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Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy
Italy: unemployment & inflation ⇒ bitter strikes, some communist-led// fears of econ. collapse & communism ⇒ won supp of many discontented It.// Fascist Party (1921)
: nationalism & placed the interests of the state above those of ind.
: power must rest w/ single strong leader & small group of devoted party members// marched on Rome w/ 1000s of Black Shirts (Oct 1922) → king appointed M head of the govt Il Duce (the leader) achieved efficiency by: crushing all opp. & making It. a tot. state -
Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
set forth the basic beliefs of Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party Nazism (the German brand of fascism): extreme nationalism enforce racial “purification” at home & unite all German-speaking people in a great German empire DE (esp. blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryans) - destined to rule the world
Inferior races (Jews, Slavs & all nonwhites) - only to serve the Aryans national expansion - more lebensraum (living space) for DE to thrive -
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
nationalistic military leaders were trying to take control of the imperial govt of Japan
: shared in common w/ Hitler a belief in the need for more living space for a growing pop. the militarists launched a surprise attack & seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria(1931) within several months, JP troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas, that was rich in natural resources the League of Nations condemned Japan ⇒ simply quit the League -
Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany
joined the National Socialist DE Workers’ Party (no ties to socialism)(1919)→Der Führer (the Leader)// strongest poli. party (mid 1932)
became chancellor (Jan 1933) -
Third Reich
Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic → Third Reich (Third German Empire) “Thousand-Year Reich”—it would last for a thousand years. -
Storm Troopers
the Great Depression helped the Nazis come to power
:war debts & dependence on US loans & investments ⇒ Germany’s economy was hit hard some 6m Germans were unemployed (by 1932) many unemployed joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (Brown Shirts) -
Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
Ethiopia: one of Africa’s few remaining independent countries// tens of thousands of It. soldiers stood ready to advance on Ethiopia (fall of 1935)// the League of Nations reacted with brave talk of “collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression.”// LoN: ineffective economic boycott (when the invasion began)// Ethiopia fallen (May 1936)// Haile Selassie (Ethiopian emperor)("It is us today. It will be you tomorrow") appealed to the LoN for assistance → nothing was done// -
Hitler's military build-up in Germany
failure of the League of Nations to take action against Japan did not escape the notice of Europe’s dictators// Hitler pulled Germany out of the League (1933)// he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles (1935) -
Rome-Berlin Axis
formal alliance between the German and Italian dictators -
Francisco Franco
General Francisco Franco rebelled against the Spanish rep. (1936) ⇒ Spanish Civil War about 3,000 Americans formed the Abraham Lincoln Battalion (to fight against Franco) Western democracies: neutral Soviet Union sent equipment & advisers
Hitler & Mussolini backed Franco’s forces with troops, weapons, tanks, and fighter planes ⇒ forged a close relationship between the DE & It. dictators loss of almost 500,000 lives & Franco’s victory (1939) ⇒ fascist govt -
Hitler invades the Rhineland
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 -
Hitler's Anschluss
the Paris Peace Conference following World War I had created the relatively small nation of Austria out of what was left of the Austro-Hungarian Empire// majority of Austria’s 6 million people: Germans who favored unification with Germany// German troops marched into Austria unopposed (19380312)// Anschluss(union) with Austria was complete (19380313)// the US and the rest of the world did nothing -
Munich Agreement
annex CZ: more living space for DE & control its important natural rsc/ Sudetenland: w border of CZ (mountainous ⇒ main defense against DE attack)/ FR & BR protect CZ → Hitler invited FR premier Daladier & BR prime minister Chamberlain/ Hitler: Sud annexation would be his “last territorial demand” ⇒ chose to believe him/ MA turned Sud over to Germany without a single shot being fired/ Churchill: D & C had adopted a shameful policy of appeasement (give up principles to pacify an aggressor) -
Nonaggression Pact
Poland: had a sizable DE-speaking population// Hitler began his familiar routine, charging that Germans in Poland were mistreated by the Poles and needed his protection (spring of 1939)// attack on PL would most likely provoke a declaration of war from FR & BR (promised military aid to PL)// nonaggression pact
: Stalin-Hitler
: once bitter enemies, fascist DE & communist RU now committed never to attack each other// also signed a second, secret pact, agreeing to divide PL btw them -
Blitzkrieg
