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AP EH CH. 27---THE DEEPENING OF THE EUROPEAN CRISIS: WW II
I.
PRELUDE TO WAR (1933-1939)
---the efforts at collective security in the 1920s---the League of Nations, the
attempts at disarmament, the pacts and the treaties---all proved
meaningless in view of the growth of Nazi Germany and its deliberate
scrapping of the postwar settlement in the 1930s
---World War II was largely made possible by the failure of Britain and
France to oppose strongly flagrant German violations of the Treaty of
Versailles
A. The Role of Hitler
1. WW II in Europe had its beginnings in the ideas of Adolf Hitler, who
believed that only Aryans were capable of building a great
civilization
2. Hitler was a firm believer in the doctrine of Lebensraum which
stated that a nation’s power depended on the amount and kind of
land it occupied
3. Hitler thought that the Russian Revolution created conditions for
Germany’s acquisition of land to its “racially inferior Slavic” east
(Mein Kampf spelled out Hitler’s desire to expand eastward and to
prepare for the inevitable war with the “Bolshevik Jew-led” Soviet
Union)
4. Hitler always returned to his basic ideological plans for racial
supremacy and empire as keys to the blueprint for achieving his
goals
5. Hitler’s desire to create an Aryan empire led to slave labor and even
mass extermination on a scale that would have been
incomprehensible to previous generations of Germans (or anybody
else outside of Uncle Joe’s reach)
B. The “Diplomatic Revolution” (1933-1936)
1. between 1933 and 1936, Hitler and Nazi Germany achieved a
diplomatic revolution in Europe
2. For Hitler, it was most important that Germany build a large army
and seek to expand its territory
a. Obstacles to Hitler
1. Treaty of Versailles created a demilitarized zone on
Germany’s western border that would allow the French to
move into the heavily industrialized parts of Germany in the
event of a war
2. Treaty of Versailles also limited Germany to a 100,000 man
army with no air force and limited naval capabilities
3. Poland and Czechoslovakia had defensive treaties with
France
b. Advantages of Hitler
1. Germany had the 2nd largest population in Europe
2. Germany still possessed a great industrial capacity
3. Hitler was aware that Great Britain and France, dismayed by
the costs and losses of WW I, wanted to avoid another war
c. In order for Hitler to achieve his goals, he had to convince the
rest of Europe that his intentions were peaceful
3. during his first two years in office, Hitler pursued a prudent foreign
policy without unnecessary risks
4. Hitler emphasized that Germany wished only to revise the unfair
provisions of Versailles by peaceful means and achieve Germany’s
rightful place among the European states
5. Hitler’s first dramatic acts as head of the German state were
withdrawal of Germany from the Geneva Disarmament Conference
and withdrawal from the League of Nations
6. by the beginning of 1935, Hitler became convinced that Germany
could break some of the provisions of the Versailles Treaty without
serious opposition from the French or British
7. on March 9, 1935, Hitler announced the creation of a new air force
and, one week later, the introduction of a military draft that would
expand the army from 100,000 to 550,000 troops (actions brought
swift verbal rebukes from the French, British, and Italians but
nothing else)
8. on March 7, 1936, Hitler made his first act of aggression when he
sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland
9. France would not respond to German troops being sent into the
Rhineland without British support and the London Times summed
up British sentiments when it noted that the Germans were only
“going into their own back garden.”
