UNIT 9: THE WORLD WAR II

HITLER’S LIGHTNING WAR

MAIN IDEA Using the sudden, mass attack WHY IT MATTERS NOW Hitler’s actions set
called the blitzkrieg, Germany overran much of off World War II. The results of the war still
Europe and North Africa affect the politics and economics of today’s
world.

SETTING THE STAGE During the 1930s, Hitler played on the hopes and fears of the Western
democracies. Each time the Nazi dictator grabbed new territory, he would declare an end to his demands.
Peace seemed guaranteed (until Hitler started expanding again).
The German Reich Expands On November 5, 1937, Hitler announced to his advisers his plans
to absorb Austria and Czechoslovakia into the Third Reich, or German Empire. The Germans would then
expand into Poland and Russia. Hitler’s first target was Austria. The treaty of Versailles prohibited
Anschluss or a union between Austria and Germany. However, many Austrians supported unity with
Germany. In March 1938, Hitler sent his army into Austria and annexed it. France and Britain ignored their
pledge to protect Austrian independence.
Hitler next turned to Czechoslovakia. After World War I, Czechoslovakia had developed into a
prosperous democracy with a strong army and a defense treaty with France. About 3 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.

Britain and France Again Choose Appeasement 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 29, 1938. The Czechs were not
invited. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed that he
could preserve peace by giving in to Hitler’s demand. The next
morning, a tense world learned that the crisis was over. Britain and
France agreed that Hitler could take the Sudetenland. In exchange,
Hitler pledged to respect Czechoslovakia’s new borders.
Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement seemed to have prevented
war. When he returned to London, Chamberlain 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.
Less than six months after the Munich meeting, Hitler’s troops
took Czechoslovakia. Soon after, Mussolini seized nearby Albania.
Then Hitler demanded that Poland return the former German port of
Danzig. The Poles refused and turned to Britain and France for aid.
Both countries said they would guarantee Polish independence. But
appeasement had convinced Hitler that neither nation would risk war.
Nazis and Soviets Sign Nonaggression Pact Britain and France asked the Soviet Union to join
them in stopping Hitler’s aggression. Negotiations proceeded slowly. The two democracies distrusted the
Communist government, and Stalin resented having been left out of the Munich Conference. As the Soviet
leader talked with Britain and France, he also bargained with Hitler. The two dictators reached and
agreement. Once bitter enemies, fascist Germany and communist Russia now publicly committed never to
attack one another. On August 23, 1939, a nonaggression pact was signed. As the Axis Powers moved
unchecked at the end of the decade, the whole world waited to see what would happen next. War appeared
inevitable.
GERMANY SPARKS A NEW WAR IN EUROPE After his moves into the
Rhineland (March 1930), Austria (March 1938), and Czechoslovakia (September 1938 & March 1939), the
Führer turned his eyes to Poland. On April 28, 1939, Hitler spoke before the Reichstag. He demanded that
the Polish Corridor, along with its port city of Danzig, be returned to Germany. After World War I, the
Allies had cut out the Polish Corridor from German territory to give Poland access to the sea.

