Download Causes of WWII - Clarke High School

The Control of the
Nazis
• Radios and newspapers were strictly controlled by
the Nazis – Germans read and hear only what Nazis
want.
• Books with anti-Nazi ideals were burned in public
bonfires
• Teachers required to be part of Nazi party
• Students recruited to join the Hitler Youth
Movement
• Priests that preach anti-Nazi ideals thrown in prison
Hitler’s Anti-Semitism
• Once in power, Hitler begins the
widespread persecution of Jewish people
• Jews banned from government jobs,
teaching, banking, broadcasting,
newspapers and entertainment
• Jews banned from many shops and public
owned buildings.
• Nazis stood outside Jewish-owned stores
and threatened customers
Nuremberg Laws 1935
• Laws take away citizenship and civil rights
of Jews
• Illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews
• Jews can’t go to public schools, own land,
associate with non-Jews, go to parks,
libraries, banks or museums
• Those who could, ESCAPED from
Germany – among those that escaped
was:
Albert Einstein
Nuremberg Rally, 1937
Why War
Again??
• Beginning in early
1930s, Germany, Italy
and Japan all began
campaigns to acquire
territory
• Alleviated depression in
their countries by military
buildup
• Other nations, burned
out by WWI, reluctant to
stop them
Japan’s Imperialism
• 1931: Manchuria
• 1933: storms out of
League of Nations
• 1937: invades China
• 1938: at war with
China
• 1940: Axis Pact with
Germany and Italy
• 1941: Pearl Harbor
attack
Rape of Nanking, 1937
• Full-scale Japanese
invasion of China
• In systematic
attacks on port city
after surrender,
300,000 civilians
killed; 80,000
women raped
Policy of
Appeasement
Appeasement
– willingness to surrender to an aggressors’ demands to avoid war
How was it used prior to World War II?
– Acceptance that Hitler could not be stopped and needed to be negotiated
with (even at the expense of the smaller independent countries)
– Accepted because of sympathy and guilt felt by Britain and USA of unjust
Treaty of Versailles
Reality
– Blindness to true nature of Hitler’s agenda program for Eastern Europe
– Irony= policy used to avoid war but empowered Hitler to continue his
aggressive campaign . The only way to stop Hitler was to declare war.
STEPS
TO
WAR
How did
World War II
begin?
How did
appeasement
contribute to
World War II?
Quotes