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Effects of WWII – Documents
Document 1
The end of World War II in September 1945 marked the end of an international system centered on the European
Great Powers. At the end of World War II, Germany, Italy and most of France lay in ruins while Great Britain
was bankrupt. Now there were only two great powers left: the United States which at the end of the war had an
intact economy, an intact army and a virtual monopoly on the manufacture and employment of nuclear weapons;
and the Soviet Union, which had a large and intact army and was in control of almost half the European continent,
despite being scarred by the Nazi onslaught. The demise of the Great Power system led to the development of a
bipolar world dominated by the United States and the USSR. For the next 50 years this resulted in the Cold War
– a political and ideological rivalry on a global scale between the US and the Soviet Union.
This excerpt is from a Romanian website (but the article is in English) called Civitas Politics (civitaspolitics.org). The article
is titled “The End Game: The Consequences of World War II” and was written by George Vişan. It was published on
Civitas Politics on January 6, 2010. George Vişan is a Romanian political analyst who has worked for the UN and held a
variety of Romanian government positions. He has degrees in political science and international relations from the
University of Bucharest. The website Civitas Politics says their goal is to promote the students and graduates of the
Political Science program at the University of Bucharest and is a project of the alumni and student association there. The
home website is in Romanian.
Document 2
In the economic arena, the war ended the Great Depression in the United States. Military spending that began in
1940 to bolster the defense effort gave the nation’s economy the boost it needed, and millions of unemployed
Americans returned to work to make the weapons of war needed to protect the United States. Business leaders
who had balked at fully supporting New Deal programs during the Depression, now found themselves invited to
Washington DC to run the agencies that coordinated production for the war. Paid a dollar a year for their
services, they remained on their own company payrolls as well. A common pattern was the cost-plus-a-fixedfee system, whereby the government guaranteed to pay all development and production costs and then paid a
percentage profit on the goods produced.
This excerpt is from an article called “The World War II Home Front” from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
(www.gilderlehrman.org). It was written by Allen Winkler, who is a “distinguished professor of History at Miami University
of Ohio, and is the author of Home Front, USA: America During World War II and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of
Modern America. The publication date of the article is not listed.
Document 3
World War II involved more than combat action between Axis and Allied forces. In Latin America, it fundamentally altered
preexisting diplomatic, economic, military, and political arrangements. For a variety of reasons, individual Latin American
republics responded differently to the conflict. Still, World War II generated unmistakable changes with lasting
consequences. Many governments improved their diplomatic relations with the United States. Several countries used the
war to professionalize their armed forces. Two republics, Brazil and Mexico, joined the Allies in fighting abroad. Many
others made contributions to the defense of the Western Hemisphere. However, wartime economic conditions devastated
some sectors of their economies. Shipping and supply shortages, for example, wrecked the Central American banana
industry. World War II encouraged the improvement of profitable activities, such as Venezuelan oil production and Latin
Americans established new American commercial networks to make up for the loss of European and Asian markets.
Politically, the war accelerated the strengthening of governments in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.
World War II empowered labor organizations and political interest groups across the Americas, and Allied ideology directly
contributed to the demise of several high profile dictators, including Maximiliano Hernández Martínez in El Salvador, Jorge
Ubico in Guatemala, and Getúlio Dornelles Vargas in Brazil.
This excerpt is from a book review. The book being reviewed is called Latin America During World War II and was edited
by Thomas M. Leonard, a professor of history and the director of the international studies program at the University of
North Florida. The book was published in 2006. The review was published in the Journal of Military History, which has
published scholarly articles on the military history of all eras and geographical areas since 1937. This review was
published in July 2007 by Bradley Coleman and was retrieved from Project Muse (muse.jhu.edu) which has been “a
leading provider of digital humanities and social sciences content since 1995.”
Document 4:
This chart is from a textbook, but the specific source is unknown. These numbers are fairly accurate and agreed upon by
most historians.
Document 5:
France After WWII: France was irreversibly weakened, economically, militarily and psychologically. With
increasing anti-colonial sentiment within France and throughout the world, colonies began to demand
independence. France was resistant to granting independence to colonies, and fought to maintain its
empire, resulting in long, violent conflicts. In the end, all French colonies would attain independence.
Germany After WWII: Germany was utterly devastated. Allied jets carpet-bombed cities, killing many,
including civilians. Many were forced to fight to defend the nation, leading to a high loss of life. The nation
was financially destroyed, due to the Nazis desperate spending to fight the war, even down to the final
days. The four major winners divided the nation between them, tightly controlling all aspects of life in
Germany, while also implementing severe economic sanctions (punishments). The nation was also
disgraced due to the Holocaust. Germany and its citizens basically had to start over from less than nothing
and would not be unified again until 1990.
Italy After WWII: At the conclusion of the war, communism gained in popularity, as Italy's experience
with democracy/capitalism in post-WWI years was unpleasant. The US worked hard to prevent the
communist party from taking power in Italy, which helped to eventually move Italy toward a democracy
instead. A democratic republic is established in 1948 after a popular election.
Poland After WWII: Poland was taken over by Germany in the early days of WWII, and then taken over
by the USSR as the Soviets pushed the Germans back. After the Germans surrendered, the Soviets rigged
an election to ensure the installation of a communist government. Poland would remain under Soviet
control/influence until the collapse of the USSR in 1990.
