Lecture 31 – World War II
The Road to War (1933-1939): Discontent with the Versailles Treaty combined with German, Italian, and
Japanese nationalism to lead all three countries down the road to war with their neighbors in the 1930s.
Germany was also influenced by the various hatreds of Adolph Hitler and his methods of solving problems.
Hitler’s Goals: Hitler sought to create a greater German empire (The Third Reich), which would
surpass the First (Holy Roman Empire) and the Second (German Empire of 1870-1918). All
Germans would be combined into a single state and other nations (Poland, the Ukraine, etc)
destroyed to open room (lebensraum, ‘living space’) for the German volk (people) to thrive.
Futher, the land would be purged of the Jews.
Destruction of Versailles: Inch by inch, Hitler began tearing down the Versailles settlement. In
1933, Hitler left the League of Nations. In 1935, he announced remilitarization, creating a draft to
build up the army and reinstating the navy and air force. Meanwhile, the League of Nations was
too feeble to stop him. The British and French caved in.
Italy vs. Ethiopia: In 1896, Italy had tried to colonize Ethiopia and been driven out by
force. In October 1935, Italy made a second attempt. Britain and France wanted
Mussolini’s support against Hitler and failed to stop him. The League of Nations was
now totally discredited. In 1936, Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler, the ‘BerlinRome Axis’.
Re-Militarization of the Rhineland: In 1936, Hitler now moved to remilitarize the
Rhineland. France and Britain did nothing to resist him, though he was not ready for a
war. Instead, they responded with the policy of appeasement, trying to buy him off by
concessions. It was based on the idea that Hitler’s desire to rebuild German strength to
match its neighbors was reasonable and that his demands would not be unlimited. Fear of
another World War heavily shaped this policy.
The Spanish Civil War: In 1931, Spain had become a democratic republic. In 1936, the
elections brought a left wing coalition government of center to center-left democrats,
socialists, and communists. However the right wing refused to give in, especially the
Phlangists (Spanish fascists). In July 1936, General Francisco Franco (1892-1975) led
the Spanish forces stationed in the colony of Spanish Morocco into the homeland to start
a civil war (1936-9). Germany and Italy helped the Phlangists. Volunteers flooded into
Spain to aid the Republicans. The Civil War helped bring Germany and Italy together.
Japan then joined them in the ‘Anti-Comintern Pact’, a theoretically anti-communist
alliance.
Austria and Czechoslovakia: On March 12, 1938, Hitler invaded and took over Austria
to prevent a popular vote (plebiscite) in Austria on the issue of whether to join Germany
which he thought he would lose. This annexation was called ‘Anschluss’ (union). It
caused Czechoslovakia to be surrounded on three sides by Germany, who now turned its
eyes to the Sudentenland, the western borderlands of the Czech republic which were
dominated by ethnic Germans (3.5 million) but also contained much of the industry, iron,
coal, and steel of Czechoslovakia. Most especially, it contained the Czech border
defenses. In September 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) of
Britain met with Hitler in Munich and proceeded to sell the Czechs down the river,
agreeing to let Hitler seize the Sudetenland in return for promising to leave the rest of
Czechoslovakia alone. (Hitler claimed he had no more territorial demands to make.) The
Czechs were not consulted, even though in theory, they had a defensive alliance with
Britain and France. Chamberlain claimed he had bought “Peace for our time”. (Heritage,
p. 936.) But in March 1939, Hitler took over the rest of Czechoslovakia too.
Poland: Poland now became clearly the next German target. Germany began pressuring
Poland to hand over the Danzig corridor, polish land which held a major Baltic port and
which separated the rest of Germany from Eastern Prussia. Chamberlain announced a
Franco-British guarantee of Polish independence. Hitler assumed Chamberlain would
cave in like before. Even if they didn’t, France intended to hide behind its Maginot line
and not risk itself and Britain could do little to save the Poles.
(David Low’s Rendezvous, Originally published in the Evening Standard,
September 20, 1939)
The Nazi-Soviet Pact: On August 23, 1939, Russia and Germany signed a pact. It was a
non-agression pact which secretly provided for the partition of Poland and Russian
annexation of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia (Baltic republics created by Versailles).
War Begins: September 1—Poland is invaded. September 3—Britain and France
declare war on Germany. September 17—Russia invades Poland with half a million
soldiers. September 28—Russia forces the Baltic states into submission. October 6—
The last bits of Poland fall to the Nazis and the Russians. The Poles cost the Germans the
equivalent of an armored division and 40% of their aircraft in casualties. November 30—
Russia invades Finland. The Finns fought back fiercely, though they ultimately lost.
