Download WWII AS A TOTAL WAR I. World War II as a total war A. Background

WWII AS A TOTAL WAR
I.
World War II as a total war
A. Background
● WWII considered more of a total war than WWI
● Governments made every effort to efficiently mobilize every human/material resources
● WWII saw home front under direct attack has not occurred before
● Governments used all weapons at disposal kill vast numbers of citizens
● Racial hatred led to killing or relocation of civilians
B. Aims of belligerents
● Hitler’s aims for European war
● Total domination
● Takeover of USSR
● Living space for German peoples
● Elimination of inferior races
● Allies’ war aims
● Fighting for freedom of Europe
● Could not compromise for peace
● Japan in the Pacific
● Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere of Influence
● Political, economic, racial domination
● 1945 – tried to negotiate peace, denied by allies who demanded total surrender
● Propaganda required to demonize enemy
C. Use of weaponry
● Both sides developed deadly weapons to win at all costs
● Future impact of wartime technological innovations
● Radar – impact in air and sea navigation
● V1/V2 rockets – led indirectly to rockets for space exploration and nuclear missiles
● Jet engine – revolutionized air travel
● Atomic bomb – affect course of Cold War
● Large-scale production of sulphonamide drugs and penicillin
● Saved thousands of soldiers’ and civilians’’ lives after the war
● Improved techniques for storing blood and plasma
● Plastic surgery to aid injured and burned personnel
● Parachutes made out of synthetics (nylon)
● U-boat detection equipment, long-distance bombing
D. Role of civilians
● Civilians counted for 2/3 of deaths
● New weaponry (bombers) and mobilization led to increase deaths of civilians
E. Deportation and genocide
● Hitler believed certain races (Jews, Slavs) were Untermenchen (subhuman)
● Spaced needed for Greater German Reich
● USSR and Polish areas needed to be displaces to destroyed for Germans
● Unwanted population was 50-57 million
● Retained as agricultural laborers
● 15% Poles
● 25% Ruthanians
● 35% Ukrainians
● Rest deported to Serbia
● Russians would be destroyed thru contraception, abortion, sterilization
● Jews would be “exterminated”
● Many Poles and Russians deported to factories and mines of Third Reich
● Work ensured almost certain death
● Special SS squads called Einsatzgruppen were dedicated to kill Jews, communist officials, and resistors as
Germany invaded Poland and the USSR
● By July 1941, murdered 63,000 people (90% Jews)
● Gypsies and mental patients were also targeted
● At first, people were massed into a remote location and shot
●
Nazis came up with “Final Solution”
● Jews transported to concentration camps and killed by poison, overwork, or starvation
● Extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau killed 10,000 people a day
● Soviet Government also deported whole populations
● Assumed minorities were disloyal to the USSR
● Germans, Crimea, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Poles were dispersed to Siberia
● At least 20,000,000 peoples died in Soviet Union (more than half civilian deaths)
● Poland suffered greatest proportion of deaths ( 6 million out of 30 million)
● 3 million Jews
● Only 150,000 were military deaths
● Japanese also guilty of genocide
● Rape of Nanjing
● 5,000-50,000 Chinese massacred in Singapore
● Overall Japs killed 10,000,000 Chinese
● Filipinos, Indonesians, and Malays were used as slaves
● Allied prisoners suffered physical overwork, malnutrition, and abuse
F. Civilians as part of the war effort
● Background
● Civilians were mobilized in all countries similarly to WWI
● Much higher mobilization in major countries
● Half to two-third of industrial workforce
● Three quarters of their national product
● Excluding the US, populations were restricted to rationed food and household goods
● Britain
● Military conscription was introduced at the beginning of the conflict
● Industrial conscription was also introduced for women and played a very large role in industry,
agriculture, and administration
● Germany
● Little change to the economy than the beginning of the war
● Tried to organize the deployment of human resources, but found little support
● Women in the workplace went against Hitler’s “Children, Church, Kitchen.”
● Hitler insisted that consumer goods production remain a priority
● Resistance Fighters
● Soviet Union
● Centralized nature of the state allowed civilians to be mobilized effectively from the beginning
● Workers were forced to move to areas where most needed, hours of work increased, and crash
training programs were developed to make up for the lack of skilled labor
● Women
● Made up most of the workforce
● In the army: In the Red Army or the Red Air Force, three regiments consisted entirely of
women
● Played a vital role in the Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations
● Considered “real heroes” but worked under appalling conditions such as long hours, poor
nutrition, and political scrutiny.
● America
● Women played a key role in war industry, doing semi-skilled jobs
● 350,000 women joined uniformed groups such as the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, the Marine
Corps Women’s Reserve and the Navy Nurse Corps.
● Japan
● Were reluctant to use women in the workforce
● Preferred using students
● However more than two and half million women did enter the workforce
II. Growth of government power
A. Britain
● Churchill formed coalition government and exercised supreme political and military power
● Mines, shipping, and railways came under state control
● Rationing was introduced
● Conscription for both men and women
●
Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labor and National Service, intervened extensively in health and welfare of the
nation
● Improving health care
● Nurseries to look after children
● All factories with more than 250 employees had a canteen and welfare officer
● Special food rations and vitamin supplements to children and mothers
B. Germany
● Germany was a single party state but was confused and decentralized
● Until 1943, Germany focused on high quality and technical sophistication rather than trying to mass produce
large quantities of standard weapons
● Failed to produce weapons on large enough scale
C. USA
● War industries production board
● Changed production priorities to the needs of the military
● Car factories began producing tanks and planes
● War Commission
● Recruited workers for where they were needed most
● New industries created primarily for producing synthetic materials
● Relied on American business
● Expertise in mass production and technical innovation
● Grant contracts to big industries to produce what’s needed
● Able to expand manufacturing capacity immensely!
●
D. Japan
● Military government had strengthened powers
● Main political parties went into “voluntary” dissolution
● Imperial Rule Assistance Association set up
● Trade unions shut down
● Replaced with the Great Japan Patriotic Industrial Association
● Hard time for gov to maintain tight control on war production
● Because independent positions of the big companies and rivalry between army and navy
III. Propaganda
A. Background
● Key weapon for all governments
● USSR and Germany had propaganda machines
● Key in convincing their populations of the justification of their actions
● Great Patriotic War
● Dubbed by Stalin
● Defend the “motherland” rather than the communist state
● Britain pacifism and USA isolationism
● Change in public opinion came from actions of Axis Powers more than propaganda
● War scare in 1938 public opinion of Brit hardened and Brit ready for war by 1939, determined to
fight
● Pearl Harbor changed American attitude
● Churchill established the Political Warfare Executive
● US= Office of War Information
● Made to help Americans understand the purpose of the war was to defend freedom and liberty
● Overall propaganda used to:
● Maintain morale
● Encourage civilians to be more thrifty
● Get more women to work
● Stress evil nature of enemy
● Propaganda used to fight Nazis
● Radio was important
● BBC new broadcasts were seen as reliable reports and were listened to in occupied countries to
inform movements
● British and American propaganda against Japan
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Different than what was used against Germany
propaganda against Germany stressed that the Nazis specifically were the evil enemy, not the whole
German population,
With Japan the attack was of an openly racial nature and aimed at all |Japanese
Attitude towards Japanese was that they were inferior, treacherous, barbaric and primitive