Chapter 28The Era of the Second World

War, 1939–1949

Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

When this photo was taken, from an observation plane 6 miles up, thirty-five thousand people on the ground had already died.

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German Dominance• September 1939

– Germany invaded Poland unprovoked (used Blitzkrieg attack)– France & Britain declared war but failed to aid Poland– Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east (non-aggression pact)– Soviets invade Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania (Baltic States)– Soviets invade Finland – Finns beat Russians – Finland allies w/ Germany

• German Successes were caused by:– Innovations in tank warfare (Panzer's)– Blitzkrieg (Lightening war)– Effective use of air power– Coordination of different types of weaponry

• Phony War– After declaring war on Germany --- Britain & France WAITED to be attacked –

took 6 months winder of 1939 to spring of 1940 before Hitler invaded the west using his Blitzkrieg tactics

– Weeks overran Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Northern France• Southern France – Vichy French – under Marshal Petain• Free French – in London – under General Charles De Gaulle (they escaped w/ the British from

Dunkirk

German Dominance,1939–1941

• The Blitzkrieg strategy– Use of fast-moving armor with air support– Made its debut in Poland– Allowed quick victories in Denmark and Norway after the “Phony War”

• Fall of France– Blitzkrieg led to defeat of France in six weeks– Creation of the Vichy government under Petain– Charles de Gaulle and the Free French in London

• Vichy France– At first Marshal Petain enjoyed widespread support– The Vichy gov’t had a goal to carry out a “national revolution” (pg. 812)– The Vichy regime:

• rounded up workers for forced shipment to German factories• Hunted down members of the Anti-German Resistance• Picked up Jews to be sent to the Nazi extermination camps

– After the war, Petain & other Vichy officials were tried on treason charges

The Miracle of Dunkirk

Battle of Britain• Battle of Britain was a rare setback for the Germans

– German bombers bombed RAF airfields and Radar stations– After RAF bombed Berlin, Luftwaffe ordered to start bombing

London• Bombing of London gave RAF fighters time to regroup and attack German

bombers in the air. (see following 2 slides)

• Spread of the war– Italy began to intervene, first in France, then in Greece– Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria joined the Axis– Balkan (German invasion) and North African campaigns (Rommel, the Desert

Fox vs. Bernard Montgomery, Monty) (Monty wins the 2nd Battle of El Alamein)

Winston Churchillhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleofbritain/11428.shtml

B. With the Fall of France Great Britain stood alone & almost defenseless. WINSTON CHURCHILL replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

– Churchill promised the British that they would NEVER SURRENDER. He said “WE SHALL DEFEND OUR ISLAND, WHATEVER THE COST MAY BE… WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER… IF GREAT BRITAIN ITSELF SHALL FALL THEN OUR EMPIRE BEYOND THE SEAS… WOULD CARRY ON THE STRUGGLE UNITL IN GOD’S GOOD TIME, THE NEW WORLD…STEPS FORTH TO THE RESCUE & LIBERATION OF THE OLD”

– Hitler planned the invasion of Great Britain (OPERATION SEA LION). This plan was contingent on the German Air Force – the Luftwaffe – controlling the air space over England.

– THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN – began in August, 1940 – German bombers attacked Great Britain. The entire battle took place in the skies over England

» Luftwaffe was winning the battle until Hitler ordered that the attack switch from RAF airfields and installations to bombing of London. This gave the RAF time to rebuild their airfields and get their fighters up in the sky.

» Even though outnumbered the RAF WON the Battle of Britain & Hitler could not invade.» Churchill said after the battle “Never in the field of Human conflict was so much owed by so

many to so few”

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At the height of the German bombing of Britain in 1940, Winston Churchill and his wife, Clementine

, survey the damage in London.

The Battle of Britain

German Reversals, 1941-1942

• Operation Barbarossa (see map on next slide)– Surprise German invasion, violating 1939 non-aggression pact– Expected to end in quick Soviet defeat– Delays in Balkans (Operation Retribution) and North Africa forced

German army to confront the Russian Winter– Failed to take Moscow– Significant defeat at Stalingrad, 1942-1943 (turning point of war)

• Soviets push back– A population mobilized for the “Great Patriotic War”– Construction of a new industrial base beyond the Urals– Hitler’s refusal to order a strategic retreat– German miscalculation

Soviet Union had lost its grain fields in the Ukraine, its’ oil fields in the Caucasus, the Nazis were in Stalingrad & laying siege to Leningrad. Before they pushed back like a giant spring.

