Years of Crisis and World War II

1. Years of Crisis and World War II AP Unit #14 Chapters 31-32

2. Albert Einstein / Theory of Relativity • Albert Einstein – German-born physicist regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. Einstein offered startling new ideas on space, time, energy, and matter. Einstein proposed the theory of relativity, arguing that while the speed of light is constant, other things that seem constant, such as space and time, are not. Space and time can change when measured relative to an object moving near the speed of light – about 186,000 miles per second. • The prewar physics revolution begun by Albert Einstein continued in the 1920s and 1930s. In fact, Ernest Rutherford, one of the physicists who showed that the atom could be split, called the 1920s the “heroic age of physics.” The unfolding new physics undermined the classical physics of Newton. Newtonian physics had made people believe that all phenomena could be completely defined and predicted. In 1927 German physicist Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle shook this belief. Physicists new that atoms were made up of smaller parts. The unpredictable behavior of these subatomic particles is the basis for the uncertainty principle. Heisenberg’s theory essentially suggests that all physical laws are based on uncertainty. The theory’s emphasis on randomness challenged Newtonian physics and, in a way, represented a new worldview. Thus, the principle of uncertainty fit in well with the other uncertainties of the interwar years. • By 1920, shorter workdays gave rise to mass culture. Huge movie palaces were built, and radio brought the world into people’s homes. Magazines helped spread trends. Today’s mass culture often focuses more on private entertainment. People watch movies and television on tiny portable screens and listen to music through earbuds. Cultural trends spread over the internet. American mass culture is exported around the world, where it is often embraced, but it has also provoked negative responses.

3. Closure Question #1: Why do you think writers and artists began exploring the unconscious? (At least 1 sentence) Sigmund Freud • Sigmund Freud – Austrian psychologist who theorized that much human behavior is driven not by rational thought but by unconscious desires, but to live in society people learn to suppress their desires. The tension between outward behavior and the subconscious leads to mental and physical illness. • During the Victorian Age of the late 1800s and early 1900s, women had been expected to center their lives on the home and family. The New Woman of the 1920s was more liberated. She wore dresses with shorter hemlines, put on more makeup, danced to the latest crazes, and generally assumed that she had the same political and social rights as any man. Popular magazines, sociological studies, novels, and movies all echoed the rejection of Victorian morality. There was only a germ of truth in the various observations. The Victorian code of separate spheres for men and women was disappearing but not as rapidly or as completely as some indicated. The flapper was undoubtedly more publicized than imitated. Still, the image of the flapper underscores an important aspect of the decade. Not all women aspired to be flappers, but many wanted more control over their lives – and got it. • The great fight for suffrage had been won with the passage of the 19th Amendment. What was the next step? Some groups, such as the NAWSA, called on women to work in reform movements, run for office, or fight for laws to protect women and children in the workplace. Some women had success in public life. In 1925, Nellie Taylor Ross of Wyoming and Miriam Ferguson of Texas became the first women elected as their state’s governor. The NWP took a more militant view, demanding complete economic, social and political equality with men. Their primary goal was the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment. Most women, though, believed that a new constitutional amendment was premature.

4. Closure Question #2: What impact did technological advances in transportation and communication have on Western culture between the wars? (At least 1 sentence) A series of inventions in the late 1800s had led the way for a revolution in mass communications. Especially important was Marconi’s discovery of wireless radio waves. A musical concert transmitted in June 1920 had a major impact on radio broadcasting. Broadcasting facilities were built in the United States, Europe, and Japan during 1921 and 1922. At the same time, the mass production of radios began. In 1926 there were 2.2 million radios in Great Britain. By the end of the 1930s, there were 9 million. Although motion pictures had first emerged in the 1890s, full-length features did not appear until shortly before World War I. The Italian film Quo Vadis and the American film Birth of a Nation made it apparent that cinema was an important new form of mass entertainment. By 1939, about 40% of adults in the more developed countries were attending a movie once a week. Of course, radio and the movies could be used for political purposes. Radio offered great opportunities for reaching the masses. This became obvious when it was discovered that Adolf Hitler’s fiery speeches made just as great an impact on people when heard over the radio as they did in person. The Nazi regime encouraged radio listening by using manufacturers to produce inexpensive radios.

5. Existentialism • Belief that there is no universal meaning to life. Each person creates his or her own meaning in life through choices made and actions taken. In the aftermath of WWI existentialism gained followers, influenced by thinkers such as Jean Paul Sartre. • The interest in the unconscious also appeared in new literary techniques. “Stream of consciousness” was a technique used by writers to show the innermost thoughts of each character. The most famous example is the novel Ulysses, published by James Joyce. The novels of German writer Herman Hesse reflect the influence of both Freud’s psychology and Asian religions. His works often focus on the spiritual loneliness of modern human beings in a mechanized urban society. Hesse’s novels had a great impact on German youth in the 1920s. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946. After World War I, the assembly line and mass production took hold in industry. More consumer goods were available, and more people could buy them because they had more income or credit. By 1920, the 8-hour work day had been established for many workers. Gradually, it became the norm. • This new work pattern meant more free time for the leisure activities that had emerged by 1900. Professional sporting events were an important part of mass leisure. Travel was another favorite activity. Trains, buses, and cars made trips to beaches or holiday resorts popular and affordable. Mass leisure offered new ways for totalitarian states to control the people. The Nazi regime, for example, adopted a program called Kraft durch Freude (“Strength through Joy”). The program offered a variety of leisure activities to fill the free time of the working class. These activities included concerts, operas, films, guided tours, and sporting events. In 1922, T.S. Eliot, an American poet living in England wrote that Western society had lost its spiritual values. He described the postwar world as a barren “wasteland”, drained of hope and faith. In 1921, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats conveyed a sense of dark times ahead in the poem “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

7. Friedrich Nietzsche / Surrealism • Friedrich Nietzsche – German existentialist philosopher who believed that Western ideas such as reason, democracy, and progress had stifled people’s creativity and actions. Nietzsche urged a return to the ancient heoric values of pride, assertiveness, and strength. Dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini built of Nietzsche’s ideas in establishing Totalitarian, Militaristic governments. • Surrealism – Artistic movement of the early 20th century which attempted to portray the unconscious – fantasies, dreams, and nightmares – to show the greater reality that exists beyond the world of physical appearances. • Four years of devastating war had left many Europeans with a profound sense of despair. The Great Depression and the growth of violent fascist movements only added to the despair created by the war. Many people began looking at themselves differently; their future seemed uncertain. With political, economic, and social uncertainties came intellectual uncertainties. These were evident in the artistic, intellectual, and scientific achievements of the years following World War I. • After 1918, artistic trends mainly reflected developments made before the war. Abstract art, for example, became even more popular. In addition, a prewar fascination with the absurd and the unconscious content of the mind seemed even more appropriate in light of the nightmare landscapes of the World War I battlefronts. “The world does not make sense, so why should art?” was a common remark. This sentiment gave rise to both the Dada movement and surrealism. The dadaists were artists who were obsessed with the idea that life has no purpose. They were revolted by what they saw as the insanity of life and tried to express that feeling in their art. Dada artist Hannah Hoch, for example, used photomontage (a picture made of a combination of photographs) to comment on women’s roles in the new mass culture. A more important artistic movement than dadaism was surrealism. By portraying the unconscious – fantasies, dreams, and even nightmares – the surrealists sought to show the greater reality that exists beyond the world of physical appearance. One of the world’s foremost surrealist painters was Salvador Dali.

