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The German Path to War
• Adolf Hitler believed that Germany could
build a great civilization. 
• To do this, Germany needed more land to
support more German people. 
• He wanted lands in the east in the Soviet
Union and prepared for war. 
• His plan was to use the land for German
settlements. 
• The Slavic people would become slaves.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• Hitler proposed that Germany be able to
revise the unfair provisions of the Treaty of
Versailles that had ended World War I. 
• At first he said he would use peaceful
means. 
• However, in March of 1935, he created a
new air force and began a military draft.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• France, Great Britain, and Italy
condemned Hitler’s moves. 
• Due to problems at home caused by the
Great Depression, however, they were
not prepared to take action. 
• Hitler became convinced that the Western
states would not stop him from breaking
the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• In March of 1936, Hitler sent German
troops into the Rhineland, which was
supposed to be a demilitarized area. 
• France would not oppose Germany
for this treaty violation without British
support. 
• Great Britain saw Hitler’s actions as
reasonable and therefore did not call
for a military response.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• This was the beginning of the policy of
appeasement, one based on the belief
that if European states satisfied the
reasonable demands of dissatisfied
states, the dissatisfied states would be
content, and peace would be preserved.
(pages 809–812)
The German Path to War (cont.)
• Hitler gained new allies. 
• Benito Mussolini was the Fascist leader
of Italy. 
• He invaded Ethiopia in 1935 with the
support of German troops. 
• In 1936, both Italy and Germany sent
troops to Spain to support General
Francisco Franco.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• Later in the year, Hitler and Mussolini
became allies and formed the RomeBerlin Axis. 
• Germany also signed the Anti-Comintern
Pact with Japan forming an alliance
against communism.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• By 1937, Germany had become a very
powerful nation. 
• In 1938, Hitler pursued a long-held goal,
union with Austria, or Anschluss. 
• By threatening to invade Austria, Hitler
forced the Austrians to put Austrian Nazis
in charge of the government. 
• The new government then invited German
troops into Austria to “help” maintain
order. 
• Hitler then annexed Austria to Germany.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• In 1938, Hitler demanded that the
Sudetenland in northwestern
Czechoslovakia be given to Germany. 
• The British, French, Italian, and German
representatives then met in Munich. 
• Britain, France, and Italy gave in to all
of Hitler’s demands. 
• German troops were allowed into
Czechoslovakia.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• After the Munich Conference, the British
prime minister, Neville Chamberlain,
announced that the settlement meant
“peace for our time.” 
• He believed Hitler’s promises that
Germany would make no more demands. 
• After Munich, Hitler was even more
convinced that France and Great Britain
would not fight. 
• In March of 1939, Hitler invaded western
Czechoslovakia, and made a Nazi puppet
state out of Slovakia in eastern
Czechoslovakia.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• France and Great Britain began to react.
Great Britain said it would protect Poland
if Hitler invaded. 
• France and Britain began negotiations
with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator. 
• They knew that they would need the
Soviet Union to help contain the Nazis.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• Hitler was afraid of an alliance between
the West and the Soviet Union. 
• In August of 1939, Germany and the
Soviet Union signed the Nazi-Soviet
Nonaggression Pact. 
• They promised not to attack each other. 
• Hitler offered Stalin eastern Poland and
the Baltic states. 
• Hitler knew that eventually he would
break the pact. 
• However, it enabled him to invade Poland
without fear.
(pages 809–812)
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The German Path to War (cont.)
• On September 1, Germany invaded
Poland. 
• Two days later, Great Britain and France
declared war on Germany.
(pages 809–812)
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The Japanese Path to War
• In September 1931, Japanese soldiers
seized Manchuria. 
• The Japanese claimed that the Chinese
had attacked them. 
• In fact, the Japanese had staged the
attack themselves disguised as Chinese
soldiers. 
• When the League of Nations investigated
and condemned the attack, Japan
withdrew from the league. 
• For several years, Japan strengthened its
hold on Manchuria, which it renamed
Manchukuo.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• By the mid-1930s, militants had gained
control of Japanese politics. 