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 This time, Great Britain and France decided to resist this threat of aggression. At this point Soviet
dictator Joseph Stalin signed a 10-year nonaggression pact with Hitler on August 23. After being excluded
from the Munich Conference, Stalin was not eager to join with the West. Also, Hitler was promising him
territory. In the public part of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union promised not to attack each other.
Secretly, however, they agreed that they would divide Poland between them. They also secretly agreed that
the USSR could take over Finland and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania).
Attack on Poland The new nonaggression pact removed the threat to Germany of a Soviet attack
from the east. Hitler then quickly moved ahead with plans to conquer Poland. His surprise attack took place
at dawn on September 1, 1939. German warplanes invaded Polish airspace, raining bombs and terror on
rumbled across the Polish border. The trucks carried more than 1.5 million soldiers into the assault. German
aircraft and artillery then began a merciless bombing of Poland’s capital, Warsaw. The city crumbled under
the assault. A stunned world looked on. No one yet realized that the Polish invasion had unleashed World
War II.
France and Great Britain declared war on Germany on September 3. But Poland fell three weeks
before those nations could make any military response. After his victory, Hitler annexed the western half
of Poland. That region had a large German population.
The German invasion of Poland was the first test of Germany’s newest military strategy, the
blitzkrieg or “lightning war”. It involved using fast-moving airplanes and tanks, followed by massive
infantry forces, to take the enemy by surprise. Then, blitzkrieg forces swiftly crushed all opposition with
overwhelming force. In the case of Poland, the strategy worked.
The Soviets Make Their Move On September 17, 1939, after his secret agreement with Hitler,
Stalin sent Soviet troops to occupy the eastern half of Poland. Stalin then began annexing the regions in the
second part of the agreement. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia fell without a struggle, but Finland resisted
but by March 1940, Stalin had forced the Finns to accept his surrender terms.
The Phony War For almost seven months after the fall of Poland, there was a strange calm in
the land fighting in Europe. After their declaration of war, the French and British had mobilized their
armies. They stationed their troops along the Maginot Line, a system of fortifications along France’s border
with Germany. There they waited for Germans to attack, but nothing happened. With little to do, the bored
Allied soldiers stared eastward toward the enemy. Equally bored, German soldiers stared back from their
Siegfried Line a few miles away. Germans jokingly called it the “sitting war”. Some newspapers referred
to it simply as “the phony war”.
Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, the phony war ended. Hitler launched a surprise invasion of
Denmark and Norway. He planned to build bases along the Norwegian and Danish coasts to strike at Great
Britain. In just four hours after the attack, Denmark fell. Two months later, Norway surrendered as well.

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 THE BATTLE FOR FRANCE AND GREAT BRITAIN In May of
1940, Hitler began a dramatic sweep through Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. This was part of a
strategy to strike at France. Keeping the Allies’ attention on those countries, Hitler then sent an even larger
force of tanks and troop trucks to slice through the Ardennes. This was a heavily wooded area in
northeastern France and Luxembourg. Moving through the forest, the Germans “squeezed between” the
Maginot Line. From there, they moved across France and reached France’s northern coast in 10 days.
France Battles Back When the Germans reached the French coast, they swung north again and
joined forces with German troops in Belgium. By May 26, 1940, the German had trapped the Allied forces
around the northern French city of Lille. With a German victory inevitable, Belgium surrendered.
Outnumbered, outgunned, and pounded from the air, the Allies escaped to the beaches of Dunkirk, a French
port city on the English Channel. They were trapped with their backs to the sea.
France Falls Following Dunkirk, France seemed doomed to defeat. On June 10, sensing a quick
victory, Italy’s Benito Mussolini joined forces with Hitler and declared war on both Great Britain and
France. Italy then attacked France from the south. By June 14, Paris had fallen to the Germans. Nazi troops
marched triumphantly down the city’s main boulevard.
Two days later, seeing defeat approaching, the French parliament asked Marshal Henri Pétain,
and aging hero from World War I, to become prime minister. On June 22, 1940, France surrendered. The
Germans took control of the northern part of the country. They left the southern part to a puppet government
headed by Pétain. The headquarters of this government was in the city of Vichy.
After France fell, a French government was in the city of Vichy to London. There, he set up a
government-in-exile committed to reconquering France. General Charles De Gaulle went on to organize
the Free French military forces that battled the Nazis until France was liberated in 1944.
Germany Attacks Great Britain With
the fall of France, Great Britain stood alone against
the Nazis. Winston Churchill, the new British prime
minister, had already declared that his nation would
never give in. in a speech, he said, “We shall fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets…. we shall
never surrender”.
Hitler now turned his mind to an invasion
of Great Britain. In summer of 1940, Germany’s air
force, began bombing Great Britain.
With the pressure off the airfields, the
Royal Air Force (RAF) hit back hard. Two secret
weapons helped turn the tide in their favor. One was
an electronic tracking system known as radar.
Developed in the late 1930s, radar could tell the
number, speed, and direction of incoming war-planes.
The other was a German code-making machine
named Enigma. A complete Enigma machine was
smuggled to Great Britain in 1938. With Enigma in
their possession, the British had German secret
messages open to them. With information gathered by
these devices, RAF fliers could quickly get to their
airplanes and inflict deadly harm on the enemy.
The Battle of Britain continued until May 10, 1941. Stunned by British resistance, Hitler
decided to call off his attacks. Instead, he focused his attention on Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.
The Battle of Britain had ended. And, from it, the Allies had learned a crucial lesson: Hitler’s advances
could be blocked.
HITLER INVADES THE SOVIET UNION Hitler moved ahead with his plan to
invade the Soviet Union, he called that plan Operation Barbarossa. Early on Sunday morning, June 22,
1941, their roar of German tanks and aircraft announced the beginning of the blitzkrieg invasion. The Soviet
Union was not prepared for this attack. With its 5 million men, the Red Army was the largest in the world.
But it was neither 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 Russians retreated, they burned and destroyed everything in the enemy’s path. Russians had
used this same strategy against Napoleon.

