Download Ending the War in Europe

Assessing the Allied Victory
Dec. 11, four days after
Pearl Harbor
 Hitler declares war on
the U.S.
 Hitler assumed US
would focus on Pacific,
wrong
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• Also thought full-scale
mobilization would take
five years, wrong
• May have had to do with
Japan-USSR
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Germans unable to break
into Moscow and
Leningrad, moved on
Caucasus
• Halted at Stalingrad
• Hitler’s interference in
military planning key, totally
unrealistic
• Became obsessed with
Stalingrad, resulted in huge
losses
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January 1943 Soviets on the
offensive
• 1944 Germans driven out of
the USSR
• March to Berlin
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Summer 1943, Allied
invasion of Sicily
War had never been
popular there
• Economic conditions
deteriorating
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Emmanuel III, generals
and Fascist Party arrest
Mussolini
Successor Badoglio
surrendered to the Allies
German Army tries to
defend Rome
• Mussolini rescued, but then
captured and hung
 Major
point of
contention amongst
Allies
 Stalin requesting
relief in 1941
• Becoming resentful
and mistrustful
 Invasion
of Italy in
1943 slow
• Did not divert German
troops
 First
meeting
between these three
in Nov. 1943
 Earliest date May
1944
 Will manage to land
300,000 troops in
Normandy June 6,
1944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwIABh6WvDs
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2.5 million troops
4,700 landing craft and
warships
12,000 to 300 advantage in
Aircraft
Intelligence of invasion
location
• Bombing of the entire French
coast
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Construction of floating
harbors
Took over a month to gain
control of Normandy
Fall had made it to the Rhine
Hitler’s last offensive in
Dec.1944, Battle of the Bulge
February 1945, Soviet
troops on German soil,
Americans across the
Rhine
 Met on April 25
 Late April, Berlin under
siege
 April 30, Hitler
committed suicide in
his bunker
 Germans surrender
under Admiral Karl
Doenitz on May 8
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 Germany
never won control of the seas,
ultimately losing the Battle of the Atlantic,
and her navy was heavily outnumbered
by the British and American fleets. This
meant that by the later stages of the war it
was almost impossible to import raw
materials or food into Germany. Britain,
on the other hand, was able to rely on the
support of her Empire.
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Germany was not efficiently governed. Though the Third
Reich was a dictatorship it was run in a haphazard and
chaotic way. Rival Nazi leaders such as Himmler (Head of the
Gestapo and SS) and Goering (Commander of the Luftwaffe)
were at times more concerned with fighting each other than
with fighting the common enemy. These rivalries prevented
Germany from efficiently exploiting the industry and the raw
materials in the countries that she conquered.
Transport capacity and manpower badly needed for the war
effort was diverted to projects such as the Final Solution.
1939-41 saw a huge increased in German investment in
rearmament but this was inefficiently managed. Only under
Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments and War Production)
was there efficient co-ordination of war production. He
trebled weapons production.
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Hitler never felt confident of the loyalty of the German people and
so was reluctant to introduce rationing, to direct labor or to impose
strict controls on the economy. The Germans only went over to a
‘total war’ policy in 1943, by which time it was too late. In Britain,
which was a democracy, rationing, direction of labor and massive
government interference in the economy were accepted by the
people and a much greater degree of commitment was secured.
In taking on the USA Hitler made another mistake as it was beyond
the range of German bombers and had vast resources of
manpower and industry, meaning that in a war of attrition the USA
was almost certain to win. By 1943, the combined Axis powers
were producing 43,000 aircraft a year whereas the USA alone
turned out nearly 86,000 and the Allies in total produced over
151,000. German tank production in 1944 was 17,800 compared to
51,500 built by the USA, Britain and the USSR.
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Historians disagree about the efficacy of Allied bombing on
Germany. In May 1942 Churchill ordered all out bombing of
Germany. Over the next three years, approximately 750,000
German civilians died as a result, 40,000 in Cologne in a
single raid.
The Germans had to use vital resources to defend their
cities, with 80% of Germany’s fighter planes tied up in this
way by 1944. 33% of Germany’s heavy guns and radar
equipment were used for anti-aircraft defense.
Although overall German production of coal and steel in
1942-44 did not decline significantly in spite of Allied
bombing, American and British raids prevented the
expansion of industrial output by Germany.
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In attacking Russia Hitler took on an opponent
which was probably unbeatable in a long
conflict. Russia’s vast size, the severity of the
winter weather and the toughness of the Soviet
people defeated the Germans. The Red Army, in
Churchill’s phrase, ‘tore the guts out of the
Germany Army’.
Although the USSR suffered 3 million casualties
in 1941, Stalin still had, in December, 1941, 4.2
million men in arms and more tanks and aircraft
than Germany.
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After Hitler failed to defeat Russia quickly in
1941, Germany was trapped, like in the First
World War, in a war on several fronts: in North
Africa, the USSR, the Balkans, and, from 1943 in
Italy and from 1944 in Western Europe.
This was the decisive campaign; more than
anything else the survival of the Soviet Union
determined the pattern of the Second World War
and of the post-war world. It was the successful
resistance of the Soviet Union and the victory of
the Russian armies that enabled the AngloAmerican coalition to join in defeating Hitler.
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In taking on the USSR and USA, Hitler confronted two economic giants. In
1943, Soviet steel and output was more than twice that of Germany. In
1944, the USA produced 40% of world weapon production.
The USSR in 1928 had been behind the USA, Britain, Germany and France
in terms of industrial output and only just ahead of Japan; by 1940, as a
result of Stalin’s Five Year Plans, Soviet output was bettered only by the
USA.
The USA provided a total of between $45 billion and $50 billion of aid in
Lend-Lease to its allies.
The Grand Alliance was so superior in material terms to the Axis and its
productive bases were so far away from the German and Japanese armed
forced that it had the resources and the opportunity to build up an
overwhelming military strength which none of the earlier opponents of
fascist aggression could have hoped to possess.