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Chapter 16
World War Looms
1931-1941
Rise of Dictators
• The treaty that ended
WWI and the economic
depression that followed
contributed to the rise of
dictatorships in Europe
and Asia.
Mussolini and Italy
• One of Europe’s first major
dictatorship arose in Italy.
• There a former
schoolmaster and journalist
named Benito Mussolini
convinced his country they
needed a strong leader after
WWI.
• In 1919 Mussolini founded
Italy’s Fascist Party.
• Fascism was a kind of
aggressive nationalism.
• Fascists believed that the
nation was more important
than the individual and that
a nation became great by
expanding its territory and
building its military.
Backed by the militia known as Black
shirts, Mussolini became the premier of
Italy and set up a dictatorship.
• Fascists were anti-Communist.
• After the Communist revolution
in Russia, many Europeans
feared that Communists allied
with labor unions were trying to
bring down their governments.
• Mussolini exploited these fears
by portraying fascism as a
bulwark against Communists.
• Fascism began to stand for the
protection of private property
and the middle class.
• Once in office, Mussolini
worked quickly to destroy
democracy and set up a
dictatorship.
• Weary of strikes and riots
many Italians welcomed
Mussolini’s leadership.
• With support of
industrialist, landowners,
the title of IL Duce or “The
Leader”- embarked on an
ambitious program of
bringing order to Italy.
• In 1917 the Bolshevik
Party led by Vladimir
Lenin set up Communist
governments
throughout the Russian
empire.
• The Russian territories
were renamed the
Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics in 1922.
• The Communists set up
a one-party rule.
• After Lenin's death in 1924 a
power struggle begin to see
who would be the next
leader of the USSR.
• In 1926 Joseph Stalin would
become the new Soviet
dictator.
• In 1927 Stalin began a
massive effort to industrialize
his country.
• Tolerating no opposition the
effort brought about the
deaths of 8 to 10 million
peasants who resisted the
Communist policies.
Hitler and Nazism in Germany
• Adolf Hitler was fervent
anticommunist and an
admirer of Mussolini.
• Hitler had fought in WWI.
Germany’s surrender and the
subsequent Versailles Treaty
left him and many Germans
with a hatred for the
victorious Allies and the
German government that
accepted the peace terms.
• After WWI the political
and economic chaos in
Germany led to the rise
of new political parties.
• One of these was the
National Socialist
German Workers’ or the
Nazi Party a nationalistic
and anti-Communist it
did not represent the
working class as its name
suggested.
• Adolf Hitler was one of the
Nazis party first recruits.
• In November 1923 the
Nazis tried to seize power
by marching on city hall in
Munich, Germany.
• Hitler intended to seize
power locally and then
march on to Berlin the
attempt failed and Hitler
was arrested.
• While in prison Hitler wrote
his on autobiography titled
Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
• In his book Hitler called for
the unification of all Germans
under one government.
• He claimed that Germans
particularly blond, blue-eyed
Germans belonged to a
“master race” called Aryans
and they were destined to
rule the world.
• Hitler argued that Germans needed
more living space and called for
Germany to expand into Poland and
Russia.
• According to Hitler the Slavic people of
Eastern Europe belonged to an inferior
race which Germans should enslave.
• Hitler’s racism was strongest against
the Jews.
• He felt the Jews was the reason for all
the world’s problems.
• After being released from
prison Hitler changed his
tactics.
• Instead of trying to seize
power violently he focused
on getting Nazis elected to
the Reichstag.
• By 1932 the Nazis were
the largest party in the
Reichstag.
• Traditional German leaders
supported Hitler’s
nationalism.
• German leaders thought if
they helped Hitler in
becoming the leader of
Germany legally they could
control him.
• In 1933 the German
president appointed Hitler
chancellor or prime
minister.
• After being elected Hitler
would call for new
elections.
• He ordered the police to
crack down on the Socialist
and Communist Parties.
• Storm Troopers as the
Nazi paramilitary units
were called began
intimidating voters.
