America's economy was strong and sustained the world economy. When our economy collapsed so did the rest of the worlds. Even though our economy was pro
sperous it had many flaws. Some of these are uneven distribution of wealth, overproduction by business and agriculture, and Americans were buying less. All of these flaws together forced our economy to fail, which forced the rest of the worlds economy to fail.
After the collapse American bankers demanded all of their loans to be repaid, and American investors pulled all their money out of foreign countries. Demand for European imports dropped
because of tariffs that were placed. These tariffs were placed so all the money in America would stay here, and we would buy our own products instead of foreign ones. However the tariffs only made things worse and anyone who relied on exportation to America were hurt.
After this more countries started to raise tariffs causing world trade to drop by 65%.
Germany and Austria were dependent n American loans and had many war debts. Due to this they were both hit particularly hard by the depression. Then in 1931 Austria's biggest bank failed. Farmers and urban workers in Asia also suffered because of the falling value of exports. Latin America also relied on exports that were losing value.
Dictators rise in Europe
There was a new political movement rising in Europe called fascism. Fascism was a militaristic and focused on obedience to your country and ruler. It didn't have a set theory for people to follow, but most fascist believed in extreme nationalism. They also believed that peaceful countries were only there to be captured. They were led by a dictator, people were denied rights, and only had one ruling party.
The conditions in Italy were bad at the time. They hadn't gained all the territory they wanted in WWI and their unemployment and inflation were building. People believed their democratic government wasn't strong enough to save them. While all this was going on a politician and newspaper editor promised to give the Italian people back power and rebuild themselves. His name was Benito Mussolini. He had founded the fascist in Italy in 1919 and they had been becoming more popular as times worsened. Then fascists marched on Rome and told King Victor Emmanuel III to put Mussolini as head of the government. The king decided that this would be best and gave him power.
Adolf Hitler joined a right wing political group in 1919, which believed in overturning the treaty of Versailles. The party was eventually called the national socialist German workers party, or Nazi for
short. The parties ideals formed nazism, a German form of fascism, later on. The party then built themselves a militia. Hitler then became the leader of the Nazi party and plotted to take over the government. They had a March, but it failed and he was thrown in jail. While in jail he wrote Mein Kampf, a book detailing all his beliefs and goals. After jail he restarted the the Nazi party. No one payed attention until the Great Depression when Germany needed a strong leader. Other countries like Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania also were ruled by dictators.
The conservatives thought they could control him and told the president to make him chancellor. When he became chancellor he called for an election. Soon afterwards a fire burned down the parliament building, and he blamed it on the communists. Stirring fear of the communists in the people his party gained the majority and he declared Germany a totalitarian state. He banned all other parties and arrested his opponents. He formed the SS, a black uniformed elite unit who were only loyal to him. They arrested and killed hundreds of Hitlers enemies. Then his secret police, the gestapo applied terror to the people and forced them into obedience. After this he took control of the economy and made new laws that got rid of strikes and independent labor unions, and gave the government authority over business and labor. After this he built factories, highways, built weapons, and made a bigger military bringing unemployment to only 1.5 million people.
Hitler then started taking control of all aspects of German life. He turned all media outlets into tools for propaganda. He burned books that weren't good according to Nazi beliefs, and stopped churches from speak against him or his government. He forced all children to join the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls. He believed the struggle in his country was bringing victory to the strong, and twisted the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to support his brutality. Then he turned his attention on the Jews. He used the Jews as scapegoats for all of Germany's problems even though they were 1% of the population. This brought a wave of antisemitism into Germany and violence started to break out against them. Laws were made to deprive Jews of rights, and Nazi mobs started going to Jewish homes and buildings to destroy anything they could. That night was called the night of broken glass and begun the process of eliminating Jews completely.
Beginnings of WWII
Japan became more democratic, but its parliament and civilian leaders were very limited in power. The armed forces of Japan only answered to the emperor. When the Great Depression hit the Japanese blames there government. Eventually military leaders took over and gave all of the power to the emperor. The militarists were very nationalist and thought conquering would solve a lot of their economic problems, and give their growing population more room.
Then they took control of Manchuria and gave it a puppet government. This attack caused a lot of trouble in the League of Nations, but Japan ignored it all and left the league. Then Japan invaded North China and defeated their forces. They took the Chinese Capitol and forced them to retreat. After they did Mao Zedong and and guerrillas continues to fight them in the conquered land.
Over in Italy Mussolini decided to conquer Ethiopia, an independent nation in Africa. Ethiopia had only swords and spears, while Italians had bombs, guns, and airplanes. Ethiopia asked for help from the league, but no one did anything. The British even let Italian people and supplies get to Ethiopia through the Suez Canal to try and keep peace.
