• Great Depression and World War II
• The World in Prosperity and Depression
• After WWI, many imperial governments were gone, replaced by new states.
Russia was in the midst of civil war.
• Reconstruction & Prosperity
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• 1 years postwar were difficult. Famines, unemployment, flu pandemic, and
property damage.
• Germans had to make reparations payments, slowing recovery. Printing extra
money triggered hyperinflation.
• US emerged as world’s greatest economic power.
• Britain & France in debt to US.
• Brief US recession followed by boom, boosted by automobiles, appliances,
movies, radio.
• Investment in Europe led to spread of prosperity; expanded to Asia, Africa, &
Latin America.
• 1920s:
• New values. Women had worked; gained voting rights; pursued
education.
• New democracies like Weimar Republic (Germany); Socialist Parties
also rose.
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The Great Depression
1929: New York Stock Market crashed, triggering Great Depression.
Depression: economic downturn; businesses fail and workers unemployed.
Americans stopped spending; banks recalled loans and depression spread
worldwide.
• ~40 million unemployed in industrial countries.
• Agricultural nations could not sell crops.
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Factors Causing Depression
Overspeculation in stock market & real estate (borrowing $$).
Overproduction: more goods than people had money to buy.
Interrelationship of loans & debts meant recession spread.
• Gov’ts reacted poorly: stopped spending, tightened credit, stopped trading.
No “safety nets.”
• US: Franklin Roosevelt elected President in 1932. New Deal plan created
public works projects.
• Rise of Fascism
• New post-WWI political system. Name comes from Benito Mussolini’s party
in Italy – Nazis another example.
• Roots of Fascism
• Anti-Semitism: Hatred of Jews. Common problem; unique beliefs and
customs made Jews targets in times of social unrest and political instability.
Blamed for disruptions caused by rapid industrialization.
• Racism: Contempt for people of other races. Strengthened by imperialism
and spirit of nationalism.
• Social Darwinism: Made racism & anti-Semitism “scientific” and
“acceptable.” Believed all human groups compete for survival; stronger
groups should succeed and weaker die out.
• Old Order Collapses
• Immense political change meant many new leaders were unaccustomed to
holding power.
• Germany: Kaiser Wilhelm exiled. Weimar Republic weak: landowners,
industrialists, military leaders, & professionals opposed it. Wanted a single
leader; feared socialism; angry at Treaty of Versailles.
• USSR: Communists built totalitarian state. Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin;
eliminated rivals with “purges.” Sent opponents to Siberian gulags.
Collectivized agriculture; starved Ukraine into submission. Europeans feared
Communism would spread, so supported anti-Communists like Mussolini &
Hitler.
• Italy:
• Industrialists & property owners feared Communist “Red Menace.”
Tired of strikes & riots; feared revolution.
• Benito Mussolini (former socialist) formed Fascists. Copied Bolshevik
practices while denouncing ideas.
• Party newspaper, organization, army called Black Shirts.
• 1922: Took power after “March on Rome.” Controlled press, abolished
unions, outlawed strikes to “ally” owners & workers. Used violence.
• Within 3 years, totalitarian state.
• Rise of Nazi Dictatorship in Germany
• German socialists blamed Weimar Republic leaders for Treaty of Versailles;
reparations led debts; printing money led to inflation; people lost savings.
• Weimar Republic Collapses
• By late 20s, some economic stability; ended when Great Depression spread
to Germany in 1930. Rising unemployment.
• Farmers, unemployed, middle class turned to Communists and Nazi Party.
• Rise of Nazi (National Socialist) Party
• Adolf Hitler led Nazi Party. Spelled out ideas in book Mein Kampf (My
Struggle):
• Important part of belief: fanatical loyalty to “Fuhrer”
• Nazis Come to Power
• Private army of Brown Shirts (former soldiers, unemployed workers). Beat up
political opponents & Jews; staged rallies & parades.
• Support for Nazis increased as Depression spread. Became largest party in
Reichstag (legislature). Hitler became Chancellor in 1933; took complete
control.
• Determined to bring down republic & establish dictatorship.
• Created chaos; declared martial law; burned Reichstag building. Blamed
Communists and Hitler became absolute dictator.
• Germany Under Nazi Control
• Nazis took over social, economic, & political life. Army took loyalty oath to
Hitler. Hitler murdered rivals.
• “New Order” changes:
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• Hitler admired for restoring full employment, “superior race” idea,
overturning Versailles Treaty, and restoring military power.
