Unit 6:
Global
Struggles
1931-1960
Chapter 19
Adolf Hitler
A World
in Flames
Francisco Franco
Pearl Harbor
Emperor Hirohito
Benito Mussolini
I. America and the World
A. Between the Wars
- US determined not to be drawn into another
foreign war
- worked for int’l agreements & arms control
1. 1919: US refuses to ratify Treaty of
Versailles. Why?
2. Problems in Europe
a. Communism in Russia
b. Unrest in Germany
c. widespread economic distress
3. Actions taken by US to prevent further
overseas involvement
a. Ended draft
b. 1921: Washington Conference –
1st successful disarmament
conference in US History
c. 5/4/9 Power Treaty – 1920s treaties
aimed at maintaining peace
- 5/4 power treaty – to prevent
hostile actions
- 9 power treaty – to keep China
independent and open to foreign
trade
d. 1928: Kellogg Briand Pact – pledged to
renounce war as an instrument of
national policy. But no way to enforce it
and it didn’t rule out defensive wars
4. War Debts & Reparations – Europe
couldn’t pay war debts.
a.
b.
c.
d.
France & GB owed US
Germany owed France & GB
Germany could not pay France & GB
So France & GB could not pay US
5. 1924: Dawes Plan – US plan to improve
German economy so it could pay – failed
B. The Rise of Dictators
- after WWI, US hoped to aid in the
establishment of democracy throughout
the world. Instead, in the 1920s-30s,
totalitarian gov’ts appeared in Italy,
Germany, and the USSR – ALL used
terror and force to suppress the
opposition
1. Mussolini - Italy (Il Duce)
a. Problems in Italy
1) Scorn for Versailles Treaty –
didn’t get Austrian territory
2) Economy failing, political and
class tensions
3) unemployment, inflation led to
strikes, fear of Communism
b. Mussolini blamed problems on
Communists, corrupt biz leaders &
weak politicians – promised to
restore to Italy the honor, glory &
prosperity of ancient Roman Empire
c. founded Fascist party in 1919
1) Fascism stresses nationalism
and the supreme authority of
the leader
2) believed nations made great by
expanding territory and building
up military
3) nation more important than
Believe, Obey, Fight
individual.
Individualism
=
“The function of a
citizen and a soldier
weakness
are inseparable”
4) anti-communist: stood for
protection of pvt property &
middle class; full employment for
industrial workers; social
security; national prestige
5) organized blackshirts – militia
used gang tactics to suppress
strikes & attack leftist trade
unions
Mussolini
with
Blackshirts
1922
Benito Mussolini
Il Duce
2. Stalin Takes Over the USSR (1926)
a. Bolshevik Revolution 1917 (Lenin)
b. Instituted one-party rule, suppressed
individual liberties, punished
opponents
c. Stalin takes over 1926 - advocated
rapid industrialization, state control
of farms
– his methods caused famine and
starvation. Kept control through
series of purges - killing or
imprisoning political enemies
and possible opposition
Josef stalin
3. Hitler & Nazism
a. political & economic chaos in
post-WWI Germany
- economic burden of reparations
and rebuilding + skyrocketing
inflation
- Weimar Republic: A Democracy,
but little experience; weak &
ineffective.
Weimar
Republic’s Paul
- workers begin to support
Von Hindenburg
Communists; upper class wants
return to monarchy
b. humiliated by terms of WWI
surrender
Terms of Treaty of Versailles
c. Adolf Hitler blamed Germany’s
problems on
- Communists
- foreign powers who stripped
Germany of its land & military
abilities at Versailles
- Jews who controlled world finances
d. Mein Kampf: Hitler outlines his
Mein Kampf
plan
for
Germany
(from
jail
1923)
became a bestseller in Germany
- Germans are a superior race
w/ right to conquer & rule other
peoples (especially Slavs/Jews)
- Germany needed lebensraum
(living space) – should expand east
e. Rose to power through Nazi Party
(National Socialist German
Workers Party)
Nazism = fanatical ideas of nationalism,
German racial superiority, and
supremacy of the “fuhrer”
f. 1932: Both Communists & Nazis
gain seats in German parliament
g. Hitler became President in 1934.
Called himself der fuhrer. Vowed to:
1) rebuild German economy
2) restore lands lost after WWI
3) to rearm Germany (in defiance
of Treaty of Versailles)
Adolf Hitler
4. Francisco Franco - Spain
a. Spanish Civil War 1936 – republican
govt vs fascists
b. Germany & Italy helped arm Franco’s
fascist forces (German arms, weapons,
new tactics are battle tested)
c. USSR helped loyalists. GB, France, US
did nothing
d. Democracy lost
Francisco Franco
"Our regime is
based on
bayonets and
blood, not on
hypocritical
elections.“
Francisco
Franco
Ernest Hemingway was moved to write
the following words after witnessing
the treachery and wastage of the
ignominious Spanish Civil War:
"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and
fitting to die for one's country. But in modern
war there is nothing sweet or fitting in your
dying. You will die like a dog for no good
reason."
