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World War II, Cold War, End of
Imperialism
Created by David Silverman
The Second World War 1939-1945

The war began on September 1st 1939 with an attack on Poland

The Poles fought bravely, however the Germans had learned critical lessons
from the First World War.


The Germans practiced blitzkrieg warfare (swift attacks using tanks, planes
and other highly mobile units)
The next period of war was a lull over the winter of 1939-1940. The nickname
for this time period was the "Phony War" because little was happening.

This came to an end in April of 1940 when the Germans attacked Norway
and Denmark to secure necessary iron supplies for Germany.

In May, the Germans invaded Belgium and the Netherlands before launching
their ultimate goal- an attack on France.

In 6 short weeks- the French army, considered the finest in the world after
WWI, was destroyed.
The Second World War- The Fall of France

Part of the problem for the French, was that by 1940 their hearts were not in
the war. The blitzkrieg attacks, and the quick defeat of the Scandinavian
countries, created tremendous pessimism among the French.

Another reason for the fall of France, was that the French were still fighting the
same way as the First World War.

They built the Maginot Line (a series of seemingly unbreakable defenses to protect
their soldiers) expecting that it would be another war of stagnant positions. The
Germans encircled them anyways and bypassed the points.

Seeing that France was about to fall, British removed all available ships from a
Belgian beach at Dunkirk and returned home to Great Britain to fight.

Marshal Petain, an elderly Battle Verdun hero, formed a new French
government. Petain used the pessimistic tendencies to create a more
authoritarian government. Petain's Vichy regime brought an end to the Third
Republic that was blamed for France's defeat.

Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) a charismatic general that arrived in London and
created a new French army out of the French colonies. This free force (the
Maquis) flourished and fought Germans and the Vichy State on French soil. The
Vichy regime called him and his army traitors.
The Second World War- Germany Against Great Britain

Hitler always believed that, as far as race, the British were similar to the Aryans.
Foolishly, he assumed this would create support from Great Britain

Fortunately, for the survival of the nation, Great Britain had Winston Churchill.
Churchill had replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister and he was comminuted to
the nation. He was known for powerful speeches and a strong will to "wage war
against a monstrous tyranny".

The Battle of Britain is often portrayed as a one-sided battle, but it was not.

The Germans had a huge air force (the Luftwaffe) but the British had radar and could
detect oncoming attacks. The Luftwaffe was led by an incompetent morphine addict,
Hermann Goring (1893-1946)


Goring decided to end the effective raids on British air bases and started attacking
British cities. This actually gave the British air force (Royal Air Force- RAF) time to
recover.

Hitler thought he was a military genius but the British cracked the German's secret
military code.

Great Britain also had a few of their own very powerful planes.
By September 1930, Hitler dropped the plan to invade Britain and went for his
The Second World War- The Holocaust

The Holocaust, the slaughter of six millions Jews under Hitler, was not a quick
event. Nazi ideology had always been rooted in anti-Semitism.

When the Nazi's took rule they implemented the Nuremberg Laws, under these
laws:
 Jews
were deprived of citizenship.
 Jews
and Gentiles were forbidden to marry or have sex
 Jews
had to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing whenever they left
their home so they could be easily identified.

Some German Jews left, while others thought it couldn't get much worse. They
were wrong

Soon Jewish business owners were harassed and attacked. In 1938, the Nazis
launched Kristallnacht ('the night of broken glass') when they attacked all
Jewish storefronts and homes. Hundreds of Jews were killed and 30,000 Jews
were taken to concentration camps to be tortured and killed later.
The Second World War- The Holocaust (continue)

The Nazi obsession with the Jews was called the "Jewish Question" and Germany was
in control of more Jews after attacking Poland.

Hiter and his top lieutenants organized the "Final Solution" by the end of 1941. 1
million Jews were slaughtered- most in mobile vans with carbon monoxide gas or via
machine guns under Hitler's S.S troops.

This was not enough for Hitler, so he met with his top leaders in 1942 in
Wannsee (a suburb of Berlin) to plan more efficient slaughter.

While Hitler was focused on the "Final Solution" being the slaughter of the Jewish
race, historians argue that his fixation with Jews cost Germany the war. They
could have invaded Russia instead of wasting energy killing all of the Jewish
people.

The Nazis organized a camp system throughout Poland, including concentration
camps and work camps (ex: Auschwitz), where Jews would be gathered and
executed.

Doctor Mengele is the notorious S.S doctor known for starting the sorting process on
the prisoners when they arrived. Choosing which would be sent to work and which
would be sent to die in the gas chambers immediately.
The Second World War- The Holocaust (continue)

Besides Jews, the concentration camps were filled with others that Nazis deemed
'undesireable' (including Roma gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Russian
prisoners of war, Communists, and anyone with mental/physical impairments.

