7.0 – World War II
Axis Powers
Allied Powers
Nazi Germany
Fascist Italy
Japan
Great Britain
France
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Soviet Union (joined in 1941 after Nazi invasion)
United States (joined in 1941 after Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor)
I.
Quick Overview
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In the Pacific, Japan starts to take over parts of Asia.
Germany, led by Nazi fascist leader Adolf Hitler, starts to take over parts of Europe.
France and Great Britain allow Hitler to get his way at first. They are afraid of going
to war.
Italy and Japan join with Germany, forming the Axis Powers.
The Soviet Union also allies itself with Germany, until it is double crossed when
Hitler invades it; then it joins the Allies.
Hitler goes too far by invading Poland. England and France form the Allied Powers
and declare war on Germany. World War II begins. Germany and the Soviet Union
take over Poland and split it among themselves.
In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, turning on its ally; and Japan attacked
the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. After this, both Germany and Japan will start to lose the war,
beginning about 1943.
The Allies defeat Germany in North Africa, then invade Italy, moving toward
Germany from the south.
Russia invades Germany from the east.
The Allies cross the English Channel on D-Day, at Normandy in France, then push
toward Germany from the West.
Hitler commits suicide and Germany surrenders.
The Allies discover German Concentration Camps and how the Germans tried to
exterminate the Jews and others during a Nazi genocide called the Holocaust.
In the Pacific, the U.S. moves toward Japan, hopping from island to island and freeing
each island from the Japanese. The U.S. firebombs Tokyo, then drops atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrenders. World War II ends.
The “Cold War” begins almost immediately between the U.S. and Soviet Union as the
world’s two “super powers.” Germany is split between Soviet-dominated East
Germany (and its capital, East Berlin), and West Germany and West Berlin,
dominated by the U.S., Britain and France, which eventually evolves into a
democracy. Eastern Europe also becomes communist, under the control of the Soviet
Union, while western Europe becomes democratic, allied with the United States.
The U.S. rebuilds Western Europe. The plan, called the Marshall Plan, sends
economic assistance to Western Europe. The U.S. also helps Japan to rebuild.
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II.
The United Nations is formed to help keep world peace. It replaces the League of
Nations.
Nazis are put on trial for crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials.
By 1949, the Soviet Union becomes the second country (after the U.S.) to possess
atomic weapons.
In More Detail: The War in Europe
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FIRST STEPS LEADING UP TO WAR IN EUROPE:
o In 1933, Hitler withdrew from the League of Nations.
o n 1934, Nazis in German-speaking Austria attempted a coup to take over the
Austrian government. The coup failed and Hitler denied any involvement.
o In 1935, Hitler started to rearm Germany, disobeying the Versailles Treaty.
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Also in 1935, Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in Africa. The League of
Nations imposed only weak sanctions. Mussolini was victorious.
o In 1936, Hitler seized the Rhineland. This industrial area of Germany along the
Rhine River in western Germany had been taken away from Germany after World
War I and made into a neutral territory under control of the League of Nations.
England and France stood by, refusing to intervene and stop Hitler, because they
feared starting a war. This policy of not doing anything is called appeasement.
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Also in 1936, the Spanish Civil War began. Francisco Franco led the
fascists. Hitler and Mussolini gave him support. Hitler used the civil war as
an opportunity to test new German weapons and war tactics.
o In 1937, Germany and Italy formed an alliance with Japan. Japan invaded
Mainland China, where the Japanese committed terrible atrocities, including the
Rape of Nanjing.
o In 1938, Germany took over Austria, then later, the Sudetenland, the
German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia. Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville
Chamberlain, and France’s prime minister met in Munich with Hitler, and agreed
to let him take over the Sudetenland, if Hitler promised not to expand further.
This was called the Munich Agreement. Czechoslovakia was not invited to the
talks. Chamberlain claimed that this policy of appeasement guaranteed “peace in
our times.”
o In 1939, Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia, disobeying the Munich
Agreement. Finally, the British and France woke up to the danger of Hitler’s
aggression. They realized that Hitler next would attack Poland, so they promised
to guarantee Poland’s security. Hitler feared a two-front war (as had happened in
World War I), so Hitler and Stalin in the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression
pact. Secretly, they agreed to split Poland between them. On Sept. 1, 1939,
Hitler attacked Poland with his blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Britain and
France declared war on Germany, and World War II had begun.
