Download Running European Theater PowerPoint

Goose Stepping
Through Europe
The effective use of Blitzkrieg
• German word meaning
“Lighting War”
• Innovative military technique
• First used by the Germans in
WWII
• Tactic based on speed and
surprise
Blitzkrieg: Overview
• Tactic was based around the WWI ‘Schlieffen
Plan’
• Which was focused on a quick military victory
• Further developed in Germany based on the new
technologies
• Light tanks, air planes (dive bombers), and infantry
(foot soldiers)
• It was combined with the traditional Germanic
tactic of penetration and bypassing of the enemy
through weak points to encircle and destroy the
enemy forces
Blitzkrieg: The Strategy
• First used when Germany invaded Poland
in 1939
• Resulted in the British and French armies
being pushed back in just a few weeks to
the beaches of Dunkirk
• The strategy was also pivotal in the
German Army’s devastation of Russian
forces
Blitzkrieg: Use
The Holocaust
Overview and Aftermath
• The Jewish population in Europe, starting in Germany would
come under attack during the years 1933-1945
• Of the 11 million Jews that lived in Europe during this
time the Nazis would murder over 6 million Jews
• This genocide is known as the Holocaust
Overview
• 1933 Hitler is appointed to Chancellor
• 1933 Enabling Act is passed- giving Hitler the power to rule
by emergency decree
• 1933 March Nazis open Dachau concentration camp near
Munich, to be followed by Buchenwald near Weimar in central
Germany, Sachsenhasen near Berlin in northern Germany,
and Ravensbruck for women.
• 1933 April  Germans told to boycott Jewish Shops
• 1934 The Night of long knives occurs as Hitler, Göring and
Himmler conduct a purge of the SA (storm trooper) leadership
• 1935 Nuremburg laws are passed
• Jews no longer allowed to be German
citizens
• Jews not allowed to have sexualrelationships with non Jews
• Jews not allowed to marry non-Jews
• 1936  Jews banned from ‘Professional’ jobs
• 1937 Jews banned from working in any
political or governmental job
• 1938 Germany and Austria are unitedAustrian Jews now persecuted all Jewish
passports stamped with a Red J
• 1938 Kristallnacht- Night of Broken Class
•
•
•
•
•
Night of violence towards Jews
100 Jews murdered
20,000 Jews sent to concentration camps
Synagogues, homes and businesses burned
Jews forced to pay a fine for Kristallnacht
• 1938 Jews banned from state schools/cinemas/ public
places
• Jews forced to close down and sell their businesses
• 1939German occupation of Czech starts
• Germany invades Poland
• Jews in Poland and Czech begin to be persecuted
• All Jews in Nazi controlled territory forced to wear yellow start
• 1940 Germany invades Holland and Denmark,
Belgium and Norway
• Persecution in these countries begins
• Auschwitz opens
• Warsaw Ghetto is sealed off in Poland 400,000 Jews inside
• 1941 Germany invades USSR
• All Jews now have to wear yellow star
• Western Jews deported to Polish Ghettos
• Gassing of Jews start at Chelmno- first death camp
• 1942 Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz
Death camps begin mass murdering Jews
• Mass deportation of Western Jews to Auschwitz
• 1943 Death camps at Chelmno and Treblinka
finish their work – camps are torn down and
replanted with trees
• 1944 Hungarian Jews begin to be deported to
Auschwitz
• 1945- Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz
• British and American forces liberate western
Concentration camps
• The single most important thing to keep in mind when
attempting to document numbers of victims of the
Holocaust is that no one master list of those who perished
exists anywhere in the world.
• What follows are the current best estimates of civilians
and disarmed soldiers killed by the Nazi regime and its
collaborators.
• These estimates are calculated from wartime reports
generated by those who implemented Nazi population
policy, and postwar demographic studies on population
loss during World War II.
