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World War II
I. Causes of World War II
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Many historians designate nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and alliances as causes
for World War I
Unfortunately, all these causes were only strengthened after the war
o Nationalism thrived as winners' pride in their countries increased and losers
sought to maintain their country's autonomy.
o Militarism grew as winners planned to maintain their military superiority; losers
rebuilt their countries so they could "do better next time"
o Imperialism continued to be a powerful force as both winners and losers
desperately needed the wealth and resources of overseas territories to rebuild
their economic systems
o Alliances were important as winners and losers both sought enough strength
through diplomatic ties with other countries to avoid having to fight another war
World War I had simply proved how vital nationalim, militarism, imperialism and alliances
were
o Throw into the mix national leaders who, confident in their alliances, were willing
to use their military to gain more
territory to ensure not only the survival but
dominance of their own country, and you have aggression
o In other words, you have World War II
Prelude--Rise of the Axis Powers
o Japan
 Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan, used his militaristic society to begin the
aggression by invading Manchuria in 1931 to gain land and resources
 The war expanded into China in 1937 and into other parts of east Asia by
1941
 In order to take the territory it coveted for its the Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere, Japan had to strike a pre-emptive blow at the only
force which could inhibit its plan
 the United States Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
 at the same time, the Japanese military attacked U.S. and British
territories across the Pacific and Asia
o Italy
 Mussolini, the Fascist leader ("Il Duce") of Italy, built up the military,
creating jobs for the unemployed as well as weapons
 He attacked Ethiopia in northeast Africa in 1935
 Italy had sought to control this territory in the late nineteenth century but
had been forestalled
 Mussolini's chief ally was Hitler of Germany
o Germany
 Hitler was the most methodical aggressor of all
 As head of the National Socialist (Nazi) party, he was elected
chancellor of Germany in 1933
 Under the guise of rebuilding the country, he brought all areas of
government under Nazi control, making political opposition
impossible-and dangerous
 Hitler was aggressive against segments of his own people as well as
against other nations
 Relying on the democracies' (France, England, the United States) desire
for peace, Hitler broke the terms of the Treaty of Versailles by rearming
his nation and refortifying the buffer zone (the Rhineland) established
between his country and France
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He sought to make all the territory he controlled contiguous by
seizing the Polish Corridor
 He also sought to gather all peoples of Germanic descent under
his control, including Austria and an area in western
Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland
Munich Accords of 1938
 Britain, France, and Germany meet in Munich in 1938 to discuss
German claims to the Sudetenland (part of Czechoslovkia)
 The parties reached an agreement whereby Germany would get
the Sudetenland in return for its pledge to forego any more
agression
 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain claimed that the treaty
would guarantee "peace in our time"--one of the most infamous
statements in history
After stating in the Munich Accords in 1938 that he had no further
territorial claims to make in Europe, Hitler annexes Austria (most
Austrians went willingly) and invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia in
March of 1939
His assumption that the democratic countries would not oppose his
territorial ambitions was valid
II. World War Begins
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Invasion of Poland
o Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939
o It launched a new form of warfare called the "blitzkrieg" (or lightning war)
 This form combined air power with tanks and mechanized troops to strike
swiftly before defenders could react
o within a few weeks, Germany had taken control of the western half of Poland
o Hitler and Stalin sign a non-agression pact which gives Germany western Poland
and the Soviet Union receives the eastern half of Poland
However, when Germany invaded Poland, France and England did declare war on
Germany; however, little fighting took place for six months (the Sitzkrieg)
Germany attacks western Europe
o By the spring of 1940, Hitler had established his preferred pattern for taking
territory
 invade a country every six months
 March and September were the optimum starting dates because of
weather conditions
o In 1940 however, his spring plans were delayed by heavy rains, which made
moving heavy equipment over dirt roads difficult
o To compensate for the delay, Hitler invaded both Denmark and Norway in April
 he invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in May
 in June, he took northern France; the southern part of the country formed
a collaborative government at Vichy
 The same month, he started air strikes against England in preparation for
taking that country (called the Blitz)
Choosing sides (or not)
o As Germany expanded its borders, the world drew up sides
o The Axis
 Italy and Germany had become allied through the Rome-Berlin Axis in
1935
 in 1937, Japan joined the Axis Powers to form the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo
Axis
o The Allies
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France and England led the opposing Allied Powers
 but the French were only involved if they had left the country to
join the British forces or if they worked with the underground
resistance movement
 the resistance created chaotic conditions for the Germans
occupying their country
The United States
 United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt had given British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill a pledge to support the English
