World
War II
The Grand
Alliance
McKay 980984, Palmer
21.107
World War II
1942-1945
Japan
attacks
Pearl
Harbor
1941
Atlantic
Charter
Grand
Alliance
Formed
Battle of
Stalingrad
ends
(Feb)
1942
1943
Wannsee
Conference
declares
Final
Solution
Hiroshima &
Nagasaki ABombed
(Aug. 6 & 9)
1944
1945
D-Day
June 6
Yalta
Conference
(Feb)
The Grand Alliance
• Grand Alliance led by (GB, US, USSR) & 26 other
nations formed to face the Axis Powers
– Formed after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and US
declared war
– Unconditional Surrender
• Agreed to the total defeat of the Axis Powers
• All pledged to use all its resources and never
make a separate peace
• The Big Three
– Stalin, FDR, and Churchill
• US and GB pooled resources under a Combined Chiefs of
Staff
• Formed overall strategy early (unlike WWI)
• Europe First
– Decided that Germany must be defeated 1st
– Pacific theater would be defensive until Germany fell
• Divisive political questions would be postponed until the
end of the war
Strengths of Grand Alliance
• US industrial capacity
unsurpassed, large population
united
– Greater Production capacity than
all other industrial nations
combined
• British effectively mobilized
economy for total war
– High morale
• Soviets had effectively relocated
entire factories over Urals
– Extremely patriotic (Great
Patriotic War of the
Fatherland)
• Resistance from Nazi occupied
territories
Resistance to the Nazis
• Resistance varied from one occupied country to
another
• Countries where German soldiers & collaborators
were prominent resistance was minimal
• French Resistance
– Led by General Charles De Gaulle (from England)
– Jean Moulin captured and tortured to death in
July ’43 without revealing names of French
fighters
• Yugoslavian
– Communist Josip Broz (Tito) led a Serb-Croat
resistance army of 20 thousand
– Used mountains to hide and harass Germans and
Italian armies
• Valkyrie (July ’44)
– Assassination plot led by Wehrmacht Colonel
Claus von Stauffenberg to assassinate Hitler at the
Wolf’s Lair (Northern Poland)
• 15 thousand Germans sentenced to death for crimes
against the state
– Included listening to the BBC
– But most Germans remained loyal to de Fuhrer
Total War
• British were first government to thoroughly mobilize
entire British economy & society towards Total War
• British conscription law brought very little resistance
• British armed forces
– 500 thousand in 1939
– 5 million in 1945
• Ordinance Industry
– 7 thousand women in 1939
– 260 thousand in 1945
• British War Cabinet
– Established rationing, higher taxes
– Pants came without cuffs or zippers
– Utilized scientists and engineers to create weapons
– Cracked German High Command’s communication
codes
• British Psychological Warfare Division
– Used psychology to weaken the will of Axis
• Radio and leaflets
– Germany countered with “Axis Sally” and “Tokyo
Rose”
The War in North Africa
• Italian army invaded North Africa in June of 1940
• By December 1940 Italian army was reeling to
British
• Hitler sent Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to save
Italians
• Secondary purpose was to control Suez Canal
(lifeline of British Empire & path to oil fields of
Middle East)
• Axis decisively defeated at El Alamein in October
1942
• Operation Torch
– Invasion of Vichy North Africa led by
Eisenhower (Algeria and Morocco)
• Montgomery launched final counter offensive
from the east
• Germany was crushed by 5/1943 in Tunisia
– Almost 300 thousand surrendered
• By May ’43 Africa was cleared of Axis
• Mediterranean and Suez reopened
Stalingrad
• Turning point of the War
• Aug. ’42 ¼ million German
forces began all out assault on
Stalingrad
• Key transport city of lower Volga
• By Sept. German forces were in
the city
• Stalin ordered the city to be held
at all costs
• Red Army under General
Zhukov organized a
counteroffensive and enveloped
the German army
• Only 120,000 German soldiers
were left to surrender in Feb 43
• Number of Russians killed is
unknown
• Red Army was now an offensive
army
The Battle of Stalingrad
Invasion of Italy
• Allies used North Africa as launching pad
for invasion of Europe’s “Soft Underbelly”
• Took Sicily (July-Aug. ’43)
• King Victor Emmanuel III fired Mussolini
and ordered his arrest
– Rescued by German commandos in Sept.