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 By September 8, Germans had surrounded Leningrad and isolated the city from the rest of the
world. If necessary, Hitler would starve the city’s 2’5 million inhabitants. German bombs destroyed
warehouses where food was stored. Desperately hungry, people began eating cattle and horse feed, as well
as cats and dogs and, finally, crows and rats. More than 1 million people died in Leningrad that terrible
winter. Yet the city refused to fall.
Seeing that Leningrad would not surrender, 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. He had 100 fresh
Siberian divisions and the harsh Soviet winter on his side.
As temperatures fell, the Germans, in summer uniforms, retreated. Their fuel and oil froze.
Tanks, trucks, and weapons became useless. Ignoring Napoleon’s winter defeat 130 years before, the Führer
sent his generals a stunning order: “No retreat!” German troops dug in about 125 miles west of the capital.
They held the line against the Soviets until March 1943. Nonetheless, Moscow had been saved and had cost
the Germans 500,000 lives.
THE UNITED STATES AIDS ITS ALLIES Although the United States had not yet
entered the war, Roosevelt and Churchill met secretly. The two leaders issued a joint declaration called the
Atlantic Charter. It upheld free trade among nations and the right of people to choose their own government.
The charter later served as the Allies’ peace plan at the end of World War II.
On September 4, 1941, a German U-boat suddenly fired on a U. S. destroyer in the Atlantic.
Roosevelt ordered navy commanders to respond. They were to shoot German submarines on sight. The
United States was now involved in a undeclared naval war with Hitler. To almost everyone’s surprise,
however, the attack that actually drew the United States into the war did not come from Germany. It came
from Japan.
Japan Strikes in the Pacific Like Hitler,
Japan’s military leaders also had dreams of empire. Japan
was overcrowded and faced shortages of raw materials. To
solve these problems and to encourage nationalism the
Japanese began a program of empire building that would
lead to war.
Japan’s expansion began in 1931. In that year,
Japanese troops took over Manchuria in northeastern
China. Six years later, Japanese armies swept into the
heartland of China. They expected quick victory. Chinese
resistance, however, caused the war to drag on. This caused
a strain on Japan’s economy. To increase their resources
Japanese leaders looked toward the rich European colonies
of Southeast Asia.
The Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor If Japan conquered European colonies there, it could also
threaten the American-controlled Philippine Islands and Guam. To stop the Japanese advance, the U. S.
government sent aid to strengthen Chinese resistance. And when the Japanese overran French Indochina in
July 1941, Roosevelt cut off oil shipments to Japan.
Despite an oil shortage, the Japanese continued their conquests. They hoped to catch the United
States by surprise. So they planned massive attacks in Southeast Asia and in the Pacific, both at the same
time. Early in the morning of December 7, 1941, American sailors at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii awoke to the
roar of explosives. A Japanese attack was underway! Within two hours, the Japanese had sunk or damaged
18 ships, including 8 battleships, nearly the whole U. S. Pacific fleet. Some 2,400 Americans were killed,
with more than 1000 wounded. The next day, Congress declared war on Japan.