8. Jazz • Jazz – Music native to the United States which is based on improvisation and combines different forms of music, including African American blues, ragtime, and European-based popular music. • Black Africans had fought in World War I in British and French armies. Many Africans hoped that independence after the war would be their reward. As one newspaper after the war argued, if African volunteers who fought on European battlefields were “good enough to fight and die in the Empire’s cause, they were good enough to have a share in the government of their countries.” Most European leaders, however, were not ready to give up their colonies. The peace settlement after World War I was a huge disappointment. Germany was stripped of its African colonies, but these colonies were awarded to Great Britain and France to be administered as mandates for the League of Nations. Britain and France now governed a vast portion of Africa. • After World War I, Africans became more active politically. The foreign powers that had conquered and exploited Africa also introduced Western education. In educating Africans, the colonial system introduced them to the modern world and gave them visions of a world based on the ideals of liberty and equality. In Africa itself, the missionary schools taught these ideals to their pupils. The African students who studied abroad, especially in Britain and the United States, and the African soldiers who served in World War I learned new ideas about freedom and nationalism in the West. As more Africans became aware of the enormous gulf between Western ideals and practices, they decided to seek reform.

9. Charles Lindbergh Closure Question #3: Why did heroes, like Charles Lindbergh, gained increasing popularity in the years following World War I. (At least 1 sentence) Charles Lindbergh – The first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean; Lindbergh made the flight in 33 hours in a single-engine plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, becoming the greatest American hero of the 1920s. Thanks to increased newspaper readership and the rise of radio coverage, every major sport boasted nationally famous performers. Perhaps the leading sports hero was baseball home-run king Babe Ruth. Others included Red Grange in football, Jack Dempsey in boxing, Bobby Jones in golf, and Bill Tilden in tennis. Women athletes, too, gained fame, from tennis player Helen Wills to Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel. Why did athletes reach such heights of popularity? Part of the answer is that the Golden Age of Sports was also the Golden Age of the Sportswriter. Such journalists as Damon Runyon and Grantland Rice captured the excitement of sports events in their colorful prose. Turning the finest athletes into seemingly immortal gods, the sportswriters nicknamed Babe Ruth the Sultan of Swat and dubbed Notre Dame’s football backfield the Four Horsemen. The other part of the answer is that the decade needed heroes. World War I had shattered many Americans’ faith in progress, making the world seem cheap and flawed. Athletic heroes reassured Americans that people were capable of great feats and lofty dreams. If in our heroes we see our idealized selves, the sports heroes of the 1920s gave Americans a sense of hope. Even the biggest sports stars could not match the adoration given aviator Charles Lindbergh. In the 1920s, the airline industry was in its infancy. Flying aces had played a role in WWI, and a few small domestic airlines carried mail and passengers. But airplanes were still a novel sight to most Americans. The pilot became a new breed of hero, a romantic daredevil who risked death with every flight.

10. Closure Assignment #1 • Answer the following questions based on what you have learned from Chapter 31, Section 1: 1. Why do you think writers and artists began exploring the unconscious? (At least 1 sentence) 2. What impact did technological advances in transportation and communication have on Western culture between the wars? (At least 1 sentence) 3. Why did heroes, like Charles Lindbergh, gained increasing popularity in the years following World War I. (At least 1 sentence)

11. Coalition Government • A temporary alliance of several political parties made to form a majority in a national government. Following WWI democracies were established in European nations, such as Germany and Italy, which had little experience with representative government. In these countries, it was almost impossible for one party to win enough support to govern effectively. Because the parties disagreed on so many policies, coalitions seldom lasted very long. • The peace settlement at the end of World War I tried to fulfill 19th century dreams of nationalism. It created new boundaries and new states. From the beginning, however, the settlement left nations unhappy. Border disputes poisoned relations in eastern Europe for years. Many Germans vowed to revise the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Between 1919 and 1924, desire for security led the French government to demand strict enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles. This tough policy began with the issue of reparations (payments) that the Germans were supposed to make for the damage they had done in the war. In April 1921, the Allied Reparations Commission determined that Germany owed 132 billion German marks (33 billion U.S. dollars) for reparations, payable in annual installments of 2.5 billion marks. • The new German republic made its first payment in 1921. By the following year, however, the German government faced a financial crisis and announced that it could not pay any more reparations. Outraged, France sent troops to occupy the Ruhr Valley. France planned to collect reparations by using the Ruhr mines and factories. The German government adopted a policy of passive resistance to this French occupation. German workers went on strike. The German government mainly paid their salaries by printing more paper money. This only added to the inflation (rise in prices) that had already begun in Germany by the end of the war. The German mark soon became worthless. In 1914, 42 marks equaled 1 U.S. dollar. By November 1, 1923, it took 130 billion marks to equal 1 dollar. By the end of November, the ratio had increased to an incredible 4.2 trillion marks to 1 dollar.

12. Closure Question #1: What problems did the Weimar Republic face? (List at least 2) Weimar Republic • Democratic government which ruled Germany from 1918 (the end of WWI) until 1933, the year in which Adolf Hitler gained control in Germany. • President Woodrow Wilson claimed that World War I had been fought to make the world safe for democracy. In 1919 his claim seemed justified. Most European states, both major and minor, had democratic governments. In a number of states, women could now vote. Male political leaders had rewarded women for their contributions to the war effort by granting them voting rights. (However, women could not vote until 1944 in France, 1945 in Italy, and 1971 in Switzerland.) In the 1920s, Europe seemed to be returning to the political trends of the prewar era – parliamentary regimes and the growth of individual liberties. This was not, however, an easy process. Four years of total war and four years of postwar turmoil made a “return to normalcy” difficult. • With prosperity came a new European diplomacy. The foreign ministers of Germany and France, Gustav Stresemann and Astride Briand, fostered a spirit of cooperation. In 1925 they signed the Treaty of Locarno. Many viewed the Locarno pact as the beginning of a new era of European peace. On the day after the pact was concluded, headlines in the New York Times read “France and Germany Ban War Forever.” The London Times declared “Peace at Last.” The new spirit of cooperation grew even stronger when Germany joined the League of Nations in March 1926. Two years later, the Kellogg-Briand Pact brought even more hope. Sixty-three nations signed this accord and pledged “to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.” Nothing was said, however, about what would be done if anyone violated the pact. • Imperial Germany ended in 1918 with Germany’s defeat in the war. A German democratic state known as the Weimar Republic was then created. The Weimar Republic was plagued by serious economic problems. Germany experienced runaway inflation in 1922 and 1923. With it came serious social problems. Families on fixed incomes watched their life savings disappear. To make matters worse, after a period of relative prosperity from 1924 to 1929, Germany was struck by the Great Depression. In 1930, unemployment had grown to 3 million people by March and to 4.38 million by December. The Depression paved the way for fear and the rise of extremist parties.