• The United States opposed the Japanese
takeover of Manchuria but did nothing to
stop it.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• Chiang Kai-shek tried to avoid a war with
Japan. 
• He was more concerned with the threat
from the Chinese Communists. 
• He tried to appease Japan by allowing the
Japanese to occupy parts of northern
China. 
• Japan moved steadily southward. 
• In December 1936, Chiang formed a
united front against the Japanese.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• In July 1937, the Chinese and Japanese
clashed south of Beijing. 
• The Japanese seized the capital of
Nanjing. 
• Chiang Kai-shek refused to surrender and
moved the capital.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• Japanese military leaders wanted to
establish a New Order in East Asia. 
• The order would include Japan,
Manchuria, and China. 
• The Japanese thought that, as the only
modernized country, they could guide
the other East Asian nations to prosperity.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• The Japanese planned to seize Soviet
Siberia. 
• During the 1930s, Japan began to
cooperate with Nazi Germany. 
• The Japanese thought that they and
Germany could defeat the Soviet Union
and divide its resources.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
forced the Japanese to rethink their goals. 
• The Japanese needed natural resources. 
• They looked to expand into Southeast Asia
for sources. 
• At the same time they knew that they
risked strong response from European
colonial powers and the United States. 
• They decided to take the risk.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• In 1940, the Japanese demanded the right
to exploit economic resources in French
Indochina. 
• The United States responded by imposing
economic sanctions, or restrictions on
trade that are intended to enforce
international law, unless Japan withdrew
to its borders of 1931.
(pages 812–813)
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The Japanese Path to War (cont.)
• The Japanese badly needed oil and scrap
iron from the United States. 
• The economic sanctions were a very
real threat. In the end, after long debate,
Japan decided to launch a surprise
attack on U.S. and European colonies
in Southeast Asia.
(pages 812–813)
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Europe at War
• The 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany
took just four weeks. 
• The speed and efficiency of the German
army stunned the world. 
• Called blitzkrieg (“lightning war”), the
Germans used panzer divisions (strike
forces of about 300 tanks and soldiers)
that were supported by airplanes. 
• On September 28, 1939, Germany and
the Soviet Union divided Poland.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• In the spring of 1940, Hitler invaded
Denmark and Norway. 
• In May, Germany attacked the
Netherlands, Belgium, and France. 
• The German armies broke through
French lines and moved across northern
France. 
• The French had fortified their border with
Germany along the Maginot Line, but the
Germans surprised them by going
around it.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• The Germans trapped the entire British
army and French forces on the beaches
of Dunkirk. 
• The British navy and private boats were
able to evacuate 338,000 Allied troops,
barely averting a complete disaster.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• On June 22, the French signed an
armistice with the Germans, who occupied
three-fifths of France. 
• An authoritarian French regime under
German control was set up to govern the
rest of the country. 
• Led by Marshal Henri Pétain, it was
named Vichy France. 
• Germany now controlled western and
central Europe. 
• Only Britain remained undefeated.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• The British asked the United States for
help. 
• The United States had a strict policy of
isolationism. 
• A series of neutrality acts passed in the
1930s prevented the United States from
involvement in European conflicts. 
• Though President Franklin D. Roosevelt
denounced the Germans, the United
States did nothing at first.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• Roosevelt wanted to repeal the neutrality
acts and help Great Britain. 
• Over time, the laws were slowly relaxed,
and the United States sent food, ships,
planes, and weapons to Britain.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• Hitler understood that he could not
attack Britain by sea unless he first
controlled the air. 
• In August 1940, the Luftwaffe–German air
force–began a major bombing offensive
against military targets in Britain. 
• Aided by a good radar system, the British
fought back but suffered critical losses.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• In September, Hitler retaliated to a British
attack on Berlin by shifting attacks from
military targets to British cities. 
• He hoped to break British morale.
However, the shift in strategy allowed the
British to rebuild their air power and inflict
crippling losses on the Germans. 
• Having lost the Battle of Britain, Hitler
postponed the invasion of Britain
indefinitely at the end of September.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• Hitler was convinced that the way to
defeat Britain was to first smash the
Soviet Union. 
• He thought that the British were resisting
only because they were expecting Soviet
support. 