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THE WAR ITSELF IN EUROPE:
o At first, Hitler was successful. He used new military technology – blitzkrieg
(lightning warfare) with tanks and airplanes; aircraft carriers; and long range
submarines.
o In 1940, Hitler invaded and toppled Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium
and the Netherlands. Finally, he quickly attacked and defeated France. The
French thought their great chain of border fortifications, the Maginot Line,
would protect them, but they were wrong. Hitler established the Nazi Vichy
Government in France. A French leader, Charles De Gaulle, led the
underground French resistance movement against the Nazis.
o Great Britain was left to fight Germany and Italy alone, especially because
the Soviet Union and the United States were neutral! In May and June 1940,
Hitler trapped 340,000 French and British troops at Dunkirk in France, with their
backs to the sea. Hitler probably could have won the war at this point, but he
hesitated, perhaps because of poor advice and bad communication with his
military leaders. As a result, the British organized a massive boatlift, rescuing the
soldiers using a massive flotilla of civilian and military boats to carry the trapped
soldiers across the English Channel and back to England. This was called the
Battle of Dunkirk.
o Hitler launched constant air attacks on Britain to knock it out of the war, with the
German Luftwaffe (air force). This was called the Battle of Britain. Historians
sometimes call it “Britain’s finest hour.” Later in the war, Hitler would launch
long-range rockets, the V2s, in the air war against Britain. They were not
accurate enough as weapons, but they frightened the British civilian population,
But Hitler failed to win the air war against Britain. The British Royal Air Force,
or RAF protected England. The British also developed a new technology, radar,
to warn them of German air attacks. After 1942, the tide of war in the air had
turned against Hitler. The British bombed German cities by night and the
Americans by day, causing gigantic firestorms that killed tens of thousands of
German civilians. Sometimes, more people died in these firestorms than when the
U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the most
devastating examples was the Bombing of Dresden.
o England’s leader during World War II was Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
who convinced the British people to persevere in the war against Germany.
Churchill also persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt of the U.S. to send
supplies to Britain, using what was called the Lend-Lease Program.
o The Germans also fought the British in North Africa, where the British had a
strong presence. In 1940, Italy had attacked the British in Egypt, trying
unsuccessfully to seize the Suez Canal. In 1941, Hitler sent one of his best tank
commanders, Erwin Rommel, known as the “Desert Fox,” to support the Italians
in their fight against the British.
o Hitler’s biggest mistake was Operation Barbarossa, his plan to invade the
Soviet Union in June 1941. He did this because he had knocked France out of the
war, and so, he no longer feared a two-front war. Hitler almost won. His blitzkrieg
forces surrounded Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and reached the outskirts of
Moscow, before a last-ditch Soviet defensive effort stopped the Nazis in the
Battle of Moscow.
o The turning point of the war in Europe came in 1942.
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The Soviets stopped the Nazis at the Battle of Stalingrad in late 1942 and
early 1943. The Nazi army surrendered. About 300,000 Germans
surrendered to the Russians.
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In Egypt, Britain stopped Rommel from seizing the Suez Canal.
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The U.S. entered the war in Dec. 1941 after Pearl Harbor and started
sending troops and supplies to both Europe and the Pacific.
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1942 also was the turning point of the War in the Pacific, and the
Battle of Midway (see below).
o In 1943, the Allies defeated Rommel (and Germany) in North Africa. The
Allies trapped Rommel from two sides. British General Bernard Montgomery
attacked Rommel from Egypt in the East, while U.S. troops under General Dwight
D. Eisenhower attacked Rommel from the west. Rommel’s army surrendered.
Next, starting in Sicily in the far south of Italy, they invaded Italy and slowly
marched north toward Germany. Mussolini was arrested and hung.
o At sea: The Allies overcame the threat of German submarines by using aircraft
carriers, escorted by destroyers, to accompany and protect supply ships; and by
air bombs of German submarine base. Also, U.S. factories at home were
producing one a new ship a day and one new airplane every five minutes –
quickly replacing ships and planes that were lost in battle.
o In June 1944, the Allies launched a huge naval invasion of Europe across the
English Channel at Normandy in France. This was called D-Day. The real name of
the campaign was Operation Overlord. The commander was an American,
General Dwight D. Eisenhower (who later would become president of the U.S.).
Eventually, the Allies amassed more than a million troops, who then marched
toward Germany. The Germans fought a last battle, the Battle of the Bulge, but
could not stop the Allies. The Americans and British invaded Germany from
the West (France) and South (Italy), while the Soviets invaded Germany
from the East, through Poland.
o A group of German leaders attempted to assassinate Hitler in July 1944 with a
bomb. Hitler survived and ordered reprisals against the would-be assassins.
o Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1944. Germany surrendered.
o The horrors of the Holocaust were discovered as the Allies defeated Germany
and discovered the German Concentration Camps, where 6 million Jews and
many others were gassed and murdered in a gigantic genocide that Hitler called
his “Final Solution.” The Nazis particularly targeted Jews, but they also
imprisoned and killed Slavs, Gypsies, religious leaders (both Catholics and
Protestants) who resisted the Nazis, the handicapped, gays, and anyone they
considered part of an “inferior race,” i.e., not a part of the Aryan Master Race.
