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World War II
Essential Questions
• In what ways did the peace settlement with Germany at the end of
World War I make a new world war with Germany more likely?
• How was Hitler able to rise from obscurity and lead millions of
Germans to embrace the extreme and violent ideas of the
Nazi Party?
• Why were the Western democracies unable to find a way to contain
or stop Hitler from rearming and seizing one territory after another
in the run up to all-out war?
• What led the Japanese to attack the U.S., thereby provoking it into
entering the war in the Pacific?
• What advantages ultimately enabled the Allied forces to prevail
against both Germany and Japan in World War II?
• In what ways was World War II a “total war”?
Versailles, June 1919
From left to right:
– Prime Minister David
Lloyd George of
Great Britain
– Prime Minister Vittorio
Orlando of Italy
– Prime Minister Georges
Clemenceau of France
– President Woodrow
Wilson of the
United States
The Versailles Treaty
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Land
Reparations
War guilt
League of Nations
The Versailles Treaty (continued)
Map showing German territory lost and the
Rhineland DMZ
• German
army reduced
• Germany barred
from having
tanks, an air force,
or submarines
• Occupied DMZ
west of
the Rhineland
The League of Nations
Although President
Wilson was the driving
force behind the
creation of the League
of Nations, the United
States did not join it.
Rise of the Nazis
• Germany’s
economic woes
• Political instability
• Fascism
• National Socialist
German Workers’ Party
Adolf Hitler
The Nazis
promoted a view
of Germany as
surrounded by
enemies and
threatened on
all sides
The Nazis Gain Power
Hitler sworn in as Chancellor, 1933