HISB91 Lecture 14 – March 13

World War II

The Polish Corridor

- Danzig was a German city
- Germans never accepted the terms of Versailles especially in the East
- Locarno: declared Germany’s western boundaries to be unchangeable
- Accepted border arrangement with Belgium and France
- No attempt to create a Locarno in the East
- Was clear Hitler would make demands on the Poland/Polish corridor
- Seemed no alternative that the surrender at Munich, Polish would have to be
protected
- Hitler had no respect for the western allies because they were unwilling to go to
war, thus he could do in the east whatever he wished

Summer of 1939
- Hitler turns to Stalin: Aug 1939 – Hitler-Stalin Pact signed
- Poland was divided up between Hitler and Stalin where Germany had the west
and Stalin had the east
- Hitler really didn’t want a 2 front war – said early, if the west is too stupid that
my designs are not against them, but against Russia –will then have to beat the west first
- Aug 23, 1939: both communists and fascists were amazed something like this
could happen

Germany marches into Poland

- Britain declares war, followed by the French
- Did Hitler really intend for war to happen?
- Was not surprised

Blitzkrieg
- Lightening war
- Mechanized war
- Tanks, armour, planes destroying all…then followed by the troops
- Was the total reverse of the First War
- Was the war of movement – connected with the modern, a culture of speed,
events, of the moment,

Phony War
- Sitzkrieg – sitting war instead of a lightening war
- La drole de guerre – the funny war called by the French

Winter of 1940
- Perhaps he was thinking ahead as was evident through the rearmament
- East was the issue in his mind

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 HISB91 Lecture 14 – March 13

- Had no specific timetable

April 1940: strikes in the North
- Wanted access to Sweden (neutral)

May 1940
- strikes west
- warfare without morality

Dunkirk
- Hitler here pulls back even though he could have destroyed the British but he
chose not to
- Had to be evacuated – the civilians helped to pick up the injured soldiers off the
beach

Churchill became PM of Britain

- Was too emotional but became the man of the hour
- Speeches began to motivate people
- All he could promise to Britain was blood, tears, toil and sweat but they will
fight them everywhere and will never surrender
- The British listened

June 22
- Germans who were forced to sign an armistice, forced the French to sign their
surrender in the same railway car at Compiegne

June 1940
- Italy joins in on Hitler’s side
- What was the point of British to continue fighting

British air force was still small, had Hitler hit the airfields
- Hits the cities and focuses on destroying morale
- The Cathedral: shattered by Hitler
- Hits the East end of London – turns into an inferno
- Air force managed to keep the air space in British hands
- RAF becomes the symbol of Britain, the heroic military and cultural symbol

Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941

- Real opportunities of land and expansion was in the East
- Named after Frederick the II of Medieval time
- Attack begins on Soviet Union
- Stalin doesn’t believe the German were attacking

Grand Alliance
- Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, 7 December 1941
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 HISB91 Lecture 14 – March 13

- Hitler declares war on the USA (in support of the Japanese ally)
- Alliance of communism and capitalism (this is why it was the Grand Alliance)
- Soviet Union bore the brunt of Hitler’s attack
- War of extermination is what Hitler called it
- Massive execution of civilians – everyone was an enemy
- Aerial bombing of cities: no distinction between civilians and soldiers

Christmas of 1941
- Russia had terrible weather
- Hitler wasn’t prepared for this: problems with guns because of the winter
- The attack was halted because of this
- Germans retreat slightly, Spring 1942 advance again
- Get as far as Stalingrad