World War II Notes

• 1937 Germany
• Nazi party rallies lead by Adolph Hitler
• Hitler had been in power for 4 years, his troops were waging war in Europe
• targeted civilians from the air
• Germans fought along Franco's army to overthrow Spanish government
• wanted to fight against Bolshevism
• 1939
• Franco was victorious
• US and Britain failed to intervene
• 1937 Britain
• coronation of George VI
• wanted to avoid future wars
• 1936 Germany
• meeting between Hitler and Lloyd George from Britain
• Lloyd was very impressed with Hitler
• he thought they did not have the desire to invade any other lands
• 1939 US
• US was coming out of the Great Depression
• did not want to get involved in European problems
• 1939 Germany
• Nazis were strong
• annexed Austria and seized land from Czechoslovakia
• not much of a response from Western Europe
• Germany is blossoming, people are working
• industry is getting stronger
• jobs come from industry which comes from the Nazi party
• Germany and Russia sign a treaty that they will not take up arms against each other
• they had an agreement to carve up easter Europe
• Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939
• 1939 Summer in Britain
• Britain sent an ultimatum to Hitler to withdraw from Poland, but he did not respond
• they went to war in response
• Germany had conquered Poland, Warsaw was left in ruins
• Hitler turned his attention to the west
• Britain prepared for the worst
• air raid drills were conducted in schools
• the war seemed quiet at first
• the things that they expected never came
• people began to call it the Bore War/the Phony War
• France 1940
• German troops invaded
• Denmark and Norway had fallen
• British troops were retreating
• the Blitzkreig consumed Europe
• people were afraid of the troops
• civilians abandoned their houses as refugees
• French troops were taken prisoner by the German troops
• the German troops lived the good life
• by May, the French allies were defeated
• the last of the British allies leave France
• France is split into North and South
• North is called Vichy
• hotbed of the French resistance movement
• fought against the Germans
• Winston Churchill was the prime minister of England
• lead them through the war
• Britain created a new defense force with volunteers
• London 1940
• the bombings had begun
• September 1940 and May 1941 was the time of heaviest bombing
• the worst was over
• the Blitz knocks out the infrastructure of British cities and terrorizes the city
• Hitler is having trouble crushing Britain
• Hitler decides against a land invasion
• he decides to invade the Soviet Union
• Bavaria, Germany 1941
• he decided to break the non aggression act with Russia
• he calls it Operation Barbarossa
• troops began moving to the east
• troops did not know what was going on
• June 22, 1941
• German troops crossed the border
• over 3000 tanks attacked
• the German advance was rapid around 40 miles a day
• there is much tragedy on both sides
• was as approaching central Russia
• over 3 million Soviet soldiers were captured
• German troops were allowed to kill prisoners of war
• 600,000 Soviet prisoners of war were killed
• Hitler visited the Eastern front
• German tanks were approaching Moscow
• there was fear of total collapse
• Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
• this is the reason the US entered WWII
• anti-Japanese sentiment spread through the US
• Roosevelt ordered that the Japanese Americans be detained in concentration camps
• similar to ghettos rather than concentration camps
• everyone's lives were changed by this total war
• American convoys traveled to Europe
• the US was supplying the industrial capacity for Britain even though they had not officially entered the war
• this is why Hitler declares war on the US
• Stalingrad, Russia
• there was no surrender among the both sides of troops
• around 600,000 dead/2,000,000 casualties
• Soviet troops surrounded the city and Nazis were trapped inside
• Nazis had better weapons, but there were more Soviets
• this was the turning point of the war
• there is a worldwide depression when Hitler comes to power
• the King of England, Edward abdicated the throne because he fell in love with someone from Baltimore
• Nazis gained enormous power between 1933-37
• Hitler solidifies and centralizes power with himself
• Reichstags Fire in Germany
• Hitler takes emergency measures saying that Parliament is barred and he has full leadership control
• he becomes the Fuhrer, or the leader
• works on industrialization of the country
• the entire republic is required to relate any benefit in their life to him
• to be an enemy of the Fuhrer is to be an enemy of the Fuhrer
• tanks are used in WWII
• British government lead by Lloyd George appeases Germany
• does not want to go to war because of the results of WWI
• Franco comes to power in Spain and his plan is to crush the republicans in the country, the Spanish Civil War
• republicans are backed by the rest of western Europe
• US and England never formally declare war on Franco
• English army never went into Spain
• Fascists win the war and Franco takes power