• He also thought that the Soviets could be
easily defeated. 
• He planned to invade in the spring of
1941 but was delayed by problems in the
Balkans.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• After the Italians had failed to capture
Greece in 1940, the British still held air
bases there. 
• Hitler seized Greece and Yugoslavia in
April 1941.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• Then Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in
June 1941. 
• The attack on the Soviet Union stretched
out for 1,800 miles. 
• German troops moved quickly and
captured two million Russian soldiers by
November. 
• The Germans were within 25 miles of
Moscow.
(pages 814–817)
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Europe at War (cont.)
• However, winter came early in 1941 and,
combined with fierce Russian resistance,
forced the Germans to halt. 
• This marked the first time in the war that
the Germans had been stopped. 
• The Germans were not equipped for the
bitter Russian winter. 
• In December, the Soviet army
counterattacked.
(pages 814–817)
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Japan at War
• On December 7, 1941, the Japanese
attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl
Harbor in Hawaii. 
• They also attacked the Philippines and
the British colony of Malaya. 
• Soon after, they invaded the Dutch East
Indies and other islands in the Pacific
Ocean. 
• In spite of some fierce resistance in
places such as the Philippines, by the
spring of 1942, the Japanese controlled
almost all of Southeast Asia and much of
the western Pacific.
(pages 817–818)
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Japan at War (cont.)
• The Japanese created the Greater EastAsia Coprosperity Sphere, which included
the entire region under Japanese control. 
• Japan announced its intention to liberate
colonial nations in Southeast Asia, but it
first needed their natural resources. 
• The Japanese treated the occupied
countries as conquered lands.
(pages 817–818)
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Japan at War (cont.)
• The Japanese thought that their attacks
on the U.S. fleet would destroy the U.S.
Navy and lead the Americans to accept
Japanese domination in the Pacific. 
• However, the attack on Pearl Harbor had
the opposite effect. 
• It united the American people and
convinced the nation that it should enter
the war against Japan.
(pages 817–818)
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Japan at War (cont.)
• Hitler thought that the Americans
would be too involved in the Pacific
to fight in Europe. 
• Four days after Pearl Harbor, he declared
war on the United States. 
• World War II had become a global war.
(pages 817–818)
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The Allies Advance
• A new coalition was formed called the
Grand Alliance. 
• It included Great Britain, the Soviet Union,
and the United States. 
• The three nations agreed to focus on
military operations and ignore political
differences. 
• They agreed in 1943 to fight until the Axis
Powers–Germany, Italy, and Japan–
surrendered unconditionally.
(pages 818–821)
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The Allies Advance (cont.)
• At the beginning of 1942, the Germans
continued to fight the war against Britain
and the Soviet Union. 
• The Germans were also fighting in North
Africa. 
• The Afrika Korps under General Erwin
Rommel broke through British lines in
Egypt and advanced on Alexandria. 
• During the spring, the Germans captured
the entire Crimea in the Soviet Union.
(pages 818–821)
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The Allies Advance (cont.)
• By the fall of 1942, the war had turned
against the Germans. 
• In the summer of 1942, the British in
North Africa had stopped the Germans
at El Alamein. 
• The Germans retreated. 
• In November, British and American forces
invaded French North Africa and forced
the German and Italian troops to
surrender by May.
(pages 818–821)
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The Allies Advance (cont.)
• On the Eastern Front, Hitler decided to
attack Stalingrad, a major Soviet
industrial center. 
• Between November 1942 and February
1943 the Soviets counterattacked. 
• They surrounded the Germans and cut
off their supply lines. 
• In May, the Germans were forced to
surrender. 
• They lost some of their best troops. 
• Hitler then realized that he would not
defeat the Soviet Union.
(pages 818–821)
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The Allies Advance (cont.)
• In 1942, the Allies had their first
successes in the Pacific. 
• In the Battle of the Coral Sea in May,
American naval forces stopped the
Japanese and saved Australia from
invasion. 
• In June, the Battle of Midway Island
was the turning point in the Pacific war. 
• U.S. planes destroyed four Japanese
aircraft carriers and established naval
superiority.
(pages 818–821)
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The Allies Advance (cont.)
