Download Notes on Global Forces Chapter 7

“The Second World War: War in Europe 1939-1945”
(GF Pages 109 - 133)
The Greater Reich
Refer to your text map on page 52 to review the map of Europe prior to German
advances and the one on page 113 to see those advances
WWII began with Germany’s invasion of Poland o Sept. 1/39 using the German
military procedure known as blitzkrieg (lightning war) which utilized the German air
force (Luftwaffe) to attack strategic targets followed quickly by a rapid advance of
ground forces utilizing mechanized means of rapidly transporting troops (tanks and
troop carriers) to secure the targeted area.
Warsaw was bombed on Sept. 25/39 and a few days later Poland was a German
“protectorate”.
On Sept. 17/39 the USSR invaded Poland from the east to claim its share of Poland
(as per the secret agreement that was part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact)
Poland, as an independent nation, ceased to exist (for a good map of the Polish
Campaign click on
http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/dhistorymaps/WWIIPages/WWIIEurope/ww2el7.
htm
Britain and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3/39 and started to prepare
for war (British fleets were preparing a naval blockade to cut off German shipping).
Visit this website for a good series of maps of the time:
http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/dhistorymaps/WWIIPages/WWIIEurope/ww2el4
3.htm
Hitler felt that he would be able to negotiate an end to the war by the end of the
winter (partly because he felt the politicians were weak and that the strong peace
lobbies in those countries would put pressure on their leaders to negotiate rather
than fight); that winter (winter of ‘39/40) has come to be known as sitzkrieg
(“phony war”) because while the countries were officially in a state of war, there
was not much military activity
The spring of 1940 saw a renewal of German military activity ,while the primary
target was France, Nazi forces first attacked in April 1940 in Denmark and Norway
(to secure access to sea lanes to the Atlantic Ocean); to get at France, Germany
chose to attack through neutral Belgium and Holland; before Holland surrendered,
the city of Rotterdam experienced major bombings.
The primary Nazi attack at France split the Allied forces (French and British) forcing
them to fall back to the coastal port of Dunkirk, France. Many Allied troops were
evacuated by sea to Britain.
The Battle for France and Britain
German forces entered Paris on June 14, 1940 and the French government fled to
Bordeaux. On June 22nd, an armistice was signed; under the terms of the surrender,
the Germans were to occupy the north of France leaving about 1/3 unoccupied. The
French were able to govern the interior under a new government (a “puppet” regime
under Marshal Petain, at Vichy, trying to get the best deal it could for France within
Germany’s New Order)
France was required to make reparation payments at 300 million francs per day
(increased to 700 million) to cover the costs of German forces of occupation. After
Allied landings in French North Africa in Nov. 42, German forces occupied the rest of
France. (Total French reparations paid by France totaled over 200 billion- 9 times as
much as Germany was required to pay after WWI’s Dawes Plan)
It was also agreed that Japan would move into France’s Asian colonies
Italian forces struck across the Alps on June 10/40 and took Nice and Savoy
The British destroyed the major part of the French battle fleet so Germany could not
use it
The fall of France left Britain as the only real remaining adversary for Germany, but
its empire was formidable (especially in terms of resources for Britain) and it had a
large navy; but Britain was strategically important because if it wasn’t under
German control, then it could serve as a base of operations for North American
intervention and be a western front which would interfere with Germany’s plans to
strike eastward at Ukraine and the USSR)- so Britain had to be subdued
Plans for the German invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion, required Germany
gaining command of the air over the English Channel. German submarines and ships
were to block the ends of the channel to English fleets, allowing German barges to
transport troops for a ground attack.
The main target was to be London, the capital. Hitler felt that with its capture, the
British would surrender.
The Battle of Britain began in the air on June 10/40 with attacks on coastal ports
and shipping. The plan was to draw the Royal Air force to battle over the channel;
this didn’t happen so the Luftwaffe was forced to attack inland in an attempt to
destroy British air force bases. But the British air force proved to be a match for the
Luftwaffe. A misdirected German bombing raid hit London, so Britain retaliated by
attacking Berlin. Hitler, in anger, ordered a shift from the fighter bases to London
and other cities. Rather than frightening the British into surrender, it hardened
British resolve with a determination to “fight to the end”. By mid-Sept. it was
obvious that Germany was not going to control the skies and German invasion plans
were postponed indefinitely, so that German attention could focus on its real targets
east of Poland.