– Set up “Italian Social Republic” in northern
Italy but only existed with German soldiers
• Marshal Badoglio made peace overtures to
the Allies but German army occupied Italy
• Allies invaded Italy in Sept. 1943
• Monte Cassino
– German army well fortified inside a 6th century
monastery
– Combined American, Polish, and Canadian
forces finally overtook them in May 1944
• US troops took Rome June 4, 1944
• Mussolini fell 4/1945 & was captured
trying to flee the country and executed
Normandy Invasion
• Stalin had clamored for a “second front” since
1942
• Believed USSR was taking brunt of German
attacks
• Hitler believed attack would be on Pas- de-Calais
(closest French port)
• Festung Europa
– Beaches around France were heavily fortified
– “Atlantic Wall”
– Included underwater mines, Belgian Sticks,
reinforced pill boxes, Rommel Asparagus
– Amphibious attack posed exceptional
challenges
• German victory hinged on rapid reinforcement of
tanks and troops
• Allies utilized feinting tactics
• Other challenges
– air superiority, 4, 000 transport ships, 10
thousand aircraft, engineering materials
(artificial harbors, pontoon ramp system),
unpredictable weather of English Channel
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
• Massive amphibious invasion
(Second Front) on beaches of
Normady France
• Germans expected main
thrust of invasion at Calais
• Under the command of
Eisenhower 130 thousand
Canadian, British, American
forces landed 1st day
• Built 3 makeshift harbors
• 1.3 million troops landed
within a 7 weeks
• Paris liberated on August 25
• French, Italian, and Belgian
Resistance movements
emerged
D-Day
Battle of the Bulge
• Hitler’s last offensive
• Battle of the Bulge
– Hitler threw remaining
armored forces against
the Allies in the Ardennes
in Dec. ‘44
– Successful at 1st but
Allies rebounded
• V1 and V2 rockets
(Buzz Bomb) and new
Messerschmitt jet
terrorized London
– But Germany’s time was
running out
• 3/1945 Allied forces crossed
the Rhine
The Eastern Front
• Soviet army was
pushing west and
reclaiming territory
lost early in the war
• Allowed youth of
Warsaw Uprising (Aug.
’44) and democracy to
be crushed by Nazis
– 66 Day house-tohouse fighting by
Polish youth
– Stalin had already
destroyed Polish
army leadership at
Katyn forest in ‘43
• Feb ’45 General
Zhukov reached the
Oder River
– Red army was 50
miles from Berlin
The Final Drive on Germany
• April 1945 American troops reached
the Elbe
– 60 miles from Berlin
• Soviets were permitted to take Berlin,
Prague, and other central and eastern
European capitals
– Eisenhower
• Directed troops south in case of
guerilla attacks
• Gesture of goodwill to Soviets
for their sacrifice
• Hitler married Eva Braun and
committed suicide April 30, 1945
• Admiral Doenitz, Hitler’s successor
offered Germany’s unconditional
surrender (5/8/1945)
The Final Solution
• Final Solution was Hitler and Nazi high command
decision to eliminate Jews and other untermenchen
in Europe
• Part of Hitler’s New Order program
• Began in late 30s with the murder by lethal
injection, and gas truck of Germans who were
mentally deficient and handicapped (70 thousand)
• 350 thousand other Germans considered deficient
were sterilized (alcoholics, homosexuals,
schizophrenics)
• Heinrich Himmler
– carried out Final Solution
– Leader of the SS
• special army of 1 million ardent Nazi
soldiers used to carry out the Holocaust
– Former chicken farmer who was obsessed with
medieval Germany
• Slav’s included in Himmler’s untermenchen
category
• Planned to clear Eastern Europe of at least 30
million slavs to make room for Germans
The Final Solution
•
•
•
•
•
A gradual process of
bureaucratized, industrialized
mass murder
Nuremberg Laws had stripped
Jews of civil rights
Germany’s invasion of Poland
brought Nazi’s in contact with 3
million Eastern Jews
Ghettoization
– After WWII began Jews were
systematically deported to
small sections of Polish cities
(Warsaw, Krakow)
– Rancid and extremely
overcrowded conditions
Einsatzgruppen
– SS-led death squads followed
German regular army and
systematically murdered Jews,
Gypsies, and Slavs by machine
gun, starvation, etc.
