Download European History Lecture 11

COLLEGE - LIMASSOL
BUSINESS STUDIES
European History
Lecture 11
Topics
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The Second World War : Origins of World
War II.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
The United States enters the War.
The Turning point: Victories at the Russian
and Western Fronts.
Europe after 1945.
The Origins of the War
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The German-speaking populations in
Czechoslovakia and Poland began to clamor for
protection.
3.25 million Germans lived in the Sudetenland.
Rising tensions in Czechoslovakia made some
dramatic German gain there.
British and France followed the policy of
‘appeasement’.
The appeasers of Hitler in Britain and France were
sympathetic to Hitler’s ideas and methods.
The Origins of the War
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Appeasement was Chamberlain’s energetic
and calculated effort to locate the sources of
Germany’s frustrations.
Appeasement rested on domestic
considerations of internal order.
The appeasers assumed that a new war would
lead to another round of revolutions like those
of 1917.
Neville Chamberlain
Munich Settlement September 29,
1938
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It was agreed to buy Hitler off with immediate
transfer of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to
Germany.
Chamberlain believed that the border adjustment
could prevent war.
Hitler himself broke the agreement six months later.
German troops moved into Prague on March 15,
1939.
The Czech areas became the ‘Protectorate of
Bohemia-Moravia’, and the Slovak areas were set up
as an independent nation.
Munich Settlement September 29,
1938
The Polish Crisis, 1939
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Danzig, a free city under the League of Nations
supervision, was mostly German in population.
Poland controlled German minorities in rich Silesia.
In the spring of 1939, German Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop demanded that Poland
return Danzig to Germany and permit a road-rail
route across the corridor.
In exchange Germany would offer some form of
common defense against the Soviet Union.
German Foreign Minister Joachim von
Ribbentrop
The Polish Crisis, 1939
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The decisive change came from England and France.
Angered and alarmed by German propaganda attacks
on Poland, Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister
of England, announced publicly in the House of
Commons on March 31 that England and France
would bring Poland ‘all the support in their power’ if
Poland independence were ‘clearly threatened’.
The British government had extended to Poland the
guarantee denied the more easily defended
Czechoslovakia a year earlier.
Neville Chamberlain abandoned appeasement.
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
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An agreement signed between the Soviet foreign
minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German
foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Officially titled as the Treaty of Non-Aggression
between Germany and the Soviet Union.
It was signed in Moscow in 23 August 1939.
It was a non-aggression pact under which the Soviet
Union and Nazi Germany each guaranteed to remain
neutral in the event that either nation were attacked
by a third party.
Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav
Molotov
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
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The treaty included a secret protocol dividing
Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and
Finland into German and Soviet spheres of
influence.
Germany and the Soviet Union invaded, on
September 1 and 17 respectively, their respective
sides of Poland, and they divided the country
between them.
This Treaty remained in effect until 22 June 1941,
when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Nazi Europe, 1939 -1940: Poland and the Fall of
France
1939 Germany invaded Poland
Luftwaffe:German Air force.
Blitzkrieg : "lightning war". Blitzkrieg was first used
by the Germans in World War II and was a tactic
based on speed and surprise and needed a military
force to be based around light tank units supported
by planes and infantry (foot soldiers).
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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The tactic was developed in Germany by an army
officer called Hans Guderian.
Hans Guderian had written a military pamphlet
called "Achtung Panzer" which got into the hands
of Hitler.
As a result Poland was under German control within
a month.
USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) moved
into the eastern half of Poland.
Baltic states.
Hans Guderian
Luftwaffe
Panzer
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Finland was invaded.
Combined resistance of Finns, French, and British
helped Finland maintain its independence
April 1940: Germans invaded Norway and Denmark.
Interest in Swedish steel and access to the Atlantic
May 1940: Germany invaded Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and France.
They sent their main forces through the Ardennes
forest.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Out flanked the Maginot line to the north and
entered France.
Belgium surrendered.
Large part of the French army surrendered
Heroic effort was made to extract the British army
with some of the French army.
By 6/1940 France sued for peace and Germany was
in control of France.
Free French movement begins to organize under
General Charles de Gaulle. Resistance movement
began to form within France.
General Charles de Gaulle.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Vichy Government
Marshal Petain: Following the German invasion of
France in 1940, Pétain was recalled to active
military service as adviser to the minister of war.
He asked the Germans for an armistice, which was
concluded on June 22.
On July 2, with the collaboration of the Germans, he
established his government in Vichy in central
France.
He ruled with dictatorial powers over that portion of
France not directly under German control.
Marshal Petain
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Pierre Laval was the Prime Minister of Vischy
Government.
Liberty Equality Fraternity was banned.
French fascist groups move into control.
Collaborted with the Nazis to integrate Vichy
France into the new order.
Sent French workers as slaves to Germany.
Sent French Jews to Germany.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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The Vichy government ruled with Germany's
approval, appointing all government officials,
controlling the press, and practicing arbitrary
arrests.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Italy attacked France in the south when it was clear Hitler
was in control of the north.
Turned on Greece.
Moved against the British in Africa
The Axis powers control as much of Europe as Napoleon did
Continental system.
POW (Prisoner of war) camps as slave labor.
Many European citizens were aligned with the ideals of Nazi
Germany.
When Germany invaded USSR 500,000 non-Germans fought
in the army.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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The Battle of Britain and American Aid
US began to send arms and supplies to Britain
German air raids were eventually repelled by the
RAF (Royal Air Force).
RADAR.
Enigma (German machine code for sending
messages) was discover by the British.