• By the fall of 1942, Allied forces were
about to begin two major operation plans
against Japan. 
• One, led by General Douglas MacArthur,
would move into the Philippines through
New Guinea and the South Pacific
Islands. 
• The other would move across the Pacific,
capturing some of the Japanese-held
islands and ending up in Japan. 
• By November 1942, after fierce battles in
the Solomon Islands, the Japanese power
was diminishing.
(pages 818–821)
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Last Years of the War
• By early 1943, the tide had turned against
the Axis forces. 
• In May, the Axis forces surrendered in
Tunisia. 
• The Allies then moved north and invaded
Italy in September. 
• Winston Churchill called Italy the “soft
underbelly” of Europe.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• After the Allies captured Sicily, Mussolini
was removed from office. 
• The king arrested him. 
• A new Italian government offered to
surrender to the Allies. 
• However, the Germans rescued Mussolini
and set him up as dictator of a puppet
German state in northern Italy.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• The Germans established a strong
defense south of Rome. 
• The Allies had very heavy casualties as
they slowly advanced north. 
• They did not take Rome until June 4,
1944. 
• The Allies had long been planning a
“second front” in western Europe. 
• They planned to invade France from Great
Britain across the English Channel. 
• On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), the Allies under
U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed
on the beaches in Normandy.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• Though the Germans were expecting the
invasion to take place in another location,
there was still heavy resistance. 
• However, because the Germans thought
the invasion was a diversion, they were
slow to respond. 
• This gave the Allies the chance to set up
a beachhead. 
• By landing two million men and a halfmillion vehicles, the Allies eventually
broke through the German lines.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• After the breakout, the Allies moved south
and east. 
• French resistance fighters rose up in
German-occupied Paris. 
• Paris was liberated by the end of August.
In March of 1945, the Allies crossed the
Rhine River. 
• In the north they linked up with the Soviet
army that was moving from the east.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• The Soviets had turned the tables on the
Germans in 1943. 
• They soundly defeated German troops in
July at the Battle of Kursk in a huge tank
battle. 
• Then they moved steadily westward.

• By the end of 1943, they had reoccupied
Ukraine. 
• By early 1944, they had moved into the
Baltic states.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• In the north, Soviet troops occupied
Warsaw in January 1945 and entered
Berlin in April. 
• Along a southern front, the Soviets swept
through Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• By January 1945, Hitler had moved into
an underground bunker in Berlin. 
• In the end he blamed the Jews for the
war. 
• On April 30, he committed suicide. 
• Two days before, Italian partisans–
resistance fighters–had shot Mussolini. 
• On May 7, 1945, German commanders
surrendered, and the war in Europe was
over.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• The war in Asia continued. Beginning in
1943, the Allied forces had gone on the
offensive and moved across the Pacific. 
• As the Allies came closer to the Japanese
home islands in 1945, U.S. president
Harry S Truman decided to drop atomic
bombs on Japanese cities. 
• He hoped that this would avoid an
invasion of Japan. 
• The first bomb was dropped on the city of
Hiroshima on August 6.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• Three days later, a second bomb was
dropped on Nagasaki. 
• Both cities were completely destroyed. 
• Thousands died immediately, and
thousands more died later of radiation
sickness. 
• The Japanese surrendered on August 14.
(pages 821–822)
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Last Years of the War (cont.)
• World War II was over. 
• Seventeen million people had died in
battle in World War II. 
• Some estimate that, including civilian
losses, as many as fifty million people
died in the war.
(pages 821–822)
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The New Order in Europe
• In 1942, the Nazis controlled Europe from
the English Channel in the west to near
Moscow in the east. 
• While Germany annexed some areas,
most were run by military or civilian
officials with help from local citizens who
supported them.
(pages 824–825)
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The New Order in Europe (cont.)
• The Nazis were especially ruthless in
eastern Europe. 
• The Nazis saw the Slavic peoples as
racially inferior. 
• The Nazis wanted the lands for German
settlers. 
• Soon after they conquered Poland, they
began to put their plans for an Aryan
racial empire into action.
(pages 824–825)
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The New Order in Europe (cont.)