• After the election of the
Reichstag dominated by
the Nazis and other rightwinged parties voted to
give Hitler dictatorial
powers.
• In 1934 Hitler became
president which gave him
control of the army.
• Hitler then took the title furher or leader.
• The following year Hitler began to
rebuild Germany’s military in violation of
the Treaty of Versailles.
• Extreme nationalists who wanted to
expand their territories and build up
their military was what contributed to
the rise of dictatorships in Europe.
Militarist Gain Control in Japan
• In Japan as in Germany difficult
economic times helped undermine
the political system.
• Japan industries had to import nearly
all the resources it needed to
produce goods.
• During the 1920s Japan did not earn
enough money from exports to pay
for its imports which limited
economic growth and increased
unemployment.
• Many of the Japanese officers
blamed the country’s problems on
corrupt politicians.
• Most Japanese officers
believed that Japan was
destined to dominate East
Asia.
• Many also believed that
democracy was “un-Japanese”
and bad for the country.
• Japanese military leaders
argued the only way for Japan
to get needed resources was to
seize territory.
• They targeted the resourcerich province of Manchuria in
northern China as the perfect
place to conquer.
• Japanese officers decided
to act without approval
from the government and
invaded Manchuria.
• After the invasion started
the government tried to
end the war with China.
• When the Japanese prime
minister began
negotiations officer
assassinated him.
• From that point on the
military gained control of
the government.
American Turns to Neutrality
• The rise of dictatorship and
militarism after WWI discouraged
many Americans.
• The sacrifices they had made
during the war seemed pointless.
• Americans began to support
isolationism or the belief that the
U.S. should avoid international
commitments that might drag the
nation into another war.
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• Isolationist ideas became even stronger
in the early 1930s for two reasons.
• When Depression began many
Europeans refused to repay the money
they borrowed during WWI.
• At the same time dozens of books and
articles appeared arguing that arms
manufacturers had tricked the U.S. in
entering WWI.
• In 1934 Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota held
hearings to investigate the country’s involvement in
WWI.
• The Nye Committee documented the huge profits that
arms factories made during the war.
• The report created the impression that these
businesses influenced the U.S. to go to war.
• The European refusal to repay their loans and the Nye
Committee’s findings turned even more Americans
toward isolationism.
Legislating Neutrality
• Worried that growing
German and Italian
aggression might lead
to war Congress
passed the Neutrality
Act of 1935 making it
illegal for Americans
to sell arms to any
country at war.
General Francisco Franco
• In 1936 a rebellion erupted to
Spain after a coalition of
Republicans, Socialists, and
Communists was elected.
• General Francisco Franco led
the rebellion.
• Franco was backed by Spanish
Fascists army officers,
landowners, and Catholic
Church leaders.
• The revolt quickly became a civil war and
attracted worldwide attention.
• The Soviet Union provided arms and
government forces while Germany and
Italy sent tanks, airplanes, and soldiers to
help Franco.
• To keep the U.S. neutral Congress passed
another neutrality act banning the sale of
arms to either side in a civil war.
• After the Spanish
Civil War began in
1936 Hitler and
Mussolini signed an
agreement pledging
to cooperate on
several international
issues.
• Mussolini referred to
this new relationship
with Germany as the
Rome-Berlin Axis.
• The following month Japan aligned
itself with Germany and Italy when it
signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with
Germany.
• The pact required the two countries to
exchange information about Communist
groups.
• Together Germany,
Italy, and Japan
became known as
Axis Powers
although they did
not formally become
allies until
September 1940.
• With the situation in Europe getting
worse Congress would pass the
Neutrality Act of 1937.
• This act continued the ban on selling
arms to nations at war but it also
required warring countries to buy
nonmilitary supplies from the U.S. on a
“cash and carry basis.”
• After Japan launched a full scale attack
on China in 1937.
• Roosevelt authorized the
sale of weapons to China
saying that the Neutrality
Act of 1937 did not apply
since neither China nor
Japan had actually declared
war.
• President Roosevelt
supported internationalismthe idea that trade between
nations creates prosperity
and helps to prevent war.