13. Great Depression A period of low economic activity and rising unemployment; From 1929 until the beginning of World War II the United States and Europe experienced a severe economic depression. Economic adversity led to political upheaval. Both France and Germany began to seek a way out of the disaster. In August 1924, an international commission produced a new plan for reparations. The Dawes Plan, named after the American banker who chaired the commission, first reduced reparations. It then coordinated Germany’s annual payments with its ability to pay. The brief period of prosperity that began in Europe in 1924 ended in an economic collapse that came to be known as the Great Depression. Two factors played a major role in the start of the Great Depression. First, was a series of downturns in the economies of individual nations in the second half of the 1920s. Prices for farm products, especially wheat, fell rapidly due to overproduction. The second factor that triggered the Great Depression was an international financial crisis involving the U.S. stock market. Much of the European prosperity between 1924 and 1929 was built on U.S. bank loans to Germany. Germany needed the U.S. loans to pay reparations to France and Great Britain. During the 1920s, the U.S. stock market boomed. By 1928, American investors pulled money out of Germany to invest it in the stock market. Then, in October 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed. Stock prices plunged. In a panic, U.S. investors withdrew even more funds from Germany and other European markets. This withdrawal made the banks of Germany and other European states weak. The well-known Creditanstalt Bank in Vienna collapsed in May 1931. By then, trade was slowing, industrial production was declining, and unemployment was rising. One effect of the economic crisis was increased government activity in the economy. Another effect was a renewed interest in Marxist ideas. Marx’s prediction that capitalism would destroy itself through overproduction seemed to be coming true. Communism thus became more popular, especially among workers and intellectuals. Closure Question #2: Explain how the Great Depression weakened Western democracies. (At least 1 sentence)

14. Deficit Spending

15. Franklin D. Roosevelt / New Deal Franklin D. Roosevelt – American President from 1932 to 1945; Roosevelt created the New Deal, a policy of active government intervention in the economy, in order to help the United States during the Great Depression. After Germany, no Western nation was more affected by the Great Depression than the United States. By 1932, U.S. industrial production had fallen almost 50% from its 1929 level. By 1933, there were more than 12 million unemployed. Under these circumstances, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a landslide victory in the 1932 presidential election. Believing in free enterprise, Roosevelt believed that capitalism had to be reformed to save it. He pursued a policy of active government intervention in the economy, known as the New Deal. The New Deal included an increased program of public works. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in 1935, was a government organization employing about 3 million people at its peak. Workers built bridges, roads, post offices, and airports. The Roosevelt administration was also responsible for new social legislation that began the U.S. welfare system. In 1935 the Social Security Act created a system of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. The New Deal’s reforms may have prevented a social revolution in the United States. However, it did not solve the unemployment problems. In 1938 American unemployment still stood at more than 10 million. Only World War II and the growth of weapons industries brought U.S. workers back to full employment. Closure Question #3: Explain the intent of the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal. (At least 1 sentence)

16. Closure Assignment #2 • Answer the following questions based on what you have learned from Chapter 31, Section 2: • What problems did the Weimar Republic face? (List at least 2) • Explain how the Great Depression weakened Western democracies. (At least 1 sentence) • Explain the intent of the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal. (At least 1 sentence)

17. Benito Mussolini / Fascism Benito Mussolini – Founder of the Fascist party in Italy in 1919, Mussolini became a totalitarian dictator in Italy in 1922, creating a secret police, outlawing political parties, and eliminating free press. Fascism – An ultra-conservative political movement emphasizing nationalism and racial superiority which swept European countries in the 1920s and 1930s. Italian totalitarianism was in many ways a direct result of the war and the peace treaties. Although Italy was on the winning side, it did not get the land along the Adriatic coast it had hoped to obtain from the division of Austria-Hungary. Added to this frustration, the postwar economic depression made it difficult for returning veterans to find jobs, a communist movement was growing, and the government seemed weak and inept. It was during this period that Benito Mussolini entered the world stage. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento, or Fascist Party, a right-wing organization that trumpeted nationalism and promised to make Italy great again. Followers of Mussolini, known as Black Shirts, fought in the streets against socialists and communists. Fearing revolution, in 1922, Italian King Victor Emmanuel III asked Mussolini to form a government. Calling himself Il Duce, or “the leader”, Mussolini consolidated his control over the government and the army within a few years. He outlawed political parties, took over the press, created a secret police, organized youth groups to indoctrinate the young, and suppressed strikes. He opposed liberalism and socialism. Still, his hold over Italy was never as powerful as Stalin’s grip on the Soviet Union. Closure Question #1: Why did a movement like fascism and leaders like Mussolini come to power during a period of crisis? (At least 1 sentence)

18. Adolf Hitler / Nazism Adolf Hitler – Fascist dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945; A strong supporter of German nationalism, Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1923, arguing that Jews and Communists within Germany were to blame for their defeat in WWI and argued that “superior” nations had a right to expand their territory and “superior” individuals had a right to lead the masses. Nazism – National Socialist German Workers’ Party; Fascist political party led by Hitler beginning in 1921. After leaving prison, Hitler worked to win German votes for the Nazis. By 1932 the party had 800,000 members, making it the largest political party in Germany. Adolf Hitler was born in Austria on April 20, 1889. Unsuccessful in school, he traveled to Vienna to become an artist but was rejected by the academy. Here he developed his basic social and political ideas. At the core of Hitler’s ideas was racism, especially anti-Semitism (hostility towards Jews). Hitler was also an extreme nationalist who understood how political parties could effectively use propaganda and terror. Hitler served four years on the Western Front during World War I. At the end of the war, Hitler remained in Germany and decided to enter politics. In 1919 he joined the little known German Workers’ Party, one of several right-wing extreme nationalist parties in Munich. By the summer of 1921, Hitler had taken total control of the party. By then the party had been renamed. (Nazi) Within two years party membership had grown to 55,000 people, with 15,000 in the party militia. The militia was variously known as the SA, the Storm Troops, or the Brownshirts, after the color of their uniforms. An overconfident Hitler staged an armed uprising against the government in Munich in November 1923. This uprising, called the Beer Hall Putsch, was quickly crushed, and Hitler was sentenced to prison. During his brief stay in jail, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, an account of his movement and its basic ideas.

19. Mein Kampf • Mein Kampf – Book published by Hitler in 1925 in which he revealed himself as extremely anti-Semitic (prejudiced against Jews) & expressed his desire for Germany to dominate the world. • The Reichstag was the German parliament under the Weimar Republic; By 1932 Nazi politicians were elected and gained control of the Reichstag. The Enabling Act was passed on March 23, 1933 by the Reichstag. This law gave the government the power to ignore the democratic constitution for 4 years while it issued laws to deal with Germany’s problems. Under this law Hitler, who was appointed Germany’s chancellor in 1932, was appointed dictator by the parliament itself. While in prison, Hitler realized that the Nazis would have to attain power by legal means, not by a violent overthrow of the Weimar Republic. Hitler knew that the Nazi Party would have to be a mass political party that could compete for votes with the other political parties. Once out of prison, Hitler expanded the Nazi Party in Germany. By 1929, it had a national party organization. Three years later, it had 800,000 members and had become the largest party in the Reichstag. No doubt, Germany’s economic difficulties were a crucial factor in the Nazi rise to power. Unemployment had risen dramatically, growing from 4.35 million in 1931 to about 5.5 million by the winter of 1932. The Great Depression made extremist parties more attractive. • After 1930, the German government ruled by decree with the support of President Hindenburg. The Reichstag had little power. More and more, the right-wing elites of Germany – the industrial leaders, landed aristocrats, military officers, and higher bureaucrats – looked to Hitler for leadership. Under pressure, Hindenburg agreed to allow Hitler to become chancellor in 1933 and create a new government. Within two months, Hitler had laid the foundation for the Nazi Party’s complete control over Germany. The crowning step of Hitler’s “legal seizure” of power came on March 23, 1933 with the Enabling Act. With their new power, the Nazis quickly brought all institutions under their control. They purged the civil service of Jews and democratic elements. They set up prison camps called concentration camps for people who opposed them. Trade Unions were dissolved. All political parties except the Nazis were abolished.

