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THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1939-1945 BLITZKRIEG IN POLAND • 1 Sept. 1939: phoney attack on German border post • Overpowering “lightning war” • Main weapons: – Panzerdivisions – Stuka dive bombers RUSSIAN GAINS IN EASTERN EUROPE, 1939-1940 • Eastern Poland occupied • Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania incorporated in Soviet Union • Finnish “Winter War” – Finns forced to surrender Vyborg in March 1940 THE FALL OF FRANCE • Start of the attack: 10 May – German raids over Belgium and Holland • Bypassing the Maginot Line through the Ardennes • Germans slicing through Allied supplylines • Race to the coast • Saving the BEF: organized evacuation of 300,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN • • • • No surrender Winston Churchill’s: man of the people Britain sheltering behind the Navy For Germany to defeat Britain, the Luftwaffe had to control the skies • The London Blitz • Churchill: working on the Grand Alliance • Lend-Lease: : destroyers exchanged for bases (March 1941) THE NEW ORDER • SS ruled Germany and terrorized a continent -- the RSHA • Originally, blackshirted bodyguards • German hegemony: the German race and the rest -- two main fields of action: demography and the economy • Impact of German hegemony: exploitation of slave workers, population transfers, annihilation OCCUPATION AND COLLABORATION IN EUROPE • Hitler’s main allies: Fascist Italy, Vichy France, Romania • Spanish neutrality • Danish Resistance • Occupied Poland • Delays in the Balkans… OPERATION BARBAROSSA, June 1941 • The German invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union • Stalin forewarned many times by his spies • A Blitzkrieg too far? • Confidence that the Red Army would be quickly smashed • 5 million Russian prisoners in six months • Scorched earth policy and dogged Russian resistance • Russian weather: mud and artic frost (-30 degrees in December) PEARL HARBOR: A RUDE AWAKENING • Japan’s attack on the U.S (December 7 1941) • Churchill’s joy: “We have won the war!” • Hitler’s declaration of war on the U.S. (December 1941) • Hitler miscalculated that Roosevelt would focus on the Pacific. • As an autodidact, Hitler was ignorant of US achievements and dynamism THE TIDE TURNS • Midway • El Alamein • Battle of the Atlantic • Stalingrad AXIS IN RETREAT • The Italian Campaign • British Bombing Strategy • Operation Overlord: D-Day • Burma and the Pacific VE DAY AND THE SURRENDER OF GERMANY • Battle of Arnhem • Battle of the Bulge: the role of GI Joes • Liberating the concentration camps • Battle of Berlin JAPAN: NO SURRENDER IN WORLD WAR TWO • The meaning of Bushido: Samurai code of ethics • The Manhattan Project – Germanspeaking refugees and US “can-do” spirit • Truman and the Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Crimes against Humanity? HOW THE ALLIES WON • Soviet transformation • American power • German errors