Hitler saw how the League of Nations wasn't doing anything and let him rebuild his army, so he took a risk and sent soldiers to Rhineland where they weren't allowed to go. France was scared ofthis and did nothing. Britain gave them the land still hoping for peace. This made Hitler start expanding faster knowing they weren't going to attack. Italy saw how powerful they were becoming and formed an alliance called the Rome Berlin Axis, and a month later Japan joined the alliance.
Francisco Franco and other military leaders started a long civil war in Spain. Franco and the other leaders wanted to get rid of the current government in favor of a fascist one. Mussolini and Hitler helped Franco, but only the soviets helped the republicans. While this was going on Britain and France tried their hardest to keep peace. They gave several concessions because their fear of war. The U.S. had many isolationist at the time and passed laws preventing them from selling arms or giving loans to nations at war. Then again Britain and France let Germany take land. This time Germany annexed Austria even though France and Britain had a pact to keep its independence. Then Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia and demanded they give him Sudetenland, which was in their border and populated with a lot of Germans. The Czechs rejected giving up their land and asked France to help them.
When this happened Italy, Germany, Britain, and France had a meeting in Munich about it. The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, believed he could still keep the peace. At this meeting France and Britain, again, gave the land to Germany as long as they respected the new borders. Winston Churchill, a member or parliament, disagreed with the terms and tried to warn people how disastrous this was going to be. It turns out he was right, Germany and Italy were now convinced France and Britain wouldn't even come close to doing anything that would risk war. So Germany took Czechoslovakia and attacked Poland, while Italy took Albania. Britain and France asked the Soviets to help them stop the aggression, but Stalin sided with Germany and formed a nonaggression pact with Germany. Also secretly they agreed that Stalin could take parts of Poland, while Germany would take the other parts.
Major Battles of WWII
Germany tested their new military strategy, blitzkrieg, on Poland. In it they quickly sent in tanks and planes to attack and weaken then sent in huge infantry forces. This ended up working well for them. While the Germans attacked the other half of Poland the Soviets occupied the eastern half and then moved north. They took Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia easily, but the Finnish fought back. The Soviets thought it would be a quick invasion, but the Finnish fought hard, and the Soviets weren't prepared for the hard winter. Even though, the Soviets forced them to surrender.
At this time Britain and France had declared war against Germany, but did nothing with their troops. Hitler then attacked Norway and Denmark by surprise. Denmark fell in 4 hours and Norway fell after two months. In these territories Germany built bases so they could attack Britain. Germany then attack Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. While the bigger powers were focused on these small countries Germany went in and quickly blew through France. They had trapped the French armies in Dunkirk, and Great Britain sent hundreds of ships in to get them out of France.
After France fell Charles de Gaulle set up a government in exile in London and focused on retaking France.
Britain said they'd never give up and Hitler focused on invading them. He wanted first destroy their air force then send in thousands of infantry, so he sent in his air force to destroy airplane factories and air fields. They then attacked cities to break Britain's morale. Even though they were outnumbered the British Air Force fought back with the help of radar and a machine that could decrypt German messages. With the counter attacks he started bombing them at night, and eventually he gave up and moved to the Mediterranean.
Mussolini then took action and attacked North Africa. He pushed 60 miles into Egypt very quickly. Then Britain fight back killing and capturing thousand of Italians and retaking a lot of land. Seeing this, Hitler sent in a tank force under general Erwin Rommel. This was force took the British by surprise and forced them to retreat. After that the British forced Rommel to retreat, and finally Rommel went through and took Tobruk. This defeat hurt the allies a lot.
While Rommel was in Africa Hitler had other generals in the Balkans. He had already began to plot invading the Soviet Union, and wanted to build bases in southeast Europe for when he did invade. Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary joined axis powers while, Greece and Yugoslavia didn't. He then invaded and quickly won in Greece and Yugoslavia. After this he invaded Russia who was not prepared. Russia's military may have been the biggest in the world, but it was undertrained and equipped. Germany pushed far into Russia, but Russian soldier burned everything behind them so the Germans no resources.
Germany then tried to starve Leningrad, but it was taking too long so he attacked Moscow. The soviets counter attacked in Moscow, and winter was beginning to start. The German herbals realized this and started to retreat, but Hitler wouldn't allow it. Napoleon made the same mistake of invading Russia in the winter, and now that same mistake killed thousands of German troops.
The U.S. started selling supplies to the allies knowing that if the allies fell they would be forced into the war. They didn't join the war, but Roosevelt secretly met with Churchill and made the Atlantic Charter. While this was happening a
German submarine sunk an American ship and Roosevelt gave the command to destroy any German ship in sight
Japan's Role
Japan had wanted an empire and started attacking China, however this was taking longer than they expected. They wanted extra supplies so they set out for colonies in Southeast Asia. The U.S. heard about this and sent troops into China to stop Japan. They didn't want Japan to attack the colonies because the Philippines, which was owned by the U.S., was close by and they didn't want it invaded. After this admiral Isoroku Yamamato ordered an attack on the Hawaiian naval base in Pearl Harbor. After the attack the U.S. Joined the war.
