World War II
Path to War
 World War II in Europe had its beginnings in the
ideas of Adolf Hitler.
 Hitler believed that Germany was capable of building
a great civilization.
 To be a great power Germany needed more land to
support a larger population.
 Hitler’s ultimate goal was to Conquer the Soviet
Union and provided that land for German peasants.
The First Steps
 After WWI the Treaty of Versailles had limited
Germany’s military power.
 Hitler began to build a new air force and army which
was in direct violation of the treaty.
 France and Great Britain both warned Germany but
did nothing because they were distracted by the
Great Depression.
Cont’d
 Hitler was convinced the European countries would
not enforce the treaty, so on March 7, 1938 he sent
troops into the Rhineland.
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Rhineland was a demilitarized area.
 Great Britain began a practice of appeasement.
 Appeasement-if European states satisfied the
reasonable demands of dissatisfied powers, the
dissatisfied powers would be content, and stability
and peace would be achieved in Europe.
New Alliances
 Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia which angered
the French and British.
 Hitler then offers support to Mussolini.
 November 1936 signs the Rome-Berlin Axis.
 Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact,
promising a common front against communism.
Demands and Appeasement
 September 15, 1938, Hitler demanded that Germany
be given the Sudetenland.
 Hitler expressed his willingness to risk “world war”
to achieve his objective.
 The Munich Conference was held and met all of
Hitler’s demands.
 Britain and France met with Hitler in Munich,
Germany and gave into the demands of Hitler.
 Neville Chamberlin, Great Britain’s Prime Minister,
wanted peace at all cost and believed that
appeasement would keep Hitler from causing war.
 Hitler invaded other parts of Czechoslovakia which
convinced Britain that he would not stop.
 Realizing they would need help to control Hitler,
Britain turned to Joseph Stalin and Russia for help.
Hitler and the Soviets
 Hitler feared that the west and the Soviet Union
might make a pact.
 On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union
signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact.
 In the pact, the two nations promised not to attack
each other.
 Hitler pursued a long held goal of uniting Austria
with Germany, this goal was called Anschluss
(union).
 Germany gained influence in Austria by threatening
invasion, which allowed Hitler to place Nazi leaders
within the country.
 Once Nazi leaders were in control in Austria, they
invited German troops to maintain order, Austria
was then annexed by Germany.
Europe at War
 Hitler stunned Europe
with the speed and
efficiency of the German
attack on Poland.
 Blitzkrieg- “lightning
war” used armored
columns, supported by
airplanes.
Hitler’s Early Victories
 German launched attacks
 Great Britain was now
on the Netherlands,
Belgium, and France.
 Germany surprised
British and French forces
by going around the
Maginot Line.
 The French signed an
armistice on June 22.
Germany now controlled
3/5 of France.
the only country in
Europe not under
German control.
 They appealed to the U.S.
for help.
 A series of neutrality acts
passed after WWI
prevented the U.S. from
helping but they were
slowly relaxed.
The Battle of Britain
 Hitler understood that an amphibious invasion of
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Britain could succeed if Germany had control of the
air.
The Luftwaffe (German air force) launched a major
offensive.
German planes bombed British air and naval bases,
harbors, communication centers, and war industries.
After a British attack on Berlin, Hitler ordered
bombing of British cities.
Hitler would eventually suspend the invasion of
England indefinitely.
The Japanese Path to War
 In September 1931, Japanese soldiers had seized
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Manchuria, which had natural resources Japan
needed.
League of Nations investigated Japan’s conquest and
condemned them for attacking Manchuria.
Shortly after the investigations Japan left the League
of Nations.
Japan began to expand into North China.
In the mid-1930s militants connected to the
government and the armed forces had gained control
of Japanese politics
Attack on Soviet Union
 Hitler was convinced the only reason Britain was still
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fighting was because they believed the Soviets would
eventually help.
Hitler believed Russia’s army was pitiful and could
be easily defeated.
Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
The German army swept through Russia and
captured 2 million Russian troops.
As winter set in and fierce Russian resistance
continued Germany was forced to retreat.
The New Asian Order
 Japan wanted to establish a new system of control in
Asia with Japan guiding its Asian neighbors to
prosperity.
 Japan looked to Southeast Asia for raw materials to
fuel its military machine.
 U.S. threatened Japan with sanctions if the they
attacked countries in Southeast Asia.
Japan at War
 December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked the U.S.
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naval base at Pearl Harbor.
By the spring of 1942 almost all of Southeast Asia and
much of the western Pacific had fallen into Japanese
hands.
Japan now declared the creation of a community of
nations called the Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity
Sphere.
The entire region was under Japanese direction.
Japan declared to free other nations from Western
colonialism, but because they needed the resources they
treat them like conquered nations.
 Japanese leaders had hoped that their lightning
strike at American bases would destroy the U.S. fleet
in the Pacific.
 The attack on Pearl Harbor unified American
opinion about becoming involved in the war.
 The U.S. joined with European nations in a
combined effort to defeat Japan.
 Believing the American involvement in the Pacific
would make the U.S. ineffective in the European
theater of war, Hitler declared war on the U.S. four
days after Pearl Harbor.