10. as Hitler’s popularity grew with each success, Germany, who had
become closer to Italy after their joint effort in the Spanish Civil War,
signed treaties with both Italy and later Japan
11. as Germany grew stronger by the end of 1936, Hitler decided to
initiate an even more aggressive foreign policy
C. The Path to War (1937-1939)
1. at a secret conference with his military leaders on November 5,
1937, Hitler stated that Germany’s ultimate goal must be the
conquest of living space in the east
2. Neville Chamberlain becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain in May
of 1936 pleased Hitler to no end
a. the new prime minister advocated a policy of appeasement and
believed the survival of the British Empire depended upon an
accommodation of Germany (believed the policy would maintain
peace and stability)
b. Chamberlain made it known to Hitler in November of 1937 that he
would not oppose changes in central Europe, provided they were
carried out peacefully
3. through coercion, Hitler forcibly annexed Austria on March 13, 1938
4. Hitler next turned his attention to Czechoslovakia
a. initially, Hitler demanded that the Czechs make its formerly
German Sudetenland region, which was home to 3 million ethnic
Germans, autonomous
b. on September 15, 1938, Hitler threatened war if the Sudetenland
was not ceded to Germany outright
c. Czechoslovakia was formidable due to its extensive frontier
defenses along its mountainous border with Germany and Czech
defensive treaties with both France and the Soviet Union
II.
d. on September 29, 1938, the hastily arranged Munich Conference
met in an effort to avoid war
1. the conference was attended by the British, French, Germans,
and Italians (Russians and Czechs were not invited)
2. the conference essentially gave in to Hitler on all of his
demands in return for his promise that he had made his last
territorial demand
3. Chamberlain, at the conference’s conclusion, stated that the
agreement meant “peace for our time” (the agreement was
criticized by Winston Churchill as the tragic outcome of
appeasement since weak western powers abandoned their
former Czech ally in the face of vicious Nazi aggression)
4. Munich convinced Hitler once and for all that the western
democracies were weak and would not fight
e. using internal disorder that he helped orchestrate as a pretext,
Hitler seized the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia in March,
1939
5. when Hitler began demanding the return of Danzig from Poland later
in 1939, England and France finally recognized Germany’s lust for
territory as a threat and gave assurances to Poland that they would
come to its aid if attacked
6. fearing the consequences of a two-front war, Hitler signed a “NonAggression Pact” with its longtime nemesis the Soviet Union on
August 23, 1939
7. the Soviets, who previously had tried to make an alliance with the
west against Hitler, agreed to a secret protocol with the Germans
that would divide Eastern Europe into spheres of influence
a. Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and eastern Poland would go
to the Soviets
b. Germany would receive western Poland and the freedom to
attack Poland
8. on September 1, 1939, World War II began when German forces
attacked Poland
9. on September 3, 1939, France and Great Britain declared war on
Germany
THE COURSE OF WORLD WAR II
A. Victory and Stalemate
1. in a little under one month’s time, Hitler took Poland using the new
Blitzkrieg or “lightning war” tactics (Panzer [tank ]divisions
supported by the Luftwaffe [air force] with the Wehrmacht [army]
securing the ground seized) and with the active support from
Russian tyrant Joseph Stalin’s Red Army which moved into eastern
Poland on September 17
2. despite declaring war on Germany, England and France refused to
go on the offensive against Germany in 1939, remaining relatively
inactive, as they prepared to fight a defensive WW I-style war.
