World War II

Significant Themes

Theme #1: Appeasement

Policy of letting Hitler have

everything he wanted to maintain

peace

• Public wanted NO MORE

WAR

• Demands seemed reasonable

• Soon he would stop

• Stay out of other people’s

affairs

• Strong Germany needed as barrier to Communist USSR

British Prime Minister Neville

Chamberlain shaking hands with Adolf

Hitler after signing Munich Pact, 1938

How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is, that we should be

digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here, because

of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom

we know nothing...

However much we may sympathize with a small nation

confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in

all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British

Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight, it

must be on larger issues than that. I am myself a man of

peace to the depths of my soul; armed conflict between

nations is a nightmare to me... War is a fearful thing, and

we must be very clear before we embark on it, that it is

really the great issues that are at stake.

-- Neville Chamberlain

Theme #2: Mobile War

• Advances in technology: no more trench warfare

• Fast moving planes and tanks to attack, followed by massive infantry, along with radios for communication allowed for “lightning war” or blitzkrieg

• In France, 1940, Germans crushed combined forces of four nations in less than six weeks

Theme #3:

Civilians as Targets

Mobile war meant larger war zones (including residential areas near factories); Civilians

deliberately targeted by air forces

Battle of Britain: The Blitz• Air campaign waged against Britain

• Objective: gain air superiority over the British air force in preparation for an invasion -bombed airfields and factories

• Targeted British towns, including London

• 43,000 civilians killed and 250,000 homes destroyed

• Failed to destroy British air defenses or force Britain to surrender

German Luftwaffe fighters flying in formation

London, 1941

London children made homeless by German bombs

Liverpool, 1940

Sleeping in the

London

Underground

during the Blitz

Ruins of Coventry Cathedral

Firebombing of Dresden

• Four Allied raids over 2 days

• 1,300 British and U.S. bombers dropped 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices

• Firestorm destroyed 15 sq. miles of city center

• Caused 25,000 civilian casualties.

To my left I suddenly see a woman. I can see her to this

day and shall never forget it. She carries a bundle in her

arms. It is a baby. She runs, she falls, and the child flies

in an arc into the fire.

-- Margaret Freyer, survivor

We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small

children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt

to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with

civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling

and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere,

everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw

people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape

from.

I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forget them.

-- Lothar Metzger, survivor

Rape of Nanking

• Japan invaded China, troops took over Nanking, 6 weeks of carnage followed

• Japanese troops brutally attacked civilians; 20,000 women gang-raped and bayoneted to death, thousands shot, burned to death, buried alive

• Resulted in deaths of 300,000 civilians

Atomic Weapons used on Hiroshima

and Nagasaki, Japan

• Japan determined to fight to the

last man

• Projected invasion of Japan would

create 1 million Allied casualties

• Pres. Truman dropped atomic

bombs to force surrender

• Bombs immediately killed 80,000

in Hiroshima and 40,000 in

Nagasaki; double that died within

few years of burns, radiation and

cancer

The Holocaust

Genocide: the mass murder of a

people, in whole or in part,

based on nationality, ethnicity,

religion or race, with the intent

to destroy their very existence

Final Solution: Plan enacted

by Hitler and Nazi

government to exterminate

the Jewish people

The Holocaust

• Segregation and persecution began in early 1930s

• By 1940s, millions of Jews herded into ghettos, then later

into concentration camps

• Jews killed with gas chambers, shooting, slave labor,

starvation, and other means

• Over 6 million died: 2/3rds of all European Jews