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FDR and the Shadow of War
1933 – 1941
Chapter 34
Stalin’s Soviet Union
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Stalin planned to modernize
agriculture
◦ encouraged farmers to combine
farms into collective farms run by
the state
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Began forcing peasants off their
land in the late 1920s
Millions resisted and had all of
their crops taken from them,
causing them to starve to death
Millions of other peasants were
sent to labor camps in Siberia
Food shortages, Stalin had to
institute rationing
All threats to Stalin’s power
were eliminated by his purges
of enemies either through
execution or by forcing them
into labor camps
Fascism in Italy
Mussolini got other
WWI veterans to
support him and his
dreams of a new Roman
Empire
 So powerful that when
he threatened to march
on Rome the king
panicked and appointed
Mussolini prime minister
 He became a dictator
and invaded Ethiopia as
his first move toward
expansion

Hitler’s Rise to Power
Hitler joined a small group that
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would become the Nazi party in
1919 because he was angry that
Germany had to accept the war
guilt of WWI
His powerful public speaking
abilities made him a leader of
the party
Went to prison for 9 months
after trying to overthrow the
government in 1923
Wrote his autobiography Mein
Kampf (My Struggle) in prison
◦ Blamed Germany’s Jewish
population for their defeat in
WWI
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Wanted to purify Aryan race by
eliminating groups he
considered undesirable
Hitler promised to stabilize the
country and the economy and
to restore the empire that had
been lost
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Hitler Becomes Chancellor
Hitler was named chancellor
(head of German
government) by the elderly
President Hindenburg and
proceeded to suspend
freedom of speech and
freedom of the press
After the German
parliament building burned
down, he was able to blame
it on the Communists and
convinced parliament to
pass an act giving him
dictatorial powers
When Hindenburg died in
1934 Hitler became both
chancellor and president
Germany Rearms and Expands
Hitler broke the Versailles
Treaty by rearming
 He brought Germany out
of the Depression by 1936
using building projects to
employ people and moved
his focus to expansion
 Hitler convinced Austria,
his homeland, to become a
part of Germany and
convinced France and
Britain to give up control
of the Sudetenland (they
thought this would satisfy
him and keep the peace)

The Spanish Civil War
 Spain
became
ruled by a military
dictatorship led by
General Francisco
Franco
 Germany and Italy
helped with the
takeover
 Franco would rule
Spain until 1975
Invasion of Poland
Britain and France
threatened war if
Germany invaded Poland
 Hitler couldn’t afford a
two-front war, so he
signed a 10 year
nonaggression pact with
the USSR and invaded
Poland
 Britain and France
declared war with more
troops than Germany, but
weren’t able to move fast
enough to beat the
blitzkrieg with which Hitler
took over Poland in less
than a month
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Taking the West
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Nazis took most of western
Europe (including France) easily by
1940 and looked to invade Great
Britain
Britain had a well-equipped navy,
so Hitler had to attack from the
air
Hitler broke the rules of air
warfare by bombing civilians in
London to try to break the
people’s will to resist
British Royal Air Force was
outnumbered but was able to
inflict regular and serious damage
on the air force of Germany
They also cracked German codes
for top secret communication,
allowing them to know that Hitler
wouldn’t invade Britain until the
German Air Force established air
superiority (it never did)
FDR Supports England
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Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbor December 7, 1941
This was caused by FDR’s
policies for helping Britain
against Germany
Neutrality Act of 1939
◦ Roosevelt officially proclaimed
the US neutral but was
determined to help Britain and
France
◦ Warring nations could buy
weapons from the US only if
they paid cash and carried them
on their own ships
◦ FDR got around this by trading
ships with the UK for the right
to build military bases on
British land
The Isolationist Debate
Not all Americans were on
the same page about US
involvement
 FDR decided to run for an
unprecedented 3rd term
 He ran on the same
platform as his opponent,
Wendell Willkie
 FDR was reelected
because the American
people were comfortable
with him

Edging Toward War

Lend-Lease Act
◦ Countries could borrow or
rent weapons from us if they
promised to repay us after the
war
◦ Got around the cash
requirement of the Neutrality
Act of 1939
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Hemispheric Defense Zone
◦ FDR declared the entire
western half of the Atlantic
Ocean part of the Western
Hemisphere and neutral so that
US ships cold patrol the Atlantic
and reveal the location of
German submarines to the
British
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Japan Attacks the United States
Because British ships which
had been protecting
territory in Asia were
needed for fighting the
Germans, the US placed an
embargo on Japan,
preventing them from
getting necessary materials
that might help them take
advantage of the British
This made the Japanese
angry and they allied with
Germany
FDR sent lend-lease aid to
China to try to help them
fend of the Japanese, but it
didn’t work
Japan Attacks the United States
(continued)
FDR, in an effort to protect the British, froze
all Japanese assets in the US and reduced the
amount of oil being shipped there
 He said he would only lift the embargo if
Japan made peace with China
 Japan decided to seize the Philippines and
attack Pearl Harbor so the US wouldn’t have
a naval fleet to fight back
 The Japanese government appeared to be
negotiating with the US, but American
intelligence suggested that Japan was
preparing for war

Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor
A war warning was received
from Washington, but Hawaii
was not mentioned as a
possible target
 The failure of the military to
communicate and gather
intelligence led to the attack
being a surprise
 21 ships of the Pacific Fleet
were sunken or damaged
 188 airplanes were destroyed
 2,403 Americans were killed,
another 1,178 injured
 Germany and Italy also declared
war against the US after the
attack, thinking it would be an
easy victory

Converting the Economy
American workers were
twice as productive as
German workers and five
times more productive than
Japanese workers
 It was industry that would
turn the tide in our favor
 We were ready because we
started building up our
defenses before we were at
war
 The auto industry began to
produce trucks, jeeps, tanks,
and nearly one-third of the
military equipment made
during the war
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Building an Army
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Within day’s of the beginning
of the war in Europe 227,000
soldiers joined the US army
After the French
surrendered to Germany we
saw the first peacetime draft
in American History
The flood of recruits caused
a shortage of supplies and
many men felt they had been
poorly prepared for war