1939-1945

THE BEGINNING OF WWII

RESULTS OF WWI: DIVISIONS IN GLOBAL SOCIETY

• Disillusionment following World War I, particularly in Germany.

• The Treaty of Versailles was the formal agreement that ended WWI and changed the map of Europe. New nations were created (i.e. Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia)

• Germany was required to pay $ 33 billion dollars in reparations for WWI’s destruction.

• The Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empires dissolved.

OVERVIEW OF PRIMARY CAUSES

THE AXIS POWERS

• In 1936 Hitler and Mussolini signed an alliance known as the “Rome- Berlin Axis”.

• Japan later joined the alliance making these three countries known as the Axis Powers.

• September 1931: Japan invaded Manchuria, a coal rich province of China.

• October 1935: Italy invades Ethiopia.

• March 1936: Germany reoccupies the Rhineland.

• July1937: Japanese forces move into China.

• March 1938: Germany annexes Austria.

• September 1938: Munich Conference.

• August 1939: Nazi-Soviet Pact signed.

• September 1939: German troops invade Poland.

THE HOLOCAUST 9.7.2012

EARLY TIMELINE

HITLER’S EARLY POLICIES

• Anti-Jewish boycott of 1933• Hitler learns that members of

the population more likely to tolerate attacks against minorities when they stood to gain from it

• Nuremberg Laws• Forbid intermarriage with

Jews and create parameters for citizenship

• Kristallnacht “the night of broken glass”• Burn synaagogues, loot

stores, murder about 100 Jews

ATROCITIES

• The Nazis built special prisons (concentration camps) throughout Europe.

• Jews were forced to leave their jobs, homes, and businesses and were sent to places such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Dachau.

• In these camps the Nazis built gas chambers to eliminate large numbers of people.

• By the end of WWII 6 million out of 8.3 million European Jews had been killed by the Nazis.

CHRONOLOGY

Historical Context • September 17, 1939: The Soviet Union

occupies Poland from the east

• October 8, 1939: Germans establish a ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland

• April 9, 1940: Germany invades Denmark and Norway

• May 10, 1940: Germany attacks western Europe (France and the Low Countries)

• July 10, 1940: Battle of Britain begins

• April 6, 1941: Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece

• June 22, 1941: Germany invades the Soviet Union

• July 6, 1941: Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) shoot nearly 3,000 Jews at the Seventh Fort, one of the 19th-century fortifications surrounding Kovno

• August 3, 1941: Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Muenster denounces the “euthanasia“ killing program in a public sermon

• September 28-29, 1941: Einsatzgruppen shoot about 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar, outside Kiev

• November 7, 1941: Einsatzgruppen round up 13,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto and kill them in nearby Tuchinki (Tuchinka)

• November 30, 1941: Einsatzgruppen

shoot 10,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto in the Rumbula Forest

THE FINAL SOLUTION: AN OVERVIEW

• They used the term “Final Solution” to refer to their plan to annihilate the Jewish people.

• The genocide, or mass destruction, of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of increasingly severe discriminatory measures.

• After 9/1939, anti-Jewish policy escalated to the imprisonment and eventual murder of European Jews.

• The Nazis first established ghettos in the Generalgouvernement (a territory in central and eastern Poland overseen by a German civilian government) and the Warthegau (an area of western Poland annexed to Germany).

• Polish and western European Jews were deported to these ghettos where they lived in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions with inadequate food.

• German SS and police murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews in the killing centers either by asphyxiation with poison gas or by shooting. In its entirety, the "Final Solution" called for the murder of all European Jews by gassing, shooting, and other means.

PERSONAL HISTORIES

• Sam ItzkowitzBorn: 1925, Makow, Poland

• Describes gas chambers in Auschwitz [Interview: 1991]

• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_oi.php?ModuleId=10005151&MediaId=1217

• Ruth WebberBorn: 1935, Ostrowiec, Poland

• Describes the Auschwitz crematoria [Interview: 1992]

• http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_oi.php?ModuleId=10005151&MediaId=1207

LONDON BLITZKRIEG

PEARL HARBOR

BATTLE OF MIDWAY

D-DAY

BATTLE OF THE BULGE

IWO JIMA

BATTLE OF BERLIN

LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ

GERMAN SURRENDER

HIROSHIMA

JAPANESE SURRENDER

1945-1991

THE COLD WAR

CHRONOLOGY

EARLY YEARS

•1945: United Nations is officially formed.

•1947: Truman Doctrine

•1948: Berlin Airlift begins

•1949: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is formed. Members included US, Canada and a number of European nations.

CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR

• Ideological • Free Elections vs. Communist Party

• Economic • Free Trade vs. totalitarian regime

• Political • US vs. Soviet Union

• Immediate Causes: • Incipient conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States

began at the peace-time conferences.

• Their conflict was intensified after President Truman declared the Truman Doctrine and launched the Marshall Plan in 1947.

SOVIET EXPANSION

• Post WWII the Soviet Union was the strongest power in Europe and was still ruled by Joseph Stalin.

• By the fall of 1944, the Red Army had liberated and controlled a large part of eastern Europe.

• By 1945, at the Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union obtained the Curzon Line as her new boundary line with Poland and also the control of the eastern zone of Germany.

• By May 1945, the Red Army began by influencing the post-war elections. They intimidated the voters and changed the voting lists as they desired.

• Although the non-communists could still gain some votes, most of the votes went to the communists. Thus the coalition governments formed immediately after the war were largely dominated by the communists.

• In late 1946, the French and Italian Communists were becoming the most powerful parties in France and Italy.

THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE

• President Truman supported a policy of containment.

• The US would work in military and non-military ways to prevent communism from spreading throughout the world.