Operation Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor
An important part of German’s hegemony plan was the need for resources such as
the abundant grain production of Ukraine. In the spring of 1941, despite the
German-Soviet non-aggression pact, Hitler turned his attention eastward.
Italy was not having the success that the German forces had. The Italian army in
North Afrika attacked British forces in Egypt and were defeated. Similar results
were experienced in attacks on Greece and Ethiopia. Hitler thus sent forces to
avenge these losses. General Rommel took command of the North African army
(Afrika Corps) and turned the tide back in the favor of the Axis powers. Other
German forces crushed Greece and Yugoslavia in Operation Punishment. In
Yugoslavia, resistance began but there was competition between two factions, one
led by a federalist named Josip Broz (Tito) and a Serbian nationalist name Dragoljub
Mikhailovich; their factions spent a good part of the war fighting each other, similar
to the situation in Greece between royalist and communist gurerrilla factions.
Germany’s Balkan campaign (Balkan Peninsula, Central Europe, including Greece)
was intended to be swift, but was slowed by effective guerrilla forces who were able
to hold the countryside
British forces acted to stop the formation of pro-German governments in the Middle
east; General de Gaulle released Lebanon and Syria from French mandate, giving
them independence (the French tried to reverse this after the war but were
prevented by the Americans)
June 22, 1941 German armies attacked the Soviet Union and defeated Soviet forces
decisively, gaining much territory and advancing eastward at a rapid pace.
Operation Barbarossa was initially extremely successful. Within weeks the Germans
destroyed 5 000 aircraft, 15 000 tanks, and entire Soviet armies (more than 3 million
Soviets were killed or taken prisoner)- yet the Soviets would not admit defeat. See
maps of this campaign at http://www.onwar.com/maps/wwii/. Also see page
118/119 of Global Forces for more detail on Operation Barbarossa.
The German northern army reached Leningrad (the next most important city after
Moscow) and besieged it. During the winter, thousands died of starvation daily; but
after 30 months the Germans were not able to take the city and lifted the siege in
Jan. 1944.
Germany’s central army fought its way across Ukraine. By Aug. 1/41 they were
within 320 km of Moscow, but then a 3 week halt was called to plan strategy (and
also because supply lines were stretched too far to supply the necessary war
materiel to the troops). There was also the concern that half a million Soviet
soldiers had been passed in the advance and now presented a threat to the rear.
Many troops were needed just for garrison duties to hold the prisoners. This led to
brutal killings and burning of entire Soviet villages and their populations.
The offensive continued at the end of August. Within a month the Germans had
captured Kiev; the plan was to capture Moscow before winter. But the fall rains
turned the fields to impassable conditions for German vehicles. Then when the cold
came, the temperatures presented impossible conditions for the ill-equipped
invaders (much the same as had happened to Napoleon’s troops 150 years before).
Yet the advance continued and by December German troops were at the suburbs of
Moscow, but at that critical time they ran out of troops and supplies. On Dec. 8/41
the German army gave up the attack.
In the spring of 1942 the Germans made a supreme effort to knock the Soviet Union
out of the war. This was occurring as the Germans suffered another blow with the
attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing the USA into the war. (It would take two years, but
the American army grew to 12 million soldiers and the enormous industrial potential
of America had turned to production of military supplies.) Despite the call for
revenge on Japan, President Roosevelt agreed with Churchill and agreed to focus
first on Germany (Germany had declared war on the USA on December 11, 1941) and
then turn to Japan.
1942 saw the war grow to global proportion: the Allies (Britain, USSR, USA,
Australia, New Zealand, Canada) against the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and
Japan). For the next 3 years the Allies, despite vast ideological differences, fought
together to defeat the Axis powers. They disagreed over political ideology as well as
the conduct of war- and most important over what the world should look like after
the war. The British (and French) wanted a return of their empire, the Soviets
wanted to increase their “sphere of influence” to Central Europe, and the
Americans pursued the ideal of self-determination. The Americans wanted to attack
directly in Europe, the British wanted to begin in North Africa and through Italy and
the Balkans. The Soviets desperately wanted a second front in Europe to take some
pressure off their forces in E. Europe.