The Allies Advance
 With United States entrance into the war a new
coalition was formed-the Grand Alliance.
 Grand Alliance-Great Britain, United States, and
Soviet Union.
 The Allies agreed to fight until the Axis Powers had
surrendered unconditionally.
European Front
 Days after Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill arrived at the White House and
spent three weeks working out war plans with FDR
 They decided to focus on defeating Hitler first and
then turn their attention to Japan
 Hitler wanted to wipe out Stalingrad – a major
industrial center
 The first great turning point was the Battle of
Stalingrad
BATTLE OF STALINGRAD
 For weeks the Germans pressed in on Stalingrad
 Then winter set in and the Germans were wearing
summer uniforms
 The Germans surrendered in January of 1943
 The Soviets lost more than 1 million men in battle
(more than twice the number of deaths the U.S.
suffered in all the war)
North Africa
 “Operation Torch” – an invasion of Axis -controlled
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North Africa --was launched by American General
Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1942
Allied troops landed in Casablanca, Oran and the
Algiers in Algeria
They sped eastward chasing the Afrika Korps led by
German General Edwin Rommel
The German forces were stopped at El Alamein
They surrended North Africa in May of 1943
D-Day June 6, 1944
 D-Day was the largest land-sea-air operation in
military history
 Despite air support, German retaliation was brutal –
especially at Omaha Beach
 Within a month, the Allies had landed 1 million
troops, 567,000 tons of supplies and 170,000
vehicles
 By September 1944, the Allies had freed France,
Belgium and Luxembourg
Battle of the Bulge
 In October 1944, Americans captured their first German
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town (Aachen)– the Allies were closing in
Hitler responded with one last ditch massive offensive
Hitler hoped breaking through the Allied line would
break up Allied supply lines
The battle raged for a month – the Germans had been
pushed back
Little seemed to have changed, but in fact the Germans
had sustained heavy losses
Germany lost 120,000 troops, 600 tanks and 1,600
planes
From that point on the Nazis could do little but retreat
End of War in Europe
 By April 25, 1945, the Soviet
army had stormed Berlin
 In his underground
headquarters in Berlin, Hitler
prepared for the end
 On April 29, he married his
longtime girlfriend Eva Braun
then wrote a last note in
which he blamed the Jews for
starting the war and his
generals for losing it
 The next day he gave poison
to his wife and shot himself
V-E Day
 General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional
surrender of the Third Reich
 On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day –
Victory in Europe Day
 The war in Europe was finally over
FDR Dies
 President Roosevelt did not live to see V-E Day
 On April 12, 1945, he suffered a stroke and died– his
VP Harry S Truman became the nation’s 33rd
president
War in the Pacific
 The Americans did not celebrate long, as Japan was
busy conquering an empire that dwarfed Hitler’s
Third Reich
 Japan had conquered much of southeast Asia
including the Dutch East Indies, Guam, and most of
China
Battle of Midway
 Japan’s next thrust was toward Midway Island – a
strategic Island northwest of Hawaii
 Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Commander of
American Naval forces in the Pacific, moved to
defend the Island
 The Americans won a decisive victory as their planes
destroyed 4 Japanese aircraft carriers and 250
planes
Iwo Jima
 General MacArthur and the Allies next turned to the
Island of Iwo Jima
 The island was critical to the Allies as a base for an
attack on Japan
 It was called the most heavily defended spot on earth
 Allied and Japanese forces suffered heavy casualties
Okinawa
 In April 1945, U.S. marines invaded Okinawa
 The Japanese unleashed 1,900 Kamikaze attacks
sinking 30 ships and killing 5,000 seamen
 Okinawa cost the Americans 7,600 marines and the
Japanese 110,000 soldiers
Invasion of Japan
 After Okinawa, MacArthur predicted that a
Normandy type amphibious invasion of Japan would
result in 1,500,000 Allied deaths
 President Truman saw only one way to avoid an
invasion of Japan
Atomic Bomb
 Japan had a huge army that would defend every inch
of the Japanese mainland
 So Truman decided to use a powerful new weapon
developed by scientists working on the Manhattan
Project – the Atomic Bomb
 Truman warned
Japan in late July 1945
that without a immediate Japanese surrender, it
faced “prompt and utter destruction”
 On August 6 (Hiroshima) and August 9 (Nagasaki) a
B-29 bomber dropped Atomic Bombs on Japan
August 6, 1945
HIROSHIMA
August 9, 1945 NAGASAKI
Yalta Conference
 In February 1945, as the Allies pushed toward victory
in Europe, an ailing FDR met with Churchill and
Stalin at the Black Sea resort of Yalta in the USSR
 A series of compromises were worked out concerning
postwar Europe
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1) They agreed to divide Germany into 4 occupied zones after
the war
2) Stalin agreed to free elections in Eastern Europe
3) Stalin agreed to help the U.S. in the war against Japan and
to join the United Nations
Nuremburg War Trials
 The discovery of Hitler’s death camps led the Allies
to put 24 surviving Nazi leaders on trial for crimes
against humanity, crimes against the peace, and war
crimes
 The trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany
 “I was only following orders” was not an acceptable
defense as 12 of the 24 were sentenced to death and
the others to life in prison