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THE HOLOCAUST
MAIN IDEA During the Holocaust, Hitler’s WHY IT MATTERS NOW The violence
Nazis killed 6 million Jews and 5 million other against Jews during the Holocaust led to the
“non-Aryans” as gypsies or republican Spanish. founding of Israel after World War II.

SETTING THE STAGE As part of their new order for Europe, Nazis proclaimed that Aryans,
or Germanic people, were a “master race”. They claimed that Jews and other non-Aryan people were
inferior. This racist message would eventually lead to the Holocaust, the mass slaughter of civilians,
especially Jews.
THE HOLOCAUST BEGINS Nazi propaganda started as an ugly campaign of anti-
Semitism. It eventually flared into persecution across Germany. Hitler knowingly tapped into a hatred for
Jews that had deep roots in European history. For generations, many Germans, along with other Europeans,
had targeted Jews as the cause of their failures. The Nazis even blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat in World
War I and for its economic problems after the war.
In 1933, the Nazis made persecution a government policy. They first passed laws forbidding
Jews to hold public office. Then, in 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of their rights to German
citizenship, jobs, and property. To make it easier for the Nazis to identify them, Jews had to wear a bright
yellow star attached to their clothing.
On November 9, Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across
Germany. We know this night Kristallnacht or “Night of Broken Glass”. Kristallnacht marked a major
step-up in the Nazi policy of Jewish persecution.
Hitler ordered Jews in all countries under his control to be moved into certain cities in Poland.
In those cities, they were herded into dismal, overcrowded ghettos, or segregated Jewish areas. The Nazis
then sealed off the ghettos with barbed wire and stone walls. They wanted the Jews inside to starve or die
from disease.
Even under these horrible conditions, the Jews hung on. Some formed resistance organizations
within the ghettos. They smuggled in food and other needed items. In the midst of chaos, Jews also struggled
to keep their traditions. Ghetto theaters produced plays and concerts. Teachers taught lessons in secret
schools. Scholars kept records so that one day people would find out the truth.

HITLER’S “FINAL SOLUTION” Hitler soon grew impatient waiting for Jews to die from
starvation or disease in the ghettos. He decided to take more direct action. His plan was called the “Final
Solution”. It was actually a program of genocide, the systematic killing of an entire people.
Hitler believed that his plan of conquest depended on the purity of the Aryan race. To protect
racial purity, the Nazis not only had to eliminate the Jews, but also other races, nationalities, or groups they
viewed as inferior, as “subhumans”. They included gypsies, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, the
disabled, and the incurable ill. But the Nazis focused especially on the Jews.
Hitler sent SS units from town to town to hunt Jews down. The SS (Hitler’s elite security force)
and some thousands of collaborators rounded up Jews and took them to isolated spots. Jews in communities
were rounded up and taken to concentration camps, or slave-labor prisons. These camps were located
mainly in Germany and Poland. Later Nazis built camps in other countries they occupied. Hitler hoped that
the horrible conditions in the camps would speed the total elimination of the Jews.
The prisoners, with meals of thin soup, a scrap of bread, and potato peelings, worked seven days
a week as slaves for the SS or for German businesses. Guards severely beat or killed their prisoners for not
working fast enough.