World War II (1939-1945)
German Conquest of Europe: The speed of the fall of Poland (six weeks), stunned everyone. A
period of ‘phony war’ now ensued as the Germans and French glared at each other across their
mutual border; the French huddled behind the mighty Maginot line of fortifications, while the
Germans took cover behind the similar Siegfried line. French military strategy relied on the
Maginot line destroying any attempt at German attack, yet it only ran from where France,
Belgium, and Germany met in the Ardennes forest to the Swiss border; the Franco-Belgian border
had no defenses despite the experience of World War I.
The Fall of the Baltic: In April 1940, aided by a Norweigan traitor, Quisling, the Nazis
swiftly invaded and overran Norway and Denmark, taking control of the mouth of the
Baltic Sea.
The Fall of the Low Countries: In May 1940, the Germans overran the Netherlands,
Belgium, and Luxembourg.
The Battle of France: At the same time, German forces swept through the Ardennes and
cut off French units which had advanced into Belgium to try to fight the German
invasion. The British were forced to withdraw to the coast and evacuate from Dunkirk on
May 26-June 4, 1940. In June, German forces then cut off the Maginot line from behind,
taking out the rest of the French army. Italy then invaded France and France surrendered
on June 25, 1940, a total disaster for France. The Germans occupied much of northern
and western France, the Italians occupied the southeast and the rest became the puppet
state of Vichy France.
Britain Stands Alone: The Battle of Britain (Summer-Fall 1940): The defeat in France
led to the rise of a new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill (1874-1965), who received
heavy support from the United States, (led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt), though it
stayed out of war and only supplied war material. Britain now had to stand alone against
the Nazis, who now sought control of the air over Britain so they could attempt to safely
cross the English channel. Aided by Radar and the German mistake of switching to terror
bombing of London instead of attacks on airbases in the fall of 1940, the RAF (Royal Air
Force) defeated the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force) and saved Britain from conquest.
Italians in Africa: Meanwhile the Italians began the first of many offensives from Libya
into Egypt; they were defeated and for months, armies swept back and forth across the
desert, each repulsed whenever it outran its own supply line.
The Fall of the Balkans: In the spring of 1941, the Nazis overran the Balkans.
Operation Barbarossa / The Invasion of Russia: Hitler now turned on the Russians,
seeking control of the Russian oil fields and hoping to eliminate them as a threat. His
1941 offensive brought him to the gates of Leningrad and Moscow, but the Russian
winter halted the German advance, despite the Russian loss of 2.5 million out of 4.5
million men!
August 1941: Created by Roosevelt and Churchill, the Atlantic Charter lays out a vision
for post-war peace:
In brief, the eight points were:
1. no territorial gains sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;
2. territorial adjustments must conform to the people involved;
3. the right to self-determination of peoples;
4. trade barriers lowered;
5. postwar disarmament;
6. freedom from want and fear;
7. freedom of the seas;
8. an association of nations.
September 1941: Germans attacked a US Destroyer, the Greer. After this, US
Merchantmen were armed and the US was fully engaged in naval conflict in the Atlantic.
Hitler’s Europe: Hitler now began to methodically depopulate portions of Europe and set up
German colonies with the long term plan to Germanize eastern Europe. Unwanted peoples were
herded into work camps and death camps. Those nations considered similar to the Germans
(Scandanavia, the Dutch, the Swiss, etc) would be assimilated into the German population.
Conquered lands were used to fuel the resource and goods needs of the German war machine.
Racism and the Holocaust: Hitler considered some groups such as the Slavs and Jews
as innately inferior, fit only to be worked to death or flat-out killed. In Poland, Polish
society was methodically smashed up. In Russia, Hitler considered his war, a war of
‘extermination’. (Heritage, p. 941.) Some six million Russians were wiped out. The
Jews were especially targeted for 100% extermination. The death camps were set out to
carry out what he called the "final solution of the Jewish problem”, the mass execution of
the Jews by firing squad, oven, and poison gas. (Heritage, p. 941.) 6 million Jews died in
the Holocaust. Another million just barely survived it. Three to five million Slavs,
homosexuals, political dissidents, and others, were also killed in the camps.
Japan’s Ambitions
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Japanese ultra-nationalists wanted to build
their own colonial empire in Asia as the Europeans had in Africa and Asia. This empire
would let them meet their need for raw materials, as Japan was lacking in many key
materials--metals, rubber, oil, coal, etc.
1931: Invasion of Manchuria. The League of Nations censors them, but this does
nothing but show the League is impotent.