• Roosevelt warned that the neutrality
acts might drag us into war instead of
keeping us out, but he did not veto the
bills.
• The Americans supported isolationism
by remaining apart from European
conflicts to avoid another war.
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World War II Begins
• Hitler’s first demands would concern
Austria and Czechoslovakia.
• In late 1937 Hitler stepped up his call
for unification of all German-speaking
people including those in Austria and
Czechoslovakia.
• Hitler knew seizing these two countries
would also gain food supplies and help
defend Germany.
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• Hitler believed that
Germany could only
expand its territory by
resorting to force.
• In February 1938 Hitler
threatened to invade
German speaking Austria
his native land unless
Austrian Nazis were given
important government
posts.
• In March 1938, Hitler
announced the Anschluss
or unification of Austria
and Germany.
• Hitler claimed the Sudetenland and area
Czechoslovakia with a large German
speaking population.
• Czechs strongly resisted Germany’s
demand for the Sudetenland.
• France, the Soviet Union and Britain
threatened to fight if it attacked
Czechoslovakia.
• British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
publicly promised to support France
Britain's ally.
• To prevent another war
representatives of Britain,
France, Italy, and Germany
agreed to meet in Munich
to decide the fate of
Czechoslovakia.
• At the Munich Conference
on September 29, 1938
Britain and France agreed
to Hitler’s demands a policy
that came to be known as
appeasement.
• In March 1939, Germany sent troops
into Czechoslovakia, bringing the Czech
land under German control.
• Hitler now turned his attention to
Poland.
• Hitler demanded the return of DanzigPoland’s Baltic Sea port.
• He also wanted a highway and railroad
across the Polish Corridor.
• These demands convinced the British
and French that appeasement failed.
• On March 31, 1939 the British
announced that if Poland went to war
to defend its territory Britain and France
would come to its aid.
• This would encourage the Polish
government to refuse Hitler’s demands.
• In May 1939, Hitler ordered the German
Army to prepare to invade Poland.
• Hitler then ordered his foreign minister
to begin negotiations with the USSR.
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
• The Germans-Hitler
proposed a non
aggression treaty with
the Soviets- Stalin would
agree.
• WHY?
• He thought it would be
the beat way to protect
the USSR and to turn the
capitalist nations against
each other.
• The Soviets thought that
this pact would protect
them if Germany went to
war with Great Britain
and France.
• On August 23, 1939
Germany and the USSR
signed the pact.
• This pact shocked the
world.
• WHY?
• Communism and Nazism
were supposed to be
totally opposed to each
other.
• The leaders in Britain
and France understood
however that Hitler had
made the deal to free
himself for war against
their countries and
Poland.
• The pact also had a
secret agenda one in
which Russia and
Germany would divide
Poland.
• June 1941, Hitler broke the
Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939
and invaded the Soviet
Union. On June 22, 1941,
Hitler launched a surprise
attack on his neighbor.
After several months of
fighting, Roosevelt decided
that to save the United
States, the USSR must also
be saved. The Lend-Lease
Bill was further extended to
them, halting Hitler outside
of Moscow.
Three Reasons European leaders
agreed to the policy of appeasement.
1. Wished to avoid war.
2. The goal of unifying German-speaking
regions seemed reasonable.
3. Thought the Nazis would be more
interest in peace once they acquired
more territory.
War Begins
• On September 1, 1939
Germany and the USSR
invaded Poland.
• September 3, Britain
and France declared
war on Germanystarting WWII.
• Poland bravely resisted Germany’s
onslaught but to no avail.
• The Germans used a new type of
warfare called blitzkrieg what is
this?
• Lighting warfare- used large
numbers of massed tanks to break
through and rapidly encircle enemy
positions.
• Supporting the tanks were waves of
aircraft that bombed enemy
positions and dropped paratroopers
to cut their supply lines.
• On September 27, the polish capital of
Warsaw fell to the Germans.
• October 5, 1939 the Polish Army had
been defeated.
The Fall of France
• In contrast to the war in Poland
western Europe remained quiet.