• Opponents hid or arrested/killed. Secret police: Gestapo.
• Propaganda important. Kids joined Hitler Youth; art/theater celebrated
Nazis.
• Hitler used gov’t to create public works & rearm Germany.
• US: FDR increased public spending and introduced public works. Pushed
Congress for gov’t programs & Social Security to combat Depression & get
workers back to work.
• USSR: Stalin used terror tactics, like Hitler, but Soviets did not have
Depression because not free-market economy.
• World War II
• Rise of Fascist dictators made outbreak of a new war almost inevitable. They
glorified war and planned national expansion. War delayed while armaments
built up. Japan began war in East Asia in 1931.
• Origins of WWII
• WWII: Resumption of war that ended in 1918? Hitler sought revenge,
claimed territory for nationalists; but vision of world order went far beyond.
• Hitler planned to enslave and exterminate whole populations. WWII was a
struggle for mastery of the world. New weapons and linking of Germany &
Japan made it most destructive war in history.
• Events leading to war:
• Hitler & Mussolini took steps
• Mussolini invaded Ethiopia
• Hitler helped Francisco Franco in Spanish Civil War
• Hitler demanded Austria & part of Czechoslovakia; Britain & France
appeased him at Munich Conference. (Chamberlain: “Peace in our
time.”)
• Hitler demanded Danzig; Poles said no.
• The War in Europe
• September 1, 1939: Hitler invades Poland; WAR.
• Nazi Blitzkrieg and Battle of Britain
• Improvements in automobile engine & other technologies made new forms
of war possible.
• Blitzkrieg (lightning war): use planes, tanks, motorized troop carriers to
advance rapidly.
• Nazis overran Poland, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, much of North
Africa. By end of 1940, only Britain held out.
• Hitler planned to bomb London & other cities from air.
• Winston Churchill, Prime Minister, rallied resistance with radio broadcasts.
• Use of radar, bravery of British air force, and island location helped with
defense. Hitler could not defeat British.
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Germany Invades USSR
By 1940, Hitler controlled Western Europe (except Britain). Turned east.
Planned to expand and take land. Looked down on Slavs.
1941: betrayed Stalin (broke Non-Aggression Pact) with surprise attack.
At first, successful. Then Russian winter and army beat Germans back.
Turning point in war: German defeat at Stalingrad.
Soviets lost 21 million military & civilians.
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US Enters War
December 7, 1941: Japan attacks American ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Hitler joins Japan & declares war on US.
Hitler opposed by Allied Powers: Britain, Soviet Union, United States.
Germany helped by Italy & Japan: Axis Powers.
• Allies focused on defeating Germany first, then Japan.
• Holocaust
• Attempted genocide (attempt to murder an entire people or nationality) of
Jews of Europe.
• Years of discrimination: Kristallnacht, discrimination laws, yellow stars,
ghettos.
• Final Solution: Hitler decided to execute all European Jews. Plan: Final
Solution. At first, Jews marched out of towns & machine gunned next to
trenches they were forced to dig, or gassed in trucks.
• Concentration Camps: Large camps like Auschwitz built in Eastern Europe.
Jews sent to camps in cramped railroad cattle cars. When they arrived, most
were killed with poison gas & bodies buried or burned in ovens. Some forced
to work to run camps. Half-starved and treated inhumanely. Medical
experimentation, too.
• Human Toll: Estimated that over 6 million Jews (2/3 of those in Europe) were
killed.
• 6 million gypsies, Slavs, political prisoners, elderly, and mentally disabled also
died.
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• War In Europe Ends
• US & Britain delayed second front in Europe.
• D-Day (June 6, 1944): allied troops landed in Normandy, France – largest
amphibious assault in history. Tide of war turns in favor of Allies.
• USSR had manpower; US had manufacturing. Forces pinched in on Germany.
• August 1941: Roosevelt & Churchill issued Atlantic Charter (plan for post-war
Europe). Promised self-determination and future disarmament.
• Churchill, Roosevelt, & Stalin met at Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1945). Stalin
promised free elections in Eastern Europe.
• By 1945, Soviet, British, American, & French troops occupied Germany. April
30, Hitler commits suicide. Germany surrenders. VE Day – May 8.
• Nuremberg Trials
• Several important Nazi leaders were tried and convicted by an international
tribunal for “crimes against humanity.” The Nuremberg Trials revealed Nazi
atrocities: slave labor, medical experimentation, starvation, genocide.