Morale of the civilian population was not broken.
Germany began to shift its attention to Russia.
RAF
Enigma
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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The Nazi Invasion of Russia: The Russian
Front, June 22, 1941.
USSR was expanding in the Baltic and the
Balkans.
Regaining territory lost in WWI
Germany threw support into the Balkans and
prevented USSR from expanding to the
Mediterranean.
Two years of the Axis Triumph
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June 22,1941. Germany invaded USSR.
By the fall Germany stood outside the Gates.
Leningrad.
Sebastopol.
Moscow.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Winter approached.
Stalin launched a counter offensive.
Military complex was located east of the Urals.
Hitler refocused on the south.
Sebastopole fell.
Battle of Stalingrad.
Albert Speer directed the war effort and tripled
German war production.
Ural Mountains
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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1942, the Year of Dismay: Russia, North Africa, the Pacific.
German advance into USSR was not producing needed
resources.
Scorched earth retreat of USSR army.
Shift of military complex to east of Urals.
Guerilla attacks by Soviet resistance forces.
North African campaign
Britain displaced Italian forces and controlled the Suez.
Germany under Rommel was threatening to control the canal.
General Erwin Rommel
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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Germany was making gains around the
Mediterranean and through the Caucasus.
Germany might have linked up with Japanese
forced moving westward through China.
Two years of the Axis Triumph.
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The Japanese attacked on Pearl Harbor (called
Hawaii Operation).
The Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise
military strike against the United States naval
base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning
of December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan).
The attack aimed to prevent action in order to
keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering
with military actions.
Two years of the Axis Triumph
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12/8/1941 U.S. declared war on Japan
Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S.
Japan expanded quickly and received
significant support from anti-western factions
in the territories they moved into.
1942 was the worst period of the war for the
western countries.
Japan and Germany seemed unstoppable.
The United States enters the War.
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The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on December
7, 1941, brought the United States into the war.
Churchill went to Washington at one to begin
military planning with Roosevelt.
Their meeting in January 1942, codenamed Arcadia,
was the first of a long series of their interests around
a common strategy.
American military planners joined their their British
counterparts in the combined Chiefs of Staff
Committee.
The United States enters the War.
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‘Europe first’ strategy: the Allied forces
decided to concentrate on defeating Hitler
before dealing with Japan.
Twenty-four other nations (including the
Soviet Union and China) joined the British
and Americans in the United Nations
declaration .
The countries pledging their ‘full resources’’
to ‘complete victory over their enemies’
Soviet survival, 1941-1943
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At Stalingrad at the end of 1942, the Soviets were
able to turn the tide.
In November, a German army advanced into the
streets of Stalingrad, the principal city of the lower
Volga River and gateway to the oil-rich Caucasus
region.
The Soviet troops clung to Stalingrad, street by street
and house by house, while the Soviet command
launched encircling counterattacks under the cover
of oncoming winter.
Soviet survival, 1941-1943
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When Hitler refused to allow the surrounded German force in
Stalingrad even the slightest strategic retreat, the entire sixth
army was taken prisoner along with its commander, Field
Marshal Frederich Paulus, on February, 2, 1943.
It was the first time in history that a German field marshal
had been captured in Battle.
During the same weeks, at the northern end of the eastern
front, on the Baltic sea, Soviet troops managed to open a
precarious supply rout into Leningrad, which had been tightly
ringed by German forces for 506 days
Soviet survival, 1941-1943
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The Germans pushed forward once again on
several fronts in the spring of 1943, but the
Soviets were able to gain their first summer
victory in the great tank battle of Kursk-Orel
in July 1943.
From the summer of 1943 on, the Soviets
began the relentless advance that brought
them to the 1939 Polish frontier by February
1944.
Soviet survival, 1941-1943
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From there they entered central Europe just as
the Western Allies were embarking on the
French coast.
With the elimination of Germany and Japan in
1945, for the first time no major powers stood
across Soviet paths to the east and West.
What had brought the Soviet Union to
this position? How had it survived?
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Three basic Soviets achievements:
Industrial reconstruction, mass public support,
the emergence of new officer talent.
Soviet survival seems to have been more a
product of internal resources than of outside
assistance in the form of Western aid and Nazi
errors.
Atomic weapons
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The Japan declared that they were determined to
continue the war.
The United States in order to stop them, they
dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima ( 6 August
1945) and on Nagasaki (9 August 1945), the Soviet
Union declared war on Japan, and the Japanese
government surrendered to the United States and its
allies.
The nuclear age had begun with the first military use
of atomic weapons.
Atomic weapons
Europe after 1945
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Europe in 1945 was an even more desolate landscape
than it had been in 1918.
Although proportionally fewer soldiers had died in
Europe during the faster moving Second War,
civilians had suffered far more bitterly.
Strategic bombing and the sweep of motorized
armies made major battlefields of cities.
More English civilians than soldiers were killed
between June 1940 and September 1941 during the
Battle of Britain.
Europe after 1945
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About 35,000 German perished in the firebombing
of Dresden of February 13, 1945, the most civilians
killed in any single action of the European war.
The Soviet Union suffered the highest casualty rate
of all the belligerents, perhaps 7 million civilians and
11 million soldiers killed.
In all, 18 million European noncombatants died from
bombing, shelling, disease, malnutrition, overwork,
and outright genocide between 1939.
Camp for "Displaced Persons" from
Russia (1945-46)
References
Gombrich, E., H. A little history of the world.
2nd edition, 2008.
 Paxton, O.,R., 1997. Europe in the Twentieth
Century.
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