Guam and wake island were easily taken by the Japanese. Next they looked to the Philippines, and even though there were tough battles it was eventually taken by the Japanese. They then took Hong Kong, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. After this they looked to invade India. By this time Japan had taken millions of miles of land in Asia. They treated conquered civilians horribly, and were even crueler to prisoners of war.
The U.S. Air Force, under James H. Doolittle bombed Tokyo and other major cities in Japan. This gave the U.S. confidence, and took some away from Japan. There was then the battle of coral sea. In this battle both sides instead of fighting ship to ship fought with airplanes that attacked the ship. The allies in this battle took more losses, but stopped the Japanese from continuing to expand southward. Next there was the battle of midway. The Japanese tried to take an important military base on midway, but the U.S. had found out and prepared. They attacked the naval fleet before it got the chance to do any real damage. With this naval fleet crippled the Japanese retreated.
Soon after the allies went on the offensive. General Douglas MacArthur thought it was too time consuming to take every single island, so they took the less defended islands that were closer to Japan's mainland. The U.S. had found out the Japanese were building a huge base in Guadalcanal and quickly attacked to stop them from building it. The marines had trouble taking it and both sides started to send in more and more troops. It became a brutal and destruction battle, but in the end Japan had lost so many people they were forced to retreat.
U.S. Involvment
Beginning in 1931, Japan had decided to expand. That year, Japan's troops had been able to take over Manchuria. In 1937, the Japanese invaded China's heartland. However, They did not find an easy victory in China. They actually found themselves a battle that prolonged the war, and placed a strain on the economy of Japan. Many of Japan's resources had also been depleted. So,
this vicious nation looked to rich European colonies in Southeast Asia to replenish all that they had lost.
By 1940, the United States had cracked codes hidden in Japanese secret messages that revealed their plans to conquer Southeast Asia. Americans saw this as a threat to their control of the
Philippine Islands and Guam. So, in response to Japan's plans, America sent aid to China to assist in resisting Japan. However, this didn't stop the Japanese from conquering Vietnam, Cambodia
, and Laos. The loss of these areas to Japanese attacks forced U.S President Roosevelt to cut off oil shipments to Japan, in 1941. Yet, despite the oil shortage they had, Japan still hoped to surprise European colonial powers and the United States. Japan had formed plans to attack British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, and American outposts in the Pacific. At this time the brilliant naval strategist, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, specifically planned an attack on Pearl Harbor. This U.S fleet in Hawaii was a threat to Japan.
On December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The Japanese had carried out their plan to remove this threat. In two hours, 19 ships were sunk, of which 8 were battleships. The lives of more than 2,300 American men and women had been taken. On December 8, 1941 President Roosevelt addressed the Congress with a declaration of war. The Congress quickly accepted his declaration for a war on Japan and their allies. America was now a part of the very intense World War II. Our great nation had joined the Allied Powers.
The Holocaust
Hitler was a very racist man. He openly expressed his hatred for the Jewish people. This hatred is what he wanted to fill Europe. For generations, many Europeans had blamed the Jews for their failures. Some even blamed them for their defeat in World War I and their economic problems after the war. In time, Hitler's army of Nazis made the targeting of Jews a government policy. Even further than that Jews of their rights to German citizenship and forbade marriages between Jews and non-Jews. The deprivation of these rights came with the passing of the Nuremberg Laws, in 1935. Later, the kinds of work that Jews could do was also limited.
On November 7, 1938 Grynszpan, a 17 year old youth, shot a German diplomat. Grynszpan did this in reaction to his father's deportation, after 27 years of living in Germany. When Nazi leaders found out about what this Jewish youth had done, they used it as a reason to launch a violent attack on the Jewish community.
On November 8, Nazi storm troopers attacked the homes, businesses, and synagogues of the Jewish people across Germany and Austria. Around 30,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, where they typically would die. The night of November 9 became known as Kristallnacht, "Night of the Broken Glass." Kristallnacht moved the Nazi policy of Jewish persecution forward.
Many Jews realized that the violence against them was only going to increase. This caused many of them to flee to other countries. However, many still remained in Germany. Those who remained in Germany would eventually be conquered by Hitler. Territories where millions of Jews lived were soon to be under his control. As more and more Jewish people emigrated, it became an issue for the countries that were admitting them. An overwhelming amount of immigration forced countries to stop opening their doors to the suffering Jewish people.