20. Closure Question #2: How did mass demonstrations and meetings contribute to the success of the Nazi Party? (At least 1 sentence) Hitler promised a new Germany that appealed to nationalism and militarism. These appeals struck an emotional chord in his listeners. After attending one of Hitler’s rallies, a schoolteacher in Hamburg said, “When the speech was over, there was roaring enthusiasm and applause… How many look up to him with touching faith as their helper, their saviour, their deliverer from unbearable distress.” The Nazis used mass demonstrations and spectacles to make the German people an instrument of Hitler’s policies. These meetings, especially the Nuremberg party rallies that were held every September, usually evoked mass enthusiasm and excitement.

21. Closure Question #3: Why do you think Hitler had German children join Nazi organizations? Lebensraum • “Living Space”; In the 1920 and 1930s Hitler declared that Germany was overcrowded and needed more space. He promised to get that space by conquering eastern Europe and Russia. • Nazi Germany was the scene of almost constant personal and institutional conflict. Struggle was a basic feature of relationships within the party and state. Hitler, of course, was the ultimate decision maker and absolute ruler. The Schutzstaffeln (“Guard Squadrons”) known simply as the SS were an important force for maintaining order. The SS was originally created as Hitler’s personal bodyguard. Under the direction of Heinrich Himmler, the SS came to control not only the secret police forces that Himmler had set up, but also the regular police forces. In the economic sphere, Hitler used public works projects and grants to private construction firms to put people back to work and end the Depression. A massive rearmament program, however, was the key to solving the unemployment problem. Unemployment, which had reached more than 5 million people in 1932, dropped to 2.5 million in 1934 and less than 500,000 in 1937. The regime claimed full credit for solving Germany’s economic woes. The new regime’s part in bringing an end to the Depression was an important factor in leading many Germans to accept Hitler and the Nazis. • The Nazis totalitarian state also controlled institutions, which included churches, schools, and universities. In addition, Nazi professional organizations and youth organizations taught Nazi ideals. Women played a crucial role in the Aryan state as bearers of the children who, the Nazis believed , would bring about the triumph of the Aryan race. The Nazis believed men were destined to be warriors and political leaders, while women were meant to be wives and mothers. By preserving this clear distinction, each could best serve to “maintain the whole community”. Nazi ideas determined employment opportunities for women. Jobs in heavy industry, the Nazis thought, might hinder women from bearing healthy children. Certain professions, including university teaching, medicine, and law, were also considered unsuitable for women, especially married women. The Nazis instead encouraged women to pursue other occupations, such as social work and nursing. The Nazi regime pushed its campaign against working women with poster slogans such as “Get a hold of pots and pans and broom and you’ll sooner find a groom!”

22. Nazi Germany

23. Closure Assignment #3 • Answer the following questions based on what you have learned from Chapter 31, Section 3: • Why did a movement like fascism and leaders like Mussolini come to power during a period of crisis? (At least 1 sentence) • How did mass demonstrations and meetings contribute to the success of the Nazi Party? (At least 1 sentence) • Why do you think Hitler had German children join Nazi organizations?

24. Appeasement • Appeasement – Granting concessions to a potential enemy in hope that it will maintain peace. This policy was used by France and Britain towards Germany during the 1930s. • By the end of the summer of 1933, only seven months after being appointed chancellor, Hitler had established the basis for a totalitarian state. When Hindenburg died in 1934, the office of president was abolished. Hitler became sole ruler of Germany. People took oaths of loyalty to their Fuhrer, or “Leader.” Hitler wanted to develop a totalitarian state. He had not simply sought power for power’s sake. He had a larger goal – the development of an Aryan racial state that would dominate Europe and possibly the world for generations to come. Aryan is a term used to identify people speaking Indo-European languages. The Nazis misused the term by treating it as a racial designation and identifying the Aryans with the ancient Greeks and Romans. • Nazis thought the Germans were the true descendants and leaders of the Aryans and would create another empire like the one ruled by the ancient Romans. The Nazis believed that the world had already seen two German empires, or Reichs: the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire of 1871 to 1918. It was Hitler’s goal to create a Third Reich, the empire of Nazi Germany. To achieve his goal, Hitler needed the active involvement of the German people. The Nazis pursued the creation of the totalitarian state in a variety of ways. They employed economic policies, mass spectacles, and organizations – both old and new – to further Nazi goals. They also freely used terror. Policies toward women and, in particular, toward Jews reflected Nazi aims. From its beginning, the Nazi Party reflected the strong anti-Semitic beliefs of Adolf Hitler . In Mein Kampf, Hitler links extreme German nationalism, strong anti-Semitism, and anticommunism together by a Social Darwinian theory of struggle. This theory emphasizes the rights of superior nations to lebsraum – “living space – through expansion. It also holds the right of superior races to gain authoritarian leadership over the masses. Once in power, the Nazis translated anti-Semitic ideas into anti-Semitic policies, including anti-Jewish boycotts and other measures. A violent phase of anti-Jewish activity began on the night of November 9, 1938 – Kristallnacht. In a destructive rampage, Nazis burned synagogues and destroyed some 7,000 Jewish businesses. At least 100 Jews were killed. Kristallnacht led to further drastic steps. The fortunate Jews were the ones who managed to escape from the country.

25. Axis Powers Axis Powers – Alliance including Germany, Italy, Japan and several other nations during World War II. Europe was at war, just as it had been 21 years earlier. The Axis Powers eventually included Germany, Italy, Japan and several other nations. The Allies included Britain, France and eventually many other nations, including the Soviet Union, the United States, and China. But after the Polish campaign, the war entered an eight-month period of relative quiet, known in Britain as the “phony war.” Things would not remain quiet for long, however.The next storm erupted with raging fury in the spring of 1940. Germany’s nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union freed Hitler to send his army west. On April 9, 1940, Germany attacked Denmark and Norway. The two countries fell almost immediately. On May 10, he sent his blitzkrieg forces into the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The small nations fell like tumbling dominoes. Hitler seemed invincible; his army unstoppable. Hitler next set his sights on France. France had prepared for Germany’s invasion by constructing an interconnected series of fortresses known as the Maginot Line along its border with Germany. Additionally, France had stationed its finest armies along its border with Belgium – the route that Germany had used to attack France in 1914. In between the Maginot Line and Belgium lay the Ardennes, a hilly, forested area that military experts considered invasion proof. But once again the military experts were wrong. In early May 1940, German tanks rolled through the Ardennes, ripped a hole in the thin French line there, and race north toward the English Channel. The German plan involved attacking the French and British forces from the front and the rear and trapping them against the channel. It almost worked. Only a few tactical German mistakes gave Britain enough time to evacuate its forces from the French port of Dunkirk. Some 338,000 British and French troops escaped, to Britain. Had they not escaped , it is doubtful if Britain could have remained in the war.

26. 1936 Olympics – Berlin, Germany

27. Francisco Franco Spanish General who, between 1936 and 1939, led the army in rebellion against the democratic republican government during the Spanish Civil War. With the support of Italy and Germany, Franco captured the Spanish capital city of Madrid in 1939 and established a dictatorship. In Spain political democracy failed to survive. Although the middle class and intellectuals supported the Second Republic, the new government began falling apart shortly after it was created in 1931. Rivalries between political parties and personal rivalries between their leaders tore Spain apart. Spain’s Second Republic lasted only 5 years, three months, and three days. Francisco Franco rose rapidly within the military ranks. He became Europe’s youngest general. When chaos swept Spain, the Spanish military forces under Franco’s leadership revolted against the democratic government in 1936. A brutal and bloody civil war began. The Spanish Civil War Came to an end when Franco’s forces captured Madrid in 1939. In April of that year, Franco issued a statement: “Today, the Red Army having been disarmed and captured, the National troops have reached their final military objectives. The war is over – Burgos, April 1, 1939, the Year of Victory – Generalissimo Franco.” Franco established a dictatorship that favored large landowners, businesspeople, and the Catholic clergy. Because Franco’s dictatorship favored traditional groups and did not try to control every aspect of people’s lives, it is an example of an authoritarian rather than a totalitarian regime. Parliamentary systems failed in most eastern European states for several reasons. These states had little tradition of political democracy. In addition, they were mostly rural and agrarian. Many of the peasants were illiterate. Large landowners still dominated most of the land, and they feared the peasants. Ethnic conflicts also threatened these countries. Powerful landowners, the churches, and even some members of the small middle class feared land reform. They also feared communist upheaval and ethnic conflict. These groups looked to authoritarian governments to maintain the old system. Only Czechoslovakia, which had a large middle-class, a liberal tradition, and a strong industrial base, maintained its political democracy.