3. the French were content to wait for the Germans to attack France’s
sophisticated line of eastern defenses known as the Maginot Line
4. during the winter that followed the September conquest of Poland,
there was little activity on either the German or Franco-British sides
(part of the war often referred to as the “phony war” or “sitzkrieg”)
5. in April of 1940, sitzkrieg became blitzkrieg as Germany
successfully invaded Denmark then Norway
6. German victories in Denmark and Norway coincided with a change
of government in Great Britain (Chamberlain was replaced by
Winston Churchill as Prime Minister)
7. on May 10, 1940, Hitler launched an attack which cut through the
Netherlands, Belgium, and eventually France (German entrance into
France via the Ardennes caught the French and British by surprise)
8. German panzer divisions broke through the weak French defensive
positions there outflanking the Maginot Line (German advance
encircled French troops in Northeastern France and trapped the
entire British army on the beaches of Dunkirk, France)
9. at Dunkirk, the British used any seaworthy vessel it could get its
hands on to evacuate the British Army; 336,000 soldiers were safely
evacuated but they were forced to leave much of their military
equipment behind (bad defeat for Allies but could have been much
worse)
10. on June 5, 1940, the Germans launched a new offensive into the
French interior; by June 22, the overwhelmed French were forced to
surrender (Vichy government under Marshal Petain was set up as a
puppet state collaborating in German war crimes)
11. Hitler’s hope that Great Britain could be persuaded to make peace
went unfulfilled with the stubbornly determined Churchill in charge
of Great Britain
12. Hitler and his generals devised Operation Sea Lion to invade and
conquer Great Britain (plan relied the Luftwaffe gaining control of
the skies)
13. in August 1940, the German Luftwaffe had done extensive damage
to Great Britain’s military capabilities
14. in September 1940, Hitler made a huge mistake by no longer
targeting military installations but British cities instead (wanted to
break British morale and retaliate for a British bombing mission on
Berlin)
15. this fateful change in strategy along with the development of British
radar allowed the British to successfully end the threat of German
invasion by the end of September, 1940
16. at this point, Hitler pursued the possibility of a Mediterranean
strategy, which would involve capturing Egypt and the Suez Canal
and closing the Mediterranean to British ships, thereby cutting
Britain off from its oil supply (Hitler’s commitment to the
Mediterranean strategy was never wholehearted)
17. in the Spring of 1941, the Germans made a swing through
southeastern Europe in an effort to pacify the region since the
Italians were not up to the task (delayed the planned Spring
offensive against Russia)
18. on June 22, 1941, Germany launched a massive attack along an
1,800 mile front on the Soviet Union called Operation Barbarossa
19. Stalin and Russia were caught by surprise (Stalin was in complete
seclusion for over a day after the attack and 2 million Russian
soldiers were captured in a matter of days)
20. by November, one German army group had swept through the
Ukraine toward the Caucasian oil fields, another German army had
laid siege to Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg), and a third German
army moved within 25 miles of Moscow
21. an early Russian winter and hardening Russian resistance brought a
halt to the German advance
22. War in Asia
a. the war in Asia arose from the ambitions of Japan, whose rise to
the status of world power had been swift
b. by 1933, the Japanese Empire included Korea, Manchuria,
Formosa (Taiwan), and the Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana
Islands in the Pacific (supplied Japan with natural resources)
c. much of Japan’s ability to feed its ever-growing population (more
than doubled to 80 million in less than 70 years) and to pay for
industrial raw materials depended upon the manufacture of
heavy industrial goods and textiles
d. Western protective tariffs of the 1930s designed to protect their
own economies devastated the Japanese economy
e. the need for more resources sparked Japan’s invasion of
Northern China in July of 1937
f. Japan moved aggressively against India, Burma, Malaya,
Indonesia
g. responding to the US cutting off sales of vital scrap iron and oil
to Japan in response to Japanese aggression, Japan attacked
the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (surprise
attack killed 2,300 Americans; disabled 8 battleships [sinking the
Arizona and Oklahoma outright]) Mention: Adm. Husband
Kimmel/aircraft carriers
h. US declared war on Japan the next day; Germany declared war
on the US three days later.