• National Holocaust Museum
Death toll of the Holocaust
• Number of Deaths
• Jews: up to 6 million
• Soviet civilians: around 7
million (including 1.3 Soviet
Jewish civilians, who are
included in the 6 million
figure for Jews)
• Soviet prisoners of war:
around 3 million (including
about 50,000 Jewish soldiers)
• Non-Jewish Polish civilians:
around 1.8 million (including
between 50,000 and 100,000
members of the Polish elites)
• Serb civilians (on the
territory of Croatia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina): 312,000
Death toll
• People with disabilities
living in institutions: up to
250,000
• Roma (Gypsies): 196,000–
220,000
• Jehovah's Witnesses:
Around 1,900
• Repeat criminal offenders
and so-called asocials: at
least 70,000
• German political opponents
and resistance activists in
Axis-occupied territory:
undetermined
• Homosexuals: hundreds,
possibly thousands (possibly
also counted in part under the
70,000 repeat criminal
offenders and so-called
asocials noted above)
With regard to the number of Jews who
died in the Holocaust, best estimates for
the breakdown of Jewish loss according
to location of death follow:
• Auschwitz complex (including
Birkenau, Monowitz, and subcamps):
approximately 1 million
• Treblinka 2: approximately 925,000
• Belzec: 434,508
• Sobibor: at least 167,000
• Chelmno: 156,000–172,000
• Shooting operations around
southern German-occupied Poland
(the so-called Government General):
at least 200,000
• Shooting operations in Germanannexed western Poland (District
Wartheland): at least 20,000
• Deaths in other facilities that the
Germans designated as concentration
camps: at least 150,000
• Gas wagons at hundreds of locations
in the German-occupied Soviet
Union: at least 1.3 million
• Shooting operations in the Soviet
Union: approximately 55,000
• Shooting operations and gas wagons
in Serbia: at least 15,088
• Shot or tortured to death in Croatia
under the Ustaša regime: 23,000–
25,000
• Deaths in ghettos: at least 800,000
Jewish Loss by Location of Death
• Get into groups 5 or 6
• For each activity there
will be a central
question that your
group must answer
• Along with the Central
question, you will need
to answer all the other
questions.
• Areas to be discussed
• Where did they go?
• Holding Nazi high
ranking officials
accountable
• Impact on the World.
Aftermath of the Holocaust
The Eastern Front
Patriotic War 1941-1945
• Stalin as a military leader
• Purging the Red Army
• USSR: Relationship with
Germany
• Disregarded signs of Nazi
invasion
• Soviet Soldier Life
• Nazi Germany v
Communist Russia
Overview
• Soviet Victory
• Weather
• Women
• Will to fight (or death)
•
•
•
•
•
Key Battles
War Crimes
The Cost
Recap
Questions
• As commander in chief, Stalin presided over the Supreme
Command headquarters charged with…
• supervision, planning, and coordination of all military
operations.
• Stalin possessed certain characteristics that helped and
hurt him in being a Military leader
• including a sharp memory, the ability to get to the root of
the matter, and tremendous willpower
• he lacked formal military education and military experience
• Stalin relied on the crude tactics of throwing masses of
soldiers into frontal attacks that resulted in the waste of
manpower
Stalin as a Military Leader
• His goal of uniting the nation with him as the leader grew to
frightening heights
• Stalin enacted a series of purges known as “Stalin’s Terror,”
• whereby millions of people were sent to forced labor,
assassinated, or publicly executed, out of fear that they were
enemies of the state
• State police the NKVD
• Were at the helm of the purges
• It was found out after his death that Stalin had been suffering
from atherosclerosis (fatty tissue build-up in the arteries) of the
brain, possibly explaining his deranged “terror.”
Stalin as a leader
• For decades, the ‘Tukhachevsky
Affair’ was recognized as the start
of the Red Army purge
• Approximately 35,000 military
personal would be “lost” over the
course of 1937 and 1938
• The numbers of rank-and-file
affected are unclear.
• Although the upper ranks were
certainly hit harder by the purge,
• Soldiers and NCOs suffered as
well.
• As was true for the violence of the
wider Great Terror, much of the
military purge was driven by a
wave of denunciations from
below.
Red Army Purge
• The two countries entered into ‘friendly relations”
through a nonaggression pact
• It was signed on 23 August 1939 in Moscow, by Joachim
von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, and
Vyacheslav Molotov, the People’s Commissar for Foreign
Affairs
• The news of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, came as a
great surprise to the Soviet public who were use to
propaganda that was anti-fascists
• Caused great concern for the Western European countries as
well
USSR: Relationship with
Germany
• The German invasion is said to be one of the largest surprise
attacks in Military history…
• Stalin was warned about it
• Hitler saw the Russians as an inferior race
• He saw Russia as the perfect area to grow the German race
• Russian spies gave several warnings to Stalin in the months
leading up to the invasion
• He did not listen to the warnings
• He did not become concerned even when the German Military
was moved to the Russian border
• He also was not worried when Nazi spy plans were
“accidentally” flying in Russian air space
Disregard for warnings about
the Nazi Invasion
• What is missing on
the Soldiers that are
on the boats?