• Hitler annexes Austria in 1939
• most Austrians were in favor of this
• Hitler makes references to Jews in speeches, and calls them the problem in Mein Kampf
• Hitler is anti-socialist
• western European powers see that Hitler may not be the guy they thought he was
• Hitler said that he would keep the German borders where they were, but he didn't
• warnings say that Hitler is going to invade Poland
• he takes Poland in one week
• the Polish army was not prepared for this
• Hitler creates the Hitler Youth in order to indoctrinate children in to the Nazi party
• Stalin had killed around 5 million of his own people by the time of WWII
• Erwin Rommel was put in charge of defending Nazi Europe from a British invasion
• US troops wanted German civilians to see the concentration camps
• the citizens said that they were blameless
• Dachau
• 30,000 prisoners were liberated
• guards posed as prisoners as to not be punished
• there were only 70,000 Jewish survivors in the camps
• the Battle for Berlin was won for the Red Army in 1945
• the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• over 40,000 people were killed from the bomb
• people were severely wounded and even got cancer
• it is unknown how many people died from these injuries
• August 6, 1945
• these was the result of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor
• the battle of Midway occurred
• the atomic bomb was created and used in this bombing
• April 12, 1945
• Franklin Roosevelt died
• he had brought them out of the economic depression
• before he died he was laying the foundation for WWI in Yalta
• Harry Truman becomes President
• tensions begin between Soviet Union and US
• has to do with Poland
• Germany had invaded Poland in the beginning of the war
• the US wanted a democracy in Poland
• Russia wanted a government that would be a friend of Russia
• in Japan, US bombers had been targeting cities
• wiped out part of Tokyo
• thought the war would be over by fall of 1945 because of all the bombings
• few factories were left in Japan
• Japan was helpless
• Japanese politicians realized that their country could not hold on much longer
• Nuremberg Trials
• Nazis had to attest to their crimes
• many Nazis chose suicide
• charged for crimes against peace and humanity
• to lay down a foundation for the future of European politics and world politics
• laws and definitions surrounding genocide
• Cuba had been a Spanish colony
• Cuban Missile Crisis- nuclear missiles were being built up in Cuba by the Soviet and Cuban government
• we were close to a nuclear war
• the Soviets back down and the missiles are removed
• there is still an embargo on Cuba- no goods can be sold to Cuba, and people are not allowed to visit Cuba
• this occurred during Kennedy's presidency
• Boris Pasternak
• protested what was happening in the Soviet Union with Stalin
• poet and novelist
• anti-Soviet
• wrote Doctor Zhivago
• popularized Russian literature in the US
• KGB- secret police in the Soviet Union
• Nikita Khrushchev
• led the Soviet Union during the Cold War
• Perestroika
• political movement with the Communist Party of the USSR
• Soviet leader Gorbachev
• restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system
• Yeltsin took over after Gorbachev
• his reign ended in a coups
• the end of the Soviet Union
• the Soviet Union was reorganized into the Russian Federation
• all of the countries involved with the USSR became independent
• fighting the Soviet-Afghan war at the end of the USSR
• the US directly funded the Afghan troops, and then they turned on us
• Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)
• the foundation of the nuclear draw down movement between the Soviet Union and the US
• Sputnik
• spacecraft missions launched by the US
• the US got behind so they made an investment in public education in math and science
• Arab League
• a regional organization of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia
• major player in the talks related to Palestine and Israel
• politics surrounding oil production
• Tito was the leader of Yugoslavia
• extremely brutal
• genocide broke out; Muslims were killed
• Ghana- first former British colony in Africa to become independent
• Post-Colonialism
• Gandhi leads the independence movement in India
• assassinated by Hindu nationalists
• the death of Gandhi resulted in the Muslims moving north into Pakistan
• Iran-Iraq War
• Iran- Persian, Shiite Muslims
• Iraq- Arabs, Sunni Muslims
• Iraq does not want to be an Islamic state
• after WWII there were moves of Jews out of Europe into Palestine
• called the Zionist Movement
• Margaret Thatcher
• force in British politics through the 80s
• anti-communist
• force in the Cold War against the Soviet Union
• Nelson Mandela
• first South African President
• fought against apartheid
• whites made sure that blacks received terrible educations so they could not rise up against them
• he was jailed for his works
• after he was released he became president
• Pervez Musharraf
• Pakistani President
• Solidarity
• the movement in Poland to break from the Soviet Union
• Lech Walesa- leader
• Poland won against the Soviet Union