Ernest Hemingway
Notes for the Next War
5. Militarists Gain Control of Japan
a. background. 1920s: Japan had close
ties with West, was developing
democratic system
b. But economy suffering – trade deficit,
unemployment etc.
c. Nationalists/Military leaders, some biz
leaders urged return to glory of Japan’s
past with absolute rule by emperor
- Japan destined to dominate East
Asia
- Preached virtues of territory
expansion
d. Why Expand?
1) expanding population
2) economic expansion (defense
contracts)
3) lack of natural resources
e. Sept 1931: military (w/o support of
gov’t) invaded Manchuria, a
resource-rich province of China
f. Japanese civilian gov’t tried to
intervene. Prime Minister and
many other supporters of
democracy assassinated
g. Series of military officers now
serving as Prime Minister
h. League of Nations complained –
Japan simply withdrew from L of N
C. America Turns to Neutrality
- America supports Isolationism – the
belief that the US should avoid int’l
commitments that might drag US into
another foreign war
1. Isolationism
a. Isolationism grew in popularity. Why?
1) war debt – Europeans weren’t
paying loans
2) belief that US arms
manufacturers influenced WWI
Nye Committee Findings
b. Nye Committee – confirmed that
arms manufacturers made huge
profits
– believed these companies
influenced US decision to enter
war
2. Legislating Neutrality – supporting Isolationism
a. Neutrality Act (1935) – barred sale of
munitions to all belligerents (nations at war)
b. 1936: another Neutrality Act passed to ban
sale of arms to either side in a civil war
- reaction to Spanish Civil war (1936)
c. Neutrality Act of 1937 – continued ban on
arms sales to belligerents but allowed sale
of nonmilitary supplies - on “cash and
carry” basis & on their own ships
- reaction to Rome-Berlin Axis and
Anti-Comintern Act (Japan & Germany
agree to exchange info about commies)
thus,
Germany, Japan, Italy = Axis Powers
For or Against neutrality??
3. Roosevelt & Internationalism
a. FDR an internationalist (not an
isolationist) – believes trade btwn nations
creates prosperity & helps prevent war
b. Japan attacks China again in July 1937
A survivor after intense
bombing during the
Japanese attack on
Shanghai's South
Station. August 1937.
- FDR ok’s sale of weapons to
China
- this he says, does not violate Neutrality
Act , as neither side declared war
Rape of Nanking
• Btwn Dec.1937 and March 1938 Japanese
troops captured Nanking (then the Capital of
China) and embarked on a campaign of
murder, rape and looting.
• An estimated 250,000 and 300,000 (out of
600,000 total) killed, many of them women and
children.
• # women raped is estimated at 20,000+ w/
many accts of civilians being hacked to death.
• Like other genocides, some refute this atrocity
• (acct by BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/39166.stm)
Rape of Nanking
Japanese soldiers carrying rifles
on their shoulders walk across a
bridge, through a pillared gate,
into the walled city of Nanking,
China.
Chinese men rounded up by the
Japanese, in “Nanking.”
Japanese Troops raising
rifles in victory –
somewhere near Nanking
II. World War II Begins
A. Pre-War German Aggression
1. 1935: Germany rearms (violating
Treaty of Versailles)
a. Nat’l pride soars
b. German economy improves –
unemployment fell, new
opportunities grew
c. Result? Devotion to Hitler grew
d. No reaction from France/Britain
2. 1936: Germany sent military into
Rhineland (demilitarized region along
border w/ France) – again, in violation
of the T of V
- no reaction from France whose
army could easily have
overpowered German forces at this
time
3. March 1938: Austrian Anschluss – the
annexation of Austria (again, a
violation of the T of V)
a. part of Hitler’s goal to unite
German-speaking people
b. Germany stood to gain territory,
food, soldiers, defensible frontier
c. Austrians divided over the
issue, but little int’l opposition
to the takeover
•
4. Sept. 1938: Munich Conference
a. Hitler lays claim to the
Sudetenland = German speaking
region in Czechoslovakia
b. Unlike Austrians, Czechs wanted
to resist. + very diff. scenario
** Czech. = democracy
** Czech. in defense alliance w/
USSR & France
** multilingual (not just German)
c. Munich Conference : Britain,
France, Germany & Italy agree to
allow Germans to occupy
Sudetenland (APPEASEMENT!!)
