SECOND WORLD WAR

SECOND WORLD WAR

“Nature is cruel, so we may be cruel, too… I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin”
-Hitler

After the First World War, the countries of Europe faced severe economic crises. The newly established democracies in Germany, Italy and Spain could not negotiate the crisis effectively. As a result, dictatorships emerged in all the three countries. The dictators promised national reconstruction in a grand way. Europe once again witnessed aggressive nationalism.

In the aftermath of World War I, a defeated Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles. This caused Germany to lose a significant portion of its territory, prohibited the annexation of other states, limited the size of the German armed forces and imposed massive reparations. Russia's civil war led to the creation of the Soviet Union which soon was under the control of Joseph Stalin. In Italy, Benito Mussolini seized power as a fascist dictator promising to create a "New Roman Empire." The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese communist allies. In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Japanese Empire, which had long sought influence in China as the first step of its right to rule Asia, used the Mukden Incident as justification to invade Manchuria; the two nations then fought several small conflicts, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei until the Tanggu Truce in 1933. Afterwards Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.
German troops at the 1935 Nuremberg Rally.Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, became the leader of Germany in 1933. He abolished democracy, espousing a radical racially motivated revision of the world order, and soon began a massive rearming campaign. This worried France and the United Kingdom, who had lost much in the previous war, as well as Italy, which saw its territorial ambitions threatened by those of Germany. To secure its alliance, the French allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired to conquer. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Saarland was legally reunited with Germany and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, speeding up remilitarisation and introducing conscription. Hoping to contain Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front. The Soviet Union, concerned due to Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of eastern Europe, concluded a treaty of mutual assistance with France.
Before taking effect though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, rendering it essentially toothless. In June 1935, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany easing prior restrictions. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August.In October, Italy invaded Ethiopia, with Germany the only major European nation supporting her invasion. Italy then revoked objections to Germany's goal of making Austria a satellite state.In direct violation of the Versailles and Locarno treaties, Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936. He received little response from other European powers. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July, Hitler and Mussolini supported fascist Generalísimo Francisco Franco's nationalist forces in his civil war against the Soviet-supported Spanish Republic. Both sides used the conflict to test new weapons and methods of warfare and the nationalists would prove victorious in early 1939.
With tensions mounting, efforts to strengthen or consolidate power were made. In October, Germany and Italy formed the Rome-Berlin Axis and a month later Germany and Japan, each believing communism and the Soviet Union in particular to be a threat, signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the following year. In China, the Kuomintang and communist forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan.

Why do wars occur?

Nations compete over natural resources.
Individuals demand greater political and economic freedom.

We will study 3 aspects of WWII

The war in Europe against Germany and Italy
The war in Asia with Japan
The home front

What caused WWII in Europe?

The causes of World War II are rooted in the First World War, and its effects set up the course of the modern world. From the loss of millions of people to the redrawn maps and upset political systems around the world, the war was an immense force for global change, resulting in empires lost and new superpowers being born.

Germany wanted back what she lost from WWI, and revenge
Appeasement – Great Britain and France gave Hitler land w/o fighting for it.
Hitler was racist; he invaded countries simply to kill the Jews living there.

•In Germany Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 as a fascist dictator.
•Hitler Hated the Treaty of Versailles and violated it. First he built up the German military. Then he sent troops into the Rhineland. This was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which said in 1919 that Rhineland was a demilitarized zone.

Treaty of Versailles – end of WWI

The main points of the Treaty [BRAT]





1. Germany had to accept the Blame for starting the war
2. Germany paid Reparations for the damage done during the war.
3. Germany was forbidden to have submarines or an air force. She could have a navy of only six battleships, and an Army of just 100,000 men.
4. Germany lost Territory (land) in Europe (see map). Germany’s colonies were given to Britain and France.
•Hitler wanted to conquer whoever he felt was inferior to the Germans or Aryans. He wanted “living space” for the Germans in Eastern Europe.
•On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland without a declaration of war. This starts World War II.

•Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939.
•Italy declared war on France and Britain on June 10, 1940.

“Blitzkrieg”

•In German blitzkrieg means “lightning war”.
•Hitler used blitzkrieg during his invasion of Poland.
•Blitzkrieg included surprise attacks, rapid advances into enemy territory, and massive air attacks that struck and shocked the enemy.
Germany achieved most of its victories in World War II with the Blitzkrieg tactic .

