 – punish Chamberlain for appeasement
        • Germans invade France May 1940 through Netherlands and Belgium – take low countries – go around Maginot Line
        • British, French, Belgian troops trapped at Dunkirk – May 28-June 4, 1940
          • Rescued by citizens with every conceivable boat possible-to England within 4 days – became legend-called “Miracle at Dunkirk” (350-400K)
        • June 1940 – France collapses within 1 ½ months – 3rd Republic gone
        • Three French Governments
          • Germans occupy Northern France
          • Southern France governed by pro-German French – capital at Vichy – called Vichy govt. – hated by patriotic French –
          • the Resistance was organized and fought underground war against Occupation Forces – became famous – kept contact with free French in England led by Charles de Gaulle
        • Many French had given up hope and decided to try to exist under a Hitler Europe
    • The Indecisive Years (1940-42)
      • The Battle of Britain – England is now alone
        • Summer 1940 – Hitler begins to bomb England – preparation to invade – needed control of the skies
          • Gives up daytime bombing due to radar of RAF
          • “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few” – Churchill
          • Night bombing killed and terrified many – civilian bombing an attempt to break peoples will
        • Enigma – secret German radio code for plans – Germans didn’t know it had been broken (1939)
          • Ultra – British code to pass information about what Germany was planning (1940) – Germans didn’t know it existed
        • Spring 1941 – Hitler gives up idea of invasion
      • Hitler in Europe
        • Hitler takes Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia (1941)
        • Italians beaten by British in Egypt, Greece
        • Hitler send troops to dislodge British – has Balkans – ready for next move – (bails out Mussolini)
        • Hitler frustrated at slow pace on western front decides to go after the Soviet Union
        • Blitzkrieg good for plains of Russia – quick summer campaign!!
        • Great success early – winter comes early – troops not prepared-Hitler refuses to pull back
        • Suddenly becomes a 2-front war
      • U.S. Involvement
        • U.S. must decide – where is its best interest – isolationist and a fascist Europe or involvement and a free Europe
        • Resistance helps set up Lend-Lease Act between U.S. and Britain-1941 – arrives just in time – U.S. to support with war materials – any country whose defense is vital to U.S. defense is vital to U.S. defense – spent $50B by 1945
        • August 1941 – Roosevelt & Churchill meet aboard ship and sign Atlantic Charter
          • Declares collective security and self-determination
        • U.S. sends aid to USSR after German invasion
        • Pearl Harbor - U.S. in the war – December 1941
      • The Holocaust (1942-43)
        • People of all countries occupied by Nazis were brutalized
        • Jews treated worst of all – held in concentration camps – Auschwitz (12,000/day), Treblinka, Buchenwald, Belzec, Dachau, Lansberg
          • Mass shootings, gas chambers
        • Genocide – systematic killing of a people – Hitler calls it the “final solution” known as “holocaust” – effort of industry – thousands involved in building areas specifically for killing other humans (Joseph Mengele – Dr. Death)
        • Nazis sew seeds of own destruction because:
          • Their atrocities and forced labor sparked resistance throughout conquered territory
          • Extermination policies diverted resources needed for the war
          • American productivity surpassed anything Germany could match - esp. when Jewish scientists fled to the U.S.
    • The Turning Point (1942-43)
      • Stalingrad - Russia
        • Germans need Caspian oil fields – lay siege to Stalingrad (key battle August-Oct. 1942)
        • Russia resistance fierce - Stalin refused to give up his namesake - will sacrifice over 1 million lives
        • German generals beg Hitler to let them retreat
          • Hitler refuses – overall, abt. 750,000 German troops will die in fighting, starving, freezing
        • Germans surrender Feb. 1943
        • Russians begin offensive – Germans on defense
        • Hitler had overextended himself as had Napoleon
      • El Alemein – Egypt
        • British-American forces land in Morocco and Algeria – move east
        • British defeat Erwin Rommel (Desert Fox) and the Afrikakorps at El Alamein (Oct. 1942) in Egypt (Germans had wanted Suez) – under Bernard Montgomery
        • Amphibious warfare introduced
        • Germans driven out of Africa in Tunisia (May 1943)
    • The Last Years of the War (1943-45)
      • Importance of Supply Lines
        • Side that could produce uninterrupted supply of military equipment had the advantage
        • Germany had bombing advantage until mid-1942 – swings to allies by 1943
        • Allies bombing Germany 24 hrs/day – attempt to break German people’s will
        • 1945 – more than half of war production comes from U.S. (not suffering local devastation)
        • U.S. supplies steady stream of loans and war materials to allies
        • U.S. involved because:
          • Bonds of western culture, especially British
          • Importance of European industrial power
          • Russia might not survive without help
        • U.S. puts priority on war in Europe over war with Japan
      • Defeat of Italy
        • Allied amphibious landing in Sicily – July 1943 – Decision made at Casablanca Conference (Jan. 1943) between Roosevelt and Churchill
        • Italy invaded at Anzio – Jan. 1944
        • Tehran Conf. In Dec. 1943 between Stalin, FDR, Churchill – plans for Normandy invasion and Russian invasion of Germany
          • also begin talk of the United Nations
        • Coup d’état restores power of king (1943) (Victor Emmanuel III – eventually abdicated to son) – Mussolini deposed and imprisoned – Fascism abandoned – Italy joins allies
        • Mussolini escapes – sets up fascist govt. in North Italy with assistance of Hitler – captured and killed 1945 – shot and hung upside down in Milan
      • Defeat of Germany
        • Attacked form 3 directions
        • Russians move into Balkans and Poland from East
        • Greatest triumph in France
          • D-Day – June 6, 1944 – operation Overlord
          • Eisenhower leads allies invasion of Normany (a second front) – largest sea invasion in all history – 5,000 ships, 150,000 men, 1500 tanks – 12,000 planes
        • Germans unsure of where it would take place – thought it would be near Calais
        • Within a month – 1M troops in France
        • Another invasion in South France (mouth of Rhone River)
        • Continuing push up form Italy
        • Last great German offensive – Dec. 1944 – Battle of the Bulge (mostly Germans vs. Americans) in Belgium (Ardennes Forest) Dec. 1944
        • Failed – Germans retreat to Siegfried line
        • Hitler commits suicide Apr. 30
        • May 2, Berlin falls to Soviets
        • Formal surrender – May 8, 1945 War continues with Japan until Sept. 2,1945 – WWII over
  • The Beginning of the Cold War
    • Unsettled Issues
      • Fascism gone
      • Communism the new enemy of western democracies
      • Could Stalin be trusted?
      • Was this a repeat of Chamberlain and Hitler in 1938?
    • Conferences
      • Yalta - just before the end of the war
        • Stalin, FDR, & Churchill meet again
        • Stalin wants Poland as a defensive buffer - desires pro-Communist government
          • U.S. wants Poland to have free elections
        • Germany to be divided among the Allied powers
          • They knew that whoever got Berlin would have strongest claim
          • Soviets and Britain race to Berlin
          • U.S. heads south to Dresden - better military target - ensures that Soviets reach Berlin first
        • only real agreement - we need a U.N.
      • Potsdam - after war with Germany over; before end of war with Japan
        • Potsdam Declaration - Japan must surrender unconditionally