-
At the end of World War I, Hitler had been
a jobless soldier drifting around Germany. In 1919, 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 Der Führer—“the Leader”—he
promised to bring Germany out of chaos -
In Hitler's book Mein Kampf [My Struggle], Hitler set forth the basic beliefs of
Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party. -
By 1921, Mussolini had established the Fascist
Party. Fascism 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. -
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 -
By 1932, some 6 million Germans were unemployed. Many men who
were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts).
The German people were desperate and turned to Hitler as their last hope. -
In January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor (prime minister). 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. -
Meanwhile, 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. The League of Nations reacted with brave talk of
“collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression.” -
Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. In 1935, he 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. -
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. -
The war forged a close
relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who
signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
After a loss of almost 500,000 lives, Franco’s victory in 1939
established him as Spain’s fascist dictator. Once again a
totalitarian government ruled in Europe. -
In 1936, 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. About 3,000 Americans formed the Abraham
Lincoln Battalion and traveled to Spain to fight against
Franco -
On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into
Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its
Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete. -
On
September 30, 1938, daladier and chaimberlin signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the
Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired. -
By 1939, Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried
to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have
no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition. -
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. -
This invasion was the first
test of Germany’s newest military strategy, 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. -
On September 3, two days following the terror
in Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany.
The blitzkrieg tactics worked perfectly. Major fighting was over in three
weeks, long before France, Britain, and their allies could mount a defense. In the
last week of fighting, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, grabbing
some of its territory. By the end of the month, Poland had
ceased to exist and World War II had begun -
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. The Luftwaffe began making bombing runs over Britain. To gain total control of the
skies by destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force. Hitler
had 2,600 planes at his disposal. The Battle of Britain raged through the summer and
fall. German planes pounded British targets.
Luftwaffe concentrated on airfields and aircraft. -
Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands,
Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony
war had ended. -
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 (see map on p. 538), sat
staring into Germany, waiting for something to happen. 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. -
France’s Maginot Line proved to be ineffective; the German army threatened to
bypass the line during its invasion of Belgium. Hitler’s generals sent their tanks
through the Ardennes, a region of wooded ravines in northeast France, thereby
avoiding British and French troops who thought the Ardennes were impassable.
The Germans continued to march toward Paris -
Germans would occupy the northern part of
France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, headed
by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy,
in southern France. -
Suddenly, 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. Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands,
Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony
war had ended. -
a Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor—
the largest U.S. naval base in the
Pacific. The bomber was followed by
180 Japanese warplanes. As
the first Japanese bombs found their
targets, a radio operator flashed this
message: “Air raid on Pearl Harbor.
This is not a drill.”
Japanese planes were barely disturbed
by U.S. antiaircraft guns and
blasted target after target. By the
time the last plane soared off around
9:30 A.M., the devastation was
appalling. -
The German
aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from
reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Britain depended on supplies from
the sea. The 3,000-milelong
shipping lanes from
North America were her
lifeline. Hitler knew that
if he cut that lifeline,
Britain would be starved
into submission. -
Under this plan, the president would lend
or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the
United States.”
Roosevelt compared his plan to lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose
house was on fire. He asserted that this was the only sensible thing to do to prevent
the fire from spreading to your own property. Isolationists argued bitterly
against the plan, but most Americans favored it, and Congress passed the LendLease
Act in March 1941. -
Roosevelt responded to this threat by creating the
Office of Price Administration (OPA). 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. The higher taxes reduced consumer
demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend -
To remove them would have destroyed the islands’ economy
and hindered U.S. military operations there. However, he was eventually forced
to order the internment, or confinement, of 1,444 Japanese Americans, 1 percent
of Hawaii’s Japanese-American population. -
Hoping to shorten that time, the OSRD set
up an intensive program in 1942 to develop a bomb as quickly as possible. 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 -
They launched
Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by
American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
For weeks the Germans pressed in on Stalingrad, conquering it house by
house in hand-to-hand combat. By the end of September, they controlled
nine-tenths of the city. The
Soviets saw the cold as an opportunity to roll fresh tanks across the frozen landscape
and begin a massive counterattack. The Soviet army closed around
Stalingrad, trapping the Germans in and around the city and cutting off their supplies. -
The military’s work force
needs were so great that Army Chief of Staff General
George Marshall pushed for the formation of a Women’s
Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC). “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. -
At the same time, the United States launched a crash shipbuilding program.
By early 1943, 140 Liberty ships were produced each month. Launchings of Allied
ships began to outnumber sinkings.The Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys. Convoys
were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done
in the First World War. -
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. The two leaders also discussed where to strike next. -
Rationed fuel and materials vital to the war effort, such as
gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, and plastics -
In 1944, 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.” -
One of the hardest battles the Allies encountered
in Europe was fought less than 40 miles from Rome. This battle, “Bloody
Anzio,” lasted four months—until the end of May 1944—and left about 25,000
Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. -
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. -
That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman
became the nation’s 33rd president. -
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,” The
next day 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. -
On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in
Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over. -
Suddenly he had a flashback to a
frozen meadow in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge in
1945. Three German tanks were spraying his platoon with
machine-gun fire