Early Axis Triumphs

April 1940 the quiet time of the war exploded into action.
•Hitler launched a series of blitzkrieg.
•Norway and and Denmark both fell.
•Germany had overrun the Netherlands and Belgium.
•Germany along with Italy forced France to surrender.

Hitler’s Major Blunder

•The Germans invaded France in May 1940.
•Retreating Allied forces made it to Dunkirk and found themselves trapped between the advancing Nazis and the English Channel. The British sent every boat they could get across the English Channel to pick up troops off the beaches of Dunkirk.

Miracle at Dunkirk

•The event at Dunkirk is called a miracle because the retreating allies had lost hope and then the British pulled through for them and rescued 338,000 men.

June 22, 1940

•On June 22, 1940 France signs an armistice with Germany in occupied France.
•An armistice is a cease fire or a truce.
•The Franco-German Armistice divided France into two zones. One zone was under German military occupation and the other was under French control.
•In 1942 Germans occupied all of France.

Let us again study the causes:

CAUSES OF WORLD WAR II

1. Treaty of Versailles
A. Germany lost land to surrounding nations
B. War Reparations
1) Allies collect $ to pay back war debts to U.S.
2) Germany must pay $57 trillion (modern equivalent)
3) Bankrupted the German economy & embarrassed Germans

2. World-wide Depression
A. The Depression made Germany’s debt even worse
B. Desperate people turn to desperate leaders
1) Hitler seemed to provide solutions to Germany’s problems
2) Hitler provided scapegoats for Germany’s problems (foreigners, Jews, communists, Roma (Gypsies), mentally ill, homosexuals) 3) Kristallnacht - vandalism & destruction of Jewish property & synagogues

3. Rise of Totalitarian Regimes
A. In a Totalitarian country, individual rights are not viewed as important as the needs of the nation
4. Isolationism of Major Powers
A. Why was the U.S. Isolationist?
1. Great Depression (problems at home)

2. Perceptions of WWI
a. WWI did not seem to solve much
b. People began to think that we’d got into WWI for the wrong reasons (greedy American businessmen!)

3. Opposition to war (Pacifism)
a. Washington Conference - Limits on size of country's navies
b. Kellogg-Briand pact - condemned war as a way to solving conflicts

B. This led to policies of “Appeasement”
1. Appeasement: give dictators what they want and hope that they won’t want anything else
2. Begins with Japanese invasion of Manchuria, Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and continues with Hitler . . .So What Was Hitler Asking For?

Return of German Speaking Lands -
•Austria - Peacefully Annexed in 1938
•Munich Conference - Great Britain & France give to Hitler in return for peace
•Sudentenland - (now part of Czech Republic)
•Hitler then invades the rest of Czechoslovakia
•Nonaggression Pact Russia stays out of the war in return for 1/2 of Poland
•Great Britain & France finally declare war on Germany

How Did Hitler Make War?

Blitzkrieg “Lightning War”
In the next year, Hitler invades:
•Denmark
•Norway
• The Netherlands,
•France

US Assistance
Roosevelt provided aid to the Allies:
Lend-Lease - 1939
•US “lent” war materials to cash-strapped Great Britain
Atlantic Charter
•US secretly meets with England to commit to defeating Germany

Meanwhile … in the Pacific
Pearl Harbor: “a date which will live in infamy”

What?
•Surprise attack by the Japanese on American forces in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOURa

On December 7, 1941, Japanese airplanes strike the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II.

Effect?
•This enraged America who immediately joined Allied powers. US declares war on Japan & other Axis powers. In June 1944, American Commander Eisenhover landed in France and helped England. America also sent its armies to Algeria in North Africa. Thus Italy was defeated in September 1943 and Italy surrendered.

Island Hopping – US fought to gradually reach Japan

Battle for Iwo Jima

Island hopping became fact of the war with Japan.
Died: 6800 US 20000 Japanese.
This flag raising was a serious morale boost to soldiers on the island.

Kamikaze attacks

This plane dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima

Atomic Bomb

Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1945

Victims in Hiroshima

Why drop the Atomic Bomb?

In August 1945, America dropped atom bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were reduced to ashes. Japan surrendered and with this the Second World War came to an end.