28. Isolationism • The belief that political ties to other countries should be avoided. In the years between WWI and WWII many Americans supported isolationism, arguing that entry into WWI had been a costly error. In 1935, Congress passed three Neutrality Acts. These laws banned loans and the sale of arms to nations at war. • Ethiopia was one of Africa’s three independent nations. The Ethiopians had successfully resisted an Italian attempt at conquest during the 1890s. To avenge that defeat, Mussolini ordered a massive invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935. The spears and swords of the Ethiopians were no match for Italian airplanes, tanks, guns, and poison gas. The Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, urgently appealed to the Leage of Nations for help. Although the League condemned the attack, its members did nothing. Britain cotninued to let Italian troops and supplies pass through the British-controlled Suez Canal on their way to Ethiopia. By giving in to Mussolini in Africa, Britain and France hoped to keep peace in Europe. • Hitler had long pledged to undo the Versailles Treaty. Among its provisions, the treaty limited the size of Germany’s army. In March 1935, the Fuhrer announced that Germany would not obey these restrictions. The League issued only a mild condemnation. The League’s failure to stop Germany from rearming convinced Hitler to take even greater risks. The treaty had forbidden German troops to enter a 30-mile-wide zone on either side of the Rhine River. Known as the Rhineland, the zone formed a buffer between Germany and France. It was also an important industrial area. On March7th, 1936, German troops moved into the Rhineland.

29. Closure Question #1: Identify the qualities that the Nazis wanted German art to glorify. In Germany, Hitler and the Nazis believed that they were creating a new and genuine German art to glorify heroic Germans. What the Nazis developed, however, was actually derived from 19th century folk art and emphasized realistic scenes of everyday life. In 1934, Adolf Hitler commissioned Leni Riefenstahl to film the 1934 Nazi party rally in Nuremberg. The resulting film, The Triumph of Will, is considered one of the greatest documentary films of all time – and a chilling piece of Nazi propaganda. Riefenstahl later said of the film, “It reflects the truth that was then, in 1934, history. It is therefore a documentary, not a propaganda film.” It is true that the film is the record of an actual event that happened at a specific time. In that respect, it is a documentary. However, Riefenstahl’s powerful and positive images of Hitler as a kind of savior make it propaganda. For example, at the beginning of the film, Hitler’s plane descends from the sky almost like the chariot of a god coming to visit Earth.

30. Third Reich • The German Empire; On November 5th, 1937, Hitler announced to his advisers his plans to absorb Austria and Czechoslovakia into the Reich. This action, known as the Anschluss, was prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles. However, many Austrians supported unity with Germany and, in March 1938, Hitler sent his army into Austria and annexed it. • Hitler next turned to Czechoslovakia. About three million German-speaking people lived in the western border regions of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. This heavily fortified area formed the Czechs’ main defense against Germany. The Anschluss raised pro-Nazi feelings among Sudeten Germans. In September 1938, Hitler demanded that the Sudetenland be given to Germany. The Czechs refused and asked France for help. France and Britain were preparing for war when Mussolini proposed a meeting of Germany, France, Britain, and Italy in Munich, Germany. • The Munich Conference was held on September 29th, 1938. The Czechs were not invited. British prime minister Neville Chamberlain believed that he could preserve peace by giving in to Hitler’s demands. Britain and France agreed that Hitler could take the Sudetenland. In exchange, Hitler pledged to respect Czechoslovakia’s new borders. When Chamberlain returned to London, he told cheering crowds, “I believe it is peace for our time.” Winston Churchill, then a member of the British Parliament, strongly disagreed. He opposed the appeasement policy and gloomily warned of its consequences.

31. Closure Question #2: Why were the methods used by Himmler’s SS effective in furthering Nazi goals? (At least 1 sentence) The SS was based on two principles: terror and ideology. Terror included the instruments of repression and murder – secret police, criminal police, concentration camps, and later, execution squads and death camps. (concentration camps where prisoners are killed) For Himmler, the chief goal of the SS was to further the Aryan master race. “We have to know that the enemy during war is not only the enemy in the military sense, but also the ideological enemy. When I speak of enemies, I of course mean our natural enemy – Bolshevism led by international Jewry and Free Masons… Bolshevism is the exact opposite of all which Aryan people loves, cherishes and values… We are more valuable because our blood enables us to be more inventive than the others, because we have better soldiers, better statesmen, a higher culture, a better character. We have better quality, if I now turn to your area, because the German soldier is more devoted to his duty, more decent and intelligent than the soldier of the other people.” –Heinrich Himmler, “Lecture on the Nature and Tasks of the SS,” January 1937

32. Munich Conference • Meeting between Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain in the 1930s and Adolf Hitler in 1938. At the conference the two men signed a pact which gave Germany control of the Sudetenland, a portion of western Czechoslovakia that was largely populated by ethnic Germans. Upon his return to London, Chamberlain proclaimed that he had preserved “peace for our time.” • Many people expected the conflict over the Sudetenland to lead to a general war. But once again, Britain and France appeased Germany. At the Munich Conference with Hitler, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and French premier Edouard Daladier sacrificed the Sudetenland to preserve the peace. On his return to London, Chamberlain told a cheering crowd that the Munich Pact, the agreement reached at the conference, had preserved “peace for our time.” He was wrong. It merely postponed the war for 11 months.

33. Closure Question #3: List the rights that the Nazi government took from the Jews. (At least 3) In September 1935, the Nazis announced new racial laws at the annual party rally in Nuremberg. These Nuremberg laws defined who was considered a Jew. They also excluded Jews from German citizenship, stripped Jews of their civil rights, and forbade marriages between Jews and German citizens. Jews could neither teach nor take part in the arts. Eventually, German Jews were also required to wear yellow Stars of David and to carry identification cards saying they were Jewish. Kristallnacht led to further drastic steps. Jews were barred from all public transportation and all public buildings, including schools and hospitals. They were prohibited from owning, managing, or working in any retail store. The Jews were forced to clean up all the debris and damage due to Kristallnacht. Finally, under the direction of the SS, Jews were encouraged to “emigrate from Germany.”