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 The “Final Solution” officially reached its final stage in early 1942. At that time, the Nazis built
extermination camps equipped with gas chambers for mass murder. The Nazis built the first six death
camps in Poland. The huge gas chambers in the camps could kill as many as 6,000 human beings in a day.
When prisoners arrived at the largest of the death camps, Auschwitz, they paraded before a committee of
SS doctors. With a wave of the hand, these doctors separated the strong (mostly men) from the weak, who
would die that day. Those chosen to die (mostly women, children, the elderly, and the sick) were told to
undress for a shower. They were led into a chamber with fake showerheads, and the doors closed. The
prisoners were then poisoned with cyanide gas that poured from the showerheads. Later, the Nazis installed
crematoriums, or ovens, to burn the bodies.

THE ALLIES ARE VICTORIOUS

MAIN IDEA Led by the United WHY IT MATTERS NOW The
States, Great Britain,, and the Soviet Union, the Allies’ victory in World War II set up conditions
Allies scored key victories and won the war. for both the Cold War and today’s post-Cold
War world

THE ALLIES PLAN FOR VICTORY On December 22, 1941, just after Pearl
Harbor, Winston Churchill and Roosevelt met at the White House to develop a joint war policy. Stalin had
asked his allies to relieve German pressure on his armies in the east. He wanted them to open a second front
in the west. The second front would split the Germans’ strength by forcing them to fight major battles in
two regions instead of one. Churchill agreed with Stalin’s strategy: The Allies would weaken Germany on
two fronts before dealing a deathblow. At first, Roosevelt was torn, but ultimately he agreed.
Late in 1942, The Allies began to turn the tide of war both in the Mediterranean and on the
Eastern Front.
Turning Point at Stalingrad Germans met their match in the Soviet Union. They had stalled at
Leningrad and Moscow. German suffered heavy losses in battle because of the Russian winter. When the
summer of 1942 arrived, German tanks were again ready to roll.
By early November 1942, Germans controlled 90 percent of the ruined city of Stalingrad.
Stalingrad was an “enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke”, as one German officer wrote. Then,
another Russian winter set in. On November 19, Soviet troops outside the city launched a counterattack.
Closing in around Stalingrad, they trapped the Germans inside and cut off their supplies. Hitler’s
commander, General Friedrich von Paulus, begged him to order a retreat. But Hitler refused, saying the city
was “to be held at all costs”.
On February 2, 1943, some 90,000 frostbitten, half-starved German troops surrendered to the
Soviets. These pitiful survivors were all that remained of an army of 330,000. Stalingrad’s defense had cost
the Soviets over 1 million soldiers. The city they defended was 99 percent destroyed. After Stalingrad,
however, the Germans were on the defensive, with the Soviets pushing them steadily westward.

The Invasion of Italy On July

10, 1943, Allied forces of 180,000 soldiers
landed on Sicily and captured it from
Italian and German troops by August. The
conquest of Sicily toppled Mussolini from
power. On July 25, King Victor Emmanuel
III fired the dictator and had him arrested.
On September 3, Italy surrendered. But the
Germans seized control of the northern
Italy and put Mussolini back in charge.
Finally, the Germans retreated northward,
and the victorious Allies entered Rome on
June 4, 1944. Mussolini was found in one
truck, he had disguised as a German
soldier. He was shot, and his body was
hanged in the Milan town square.
The D-Day Invasion By May
1944, the invasion force was ready.
Thousands of planes, ships, tanks, landing