• Heinrich Himmler, the SS leader, was put
in charge of German resettlement plans in
the east. 
• This meant to move Slavic people out and
replace them with Germans. 
• Beginning in western Poland, the
Germans moved one million Poles to
southern Poland. 
• By 1942, two million ethnic Germans had
been moved in to colonize the new
German provinces in Poland.
(pages 824–825)
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The New Order in Europe (cont.)
• When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union,
Hitler anticipated turning all the people
into slaves and inhabiting the conquered
lands with German peasants. 
• Himmler stated that German plans could
involve killing 30 million Slavs.
(pages 824–825)
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The New Order in Europe (cont.)
• Due to labor shortages in Germany, the
Nazis starting rounding up foreign workers
as slave labor. 
• By the summer of 1944, seven million
Europeans were laboring in Germany. 
• Another seven million were forced to work
in their own countries.
(pages 824–825)
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The New Order in Europe (cont.)
• Forced labor caused problems for the
Germans. 
• Bringing workers to Germany reduced the
number of workers left in occupied
countries. 
• The Germans’ brutal tactics led more and
more people to resist Nazi occupation
forces.
(pages 824–825)
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The Holocaust
• Hitler’s vision divided the world into the
Aryan race and those who would
destroy it. 
• He was convinced that the Jewish people
were the greatest threat to his Aryan
Empire. 
• He directed that Jews in Europe be
exterminated completely. 
• His plan was called the Final Solution.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• The SS under Himmler was responsible
for carrying out the Final Solution. 
• The Final Solution was genocide, or the
physical extermination, of the Jewish
people.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• Reinhard Heydrich was the head of the
SS’s Security Service. 
• He was in charge of the Final Solution. 
• He created special forces, called
Einsatzgruppen, to carry out Nazi plans. 
• When Poland fell, he ordered all Jews
rounded up and put in terribly crowded
ghettos in a number of cities. 
• The Nazis tried to starve the Jews. 
• Some of the ghettos organized resistance
against the Nazis.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• In June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen began
acting as mobile killing units. 
• They followed the army, rounded up all
Jews, and executed them. 
• They buried the victims in mass graves.
Perhaps one million Jews were killed in
this way. 
• However, the Nazis found that this
process was too slow.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• The next step was to build death camps. 
• Beginning in 1942, Jews from countries
occupied by or sympathetic to Germany
were transported to Poland in freight
trains like cattle. 
• Six death camps were built in Poland. 
• The largest was Auschwitz. 
• About 30 percent of the arrivals were sent
to work in a labor camps. 
• Many of those were starved or worked to
death. 
• The rest were exterminated in mass gas
(pages 825–828)
chambers.
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• By the spring of 1942, the death camps
were fully operating. 
• Throughout the war, the Final Solution
continued to have top priority. 
• Even as the Nazis were losing the war
in 1944, Jews were being shipped from
Greece and Hungary to the death camps. 
• The Final Solution had priority over the
military for trains.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• The Nazis were also responsible for the
deaths of at least nine to ten million nonJewish people. 
• About 40 percent of Europe’s Gypsies
were killed, as were Poles, Ukrainians,
and Belorussians who lost their lives as
slave laborers. 
• The Nazis also probably killed at least
three to four million Soviet prisoners of
war.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• This mass slaughter of European civilians,
particularly European Jews, is called the
Holocaust. 
• In a few places, Jews resisted. 
• In some countries, people tried to help
Jews to escape from the Nazis. 
• The Danish people were able to protect
most of their Jewish citizens. 
• In many places, collaborators (people
who assisted the enemy) helped the
Nazis find Jews.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• Though the Allies knew about the death
camps, they chose to concentrate on
ending the war. 
• They did not learn the full truth until the
war was over.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• Young people of all ages were victims of
World War II. 
• Jewish children were the first to be put to
death in the gas chambers because they
could not work. 
• 1.2 million Jewish children died in the
Holocaust. 
• In Germany, Britain, and Japan, many
children were moved from cities that
were being bombed. 
• Some who were evacuated never saw
their parents again.
(pages 825–828)
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The Holocaust (cont.)