B. The Turning Point of the War (1942-1943)
1. Allied Powers
a. the entry of the US into the war created a coalition
called the Grand Alliance or also called the Allied
Powers which consisted primarily of Great Britain,
Soviet Union, and United States
b. agreed to put aside political differences and
concentrate on military operations
c. even after Pearl Harbor, agreed that the first objective
was to defeat Germany then defeat Japan
d. agreed to fight until the Axis Powers surrendered
unconditionally (cemented the bond of the Allied
Powers; made it almost impossible for Hitler to divide
his foes)
2. Axis Powers
a. consisted primarily of Germany, Japan, Italy
b. despite Hitler’s fatal mistake of declaring war on the
US, he still had reason for optimism early in 1942
1. in North Africa, Gen. Erwin Rommel’s Afrika
Korps was advancing steadily across northern
Africa and appeared poised to seize Egypt and
the Suez Canal
2. in the North Atlantic, German submarines were
extremely successful at harassing Allied supply
lines crossing the Atlantic
3. in Russia, the German Wehrmacht began a
spring offensive which led to the capturing of
the entire Crimea which opened up all of South
Asia to possible Nazi invasion
c. the tide turns
1. Battle of El Alamein (1942)
a. in the summer of 1942, Gen. Bernard
Montgomery and his British 8th Army turned
back Rommel at El Alamein just west of
Cairo
b. from this point on, Rommel’s Afrika Korps
was on the defensive and in retreat
2. combined with US forces under the command
of Gen. George S. Patton, the British under
Montgomery were able to vanquish the
Germans and Italians from North Africa by May
of 1943
3. Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943)
a. Hitler’s generals wanted to focus on the
Caucasus region and its oil fields, but Hitler
ordered the capture of the city of Stalingrad,
a major industrial center
b. under the command of Gen. Friedrich
Paulus and supported by Italian, Hungarian,
and Romanian units , the German 6th Army
and 4th Panzer Division were ordered to take
the city
c. the support units were a detriment as the
Soviet counterattack ripped through them
stopping and then encircling Paulus’ 6th
Army
d. Paulus wanted to pull back but Hitler
ordered him to stay put because
reinforcements were on the way
e. Reinforcements fell well short of making a
difference, and Paulus was forced to
surrender in February, 1943 (300,000 troops)
f. the loss forced the Germans to fall back to
their pre-Spring of 1942 offensive lines
g. decisive battle of the European theater
4. the tide of battle also turned dramatically in the
Pacific
a. Battle of the Coral Sea (May 7-8) in 1942,
was a hard fought Allied victory which
protected Australia from a potential
Japanese invasion
b. Battle of Midway (June 4) in 1942 was the
decisive naval battle of the Pacific theater
c. American planes destroyed all four
Japanese aircraft carriers, stopping the
Japanese advance in the Pacific and
establishing American naval superiority in
the Pacific for the remainder of the war
C. The Last Years of the War
1. by the beginning of 1943, the tide of battle had turned against
Germany, Italy and Japan, but it would take a long time to achieve
the goal of unconditional surrender
2. the Mediterranean
a. the Axis forces surrendered in Tunisia on May 13, 1943 which
opened up Sicily and eventually Italy to Allied invasion
b. despite being referred to as the “soft underbelly” by Churchill,
Allied advances were very slow after conquering Sicily (due to
the extremely effective defensive lines of the Germans up the
Italian Peninsula)
c. Rome finally fell on June 4, 1944 after the Allied forces had
suffered high casualties
3. Western Europe
a. Stalin demanded that the Americans and British take pressure
off his Red Army which was doing the lion share of the fighting
against the Germans by opening a new battlefront front in
western Europe
b. The Germans expected an Allied invasion in northern France
near the French port city of Calais where Hitler had Rommel’s 7th
Army (Eisenhower, Commander of Allied forces in Europe had
other ideas)
c. “Operation Overlord”
1. name given to the Allied amphibious invasion plan of western
Europe
2. after first having softened German defenses with an air
assault, the amphibious attack took place on June 6, 1944
further south than the Germans expected on the beaches of
Normandy, France (125,000 American and British soldiers
stormed the beaches that day with a high cost of life)
3. the Germans were not able to stop the landing due to Allied
paratroopers being dropped behind enemy lines that
disrupted communications and Hitler’s decision to delay
Rommel’s force being shifted to Normandy from Calais for
several critical days because he was still convinced that
Calais was still where the main invasion would take place
d. the Allies launched a “reverse blitzkrieg” against the Germans
which crushed the German 7th Army and liberated Paris on
August 25, 1944
e. by the Fall of 1944, it appeared the war in Europe may be over by
Christmas
f. Battle of the Bulge
1. last major German offensive of WW II
III.