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 craft, and 3,5 million troops awaited orders
to attack.
The Germans knew that an attack was coming. But they did not know where it would be launched. To keep
Hitler guessing, the Allies set up a huge dummy army with its own headquarters and equipment. They
ordered the make-believe army to attack at the French seaport of Calais while the real attack occurred in
Normandy.
The invasion of Normandy was the greatest land and the sea attack in history. The day chosen
for the invasion to begin, called D-Day, was June 6, 1944. A month later, more than 1 million additional
troops had landed. On July 25, the Allied punched a hole in the German defenses. Soon, the Germans were
retreating. On August 25, the Allies marched triumphantly into Paris. By September, they had liberated
France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and much of the Netherlands. They then set their sights on Germany.
Germany’s Unconditional Surrender In late March 1945, the Allies rolled across the Rhine
River into Germany. By the middle of April, a noose was closing around Berlin. 3 millions Allied soldiers
approached Berlin from the southwest. 6 millions Soviets troops approached from the east. By April 25,
1945, the Soviets had surrounded the capital, as their artillery pounded the city.
While Soviets shells burst over Berlin, Hitler prepared for his end in an underground
headquarters beneath the crumbling city. On April 29, he married his long-time companion, Eva Braun. He
also wrote his final address to the German people. In it, he blamed Jews for starting the war and his generals
for losing it. Two days later, Hitler shot himself after taking poison. His new wife simply swallowed poison.
The bodies were then carried out-side and burned.
On May 7, 1945 Allies accepted the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich from the German
military.
VICTORY IN THE PACIFIC Although the war in Europe was over, the Allies
were still fighting the Japanese in the Pacific.
In March 1945, after a month of bitter fighting and heavy losses, American Marines took Iwo
Jima an island close to Tokyo. On April 1, USA troops moved to the island of Okinawa. American
President’s (Truman) advisers had informed him that an invasion of the Japanese homeland might cost the
Allies half a million lives. Truman had to make a decision whether to use a powerful new weapon called
the atomic bomb. The A-bomb would bring the war to the quickest possible end. It had been developed by
the top-secret Manhattan Project.
Truman told Japanese that unless they surrendered they could expect a “a rain of ruin from the
air”. The Japanese did not reply. So, on August 6, 1945, the USA dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima,
a Japanese city. Almost 73,000 people died in the attack. Three days later, on August 9, a second bomb was
dropped on Nagasaki. It killed about 37,500 people. Radiation killed many more and had consequences
through future generations.
The Japanese surrendered on September, 2. With Japan’s surrender, the war had ended.

THE DEVASTATION OF EUROPE

MAIN IDEA World War II cost WHY IT MATTERS NOW The
millions of human lives and billions of dollars in USA survived WW II undamaged, allowing it to
damages. It left Europe and Japan in ruins. become a world leader

SETTING THE STAGE Allied victory in the war had been achieved at a high price.
WW II had caused more death and destruction than any other conflict in history. It left 60 million dead, 50
million uprooted from their homes, and property damage that ran into billions of US dollars
EUROPE IN RUINS By the end of WW II, Europe lay in ruins. Close to 40 million
Europeans had died (two thirds of them civilians). Constant bombing and shelling had reduced hundreds of
cities to rubble. The ground war had destroyed much of the countryside. Displaced persons from many
nations were struggling to get home.
A Harvest of Destruction Many of the great cities of Europe had suffered terrible destruction.
After the bombings, many civilians stayed where they were and tried to get on with their lives. Some lived
in partially destroyed homes or apartments. Others huddled in caves and cellars beneath the rubble. They
had no water, no electricity, and very little food. Hunger was a constant companion. With factories
destroyed or damaged, most people had no earnings to buy the food that was available.
Misery Continues After the War Although the war had ended, misery in Europe continued for
years. Europe lay ravaged by the fighting. Agriculture was disrupted. Most able-bodied men had served in
the military and the women had worked in war production. Few remained to plant the fields. With the