• The Germans referred to this
situation as the sitzkrieg or
sitting war.
• The British called it the “Bore
War” while American newspaper
nicknamed it the Phony War.
• The British had sent troops to
France but both countries
remained on the defensive
waiting for the Germans to
attack.
• After WWI the French built a line of
concert bunkers and fortifications called
the Maginot Line along the German
border.
• When Hitler decided to attack France he
went around the fortification by
invading the Netherlands Belgium and
Luxembourg.
• The French and British forces quickly
went into Belgium becoming trapped
there by Germans forces.
• By June 4 about 338,000
British and French troops
had evacuated Belgium
through the French port
Dunkirk and across the
English Channel; using any
ships of any size.
• On June 22, 1940 France
surrendered to the Germans
on the same rail car which
the Germans had surrendered
on after WWI.
• Germany would then install
a puppet government in
France.
• Hitler thought the British would negotiate a
peace treaty with Germany after the French
had surrendered.
• Hitler did not anticipate the bravery of the
British people and the new Prime Minister
Winston Churchill who had replaced Neville
Chamberlin.
• For Churchill however peace was not an option.
• The war as he put it was a fight to defend
civilization.
• On June 4, 1940 Churchill
delivered a defiant speech
to parliament intended no
only to rally the British
people but to alert the
United States of the British
plight.
• When Hitler realized that
the British would not
surrender he ordered his
commanders to prepare to
invade.
• Only the choppy waters of
the English Channel
separated Britain from the
powerful Germany Army.
• The English Channel posed a major
challenge for Germany, they had
few transport ships and the British
air force would sink them if they
tried to land troops in England.
• To invade Britain, Germany had to
defeat the British air force.
• In the Battle of Britain the German
air force the Luftwaffe launched an
all out air battle to destroy the
British Royal Air Force.
• After German bombers bombed
London, the British responded by
bombing Berlin, Germany.
• After the British bombed
Berlin Hitler ordered the
Luftwaffe to stop the
bombing British military
targets and start
bombing London.
• Hitler’s goal was to
terrorize the British
people into surrendering.
• The British people
would endure the attacks
by hiding out in the
subway tunnels.
• The Royal Air Force was greatly
outnumbered yet the British had one major
advantage.
• They developed a new technology called
radar.
• Using the radar placed along the coast
were able to detect German bombers and
would direct its fighters to intercept them.
• The Germans would suffer great losses
• On October 12, 1940 Hitler would call off
the invasion of Britain.
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Nazi Persecution of the Jews
• During the Holocaust the catastrophe that ravaged
Europe’s Jews, the Nazis killed nearly 6 million
Jews.
• Nazis also killed millions of people from other
groups they considered to be inferior.
• The Hebrew term for Holocaust is Shoah meaning
catastrophe but it is often used specifically refer to
the Nazi campaign to exterminate the Jews.
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Albert Einstein
• Among the Jews who left
Nazi Germany in the early
1930s was Albert Einstein.
• Einstein never really
practiced Judaism but he did
proudly identify himself as a
Jew.
• Soon after Hitler became
chancellor, Einstein
renounced his citizenship
and left for Belgium.
Nazi Ideology
• Once the Nazis took power in Germany,
they acted swiftly to implement the political
racial policies Hitler had outlined in Mein
Kampf.
• The Nazis persecuted anyone who dared to
oppose them as well as the disable, Gypsies,
homosexuals, and Slavic people they
reserved their strongest hatred for the Jews.
Nuremberg Laws
• After the Nazis took control
they moved quickly to deprive
the German Jews of many of
their rights.
• In 1935 the Nuremberg Laws
took citizenship away from
Jewish Germans and banned
marriage between Jews and
Germans.
• Jews were not allowed to hold
public office or vote.
• Pass ports would be marked
with a red J to clearly identify
them as Jewish.
"I am the greatest pig in
town - I have affairs with
Jews only." This scene,
organized for the press in
Hamburg in 1935,
appeared in all German
newspapers. The man's
sign says: "I only take
German girls to my
room." The Nuremberg
laws of 1935 criminalized
sexual relations between
Jews and "Aryans."
