World War II

1939-1945

Dictators and War

 Causes of World War II
•Treaty of Versailles (WWI)
•League of Nations failure
•World Depression
•Totalitarianism / Fascism
•Territorial Expansion
(Germany / Japan)
•United States Isolationism
 Problems from WWI peace
settlement and worldwide
depression brought dictators to
power in Germany and Italy

Adolph Benito
Hitler Mussolini
 Totalitarianism
 Single-party dictatorship controls citizen’s
lives / no individual rights or freedoms
 Strong, charismatic leader
 State controls economy / all media
 Use of police, spies, & terror to enforce will of
state
 Strict censorship / propaganda
 Fascism- importance of nation placed above
value of people (Germany & Italy)
 Appeasement
 Hitler invades Rhineland / demands
Sudetenland
 France / Great Britain give in to Hitler’s
demands to keep peace- APPEASEMENT
 WHY?
 Both countries remember costs of WWI /
neither prepared for war / underestimated
Hitler
 U.S. still ISOLATIONIST / more worried
about Soviet Union than Germany
 WWII in Europe
Sept. 1, 1939 Hitler invaded Poland
(immediate cause)
France & Great Britain declare war
AXIS POWERS
Germany, Italy, Japan
ALLIED POWERS
France, Great Britain,
United States, Soviet Union, China
 ALLIES LEADERS
Great Britain Winston Churchill,
prime minister
France Charles de Gaulle,
leader of French not
under German control

Soviet Union Joseph Stalin,

communist dictator
United States Franklin D.
Roosevelt,
President
AXIS POWERS LEADERS
Germany Adolf Hitler,
Nazi dictator
Italy Benito
Mussolini,
facist dictator
Japan Hideki Tojo,
Army general &
prime minister
Hirohito,
emperor
Japanese Imperialism
 America
&
Isolationis
m

Do we fight
in Europe
again?
 American Isolationism
 America First Committee-isolationists (1
million strong) / enough problems at home
(Lindbergh)
 Congress passed Neutrality Acts -no

weapons or loans to nations at war

 Lend-Lease Act – President Roosevelt
can aid any nation vital to our security /
wants to help Great Britain fight Germany
“If your neighbor’s house is on fire, you
don’t sell him a hose. You lend it to him
and get it back after fire is out.” FDR
The Japanese Attack
on Pearl Harbor

America declares war

Pearl Harbor-December 7, 1941
“a day which will live in infamy”
Franklin D.
Roosevelt
2,403 Americans were killed and many ships and
aircraft were lost. Fortunately aircraft carriers,
which would turn the war later in the Pacific,
were out on patrol at the time and saved from
certain destruction.
Major World War II
Battles

Europe & Pacific

Theaters
 Major European Battles
 D-Day June 1944, France -largest sea landing
in history / 4400 ships involved
 General Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded
attack at Normandy beaches
 More than 1 million troops landed

“You will bring about the destruction of the

German war machine, the elimination of the Nazi
war machine, and security for ourselves in a free
world”
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower
D-Day Normandy, France-June
1944
Americans land at Omaha &
Utah
 Hitler Counterattacks-
Battle of the Bulge
 Largest battle in Western Europe during WWII
 Largest battle ever fought by U.S. Army
 Eisenhower & Patton lead troops to victory
 U.S. loses 80,000 troops
 Germany loses 100,000 troops
 Nazi’s realize war is lost
 May 8, 1945 Germany surrenders
 V-E Day (Victory in Europe)
 War in the Pacific
United States vs. Japan
 Battle of the Coral Sea -keeps
Japan from advancing &
establishing new military bases
 Battle of Midway -Japan cannot
be offensive anymore/ stopped
Japanese dominance of islands in
the Pacific
 Island-hopping strategy –
capturing key islands to close in
on Japanese mainland
 Japanese Resistance
Battle of Iwo Jima
 Battle of Iwo Jima, Feb.
1945 -700 miles from Japan
 Takes 100,000 U.S. troops to
defeat 25,000 Japanese (0nly 216
taken prisoner)
 25,000 U.S. soldiers died

 One of bloodiest battles during

WWII
 Americans March to
Japan
Battle of Okinawa
 Battle of Okinawa, June 1945
300 miles from Japan-vital air base
 Japanese know Okinawa is last stop before

mainland is invaded
 kamikaze & banzai attacks

 U.S. WINS! / 50,000 U.S casualties / Japan

now open for attack

The Manhattan
Project

Building the
“A-Bomb”
Einstein suggested to Franklin D. Roosevelt in a
letter that the United States should build an
atom bomb.
He hinted the Germans were already at work on
such a weapon.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the building
of the bomb, quoted from a Hindu holy book as
he watched a test bomb in New Mexico.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of
worlds.”
 FDR died in April of 1945, shortly before the
Nazi’s surrendered in Europe. Harry Truman had
to make the decision to drop the atomic bomb
after only being in office three short months.
“I asked General Marshall what
The Decision to Drop the it would
cost in lives to land…in Japan. It was his
Bomb
opinion that 250,000 casualties would be
the minimum cost…I asked Secretary of
War Stimson which cities in Japan were
devoted exclusively to war production.
He…named Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We
sent an ultimatum to Japan. It was
ignored.
I ordered atomic bombs on the two
cities…
Dropping the bombs saved lives and
gave
the free nations a chance to face the
facts.”
The atomic bomb
“Little Boy” The atomic bomb
that was dropped “Fat Man”
on that was dropped
the city of on the city of
Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
August 6, 1945 August 9, 1945
 Japan Surrenders-
World War II Ends
 August 14, 1945 Japan accepts American terms
for surrender
 V-J Day (Victory in Japan)
 140,000 Japanese died in atomic attacks
 World War II is the most costly war in history
 60,000,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the
conflict
The Soviet Union lost over 22 million
soldiers
and civilians in World War II
The Holocaust