• Reaffirmed that not only a country but also its individuals are accountable for
violating international law.
• Germany divided into 4 zones occupied by Allied powers.
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• War In Asia
• Japan’s aggression leads to war in Asia.
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• Japan’s industrialization in late 19 cen. was successful, but they needed raw
materials and markets. Also wanted to replace European imperialism with
Asian power.
• Military began to influence policy in 1930s. Glorified military discipline &
loyalty. Set Japan on expansion – took Manchuria in 1931 and set up puppet
gov’t, then invaded China in 1937. Atrocities against civilians in Shanghai,
Nanjing, and other cities.
• Japan in WWII
• Leaders saw war in Europe an opportunity to gain control of Asia. Occupied
French Indochina. Only US could prevent expansion.
• When US threatened to blockade oil supplies unless Japan gave up
conquests, Japan decided on surprise attack.
• 1941: Hideki Tojo appointed Prime Minister. He & others convinced Emperor
Hirohito to attack US. Plan: short war with treaty giving Japan control of East
Asia.
• Pearl Harbor (1941):
• Japan launched air attack from carriers on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.
• More than 2400 Americans killed.
• “A day that will live in infamy.”
• “We have awakened a sleeping giant.”
• The War in Asia and the Pacific (1941-1943)
• Japanese leaders underestimated the US. “Quick war”’ dragged on for four
years.
• At first, Japan succeeded; invaded & occupied Philippines, Hong Kong,
Borneo, Solomon Islands, Java, Singapore…
• The Tide Turns Against Japan (1943-1945)
• Tide began to turn in 1943 when US won Battle of Midway.
• American forces began “island-hopping” – liberating islands from Japanese
control one by one. Japanese armies were forced to retreat back toward
home islands.
• After Germany was defeated in 1945, US focused on Japan.
• The Atomic Bomb Ends the War (1945)
• German Jewish physicist Albert Einstein played a role in developing the atom
bomb.
• Published papers claiming space & time are relative and that a large amount
of energy can be released from a small amount of matter.
• After Hitler came to power, Einstein fled Germany for US. During war, he
feared a Nazi atomic weapon.
• Einstein wrote letter to Roosevelt supporting research. Roosevelt authorized
the Manhattan Project.
• Scientists gathered in Los Alamos, New Mexico to develop weapon.
• August 1945: New president Harry Truman authorized use of atomic bombs
on Japan, hoping to prevent high casualties from a land invasion.
• August 6, 1945: Bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
• August 9, 1945: Bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
• Japanese leaders convince emperor to surrender.
• US Occupation of Japan (1945-1952)
• American general Douglas MacArthur led Pacific campaign and was assigned
to rebuild post-war Japan.
• Reforms made Japan less imperialistic and aggressive.
• Japan lost overseas empire, army, & navy. Leaders tried and punished; Tojo
executed.
• Democratic constitution written; Emperor Hirohito kept throne, but powers
reduced.
• Global Impact of World War II
• Global conflict with unparalleled destruction.
• As many as 70 million dead; much of Europe & Asia in ruins.
• Germany, Italy, & Japan occupied and turned into democratic nations.
• European collapse hastened end of imperialism in Asia & Africa.
• Costs estimated at over 2 trillion dollars. ($2,000,000,000.00)
• US shouldered bulk of costs, but was spared most of the destruction.
• The United Nations
• League of Nations failed. Churchill and Roosevelt planned a new
international peace-keeping organization in 1945, the United Nations (UN).
• UN Charter: Purpose to maintain peace in the world while encouraging
friendship and cooperation. Members give up use of force (except selfdefense). Also: eliminate hunger, disease, ignorance.
• Security Council of leading powers to ensure peace & deter aggression. Can
apply economic sanctions or use military power.
• General Assembly includes all member nations; makes recommendations to
Security Council.
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• Terminology: Define using glossary.
• 1. Totalitarianism
• 2. Joseph Stalin
• 3. Great Depression
• 4. Fascism
• 5. Benito Mussolini
• 6. Weimar Republic
• 7. Adolf Hitler
• 8. Nazi Party
• 9. Gestapo
• 10. Appeasement
• 11. Blitzkrieg
• 12. Allied/Axis Powers
• 13. Normandy Landing
• 14. Holocaust
• 15. Nuremberg Trials
• 16. Hideki Tojo
• 17. Pearl Harbor
• 18. Winston Churchill
• 19. Albert Einstein
• 20. Atomic Bomb
• 21. United Nations