When emigration failed to allow Germany to be a Jewish free place, Hitler created a new plan. He began to send the Jewish people who were under his control to designated cities. These cities were segregated areas, or ghettos, where Jews would be herded by the Nazis. The ghettos were very overcrowded, and were sealed off by barbed wire and stone walls. Hitler hoped that Jews would starve to death and die from disease in the ghettos. However, the Jews still managed to persevere. Jews within the ghettos actually started resistance organizations. Jewish scholars began to keep records of everything, so that people may one day know the truth.
As the Jewish people continued to survive, Hitler grew impatient. He formed a plan known as the "Final Solution." It was a plan that called for genocide, which was the murder of an entire people. Hitler believed that his plan of conquest could only be successful with the purity of the Aryan race. He wanted to eliminate other races, nationalities, and groups that he saw as inferior to "protect" racial purity. Gypsies, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, the disabled, and the incurably ill were among the groups that Hitler sought to eliminate. However, the group that he focused on the most was the Jews.
When Nazi troops swept across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the mass killings began. The units from Hitler's elite security force moved from town to town hunting Jews. Jewish men, women, and even babies were rounded up by the elite security force and their collaborators. Once rounded up, the Jews were taken to isolated areas and were shot. Pits were used as the graves of these people. Any Jews who were not rounded up, were taken to concentration camps. In these camps they were slave-laborers. The camps were no different than prisons. A majority of the camps were located in Germany and Poland. It was hoped that the horrible conditions within the camps would speed up the elimination of the Jewish people. Prisoners worked seven days a week, for the security force and German businesses. If any prisoner did not work "fast enough," they were either severely beaten or killed by the guards in the camp. Starvation was very common in the camps, since prisoners were hardly given any food. Most prisoners actually lost 50 pounds within their first few months in the camps.
After turning to the "Final Solution" in 1942, Hitler had truly grown impatient with the Jewish people. He had his Nazis build extermination camps with gas chambers, which could kill as many as 6,000 humans a day. In Auschwitz, the largest extermination camp, prisoners had to go before an elite security force doctor. The doctor would determine who was strong enough to be spared. Mostly men were kept alive. Women, children, the ill, and the elderly were most commonly labeled weak. Anyone who was labeled weak, would be killed that same day. Victims would be told to head to the chambers to take a shower. However, these chambers had fake showerheads. The real purpose of the chambers was to expose the weak to cyanide gas, which would kill all people in the chamber within minutes. Later, crematoriums were installed in extermination camps to burn the bodies of the murdered.
About 6 million Jewish people were killed in the death camps and in Nazi massacres. Fewer than 4 million Jews survived. Many people survived with the help of non-Jewish people, who helped them escape. There were also many revolts, that began in 1943, which sparked a change. In 1944, women like Ella Gartner and Roza Robota helped make a revolt at Auschwitz possible. They organized resistance in the camp. These women died making efforts to help change the outcome of each Jewish person's life. Less than a month after their execution on January 6, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated.
The Allied Victory
Wherever Allied forces fought, people on the home front rallied to support them. In war-torn countries like the Soviet Union and Great Britain, civilians endured extreme hardships. Many lost their lives and their loved ones. Americans also contributed to the war effort. We produced the weapons and equipment that would help win the war. To defeat the Axis powers, the Allied forces would have to mobilize for total war. Factories in the United States had to convert to wartime production and made everything from machine guns to boots. Automobile factories produced tanks. Typewriting companies even made armor-piercing shells. By 1944, about 18 million Americans had a job in a war industry.
To continue receiving support from their people, Allied governments began to use highly effective propaganda. Propaganda inspired many youths and families to give as much effort as they could to help finance and produce helpful things for their country. Youths collected scrap metal to produce artillery shells, and saved money to buy stamps that would help finance the war. Families used their life savings to buy things like tanks for their army.
However, propaganda also had negative effects. Pearl Harbor was a very surprising and scary event. It sent a wave of prejudice across the United States. Japanese Americans had suddenly become a "threat" in the eyes of many Americans. People were so frightened by the bombing, that they turned against the Japanese almost entirely. On February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt even issued an executive order for the internment of Japanese Americans. In March, the U.S military started to round up "aliens" and shipped them to relocation camps. The camps were restricted military areas, which were located far away from the coast. These locations were meant to prevent the "enemy aliens" from assisting in any other Japanese invasions. Propaganda blinded Americans so much, however, that they were oblivious to the fact that many of the captive Japanese Americans were native to the United States. Many of them had even volunteered for military service, even though their families remained in camps.
In 1943, the Allies secretly began building an invasion force in Great Britain. Their plan involved an attack on German-held France across the English Channel. By May of 1944, everything had been set for the attack across the English Channel. Thousands of planes, ships, tanks, landing craft, and more than three million troops were waiting for the order to attack. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the commander of this large force, and planned to strike on the coast of Normandy, in northwestern France. In addition to their original plan, the Allies kept Hitler guessing where the attack would come from by setting up a dummy army with a headquarters and equipment. This fake army seemed to be preparing for an attack on the French seaport of Calais.