1937: Japanese invade China and quickly take over the coast, but the Communists (led
by Mao) and the KMT (Nationalist party, led by Chiang Kai-Shek) fight back. Militarists
take over the government. Hideous atrocities in Nanking, where 300,000 Chinese are
killed, countless numbers injured and raped (The post-war war crimes tribunal estimated
some 20-80,000 rapes).
1939-41: The US gradually cut off trade with Japan, trying to force it to back down and
withdraw. This increased the temptation to seize France and the Netherland's resource
rich holdings in Indonesia and Indo-China.
September 1940: Japan signs the Tripartite Pact with Italy and Germany.
1941: Russia and Japan sign a neutrality pact.
1941, December 7: The Pearl Harbor sneak attack. Japanese forces kill 2,500 americans
and cripple the main battle line of the Pacific Fleet, but the carriers don't happen to be
home so they survive. Elsewhere, Japanese forces flood into the Phillipines, Indonesia,
and Indochina.
1941, December 8: The US and Britain declare war on Japan.
1941, December 10: Germany and Italy declare war on the USA.
The Homefronts of World War II
The Home Front of the United States: For many Americans, war time conditions were
actually a vast improvement over the Depression. While Americans did have to make
sacrifices, many Americans now had more food, full-time employment, higher incomes
and a roof over their head. Indeed, war time production ended the Depression in the USA
and brought a new age of prosperity.
Mobilization: The US still needed to get up to war footing and arm all its
millions of volunteers. The US created many agencies to control every aspect
of the economy from production to manpower to wages and hours. Food and
other goods were rationed by a stamp book system.
Women: Women were now mobilized into the work force in vast numbers. 5
million women entered industry. Rosie the Riveter becomes an icon of
American women who worked in war industry.
Migration: Many Americans moved west or south to work in wartime
industries.
The Citizen Army: 20 million Americans served in WWII. Military had to be
expanded from 344,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines in 1939 to 8.3 million
active in the Army and 3.4 million in the Marines and Navy.
GIs: GI= 'Government Issue'. GIs got 4-6 months of training before
being sent out. Thousand of coaches were recruited to help train them.
Term of Service: On average, Americans served 33 months in the
military.
Army Women: 350,000 women served in the US military.
Indians: 25,000 Indians served in the US military. Most served in
racially integrated units; 300 Navajo were used as 'code-talkers',
delivering sensitive messages in various Indian languages.
Increased Spending: 321 billion from 1941 to 1945, twice all government
spending from 1789 to 1941 combined. GNP grew 75%. Prices rose only 32%.,
Manhattan Project: Established in late 1941, the Manhattan Project was a
project to develop nuclear weapons. It created entire towns in order to do the
massive work necessary to purify enough uranium for tests and production-Richland, Washington and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Richland produced
plutonium, while Oak Ridge produced purified Uranium. These towns were
kept secret, even though Oak Ridge grew to 75,000 people in 1945 and the K-25
purification plant covered 44 acres and was the largest building in the world.
(Richland grew from 300 to 25,000). On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb
was developed at Trinity, New Mexico.
Home Experience: Most Americans were far from war. They experienced war
as hard work and scarcity, but also more prosperity than before. Food and some
goods were rationed to ensure supplies needed for the war, but now Americans
had far more money to spend and even rationed food was more than many were
used to.
Discrimination: Blacks suffered some wartime discrimination as soldiers and
civilians. Japanese citizens had it worse; all of them west of the Mississippi
(112,000) were herded into concentration camps and locked up for no good
reason. (Except in Hawaii). Late in the war, some were allowed out to work,
which is why Kansas City today has many people of Japanese descent and a
Japanese culture festival. The Supreme Court approved this in Korematsu v.
United States (1944), but in 1948, the US recognized its liability for loss of
property in the Japanese Claims Act. In 1988, redress payments were made to
60,000 survivors. 11,000 German and Italian nationals were also interned.
Germany—From Victory to Defeat: Hitler had expected a rapid victory thanks to the
blitzkreig tactics. As a result, he didn’t bring the German economy to full war time
footing at first. Only after the failure to eliminate Russia did sacrifices have to be made
by non-soldier Germans. Between 1942 and 44, war good production tripled but the need
of the army for ever more men weakened war production. Food had to be rationed and
labor became hard to find. Many conquered people had to be enslaved and many of the
conviences of 20th century life were shut down. Nazi women were depicted as faithful to
their husbands, raising their children for war, and serving the war effort. Chastity to
preserve racial purity was crucial. Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels (1897-1945)
produced legions of propaganda to keep up morale and encourage hating the enemy,
especially JEWS. The bombing of German cities made Germans fight harder, for fear of
total destruction if they did not. The utter destruction of Germany by the war helped to
ensure the post-war settlement would have to vastly change things.