Battle of StalingradFightingFromHouse toHouse

• Soviet victory at Stalingrad cost over 1.5 million deaths in the city. Overall the Soviets lost 20 million people because of the German invasion of Russia.

Vasily ZaitesevSharpshooterBattle of Stalingrad

See films Enemy at the GatesStalingrad

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On June 23, 1941, the day after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the London Daily Mail published this cartoon depicting Hitler’s betrayal of his 1939 pact with Stalin.

German Occupation of Europe• In the West

– Germany sought collaborators in the west

• Vichy French– Rounded up Jews– Nations collaborated with the Germans to achieve their own

national interests

• In the East– Germany waged a brutal campaign of exploitation & ethnic cleansing

• Jews and Slavs– Hitler’s plan was to resettle millions of Germans on land from which

Poles & Slavs had been removed by murder or expelled.

Map 28-1 p804

Much of Europe saw fighting during World War II, although different fronts were important at different times. What proved decisive was the fighting that ensued in the vast expanse of the Soviet Union after the Germans invaded in June 1941.

The Holocaust• Evolution from forced emigration to extermination

– The creation of Ghettos in Poland• Ghetto – confined & closed areas of cities which saw forced resettlement of

Jews– Developing plans for extermination

• SS troops in Eastern Europe assigned to execute communists and Jewish men– Reinhard Heydrich – architect of the “Final Solution”

• As executions broadened to include women and children, morale problems emerged

• Emergence of Death Camps– Gas chambers and crematoria to depersonalize killing

• Death Camps were for exterminations whereas concentration camps were more like mass prisons.

– Bureaucratized and government-sanctioned murder• The process of transport and “selection”• Forced labor and extermination• The problem of complicity: Battalion 101 of the “order police”

– Along with Jews, victims included Poles, Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals

Holocaust con’t

• Reactions:– Disbelief, in part due to the false stories of

German atrocities in the 1st World War– Skepticism, because it was known that in

some Jewish camps, the inmates were not killed

– Appeals for concerted action that never came– Roosevelt refused pleas from Jewish leaders,

wishing to concentrate on victory instead

Map 28-2 p809

At the zenith of its power in 1942, Nazi Germany controlled much of Europe. Concerned most immediately with winning the war, the Nazis sought to coordinate the economies of their satellite states and conquered territories. But they also began establishing what was supposed to be an enduring New Order in eastern Europe. The inset shows the locations of the major Nazi concentration camps and the six extermination camps the Nazis constructed in what had been Poland.

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In April 1943, many of the sixty thousand Jews remaining in the Warsaw ghetto revolted against the occupying Germans rather than face shipment to the extermination camps. As many as 14,000 died in the ensuing fighting or in the fire that the Germans set in the ghetto. Almost all the rest were captured and sent to their deaths at Treblinka. Before it was put down in May, the uprising killed at least three hundred Germans.

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From September 1942 until the German surrender early in February 1943, STALINGRAD on the Volga River saw some of the heaviest fighting of World War II. The Soviet victory, in the face of incredible casualties, was arguably the turning point of the war in Europe.

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Lukow, PolandJuly, 1942

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Lomazy, PolandAugust 1942

Read the “Visual Record” pages 814-815For more on these Holocaust Snapshots

Collaboration and Resistance in Nazi Europe• German treatment of conquered territory

– In the West, military occupation along conventional lines– In the East, unprecedented efforts to subjugate, colonize and

even exterminate conquered populations• Different nations respond differently to Nazi Jewish policy

– Many in Croatia enthusiastically collaborated– Many in Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands resisted

• Vichy France– Petain claimed he was protecting French sovereignty– The fascistic “National Revolution” as response to defeat– Pierre Laval’s (Petain’s 2nd in Command) collaboration after

1942 (read pg 812)

A Global War, 1941-1944• Japan

– Expanded into China and Southeast Asia– Military alliance with Germany and Italy, 1940– Growing tensions with the U.S. over China– U.S. led economic sanctions led to Pearl Harbor attack

• Main cause of Japanese expansionism seems to have been economic– British & Dutch joined US in the boycott against Japan

• The United States– Allied w/ China before War broke out– The Lend-Lease Act – Congressional authorization for the

President to provide armaments to combatants– Pearl Harbor – U.S. declared war on Japan after they bombed us and

Germany & Italy declared war on U.S. after we declared war on Japan– Turned tide of Pacific war against Japan at Midway, 1942– U.S.-British-U.S.S.R. military alliance, 1942– READ: The Global Record: Japan’s “Pan-Asian Mission”

Map 28-3 p817

After a series of conquests in 1941 and 1942, the Japanese were forced gradually to fall back before advancing U.S. forces.