The Japanese had shown they would fight to the last man, woman and child.
The atomic bomb saved as many as 1 million U.S. lives, and possibly many Japanese.
Harry Truman said he dropped the bomb to end the war.

Japan surrenders 1945

World War II deaths

USSR 22 million
China 11 million
Germany 7 million
Poland 7 million
U.S. 0.5 million
Great Britain 0.3 million
Japan 1.5 million

Asia WW2 Quiz

1. What cities were nuclear bombed?
2. Why did Japan want war with the USA?
3. What ocean protected USA from Japan?

OK, YOU GOT SOME IDEA ON SECOND WORLD WAR.

NOW, let us revise some of the important points.

1.What are the causes of the Second World War?

* The imperialist and expansionist policies of Germany and Italy were the main reasons responsible for the war.

* The League of Nations could not check the aggressive onslaught of these expansionists.

* No power came forward to undertake armked resistance against the initial attacks of Hitler and Mussolini.

* Finally, Germany and Russia with mutual understanding partioned Poland among themselves. It was then that France and England declared war on Germany. Around this same time, Japan which had conquered Manchuria from China in 1938, entered into a defensive alliance with Germany and Italy.

2.Critically examine the main provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. What were its important effects on Germany?
The victorious powers met in a conference first in Versailles, a Suburb of Paris and later in Paris between February 1919 and June 1919. Three countries Britain, France and USA decided to sign the peace treaties without consulting the defeated countries.
(1) Treaty of Versailles with Germany - The German representatives were forced to accept the following terms -
(i)Germany and her allies were declared guilty of aggression.
(ii)Alaska and Lorraine were restored to France.
(iii)The area of the Rhine valley was to demilitarize.

(a) Germany was dispossessed of her colonial empire, which was divided
among the victoriuos Nations.
(b)Germany was required to pay the war indemnity to the Allies.
(c)The treaty of Versailles was extremely humiliationto Germany.

2. When did Hitler formally announce his violation of the treaty of Versailles? What reason did he give for this?
Hitler formally announced his violation of the treaty of Versailles in March 1935. Hitler claimed that he was trying to make Germany equal in position to the other European powers.
3.Name the incident that started the Second World War?
Germany’s attack on Poland on 1st September 1939 started the Second world war.
4.When and by whom was the Munich pact signed?
The Munich pact was signed on 30th September, 1938. It was a pact between France and Britain on one side, and Hitler and Mussolini on the other side. Britain and France allowed Germany to take over Sudentenland.
5.What is meant by the ‘Axis’ powers?
The Axis powers ,also called as Axis alliances were the countries those opposed to the Allies during the second world war.Three major Axis powers -Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan were havinhg military alliance.
6.What is meant by the term ‘Allies’?
The term ‘Allies’ means the collective power-group which was initially led by UK and France. In 1941, they were joined by the USSR and USA.They fought against the 'Axis' power, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan.
7.Describe two political ambitions of Adolf Hitler.
* Hitler was determined to make Germany a mighty power in the world.
* He had ambition of conquering all of Europe.
8. Explain any two problems faced by the Weimar Republic from the very beginning.
The main two problems that the Weimar republic faced at the beginning were-1.The Communists backed by the Bolsheviks used the country’sinstability to stage a revolution.2.Those who supported the Weimar Republic were mainly Socialists, Catholics and Democrats became easy targets of attack in the conservative nationalist circle.
10.Who was Hitler? What was the main reason for his popularity?
Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 and was the leader of Nazi party in Germany. He established a dictatorship in his regime and was portrayed as a messiah to the Germans. His hypnotic speeches attracted all classes of German people whose sense of dignity and pride had been shattered while living in a period of acute economic and political crisis.
11.Briefly describe main steps taken by the Weimar Republic in 1923 to acquire political stability in Germany.
* The Weimar Republic introduced a new currency called the Rentenmark,to strengthen Germany’s monetary system.
* In 1924, Germany and his allies negotiated a new method of
reparationpayments and got the French army to withdraw from the Ruhr region.
12.What were the results of the victory of Nazism in Germany?
* victory of Nazism in Germany led to the destruction of democracy and the establishment of dictatorship.
* It also led to the militarism and preparation for the war.
* In Germany all other political parties were banned except the Nazi Party.Nazism was opposed to socialism and communism, so the advocates of these two philosophies were either jailed or killed.
13.What was the main reason that led to Hitler’s rise to power in Germany?
The main reason that led to Hitler’s rise to power in Germany was :

• Germany had lost the First World War. The revenge guided the Germans and hence the rise of Hitler.
• Germany did not tolerate the terms of the 'Treaty of Versailles'. Hitler promised to build a strong nation, undo the injustice of the Versailles.The people of Germany were in favour of any government, which was against communism.