France-- Defeat, Collaboration, and Resistance: The defeat of France led the Vichy
rump government to collaborate with the Nazis, but most Frenchmen simply felt helpless
in the face of defeat. The French conservatives supported Vichy because they thought
the Third Republic had been too corrupt, decadent, and secular. Vichy adopted the
Catholic Church’s viewpoints on most things and embraced a chauvinistic, exclusive
nationalism. French Jews were handed over to the Germans. Late in 1942, a resistance
movement began to develop. Perhaps up to 5% of adult Frenchmen got involved, but
most were still broken in morale or pro-Vichy. Only in 1944, as it became obvious the
Nazis were losing, did the Resistance pick up steam. Frenchmen who had escaped
France helped in the D-Day invasion and the liberation of France, and in 1945, the Fourth
Republic was set up.
Great Britain-- Organizing For Victory: As France fell, the British Parlaiment gave
Churchill’s war cabinet emergency powers to control the economy and force military
service through a draft. The British economy soon could outproduce Germany. This war
production ended the Depression, though work hours were extended for factory workers.
The attacks by the Luftwaffe on British cities only reinforced the will to resist. Over
300,000 civilians were killed. Britain produced its own war propaganda through the
British Broadcasting Corporation. As in the US, many British folk found their standard
of living actually improved so long as their house wasn’t blown up. The British came to
connect this prosperity to government action, leading to the triumph of the Labor Party in
1945.
The Soviet Union—The Great Patriotic War: If Hitler had treated the conquered
regions of Russia well, he might well have torn apart the Soviet Union, as many of the
lesser Republics wanted freedom from Communism and Russian dominance. Instead, his
mistreatment of Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, etc, helped to build a sense of Soviet
nationalism against him. 16 million citizens of the Soviet union were killed and cities
and countryside alike were laid waste. Stalin retained control of the Soviet government
and military and cast the war as a patriotic defense of the motherland, rather than a class
conflict of Marxists vs. Capitalists. New propaganda was created and old Russian classic
novels were re-issued. Stalin made peace with the persecuted Russian Orthodox church.
Russian forces cut off by German advances became partisans and guerillas, fighting the
Germans and reminding the peasantry that the Soviet government would return.
The Early War in the Pacific:
Halsey's Counterattack: April 18, 1942, Jimmy Doolittle leads a bombing raid on Tokyo with
B-52 bombers; they have to fly on to China to land, as the ships which launched them then RUN
AWAY. Not very practical, but a morale win.
Coral Sea and Midway: American Forces fought a tied battle in the Coral Sea (May 4-8, 1942);
the Japanese then tried to eliminate the crucial coaling station of Midway (June 4, 1942 to June 7,
1942); instead, American planes got lucky and arrived just as the Japanese carriers had no fighter
cover. 4 carriers and 2 heavy cruisers were sunk, 4 destroyers disabled. This was a heavy blow.
It illustrated further that carriers would rule the waves.
Guadalcanal: August 7, 1942. US Marines landed; naval defeat for the US at Savo Island cut
them off until November 1942. It took until February, 1943 to secure it, so the island hop up the
Solomon Islands could begin.
Race Hatred: Fighting in the Pacific took on very ugly racial overtones and sometimes could be
extremely barbaric--the Japanese gave no quarter and the Americans did things like collecting
gold teeth and skulls as souveneirs.
The War in Europe
Russian Front: In 1941, Hitler had invaded Russia, striking at Leningrad, Moscow, and the
Ukraine Oil Fields. He took the Ukraine, but bogged down in winter. In 1942, he directed his
efforts south against the Volga river valley and the Caucusus oil fields, leading to the bogged
down battle of Stalingrad. 600,000 Germans died and by February 1943, the Russians began a
counter-attack.
Africa: In the summer of 1942, Rommel's last offensive on Egypt stalled at El Alamein and was
then thrown back. Meanwhile, the British and Americans invaded Western Africa in Operation
Torch, driving east along the coast. The armies came together in early 1943 in Tunisia.
Italy: In 1943, US and British forces took Sicily and invaded Southern Italy. Mussolini was
overthrown. But Stalin was mad because he wanted a full second front. (British wanted to press
up from the South; US thought this crazy.)
Russia: Hitler's last offensive, July 1943, bogged down and died.
