Download World War II - Pearland ISD

1939-1945
World War II
Causes
◼ Primarily
a continuation of unresolved
issues from 1919
▪ Treaty of Versailles…
▪ resentment
▪ Adolf Hitler played off the resentment to fain
power
Global Depression
◼ October
29, 1929, the Great Depression
crashed the global economy
▪ US held the debts of England, France,
▪
▪
▪
▪
▪
Germany
When they began to default on the payments,
US banks began to falter
Set off chain reaction of bank failures globally
US also was over producing goods—esp farm
products
More product = lower prices; lower prices =
farmers can’t pay their loans…
Banks closed…money supplies dried up
Increased Government
Involvement
◼ All
industrialized nations reorganized
gov’ts to be more active in financial
matters
◼ Social security, unemployment comp,
banking regulations
▪ Italy, Germany, Japan --- fascism
▪ Russia --- now known as USSR ---
communism
▪ Completely isolated from global economy
Fascism
◼ First
introduced in Italy by Benito
Mussolini
▪ Gov’t attempted to control economy but
allowed private ownership of businesses and
other property …
▪ BUT all decisions made by single dictator with
massive power
▪ Dissent severely punished – unemployment,
jail or death
◼ Appealed to many people globally
▪ Germany, Spain and Japan
Nazism
◼ German
version of fascism
◼ National Socialist Worker’s Party
◼ Small in 1920s but rapidly rose to power
due to weak Weimar gov’t
◼ Opposed to both democracy and
communist
◼ Promoted past and future German glories
Hitler’s Nazism
◼ Attempted to overthrow Weimar Republic
▪ Beer Hall Pustch
◼ Jailed for 8 months! Wrote Mein Kampf
◼ Gained “rock star” status by giving
impassioned speeches about German glory
◼ Used democratic principles to overthrow the
republic and create a dictatorship
◼ All done LEGALLY
◼ Used propaganda, lies and murder to retain
power
Fascist Conquests
◼ Fascism
requires conquest to obtain
cheap labor and raw material
◼ Desires to unite its people against
“enemies”
▪ Except for Spain, fascists attacked their
neighbors
▪ Italy invaded North Africa and Ethiopia
▪ Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and Austria
Japan
◼ Some
historians argue that WWII started
in 1931
◼ Started before they became fascist
◼ Invaded Manchuria in 1931
▪ Enslaved or killed citizens
▪ Occupied coal mines and factories
◼ Invaded
China in 1937
▪ “Rape of Nanking”
The little “yip-yip” dog
◼ AKA:
The League of Nations
◼ Did little to stop fascist aggression
◼ Hoped fascists would be satisfied after
limited conquests and stop
▪ The policy of APPEASEMENT
▪ Only seemed to encourage the aggressors
The Combatants
◼ Axis
▪ Germany – Adolf Hitler
▪ Italy – Benito Mussolini
▪ Japan – Emperor Hirohito, Tojo
◼ Allies
▪ England – Neville Chamberlain, Winston
Churchill
▪ France
▪ USSR – Stalin
▪ US -- FDR
Fighting
◼ Different
than WWI
▪ Trench warfare and little movement of fronts
◼ Fast
moving fronts due to technology
▪ Tanks and Airplanes made trenches
impractical
▪ German “blitzkrieg” (lightening war)
▪ Use of motorized and air vehicles to “soften” front
▪ Then send in foot soldiers – if there were people left
to fight back
European Theatre
◼ Began
in 1939 with the German invasion
of Poland
▪ By 1940 Germany controlled MOST of Europe
▪ Russian-German non-aggression pact 1939
▪ Hitler’s “surprise” invasion of Russia in 1941
blew the pact
▪ US enters war due to Japan’s attack on Pearl
Harbor
▪ Russia joins Allies in 1941 and stayed the
course
Allied Offensive
◼ Allies
invade North Africa 1942
▪ Operation Torch
◼ Then
Italy
◼ Turning point of European theatre “D-Day”
▪ June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy
▪ Pushed Germans out of France
▪ At the same time Russia marching West
▪ “Race to Berlin”
Pacific Theatre
◼ Japan’s
attack on China 1937-1945 led to
20 million deaths
◼ 1941 Japan attacked much of Southeast
Asia and Pacific islands
◼ Turning point in Pacific – Midway 1943
◼ US firebombings of Japanese cities in
1945
◼ August 6 & 9 – atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki brings
unconditional surrender
Consequences
United Nations
◼ Replaced
League of Nations
◼ Key differences
▪ US involvement
▪ Headquartered in US, not Europe
▪ UN Security Council has military authority that
can be used to stop aggression by “rogue”
nations
◼ UN
forces involved in Korean and Persian
Gulf wars
Atomic Power
◼ MAJOR
controversy
▪ Military and government supporters of use on
Japan claimed it saved lives that would have
been lost in conventional invasion on Japan
▪ Critics questioned the morality of it at all and
raised concerns about a world armed with
nuclear weapons
US becomes world power
◼ Europe’s
domination of world affairs ends
◼ Both World Wars crippled Europe
◼ US emerged as the only major power
(nukes) whose economy and society
relatively untouched
◼ UN aided European colonies in Asia and
Africa gain independence
▪ Dutch East Indies, Indochina, India, Ghana
Holocaust
◼ Example
of the worst fascist treatment of
“outsiders”
◼ Hitler’s “Final Solution” targeted Jews and
other “undesirables”
▪ 6 million Jews, 4 million others
◼ After
war UN supported (US & Britain)
establishment of democratic Jewish
homeland in Palestine (Israel)
Start of the Cold War
◼ Global
tensions rise immediately between
US and USSR
◼ Stalin warns other allies that “Where my
troops land, there they will stay”
◼ He controlled much of Eastern Europe