war efforts with materials and munitions
 However, the United States was not an official participant in the
conflict
An unexpected power joined the Allied camp when Hitler invaded Russia
in 1941
 In 1939, the Hitler-Stalin Pact had cleared the way for Germany
to invade western Poland as Russia invaded the same country
from the east
 In spite of the diametrically opposed ideologies of the Nazis and
the Communists of Russia, the leaders of the two countries
agreed to partition Poland
 Later, when Hitler invaded Russia, his former ally quickly joined
the Allied forces
III. The War Spreads
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The Eastern Front
o In June, 1941, Hitler launched operation Barbarossa--the invasion of the Soviet
Union
o At first, the Germans made incredible headway--by October, the Germans stood
outside of the gates of Moscow and had Leningrad nearly encircled
o Soviet Resistance
 Scorched earth
 removal of factories
 Stalingrad
o Hitler committed the bulk (over 80%) of the German military to defeating the
Soviet Union
North Africa
o The war being fought in Europe spread to North Africa in 1941
 Hitler attempted to get his Axis ally, Italy, to drive westward from Tripoli
to seize the Suez Canal (a vital transportation link) and the oil-rich fields
of the Middle East
 When Italy could not do it alone, German troops were added
o The British eventually blocked the move
The Pacific and the United States
o The war spread to the Pacific Ocean when Japan, without a formal declaration of
war, bombed the U.S. Pacific Fleet home port of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on 7
December 1941
o Japanese quickly captured much of the Pacific and Asia
o American war effort at the beginning
o When the U.S. entered the war in 1942, the situation for the Allies looked very
grim
 Japanese advances in the Pacific
 German advances in Soviet Union and Africa
o U.S. forced to split its forces
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The American forces, both naval and land, were to fight a holding war
against Japan
 other American forces joined the English and Free French fighting in
Europe and North Africa
o However, within six months of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American forces
were beginning to push the Japanese out of the territory they had conquered as
the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
o Naval engagements and battles and the struggles of the the U.S. Army and
Marines against seemingly insurmountable odds on Pacific islands gradually put
the U.S. forces on Japan's doorstep
The Tide turns in Europe
o In the Soviet Union, German forces found themselves unable to push further
 However, Hitler ordered his troops to hold on to every mile of territory
they had taken
 The Soviet forces counterattacked at Stalingrad and wiped out a huge
German army
 by the end of 1943, the Soviets had begun their drive to force Germany
out of their country
o In North Africa, British forces held the Italians and their German reinforcements
back from the Suez Canal
 U.S. soldiers landed west of the Axis forces, which were then squeezed
into surrender
o In Western Europe, the war developed many facets
 To relieve German pressure on the Russians, the Allied forces
(predominantly consisting if U.S. forces) opened a second front in Italy
 About the time Rome was taken, Allied forces established a beachhead
at Normandy in northern France on 6 June 1944 (D-Day)
o Caught in the giant pincher consisting of Allied forces pushing westward from
France, northward from Italy, and eastward from Russia, Germany was forced to
surrender
o The war ended in Europe on May 8, 1945 (V-E Day)
The end in the Pacific
o The war in the Pacific continued until late summer of 1945
o The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6th;
a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th
o Fearing further massive destruction, Japan asked for terms of surrender--they
surrendered on August 14th, 1945 (V-J Day).
o Japan signed the surrender on September 2, 1945
The destruction, while reminiscent of World War I, was much worse. Over 50 million
people had died as a direct result of conflicts around the globe
The war was finally over-or was it?
IV. The Holocaust and the Atomic Bomb
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The Holocaust
o Hitler's antisemitism was a product of 19th century racial theories, rather than a
result of Christian antagonism to the Jews
o The deportation of Jews began only in 1941, when the six killing camps were
started, all of them in Poland
o Before that, many German Jews had fled Germany, some 50,000 in 1935 alone
o By 1938, 1.3 million German Jews had emigrated, most to neighboring countries,
meaning that by the start of the war, there were only 200,000 Jews left in
Germany
o Of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust
 some 3.5 million were Russian
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1.5 million Polish
200,000 were German
the remaining 800,000 killed were throughout Western Europe (many
were Jews who had earlier fled Germany)
o Most camps in Germany were labor camps, like Dachau, where conditions were
so appalling that thousands died of starvation and disease, but none of these
concetration camps were designed specifically to exterminate large numbers of
people
o The death factories were all in Poland, and even then, the largest number of
Jews were killed by mobile SS killing operations launched by Himmler in the
Soviet Union
o In addition to the murder of 6 million Jews, the Germans also exterminated other
undesirables--Gypsys, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gays and Lesbians, and those
deemed mentally unfit
o Who was responsible?
 Hitler and his henchmen
 the role of the German people
 the role of other Europeans
The Atomic Bomb
o Initially created to defeat Germany--but Germany surrendered before bomb was
completed
o An invasion of Japan was expected to cost the lives of millions, including an
estimated 300-500,000 American soldiers
o Soviet expansion in Asia
o The human costs of dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
o The moral issues