14. Explain briefly the Nazi ideology for youth?
It was felt that a strong Nazi society could be established only by teaching children Nazi ideology.Good German Children were subjected to a process of Nazi schooling, a prolonged period of ideological training. Youth organizations were made responsible for educating German youth in the spirit of National Socialism. The youth league of Nazi was founded in 1922 to unite the youth.
15. What was the Nazi ideologyof the society?
Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s worldview. According to this there was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy. The blond, blue-eyed,Nordic German Aryans were considered to be superior, while Jews were at the lowest rung. The Nazi argument was simple. The strongest race would survive and the weak ones would perish.
16. What were the condition of women during Nazism in Germany?
In Nazi Germany the women were radically different from men. They had to look after the home and teach their children Nazi values. In Nazi Germany all mothers were not treated equally. Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced racially desirable children were awarded. To encourage women to produce many children, honour crosses were awarded:A Bronze cross for four children.A silver cross for six children.A gold cross for eight or more children.
17. Explain briefly the foreign policy of Hitler.
In his foreign policy, Hitler acquired quick successes. He pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936 and integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan, 'one people, one empire and one leader'. He then went on to wrest German-speaking Sudentenland from Czechoslovakia and gobbled up the entire country.
18. When and by whom was the Anti-comintern pact signed? What were its aims?

• The Anti-Comintern Pact was signed in 1937. It was signed by Germany , Austria, and Japan.
• The Aims of the Anti Comintern Pact Were to check the expansion of communism in the world and to follow an aggressive policy for the expansion of territories.

19. How did the world come to know about the Holocaust?
The documents left behind by ghetto and Camp inhabitants, who wrote diaries, kept notebooks and created archives, have been our source of knowledge about the Holocaust. Thus knowledge about the Holocaust lives in Memoirs,fiction poetry in many parts of the world. These are embarrassing reminder to those who collaborated.
20. Why did the US enter the Second World War?
The US had resisted involvement in the war. But it could not stay out of the war for long. Japan was expanding its power in the east. On 7th December 1941 Japan attacked the US Navel bases at Pearl Harbor. On 8th December 1941, America declared war on Japan and joined the Allies; as the war ended US dropped Atom bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.
21. When did the Second World War end in Europe?
On May 2, 1945, Soviet armies entered Berlin and Hitler committed suicide. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. All hostilities ended on 9th May 1945 at 12 noon in Europe.
22.What was the name of Hitler’s propaganda minister during his regime? What happened to him and his family?
Goebbels was Hitler’s propaganda minister. He and his family committed suicide collectively in his Berlin bunker in April 1945.
23. What was the effect of the world war-II on Germany? Why was the Potsdam conference held?
The effects of the Second World War were catastrophic. Nearly five crore people were killed. The Jews were the worst affected as 50 lakhs Jews were killed by Hitler in gas chambers in Germany. The whole of Europe was destroyed by the attack of Germany and cities, towns, industries, bridges, roads and railways were destroyed. President Truman took up an ambitious programme called Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of the nations destroyed by the War and rendered substantial financial aid.
Germany was totally disarmed and the Nazi prisoners of war were put on trial and punished. Japan too was disarmed and the American army was stationed there. Germany was divided into four units and the four areas were subjected to the supervision of America, England, France and Russia. Imperial powers like England and France lost their might after the war. This helped many Asian and African Nations to free themselves. For the establishment of Permanent peace, the United Nations Organisation was established in place of the League of Nations.
2.Potsdam Conference in 1945: Potsdam conference was held with some aims of Allies with regard to Germany that was divided into two parts. They wanted to end the Nazi Party and to make Germany a republic. Decision regarding border between Poland and Germany was taken with complete democratic view in Germany.