- Brit PM Neville Chamberlain
declares that there would be
“peace in our time.”
d. March 1939: Hitler seizes the
rest of Czechoslovakia
- Britain & France realize that
appeasement had failed
5. Oct 1938: Hitler demands return of
Danzig (Baltic Sea Port) from Poland +
hwy & RR across Polish corridor
- March 1939: Brits & French
announce plan
to defend Poland
- Poland refuses
Hitler’s demands
knowing Brits &
French will come
to her aid
6. Aug 1939: Brits & French asked for
USSR support for Poland, but instead,
Stalin informed them of one of the
century’s biggest diplomatic surprises The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact
- Germany free to attack Poland and
elsewhere w/o USSR opposition
- Stalin agreed to this pact believing
that the USSR would be protected
by turning the capitalists against e/o
(Germany vs. GB/France)
- contained secret deal to divide
Poland btwn Germany/USSR
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
German Aggression Prior to
Outbreak of WWII
The Big Question
Why did European leaders do
nothing to stop the Nazis in
Germany in the early1930s when
they had the chance?
Answer/Explanation?
a. Memory of WWI – horrors of war
b. Fear of Soviet communism
- strong Germany = good balance
against Soviets
c. Objections to the Treaty of Versailles
d. Hope for compromise w/ Germany
- thought some of his demands
were reasonable
- believed appeasement would
work (appeasement = accepting
demands in hope of avoiding
conflict)
B. The War Begins
1. Sept 1, 1939: Germany invades
Poland (from west; USSR from east)
a. Blitzkrieg “lightning war”
b. Sept 3, 1939: GB and France
declare war on Germany, but
Poland can’t be saved (divided
btwn Germany/USSR)
c. USSR takes over Baltics, invades
Finland Nov. 1939
d. US response? Neutral but…
Neutrality Act of 1939: allowed sale
of arms to belligerents, but no US
ships in war zone
2. Germany targets France
a. Last months of 1939: Sitzkrieg;
Phony War; Bore War – not much
action
b. French & British troops in France
on the defensive.
- Maginot Line: a line of
concrete bunkers & fortifications
along German border
Maginot line
Anti-Tank Defenses on the
Maginot Line
c. April 1940: German unleashes
“blitzkrieg” into neutral Denmark,
then Norway
d. To get to France, Hitler went
around the Maginot Line, invading
Netherlands, Belgium, &
Luxembourg
“The thing about the
Maginot Line was that it
pointed to exactly the spot
where the French Army
could be found; therefore,
the Germans avoided it.”
3. May 1940: Miracle at Dunkirk
a. Brit and French Armies trapped in
Belgium
b. Germans captured all ports except
Dunkirk - (in France on Belgian border)
c. Brits sent over 850 ships (warships,
sailboats, fishing boats etc) across
English Channel to Dunkirk
- rescued 338,000 Brit & French
troops!!!! But almost all of Brit’s
army equipment was left behind
d. Americans inspired!
Miracle at Dunkirk
Rescue at Dunkirk
4. June 1940: The Fall of France
a. June 5: Germany invades France
b. France surrenders June 22, 1940
c. West & North of France under Nazi
Rule
- rest of France governed by
neutral but German friendly
regime = Vichy
Fall of France
German soldiers marching
past the Arc de Triomphe after
the surrender of Paris, 14 June
1940
Fall of France
d. Only Britain left to fight against
Hitler and Nazi Germany
C. The British
1. Winston Churchill = new Prime Minister
of Britain
a. Germany expects Brits to
negotiate peace
b. Churchill’s response?
“We shall fight on
the beaches, we
shall fight in the
fields and in the
streets, we shall
never surrender!”
2. July-Oct 1940: Battle of Britain
a. Air war
b. German Luftwaffe (LW) vs. British
Royal Air Force (RAF)
RAF Spitfire
c. Germany’s plan?
- to disrupt wartime production &
break British civilian morale
d. Germany’s mistake?
LW Heinkel HE 111
- Luftwaffe bombs London
accidentally, RAF responds by
bombing Berlin. Hitler furious –
orders LW to stop bombing military
targets to focus on bombing London
* duh… what about that wartime
production!
3. Oct 1940: Hitler gives up on invasion of
England. What happened?
a. RADAR: Brits able to detect
incoming LW aircraft and intercept
them
b. LW: poor leadership etc. See
attached article:How the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain
Notice that
Luftwaffe
greatly
outnumbered
RAF
Churchill to the RAF Fighter Pilots
The gratitude of every home in
our Island, in our Empire, and
indeed throughout the world,
except in the abodes of the
guilty, goes out to the British
airmen who, undaunted by
odds, unwearied in their
constant challenge and
mortal danger, are turning
the tide of the world war by
their prowess and by their
devotion. Never in the
field of human conflict
was so much owed by
so many to so few.