• By 1945 there were 13 million orphaned
children in Europe. 
• In Eastern Europe, children suffered
terribly. 
• All secondary schools were closed
because the Germans did not think Slavic
people needed more than a very basic
education. 
• Children on both sides, particularly at the
end of the war, joined the fighting. 
• Sometimes 14- or 15-year-old children
were at the front lines or worked as spies.
(pages 825–828)
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The New Order in Asia
• Japan hoped to use its newly conquered
countries as sources of raw materials,
such as tin, oil, and rubber. 
• The possessions would also provide a
market for Japanese goods.
(pages 828–829)
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The New Order in Asia (cont.)
• The Japanese used the slogan “Asia for
the Asiatics.” 
• They contacted anticolonialist forces and
promised them that local governments
would be set up under Japanese control. 
• This happened in Burma, the Dutch East
Indies, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 
• However, each territory was actually run
by the Japanese military. 
• Local people were forced to serve in the
military or work on public works projects.
(pages 828–829)
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The New Order in Asia (cont.)
• In Vietnam, the Japanese took rice from
the people. 
• A million people starved to death in 1944
and 1945. 
• At first, many Southeast Asian nationalists
cooperated with the Japanese. 
• Their attitudes changed as the Japanese
provoked local people through their
arrogance and contempt for local
customs. 
• For example, Buddhist pagodas in Burma
were used as military latrines.
(pages 828–829)
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The New Order in Asia (cont.)
• Like the Germans, the Japanese had little
respect for the lives of people in occupied
countries. 
• In Nanjing, China, the Japanese soldiers
looted the city and killed and raped its
people. 
• The Japanese used labor forces
composed of prisoners of war and local
peoples. 
• In one case, 12,000 Allied prisoners of
war died while constructing the BurmaThailand railway in 1943.
(pages 828–829)
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The New Order in Asia (cont.)
• Nationalists in occupied countries were
conflicted. 
• They did not want the former colonial
powers to return, but they did not like
the Japanese either. 
• Some, like Ho Chi Minh in French
Indochina, turned against the Japanese
and worked with the Allies. 
• Others simply did nothing. 
• By the end of the war, few people in
occupied Asian countries supported
the Japanese.
(pages 828–829)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples
• Even more than World War I, World War
II was a total war. 
• Economic mobilization was more
extensive. 
• The war had an enormous impact on
civilian life in many parts of the world.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• In the Soviet Union initial defeats led to
drastic emergency measures. 
• For example, Leningrad was under siege
for nine hundred days. 
• Over a million people died there due to
food shortages. 
• People had to eat dogs, cats, and mice.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• Soviet workers dismantled factories in the
west and shipped them to the east, out of
the way of the attacking German army. 
• At times workers ran machines as new
factory buildings were built up around
them.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• The military and industrial mobilization of
the Soviet Union produced 78,000 tanks
and 98,000 artillery pieces. 
• In 1943, 55 percent of the national income
went to war materials. 
• As a result there were severe shortages
of food and housing.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• Soviet women were an important part of
the war effort. Women working in industry
increased 60 percent. 
• They worked in industries, mines, and
railroads. 
• They dug antitank ditches and worked
as air raid wardens. 
• Some fought in battles and flew in
bombers.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• The war did not come to the home territory
of the United States. 
• The country became an arsenal for the
Allies. 
• The United States produced much of the
military equipment needed to fight the
Axis. 
• In 1943, the United States was building
six ships a day and ninety-six thousand
planes per year.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• The American mobilization created some
social turmoil. 
• There were widespread movements of
people. 
• For example, many women and men
enrolled in the military moved frequently. 
• Also, as millions of servicemen and
workers looking for jobs moved around,
their wives and children or girlfriends
often moved with them.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• African Americans were profoundly
impacted by the war. 
• Over a million African Americans moved
from the South to cities in the North and
West to work in war industries. 
• At times the influx of African Americans
led to social tensions and even violence. 
• A million African Americans joined the
military. 
• They served in segregated units. Angered
by their treatment, many returned from the
war ready to fight for their civil rights.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• Japanese Americans on the West Coast
were moved to internment camps away
from the ocean. 