34. Closure Assignment #4 • Answer the following questions based on what you have learned from Chapter 31, Section 4: • Identify the qualities that the Nazis wanted German art to glorify. • Why were the methods used by Himmler’s SS effective in furthering Nazi goals? (At least 1 sentence) • List the rights that the Nazi government took from the Jews. (At least 3)

35. Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact • Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact – Agreement between Hitler and Stalin signed on August 23, 1939. The two nations agreed not to attack each other and to divide control of Poland between the two. The agreement enabled the Soviet Union to pursue military expansion in northeastern. By 1940 the Soviets had annexed Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, & Finland. • Meanwhile, Hitler continued to believe that the West would not fight over Poland. He now feared, however, that the West and the Soviet Union might make an alliance. Such an alliance could mean a two-front war for Germany. To prevent this possibility, Hitler made his own alliance with Stalin. On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Because he expected to fight the Soviet Union anyway, it did not matter to Hitler what he promised. • On September 17th, 1939, Stalin sent Soviet troops to occupy the eastern half of Poland. Stalin then moved to annex countries to the north of Poland. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia fell without a struggle, but Finland resisted. In November, Stalin sent nearly one million Soviet troops into Finland. The Soviets expected to win a quick victory, so they were not prepared for winter fighting. This was a crucial mistake. The Finns were outnumbered and outgunned, but they fiercely defended their country. In the freezing winter weather, soldiers on skis swiftly attacked Soviet positions. In contrast, the Soviets struggled to make progress through the deep snow. The Soviets suffered heavy losses, but they finally won through sheer force of numbers. By March 1940, Stalin had forced the Finns to accept surrender terms. Closure Question #1: Why did Stalin, the leader of communist nation, make a military agreement with Adolf Hitler, a fascist who openly condemned communism?

36. Closure Question #2: Describe the course of World War II in Europe until the end of 1940. (At least 3 sentences) Blitzkrieg • Literally meaning “Lightning War”, the Blitzkrieg was a relatively new style of warfare used by Germany that emphasized the use of speed and firepower to penetrate deep into enemy’s territory. Germany used this tactic first in invading Poland on September 1, 1939, conquering the entire country in less than one month. • In 1939, finally, British and French leaders saw the need to take action. They vowed not to let Hitler take over another country without consequences. Realizing that Hitler’s next move would be against Poland, Britain and France signed an alliance with Poland, guaranteeing aid if Hitler attacked. Hitler, however, was more concerned about war with the Soviet Union than with Britain and France. Not wanting to fight a war on two fronts, Germany signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression pact with the Soviets on August 23, 1939. The two former rivals publicly promised not to attack one another. Secretly, they agreed to invade and divide Poland and recognize each other’s territorial ambitions. The public agreement alone shocked the West and guaranteed a German offensive against Poland. • War came to Europe in the early hours of September 1, 1939, when a massive German blitzkrieg, or sudden attack, hit Poland from three directions. Blitzkrieg means “lighting war”. It was a relatively new style of warfare that emphasized the use of speed and firepower to penetrate deep into the enemy’s territory. The newest military technologies made it devastatingly effective. Using a coordinated assault by tanks and planes, followed by motorized vehicles and infantry, Germany broke through Poland’s defenses and destroyed its air force. The situation became even more hopeless on September 17th when the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Although France and Britain declared war against Germany, they did nothing to help save Poland. By the end of the month, a devastated Poland fell in defeat.

37. Charles de Gaulle Closure Question #2: Describe the course of World War II in Europe until the end of 1940. (At least 3 sentences) French WWII Hero and political leader from 1946 to 1969; de Gaulle drafted the constitution for the French Fifth Republic in 1958, increasing his powers as president. He also oversaw economic growth and led the French military in development of their first atomic bomb in 1960, rebuilding France into one of the most powerful countries in the world. With the economic aid of the Marshall Plan, the countries of Western Europe recovered relatively rapidly from the devastation of World War II. Between 1947 and 1950, European countries received $9.4 billion for new equipment and raw materials. By 150, industrial output in Europe was 30% of prewar levels. This economic recovery continued well into the 1950s and 1960s. It was a time of dramatic economic growth and prosperity in Western Europe. The history of France for nearly a quarter of a century after the war was dominated by one man – the war hero Charles de Gaulle. In 1946 de Gaulle helped establish a new government, the Fourth Republic. The government, however, was largely ineffective. In 1958 leaders of the Fourth Republic, frightened by bitter divisions caused by a crisis in the French colony of Algeria, asked de Gaulle to form a new government. That year, de Gaulle drafted a new constitution for the Fifth Republic that greatly enhanced the power of the president. The French president would now have the right to choose the prime minister, dissolve parliament, and supervise both defense and foreign policy. French voters overwhelmingly approved the constitution, and de Gaulle became the first president of the Fifth Republic. As the new president, de Gaulle wanted France to be a great power once again. To achieve the status of a world power, de Gaulle invested heavily in nuclear arms. France exploded its first nuclear bomb in 1960.

38. Closure Question #2: Describe the course of World War II in Europe until the end of 1940. (At least 3 sentences) Winston Churchill • Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War II, Churchill had always warned against Hitler since the early 1930s and during the Battle of Britain from 1940 to 1941 Churchill was the lone world leader that stood against Hitler and the Axis forces. • The Miracle of Dunkirk was a proud moment for Britain, but as the new prime minister Winston Churchill cautioned Parliament, “wars are not won by evacuations.” Although the British army escaped, the Germans took Paris and forced the French to surrender in the same railway car that the French had used for the German surrender in 1918. France was then divided into two sections: a larger northern section controlled by the Germans and known as Occupied France, and a smaller southern section controlled by the Germans and known as Unoccupied France, or Vichy France, after its capital city. Although Vichy France was officially neutral, it collaborated with the Nazis. • France had fallen to Hitler in just 35 days. Hitler next turned his fury on Britain. After the evacuation at Dunkirk, Churchill made it clear that he had no intention of continuing the policy of appeasement. Churchill’s words stirred his nation as the British readied themselves for battle. Hitler’s plan to invade Britain, code-named Operation Sea Lion, depended upon Germany’s Luftwaffe, or air force, destroying the British Royal Air Force and gaining control over the skies above the English Channel. The Battle of Britain, then, was an air battle fought over the English Channel and Great Britain. It began in July 1940. The British lost nearly 1,000 planes, the Germans more than 1,700. Germany bombed civilian as well as military targets, destroying houses, factories, and churches and conducted a months-long bombing campaign against London itself, known as “the blitz.” But the British held on and, sensing failure, Hitler made a tactical decision to postpone the invasion of Britain indefinitely.

39. Closure Question #2: Describe the course of World War II in Europe until the end of 1940. (At least 3 sentences) Battle of Britain • (July 1940 – June 1941) The German Air Force (Luftwaffe) bombed civilian and military targets in Great Britain in preparations for invasion. However, the British Royal Air Force’s firm resistance combined with the resilience of the British people led Hitler to abandon plans for invasion of England, making the battle a British victory. • Winston Churchill referred to the United States in many of his speeches during the crisis in France and the Battle of Britain. The fight against Hitler, Churchill implied, was more than simply a European struggle. Nazi aggression threatened the freedoms and rights cherished by democratic nations everywhere. The contest was between ideologies as well as nations. President Roosevelt shared Churchill’s concerns but at the beginning of the war in Europe he understood that the majority of Americans opposed U.S. intervention. The severe economic crisis of the Great Depression had served to pin the nation’s attention firmly on domestic affairs throughout the 1930s. In addition, many believed that U.S. involvement in World War I had been a deadly, expensive mistake. The rise of fascism in Europe made the sacrifices of World War I seem even more pointless. • In the 1930s, numerous books and articles presented a new theory about why the United States had become involved in World War I that disturbed many Americans. The theory held that big business had conspired to enter the war in order to make huge fortunes selling weapons. In 1934, a senate committee chaired by Gerald Nye of South Dakota looked into the question. Although the Nye Committee discovered little hard evidence, its findings suggested that “merchants of death” – American bankers and arms manufacturers – had indeed pulled the United States into World War I. The committee’s findings further reinforced isolationist sentiments.