Battle of the Atlantic
Transport of war materiel and troops is essential in war, especially to a small island
country such as Britain (or Japan, for that matter). Britain’s ability to say in the war
depended on the ability to get materiel from North America. German U-boats
(submarines) made this extremely difficult by attacking convoys of ships carrying
supplies (as well as the naval escort ships). Between 1941-43, Germany came close
to knocking Britain out of the war in this manner. Similarly, convoys of materiel to
the USSR were vulnerable to attack (forcing much to be sent by land via Iran). By
the end of 1943 the Allies had better equipped convoy escorts that were equipped
with anti—submarine devices (sonar, radar) to take counter measures against the Uboats. Of the 1162 German submarines built, 1069 were sunk by the end of 1943 and
despite very heavy losses, the Battle of the Atlantic was won by the Allies. (See
Global Forces p. 120 for details about the U-boats.)
The New Order
For four years Germany dominated the European continent more completely than
any nation had ever done before. If Germany had treated its conquered peoples in
Europe differently (rather than upon their notion of volksdeutsch and racial purity),
they could have won allies and quite likely have had much more cooperation and
assets for the war. Instead they used terror, force, and death, resulting in
resistance (including economic resistance resulting in fewer supplies than in pre-war
days). Conscripted workers (via concentration camps) could not produce enough to
supply the German plans. (Germany received less grain from Ukraine in war than
they did in peace).
The Holocaust
At the same time that Germany was engaged in a world war of massive proportions,
the Nazis maintained their plans to attain “racial purity” with the result being that
more people died as a result of this goals than died in battle in WWII (and this, the
war with the most deaths to date in human history). The objective was genocide
for all the Jews, Gypsies, and most Slavs in Europe (as well as political opponents of
the New Order).
Initially, the Nazis were content to export the Jews from German soil, but when this
did not work (not enough countries were willing to take the large influx of people),
the Nazis began to segregate the Jews and put them in ghettoes, apart from the rest
of the German population. Occupied Europe, in many cases, joined in the process
(Anti-Semitism was not new nor isolated to Germany). A million Jews were taken
from Romania, while Croatian and Serbian Jews were often killed on the spot.
Hungary’s Jewish community was reduced from 800 000 to 100 000 in one year. “But
the worst horrors were in Poland, where Europe’s largest Jewish community was
concentrated.”
Four special squads of German of German commandos called the Einsatzgruppen
were sent into the conquered territories to clear them of unwanted populations,
including prisoners of war (over 2 million Soviet POW’s vanished without a trace).
Death squads identified Jews, had them gather (with their most valuable
possessions- under the pretense of relocation to new locations for work and
settlement). They were marched away to be shot with their bodies thrown into
ditches; others were transported in trains and taken to “death camps” mostly in
Poland, where they were gassed (Cyclon B- as this was much more efficient and
cheaper than using bullets) and cremated with their ashes being used to treat icy
roads, hair used to make insulation, gold fillings removed before cremation). At
Auschwitz (see photo p. 125 and “Factories of Death” p. 133) as many as 12 000
people could be killed and “processed” in one day.
For links to more information on the Holocaust, visit the following links:
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/default.htm; http://www.holocausthistory.org/ - as well see the other links on the World War II content page.
Resistance
The earliest forms of resistance were intelligence gathering (the underground) and
the establishment of escape routes. Economic resistance took the form of worker
slowdowns, production of inferior goods, sabotage of factories, fuel dumps, and
means of transportation of goods (bridges, rail, roads). Later, British and American
agents were parachuted into the continent to lead raids.
Often the Nazis retaliated to resistance by burning villages and killing locals to deter
others from further resistance).
Turning the Tide 1942-43
1942 marked the turning point year of WWII. With the U.S. entrance into the war,
there was renewed optimism and supplies.
Significant Allied victories at Midway Island in the Pacific, El Alamein in Egypt, and
Stalingrad in the USSR all contributed to this turning of the tide in favor of the Allies
over the Axis powers.
Stalingrad was a strategic transportation and communication hub. The battle for
Stalingrad (the largest battle in human history) began with the bombing of the city
in September of 1942. The German Sixth army (under Field Marshal von Paulus)
destroyed the southern part of the city, but what territory the Germans won during
the day, the Soviet snipers and commandos recaptured at night. By November,
Soviets were attacking the German flanks, cutting Stalingrad (and the German 6 th
army) off from supplies. The Luftwaffe was unable to bring in enough to supply the
army and they were forced to surrender on Feb. 22/43. This marked the beginning
of the Soviet counter-offensive against Germany.
The Germans also suffered a reversal of fortune in N. Africa when the battle of El
Alamein (near the Suez canal in Egypt) was won under the direction of the British
General Montgomery. In November an Anglo-American landing on both sides of the
Straits of Gibraltar brought a second Allied army onto the continent.