the German Luftwaffe (German air force) attacked Polish military bases, airfields, railroads & cities & German tanks raced across the Polish countryside (19390901)// first test of Germany’s newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg (lightning war)
: made use of advances in military technology (fast tanks & more powerful aircraft) to take the enemy by surprise & then quickly crush all opposition with overwhelming force -
Britain and France declare war on Germany
Britain and France declared war on Germany (19390903)// 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// the portion Germany annexed in western Poland contained almost two-thirds of Poland’s population// WWII had begun -
Battle of the Atlantic
to prevent food & war materials from reaching BR & the USSR (depended on supplies from the sea (shipping lanes from North America))// Allies: organized convoys the tide of the Battle of the Atlantic had turned (mid-1943) -
Joseph Stalin's totalitarian government in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union (1922): communist state after the Russian civil war for democ. V. I. Lenin died (1924)→Joseph Stalin♚
: main eco. goals: agricultural & indust.↥
: private farms⇒collectives (large govt-owned farms) (worked by hundreds of families) all eco. act.: state control (1928)
world’s 2nd-largest indust. power (1st: US)(1937) human costs
: political enemies killed (8m - 13m)
: famines (m+) totalitarian govt
: complete cont. over its pple (1939)
: no indiv. rights & govt suppress all opp. -
Phony War
blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg (sitting war)(some newspapers referred to as the phony war) -
Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway
Hitler launched a surprise invasion of Denmark and Norway
: in order “to protect [those countries’] freedom and independence.”
: in truth to build bases along the coasts to strike at Great Britain -
Germany and Italy's invasion of France
the German offensive: trapped almost 400k British & French soldiers as they fled to the beaches of Dunkirk on the French side of the English Channel in less than a week, all kinds of boats ferried about 330k British, French & Belgian troops to safety across the Channel a few days later, Italy entered the war on the side of Germany & invaded France from the south as the Germans closed in on Paris from the north -
Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands
Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May// the phony war had ended -
Marshal Philippe Petain
terms of surrender handed (Hitler→FR officers)(19400622)(Compiègne)// DE occupy the n. part of FR
Nazi-controlled puppet govt (Pétain)(Vichy, s. FR) -
The Battle of Britain
raged on through summer~fall// naval power couldn't compete w/ that of Britain ⇒ DE launched an air war with an invasion fleet along the FR coast at the same time// Luftwaffe bombed over BR
: to gain total control of the skies by destroying BR’s Royal Air Force (RAF)
: every night for two solid months, bombers pounded London// target: airfields and aircraft → cities// RAF accurately plotted the flight paths of DE planes, even in darkness(radar) -
Lend-Lease Act
Britain had no more cash to spend in the arsenal of democracy (late 1940) ⇒ suggested by Roosevelt
: the president would lend/lease arms & other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the United States.”
: 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 Congress passed the act -
Office of Price Administration
Office of Price Administration (OPA)
: fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods// Congress: raised income tax rates & extended the tax to millions of people who had never paid it before// higher taxes ⇒ reduce consumer demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend// govt encouraged Americans to use their extra cash to buy war bonds// ⇒ inflation remained below 30 %—about half that of WW I—for the entire period of WWII. -
Pearl Harbor attack
JP dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor (the largest U.S. naval base in the Pacific)//
180+ JP warplanes launched from six aircraft carriers// 2,403 Americans killed & 1,178 more wounded//
21 ships sunk/damaged (8 battleships—nearly the whole U.S. Pacific fleet)//
300+ aircraft were severely damaged/destroyed//
three aircraft carriers at sea escaped the disaster// -
War Productions Board
War Production Board (WPB)
: to ensure that the armed forces and war industries received the resources they needed to win the war
: decided which companies would convert from peacetime to wartime production and allocated raw materials to key industries
: organized drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper, rags & cooking fat for recycling into war goods -
Internment
bombing ⇒ frightened citizens of the JP attack ⇒ believed false rumors that JA were committing sabotage by mining coastal harbors & poisoning veg. ⇒ prejudice against JA// War Department: mass evacuation of all JA from Hawaii
: Gen. Emmons, the military governor of Hawaii, resisted the order (37% of the people there were JA)
: remove JP ⇒ destroy the islands’ econ. & hinder US military operations there
: eventually obeyed the internment (confinement) of 1,444 JA (1% of Hawaii’s JA population) -
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC)
: Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall
: women volunteers would serve in noncombat positions
: official status & salary but few of the benefits granted to male soldiers
: worked as nurses, ambulance drivers, radio operators, electricians & pilots—nearly every duty not involving direct combat. after thousands of women had enlisted, the U.S. Army dropped the “auxiliary” status & granted WACs full U.S. Army benefits (July 1943) -
Battle of Stalingrad
Stalingrad: a major industrial center on the Volga River// DE controlled 9/10 of the city—or what was left of it (end of Sep)// Soviets saw the cold as an opportunity to counterattack// Soviet army closed around Stalingrad, trapping the DE in & around the city & cutting off their supplies// DE commander surrendered (19430131)// 1,100,000 Soviets die—more than all American deaths during the entire war// turning point in the war → Soviet army began to move westward toward DE// -
Operation Torch
Churchill & Roosevelt didn’t think the Allies had enough troops to attempt an invasion on European soil ⇒ an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower// some 107,000 Allied troops, the great majority of them Americans, landed in Casablanca, Oran & Algiers in North Africa chased the Afrika Korps led by General Erwin Rommel, the legendary Desert Fox// the last of the Afrika Korps surrendered (May 1943) -
Manhattan Project
Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)
: improvements in radar & sonar (locate submarines underwater)
: encouraged the use of pesticides (fight insects)
: development of penicillin that saved countless lives
: secret development of the atomic bomb
: set up an intensive program to develop a bomb as quickly as possible (1942 @Columbia University, Manhattan)(supposed to take 3~5yrs)// Roosevelt: created an Advisory Committee on Uranium to study the new discovery (Einstein prompted) -
US convoy system
convoys: groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater
accompanied by airplanes that used radar to spot U-boats on the ocean’s surface -
Unconditional Surrender
even b4 the battle in North Africa was won, Roosevelt, Churchill & their commanders met in Casablanca// the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers
: enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies
dictated also discussed where to strike next
: Americans - assemble a massive invasion fleet in Britain & launch it across the English Channel, through FR & into the heart of Germany
: Churchill - it would be safer to first attack Italy -
D-Day (Operation Overlord)
under Eisenhower’s direction in England, the Allies gathered a force of nearly 3 m British, American & Canadian troops, together with mountains of military equipment and supplies to attack Normandy in N FR// to keep their plans secret, Allied commanders sent orders to make-believe army to attack the FR port of Calais ⇒ Hitler ordered his generals to keep a large army there// the largest land-sea-air operation in army history// German retaliation particularly brutal@Omaha Beach -
Bloody Anzio
the It. campaign got off to a good start w/ the capture of Sicily in the summer of 1943 ⇒ the It. govt forced Benito Mussolini to resign// King Victor Emmanuel III summoned Il Duce to his palace, stripped him of power & had him arrested (19430725) (It. end of the war)// one of the hardest battles the Allies encountered in Europe (40mi from Rome)// lasted 4 months (until the end of May 1944)
25,000 Allied & 30,000 Axis casualties -
Internment
JP attack on Pearl Harbor ⇒ U.S. military officials argued that JP Americans posed a threat to the nation’s security Executive Order 9066 (gave military officials the power to limit the civil rights of JA)(Franklin Roosevelt)
set a curfew for JA → forced JA from their homes & moved them into detention camps Fred Korematsu: convicted of defying the military order to leave his home → appealed ⇒ Court upheld Korematsu’s conviction & argued that military necessity made internment constitutional. -
The Battle of the Bulge
Americans captured their first German town, Aachen (Oct 1944)// German response: under cover of dense fog, eight German tank divisions broke through weak American defenses along an 80-mi front → tanks drove 60 mi into Allied territory, creating a bulge in the lines// as the Germans swept westward, they captured 120 American GIs near Malmédy// events had taken a decisive turn (raged for a month)
German loss:120,000 troops, 600 tanks & assault guns, & 1,600 planes -
Harry S. Truman
while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt had a stroke and died that night, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president -
Death of Hitler
in his underground headquarters in Berlin, Hitler prepared for the end married Eva Braun, his longtime companion (April 29) wrote out his last address to the German people (April 29)
: blamed the Jews for starting the war and his generals for losing it Hitler shot himself while his new wife swallowed poison (April 30) in accordance with Hitler’s orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned -
V-E Day
General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of
the Third Reich// the Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in Europe Day (May 8, 1945)