When the war abruptly ended in August 1945, however, the Japanese still controlled much of the territory they had conquered.

• A Second Front in Europe– Russians wanted a second front in Europe –

Churchill wants us to open a second front in Africa then Italy (“the Soft Underbelly of the beast”)

– We follow what Churchill wants• See following slide• North Africa• Italy (fighting horrible against Germans who invaded

Italy – continues until very end of war) • Then France – D-Day June 6, 1944

General George S. Patton “Old Blood & Guts”

• Nov. 7-8, 1942 – A large naval task force arrived off the coast of North Africa.

– British landings took place at ORAN & ALGIERS on the Mediterranean side

– American landings took place at CASABLANCA on the Atlantic side of Morocco

Ams. Were defeated at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia but Patton regrouped and began a strong counter-offensive

From Victories in North Africa Allied invasion of Sicily was Planned

From Sicily Allied invasion of Italy was planned

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D-Day, 1944 Allied forces land at Normandy, early in the morning of June 6, 1944, at last opening a major second front in Europe.

Map 28-4 p822

As a result of World War II, the Soviet Union expanded its western borders and Poland shifted westward at the expense of Germany. Territorial changes added to the wartime disruption and produced a flood of refugees. The cold war division of Europe did not depend on immediate territorial changes, but soon Germany itself came to be divided on east-west lines.

Deciding the Future of Europe• The United Nations

– Idea that gradually took shape in the final years of the war– First formalized at the Dumbarton Oaks conference, 1944

• The Yalta Conference, February 1945– The “Big Three”: Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill– Established conditions for Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe– Bolstered France to create a new balance of power

• The Potsdam Conference– Divided Germany– Reconfigured Poland– Established the battle lines of the Cold War

• The Nuremberg Trials and the question of war guilt– “crimes against humanity” was a vague concept– The accused were judged by laws made after the fact– International law was generally binding only on states not

individuals– Several high German officials were found guilty and were

executed.

WARTIME DIPLOMACY• During the course of the War there were

“conferences” held that set forth the post war world and led to the era of the Cold War.

CASABLANCA CONFERENCE – January 1943 Churchill & FDR met in North Africa and agreed the war would end only with UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.

Many historians believe this meant the war lasted longer than necessary.

French Gen. Henri Giraud, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gen. Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill

• YALTA CONFERENCE – Feb. 1945 – FDR, CHURCHILL & STALIN met in the southern Soviet Union at Yalta in the Crimea. Decisions were made here that changed the map of Europe for the future.– United nations would be formed with HQ’s in NYC (Very important to

FDR which is why he made other concessions –see below)– Germany would be divided into 4 military zones (US, Britain, France &

USSR)– Big 3 (US, GREAT BRITAN & USSR) would support free elections in

Poland & throughout Europe.– Stalin promised USSR would go to war w/ Japan within 3 months

AFTER the war against Germany was over.– Stalin was promised all the lands taken from Russia by Japan in the

Russo Japanese War of 1904-05 (Kurile Islands, Southern ½ of Sakhalin Island, Occupation zone in Korea & certain rights in Manchuria.

Did the U.S. & Great Britain betray east-central Europe @ Yalta? (Soviet Union was not carrying out its agreements from Yalta but the U.S. could do nothing about it while still in war with Japan. Soviets occupied Poland & most of Eastern Europe --- no free elections would take place until the 1980’s )

Post War World II Europe --- Notice the occupation zones in Germany

• POTSDAM CONFERENCE – July 1945 in Potsdam Germany – Harry Truman, Clement Attlee & Joseph Stalin (FDR was dead, Attlee replaced Churchill as PM before the conference – but Churchill was there as Attlee’s guest). Additional decisions were made by the Big 3

• For Germany: – Polish control of German territory EAST of the Oder-Neisse Line as

compensation for Soviet annexation of eastern Poland– Zones of occupation in Germany– De-Nazification program– Demilitarization of Germany

– POTSDAM ULTIMATUM – was issued to Japan • They must surrender UNCONDITIONALLY &• Japan itself must be OCCUPIED BY ALLIED ARMIES• All Japanese conquests since 1895 had to be returned.• Japan formally rejected the ultimatum on July 29, 1945

Atlee, Truman & Stalin

Churchill,Truman,& Stalin

The War’s Final Stages• Delayed Allied attempt to open a second front

– North Africa as staging ground for invasion of Italy– Germany’s successful effort to hold northern Italy, 1943– Allied Bombing of German held territory & Germany itself