• What else do you
notice that happens in
the following scene
Click for Video
Life of a Soviet Soldier
Fight on land
• Operation Barbarossa, June 22,
1941
• German Wehrmacht and
Luftwaffe struck Soviet forces
across a wide front along the
German-Soviet frontier
• The attack would also bring in
Romanian, Hungarian, Italian
and Spanish forces
• Axis military enjoyed 5 months
of victories
• Pushed deep into the Soviet
Union
• Taking large rich industrial areas
• Winter hits the Axis troops
• Stop and freeze through the
winter
• Germany resumed the
offensive in 1942, only to
suffer a major defeat at
Stalingrad.
• The Battle of Kursk, in 1943,
ended the Wehrmacht’s
offensive ambitions.
• 1943, 1944, and 1945 saw the
pace of Soviet conquest
gradually accelerate, with the
monumental offensives of late
1944 shattering the German
armed forces.
Nazi Germany vs. Soviet Union
Fight in the Air
• Russia launched a few
sorties against German
cities in the first days of the
war
• German Luftwaffe
concentrated on tactical
support of the Wehrmacht.
• Germany did launch a few
large air raids against
Russian cities, but did not
maintain anything
approaching a strategic
campaign
Fight at Sea
• Soviet and Axis forces fought in
the Arctic, the Baltic, and the
Black Sea for most of the conflict
• In the north, Soviet air and naval
forces harassed German positions
in Norway.
• Black Sea, German and Romanian
ships struggled against the Soviet
Black Sea Fleet,
• In the Baltic, Russian submarines
and small craft fought a guerilla
conflict against Germany and
Finland for the first three years
Nazi Germany V Soviet Union
• Hitler’s plan called for the conquering of the Soviet
Union before the winter months hit
• This did not happen
• When Nazi troops began their invasion it was warm,
muggy and summer
• When their progression into the soviet union slowed, winter
was coming, the Nazi troops had out maneuvered their
supply lines
• Nazi Troops were physically tired, low on food,
ammunitions and most importantly did not have the proper
clothing for the winter
• By the end of 1941 100,000 cases of frostbit had been
reported by soldiers
Soviet Victory: Weather
• German machinery had never been tested in the
unbearable cold of Russia
• The weather caused the tanks and jeeps not to start
• Guns and artillery would be frozen and not fire
• The soviets had special designed weapons, guns and
heavy machinery that could function perfectly in the cold
• The soviets also had camouflage that allowed for them to
continue fighting even in the worst of conditions
Soviet Victory: Weather
• Nearly one million Soviet women took up
arms and served on the front lines of World
War II as anti-aircraft gunners, snipers,
partisan guerillas and even fighter pilots.
• Female troops eventually earned a reputation
as some of the fiercest fighters on the Eastern
Front.
The Night Witches…
Click for Video
• Anxious to prove their worth in combat,
women regularly signed up for some of the
most hazardous combat positions
Soviet Victory: Women
• August 1941, Stalin issues “ Order No.270”
• Any troops that surrendered or allowed themselves to be
captures would be seen as traitors in the eyes of the Soviet
government and would executed if the returned to Russia
• July 1942, “Order No. 227”
• “not one step backward”… cowards would be shot on sight
• Created special units that would be at the back of an army to
shoot and kill any retreating Soviet troops
• They would kill as many as 150,000 soviet soldiers
• Around 15,000 at the Battle of Stalingrad
Soviet Victory: Ordered to Fight
• Lasted almost two and one-half years and cost the lives of an estimated 1,000,000
city residents
• It began on September 8, 1941 when German troops completed their encirclement
of the city.
• Hunger and cold became the city's greatest enemies
• Food supplies were cut.
• By November, individual rations were lowered to 1/3 of the daily amount needed by an
adult.
• The Russian winter
• Froze Lake Ladoga to the city's east and created a life-line over which caravans of
trucks hauled a meager amount of food and supplies.
• It also provided an evacuation route for thousands of the city's weak and elderly.
• The loss of population through death and evacuation decreased the strain on the
remaining inhabitants.
• Food rations were increased and the city's situation stabilized.
• By January 1944, the Red Army had pushed the German army beyond Leningrad allowing
the city to celebrate the end of its siege.
