World War II

1939-1945

Hitlers Lightning War

Germany used Blitzkrieg or lightening war

Planes

bombed airfields, factories, towns, etc.

Then tanks and troops roared into the country

Poland was conquered within a month

Soviet forces took control of
Estonia,

Latvia, Lithuania and part of Finland

April 1940 Germans in Norway, Denmark,

Netherlands and Belgium

France Falls to Axis Powers

Germany heads toward Paris Italy

declares war on France
June

22, 1940 French surrender

Southern part left as a puppet government
headed by Marshal Philippe Petain.

Headquarters in the city of Vichy

France (cont.)

Charles de Gaulle French general, set

up a government in exile in London.
Committed

to re-conquering France.
Organized Free French military who battled
the Nazis until France was liberated in 1944.

Hitler and the Nazis in Paris

WWII Technology

Air power takes prominent role

Luftwaffe-

German air force

Parachute troops role increases

Tanks were much improved from WWI

Deadlier bombs
Radar to detect planes
Sonar to detect submarines

Operation Sea Lion

The Battle of Britain

Known

as the London Blitz

8/12/1940 air attacks on southern England

Germans bombed London for 57 nights
Considered a failure because British did not quit
Continued until May 10,1941

Damages from the London Blitz

Damages from the London Blitz

Damages from the London Blitz

The Mediterranean and the Eastern

Front
Mussolini takes North Africa in September
of 1940 while the Battle of Britain was
going on.
Attacked British controlled Egypt.
Britain strikes back in December and by
February 1941 Italy needs help.

The Mediterranean and the Eastern

Front (Cont.)

Germans come in with the Afrika Korps

and win victories over the British in
northern Africa
Led

by General Erwin Rommel Desert Fox

Italy takes Greece and Yugoslavia

The Desert Fox Erwin

Rommel

Operation Barbarossa

1941 attempted conquest of the USSR

Why invade USSR?
Plentiful

Soviet resources

3 million Germans caught Stalin unprepared

USSR lost 2.5 million troops
Germans were halted by Russian weather
Many Russian people suffered starvation

American Involvement Grows

Lend-Lease Act (1941)

Selling

or lending of war
materials to countries
Vital to US defense

Atlantic Charter (Aug.

1941)
FDR

and Churchill agree

on the Final destruction
of Nazi tyranny

Pearl Harbor Day of Infamy

12/7/1941Japan surprise attacks

American fleet @ Pearl Harbor (Hawaii)
2,400

American deaths

US declares war on Japan (12/8/1941)

Germany,

later

Italy declare war on US four days

Total War

Factories stopped making cars & refrigerators &

made planes & tanks
Shoes and sugar were rationed
Use of propaganda
War ended unemployment of the depression
Japanese people in US and Canada
Lost

their jobs and property

Forced into camps
Seen as a security risk

US Propaganda
Anti - German

US Propaganda Anti - Japanese

US Propaganda
Anti - Japanese

War Bond Advertisements

Do your part Campaign

No room for debate

Japanese Internment Camps 19421945

US government forced over 100,000
Japanese-Americans to relocate
Mostly

Many lost their homes and businesses

Could

from the western states

only keep what they could carry

Conditions in camps
Barbed-wire-surrounded
Un-partitioned
Cots

for beds
Armed guards

toilets

Japanese Internment Camps

Operation Torch

The North African Campaign (1942)

Allied

invasion of North Africa

Led by British and US Forces

British

led by Gen. Bernard Montgomery

US led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur

Turning point in North Africa

El

Alamein, Egypt
British forces finally stop Gen. Irwin Rommel

The Red Army Resists

Turning Point in the Soviet Union

Battle

of Stalingrad

Street by street and house by house battles

Over one million Soviet soldiers died
1943 Germans surrender 300,000 killed or
injured

Soviets

USSR

then drive Germans back through

Mission to Take Back France

Turning Point in Europe

D-Day

June 6th 1944

Allied paratroopers and ferried troops (176,000)

Fought against heavy gunfire @ the Battle of
Normandy

By

September France was free

Now Allies push towards Germany

Allies advance into Germany

Allies advance into Italy

Allied forced landed in Sicily in 1943

Controlled

Sicily in one month

Italy surrendered within two months

Fighting

continued until the end of the war

Guerillas capture and execute Mussolini

Created another front for the Germans to

worry about

Battle of the Bulge

Germany fought on three fronts

US

to the west (in France)

Soviet Union to the east
US and UK to the south (in Italy)

Germany on the offensive for the last time

75-mile

front in the Ardennes Forest

Germans able to push into Allied lines
Ultimately unsuccessful push

The End in Europe

Germany surrounded by Allied Forces
Hitler commits suicide (4/30/1945) in his
underground bunker