Kristallnacht
• On November 7, 1938 a young Jewish refugee
named Herschel Grynszpan shot and killed a German
diplomat in Paris.
• In retaliation for the killing Hitler ordered his
minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, to stage
attacks against the Jews.
• On the night of November 9, this
plan played out in a spree of
destruction.
• The anti-Jewish violence that
erupted throughout Germany and
Austria that night came to be called
a Kristallnacht or the “night of the
broken glass” because broken glass
littered the streets afterward.
• Following the night of violence the
Gestapo the government secret
police arrested at least 20,000
wealthy Jews releasing them only if
they agreed to emigrate and
surrender all their possessions.
• Between 1933 and the
beginning of WWII in 1939,
about 350,000 Jews
escaped Nazi-controlled
Germany.
• Emigrants included Albert
Einstein and
businesspeople like Otto
Frank who resettled his
family in Amsterdam in
1933.
• Otto’s daughter Anne Frank
would later keep a diary of
her family’s life in hiding
after the Nazis overran the
Netherlands.
• Many of the Jews emigrated to the United
States.
• Millions of Jews remained trapped in Nazidominated Europe because they could not get
visas to the U.S. or to other countries.
• Jews remained in Germany even though they
were persecuted because of restrictions on
immigration to other countries, they thought
conditions would improve because it was
their home and they had on money help them
emigrate.
Final Solution
• On January 20, 1942, 15 Nazi leaders met at
the Wannsee Conference held in a Berlin
suburb to determine the final solution of the
Jewish question.
• Previous “solutions” had included rounding up
Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs from conquered
areas, shooting them, and piling them into
mass graves.
• Another method required forcing Jews and
other undesirables into trucks and then piping
in exhaust fumes to kill them.
• At the Wannsee the Nazis made plans
to round up Jews from the vast areas of
Nazi controlled Europe and take them
to detention centers known as
concentration camps.
• Here the healthy individuals were used
as slave labor.
• The elderly, the sick, and young
children were sent to extermination
camps to be killed in gas chambers or
burnt in furnaces.
Concentration Camps
• Buchenwald one of the
first and largest
concentration camps was
built near the town of
Weimar in 1937.
• During operation over
200,000 prisoners worked
12-hour shifts as slave
laborers in the factories.
• There were no gas
chambers at Buchenwald,
still many would died as a
result of exhaustion and
being starved.
Extermination
• Treblinka and
Auschwitz were the
two most famous
extermination camps.
• Auschwitz alone
housed about 100,000
people in 300 prisoner
barracks.
• Its gas chambers were
built to kill 2,000
people at a time,
sometimes gassed
12,000 a day.
Camps
• Of the 1.6 million people
who died at Auschwitz
about 1.3 million were
Jews.
• The methods that Hitler
used to exterminate the
Jews were; disease,
malnutrition in the camps,
executed in gas chambers
and some died of
exhaustion.
• In only a few years Jewish
culture had been virtually
obliterated by the Nazis in
the lands they conquered.
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FDR Supports England
• The Japanese attack on December 7, 1941
surprised many Americans. Most thought
Germany posed the greatest danger.
• Many Americans didn’t realize the causes of the
Japanese attack could be traced back more than
two years when President Roosevelt’s policies
helped the British against the Germans.
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Neutrality Act of 1939
President Roosevelt officially claimed the U.S. was neutral two
days after the British and French declared war on Germany.
Despite the declaration Roosevelt was determined to still do all he
could to help them against Hitler.
After the war started he called Congress into session to ask them
to revise the neutrality laws.
He asked Congress to eliminate the ban on the sale of arms to
nations at war.
• In the spring of 1940 the
United States faced its first
test in trying to remain
neutral.
• Prime Minister Winston
Churchill began to ask
Roosevelt to transfer old
destroyers to Britain.
• The reason for this request
was that the British had lost
half of its destroyers and
needed more to protect its
cargo ships.
