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Leslie Sexton
Chapter 12
Pages 486-487
Questions #1, 7
1.
Concept
Lebensraum
Identification
- Lebensraum is defined as ‘living space’,
meaning the acquisition of land and
colonies for German settlement in Eastern
Europe
- Hitler desired additional land in the east,
believing that the health of a nation was
dependent on the value of its national
territory
- He was a German of Austrian birth, and
had Pan-German dream of bringing all
Germans ‘home to the Reich’
- Hitler said that “Germany’s problem
could only be solved by means of force and
this was never without attendant risk”
Blitzkrieg
- Blitzkrieg (meaning “lighting war”) was a
new kind of mechanized warfare
- It was a coordinated attack strategy that
used armored tank divisions, supported by
ground troops and air support
- Fighter-bombers like Stukas and Heinkel
airplanes in the German Luftwaffe targeted
civilians, using terror bombings to promote
fear and defeatism among the general
population, which would create chaos
among the opposing side
- The success of Blitzkrieg was dependent
on the advantage gained by catching the
enemy off guard; many opponents of the
Nazis were not prepared
- The enemy had to surrender quickly, or
the element of surprise would be lost
Munich
Agreement
- The Munich Agreement was signed on
September 20, 1938
- Hitler stated that he would risk war over
the fate of Sudeten Germans, yet he said it
was the “last major problem to be solved”
- Chamberlain believed an agreement on
the Sudetenland would ensure peace, and
convinced the Czech prime minister to give
land to Hitler in return for compensation
and an international guarantee of
Czechoslovakia’s defense
Significance
- Hitler called for German territorial
expansion by seizing lands to the east
- He said Germany must cease its attempts
at acquiring colonial possessions and look
to the east instead
- Hitler hoped lebensraum would create an
German autarky that would have the
strength and self-sufficiency to fight
Russia and France
- The desire for territorial expansion led to
Hitler’s aggressions in eastern Europe and
the Second World War
- This plan was carried out in Poland,
where the country was quickly conquered,
and Poland was turned into a worker state
that supplied the Third Reich
- This form of warfare was initially used
against Poland, where Poland’s small and
obsolete air force was caught off guard
- Blitzkrieg marked the difference between
the First and the Second World War;
during the first, the defensive weapons
technology was far more advanced than
that of the offensive, and the result was a
war of attrition and trench warfare, while
during the Second World War, Germany
was able to rapidly conquer large amounts
of territory as a result of more modern
offensive weaponry, such as the tank
- Blitzkrieg was largely successful for
Germany early in the war, and most of
Europe was conquered
- Poland, Denmark, Norway, and France
would be defeated in this fashion
- It would take the Allied forces almost
three years to cope with Blitzkrieg and to
prepared to counter it
- The Czech prime minister was excluded
from the final conference, and could
choose to sign the agreement or face war
with Germany alone
- Chamberlain and Hitler declared that
Britain and Germany would never “go to
war with one another again”
- Chamberlain believed this agreement had
swayed Hitler against going to war, and
believed in meant peace in the future
- However, the prospect of peace did not
Operation
Barbarossa
General
Eisenhower
- A week later, Hitler demanded that
Czechoslovakia sign over the territory by
October 10, and agree to Polish and
Hungarian demands for Czech territory
- At the Munich Conference, Chamberlain,
French prime minister Eduoard Daladier,
Mussolini and Hitler agreed to transfer the
Sudetenland to Germany by October 10,
and to deal with Polish and Hungarian
claims at another date
- Operation Barbarossa was the code name
given to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet
Union
- Barbarossa was meant to be total war, and
the Nazis would exterminate “undesirables”
such as communists and Jews
- Hitler intended to defeat the Soviet Union
and exterminate large parts of the Soviet
population
- However, he expected the defeat of the
Soviet Union to take only six weeks, and
did not consider the consequences if the
Red Army was not immediately defeated
- The campaign was successful at first
during the summer and fall, as the Germans