40. Erwin Rommel • (1899-1941) Nicknamed “The Desert Fox”, Rommel is considered one of the most talented tactical German Generals, but was also known for his humane treatment of prisoners of war and civilians. He led German forces in North Africa until 1943, then commanded German forces against the Allied invasion on D-Day. However, in 1944 Rommel was accused of being involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler and was executed. • American soldiers had to fight in many unfamiliar types of terrain. But the Sahara of North Africa – the world’s largest desert – presented special challenges: In hot, dry weather, sandstorms choked and blinded troops. In wet weather, mud halted machinery. The high visibility of the desert terrain made it difficult for troops to move without being seen. Poisonous reptiles, ants, and scorpions added to the problems. Brilliant tank strategies like Patton and Rommel were able to overcome such challenges. But the tanks themselves caused other problems, such as kicking up enormous dust clouds that could be seen for miles. • In the deserts and mountains of North Africa the British had been fighting the Germans and Italians since 1940. Several goals motivated the Allied campaign in North Africa. Stalin had wanted America and Britain to relieve the Soviet Union by establishing a second front in France. However, FDR and Churchill felt they needed more time to prepare for an invasion across the English Channel. An invasion of North Africa, however, required less planning and fewer supplies. In addition, forcing Germany out of North Africa would pave the way for an invasion of Italy.

41. Closure Question #3: Why did the United States give more and more help to the Allies? (At least 1 sentence) Lend-Lease Act • Lend-Lease Act – Passed by Congress in March 1941, the act authorized Roosevelt to “sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government any defense article” whenever he thought it was “necessary in the interests of the U.S.” Roosevelt used this Act to exclusively lend supplies to the Allies, making it an economic declaration of war on the Axis Powers. • In the election of 1940, Republican nominee Wendell Willkie was critical of FDR’s handling of both the economy and foreign affairs but not the President’s basic positions on either. Given such little differences between candidates, American voted overwhelmingly not to change leaders in the middle of a crisis. Once safely reelected, President Roosevelt increased his support of Britain. When Britain began to run short on funds to purchase cash-and-carry goods in the United States, FDR took the opportunity to address Congress. On January 6, 1941, he spoke about “four freedoms” – freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear – that were threatened by Nazi and Japanese militarism. Roosevelt believed that the best way to stay out of the conflict with Germany was to aid Britain. Roosevelt compared America’s situation to the scenario of a fire in a neighbor’s home. If a neighbor asked to borrow your fire hose to put out the fire, you would not debate the issue or try to sell the hose. Extending help was both being a good neighbor and acting to keep the fire from spreading to your own home.

42. Closure Question #3: Why did the United States give more and more help to the Allies? (At least 1 sentence) Atlantic Charter • Atlantic Charter – Secret pact signed by FDR and Winston Churchill in August 1941, endorsing national self-determination and an international system of “general security”. The pact signaled the deepening alliance between the U.S. and Great Britain. • President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounced the aggressors, but the United States followed a strict policy of isolationism. Many Americans felt that the United States had been drawn into World War I due to economic involvement in Europe, and they wanted to prevent a recurrence. Roosevelt was convinced that the neutrality acts actually encouraged Axis aggression and wanted the acts repealed. They were gradually relaxed as the United States supplied food, ships, planes, and weapons to Britain. Hitler realized that an amphibious (land-sea) invasion of Britain could succeed only if Germany gained control of the air. At the beginning of August 1940, the Luftwaffe – the German air force – launched a major offensive. German planes bombed British air and naval bases, harbors, communication centers, and war industries.

43. How were Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union similar? (At least 1 complete sentence) • With the Balkans firmly in control, Hitler could move ahead with Operation Barbarossa, his plan to invade the Soviet Union. Early in the morning of June 22, 1941, the roar of German tanks and aircraft announced the beginning of the invasion. The Soviet Union was not prepared for the attack. Although it had the largest army in the world, its troops were niether well equipped nor well trained. The invasion rolled on week after week until the Germans had pushed 500 miles inside the Soviet Union. As the Soviet troops retreated, they burned and destroyed everything in the enemy’s path. The Russians had used this scorched-earth strategy against Napoleon. • On September 8, German forces put Leningrad under siege. By early November, the city was completely cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union. To force a surrender, Hitler was ready to starve the city’s more than 2.5 million inhabitants. German bombs destroyed warehouses where food was stored. Desperately hungry people began eating cattle and horse feed, as well as cots and dogs and, finally, crows and rats. Nearly one million people died in Leningrad during the winter of 1941-1942. Yet the city refused to fall. • Impatient with the progress in Leningrad, Hitler looked to Moscow, the capital and heart of the soviet Union. A Nazi drive on the capital began on October 2, 1941. By December, the Germans had advanced to the outskirts of Moscow. Soviet General Georgi Zhukov counterattacked. As temperatures fell, the Germans, in summer uniforms, retreated. Ignoring Napoleon’s winter defeat 130 years before, Hitler sent his generals a stunning order: “No retreat!” German troops dug in about 125 miles west of Moscow. They held the line against the Soviets until March 1943. Hitler’s advance on the Soviet Union gained nothing but cost Germans 500,000 lives.

44. Closure Assignment #5 • Answer the following questions based on what you have learned from Chapter 32, Section 1: 1. Why did Stalin, the leader of communist nation, make a military agreement with Adolf Hitler, a fascist who openly condemned communism? 2. Describe the course of World War II in Europe until the end of 1940. (At least 3 sentences) 3. Why did the United States give more and more help to the Allies? (At least 1 sentence)

45. Isoroku Yamamoto • Japanese military leader who orchestrated the surprise attack on the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. • Although Japan and the United States had been allies in World War I, conflict over power in Asia and the Pacific had been brewing between the two nations for decades prior to 1941. Japan, as the area’s industrial and economic leader, resented any threats to its authority in the region. America’s presence in Guam and the Philippines and its support of China posed such a threat. Yet Japan relied on trade with the United States to supply much-needed natural resources. As war broke out in Europe, the Japanese Empire continued to grow in China and began to move into Indochina. President Roosevelt tried to stop this expansion, in July of 1940, by placing an embargo on important naval and aviation supplies to Japan, such as oil, iron ore, fuel, steel, and rubber. After Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in 1940 with Germany and Italy, FDR instituted a more extensive embargo. The embargo slowed, but did not stop, Japanese expansion as the Japanese were able to secure the resources they needed within their new possessions. • In 1941, General Hideki Tojo became the Japanese prime minister. Known as “the Razor” for his sharp mind, he focused intently on military expansion but sought to keep the United States neutral. Throughout the summer of 1941, Japan and the United States attempted to negotiate an end to their disagreement, but with little success. Japan was bent on further expansion, and the United States was firmly against it. Finally, in late November 1941, Cordell Hull, the U.S. Secretary of State, rejected Japan’s latest demands. Formal diplomatic relations continued for the next week, but Tojo had given up on peace. By the beginning of December he had made the decision to deliver a decisive first blow against the U.S. As Japanese diplomats wrangled in the U.S. capital, Japan’s navy sailed for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the site of the United States Navy’s main Pacific base. The forces that Tojo sent to from Japan under the command of Vice Admiral ChuichiNagumo included 6 aircraft carriers, 360 airplanes, an assortment of battleships and cruisers, and a number of submarines. Their mission was to eradicate the American naval and air presence in the Pacific with a surprise attack. Such a blow would prevent Americans from mounting a strong resistance to Japanese expansion.