By the end of the Holocaust- over 7 million people were killed (6 million Jews)

Other governments were quick to turn over Jews.


In France, the Vichy regime quickly rounded up the Jews and turned them over
to the Nazies before the Germans even asked for help.

In Croatia, Ukraine, and other eastern European areas- local populations started
their own initiatives exterminated their Jewish neighbors.
How much did the Allies Know?

There is always a debate about how much Allies knew about the Holocaust and
what could have been done to stop the German death machine.

Although the Nazis took precautions to hide the camps in Poland, even when
rumors started to spread- it was hard to believe that such horrors were
occurring.
The Second World War- The Turning of the Tide

The Second World War had 3 critical turning points
1) The Battle of Britain
2) U.S Involvement in the war
3) Operation Barbarossa – the German attack on the Soviet Union 1941


Germany Invades the Soviet Union

Initially Operation Barbarossa went as planned as the Germans drove into the heart of
Russian territory and took the Russian troops by surprise.

By the end of 1942, German had reached the outskirts of Stalingrad and Leningrad.
Because of the common enemy (Germany), Great Britain, the United States, and the
Soviet Union joined forces to destroy the Third Reich and shape the postwar world.
The War in North Africa

By 1941, the war had become a global conflict. The Italians, under Mussolini, entered
the war as German allies. The Italians extended the war to North Africa, in attempts to
push the British out of Egypt.

Germany had one of their best officers Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox", help the
Italians with much success. However, at the Battle of El Alamein (1942), a British
The Second World War- US Involvement

U.S. Involvement- Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Hitler's
declaration of war on the US in 1941, the US was at conflict with the Axis powers
(Germany, Italy, and Japan)

The U.S rushed to help the British in North Africa and bush back Germany and
Italy. By 1943, the Allies (US and GB, and Russia) had pushed the last of the Axis
forces (Germany, Italy, Japan) out of Africa and sent the troops to Italy.
 By

The decision was made, after a meeting between the leaders of the Allies, to
invade western Europe from Great Britain. In June of 1944, the Allies launched
the D-Day invasion. This marked the beginning of the end for the Nazis.


1943. Italy was knocked out of the war.
In May 1945, a week after Hitler's suicide, Germany surrendered
Japan had entered the Second World War in hopes of creating a vast empire
across the Pacific where it could conquer lands and exploit natural resources.
 These
dreams ended quickly with the violent atomic bomb dropped on the
city of Hiroshima (Aug 1945), which was followed by another atomic bomb
two days later on the city of Nagasaki. That month, the Japanese
surrendered.
The Second World War- The Aftermath


WWII was even more destructive than WWI.

50-60 million people died (most were civilian casualties, rather than military)

Exact numbers aren't known, but Soviet deaths alone were around 25 million
Cities were leveled as Germany started bombing cities, starting with Warsaw

The constant bombings were thrown back at German in retaliation, as all of the military
locations were ruined. In the fire bombing of Dresden, 50,000 men were killed.

The Truemmerfrauen ("rubble ladies") were German women who slowly began to remove
the wreckage by hand while the men were at war.

Unlike the lack of accountability for the First World War, after watching the horrors
of the Nazi death camps- the Allies decided that Germany would have to undergo a
process of denazification and that the perpetrators of those crimes would have to
be punished as well.

The new legal concept "crimes against humanity" was applied to the defendants
who took part in the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and with Hitler dead,
Hermann Goring was the next head Nazi. Goring poisoned himself in jail while some
other Nazis received punishment. Some Nazis fled, like the famous Dr. Josef
Mengele.
The Second World War- The Aftermath (continued)

Many people were displaces after the war.
 Jews,
many who no longer had families or homes, had no place to go. Many
lived in British camps in Cyprus.
 Many
Germans had to pour west to flee the Soviet, who were taking revenge
on Germany through mass rape. Other Germans were be forced to leave
Poland and Czechoslovakia- after the civilians in those countries were upset
with the brutality by Germans.
 Russian
POW's returned home only to be rearrested by Stalin. He believed
anyone who didn't die in the battle must have been a spy or leaked info. Even
with evidence of abuse and brutality at the hands of the Germans.

In the years following the war, West Germans would refer to 1945 as the "Zero
Hour" marking the darkest point in their national history.

Over the next 20 years, Europe would somehow transform to stabilize politically
and socially.
EUROPEAN STABILITY
Ater 1945, Europe's priority was on political, economic, and social stability. European
stability was a result of:
1) The US getting more active in the welfare of Europe- President Roosevelt put forward
the Atlantic Charter (1941) advocating the establishment of an international
organization to replace the ineffective League of Nations.