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transportation system destroyed, the meager harvests often did not reach the cities. Thousands died as
famine and disease spread through the bombed-out cities.
POSTWAR GOVERNMENTS AND POLITICS Despairing Europeans
often blamed their leaders for the war and its aftermath. Once the Germans had lost, some prewar
governments return quickly. In countries like Germany, Italy and France, however, a return to the old
leadership was not so simple. Hitler’s Nazi government had brought Germany to ruins. Mussolini had led
Italy to defeat. The Vichy government had collaborated with the Nazis. Much of the old leadership was in
disgrace. Besides, in Italy and France, many resistance fighters were Communists.
After the war, the Communist Party promised change, and millions were ready to listen. In both
France and Italy, Communist Party membership skyrocketed. The Communists made huge gains in the first
postwar elections. Anxious to speed up a political takeover, the Communists staged a series of violent
strikes. Alarmed French and Italians reacted by voting for anty-Communist parties. Communist
membership and influence then began to decline. And they declined even more so as the economies of
France and Italy began to recover.
An Attempt at Justice: The Nuremberg Trials While nations were struggling to recover
politically and economically, they also were trying to deal with Germany’s guilt in the Holocaust. In 1946,
an International Military Tribunal representing 23 nations put Nazi war criminals on trial in Nuremberg,
Germany. Nazis leaders were charged with waging a war of aggression and they also were accused of
violating the laws of war and of commiting “crimes against humanity”, the murder of 11 million people.

*In 1994 dollars

**An additional 115,187 servicemen died from non-battle causes.
***Before surrender to Nazis
t Includes 65,000 murdered Jews.
tt Includes about 170,000 murdered Jews and 56,000 foreign civilians in Germany
OUTCOMES OF THE II WORLD WAR
1.- Germany was divided into East and West, so was the capital, Berlin as well.
2.- Europe was divided into the Communist Eastern Bloc and the Western Nations, with the “Iron Curtain”
dividing them
3.- The League of Nation was replaced by the United Nations
4.- The USA organized massive aid for Europe and Japan to rebuild them. The Marshall Plan
5.- In 1949 the Western nations formed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organitation). The USSR said this
was a threat and formed the WARSAW PACT in 1955.