– Whole villages in Eastern
Europe were razed and
inhabitants murdered or
deported
Source: German Soldier who witnessed Kaunas pogrom was the
so-called "Death dealer of Kaunas“ in June 1941
"A young man--he must have been a Lithuanian-...with rolled up
sleeves was armed with an iron crowbar. He dragged out one man
at a time from the group and struck him with the crowbar with
one or more blows on the back of his head. Within three-quarters
of an hour he had beaten to death the entire group of forty to fifty
people in this way. I had a series of photographs of the victims...
After the entire group had been beaten to death, the young man
put the crowbar to one side, fetched an accordion and went and
stood on the mountain of corpses and played the Lithuanian
national anthem. I recognized the tune and was informed by
bystanders that this was the national anthem. The behaviour of the
civilians present (women and children) was unbelievable. After
each man had been killed, they began to clap and when the
national anthem started up they joined the singing and clapping.
In the front row there were women with small children in their
arms who stayed there right until the end of the whole
proceedings. I found out from some people who knew German
what was happening here. They explained to me that the parents
of the young man who had killed the other people had been taken
from their beds two days earlier and immediately shot, because
they were suspected of being nationalists, and this was the young
man's revenge.".34
The Final Solution
• The “Final Solution” was decided by Nazi
executives at Wannsee, Poland in Jan. ’42
• Rate of murder dramatically rose as German
army began to lose battles
• Auschwitz
– Most horrific concentration camp
– Both a work and death camp
– Jews and others transported on cattle cars
– Selection Process
• Nazi doctors inspected arrivals and quickly
decided who went left or right
• Left = immediate death in gas chamber
• Right = slow death as a slave laborer
– 12 thousand gassed per day
– Bodies were checked for silver, gold and then
burned in crematoria
– Gallows stood in open courtyard where
prisoners stood for hours everyday during roll
call
– 6 million Jews
– 3 million Poles
– 80 % Russian POW
The Final Solution
• Auschwitz I’s Block 10 was
used to conduct horrific
experiments
• Headed Dr. Josef Mengele
– “The Angel of Death
– Performed grotesque
experiments on over 3
thousand twins
– Performed autopsies on life
patients without anesthesia
– Tried to change eye color
– Injected patients with various
chemicals
• Only 100 pairs survived
Block 10 of
Auschwitz I
where
medical
experiments
were
performed
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Push towards Japan
• From Guadalcanal Americans began to
“Island Hop” northward toward Japan
• March 1945 took 8 square mile
strategic island of Iwo Jima after heavy
loses
• Took Okinawa after brutal 2.5 months
in spring of ’45
• Only 300 miles from Japanese main
islands
• Japanese fought harder the closer
Americans came to Japan
• Began all-out air campaign from newly
won territory to destroy Japanese
industry
• Plan for full-scale invasion of Japan
were being drawn up
The Atomic Bomb
• “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima
8/6/45
– 78 thousand killed and thousands of others
were wounded or suffered radiation
exposure
• Soviet Union declared war on Japan
and invaded Manchuria 8/8
• Nagasaki was struck 8/9
• 9/2/45 Japan signed unconditional
surrender on the Missouri
• Emperor Hirohito remained head of
state but Japan under occupation of US
army under MacArthur
World War II (1939-1945)
•
•
•
•
Greatest conflict in human history
50-70 million total deaths
25 million wounded
15 million military deaths
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
USSR- 6
German- 3.5
Chinese- 2.2
Japanese- 1.3
Polish 700 thousand
GB- 400
US 300
French 200
• 40-50 million civilian deaths
– 25 million Russian