Download Chapters 30-31: The Great Depression, World War II

The Great Depression and World War II
1929 - 1946
The 1920s: Temporary Prosperity
 Optimism and prosperity in the 1920s led many to hope that
large scale conflict could be avoided.
 This hope ended abruptly in October, 1929, with the onset of
the Great Depression.
The Great Depression’s Causes
 After effects of World War I
 Overproduction
 Tariffs and other trade barriers
 Stock market crash
 Bank failures in the US and other countries
The Great Depression (1929-1941)
The New York Stock Exchange in
October, 1929
Bank Failures
The Dust Bowl
Responses to the Great Depression
 The enormous economic decline led many western
governments to take greater control over their nation’s
economies.
 Many saw the Depression as evidence that democratic
governments and capitalism were incapable of solving
problems or meeting the needs of modern society.
US reaction to the Depression
 Under President Franklin D.
Roosevelt the US enacted a
reform program known as the
New Deal.
 The New Deal expanded
government powers and
regulated the US economy
more closely than ever before.
 Programs such as Social
Security were designed to
help Americans through the
worst effects of the Great
Depression and, it was hoped,
prevent another.
Western European Reactions
 Social Democratic
governments were elected in
Scandinavia. They were
socialist but democratic.
 In England, the Labour Party
took power
 France’s government was led
by the Popular Front, a mixture
of socialist and moderate
parties.
 These governments attempted
to help end the Depression by
taking more power over their
economies
The Soviet Union
 Because its economy was
independent and did not
depend on external trade, the
Soviet Union had few
economic troubles during the
1930s.
 Joseph Stalin boasted that this
demonstrated the superiority
of socialism over capitalism,
and some Westerners agreed.
 Stalin’s Five Year Plans and
focus on heavy industry and
militarization made the Soviet
Union a powerful force.
Japan
 Japan had fought on the Allied
side during World War I, but
was disappointed with its
treatment by the other powers
afterwards.
 By the 1930s, military leaders
or warlords had taken power.
 Japan began to construct the
Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere, promising
“Asia for the Asiatics.”
Germany
 After World War I Germany’s
economy was devastated, its
territory shrunken, and its
military force depleted.
 Many Germans felt their
country had been badly
treated by the Treaty of
Versailles, and were eager for
revenge.
 The Great Depression made
Germany’s situation worse,
and many Germans looked to
new leadership.
The German Mark
The German Mark
The “Stabbed-in-the-Back” Theory
Disgruntled German WWI veterans
Adolf Hitler
 Born 1889, Austria
 Obsessed with German racial
superiority
 Anti-Semitic
 World War I veteran, took
leadership of the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party (Nazi) in
early 1920s
 Attempted to seize power in 1923,
but was imprisoned.
 Wrote Mein Kampf
 Appointed Chancellor after Nazis
won the German elections in
January, 1933.
The Third Reich
By 1934 Hitler had taken total power and
become Der Fuhrer, or “The Leader” of
Germany
He began to remilitarize Germany in defiance
of the Versailles Treaty.
Anti-Semitic Decrees first separated the Jews
from the Germans, then began to limit their
rights, eventually leading to the Holocaust.
Nazi Propaganda
Anti-Semitism
The Road to World War II
 Many point to the Japanese invasion of
Manchuria in Northern China in 1931 as the true
beginning of World War II.
 During the 1930s, Mussolini’s Italy invaded and
conquered Ethiopia, Japan continued to invade
and conquer China, and Germany made
aggressive moves towards war
 The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1938 was
another omen of greater conflicts to come.
“Guernica”
by Pablo Picasso
Germany Invades the Rhineland
March 7, 1936
The Austrian Anschluss, 1938
The Japanese Invasion
of China, 1937
The “Problem” of the
Sudetenland
Appeasement: The Munich
Agreement, 1938
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
“Now we have “peace in our time!” Herr Hitler
is a man we can do business with.”
Rome-Berlin Axis, 1939
The “Pact of Steel”
The Nazi-Soviet
Non-Aggression Pact, 1939
Foreign Ministers
von Ribbentrop & Molotov
Poland Attacked: Sept. 1, 1939
Blitzkrieg [“Lightning War”]
The “Phony War” Ends:
Spring, 1940
Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis:
The Tripartite Pact
September, 1940
Battle of Britain:
The “Blitz”
British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Operation Barbarossa:
Hitler’s Biggest Mistake
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor - Dec. 7, 1941
“A date which will live in infamy…”
Pacific Theater of Operations
Allied Counter-Offensive:
“Island-Hopping”
“Island-Hopping”: US Troops on
Kwajalien Island
Battle of Midway Island:
June 4-6, 1942
Axis Powers in 1942
Battle of Stalingrad:
Winter of 1942-1943
German Army
Russian Army
1,011,500 men
1,000,500 men
10,290 artillery guns
13,541 artillery guns
675 tanks
894 tanks
1,216 planes
1,115 planes
The Italian Campaign
[“Operation Torch”] :
Europe’s “Soft Underbelly”
• Allies plan assault
on weakest Axis
area - North
Africa - Nov.
1942-May 1943
• George S. Patton
leads American
troops
• Germans trapped
in Tunisia surrender over
275,000 troops.
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
Normandy Landing
(June 6, 1944)
German Prisoners
Higgins Landing Crafts
The Liberation of Paris:
August 25, 1944
De Gaulle in
Triumph!
The Battle of the Bulge:
Hitler’s Last Offensive
Dec. 16, 1944
to
Jan. 28, 1945
US & Russian Soldiers Meet at the
Elbe River: April 25, 1945
Horrors of the Holocaust Exposed
Horrors of the Holocaust Exposed
Entrance to
Auschwitz
Crematoria
at Majdanek
Horrors of the Holocaust Exposed
Slave Labor at Buchenwald
Horrors of the Holocaust Exposed
Mass Graves at Bergen-Belsen
Hitler Commits Suicide
April 30, 1945
Cyanide & Pistols
The Führer’s Bunker
Mr. & Mrs. Hitler
V-E Day (May 8, 1945)
General Keitel
Japanese Kamikaze Planes:
The Scourge of the South Pacific
Kamikaze Pilots
Suicide Bombers
US Marines on Mt. Suribachi,
Iwo Jima [Feb. 19, 1945]
The Manhattan Project:
Los Alamos, NM
Major General
Lesley R. Groves
Dr. Robert
Oppenheimer
‘I am become
death,
the destroyer
of worlds!”
Hiroshima – August 6, 1945
• 70,000 killed
immediately.
• 48,000 buildings.
destroyed.
• 100,000s died of
radiation poisoning
and cancer.
Nagasaki – August 9, 1945
• 40,000 killed
immediately.
• 60,000 injured.
• 100,000s died of
radiation poisoning
and cancer.
Japanese A-Bomb Survivors
End of the War (September 2,
1945)
V-J Day in Times Square, NYC