United Kingdom After WWII: One of the major powers that decided the fate of post-war Europe. Like
all other European nations, they suffered a high loss of life, and significant economic damage, as well as
actual physical damage due to the bombing attacks of the German Luftwaffe (Air Force). This damage
made them incapable of maintaining their massive worldwide empire, and colonies begin to declare
independence one after another over the next 20 years. WWII had increased the sense of nationalism in
these colonies, many of which contributed to the war effort. With global anti-colonial sentiment (especially
by the US), and a decreasing will to shed blood and to spend the vast amounts of money necessary to
maintain their empire, the UK grants independence to most colonies without threat of military action. By
the early 1960s, it had lost most of its empire.
USSR After WWII: Most of Eastern Europe was devastated and destabilized from WWII. The USSR takes
advantage, setting up communist governments in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania
and Bulgaria. The Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are simply taken over by the Soviet
Union. The USSR also keeps a north German port in order to gain control of a badly needed warm water
port. With this gain in territory, the USSR becomes a leading world power, along with the U.S., as it is
strengthened while other European powers are weakened.
These summaries are taken from an article titled “The Effects of World War II on Each Country,” on a website called
Worldology (www.worldology.com). The information was compiled by the website author, Casey Fisher. According to the
website, “worldology.com was conceived with the objective of making history and geopolitics more easily digestible and
understandable.” There is no publication date available, or any other information about Casey Fisher.
Document 6:
UN Charter (preamble)
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to
mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men
and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of
international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the
common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS
Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have
exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do
hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
On April 25, 1945 (a few weeks before the end of the war in Europe), the United Nations Conference on International
Organization began in San Francisco. After working for two months, representatives from fifty nations signed the Charter
of the United Nations. The document above is the preamble from the charter of the United Nations, and the text is from
the UN website (www.un.org)
Document 7:
This chart is from Wikimedia (commons.wikimedia.org) but was compiled using a variety of sources. The information
contained is generally accepted as being accurate by most historians.
Document 8:
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first
deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the
city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000
people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a
radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”
The picture above was taken by Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on
August 6, 1945. This was the first of only two atomic bombs ever to be used during wartime, and started a competition
between the US and the USSR to become the most militarily dominant power in the world. The photo was retrieved from
www.atomicheritage.com, which is a website designed to educate people about the development of atomic theory.
Document 9:
The post-war reconstruction effort made the need for an expanded labour force urgent. In the late
1940s, the government launched campaigns to encourage women to enter or stay in the labour
market, and encouraged the migration of workers from (former) British colonies to fill the labour
shortages.
The welfare state created many job opportunities in what was seen as ‘women’s work’. Jobs were
available in the newly created National Health Service for nurses, midwives, cleaners and clerical
staff. Banking, textile and light industries such as electronics also expanded during this period and
provided women with opportunities in clerical, secretarial and assembly work. Jobs were still strictly
segregated by gender, and routine repetitive work was categorised as “women’s work” for lower
wages.
The proportion of women in the labour force increased from 45.9% in 1955 to 51% in 1965. Despite
this increase in the rate of women’s employment, women were still considered to be 'secondary
workers'. Women's wages were not considered central to families’ income, instead it was thought that
women's wages were for ‘extras’ such as holidays or new consumer durables. Mothers of young
children were discouraged from working and most of the state funded day cares set up during WWII
were closed by the post-war government. Welfare payments for families were based on the
assumption that a man’s income supported his wife and children. The welfare benefit rates for
married women were set at a lower level than those for married men.
The excerpt above is from an article titled “Post World War II: 1946-1970” on a website called Striking Women: Women
and Work (www.striking-women.org) . There is no listed author, but the website states that “these resources have been
developed by Dr. Sundari Anitha from the University of Lincoln and Professor Ruth Pearson from the University of Leeds
in 2013 as part of a project on South Asian workers’ struggles in the UK labor market” and the project was funded by the
Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom.
Document 10:
Africa before and after World War II, showing the colonized territories (before) and modern African countries (after) as
well as the dates of independence in each area. Maps were retrieved online and are compiled from commonly accepted
information accessible in a variety of places.
Document 11:
After World War II, defeated Germany was divided into Soviet,
American, British and French zones of occupation. The city of
Berlin, though technically part of the Soviet zone, was also split,
with the Soviets taking the eastern part of the city. Over the next
12 years, cut off from its western counterpart and basically
reduced to a Soviet satellite, East Germany saw between 2.5
million and 3 million of its citizens head to West Germany in search
of better opportunities. By 1961, some 1,000 East Germans–
including many skilled laborers, professionals and intellectuals–
were leaving every day.
In August 1961, Soviet officials began sealing off all access between
East and West Berlin. Soldiers laid more than 100 miles of barbed
wire which was soon replaced by a six-foot-high, 96-mile-long wall
of concrete blocks, complete with guard towers, machine gun posts
and searchlights. From 1961 to 1989, a total of 5,000 East Germans
escaped; many more tried and failed.
This map shows the division of Germany (and Berlin) after World War II. The information is commonly available from a
variety of sources, and it is unclear who specifically drew this particular map.
Document 12:
This chart was published in the magazine The New International and is from an editorial article called “Nuclear Weapons
– the Facts.” It was published in June 2008. According to their website (newint.org), “New Internationalist is a multi-award
winning, independent, non-profit media cooperative. For over 40 years we’ve specialized in investigative reporting,
publishing our magazine and books on human rights, politics, social and environmental justice. We invest in in-depth
reporting and publishing because we believe it is essential. We are totally independent and non-profit.”
Document 13:
This document has been compiled from
a variety of online sources. The original
author is unknown.