III. The Holocaust
A. Nazi Persecution of Jews
1. Nazi Ideology: aim of Hitler’s regime to
create a European world dominated
and populated by the “Aryan” race as
outlined in Mein Kampf
- plan to eradicate undesirables
(based on who you were – genetic,
cultural, health or what you did )
2. Jews: (Undesirable based on who you
were)
- already centuries of antiSemitism in Europe
a. Nuremberg Laws
1) stripped of German
citizenship
2) banned intermarriage
3) disenfranchised & loss of most
political rights
4) defined Jew as anyone w/ 3 or 4
Jewish gdparents (nothing to do w/
religious beliefs)
b. Nov 1938: Kristallnacht
Cities where synagogues - Nazis burned synagogues, &
were destroyed
vandalized Jewish biz
- Gestapo (German secret
police): arrested 20,000+
Released if they agreed to
emigrate & surrender all their
possessions
3. Other undesirables b/c of who you are
a. Poles & other Slavs – considered
untermenschen (subhuman); an
obstacle to gaining lebensraum for
German race
b. Roma (gypsies) – considered
asocial & racially inferior
c. Physically or mentally disabled –
Gypsy Patch
threatened the Nazi plan for
“human perfection” – faced
sterilization or euthanasia
4. Undesirable based on what you did
a. Political dissidents & dissenting
Clergy
b. Homosexuals – considered an
obstacle to keeping Aryan birthrate
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: high
German Lutheran
Pastor & Anti-Hitler c. Jehovah’s Witnesses – for refusal
resistance fighter
– executed April, 1945
to salute flags, “Heil Hitler” or to
serve in German army
Jehovah’s Witness inmates
were identified by purple
triangles on their uniforms.
“Undesirables”
Prisoners standing during a roll
call. Each wears a striped hat
and uniform bearing colored,
triangular badges and
identification numbers.
1. German political prisoner.
2. Criminal prisoner - German or other nationality.
3. Political prisoners of other nations, e.g. 'P' Polish; 'L'
Luxembourg, etc.
4. Homosexual, 'gay'
5. Antisocial called 'Arbeitsscheue' (to shy to work)- mostly
German prostitutes, pimps, etc.
6. 'Bibelforscher' (Jehovah's Witnesses)
7. Jew, political or racial.
8. 'Emigranten' (Migrants) - Members of International Brigade of
Spanish War.
9. Jews, criminals, mostly because of financial 'offences' e.g.
transactions or non-disclosure of foreign currencies.
B. Jewish Emigration
1. 1933-1939: 350,000 German Jews
emigrate (exit)
ex. Einstein & other Jewish Scientists to
US; Anne Frank family to Holland
a. What prohibited more Jewish
immigration into the US?
Albert Einstein
1) Jews prohibited from taking more
than $4 from Germany
2) 1920s immigration quotas in US
3) high unemployment in 1930s
US restricted immigration
further
2. German transatlantic liner St. Louis
( May 1939)
a. 930 Jewish refugees arrive in
Havana, Cuba hoping to get to US
b. Cuban gov’t refused to allow
refugees ashore
c. Denied permission to land in US
d. Back to Europe June, appx 250
died in Holocaust
C. The Final Solution
1. Berlin 1942: Wannsee Conference
a. Nazi leaders met to determine
“Final Solution” to the Jewish
question
b. Previous methods too slow &
inefficient
c. Plan to send Jews and other
undesirables to
-concentration camps
-extermination camps
2. Concentration Camps
a. Detention centers for healthy
individuals
b. Work as slave laborers until they
died of exhaustion, disease or
malnutrition
Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp
3. Extermination Camps
a. Detention centers for the elderly,
the sick, and young children
b. Execution in massive gas
chambers
c. Auschwitz – could kill 2000 at a
time/12,000 per day
- appx 1.6 million killed there
Auschwitz-Birkenau
D. How could this happen? Theories…
1. Germany’s sense of injury after WWI
2. Severe Economic problems
3. Hitler’s grip on the nation
4. lack of a strong tradition of
representative gov’t in Germany
5. fear of Gestapo
6. Long history of anti-Semitism in
Europe
The Holocaust
IV. America Enters the War
A. America Supports England
1. Neutrality Act of 1939
a. US officially neutral: BUT – found
a way to help Britain & France
b. Revise neutrality laws: allow
