Adolf Hitler and the Start of World War II

4/2/18

Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling boxing match, 1938

- Symbolized black vs white and freedom vs fascism

- Joe Louis was a big American symbol
o Began life as a sharecropper, 6th grade education
o Humble, modest
o Became an icon for black soldiers in the war
 Helped desegregate the army

American’s anti-war, isolationists, peace strikes

- Meanwhile threats to world peace across the world:

o Japan attacked China
o Italy attacked Ethiopia
o Germany rearmed, reoccupied old lands, annexed Austria, seized Czechoslovakia

No war in human history that killed more people than WWII

- 70 million served, across 70 nations

- 17 million combatants’ dead, unknown number of civilians (more than 40 million)
- In the United States: ended depression, created jobs, women in the workforce, positive

effect on minorities, marked the beginning of the Cold War and Nuclear Age

Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany by exploiting psychological injuries of German’s after

WWI.

- Tapped into anti-Semitism, blamed most of the nation’s economic issues on Jews and

treaty of Versailles
- German Workers’ Party, 1919  later became Nazi Party
o Demanded all Jews be deprived of citizenship
o All German speakers united into one nation
- Organizes Beer Hall Putsch, attempted overthrow of Weimar Republic
o Hitler imprisoned, thrown in jail  wrote Mein Kampf