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In Germany, Adolf Hitler had followed a path to power similar to Mussolini’s. At the end of World War I, Hitler had been a jobless soldier drifting around Germany.Hitler proved to be such a powerful public speaker and organizer that he quickly became National Socialist German Workers’ leader.
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Benito Mussolini was establishing a totalitarian regime in Italy, where unemployment and inflation produced bitter strikes, some communist-led.By 1921, Mussolini had established the Fascist Party.
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Joseph Stalin, whose last name means “man of steel,” took control of the country. Stalin focused on creating a model communist state. In so doing, he made both agricultural and industrial growth the prime economic goals of the Soviet Union. Stalin abolished all privately owned farms and replaced them with collectives—large
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In his book Mein Kampf [My Struggle], Hitler set forth the basic beliefs of Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party.
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Military leaders shared in common with Hitler a belief in the need for more living space for a growing population. Ignoring the protests of more moderate Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931.
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Many men who were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts).
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Once in power, Hitler quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. In its place he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third Reich would be a “Thousand-Year Reich”—it would last for a thousand years.
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Mussolini began building his new Roman Empire. His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa’s few remaining independent countries. By the fall of 1935, tens of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on Ethiopia. Ethiopia had fallen.
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Hitler began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. A year later, he sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler.
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Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler.
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A group of Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began. The war aroused passions not only in Spain but throughout the world.
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On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete.
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In their eagerness to avoid war, Daladier and Chamberlain chose to believe him. On September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired.
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The war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
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As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler.
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This invasion was the first test of Germany’s newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lightning war.
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On the Siegfried Line a few miles away German troops stared back. The blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg (“sitting war”), and what some newspapers referred to as the phony war.
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On September 3, two days following the terror in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany
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Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony war had ended.
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Hitler launched a surprise invasion of Denmark and Norway in order “to protect [those countries’] freedom and independence.” But in truth, Hitler planned to build bases along the coasts to strike at Great Britain.
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Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south as the Germans closed in on Paris from the north. On June 22, 1940, at Compiègne, as William Shirer and the rest of the world watched, Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender.
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Because Britain's naval power could not compete with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at the same time. The Luftwaffe began making bombing runs over Britain. The Battle of Britain raged on through the summer and fall. Night after night, German planes pounded British targets.
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Germans would occupy the northern part ofFrance, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy,in southern France.
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Under this plan, the president would lend or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the United States.”
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Early the next morning,a Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor— the largest U.S. naval base in the
Pacific. The bomber was followed by more than 180 Japanese warplanes launched from six aircraft carriers. -
confinement
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After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America’s east coast. The German
aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. -
The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers
equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater. They were also accompanied by airplanes that used radar to spot U-boats on the ocean’s surface. -
Because much of the early research was performed at Columbia University in Manhattan, the Manhattan Project became the code name for research work that extended across the country.
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The OPA fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods. Congress also raised income tax rates and extended the tax to millions of people who had never paid it before.
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The government needed to ensure that the armed forces and war industries received the resources they needed to win the war. The War Production Board (WPB) assumed that responsibility.
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In the summer of 1942, the Germans took the offensive in the southern Soviet Union. Hitler hoped to capture Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains. He also wanted to wipe out Stalingrad, a major industrial center on the Volga River.
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“There are innumerable duties now being performed by soldiers that can be done better by women,” Marshall said in support of a bill to
establish the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. Under this bill, women volunteers would serve in noncombat positions -
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign of the Second World War which started on 8 November 1942.
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An unconditional surrender is a surrender in which no guarantees are given to the surrendering party. In modern times, unconditional surrenders most often include guarantees provided by international law.
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The Supreme Court decided, in Korematsu v. United States, that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese Americans to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity.”
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The Battle of Anzio was a battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II that took place from January 22, 1944, with the Allied amphibious landing known as Operation Shingle to June 5, 1944, with the capture of Rome. The operation was opposed by German forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno.
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On December 16, under cover of dense fog, eight
German tank divisions broke through weak American
defenses along an 80-mile front. Hitler hoped that a victory
would split American and British forces and break up Allied
supply lines. Tanks drove 60 miles into Allied territory,
creating a bulge in the lines that gave this desperate lastditch
offensive its name, the Battle of the Bulge -
Banking on a forecast for clearing skies, Eisenhower
gave the go-ahead for D-Day—June 6, 1944, the first day
of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions
parachuted down behind German lines. They were followed
in the early morning hours by thousands upon
thousands of seaborne soldiers—the largest land-sea-air
operation in army history. -
Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over.
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Hitler shot himself while his new wife swallowed
poison. In accordance with Hitler’s orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned. -
While posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, the president
had a stroke and died. That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman
became the nation’s 33rd president.