The Allies decided to continue to pursue the German army onto Sicily and Italy. The
Grand Fascist Council in Italy deposed Mussolini and arrested him (later to be
rescued by the Nazis and put in charge of German-occupied northern Italy; at the
end of the war he was captured by Italian resistance forces and executed).
On September 8/43 Italy agreed to a cease-fire and turned its military bases over to
the Allies; on Oct. 13 Italy declared war on Germany.
Next Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to (rather than establishing a second front in
France) bomb strategic targets in what the Germans called Fortress Europe; this
proved difficult to target so the Allies switched to a strategy of saturation bombing
on major cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and Dresden which experienced
“fire storms” of terrible consequence, temperatures soaring to a height which
vaporized people and buildings.
The largest tank battle of the war took place at Kursk in July of 1943. A million
soldiers and 2700 tanks were involved resulting in 500 000 casualties and a defeat
for the German Panzer Corps. After this the Soviets were able to advance rapidly
westward.
The first of two meetings of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill took place at the
Teheran Conference in Nov/Dec 1943. An agreement was reached on the creation
of a second front in France to be launched in June of 1944. Churchill was very
concerned regarding Soviet motives in “liberating” Central Europe because he
believed (and rightly so) that Stalin planned to keep gained territories under Soviet
control after the war. Roosevelt was adamant that these political matters be left to
a post-war conference. At Teheran, the spheres of influence that would dominate
the post-war world were beginning to take shape. The USSR demanded that it be
allowed to re-establish its 1939 boundary with Poland, compensating the Poles with
German territory (establishing the boundary at the Curzon line); England and France
had gone to war over Polish independence and they supported the Polish government
in exile in London. The Soviets supported a pro-Soviet group in Lublin as the
provisional government.
On June 6/44, D-day (the day of reckoning) the Allies invaded Normandy (French
coast) with eight American, British, and Canadian divisions and successfully
established a new “western front” in the war, leaving Germany with the need to
have soldiers on the west and the east, further spreading their resources out and
weakening their ability to fight either group effectively.
Paris was liberated in August, just two days after the Soviet liberated Vienna. The
race for Berlin was on- the democratic Allies from the west and the Soviet Allies
from the east. By December, German armies had been pushed back inside the
German borders.
On October 9th, 1944, Churchill flew to Moscow (Moscow Conference) to meet with
Stalin about the fate of Central Europe, now under Soviet control. Roosevelt was in
the middle of an election and did not attend, but he went along with Churchill’s and
Stalin’s agreement on post-war spheres of influence.
As the war drew to a close, the “Big Three” met again in Yalta (Yalta ConferenceFeb. 45) and decided how to partition Germany among the Allies. Berlin itself was
also to be partitioned into three zones (later a fourth was added for France out of
the British and American zones). German industries were to be dismantled and
reparations levied. The Americans were more concerned with reconstruction in
their zones (the American Marshall Plan) than striping captured zones of resources,
as Stalin was. Stalin also agreed to enter the war against Japan. He was firmly
committed to the concept of spheres of influence. Roosevelt left the conference a
sick man, and died shortly thereafter, replaced by Harry Truman, also a strong
believer in spheres of influence. Under Truman the Americans would embark on a
program of global economic and military expansion.
The end of the war in Europe (VE Day) came in May 1945. Hitler had committed
suicide in his bunker on April 30th. Surrender of German forces took place between
May 7-9. The final meeting of the Allied leaders, the Potsdam Conference, took
place at the end of July. It was a quarrelsome conference with great animosity and
difference of opinion and goals between Truman and Stalin, especially regarding the
treatment of Germany and Poland. This began the cold war period that dominated
the world between the two superpowers after the war.
The Allies carried out a de-Nazification program and brought forth major Nazi
leaders who were charged with war crimes. (See the inset on page 129 for a good
definition of war crimes, good for a topic B essay).
The cost of the war was between 50 and 60 million dead, probably in the range of 20
million Soviets, 10 million Chinese, 5 million Germans, 2 million Japanese, 2 million
British, French, and Italian and as many as 14 million Central Europeans including
the victims of genocide programs (The “Final Solution”). About 259 000 Americans
were killed.
The war altered the balance of power between the industrial nations. The US and
USSR emerged as superpowers with traditional major powers like Britain and
France relegated to middle power status. It was a new bi-polar world dominated
by the two superpowers, with the Americans holding the edge, being the only one
with nuclear weaponry at the time.
See the summary on page 131