warring countries to buy arms
from US as long as “cash &
carry”
2. Sept 1940: Destroyers for Bases Deal
a. Churchill asks FDR for
destroyers to protect Brit cargo
ships from U-boats & to block
German attempts to invade
Britain
b. FDR gave Brits 50 aging
destroyers in exchange for free
99 yr lease of British Naval Bases
in Canada & Caribbean
c. Since deal wasn’t a sale,
Neutrality Act didn’t apply 
B. The Isolationist Debate in US
1. Support for Brits increases (thanks to
Dunkirk & Invasion of France)
2. America First Committee
a. Favored continued isolation
b. Opposed to ANY US intervention
or aid to Allies
c. Famous members: Charles
Lindbergh, Senator Nye
C. Election of 1940
1. FDR reelected for unprecedented 3rd
term
- breaks precedent b/c he believed a
change in leaders would not be in
the best interest of the country at
that time
2. FDR promises to keep US boys out of
war
1940 Election
D. FDR aids our Allies as US edges closer to
WAR
1. Jan 1941: In 4-Freedoms Speech, FDR
claims US has a duty to assist
democracies at war to protect: The Four
Freedoms:
1) Freedom of Speech
2) Freedom of Worship
3) Freedom from Want
4) Freedom from Fear
The Four Freedoms
Freedom from
Fear
Freedom of
Worship
Freedom of
Speech
Freedom from
Want
A Series by American Artist, Norman Rockwell
2. March 1941: Lend-Lease Act
a. Problem: Brits out of $$$. FDR
must come up w/ way to remove
cash requirement from neutrality
act
b. Solution: LEND-LEASE Act
1) allowed US to sell, lend, or
lease war materials to any
nation whose defense was
vital to US security
2) US could send weapons to
Brits if they promised to
return or pay rent for them
after the war
c. FDR argued that US should be
the “arsenal of democracy” b/c if
Britain fell, Axis would conquer
the world & Americans would be
living at the point of a gun
Arsenal: an establishment for the manufacture
or storage of arms and military equipment
US = Arsenal of Democracy
3. June 1941: Germany invades USSR!!
Operation Barbarossa
a. Violation of the Nazi-Soviet
Nonaggression Pact
b. US begins to send aid to USSR:
“the enemy of my enemy is my
friend”
Operation Barbarossa
• Stalin
Betrayed!
• US aid
follows
(Lend-Lease)
4. Hemispheric Defense Zone
a. FDR declares entire western ½
of Atlantic as part of Western
Hemisphere (OUR hemisphere!!)
b. Neutral territory
c. US Navy ordered to patrol it to
reveal location of German UBoats to the Brits who could sink
them
5. Aug 1941: Atlantic Charter
a. FDR & Churchill plan for the post
-war era and commit to :
1) democracy
2) nonaggression
3) free trade
4) economic advancement
5) freedom of the seas
b. Sept. 1941: USS Greer Incident
1) U-boat fires on the Greer, a
US destroyer that was
radioing U-Boat’s position to
the Brits
2) FDR orders US ships to
follow a “shoot on sight”
policy toward German Uboats
c. Oct 1941: USS Reuben James
torpedoed, 115 US sailors dead
d. Late 1941, US & Germany in
tense standoff in North Atlantic
D. Japan Attacks US
1. FDR’s pre-war objective? To help Brits
defeat Germany
a. Brits Navy can’t protect its Asian
colonies
b. FDR institutes policies to
discourage Japan from attacking
Brit’s Asian empire
2. The policies:
a. Export Control Act: restricted sale
of strategic materials to Japan
b. Sent Lend-Lease aid to China
c. Froze Japanese assets in US
d. Cut off oil exports to Japan
3. Japanese Reaction? Believed that
only the US stood in its way to
unite all East Asia under Japanese
control
- Japan made plans to:
1) attack British & Dutch
colonies in SE Asia
2) seize the Philippines
3) attack US Naval fleet at
Pearl Harbor
Japanese Plans
4. Dec 7, 1941: Japan attacks Pearl
Harbor Pearl Harbor Timeline
“A date which will live in infamy”
USS Arizona burning after forward magazine explodes killing 1177 US sailors
5. The Result?
a. 21 ships sunk or damaged; 188
airplanes destroyed; 2403
Americans killed
b. What did they miss? 
- The aircraft carriers!!! (they
were at sea)
6. Dec 8, 1941: US declares war on
Japan
President Roosevelt Asks Congress for a Declaration of War on Japan
7. Dec 11, 1941: Germany and Italy
Declare War on US
Li’l Hitler
8. Neutral no more!
America is at war