46. Closure Question #1: Was the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor a success or failure from the Japanese point of view? Explain (At least 1 sentence) Pearl Harbor • Main base of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet which, on December 7th, 1941, was attacked without warning by the Japanese, leaving 2,500 Americans dead and the entire fleet out of commission for nearly six months. This event pulled the U.S. into World War II. • The attackers struck with devastating power, taking the American forces completely by surprise. The Americans suffered heavy losses: nearly 2,500 people killed, 8 battleships severely damaged, 3 destroyers left unusable, 3 light cruisers damaged, and 160 aircraft destroyed and 128 more damaged. The U.S. battlefleet was knocked out of commission for nearly six months, allowing the Japanese to freely access the needed raw materials of their newly conquered territories, just as they had planned. • Despite these losses, the situation was not as bad as it could have been. The most important ships – aircraft carriers – were out at sea at the time of the attack and survived untouched. In addition, seven heavy cruisers were out at sea and also avoided detection by the Japanese. Of the battleships in Pearl Harbor, only three – the USS Arizona, the USS Oklahoma, and the USS Utah – suffered irreparable damage. American submarine bases also survived the morning, as did important fuel supplies and maintenance facilities. In the final analysis, Nagumo proved too conservative. He canceled a third wave of bombers, refused to seek out the aircraft carriers, and turned back toward home because he feared an American counterstrike. The American Pacific Fleet survived.

47. Douglas MacArthur / Bataan Death March • Douglas MacArthur – Commander of the U.S. Army forces in Asia during WWII; MacArthur’s troops stationed in the Philipines were defeated by the Japanese in the Spring of 1942, forcing MacArthur to flee to Australia, leaving 75,000 soldiers behind as POWs. • Bataan Death March – The forced 63-mile march of American and Filipino POWs through the hot Filipino rain forest in May 1942. 7,000 American and Filipino troops died during the journey. • With Pearl Harbor smoldering, the Japanese knew they had to move fast to gain important footholds in Asia and the Pacific. Although Japan’s population was smaller than America’s, the Japanese did have military advantages, including technologically advanced weapons and a well-trained and highly-motivated military. At the start of the Pacific war the outlook was grim for America. In December 1941, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the United States Army forces in Asia, struggled to hold the U.S. positions in the Philippines with little support. This task grew even more daunting when the Japanese destroyed half of the army’s fighter planes in the region and rapidly took Guam, Wake Island, and Hong Kong. The main land attack came on December 22. MacArthur positioned his forces to repel the Japanese invasion, but he badly miscalculated the strength of the enemy and was forced to retreat. U.S. forces fell back from Manilla to the Bataan Peninsula and a fortification on Corregidor Island, where they dug in for a long siege. Trapped in Corregidor, Americans suffered, lacking necessary military and medical supplies and living on half and quarter rations. Although MacArthur was ordered to evacuate to Australia, the other Americans remained behind. They held out until early May 1942, when 75,000 Allied soldiers surrendered. Japanese troops forced the sick and malnourished prisoners of war, or POWs, to march 55 miles up the Bataan Peninsula to reach a railway that took them inland where they were forced march 8 more miles. More than 7,000 American and Filipino troops died during the grueling march.

48. Closure Question #2: Do you believe that it was necessary to imprison Japanese Americans during WWII? (Explain your answer in at least 1 sentence) Japanese Internment Camps • During WWII Japanese Americans living near the west coast were forced to relocate to internment camps due to fears that they might help the Japanese if a Japanese invasion of the west coast took place. • The attack on Pearl Harbor spread fear across America. The federal government began drafting policies toward immigrants and aliens from the Axis nations. All resident “enemy aliens” were required to register with the government, submit to fingerprinting, and list their organizational affiliations. Originally laws made no distinction among nationalities. German, Italian, and Japanese aliens were subject to arrest or deportation if deemed dangerous to national security. Some 11,000 German immigrants and hundreds of Italian immigrants were held in camps; others faced curfews or travel restrictions. Federal orders also forced all three groups to vacate the West Coast temporarily in the winter of 1942. Once public fears subsided, FDR removed Germans and Italian from the enemy aliens list. • Japanese aliens and Japanese American citizens received no such respite. Believing Japanese Americans to be inherently disloyal, West Coast leaders pressed FDR to address the “threat”. In February 1942, the President issued Executive Order 9066, designating certain areas as war zones from which anyone might be removed for any reason. By September, the government evacuated more than 100,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Evacuees – including both Issei, Japanese immigrants, and Nisei, native-born American citizens of Japanese descent – were forced to sell their property at a loss and allowed to take only necessary items. Why did Japanese Americans generally face harsher treatment than Italian or German Americans? Several factors help explain the difference; racism, the smaller numbers of Japanese Americans, their lack of political clout, and their relative isolation from other Americans. In Hawaii, where Japanese Americans comprised one third of a multiracial society, they escaped a similar fate.

49. Battle of Midway • June 4th, 1942; Considered the turning point of the war in the Pacific, the U.S. Navy, led by Admiral Chester Nimitz, successfully defended the Midway Island, a key American Naval base in the Central Pacific, from Japanese attack, sinking 4 Japanese aircraft carriers and ending Japanese threats to the American west coast. • What Yamamoto did not realize was that Admiral Chester Nimitz knew the Japanese plans. Navy code breakers had intercepted the Japanese plans. To meet the expected assault, Nimitz sent his only available aircraft carriers to Midway. The Japanese navy was stretched out across more than a thousand miles, from the Aleutians to well west of Midway. American forces were all concentrated near Midway. The Japanese commenced their attack on June 4, 1942. In the most important naval battle of World War II, the United States dealt Japan a decisive defeat. Torpedo planes and dive bombers sank 4 Japanese aircraft carriers, along with all 250 aircraft on board and many of Japan’s most experienced pilots. America lost only one aircraft carrier. • The first American offensive in the Pacific took place in August 1942, with an assault on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. After three months of intense fighting, the United States Marines drove the Japanese off the island. Guadalcanal was the first leg in a strategy to approach Japan from both the southwest Pacific and the central Pacific, using combined U.S. Marine, Navy, and Army forces. The logic behind the dual offensives was to force Japan to fight a two-front war and to capture bases from which to bomb the Japanese home islands. In jungles and coral reefs, under torrential monsoons and the blistering sun, fighting for every new piece of territory. American servicemen began their slow, painful trek toward Japan. Closure Question #3: How does the Battle of Midway illustrate the importance of intelligence gathering and espionage in modern warfare? (Explain in at least 1 sentence)

50. Battle of Guadalcanal (October 1942 – February 1943) Location of an important Japanese airbase in the south Pacific, US marines and Japanese troops fought for control of the island for 6 months. After losing more than 24,000 of their 36,000 soldiers, Japan finally abandoned the island. • Japan treated the countries under its rule as conquered lands. Japanese leaders had hoped that their lightning strike at American bases would destroy the U.S. fleet in the Pacific. The Roosevelt administration, they thought, would now accept Japanese domination of the Pacific. The American people, in the eyes of Japanese leaders, were soft. Their easy, rich life had made them unable to fight. The Japanese miscalculated, however. The attack on Pearl Harbor unified American opinion about becoming involved in the war. Once bitterly divided over participating in the war, the American people now took up arms. • Beginning in 1943, U.S. forces went on the offensive and advanced across the Pacific. As the Allied military power drew closer to the main Japanese islands in the first months of 1945, Harry S. Truman, who had become president after Roosevelt died in April, had a difficult decision to make. Should he use newly developed atomic weapons to bring the war to an end? If the United States invaded Japan, Truman and his advisers had become convinced that American troops would suffer heavy casualties. At the time, however, only two bombs were available; no one knew how effective they would be.