Tehran: Fall 1943, Stalin/Roosevelt/Churchill conference. Russia promised to aid in Asia once
European war ended. They wanted a second front, NOW! A partition of Germany was agreed
upon, and to create a UN for collective security.
Russia: March 1944, Russians overrun the Ukraine and push for Poland.
Bombing: By 1944, German cities were being pounded to rubble; it failed to break German will,
and it's debatable as to how effective Strategic bombing actually was (it had failed in Britain, for
example), but air forces were obsessed with it, as it let them operate independently. 3 million tons
of bombs were dropped.
France: D-Day, June 6, 1944. Allied forces landed in Normandy, beginning the liberation of
France. (Operation OVERLORD, the largest amphibious landing in history--125,000 soldiers).
They had successfully bluffed the Germans into thinking Calais was their target. What followed
was a blitzkreig. By September, allied forces reached the German border.
Balkans: Russians overrun parts of the Balkans; by December, they are in Belgrade.
Battle of the Bulge: December 16, 1944-December 26, 1944. Germans tried to break through in
the Ardennes. They created a huge salient, but bogged down before snow and heavy resistance.
The Holocaust Discovered: It was only now that the evidence of the existence of the Holocaust
became overwhelming as the Russians and Americans began to liberate camps.
War in the Pacific
Two Pronged Strategy: The Army, under MacArthur, moved up through New Guinea, the
Solomons, and Indonesia to the Phillipines; the Navy island hopped with the marines across the
central pacific. Many islands were hopped past and left to wither without naval support.
March 1944: Battle of the Phillipine Sea smashed up the Japanese navy and opened the way for
an attack on the Phillipines. Saipan and Guam fell to the US; B-29s could now raid Japan.
Phillipines: October 20, 1944--MacArthur lands in the Phillipines. Battle of Leyte Gulf, the
largest battle in naval history, ensues.
US: 17 aircraft carriers, 18 escort carriers, 12 battleships, 24 cruisers, 141 destroyers,
Many other ships, PT boats, and submarines, About 1,500 planes. US loses 3,500 dead;
1 light aircraft carrier, 2 escort carriers, 3 destroyers sunk
Japan: 4 aircraft carriers, 9 battleships, 19 cruisers, 34 destroyers, About 200 planes.
10,000 dead; 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 8 cruisers, 12 destroyers sunk
Iwo Jima: February, 1945, the Marines take Iwo Jima. 4200 marines were killed, 15,000
wounded; bloodiest battle in Marine history.
Yalta, Potsdam, and War's End
1944: Roosevelt is re-elected, defeating Thomas Dewey, former mayor of New York
City.
February 1945, Yalta: Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin meet in the Black Sea-side city
of Yalta. Roosevelt wanted aid in Asia. Russia wanted a buffer zone in Europe.
Churchill wanted to enlarge the British Empire and get financial aid. Churchill and
Russia claimed zones in the Balkans, Germany would be rendered impotent (it would be
partitioned), an organizational date for the UN was set. Russia would turn on Japan once
Europe finished.
April, 1945: US forces take Okinawa.
April 12, 1945: Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemmorage.
April 27, 1945: Hitler commits suicide; US and Russian troops meet at the Elbe.
May 7, 1945: Germany surrenders unconditionally.
Potsdam: July 1945--Churchill (then Atlee), Truman, and Stalin meet. Stalin promises
to move in Asia; he demands free hand in Eastern Europe, but no committment is made.
Germany is to be partitioned and 25% of western germany factory equipment to go to the
Russian zone.
August 1945: Dropping of the atomic bombs. It remains debatable as to how necessary
this was.
6: Hiroshima
9: Nagasaki
10: Japan surrenders.
Total Casualties:
Americans
Killed: 292,000
Prisoners of War: 100,000
Wounded: 691,000
Global:
Total Dead: 72,155,800
Military: 25,037,500
Civilian: 41,363,400
Jewish Holocaust Deaths: 5,754,400
Why Allied Victory?
Superior Production: Even before the US entered the war, the US supplied crucial war material
to the Allies; once it entered, the US had huge labor reserves to tap and a huge industrial base to
eventually outproduce its foes.
Control of Raw Materials: As the war progressed, the Axis increasingly lost control of raw
materials needed to keep fighting.
Superior Manpower: The US, Great Britain, and Russia together vastly outmanned the Axis.
The US alone put more men in the field than Germany and was able to fight Japan at the same
time.
Technology: As the war progressed, Allied technology kept improving, culminating in the atomic
bomb.
Superior Appeal: Democracy and Freedom was rather more appealing to undecided nations than
the prospect of being shoved into ovens or reduced to slavery, which is all the Axis had to offer to
non-members.