captured Minsk, Smolensk, and Kiev as the
ill-prepared Red Army retreated
- In August 1941, Hitler ordered the
German army to move south and the drive
towards Moscow would be halted
- As they moved south, the Germans
destroyed five Soviet armies and fifty
divisions, and by December 1941 had
advanced beyond the Sea of Azov in the
south, had surrounded Leningrad, and were
reaching the western suburbs
- After Stalin ordered the transfer of
Siberian divisions from Asia for a
counterattack the Nazi advance was halted
- Was appointed supreme Allied
commander by Churchill and Roosevelt
while planning a cross-Channel invasion of
the German-occupied France
- Eisenhower directed British field marshal
Bernard Montgomery to prepare invasion
plans and act as commander of the invasion
last long, as Hitler terrorized the Jewish
population in Germany on Kristallnatch
(the night of broken glass), and claimed
the rest of Czechoslovakia by announcing
the German protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia
- The Munich Agreement was the last time
Hitler was appeased, since the British and
the French would not negotiate over
Poland
- The invasion of the Soviet Union would
fulfill Hitler’s vision of Lebensraum, strike
at the communists, a hated rival of the
Nazis, and deny Soviet support to the
British
- It would also force the Soviet Union to
deploy military strength in Europe, leaving
the Japanese to further expand in the
Pacific, ensuring the United States would
be preoccupied, making them less likely to
become involved in a European war
- Resistance forces played a prominent
role, fighting for their survival rather than
that of the state
- The first-strike success of Blitzkrieg was
not achieved, since the Soviet Army
retreated over the vast expanse of Russia,
destroying anything of value as they pulled
back
- Victory became less likely as the war
continued, since Blitzkrieg relied on
immediate defeat of the enemy
- Blitzkrieg was well-suited for the
compact Western Europe, yet it became
more difficult to supply the army and
service the tanks as the German army
moved further into Russia
- The campaign lasted much longer than
Hitler had expected, and the Germans were
not prepared for a winter campaign
- Operation Barbarossa is considered
Hitler’s greatest mistake by many
historians
- Battles in the cities of Leningrad and
Stalingrad gave Hitler major setbacks in
the war
- The Battle of Stalingrad ended in defeat
for Germany, and turned the tide of the
war
- The Normandy invasion opened a new
front in the West, one that Stalin had
demanded for over two years
- As the Allies advanced, Germany
resisted, as Hitler would not allow his
armies to retreat, and desperately launched
counterattacks in hopes of turning back the
ground forces
- France would be invaded across the
English Channel, and the invasion would be
supported by naval bombardment and
British and American aircrafts
- On June 6th, 1944, the Allies arrived on
the beaches of Normandy, and by nightfall,
the Allies had secured all beachheads and
defeated a German counterattack
Neville
Chamberlain
- Chamberlain was the British Prime
Minister during part of the inter-war period
- Was a strong supporter of appeasement
- Chamberlain wanted to avoid another war
and secure peace in Europe
- Chamberlain believed allowing Germany
to violate the Treaty of Versailles would
calm Germany, and war would be avoided
- During the inter-war period, Hitler was
allowed to rearm Germany, re-introduce
conscription, occupy the Rhineland, and
annex Austria and Czechoslovakia
- Chamberlain persuaded the Czech prime
minister to concede territory to Germany,
and agreed to give Hitler the Sudetenland at
the Munich Conference, believing
appeasement would produce “peace in our
time”
Allied forces
- The Normandy landing was the
beginning of the end for Nazi Germany
- It ended Nazi control of the West, and as
Soviet forces pushed the Germans back in
the East, the Allies moved towards
Germany, liberating France
- The invasion of Normandy was a major
turning point in the war, and soon
Germany’s defeat became imminent
- At the time Chamberlain was praised for
his efforts to secure peace, and said to be a
leader of fortitude with diplomatic skill
- Less than a year after Munich,
Chamberlain was criticized as naïve and
short-sighted
- Appeasement merely postponed war with
Germany rather than preventing it
- In retrospect, Chamberlain’s
appeasement was a diplomatic failure