• Sixty-five percent of them had been born
in the United States. 
• In spite of that, they were required to take
loyalty oaths and were forced to live in
camps surrounded by barbed wire.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• The government claimed to do this for
national security. 
• Of American descendants of the Axis
Power countries, Japanese Americans
were the only group to be put into camps.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• In 1939 in Germany, many civilians feared
that the war would bring disaster. 
• Hitler understood the importance of the
home front. 
• He believed that lack of civilian support
had led to the German defeat in World
War I. 
• To keep up public morale, Hitler refused
to cut consumer-goods production for
the first two years of the war.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• This decision may have cost Germany
the war. 
• After defeats on the Russian front, the
policy changed.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• Early in 1942, Hitler increased arms
production and the size of the army. 
• Albert Speer became minister for
armaments and munitions. 
• He tripled armament production between
1942 and 1943. 
• In July 1944, the German economy was
totally mobilized. 
• Schools, theaters, and cafes were closed. 
• However, this came too late to avoid
defeat.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• Before the war, the Nazis tried to keep
women out of the job market. As the war
progressed, more and more men had to
serve in the military. 
• The Nazis changed their policies and
encouraged women to work. 
• However, the number of working women
increased very little between 1939 and
1944.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• Wartime Japan was a highly mobilized
society. 
• The government controlled prices, wages,
labor, and resources. 
• Citizens were encouraged to sacrifice for
the national cause. 
• In the final years of the war, young
Japanese volunteered to serve as suicide
pilots against U.S. ships. 
• They were called kamikaze (“divine wind”)
pilots.
(pages 830–832)
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The Mobilization of Peoples:
Four Examples (cont.)
• The Japanese government opposed
employing women. 
• General Hideki Tojo, the Japanese prime
minister from 1941 to 1944, argued that
employing women would weaken the
family system and the nation. 
• Female employment increased only in
areas in which women had traditionally
worked, such as textiles and farming. 
• The Japanese met labor shortages by
using Korean and Chinese laborers.
(pages 830–832)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities
• Bombing was used against military
targets, enemy troops, and civilian
populations. 
• World War II was the first war in which
large masses of civilians were bombed.
(pages 833–834)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities (cont.)
• Toward the end of World War I, there had
been a few bombing raids against civilian
targets. 
• The raids had caused great public outcry. 
• After the war, European nations began
to think that bombing civilian targets could
be used to force governments to make
peace. 
• During the 1930s, European nations
developed long-range bombers.
(pages 833–834)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities (cont.)
• The first sustained civilian bombing was
done by the Germans against London. 
• For months, the Germans bombed the city
nightly. 
• There were heavy casualties and
tremendous damage. 
• In time, the blitz, as the bombing was
called, was carried to other British cities. 
• In spite of the heavy bombing, British
morale remained high.
(pages 833–834)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities (cont.)
• The idea that bombing civilians would
force peace was proved wrong. 
• In 1942, the British began major bombing
campaigns against German cities. 
• Ignoring their own experience, the British
hoped that the bombing would break the
morale of the German people. 
• Thousands of bombers were used to
attack major German cities.
(pages 833–834)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities (cont.)
• The bombing of Germany added to civilian
terror. 
• The Germans particularly feared
incendiary bombs, which spread fire when
they exploded. 
• In some cities, such as Dresden,
enormous firestorms resulted from the
bombing, killing hundreds of thousands of
people and burning everything that could
burn.
(pages 833–834)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities (cont.)
• The bombing of Germany by the Allies
may have killed a half-million civilians. 
• Millions of buildings were destroyed. 
• In spite of the terrible destruction, the
bombing did not seem to sap the morale of
the German people or destroy the German
industrial capacity. 
• However, the destruction of transportation
systems and fuel supplies strongly
impacted the ability of the Germans to
supply their military forces.
(pages 833–834)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities (cont.)
• In November 1944, the Allies began
attacks on Japanese cities. 
• By that time, the Japanese air force
could no longer defend Japan. 
• The crowded Japanese cities, filled
with highly combustible structures,
were especially vulnerable. 