Some Concentration Camps were places of forced labor, and others were used as
extermination camps with gas chamber crematoria. The Camps included
Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and Treblinka. After the
war, Nazi leaders were put on trial for crimes against humanity, at the
Nuremberg Trials. Some were executed and many others were sentenced to
long terms in prison.
III.
In More Detail: The War in the Pacific
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FIRST STEPS LEADING UP TO THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC:
o In the 1920s, Japan had seized Korea. In 1931 and 1932, Japan exploited China’s
civil war and seized China’s northern territory of Manchuria, renaming it
Manchukuo.
o In 1936 and 1937, Nazi Germany allied with Japan and Italy, forming the Axis
Alliance of Nations, named for the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis.
o In 1937, Japan invaded the rest of China and committed terrible atrocities,
including the Rape of Nanjing. Japan never successfully controlled all of China.
o In 1940 and 1941, Japan continued fighting in China. Japan also began to
threaten French and British colonies in Indochina, and America’s colony of the
Philippines. Eventually, Japan’s goal was to take over all of Asia -- China; the
Philippines; Indochina; India, Indonesia; and perhaps even Australia and New
Zealand. Japan was never able to fully realize this goal.
o In an effort to stop Japanese aggression in the Pacific, the United States imposed
economic sanctions against Japan, including an embargo against sale of oil,
steel and other raw materials that Japan needed for its economy and war efforts.
Japan received 80 percent of its oil from the U.S., so the embargo caused real
hardships on the country. Therefore, Japan began to plan an attack against the
U.S.
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THE WAR ITSELF IN THE PACIFIC:
o Japan attacked the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1981. This
was the catalyst that propelled the United States into World War II. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt went on national radio to announce the declaration of war
against the Axis Powers, declaring, “This is a day that will live in infamy.”
o Japan overran the Philippines and Dutch East Indies (today, Indonesia), then
threatened Australia and New Zealand. But the U.S. stopped the Japanese advance
in the Battle of the Coral Sea.
o Turning Point:
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In the Pacific, as in Europe, 1942 was the year that the war turned in favor
of the Allies. The U.S. surprised the Japanese navy at the Battle of
Midway, sinking most of the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet.
o U.S. forces were led by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz.
Following Pearl Harbor, the U.S. concentrated first on Europe. They saw Hitler as
the greatest threat to world peace. But the U.S. also began to build up its forces in
the Pacific. The U.S. developed a policy of island hopping – bouncing from
islands in the south that were controlled by Japan; regaining control of the island;
then bounding north toward another island controlled by Japan. Many battles
were fought – the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Guam, etc. As it got closer
to Japan, the U.S. finally was able to launch air strikes against Tokyo and other
Japanese cities. Eventually, the firebombing of Tokyo would kill more people
than the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
o The Allies also worked hard to defend India from the Japanese. They flew
supplies from China over the Himalayan Mountains to help the British as they
fought to save India from the Japanese.
o In July 1944, Japanese Prime Minister Tojo resigned.
o By September 1944, the Allies started to retake the Philippine Islands.
o In spring 1945, the U.S. recaptured Iwo Jima and Okinawa, two islands very near
to Japan. One of the most famous photos of the war shows American soldiers
hoisting the American flag atop a hill on Iwo Jima. Many Americans died trying to
retake the Pacific islands from the Japanese. But from these islands, the U.S. could
launch continuous air raids and bomb Japan. Still, the Japanese refused the U.S.
demand for unconditional surrender. In fact, they used kamikaze suicide
bombers to sink U.S. ships.
o In April 1945, Roosevelt died in office and his vice president, Harry S Truman,
became president.
o The U.S. had secretly developed the atomic bomb. Truman feared the that a U.S.
land invasion of Japan would be extremely bloody for America, so he authorized
that atomic bombs be dropped on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
in August 1945. This time, the Japanese accepted unconditional surrender.
IV.
Conferences During World War II
During World War II, various different Allied leaders met several times to hammer out
strategy to fight the war. These conferences included:
V.
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Casablanca Conference, January 1943. Held in Casablanca, Morocco, in north
Africa. Roosevelt and Churchill met and agreed to demand unconditional surrender
of the Axis Powers. They also agreed to invade Italy and invade across the English
Channel.
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Tehran (Iran) Conference, November-December 1943. Churchill, Stalin and
Roosevelt met for the first time at this conference. Roosevelt sought to overcome
Stalin’s suspicions of the West.
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Yalta Conference, February 1945. Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt met in the Soviet
Union to develop a plan of action for after the Allies defeated Germany and Japan.