 40
years later, this dream became a reality when fifty nations met in San
Francisco to formally create the United Nations.
 Since
the US didn't participate much in the League of Nations, the base of the UN
was set in NYC to force the US. 1945- The US agreed to not stand-by during times
of nationalism and would support the health of Europe.
2) Another reason for stability was that fast downfall of Fascism. Seeing the horrible
damage to German and Italian cities and the atrocious crimes against humanity- Fascism
was discredited as a political movement.
 Revanchism-
a French word for the period of revenge in which nations sought to
fight for the territories they had pre-war.
3) The most important reason for the stability was the emergence of democratic
governments. Democracy gave citizens a chance to improve class conflict and
The Beginning of the Cold War

There's debate on the causes of the Cold War. The three major thoughts are...
1) For the Traditionalists (a group born in the early days of the Cold War), Stalin was
responsible for the hostile conflict between the East and West.
2) 1960's- a new Cold War thought known as Revisionism appeared. Revisionists feared
that the postwar economic downturn meant that the US was not seeking to make the
world safe for democracy, but rather were trying to make things better for American
trade.
3) 1980's- a third position began to emerge from the Post-Revisionists. They took a
middle ground. For the Post-Revisionists, even if the Soviet Union took the brunt of the
responsibility, the US was more active than the Traditionalists might argue.

The Allies involvement in the Russian Civil War led to mistrust between the Soviet
Union and the Western allies.
Cold War- The Yalta Conference on the Future of Germany

At the Yalta Conference, the Big Three determined Germany's fate in dealing with the
post war aftermath.
 The
temporary division of Germany was split into 4 zones. The British insisted
that the French get a zone. An Allied Control Council made the joint decisions,
but each zone was different based on rivaling ideologies of the country controlling
that zone.

The Soviet's zone was very different than the other zones. Walter Ulbricht, the
Soviet-selected leader of the German Communist Party (KPD), assumed that the
Germans didn't want to go back to the ways of the Weimar Republic.
 In
reality, the mass rape and dismantling of factories in the Soviet Union made
people reject the KPD.
 In
order to streamline the political party. Ulbricht merged the KPD with the Social
Democratic Party (SPD) in 1946- making the Soviet a one-party state.

At Yalta, it was decided that 20 billion dollars in reparations would be gathered from
the Germans to be collected by nation in charge of that zone. The problem was that
the Germans had nothing. This plan would eventually leave Germany unstable and
the Americans and British would have to pay to feed the people/pay the bills.
Reparations were revoked in order to avoid this.
Cold War- Increasing Tensions Outside of Europe

Tensions between the Americans and Soviets (the two battling powers) took place
outside of Europe as well.

Iran- in 1941, British and the Soviets joint-occupied Iran. They agreed to both leave but the
Soviets did not. They refused and demanded all of the oil concessions. When President
Truman heard about this, he sent US troops to the Persian Gulf where Stalin removed his
men.

Turkey- Stalin tried to intimidate Turkey (which was neutral in the war) and sent his troops
to stand at the borders. The US said they would fight to defend Turkey, and Stalin backed
down.

American policy changed in the transition between presidents. Franklin Roosevelt
felt his good wartime relationship with Stalin would help while his replacement, Harry
Truman, was weary of Stalin and had a no- nonsense attitude.

American policy was also influenced by the writings of George Kennan (from the
State Department), most specifically the Long Telegram (1947).
 Kennan
 His
wrote that there could never be a co-existence with the Soviets.
anonymous writings (under the pseudonym "X") created the policy of
"Containment" in which our goal needed to be "long-term, patient but firm
containment of Russian expansive tendencies" .
Cold War- Containment and the Creation of NATO

The actual policy of Containment was first tested on Greece. A communist-led
insurgency was fighting a new Greek government. Great Britain (playing watch-dog)
told the US they no longer had the funds to the support the new gov't.

Truman went before Congress (1947) and stated, in what became known as the
Truman Doctrine, that 'it must be the policy of the United States to support free
peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside
pressures'
 Truman
asked Congress for money, which eventually led to $400 million dollars for
Greek and Turkish governments.

The US took the containment even further by establishing NATO in 1949. The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to counter the threat of the millions of
Soviet soldiers that could jeopardize Eastern Europe.
 The
initial members of NATO were: US, Great Britain, France, Canada, Denmark,
Belgium, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Norway
 Greece
and Turkey joined in 1952
Soviet Dominance over Eastern Europe

1944- Seeing that the Soviet troops were advancing in Eastern Europe, Churchill met
with Stalin.
 They
attempted to agree over dividing nations based on the percentage of
influence (which percentage of the nation supported the Soviet)- a document
called The Percentages Agreement. It was flawed and excluded Poland, so the
US refused to sign.
 Churchill,
years later, would use the metaphor of an 'iron curtain' to compare the
Soviet control over Eastern Europe at the time.