2. launched in the Ardennes by General Gerd von Rundstedt on
December 16, 1944 in the middle of a terrible blizzard in an
effort to split and destroy Allied forces
3. offensive ground to a halt at Bastogne and was repulsed
when the weather broke and General George S. Patton with
air support launched the counterattack which for all intensive
purposes finished off the Germans in the west
g. by March 1945, Allied armies had crossed the Rhine River and
advanced further into Germany
h. by April 1945, American and Soviet forces had linked up near the
Elbe River in Germany
4. Eastern Europe
a. after the Battle of Stalingrad, Hitler’s generals urged him to fight
a defensive war with the Germans using rivers as defensive
barriers
b. Hitler ignored the advice and ordered an new attack
c. Battle of Kursk (July 4*-12, 1943)
1. largest tank battle in history between the Germans and
Russians in northwest of Stalingrad
2. Hitler had 17 of his best Panzer divisions (9th Army) destroyed
at this battle (Italians failed to stop Russian counteroffensive
near Orel which led to the trapping of the German 9th Army)
3. Germans suffered crippling losses at this battle which ended
all hopes of victory on the eastern front
d. by January 1945, Russian soldiers occupied Warsaw
e. by April 1945, Russians occupied Berlin (Hitler committed
suicide on April 30/ German High Command officially
surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945)
5. War in Asia
a. Beginning in 1943, American forces advanced slowly across the
Pacific
b. MacArthur’s “island hopping” campaign successfully positioned
the Allies for an invasion of the Japanese mainland by mid 1945
c. President Truman, convinced that a conventional invasion would
cost hundreds of thousands of US casualties, ordered atomic
bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima (August 6th)and Nagasaki
(August 9th) Japan
d. Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14th
6. the final human death toll of WW II may have numbered as high as
50 million
THE NAZI NEW ORDER
A. The Nazi Empire
1. the area under Nazi control in Europe was never organized
systematically or governed efficiently despite arrogant German
boasting to the contrary
a. neutral countries outside of the empire included: Spain,
Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, and Turkey
b. countries allied with Germany that remained independent yet
increasingly found themselves restricted by the Nazis as the war
progressed included: Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and
Finland
c. countries under Nazi civil administrations included: Norway,
Denmark, and the Netherlands
d. France was under a military administration
e. Slavic countries in the east (Poland, Baltic States, Russia, etc.)
were ruled ruthlessly and treated as slaves
2. Nazi rule of Europe was most ruthless in eastern Europe because
the Slavs were considered racially inferior by the Nazis
3. Hitler’s intentions for his eastern conquests included massive
German colonization of these lands and extermination of all Jewish
communities already living there as part of his “final solution” of the
Jewish question
B. Resistance Movements
1. Germany’s policy of forced labor of conquered people helped cause
more resistance to the Nazis
2. a major source of resistance to the Nazis came from Communists
throughout Europe who fought tenaciously against the Nazis,
especially after the German invasion of Russia in 1941 (EX:
Marshall Tito in Yugoslavia led a partisan army against the Nazis
numbering 250,000 by 1944)
3. Conservative politicians along with elements of the German military
tried to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944 by detonating a bomb at
a military meeting attended by Hitler (unsuccessful---5,000
implicated in the plot were executed)
C. The Holocaust
1. Hitler’s “final solution” to the Jewish problem called for the
extermination of all European Jews
2. the SS was under Heinrich Himmler was given responsibility for
carrying out the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe (Reinhard
Heydrich was responsible for administrating the extermination
camps)
3. initially SS death squads called Einsatzgruppen were used as
special strike forces in eastern Europe to round up and shoot more
than one million Jewish men, women, and children (perceived by the
Nazi hierarchy as inadequate---replaced by death camps in 1941 as
the primary means of exterminating Jews)
4. in the Holocaust, the Germans killed six million or more people who
were Jewish as well as other victims deemed “undesirable” such as
Gypsies, homosexuals, the handicapped, captured leaders of
resistance movements
5. to murder so many innocent civilians in so short a time, the
Germans created vast extermination (death) camps (EX: Auschwitz,
Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Maidanek, Belzec) where victims, were
systematically murdered in gas chambers and their bodies then
burned in huge ovens (those incapable of performing slave labor
were killed first)
6. concentration (labor) camps (EX: Dachau and Bergen-Belsen) were
located in Germany while the extermination camps were primarily
located in Poland
7. Nazi atrocities at its largest extermination camp at Auschwitz were
willingly carried out by ordinary Germans who apparently had few
qualms about killing innocent civilians (cruel and painful “medical”
IV.