On June 6, 1944 the actual invasion started. Of course there were many casualties as the Allied forces fought, but on July 25 the Allied forces were able to punch a hole in the German defenses near Saint-Lo. This allowed the United States Third Army to break out, under the command of General George Patton. A month after this, the Allied forces marched into Paris triumphantly. France, Belgium, and Luxembourg had been liberated after their efforts in Normandy. This victory also had given the Allied forces an edge over the Axis Powers moving forward.
Moving forward, the Allied forces were quickly able to get the unconditional surrender of Germany. After the Battle of the Bulge, there was not much the Nazis could do. So on May 7, 1945 General Eisenhower accepted the Third Reich's surrender from the German military. The surrender was officially signed on May 9, in Berlin. This day became known as V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe had finally ended, and the Japanese would soon come to surrender as well. On September 2, 1945 the Japanese surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur. Their surrender followed the destruction of some of their largest cities, and the casualties of many of their people in atomic bombings
Europe and Japan in Ruins
By the end of World War II, Europe was in ruins. About 40 million people had been died, and two-thirds of the victims were civilians. Bombing and shelling had reduced hundreds of cities to rubble. Much of the countryside had been destroyed by ground war. There were also many people left homeless after the war. There was desolation everywhere, and hardly any life left. People even had to live without water, electricity, and with very little food. Survivors of concentration camps, prisoners of war, and refugees took to the road. They wandered across Europe in search of family or even simply a safe place to live.
Misery had continued in Europe for several years after the wear. The fighting had ravaged Europe's countryside, and agriculture had been completely disrupted. Few people remained to be able to harvest crops. Transportation systems had also been destroyed. Thousands continued to die of famine and disease that spread throughout the bombed cities.
Following the war, the Communist Party membership and influence also began to decline. During the Nuremberg Trials in Europe, Nazi leaders were faced with the charges that they deserved. However, leaders like Hitler had committed suicide long before the trials started.
Japan was faced with similar conditions, as two million lives had been lost. Major cities like Tokyo had been destroyed by bombing raids. Atomic bombs left barren wastelands. Japan had basically been stripped of its colonial empire by the Allies. General Douglas MacArthur was able to make reforms in Japan, however. He demilitarized Japan, leaving them with only a small police force. War criminals were brought to trial and were condemned. There was also democratization, where people had finally been able to have more of a say in government. With government reforms, there also came a new and fair constitution for the Japanese in 1946. It went into effect on May 3, 1947. MacArthur also broadened land ownership and increased the participation of workers and farmers. He gave workers the right to create independent labor unions. Japanese emperors also had less control of their people now, and were declared not divine.
In September of 1951, the United States and 47 other nations signed a formal peace treaty with Japan. This treaty officially ended the war. Moving forward, Japan also had agreed to allow the United States to protect them. Japan and the United States were now allies. However, Japan was not allowed to start a war. The only time that Japan can fight, is in defense to an invasion on its territory.
The World Before and After WWII
The Great Depression
America's economy was strong and sustained the world economy. When our economy collapsed so did the rest of the worlds. Even though our economy was pro
sperous it had many flaws. Some of these are uneven distribution of wealth, overproduction by business and agriculture, and Americans were buying less. All of these flaws together forced our economy to fail, which forced the rest of the worlds economy to fail.
After the collapse American bankers demanded all of their loans to be repaid, and American investors pulled all their money out of foreign countries. Demand for European imports dropped
because of tariffs that were placed. These tariffs were placed so all the money in America would stay here, and we would buy our own products instead of foreign ones. However the tariffs only made things worse and anyone who relied on exportation to America were hurt.
After this more countries started to raise tariffs causing world trade to drop by 65%.
Germany and Austria were dependent n American loans and had many war debts. Due to this they were both hit particularly hard by the depression. Then in 1931 Austria's biggest bank failed. Farmers and urban workers in Asia also suffered because of the falling value of exports. Latin America also relied on exports that were losing value.
Dictators rise in Europe
There was a new political movement rising in Europe called fascism. Fascism was a militaristic and focused on obedience to your country and ruler. It didn't have a set theory for people to follow, but most fascist believed in extreme nationalism. They also believed that peaceful countries were only there to be captured. They were led by a dictator, people were denied rights, and only had one ruling party.
The conditions in Italy were bad at the time. They hadn't gained all the territory they wanted in WWI and their unemployment and inflation were building. People believed their democratic government wasn't strong enough to save them. While all this was going on a politician and newspaper editor promised to give the Italian people back power and rebuild themselves. His name was Benito Mussolini. He had founded the fascist in Italy in 1919 and they had been becoming more popular as times worsened. Then fascists marched on Rome and told King Victor Emmanuel III to put Mussolini as head of the government. The king decided that this would be best and gave him power.