• Truman believed that without American action Turkey and Greece might fall under Soviet control. Truman asked Congress for $400 million to assist these countries.

• “I believe it must be the policy of the US to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” – Truman Doctrine

• Became the foundation of American foreign policy til the 1990s.

CONTAINMENT VS. ROLLBACK

Critical Thinking: What areas of the world have seen Rollback or “regime change” strategies in recent years?

THE MARSHALL PLAN

• The goal of the Marshall Plan was to rebuild the cities, farms, and industries of Europe in the post WWII years.

• American leaders hoped that if people’s basic needs for food and housing were met that Europeans would be able to prosper.

• The unstated reality was that US leaders hoped that through healthy economies, people would resist communism.

• By 1951, Western European economies were booming and democracy had been saved.

                                                           

                                               

                                                           

AIRLIFT TO BERLIN

• In 1945 Germany had been divided into zones.

• West Germany was occupied by troops from the US, France, and Britain.

• East Germany was occupied by Soviet troops.

• Berlin was also separated into halves.

• In 1948, Soviet troops closed all entrances to Berlin so the US and Britain began the airlift to Berlin.

• For about 1 year, American and British cargo planes carried tons of food to W. Berlin.

Berliners watching a C-54 land at Tempelhof Airport (1948)

                                                                                                                              )

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BERLIN BLOCKADE

• Though Stalin lifted the blockade, the -western -powers failed to obtain Russian recognition of their rights of a land route to West Berlin.

• This meant that even in moments of defeat Russia was determined to show strength and determination.

• The following September saw the setting up of a West German Federal Republic through free elections.

THE CREATION OF NATO

• In 1949, western leaders decided to form an organization to defend against Soviet attack.

• This organization, formed by the U.S., Canada and 10 other European nations is called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

• The formation of NATO had a huge impact on world politics and defense. NATO has brought more peace and security to the world, dramatically improved European unity, and helped Europe emerge as a collective power

• Congress' decision to join NATO significantly changed U.S. foreign policy.

THE WARSAW PACT

• In 1955, the Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact.

• It was a military alliance of the communist nations of Eastern Europe.

• By 1948 the Cominform had been formed and Russia had concluded mutual assistance treaties with Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania.

• The confrontation over Berlin (1948-49) and the formation of NATO meant that the Cold War would continue.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WARSAW PACT

• The Pact allowed Russia to station her troops in eastern European countries. This meant that Russia could attack western Europe at any moment and could suppress any sign of rebellion in her satellite countries.

• By 1955 when the most critical phase of the Cold War was over both Russia and the United States had organized their satellites into opposing alliances. Political tension between the East and the West will continue.

TENSIONS BEGIN TO EASE (EARLY 1950S)

• The first reason was that since 1953, both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed hydrogen bombs.

• Both sides realized that the use of these destructive weapons in war would destroy each other. Thus they were determined to improve their relations in order to avoid direct military clash.

• The second reason was that since 1954, the bonds between the 'Super Powers' and their 'satellites' began to slacken.

• As their 'satellites' did not fully support their leader - the United States and the Soviet Union, it made political sense for the two Super-Powers to improve their relations.

THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION

Hungary 1956• After Stalin died in 1953, Soviet bloc

members were able to enjoy greater freedom of action as a result of a change in Russian policy.

• Stalin's successors were more willing to give greater freedom to the Russian satellite states. The Hungarians were greatly encouraged. They demanded not only economic and political autonomy.

• They made an uprising against Russian domination in 1956.

• On October 23, 1956 before the Polish embassy in Hungary, 50,000 people participated in an anti-Russian demonstration. The Russian-dominated government appealed to the Russians for help. On November 4, Russian troops entered Budapest to put an end to the uprising

CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1967

• In the 1960s, changes in the leadership in Prague led to a series of reforms to soften or humanize the application of communist doctrines within Czech borders.

• The Czech economy had been slowing since the early 1960s, and cracks were emerging in the communist consensus as workers struggled against new challenges.

• On August 20, 1968, the Soviet Union led Warsaw Pact troops in an invasion of Czechoslovakia to crack down on reformist trends in Prague.

• Although the Soviet Union’s action successfully halted the pace of reform in Czechoslovakia, it had unintended consequences for the unity of the communist bloc.

Prague, 1968

Alexander Dubcek

CZECH NOTES

• The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia was significant in the sense that it delayed the splintering of Eastern European Communism and was concluded without provoking any direct intervention from the West. Repeated efforts in the UN Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the attacks met with opposition from the Soviet Union, and the effort finally died away. The invasion did, however, temporarily derail progress toward détente between the Soviet Union and the United States. The NATO allies valued the idea of a lessening of tensions, and as a result they were determined not to intervene. Still, the invasion forced U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to cancel a summit meeting with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Although Brezhnev knew this was the most likely outcome of the invasion, he considered maintaining Soviet control in the East Bloc a higher priority in the short-term than pursuing détente with the West. As it turned out, the progress on arms control agreements were only delayed by a few years in the aftermath of the Prague Spring.

• There were also long-term consequences. After the invasion, the Soviet leadership justified the use of force in Prague under what would become known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, which stated that Moscow had the right to intervene in any country where a communist government had been threatened. This doctrine, established to justify Soviet action in Czechoslovakia, also became the primary justification for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and even before that it helped to finalize the Sino-Soviet split, as Beijing feared that the Soviet Union would use the doctrine as a justification to invade or interfere with Chinese communism. Because the United States interpreted the Brezhnev Doctrine and the history of Soviet interventions in Europe as defending established territory, not expanding Soviet power, the aftermath of the Czech crisis also lent support to voices in the U.S. Congress calling for a reduction in U.S. military forces in Europe.