Prelude to
World War II
“You would be walking down a street, hearing only the city noises
of streetcars and automobiles and people calling to one another,
and suddenly, crushing it all out, would be the huge stony deep
booming of a falling shell, at the corner. There was no place to
run, because how did you know that the next shell would not be
behind you, or ahead, or to the left or right?”
Pre-War Foreign Policy
-we focused on domestic issues
• America isolationist; focused on
Depression
-extreme anti-war feelings
“Merchants of Death”
• Banks and manufacturers that profit
from warfare
-Good Neighbor policy in Latin America
• Policy of non-intervention; withdrew
all troops from Latin America
-Neutrality Acts
forbids arms sales to warring nations
• Will not aid warring nations or civil
wars
-1937 Roosevelt gives Quarantine
speech – could no longer be neutral
“The peace, the freedom, and the security
of 90 percent of the population of the
world is being jeopardized by the
remaining 10 percent who are threatening
a breakdown of all international order and
law. Surely the 90 percent who want to
live in peace under law and in accordance
with moral standards that have received
almost universal acceptance through the
centuries, can and must find some
way…to preserve peace.”
~FDR, Quarantine Speech
Prelude to War
• Want more living space for
growing population
-Japanese Aggression
Manchuria – rich in
resources, want the rest of
China for people
China
Emperor Hirohito----Hideki
Tojo
Emperor Hirohito
• New emperor in charge,
appoints new leader of
Japanese military
Prelude to War
-Italy
Fascism – stresses
nationalism; puts the state
above all other things
Benito Mussolini – leader
of the Italian Fascist Party
who gained power from
Italian king
• Takes over Rome and the
independent African
kingdom of Ethiopia
Benito Mussolini
Mussolini’s March on Rome
Mussolini gains control of Italy by marching on Rome with his Black Shirts.
The Italian king surrendered his throne to the new fascist leader.
Italian Propaganda
posters, urging Italian
citizens to train for
military service to their
state. In a fascist regime,
like the one in Mussolini’s
Italy, the greatest honor
and service one can
provide is to their country.
Benito Mussolini addresses his Italian followers in Rome
Mussolini will form an
‘axis’ of power between
Rome and Berlin, the
capitals of Italy and
Germany.
Prelude to War
Rise of Germany
-
Failed Weimar Republic
– created chaos in
Germany
Adolph Hitler
Nazi – the Nazis became
strongest party; Hitler
appointed chancellor in
1933 (the “Fuhrer”)
Hitler served as a German soldier in WWI, shown under the X. After the war, Hitler
returned to Germany to work, becoming a member of the National Socialist German
Workers’ Party, also known as the Nazi Party. This party has no ties to socialism,
as it is an extreme fascist party.
Hitler was arrested for going
against the government during the
Weimar Republic, and he wrote his
book Mein Kampf, “My Struggle,”
while in jail. In this book, Hitler set
forth the basic beliefs of Nazism
that became the plan of action for
the Nazi Party. Nazism, the German
brand of fascism, was based on
extreme nationalism. Hitler, who
had been born in Austria, dreamed
of uniting all German-speaking
people in a great German empire.
Hitler wanted to enforce
racial purification at home.
In his view, Germans—
especially blue-eyed, blondhaired Aryans—formed a
master race that was
destined to rule the world.
“Inferior races,” such as
Jews, Slavs, and all
nonwhites, were deemed fit
only to serve the Aryans.
A third element of
Nazism was national
expansion. Hitler
believed that for
Germany to thrive, it
needed more
lebensraum, or living
space. One of the
Nazis’ aims, as Hitler
wrote in Mein Kampf,
was “to secure for the
German people the
land and soil to which
they are entitled on
this earth,” even if
this could be
accomplished only by
“the might of a
victorious sword.”
The Great Depression helped the Nazis come to power. Because of war debts and
dependence on American loans and investments, Germany’s economy was hit hard.
By 1932, some 6 million Germans were unemployed. Many men who were out of
work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (Brown Shirts). The German
people were desperate and turned to Hitler as their last hope.
Propaganda in Germany,
urging Aryans to follow
Hitler
By mid-1932, the Nazis had become the strongest political party in Germany. In
January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor (prime minister). Once in power,
Hitler quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. In its place he
established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third
Reich would be a “Thousand-Year Reich”—it would last for a thousand years.