• By the following summer, a fourth of
Japanese dwellings and many of its
industries had been destroyed .
(pages 833–834)
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Frontline Civilians: The Bombing
of Cities (cont.)
• The bombing of civilians then reached
an unprecedented level when the United
States dropped atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
1945.
(pages 833–834)
Peace and a New War
• After the end of World War II, a new
international conflict emerged, the Cold
War. 
• The Cold War was primarily an ideological
conflict between the United States and the
Soviet Union. It dominated world politics
until the end of the 1980s.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• In November 1943, Stalin, Churchill, and
Roosevelt met in Tehran to decide the
future course of the war. 
• Their countries were known as the Big
Three of the Grand Alliance. 
• The Big Three decided that the Americans
and British would attack Germany through
France in 1944. 
• They would then meet the Soviet forces
somewhere in a defeated Germany.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• This meant the Soviet troops would
probably liberate most of Eastern Europe. 
• They also agreed to partition postwar
Germany.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• In February of 1945, the Big Three powers
met at Yalta in southern Russia. 
• By that time, they knew that the Germans
were beaten. 
• Roosevelt and Churchill realized that
eleven million Soviet troops were taking
possession of much of Eastern and
Central Europe. 
• Roosevelt favored the idea of selfdetermination for postwar Europe.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• This meant that each country would
choose its own form of government. 
• Stalin was suspicious of the Western
powers and wanted a Communist buffer
between the West and the Soviet Union. 
• Roosevelt also sought Soviet military help
against Japan. 
• In return for military aid, Roosevelt agreed
that the Soviets could take Sakhalin and
the Kuril Islands, two warm-water ports,
and railroad rights in Manchuria.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• Roosevelt wanted to create the United
Nations organization to help resolve
difficult international disagreements. 
• The Big Three powers at Yalta accepted
his plans and set the founding meeting of
the United Nations for April 1945, in San
Francisco.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• The Big Three also confirmed at the Yalta
Conference that Germany would have to
surrender unconditionally. 
• They agreed to divide Germany into four
zones. 
• The zones would be occupied and
governed by France, Britain, the United
States, and the Soviet Union. 
• Stalin agreed to hold free elections in
Poland at some future date.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• The Soviets and the Americans were
deeply split about free elections in Eastern
Europe. 
• The Soviets wanted these nations to be
pro-Soviet. 
• The Americans wanted free elections. 
• These conflicting goals were never
reconciled.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• The Potsdam Conference was held in July
1945. 
• Roosevelt had died in April and was
replaced by Harry Truman. 
• Truman demanded that free elections be
held throughout Eastern Europe. 
• Stalin refused to concede. Stalin wanted
absolute military security for his country. 
• He thought this could only happen if all
the Eastern European states had
Communist governments.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• He saw free elections as a direct threat. 
• The only way to force free elections in
Eastern Europe would have been to
invade the Soviet-held territory. 
• As World War II had just ended, very
few people favored that course. 
• The Allies agreed that leaders who had
committed crimes against humanity during
the war should be tried for their crimes. 
• In 1945 and 1946, Nazi leaders were tried
and condemned at trials in Nuremberg,
Germany. Trials were also held in Japan
(pages 834–836)
and Italy.Click the mouse button or press the
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• In 1945 and 1946, Nazi leaders were tried
and condemned at trials in Nuremberg,
Germany. Trials were also held in Japan
and Italy. 
• Many Western leaders thought that the
Soviets intended to spread communism
throughout the world. 
• The Soviets saw Western policy,
particularly that of the United States, as
global capitalist expansionism.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• In March 1946, Winston Churchill
declared that an “iron curtain” had
“descended across the continent.” 
• This iron curtain divided Europe into two
hostile sides. 
• Stalin responded by calling Churchill’s
speech a “call to war with the Soviet
Union.” 
• The world seemed to be bitterly divided
again.
(pages 834–836)
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Peace and a New War (cont.)
• The Allies agreed that leaders who
committed crimes against humanity during
the war should be tried for their crimes. In
1945 and 1946, Nazi leaders were tried
and condemned at trials in Nuremberg,
Germany. Trials were also held in Japan
and Italy.
(pages 834–836)
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