Adolf Hitler joined a right wing political group in 1919, which believed in overturning the treaty of Versailles. The party was eventually called the national socialist German workers party, or Nazi for
short. The parties ideals formed nazism, a German form of fascism, later on. The party then built themselves a militia. Hitler then became the leader of the Nazi party and plotted to take over the government. They had a March, but it failed and he was thrown in jail. While in jail he wrote Mein Kampf, a book detailing all his beliefs and goals. After jail he restarted the the Nazi party. No one payed attention until the Great Depression when Germany needed a strong leader. Other countries like Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania also were ruled by dictators.
The conservatives thought they could control him and told the president to make him chancellor. When he became chancellor he called for an election. Soon afterwards a fire burned down the parliament building, and he blamed it on the communists. Stirring fear of the communists in the people his party gained the majority and he declared Germany a totalitarian state. He banned all other parties and arrested his opponents. He formed the SS, a black uniformed elite unit who were only loyal to him. They arrested and killed hundreds of Hitlers enemies. Then his secret police, the gestapo applied terror to the people and forced them into obedience. After this he took control of the economy and made new laws that got rid of strikes and independent labor unions, and gave the government authority over business and labor. After this he built factories, highways, built weapons, and made a bigger military bringing unemployment to only 1.5 million people.
Hitler then started taking control of all aspects of German life. He turned all media outlets into tools for propaganda. He burned books that weren't good according to Nazi beliefs, and stopped churches from speak against him or his government. He forced all children to join the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls. He believed the struggle in his country was bringing victory to the strong, and twisted the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to support his brutality. Then he turned his attention on the Jews. He used the Jews as scapegoats for all of Germany's problems even though they were 1% of the population. This brought a wave of antisemitism into Germany and violence started to break out against them. Laws were made to deprive Jews of rights, and Nazi mobs started going to Jewish homes and buildings to destroy anything they could. That night was called the night of broken glass and begun the process of eliminating Jews completely.
Beginnings of WWII
Japan became more democratic, but its parliament and civilian leaders were very limited in power. The armed forces of Japan only answered to the emperor. When the Great Depression hit the Japanese blames there government. Eventually military leaders took over and gave all of the power to the emperor. The militarists were very nationalist and thought conquering would solve a lot of their economic problems, and give their growing population more room.
Then they took control of Manchuria and gave it a puppet government. This attack caused a lot of trouble in the League of Nations, but Japan ignored it all and left the league. Then Japan invaded North China and defeated their forces. They took the Chinese Capitol and forced them to retreat. After they did Mao Zedong and and guerrillas continues to fight them in the conquered land.
Over in Italy Mussolini decided to conquer Ethiopia, an independent nation in Africa. Ethiopia had only swords and spears, while Italians had bombs, guns, and airplanes. Ethiopia asked for help from the league, but no one did anything. The British even let Italian people and supplies get to Ethiopia through the Suez Canal to try and keep peace.
Hitler saw how the League of Nations wasn't doing anything and let him rebuild his army, so he took a risk and sent soldiers to Rhineland where they weren't allowed to go. France was scared ofthis and did nothing. Britain gave them the land still hoping for peace. This made Hitler start expanding faster knowing they weren't going to attack. Italy saw how powerful they were becoming and formed an alliance called the Rome Berlin Axis, and a month later Japan joined the alliance.
Francisco Franco and other military leaders started a long civil war in Spain. Franco and the other leaders wanted to get rid of the current government in favor of a fascist one. Mussolini and Hitler helped Franco, but only the soviets helped the republicans. While this was going on Britain and France tried their hardest to keep peace. They gave several concessions because their fear of war. The U.S. had many isolationist at the time and passed laws preventing them from selling arms or giving loans to nations at war. Then again Britain and France let Germany take land. This time Germany annexed Austria even though France and Britain had a pact to keep its independence. Then Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia and demanded they give him Sudetenland, which was in their border and populated with a lot of Germans. The Czechs rejected giving up their land and asked France to help them.
When this happened Italy, Germany, Britain, and France had a meeting in Munich about it. The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, believed he could still keep the peace. At this meeting France and Britain, again, gave the land to Germany as long as they respected the new borders. Winston Churchill, a member or parliament, disagreed with the terms and tried to warn people how disastrous this was going to be. It turns out he was right, Germany and Italy were now convinced France and Britain wouldn't even come close to doing anything that would risk war. So Germany took Czechoslovakia and attacked Poland, while Italy took Albania. Britain and France asked the Soviets to help them stop the aggression, but Stalin sided with Germany and formed a nonaggression pact with Germany. Also secretly they agreed that Stalin could take parts of Poland, while Germany would take the other parts.