experiments on innocent children and prisoners also took place
under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Mengele [aka Angel of Death])
8. virtually 90% of the Jewish populations of Poland, the Baltic
countries, and Germany were exterminated
9. overall, the Holocaust was responsible for the death of nearly two
out of every three European Jews
10. the Nazis were also responsible for the deliberate death by shooting,
starvation, or overwork of at least another 9 to 10 million people
THE HOME FRONT ----------------------------------------------1
A. The Mobilization of Peoples: Four Examples
1. Great Britain
a. the British mobilized their resources more thoroughly than their
allies or Germany
b. by the summer of 1944, 55% of the British people were in the
armed forces or civilian “war work”
c. for many British people, hours after work were spent in such
wartime activities such as “Dig for Victory,” the Civil Defence, or
the Home Guard
d. the British placed much emphasis on a planned economy
(people were pretty accepting)
e. the British did make substantial gains in manufacturing war
materials (Tank production quadrupled between 1940 and 1942;
aircraft production grew from 8,000 in 1939 to 26,000 by 1944)
2. The Soviet Union
a. WW II was known as the Great Patriotic War by Russians
b. Government appealed to Russians’ sense of patriotism more so
than their love of Communism to rally the country to fight the
Germans
c. the pressures of mobilization for total war produced the “supercentralization” of government authority and planning in the
hands of Stalin and a core Communist bureaucracy
d. the initial defeats of the Soviet Union led to drastic emergency
mobilization measures that affected the civilian population (many
factories were moved east of the Urals)
e. the widespread military, industrial, and economic mobilization
created another Industrial Revolution for the Soviet Union
f. because of the emphasis on military goods, Russian citizens
experienced incredible shortages of both food and housing (EX:
civilian food consumption fell by 40% during the war)
g. the only major combatant to use women in active combat (EX:
“Flying Witches of Stalingrad”
h. the brunt of the Soviet war effort was borne by the peasantry
(EX: peasants made up 60% of the Red Army; also expected to
feed the army and civilian population under very trying
circumstances)
3. The United States
a. due to the fact that the US was never directly threatened by
enemy attack, the home front was far different here than
elsewhere
b. US was slow to mobilize, but when it did it became the “arsenal
for democracy”
V.