German recruiting posters for Hitler’s Storm Troopers
Recruiting Hitler youth
through propaganda
+The Hitler Youth
By the mid-1930s, Hitler had
successfully recruited
enough soldiers to mass an
active army, openly defying
the terms of the Treaty of
Versailles, ending the
German depression, and well
on the road to making his
Third Reich a reality.
Prelude to War
-Russia (USSR)
•Lenin dies; Stalin takes
over
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin becomes the
Communist dictator of the U.S.S.R.,
promising to make the U.S.S.R. a
great industrial power
•Wanted to transform
USSR to a model
communist state
•Destroyed all who were
against him
“The Spirit of great Lenin and his victorious banner inspires us
during this Great Patriotic War.”
As part of his “reign of terror,” Stalin sent those who spoke out
against the government to work camps. Those who were not sent,
where often disposed of.
Joseph Stalin’s personal
propaganda posters lined
the streets of the U.S.S.R.,
reminding its citizens that
he was always watching
them (through secret
police and spies).
Appeasement
• Giving in to aggressor to keep
peace
-Kellogg-Briand Pact
• Non-war pact; countries broke
pledge
-Hoover-Stimson Doctrine
refuse to recognize lands taken
by force
-German rearmament
• Hitler breaks Treaty of
Versailles to rebuild military
• Germany out of Depression
Appeasement
-Taking of the Rhineland
• German region bordering France and
Belgium – Hitler takes it back
-Austria
• Hitler’s homeland
• Took it unopposed in the Anschluss
-Munich Peace Conference
• Meeting with France and Britain
about Sudetenland
• Gave land to Germany to avoid war
(appeasement)
-American Neutrality
Early in the crisis, both France and Great Britain
promised to protect Czechoslovakia. Then, just
when war seemed inevitable, Hitler invited French
premier and British prime minister Neville
Chamberlain to meet with him in Munich. When
they arrived, the Fuhrer declared that the
annexation of the Sudetenland would be his “last
territorial demand.” In their eagerness to avoid
war, Chamberlain chose to believe him. On
September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich
Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to
Germany without a single shot being fired.
Chamberlain returned home and proclaimed: “My
friends, there has come back from Germany peace
with honor. I believe it is peace in our time.”
Hitler’s Accomplishments by March 1938
Europe at War
• Results of appeasement
-Japanese are invading China, 1937
• First Manchuria, then rest of China
-Germany annexes Austria, 1938
• Anschluss
-Germany takes Czechoslovakia, 1938
• At Munich promises only to take
Sudetenland, but takes all of Czech.
-Germany-Russia sign non-aggression
treaty, 1939
• Germany threatens to take Poland,
signs treaty to divide Poland
-Germany attacks Poland Sept. 1,
1939
• Easy defeat using blitzkrieg
-France, England declare war – WW2
The Rape of
Nanking
Blitzkrieg
-lightning warfare
-heavy use of machinery and aircraft
• Drop bombs on military bases,
airfields, roads, cities; use tanks to
cause confusion
-quick victory over Poland (3 weeks)
-Phony War begins – sitting war
Maginot Line - French waiting
Siegfried Line – Germans waiting
-Stalin attacks Finland, Hitler
attacks Denmark, Norway, then
Belgium
• Wants bases to attack Britain
Blitzkrieg
-Invasion of France
-Massive Allied evacuation at Dunkirk
• “Miracle of Dunkirk” ferried 300,000
across the English channel
-France signs surrender, June 1940
• Italy invades from the South,
Germany from the North
After Hitler’s easy victory over France,
Great Britain was left alone to fight
Hitler’s forces on the Western Front.
Battle of Britain
-Germany controls most of Europe
• Britain on its own
-Lutwaffe begin bombing of Britain
• German air force bombed Britain for 2
solid months
-RAF defends British homeland
• Royal Air Force
• Hitler calls off invasion
“After an explosion of a nearby bomb,
you could actually feel your eyeballs
being sucked out. I was holding my eyes
to try and stop them going. And the
suction was so vast, it ripped my shirt
away, and ripped my trousers. Then I
couldn’t get my breath, the smoke was
like acid and everything round me was
black and yellow.”
-”Never in the field of human conflict
was so much owed by so many to so
few”
• Praise of RAF pilots (aided by American
volunteers)
Winston Churchill
• Britain’s prime minister
-Germany never launches invasion of
Britain (cities still bombed; civilians at
war)