This was the most important of the wartime conferences. The Allies agreed to split
Germany into four zones after the war, with each zone controlled by the U.S., the
Soviet Union, Britain or France. The organizational and voting structure of the United
Nations and its Security Council also were decided at this meeting (see below).
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Potsdam Conference, July 1945. By now, Roosevelt had died and Germany had
surrendered. Only Japan remained. Truman, Churchill and Stalin met at Potsdam ,
near Berlin in Germany. During the conference, Churchill was replaced by a new
Prime Minister in Britain. The plan to partition Germany was developed further.
The Aftermath of the War
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Marshall Plan. This was a plan named after President Truman’s Secretary of State,
George C. Marshall, to provide U.S. financial aid to war-torn Europe and rebuild it.
Altogether, the U.S. provided $12.5 billion. Only Western Europe accepted the aid,
however. The Soviet Union refused to aid, thinking it was a capitalist plot. The Soviet
Union also refused to allow the nations of Eastern Europe, which were under its
influence, to accept aid from the U.S.
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Nuremberg Trials. Nazis were put on trial as war criminals and persons who were
guilty of crimes against humanity.
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United Nations. This organization was founded in San Francisco in 1945. Its
headquarters eventually was moved to New York City, where it remains. The U.N.
replaced the League of Nations. This time, the U.S. joined. All member nations get one
vote, but an executive committee (called the Security Council) consists of five
permanent-member nations (the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France and China)
and 10 non-permanent, rotating member nations. The permanent members of the
Security Council enjoy veto power over any decision of the U.N. Using this veto power,
any of these five countries can unilaterally block any action by the U.N.
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Cold War. In the decade after the end of World War II, Germany split into two nations –
the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1949, and West Germany in 1955.
East Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe became puppet communist states under
the thumb of the Soviet Union. West Germany and the rest of Western Europe became
democracies, allied with the United States. The Western European nations formed a
mutual security alliance called NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, along
with the U.S. The Eastern European nations formed a rival security alliance with the
Soviet Union, called the Warsaw Pact.
World War II Timeline
1933
Hitler withdraws from League of Nations
1934
Nazis stage unsuccessful coup to take over Austria
1935
Hitler starts to rearm Germany, disobeying Versailles Treaty.
Italy invades and defeats Ethiopia in Africa
1936
Hitler seizes Rhineland
Spanish Civil War begins; Hitler, Mussolini support fascist leader Franco
1937
Germany, Italy, Japan form an Alliance and become the Axis Nations
Japan invades the rest of China; Rape of Nanjing
1938
Germany takes over Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia after Munich Agreement
1939
Hitler takes over the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Britain, France form Allied Alliance and warn Hitler not to attack again
Hitler forms non-aggression pact with Soviet Union, both agree to split Poland
Hitler invades Poland with blitzkrieg; Britain, France declare war; World War II begins
1940
Hitler invades, defeats Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France
Battle of Dunkirk – trapped British soldiers boat-lifted across English Channel
Air Battle over Britain – Germany bombs England; Royal Air Force fights back
Churchill takes over as Prime Minister in Britain
Italy attacks British in Egypt, tries to take over Suez Canal
Japanese attack Indochina and other parts of Asia
1941
Germans under Rommel try to help Italians in Egypt against British
Germany invades Soviet Union; Soviets defeat Germans at Battle of Moscow
U.S. embargoes sale of oil, steel, other supplies to Japan
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; U.S. enters war against Axis Powers
1942
Japanese attack Philippines
U.S. and Allies prevent Japan from seizing Australia, New Zealand in Battle of Coral Sea
U.S. sinks Japanese aircraft carriers at Battle of Midway
U.S. lands at Guadalcanal and begins island-hopping campaign.
1943
January: Roosevelt, Churchill meet at Casablanca Conference
Soviets defeat Germany at Battle of Stalingrad
Allies defeat Rommel in North Africa; invade Sicily and march north through Italy
Mussolini is overthrown and killed
November-December: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin meet at Tehran Conference.
1944
U.S. under General MacArthur retakes Philippines from Japan
June: D-Day Invasion by Allies at Normandy in France
July: Failed assassination attempt on Hitler
December: Battle of the Bulge – final unsuccessful German offensive against Allies.
1945
February: Americans take Iwo Jima from Japan.
February: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin meet at Yalta Conference.
April: Americans take Okinawa from Japan. Japanese launch kamikaze attacks on U.S. ships
April: Roosevelt dies; Truman becomes president of U.S.
April: Hitler commits suicide as Soviets invade Germany from East and seize Berlin
Allies invade Germany from West and South
Germany surrenders
Horrors of Holocaust unveiled
July: Truman, Churchill, Stalin meet at Postdam Conference
U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Japan surrenders. World War II ends.
United Nations founded in San Francisco