May

7th Germany surrenders

May 8th = VE Day or Victory in Europe Day

Surrender in
France

Surrender in USSR

The Pacific Campaign

Major Battles
Battle

of the Coral Sea

New style of fighting ships used airplanes instead of

mounted guns
US stopped the Japanese southward advance

Battle

of Guadalcanal

Six month battle

US Marines captured a huge Japanese Air Force base
Japanese lost 24,000 troops

Toward Victory

Turning Point in the

Pacific Campaign
Battle

of Midway Island

Japanese Navy would

reach no further
US now started to push
closer to Japan
Marked the beginning of
Island Hopping

The recapture some

islands while bypassing
others

Island
Hopping

Island Hopping

Defeat of Japan: Invasion vs.

the Bomb
FDR dies--Harry Truman takes office
US estimated that an invasion would cost
millions or more in casualties
Why did Truman drop the A-Bomb?

An

invasion would be too costly

To impress the Soviet Union with US power

The Atomic Bomb

Hiroshima (8/6/45)
Plane was the Enola Gay
Atomic Bomb named Little Boy
Killed more than 70,000

Nagasaki (8/9/45)
Plane was Bockscar
Atomic bomb named Fat Man
Killed more than 40,000 people

September 2nd 1945

Peace treaty is signed

Hiroshima

Hiroshima

Hiroshima

Nagasaki

Nagasaki

Atomic Bomb Survivors

Atomic Bomb Survivors

The Holocaust:
Nazi Genocide of the Jews
Kill all people who were racially inferior
Jews, Slavs, gypsies and mentally ill
Forced Jews to live in ghettos and
concentration camps and wear yellow
stars
Final Solution of the Jewish problem =
Genocide

The Death Camps

Auschwitz, Sobidor, Treblinka & Lodz
Gassed in showers and used in medical
experiments
By 1945, over 6 million Jews were killed

million other people were killed as well

The Infamous Yellow Stars

THE WARSAW GHETTO

Auschwitz

Location: Poland: 37 miles west of Krakow

Operational May 1940 Jan. 1945
Estimated 1.1 million killed here
Largest of the German concentration camps.
The SS authorities established three main camps near
the Polish city of Oswiecim

Auschwitz I in May 1940;

Auschwitz II (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau) in early 1942
Auschwitz III (also called Auschwitz-Monowitz) in October 1942.

Wall where prisoners were shot after

trials.
Auschwitz I

Block 11, also

known as the
death block,
since it was
known no
prisoners who
went in here
came back alive.

Gallow, where the SS officer in charge

of the camp was hung at the end of the
war.

Auschwitz- Birkenau

Death's Gate

What is left of the wood camp.

The brick camp, currently undergoing

preservation

Tracks leading
into Birkenau

Track platform, where selection took

place. Before liberation there had
been two gas chambers at the end of
the tracks on each side.

Auschwitz (cont.)

On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated

by Soviet troops, a day commemorated around
the world as International Holocaust
Remembrance Day.
In 1947, Poland founded a museum on the site
of Auschwitz I and II, which
By 1994 had seen 22 million visitors700,000
annuallypass through the iron gates crowned
with the infamous motto, Arbeit macht frei ("work
makes you free").

Results of World War II

Casualties
Estimated

Genocide
Due

60 million people died from the war

to the Final Solution

Occupation
Control

of Germany and Japan

Aftermath of World War II

War Crimes Trials
The Split of Germany
The Creation of the United Nations
The Beginning of the Cold War

War Crimes Trials

The Holocaust
Death

camp evidence discovered after the

war

Nuremberg Trials
Crimes

against humanity
Trials showed that political & military leaders
could be accountable for wartime actions

Postwar Japan
Defeat left
country in ruins.
Was stripped of
its colonial
empire.
Occupied by the
US

US General Douglas MacArthur and Emperor

Hirohito

Occupation by US

General Douglas MacArthur in charge of US

occupation
Began process of demilitarization
Disbanded

Japanese army.
Left with a small by police force.

Democratization of Japan
Drew

up new constitution for Japan Feb. 1946

Accepted and went into affect May 3, 1947.

Occupation Brings Deep Changes

Japan now a constitutional monarchy.

Emperor

no longer considered divine

Became just a figurehead

New

constitution guaranteed that the political power

rest the people
Two House Parliament elected by the people called
the Diet
All citizens over the age of 20, including women had
the right to vote
Article 9 stated the Japanese could no longer make
war, only fight if they were attacked.

Occupation (cont.)

Sept. 1951 the US and 47 other national

sign of formal treaty with Japan.
This

officially ended the war.

Six months later US occupation was over.
Japan agreed to a continuing US presence to
protect their country.

The Creation of the United Nations

Allies set up international organization to
ensure peace
General Assembly all nations belong
Security Council

Permanent members: US, Russia, Britain,

France and China

The United Nations