Major Battles of WWII
Germany tested their new military strategy, blitzkrieg, on Poland. In it they quickly sent in tanks and planes to attack and weaken then sent in huge infantry forces. This ended up working well for them. While the Germans attacked the other half of Poland the Soviets occupied the eastern half and then moved north. They took Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia easily, but the Finnish fought back. The Soviets thought it would be a quick invasion, but the Finnish fought hard, and the Soviets weren't prepared for the hard winter. Even though, the Soviets forced them to surrender.
At this time Britain and France had declared war against Germany, but did nothing with their troops. Hitler then attacked Norway and Denmark by surprise. Denmark fell in 4 hours and Norway fell after two months. In these territories Germany built bases so they could attack Britain. Germany then attack Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. While the bigger powers were focused on these small countries Germany went in and quickly blew through France. They had trapped the French armies in Dunkirk, and Great Britain sent hundreds of ships in to get them out of France.
After France fell Charles de Gaulle set up a government in exile in London and focused on retaking France.
Britain said they'd never give up and Hitler focused on invading them. He wanted first destroy their air force then send in thousands of infantry, so he sent in his air force to destroy airplane factories and air fields. They then attacked cities to break Britain's morale. Even though they were outnumbered the British Air Force fought back with the help of radar and a machine that could decrypt German messages. With the counter attacks he started bombing them at night, and eventually he gave up and moved to the Mediterranean.
Mussolini then took action and attacked North Africa. He pushed 60 miles into Egypt very quickly. Then Britain fight back killing and capturing thousand of Italians and retaking a lot of land. Seeing this, Hitler sent in a tank force under general Erwin Rommel. This was force took the British by surprise and forced them to retreat. After that the British forced Rommel to retreat, and finally Rommel went through and took Tobruk. This defeat hurt the allies a lot.
While Rommel was in Africa Hitler had other generals in the Balkans. He had already began to plot invading the Soviet Union, and wanted to build bases in southeast Europe for when he did invade. Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary joined axis powers while, Greece and Yugoslavia didn't. He then invaded and quickly won in Greece and Yugoslavia. After this he invaded Russia who was not prepared. Russia's military may have been the biggest in the world, but it was undertrained and equipped. Germany pushed far into Russia, but Russian soldier burned everything behind them so the Germans no resources.
Germany then tried to starve Leningrad, but it was taking too long so he attacked Moscow. The soviets counter attacked in Moscow, and winter was beginning to start. The German herbals realized this and started to retreat, but Hitler wouldn't allow it. Napoleon made the same mistake of invading Russia in the winter, and now that same mistake killed thousands of German troops.
The U.S. started selling supplies to the allies knowing that if the allies fell they would be forced into the war. They didn't join the war, but Roosevelt secretly met with Churchill and made the Atlantic Charter. While this was happening a
German submarine sunk an American ship and Roosevelt gave the command to destroy any German ship in sight
Japan's Role
Japan had wanted an empire and started attacking China, however this was taking longer than they expected. They wanted extra supplies so they set out for colonies in Southeast Asia. The U.S. heard about this and sent troops into China to stop Japan. They didn't want Japan to attack the colonies because the Philippines, which was owned by the U.S., was close by and they didn't want it invaded. After this admiral Isoroku Yamamato ordered an attack on the Hawaiian naval base in Pearl Harbor. After the attack the U.S. Joined the war.
Guam and wake island were easily taken by the Japanese. Next they looked to the Philippines, and even though there were tough battles it was eventually taken by the Japanese. They then took Hong Kong, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. After this they looked to invade India. By this time Japan had taken millions of miles of land in Asia. They treated conquered civilians horribly, and were even crueler to prisoners of war.
The U.S. Air Force, under James H. Doolittle bombed Tokyo and other major cities in Japan. This gave the U.S. confidence, and took some away from Japan. There was then the battle of coral sea. In this battle both sides instead of fighting ship to ship fought with airplanes that attacked the ship. The allies in this battle took more losses, but stopped the Japanese from continuing to expand southward. Next there was the battle of midway. The Japanese tried to take an important military base on midway, but the U.S. had found out and prepared. They attacked the naval fleet before it got the chance to do any real damage. With this naval fleet crippled the Japanese retreated.
Soon after the allies went on the offensive. General Douglas MacArthur thought it was too time consuming to take every single island, so they took the less defended islands that were closer to Japan's mainland. The U.S. had found out the Japanese were building a huge base in Guadalcanal and quickly attacked to stop them from building it. The marines had trouble taking it and both sides started to send in more and more troops. It became a brutal and destruction battle, but in the end Japan had lost so many people they were forced to retreat.