c. 71% women remained in the home in the US and unemployment
did significantly decrease in the US until 1943
d. both African Americans and Japanese endured racism within the
US as a result of WW II (EX: Japanese Internment Camps)
4. Germany
a. as the nation prepared for war in 1939, large segments of the
population feared that it would spell disaster for Germany
b. to maintain the morale of the home front during the first two
years of the war, Hitler refused to convert production from
consumer goods to armaments (huge mistake)
c. total mobilization did not occur in Germany until July of 1944
(too late to make a difference)
d. war did make Nazis reverse their stance on the role of women (in
reality, women’s roles did not change a lot however)
B. The Frontline Civilians: the Bombing of Cities
1. bombing was used in WW II in a variety of ways
a. against nonhuman military targets
b. against enemy troops
c. against civilian populations
2. Beginning in early September, 1940, the German Luftwaffe subjected
London and many other British cities and towns to nightly air raids
(designed to break civilians will to fight [had opposite effect])
3. war production in the bombed areas went on almost unaffected
4. the British began major bombing raids of Germany in May of 1942
with the bombing of Cologne, Germany
5. the British and Americans began a bombing campaign of every
German city with a population over 100,000 people (Americans
bombed in the daytime and the British at night)
6. Germans reacted with stubborn resistance to the bombing (did fear
the incendiary bombs used at Hamburg 9/43 [50,000 killed] and
Dresden 2/45 [100,000 killed])
7. despite the bombing, German war production only fell 7% in the
latter stages of the war
8. citing concerns over potential military casualties, Truman dropped
the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 [190,000
killed by bomb and radiation that followed]
THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR: EMERGENCE OF THE COLD WAR
A. Tehran Conference (1943)
1. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, the leaders of the Big Three of the
Grand Alliance, met at Tehran, Iran in November of 1943
2. primary purpose was to determine the way the final assault on
Germany would be conducted
3. Roosevelt and Stalin overruled Churchill and decided that the
British and Americans would invade the continent through France in
the Spring of 1944 not through the Balkans as Churchill wanted
4. decision meant that Eastern Europe would be liberated by the
Russians
5. agreed to link up with the Soviets in Germany and partition Germany
upon its defeat
B. Yalta Conference (1945)
1. meeting of the leaders of the Big Three (Stalin, Churchill, and
Roosevelt) once again this time in the southern Ukraine from
February 5-11 of 1945
2. by this point the defeat of Germany was a forgone conclusion
3. Russia sought a buffer zone between it and the West which Stalin
distrusted
4. Roosevelt sought Soviet assistance for the invasion of Japan
(atomic bomb was not yet a sure thing)
5. in return for giving the Soviets possession of Sakhalin and the
Kurile Islands as well as two warm water ports and railroad rights to
Manchuria, Stalin agreed to give the Americans military assistance
6. after a number of compromises, both Churchill and Stalin accepted
Roosevelt’s plans for a United Nations organization and set the first
meeting for San Francisco in April of 1945
7. reaffirmed that Germany would: surrender unconditionally, pay a
$20 billion war reparation (half going to Russia--made in goods,
production and equipment not cash), and be divided into four
occupation zones
8. it was agreed that Eastern Europe would have free elections after
the war yet would be friendly to Soviet interests
C. Potsdam Conference (1945)
1. meeting of the leaders of the Big Three (Stalin, Truman,
Churchill/Atlee) in Potsdam, Germany from July 17 to August 2 of
1945
2. Roosevelt had died on April 12, 1945 and Churchill’s Conservative
Party was defeated in Parliamentary elections by Clement Atlee’s
Labour Party in July of 1945 during the conference (Churchill was
replaced at the conference by Atlee after the Conservative defeat)
3. conference met under a cloud of mistrust between the West and the
Soviets
4. there was a new coldness in relations between the Americans and
Soviets (some historians have speculated that Truman receiving
word of a successful detonation of an atomic weapon by American
scientists made him take more of a hard line approach toward
Stalin)
5. Stalin assured Truman that the Soviet Union would honor its
commitment and take part in the invasion of Japan
6. Truman informed Stalin offhandedly that the US had successfully
tested an atomic weapon (fed Stalin’s distrust of the US)
7. Agreed that former enemy states should be set up as “recognized
democratic governments” (Stalin believed he had already set up
“democratic” governments in the areas the Soviets had liberated
[disputed by Truman])
D. Winston Churchill, as leader of the opposition party in Great Britain,
was invited to give a speech on March 5, 1946 at Fulton Missouri
(speech spoke of an “Iron Curtain” separating Eastern Europe from the
rest of the continent [speech acted as an early salvo of the Cold War])