With the war dwindling down, Stalin wanted to protect his new territory. Meeting in
Yalta, the British and the Americans were able to get the Soviet to accept the
Declaration of Liberated Europe.
 The
declaration stated that those countries that were liberated had the chance to
create governments "broadly representative of all democratic elements in the
population" and that free elections were to be held.
Soviet Dominance- Poland and Elsewhere in Europe


POLAND- Stalin planned to establish a government dominated by Polish Communists.

Poland was waiting for the promised elections that the Yalta Conference guaranteed.
Finally, in 1947 Poland held elections. Due to intimidation, Communists received 80% of
the vote.

The Soviets understood that they would have to use force to keep Communism in Poland
(which was hated more and more as the muders of the forest of Katyn were revealed) The
Soviets played a role in the murder of 15,000 Polish officers in the forest of Katyn at the
start of the war.
ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE- The Soviet Union wanted to control Eastern Europe through
less violent means, and this was doable because of the economic and social failure of
some of the Eastern European states during the interwar period.

This meant that in some places in Eastern Europe, they saw the Soviets as saviors from the
horrors of German rule.

The Soviet Union attempted to establish "People's Democracies" (a slow-grow program for
Eastern European states choosing Communism to help get started) This was a reaction offer
to the Marshall Plan (offering money from the capitalist West)

In Hungary, the communist party intimidated all non-communist politicians and started
false-plots about them until other political parties were non-existent by 1948.
Soviet Dominance- Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia


Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia always remained
independent (because President
Eduard Benes understood it was
necessary to maintain pro-Soviet
foreign policy in order to stay
independent).

Czechs saw the Soviets as
liberators. Even though they didn't
owe anything to the West, the
Czechs buckled and took the badly
needed money that was part of the
Marshall Plan.

The Czech Communists formed a
"People's Militia" and intimidated
Benes to form a new gov't
dominated by Communists.

The son of a Czech founder was
found dead outside of his window.
This was the end of a multiparty

Yugoslavia

The major exception to Soviet rule
took places in Yugoslavia.

Initially, Yugoslavia was fighting
against the Croatian puppet
government that Germany put in
place.

Eventually, this turned into a civil
war for Yugoslavia. The
Communists were led by Josip Tito
fighting against the royalist
Chetniks.

Tito's Communists won, but Stalin
never trusted Tito.

Relations between the Soviets and
Yugoslavia remained poor for the
next few years and officially broke
in 1948. While at home, Tito led a
brutal police state.
The End of Imperialism

To end Imperialism, the US forced Great Britain to decolonize. The British wanted to
keep their new vast empire- but they were in debt to the US, so they were forced to
give back some of the land. Decolonization began in 1947 with India and it spread
throughout Europe.

ISRAEL- In 1947, the British announced they were withdrawing from Palestine leaving
the UN to determine the fate of the land.


Demands for a Jewish homeland were growing following the Holocaust and at the same
time, Arabic nationalism had increased. As a result, the UN agreed to give both the Jewish
and the Arab homelands.

In 1948- the Jewish state of Israel was officially founded. From the first day, surrounding
Arab nations attacked Israel. The fight between these two groups is still ongoing.
EGYPT- Great Britain maintained influence over Egypt, even after independence.
This changed when Abdul Nasser (1918-1970) became president.

Nasser declared Egypt's nationalism of the Suez Canal (which had been under British
control) and in response Britain, France, and Israel planned a surprise attack on Egypt. The
immediate outcry from the American and Soviet governments to retreat this attack, made
it clear to everyone that they were the dominant postwar powers.
The End of Imperialism (continued)

AFRICA- By 1957, decolonization started in sub-Sahara Africa. Ghana, then
Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Kenya became independent from Great Britain.

Most areas in Africa had few British settlers, so decolonization came without
conflict. The exception being Rhodesia (a large settler community with a
white-supremacist government) and the Africans wouldn't win this land back
until 1980 when they would rename it Zimbabwe.

INDONESIA, VIETNAM, and ALGERIA

For nations with less than stellar military records, such as France and the Netherlandsholding onto colonies became a national pride issue.

The Dutch maintained a costly, and ultimately unwinnable, struggle in the East
Indies to attempt to keep land.

By 1949, the Netherlands reluctantly recognized Indonesian independence

France almost ripped itself apart in attempt to hold on to Algeria. This followed a
bitter loss in Indochina (Vietnam), where a nationalist movement under the
leadership of Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) fought off the French when they attempted
to restore colonial authority.

By 1954, France realized it would be impossible task and agreed to split
Vietnam into two states. A northern Communist-led nation and a republic in
the south dominated by the US.
References and Resources
•
Resources
• World War II, Cold War,
other post war topics
• References
• This PowerPoint
presentation was adapted
using information from the
Princeton Review’s Cracking
The AP European History
Exam
• Pearl, Kenneth. Cracking the AP
European History Exam, 2016.
New York: Random House, 2015.
Print.
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