Nazi Germany’s
systematic
extermination of
European Jews and
other groups
 Hitler blamed all of the
problems
in Germany on the Jews.
His anti-Semitism began
when
all Jews were forced to wear
yellow stars with the word
“Jew” on them and denied
citizenship rights.
 Acts of violence against Jews were
common.
The most serious happened on November
9, 1938 and is known as Kristallnacht or
“Night of the Broken Glass.”
The Final Solution
In 1933 Hitler
opened the first
Nazi
concentration
camp, where
specifically
designated
groups were
confined. Millions
were starved,
died of disease,
medically
experimented on,
or simply put to
Genocide is the willful annihilation
of a racial, political, or cultural group
 soldiers.
5 million others were killed by the Nazi’s
including
Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals,
beggars, physically disabled, and the mentally
ill.
 American newspapers reported atrocities as
early as 1942. The American public denied these
reports could be true. Allied resources and
strategies were focused on stopping Hitler, not
his genocidal campaign.
The American State Department blocked
Jewish immigration or more would have
been saved. Why did the U.S. do this?
Anti-Semitism, apathy, Great Depression
problems, and a tendency to
underestimate Hitler’s genocidal plans
were probably to blame.
 Nuremberg Trials
 November 1945 Allies placed 24 Nazi’s
on trial for crimes against humanity
 12 received death sentences
 Established that individuals were
responsible for their own actions in
time of war
 War criminals cannot escape punishment
by saying they were “only following
orders”
 World War II
at Home
America becomes the
“arsenal for
democracy”
 By 1943, the economy was
stimulated with war production,
unemployment had fallen
dramatically, and wages in
manufacturing increased 27% in just
over 3 years.
 The War Production Board (WPB) was
set up in 1942 to direct the conversion
of peacetime business to war goods
production.
The Office of Price Administration
(OPA) regulated prices and
rationing
 Although they had
money to spend,
Americans lived with
shortages throughout
the war
Victory gardens were
planted at home to
replace produce sent
to feed the soldiers
 war.
The government borrowed the rest from
banks,
private investors, and the public through
the
sale of war bonds.
The deficit spending started during
the
1930’s Great Depression
skyrocketed
during World War II, creating a
huge
national debt for later generations.
Women and the War
350,000 women enlisted in the military
during WWII. They were nurses, radio
operators, control tower operators but
were NOT allowed in combat.
Between 1940 and 1945, the female labor
force grew by 50% or 6.5 million workers.
Women began to work in jobs previously
held by men.
 America’s
working women
were praised
during the war,
but when the
war ended they
were
encouraged to
return to
homemaking.
 Internment of
Japanese Americans

Internment
-confinement,
especially during
wartime
 Americans
faced hatred, hostility, and
prejudice. As
a result the government decided to
remove all “aliens” from the West
Coast.
 President Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9066,
which forced Japanese Americans into
internment camps. Many lost their
businesses, homes, farms, and other
property.
All the interment camps were in desolate
areas, with families sharing toilet,
bathing, and dining areas. Barbed wire
and armed guards
surrounded all the camps.
Fred Korematsu, a
defense-plant
worker, was
arrested for
refusing to report
to a relocation
center.
Mr. Korematsu sued
the government
claiming he was
denied equal
protection under
the law simply
because he was
In Korematsu v. United States (1944),
the Supreme Court ruled the
government’s
actions were constitutional and not
based on race.
 Korematsu v. United States

Supreme Court Supreme Court

Majority Opinion Dissenting
Opinion
“the military urgency of
the situation demanded “an obvious racial
that all citizens of discrimination”
Japanese ancestry be
segregated from the
West Coast
temporarily”
Effects of the
War
A New American
Identity
Yalta Conference-Feb.1945
 U.S., Soviet Union, Great Britain set
postwar goals before end of WWII
 Agreed to divide Germany & create
United Nations
 Stalin promised to help U.S. invade
Japan (did not keep his word)
 Soviet Union also agreed to self-
determination for Eastern European
countries, especially Poland (does not
keep his word again)
Churchill, Roosevelt, & Stalin at Yalta
The faces say potential enemies, not
victors
The Age of Imperialism would be over within
a few decades of the end of World War II.
Most of Great Britain’s, France’s, and
Spain’s colonies would be on the road to
independence. What continent is most
affected?
 The
Decline
of
Imperialism
in
Africa
 In April 1945, the United States led
50 nations to form the United Nations
(UN).
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly
approved the
charter. It was hoped the United Nations
would succeed where the League of
Nations had failed.
The United Nations was organized on the basis
of cooperation between the Great Powers, not
the absolute equality of all nations.
The 5 major World War II Allies- United States,
Great Britain, France, Soviet Union, and China
were assigned permanent seats on the powerful
UN Security Council.
 Few Americans called for a return to
ISOLATIONISM after World War II. America’s
national and economic security is now
connected to the world around us.
 What will the future bring for
America?

The Cold War was global

competition between the United
States and the Soviet Union to
shape and control the post-World
War II global economic and
political systems.

The Cold War Era

1945-1975
 United States vs. Soviet
Union
Democracy vs. Communism

“duck and cover” nuclear air

raid drills