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he joined a struggling group
called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi
Party. Despite its name, this party had no ties to socialism.
Hitler proved to be such a powerful public speaker and organizer that he quickly became the party’s leader. Calling himself “the Leader" he promised to bring Germany out of chaos. -
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. Nazism the German brand of fascism, was based on extreme nationalism.
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stressed nationalism and placed the interests of the state above those of individuals. To strengthen the nation, Fascists argued, power must rest with a single strong leader and a small group
of devoted party members -
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 government-owned farms, each worked by hundreds of families. -
Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Within several months, Japanese troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas, that was rich in natural resources.
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By 1932, 6 million Germans were unemployed. Many men who were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers.
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According to Hitler, the Third Reich would be a “Thousand-Year Reich' it would last for a thousand years.
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In 1935, he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
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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. -
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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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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Francisco Franco,
rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all
over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began. -
On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into
Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its
Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete. The United
States and the rest of the world did nothing. -
Hitler invited French premier edouard Daladier and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to meet with him in Munich. When they arrived, the führer declared that the
annexation of the Sudetenland would be his “last territorial demand.” 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. -
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fascist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other
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the blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Blitzkrieg made use of advances in military technology—such as fast tanks and more powerful aircraft—to take the enemy by surprise and then quickly crush all
opposition with overwhelming force. -
On September 3, two days following the terror
in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. -
For the next several months after the fall of Poland,
French and British troops on the Maginot Line, a system of fortifications built along France’s eastern border sat staring into Germany, waiting for something to happen. -
on April 9, 1940, 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. -
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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The German offensive trapped almost 400,000 British
and French soldiers as they fled to the beaches of Dunkirk on the French side of the English Channel. In less than a week, a makeshift fleet of fishing trawlers, tugboats, river barges, pleasure craft more than 800 vessels in all ferried about 330,000 British, French, and Belgian troops to safety across the Channel. A few days later, Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south as the Germans closed in on Paris -
Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazicontrolled puppet government, headed by Marshal Philippe Petain
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In the summer of 1940, the Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast. Because its naval power could not compete with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at the same time.
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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. -
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. As
the first Japanese bombs found their targets, a radio operator flashed this message: “Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is not a drill.” -
Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done in the First World War. The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater.
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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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Even before the battle in North Africa was won, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their commanders met in Casablanca. At this meeting, the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. That is, enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies dictated.
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Under Eisenhower’s direction in England, the Allies gathered a force of nearly 3 million British, American, and Canadian troops, together with mountains of military equipment and supplies. Eisenhower planned to attack Normandy in northern France.
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lasted four months until the end of May 1944 and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. During the year after Anzio, German armies continued to put up strong resistance. The effort to free Italy did not succeed until 1945, when Germany itself was close to collapse.
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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. -
In his underground headquarters in Berlin, Hitler prepared
for the end. On April 29, he married Eva Braun, his
longtime companion. The same day, he wrote out his last
address to the German people. In it he blamed the Jews for
starting the war and his generals for losing it. “I die with a
happy heart aware of the immeasurable deeds of our
soldiers at the front. I myself and my wife choose to die in
order to escape the disgrace of capitulation,” he said. The
next day Hitler shot himself -
A week later, General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich. On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over.
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President Roosevelt did not live to see V-E Day. On
April 12, 1945, while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, the presidenthad a stroke and died. That night, Vice President Harry S. Trumanbecame the nation’s 33rd president.