Key Battles: The siege of Leningrad
• Turning point in the Eastern Theater
• Key Victory of the Allies and extremely humiliating loss for the
Axis power
• Specifically Hitler
• Nazi 6th Army moves to take Stalingrad (September 3rd 1942)
• Red Army is fortified within the city
• Late September Nazi Army raises flag over the middle of the city
• Cannot eliminate the Red Army from the industrial district
• November Nazi’s are low on men and supplies
•
•
•
•
Red Army counterattacks and surrounds the city
Hitler says they are not allowed to retreat
Air supplies is cut off to Nazi troops
Any hope of fighting out of the encirclement is dashed
• February 1943 The remaining men of the Nazi 6th armies
surrenders,
• 91,000 Nazi with losses in the 150,000 range
Key Battles: Stalingrad
Video Clip!
• Some 6,000 tanks, 2 million men and
5,000 aircraft clashed in one of the most
strategically important engagements of
World War II
• An unsuccessful German offensive against
Soviet forces in 1943
• Germans had almost broken the Soviet’s
down by March of 1943 but the Spring
thaw happened causing the armies to halt
and regroup
• German forces went on the attack in July
•
The goal was to wreck the Soviet forces
• Soviets had fortified their defenses and
waited for the Germans
• On July 5, the Germans struck on both
sides of the salient to begin the biggest
battle of World War II.
• Ninth German Army, after initial
success, became entirely bogged
down in its attack from the north
• The South campaign saw success
but it too became bogged down
• German armor failed to gain
operational freedom; instead, Soviet
defenses tied the Germans into a
massive battle of attrition not only
on the ground but also in the air.
• At great cost, including the loss of
much of their armor, the Germans
had failed,
• The operational balance on the
Eastern Front had swung entirely in
favor of the Soviets
Key Battles: Kursk
• The struggle for the Eastern Front was bigger and costlier than the
fighting in the West,
• but it was also significantly more brutal
•
Both sides flouted international law and practiced institutionalized acts
of cruelty against enemy troops, prisoners and civilians.
• The Germans wiped out villages during their advance through Russia
• Jews and other minorities were regularly rounded up and shot or poisoned in
mobile gassing vans.
• Other cities were looted or starved into submission most famously Leningrad.
• The Red Army responded by giving no quarter during the Soviet push to
Berlin in 1945,
• hundred of thousands of German civilians were shot, burned alive in
buildings, crushed by tanks and even crucified.
• According to some studies, Soviet troops may have also been responsible for
the rape of some two million German women during the last days of the war
War Crimes: Germany & Soviet Union
• Soviet side, some seven million soldiers died in action, with another
3.6 million dying in German POW camps
• The Germans lost four million soldiers in action, and another
370,000 to the Soviet camp system
• Around 15 million Soviet civilians are thought to have been killed.
• in part because of the horrific occupation policies of the German (and
the Soviets), and in part because of a lack of food and other necessities
of life.
• ***Statistics of this magnitude are inevitably imprecise, and
scholars on all sides of the war continue to debate the size of
military and civilian losses.***
• There is little question, however, that the war in the East was the most
brutal conflict ever endured by humankind.
• There is also little question that the Red Army provided the most
decisive blows against Nazi Germany, causing the vast majority of
German casualties during World War II as a whole.
The Cost
Recap!
• Describe the relationship between Nazi Germany and The
Soviet Union prior to 1941.
• Describe the leadership of Stalin.
• Explain the impact of the Allied victory in the Eastern
Theater and how that changed the outcome of WWII.
• What helped the Soviet Union win the Eastern Theater?
• Compare and contrast the Eastern European theater to the
Western European theater.
Answer these questions
• Andrews, Evan. 8 Things You Should Know About WWII’s Eastern Front,
History Channel , 2014, www.history.com/news/history-lists/8things-you-should-know-about-wwiis-eastern-front. Accessed 14
Nov. 2016.
• Chubarov, Alex. allrussias.com www.allrussias.com/soviet_russia/
war_1.asp. Accessed 14 Nov. 2016.
• Farley, Robert. The Most Horrific War of All Time: Russia vs. Germany5
Oct. 2015, nationalinterest.org/feature/the-most-horrific-war-alltime-russia-vs-germany-14026. Accessed 14 Nov. 201
• Staff, History.com. Battle of Stalingrad, History Channel , 2014,
www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad. Accessed
14 Nov. 2016.