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IMPORTANT TERMS, PEOPLE AND EVENTS
German Aggression - The war in Europe began in September 1939, when Germany, under Chancellor Adolf Hitler,
invaded Poland. Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany but took little action over the following
months. In 1940, Germany launched its next initiative by attacking Denmark and Norway, followed shortly thereafter
by attacks on Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. All of these nations were conquered rapidly.
The Battle of Britain - Later in the summer of 1940, Germany launched a further attack on Britain, this time
exclusively from the air. The Battle of Britain was Germany’s first military failure, as the German air force, the
Luftwaffe, was never able to overcome Britain’s Royal Air Force.
The Normandy Invasion - In JUNE 1944, British and American forces launched the D-Day invasion, landing in
German-occupied France via the coast of Normandy. Soon the German army was forced into retreat from that side as
well. Thus, by early 1945, Allied forces were closing in on Germany from both east and west. The Soviets were the
first to reach the German capital of Berlin, and Germany surrendered in May 1945, shortly after the suicide of Adolf
Hitler.
Pearl Harbor - The war in the Pacific began on December 7, 1941, when warplanes from Japan launched a surprise
attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. By this time, Japan had already been at war with China for
several years and had seized the Chinese territory of Manchuria. After the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan began a massive
campaign of expansion throughout the Southeast Asia–Pacific region.
Neville Chamberlain - The prime minister of Britain from 1937 to 1940, who advocated a policy of appeasement
toward the territorial demands of Nazi Germany. This appeasement policy essentially turned a blind eye to Germany’s
1938 annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland.
Winston Churchill - The prime minister of Britain during most of World War II. Churchill was among the most active
leaders in resisting German aggression and played a major role in assembling the Allied Powers, including the United
States and the USSR.
Adolf Hitler - Chancellor and self-proclaimed Führer, or “leader,” of Germany from 1933 until his suicide in 1945.
After a rapid political ascent as the leader of the far-right Nazi Party in the 1920s, Hitler achieved absolute power and
maintained it throughout his time as chancellor. During his rule, he took a very active role in the government of
Germany, making military decisions and implementing edicts regarding the treatment of Jews and other minorities,
such as the notorious “final solution” that condemned Jews to death at concentration camps in German-controlled parts
of Europe. Just before Germany surrendered in 1945, Hitler committed suicide together with his wife, Eva Braun, in
his bunker in Berlin.
Benito Mussolini - Fascist prime minister who came to power in 1922 and ruled Italy as an absolute dictator. In 1943,
Mussolini was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by some of his subordinates, and in 1945 he was executed by Italian
partisans just prior to the end of the war in Europe.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - The 32nd U.S. president, who led the country through the bulk of World War II until his
death from a cerebral hemorrhage in April 1945, just a few months before the war ended. Together with Winston
Churchill and Joseph Stalin, Roosevelt played a decisive role in holding together the Allied coalition that ultimately
defeated Nazi Germany.
Joseph Stalin - General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. In
some ways, Stalin was responsible for the USSR’s severe losses at the beginning of World War II, as he failed to head
the warnings of his advisors and did not allow the Russian military to prepare a proper defense. At the same time, he
did succeed in holding the country together and inspiring among his people an awesome resistance against Germany,
which ultimately forced a German retreat. Stalin’s own regime in the USSR was just as brutal as the Nazi regime in
many ways, and the alliance between Stalin and the Western Allies always remained rather tenuous because of mutual
distrust.
Harry S Truman - The 33rd U.S. president, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt upon Roosevelt’s death in April
1945. Truman, who led the country through the last few months of World War II, is best known for making the
controversial decision to use two atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945. After the war, Truman was crucial in
the implementation of the Marshall Plan, which greatly accelerated Western Europe’s economic recovery.
Allied Powers - An alliance during World War II made up of the countries that opposed the aggression of Nazi
Germany. Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union were the most prominent members, although many
other countries also joined.
Axis Powers - The collective term for Germany, Italy, and Japan’s military alliance in opposition to the Allied Powers.
Several smaller countries in Eastern Europe also became members of the Axis Powers temporarily.
Battle of Stalingrad - A brutal, five-month battle between German and Soviet forces for the important industrial city
of Stalingrad that resulted in the deaths of almost 2 million people. The battle involved very destructive air raids by the
German Luftwaffe and bloody urban street fighting. In February 1943, despite direct orders from Hitler forbidding it,
Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered the German forces to the Red Army.
Blitzkrieg - Literally “lightning war,” the term for Hitler’s invasion strategy of attacking a nation suddenly and with
overwhelming force. Hitler applied the blitzkrieg strategy, with varying degrees of success, to the German invasions
of Poland, France, and the Soviet Union.
D-Day - June 6, 1944, the day on which the Allied invasion of France via the Normandy coast began.
“Final Solution” - The Nazi’s euphemistic term for their plan to exterminate the Jews of Germany and other German-
controlled territories during World War II. The term was used at the Wannsee Conference of January 1942, in which
Nazi leaders planned the Holocaust but made no specific mention of the extermination camps that ultimately killed
millions.

UNIT 9: THE II WORLD WAR 9

4ºESO. IES CAÑADA REAL. Elena Espuela Nieto
Gestapo - The brutal Nazi secret police force, headed by the infamous Hermann Göring. The Gestapo was responsible
for the relocation of many European Jews to Nazi concentration camps during the war.
Munich Agreement - A September 30, 1938, agreement among Germany, Britain, Italy, and France that allowed
Germany to annex the region of western Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. The Munich Agreement was the most
famous example of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement prior to World War II.
Operation Barbarossa - The code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, which Hitler predicted
would take only six months but ended up miring the German armies for more than two years.
S.S. - In German, Schutzstaffel (“protection detachment”), the elite German paramilitary unit. Originally formed as a
unit to serve as Hitler’s personal bodyguards, the S.S. grew and took on the duties of an elite military formation. During
World War II, the Nazi regime used the S.S. to handle the extermination of Jews and other racial minorities, among
other duties. The S.S. had its own army, independent of the regular German army (the Wehrmacht), to carry out its
operations behind enemy lines.

UNIT 9: THE II WORLD WAR 10

4ºESO. IES CAÑADA REAL. Elena Espuela Nieto