• Determined to give Churchill the destroyers Roosevelt
used a loophole in the provision of the Neutrality Act
that required cash for purchases.
• In exchange for the right to build American bases on
British-controlled Newfoundland, Bermuda, and islands
in the Caribbean, Roosevelt sent 50 old destroyers to
the British.
• After the German invasion
of France and the rescue of
Allied forces at Dunkirk
American public opinion
changed to favor aid to the
Allies.
• Roosevelt’s destroyers –
for-bases deal led to the
founding of the America
First Committee a
isolationist group who
opposed American
intervention or aid to the
Allies.
Election of 1940
• President Roosevelt ran for an
unprecedented third term as
president.
• Both Roosevelt and the
Republican candidate
Wendell Willkie said they
would keep the U.S. neutral
but assist the Allied forces.
• Roosevelt won the election by
an overwhelming majority.
Why did Roosevelt win an unprecedented
third term in office?
• Americans wanted to
stay with a president
that they knew during
this period of unrest.
• With the election over Roosevelt could now
focus on expanding the nation’s role in the
war.
• Britain was fighting for democracy he said
and the United States had to help.
• Speaking to Congress he listed the “Four
Freedoms” for which the U.S. and Great
Britain stood for:
1. Freedom of speech
2. Freedom of worship
3. Freedom of want
4. 4. Freedom of fear.
Lend-Lease Act
• By December of 1940 Great Britain had run out of funds
to wage war against Germany.
• Roosevelt proposed the Lend-Lease Act which stated
that the U.S. could lend or lease arms to any country
considered “vital to the defense of the United States.”
Congress passed the act by a wide majority.
• The President warned that if
Britain fell an unholy alliance of
Germany, Japan and Italy would
keep trying to conquer the world
and then “all of us in all the
Americans would be living at the
point of a gun.”
• The president argued that the
United States should become the
“great arsenal of democracy” to
keep the British fighting and
make it unnecessary for
Americans to go to war.
• In June 1941, in violation of
the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Hitler
launched a massive invasion
into the Soviet Union.
• Although Churchill detested
communism and considered
Stalin a harsh dictator, he
vowed that any person or
state “who fights against
Nazism will have our aid.”
Roosevelt also supported this
policy.
• President Roosevelt developed the hemispheric
defense zone which declared the entire western half
of the Atlantic as part of the Western Hemisphere and
therefore neutral.
• This allowed Roosevelt to order the U.S. Navy to
patrol the western Atlantic Ocean and reveal the
location of German submarines to the British.
• After a German U-boat fired
on the American destroyer
Greer, Roosevelt ordered
American ships to follow a
“shoot on sight” policy
toward German
submarines.
• The Germans torpedoed
and sank the American
destroyer Reuben James in
the North Atlantic.
Japan Attacks the United States
• Roosevelt’s primary goal between August
1939 and 1941 was to help Britain and its
allies to defeat Germany.
• When Britain began moving its warships
from the Southeast Asia to Atlantic
Roosevelt introduced polices to
discourage the Japanese from attacking
the British Empire.
• Roosevelt started to put economic
pressure on the Japanese by cutting key
materials.
• In July 1940 Congress passed the
Export Control Act, giving Roosevelt the
power to restrict the sale of strategic
materials important for fighting a war
to other countries.
• Roosevelt immediately blocked the sale
of airplane fuel and scrap iron to Japan.
• By July 1941 Japanese aircraft
posed a direct threat to the
British Empire.
• Roosevelt also responded by
freezing Japanese assets in
the U.S. and reducing the
amount of oil shipped to
Japan.
• He then sent General Douglas
MacArthur to the Philippines to
build up the American
defenses.
• The Japanese decided to attack
resource-rich British and Dutch colonies
in Southeast Asia and seized the
Philippines
• Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941 sinking or damaging
21 ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet killing
2,403 and injuring hundreds more.
• The next day President Roosevelt asked
Congress to declare war on Japan.
• On December 11, 1941 Japan alliesGermany and Italy declared war on the
United States.