Download World War II Begins

Unit: World War II
Handout #: 2
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World War II Begins
As the power of
1
leaders continued to grow, the United States, France, and Britain
practiced a foreign policy known as
2,
an aggressor. This allowed
3
or giving up certain principles to pacify
to do whatever they wanted as long as they
did not start a war.
To make matters worse, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a deal called a
4,
in which Hitler and Stalin agreed that their countries would not fight each other. This allowed Germany to begin to takeover
surrounding countries with their new military strategy, called the
5,
or lightening war in which they caught their enemies by surprise and quickly crushed their all opposition with overwhelming force.
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded
6.
On September 3, Britain and France
declared war on Germany, marking the start of
7.
By October 5, 1939, the
Polish army had been defeated.
After the collapse of Poland, the British sent troops to France,
but both countries remained on the defensive, waiting for the
Germans to attack. After World War I, the French had built a
line of concrete bunkers and fortifications called the
8
along the German border. Rather than risk their troops by
attacking, the French preferred to wait behind their defenses for
the Germans to approach. An eight-month period of eerie quit
ensued which the Germans called the sitzkrieg and the British
called the “Bore War.”
Things did not remain quit for long as Hitler and the German simply went around the Maginot Line by invading the Netherlands,
Belgium, and Luxembourg. Hitler seemed invincible as he raced across France. The British and French forces now found themselves
trapped as the Germans began to drive them toward the English Channel. Only a few tactical German mistakes allowed the British and
French forces to evacuated from the French port
9.
Had they
not escaped, it is doubtful that Britain could have remained in the war. Three weeks later, on June 22, 1940, Hitler accepted the
French surrender in the same railway car in which the Germans had surrendered at the end of World War I.
France had fallen to Hitler in just 35 days. Hitler next turned his fury on
Britain’s new prime minister,
10.
11
for battle. The ensuing
prepared his citizens
12
was an air
battle, fought over the English Channel and Great Britain. Germany bombed civilian as well as military targets,
destroying houses, factories, and churches and conducted a months-long bombing campaign against
13
itself, known as “the blitz.” But the British held
on and Hitler was forced to postpone a full-scale invasion of Britain indefinitely.
Winston Churchill
The Persecution Begins
Europe was at war, just as it had been 21 years earlier. The
14
Germany, Italy, and Japan. The
15
eventually included
included Britain, France, and eventually the
Soviet Union and the United States. As war exploded in Europe, it became increasingly difficult for the United States to maintain its
neutrality. However, one aspect of Hitler’s intended conquest would change the opinions of many Americans.
Once the Nazis took power in Germany, they acted swiftly to implement the political racial policies Hitler had outlined in Mein
Kampf. Although the Nazis persecuted anyone who dared oppose them, as well as the disabled, Gypsies, homosexuals, and
Slavic peoples, they reserved their strongest hatred for the
16.
Part of Hitler’s overall goal was what he called the “Final solution to the Jewish question.”
The result was a campaign for racial purity that would become known as the
17—the
systematic
murder of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jews. From the time he came to power, Adolf Hitler had targeted
Jews for
18.
19
By the end of the war, the Nazis had murdered
Jews and 5 million other people they considered inferior. Today we
call such a willful annihilation of a racial, political, or cultural group
20.
As we
continue to remember this tragedy, we must seek ways to prevent anything like it from ever happening again. The mass murders of Jews, as
well as other “undesirables,” were a direct result of a racist Nazi ideology of
21
that
considered Aryans superior to other people. Hitler blamed Jews for all the ills of Germany, from communism to inflation, and especially for
the defeat of Germany in World War I.
Hitler’s persecution of the Jews began as soon as he came to power. At first his focus was economic. He urged
Germans to boycott Jewish-owned businesses and he barred Jews from holding certain jobs. The
22
denied German citizenship to Jews, banned
marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and segregated Jews at every level of society. Soon, acts of violence
against Jews became more common. The most serious attack occurred on November 9, 1938, and is known as
23,
Germany’s secret police, the
or the “Night of the Broken Glass.”
24, destroyed
more
than 1,500 synagogues and 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses, killed more than 200 Jews, and injured more than
600 others. The Nazis arrested thousands of Jews.
In 1933, Hitler opened the first
25,
where members of specially designated
groups were confined. Camp administrators tattooed numbers on the arms of prisoners and dressed them in vertically striped uniforms. Inside
the walls of the concentration camps, there were no real restraints on guards whom tortured or even killed prisoners. Death by starvation and
disease was an everyday occurrence. Many concentration camps were designated as
26,
where prisoners were systematically exterminated in death chambers with carbon monoxide gas or the insecticide Zyklon B. The largest death
camp was
27
in southern Poland. Prisoners from German occupied lands were
transported by trains to the death camps and murdered. In fully functioning death camps, the bodies of murdered prisoners were further
desecrated. Human fat was turned to into soap, human hair was woven into wigs, slippers, and mattresses; cash, gold fillings, wedding rings,
and other valuables were stripped off the victims. After the Nazis had taken what they wanted, they burned the bodies in crematoriums.