• Destroyed Dresden & 60,000 of its civilian residents

• The Soviet Role– Bore the brunt of the fighting and casualties– Went it alone in Eastern Europe while U.S. and U.K. focused on the West

• The conclusion of the war– D-Day invasion as Soviets pushed westward– Soviet troops met U.S. troops at the Elbe in Germany– Hitler commits suicide April 30, 1945– German surrender, May 7, 1945

• In the final years of the war Germany suffered shortages of oil & military personnel but NOT armaments

– Atomic bomb caused Japanese capitulation, August 1945

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Soviet troops reached Berlin in April 1945. After a day of heavy fighting and bombardment, the Soviets took the Reichstag building, in the heart of the devastated German capital, on April 30.

Here two Soviet sergeants, Yegorov and Kantariya, plant the Soviet flag atop the Reichstag, symbolizing the Soviet victory in the decisive encounter of World War II in Europe.

Results of WWII• WWII caused 60 million deaths & made another 60

million homeless or refugees• Britain, France & Italy suffered fewer casualties in

1939-1945 than they did in WWI• The highest casualty figures were in the Soviet

Union, Poland, & Germany• A wave of anti-German feelings developed• Decolonization• A division of Europe• The Cold War• The Creation of Israel

Resistance Movements• Resistance movements were involved in

guerilla war against the Germans and their collaborators.

• The largest, best organized resistance was in Poland, Yugoslavia, & the Soviet Union

• Communists played important roles in Italy & France’s resistance movements

• The resistance movements in Western Europe had a major influence on postwar politics

Beginnings of the Cold War• The Atomic Bomb

– Great Britain first to initiate an atomic weapons program– Manhattan Project – the American project to build the atomic bomb– A-bomb development kept SECRET from ally Soviet Union

• The growing importance of the United Nations• The emergence of a bipolar world

– The decisive military presence of the Soviets in Eastern Europe– Soviet desire to exploit Germany’s resources, US desire to rebuild its

economic power– Stalin’s goal: buffer states to protect the USSR from Western powers– Civil War in Greece, 1946-1949

• Soviet-supported Communists vs. U.S. and U.K. supported monarchy

• Contributed to the formulation of the Truman Doctrine– 1949: Soviets announce the development of an atomic bomb

Into the Postwar World• Indian Independence

– States of India and Pakistan granted independence, 1947– Revealed the toll the war had taken on British power

• Creation of Israel– Zionism and ongoing Jewish immigration to Palestine– British, who controlled Palestine, wanted to curtail that immigration– Growing tension led to British withdrawal– First Arab-Israeli war and creation of Israel in 1948

• Communist takeover in China– Mao Zedong’s rise to power, 1949– Sparked new anxieties about global spread of Communism

Truman & the spread of Communism• Once China became Communist, fear of communism

spreading (Domino Theory) • Truman’s strategy of containment maintained that:

– It was possible to contain the expansion of communism– Successful direct dealing w/ Soviet Union required calm

& restraint– Successful containment of the Soviet Union would lead to

a collapse of communism from within– A vigilant application of counter force against the Soviet

Union had to be maintained

• Truman Doctrine was a policy aimed at checking the spread of communism throughout the world beginning w/ Greece

The state of Israel

• Was created in Palestine• With a conviction that the Jews deserved a

homeland after the Holocaust• Many European Jews had no place to live &

refused to live as a minority in Europe• British HQs in Jerusalem was blown up by

Jewish terrorists• British troops withdraw from Palestine

Map 28-5 p831

In November 1947, the United Nations offered a plan to partition the British mandate of Palestine, but complications immediately arose.

The Jews of the area won their own state, Israel, but the Palestinian Arabs were left stateless.

Thus, tensions continued in the area.

The Proposed Partition of Palestine and the Birth of the State of Israel

Anti-Colonialism in Asia• Anti-colonialism in Asia was aided by:

– The sudden ending of the war in the Pacific– Japanese encouragement during the war– The Japanese helped local nationalists create

patriotic militias– Dutch influence on the Indonesian nationalist

movement

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Gandhi and Anticolonialism

An apostle of nonviolence,Mohandas Gandhi became one of the most admired individuals of the century as he spearheaded the movement for Indian independence.

He is pictured (center) in December 1942 with the British statesman Sir Stafford Cripps (left),who had come to India to offer a plan for Indian self-government.

Despite the good spirit evident here, Cripps’ mission failed; Gandhi and his movement held out for full independence.