U.S. Involvment
Beginning in 1931, Japan had decided to expand. That year, Japan's troops had been able to take over Manchuria. In 1937, the Japanese invaded China's heartland. However, They did not find an easy victory in China. They actually found themselves a battle that prolonged the war, and placed a strain on the economy of Japan. Many of Japan's resources had also been depleted. So,
this vicious nation looked to rich European colonies in Southeast Asia to replenish all that they had lost.
By 1940, the United States had cracked codes hidden in Japanese secret messages that revealed their plans to conquer Southeast Asia. Americans saw this as a threat to their control of the
Philippine Islands and Guam. So, in response to Japan's plans, America sent aid to China to assist in resisting Japan. However, this didn't stop the Japanese from conquering Vietnam, Cambodia
, and Laos. The loss of these areas to Japanese attacks forced U.S President Roosevelt to cut off oil shipments to Japan, in 1941. Yet, despite the oil shortage they had, Japan still hoped to surprise European colonial powers and the United States. Japan had formed plans to attack British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, and American outposts in the Pacific. At this time the brilliant naval strategist, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, specifically planned an attack on Pearl Harbor. This U.S fleet in Hawaii was a threat to Japan.
On December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The Japanese had carried out their plan to remove this threat. In two hours, 19 ships were sunk, of which 8 were battleships. The lives of more than 2,300 American men and women had been taken. On December 8, 1941 President Roosevelt addressed the Congress with a declaration of war. The Congress quickly accepted his declaration for a war on Japan and their allies. America was now a part of the very intense World War II. Our great nation had joined the Allied Powers.
The Holocaust
Hitler was a very racist man. He openly expressed his hatred for the Jewish people. This hatred is what he wanted to fill Europe. For generations, many Europeans had blamed the Jews for their failures. Some even blamed them for their defeat in World War I and their economic problems after the war. In time, Hitler's army of Nazis made the targeting of Jews a government policy. Even further than that Jews of their rights to German citizenship and forbade marriages between Jews and non-Jews. The deprivation of these rights came with the passing of the Nuremberg Laws, in 1935. Later, the kinds of work that Jews could do was also limited.
On November 7, 1938 Grynszpan, a 17 year old youth, shot a German diplomat. Grynszpan did this in reaction to his father's deportation, after 27 years of living in Germany. When Nazi leaders found out about what this Jewish youth had done, they used it as a reason to launch a violent attack on the Jewish community.
On November 8, Nazi storm troopers attacked the homes, businesses, and synagogues of the Jewish people across Germany and Austria. Around 30,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps, where they typically would die. The night of November 9 became known as Kristallnacht, "Night of the Broken Glass." Kristallnacht moved the Nazi policy of Jewish persecution forward.
Many Jews realized that the violence against them was only going to increase. This caused many of them to flee to other countries. However, many still remained in Germany. Those who remained in Germany would eventually be conquered by Hitler. Territories where millions of Jews lived were soon to be under his control. As more and more Jewish people emigrated, it became an issue for the countries that were admitting them. An overwhelming amount of immigration forced countries to stop opening their doors to the suffering Jewish people.
When emigration failed to allow Germany to be a Jewish free place, Hitler created a new plan. He began to send the Jewish people who were under his control to designated cities. These cities were segregated areas, or ghettos, where Jews would be herded by the Nazis. The ghettos were very overcrowded, and were sealed off by barbed wire and stone walls. Hitler hoped that Jews would starve to death and die from disease in the ghettos. However, the Jews still managed to persevere. Jews within the ghettos actually started resistance organizations. Jewish scholars began to keep records of everything, so that people may one day know the truth.
As the Jewish people continued to survive, Hitler grew impatient. He formed a plan known as the "Final Solution." It was a plan that called for genocide, which was the murder of an entire people. Hitler believed that his plan of conquest could only be successful with the purity of the Aryan race. He wanted to eliminate other races, nationalities, and groups that he saw as inferior to "protect" racial purity. Gypsies, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, the disabled, and the incurably ill were among the groups that Hitler sought to eliminate. However, the group that he focused on the most was the Jews.
When Nazi troops swept across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the mass killings began. The units from Hitler's elite security force moved from town to town hunting Jews. Jewish men, women, and even babies were rounded up by the elite security force and their collaborators. Once rounded up, the Jews were taken to isolated areas and were shot. Pits were used as the graves of these people. Any Jews who were not rounded up, were taken to concentration camps. In these camps they were slave-laborers. The camps were no different than prisons. A majority of the camps were located in Germany and Poland. It was hoped that the horrible conditions within the camps would speed up the elimination of the Jewish people. Prisoners worked seven days a week, for the security force and German businesses. If any prisoner did not work "fast enough," they were either severely beaten or killed by the guards in the camp. Starvation was very common in the camps, since prisoners were hardly given any food. Most prisoners actually lost 50 pounds within their first few months in the camps.
After turning to the "Final Solution" in 1942, Hitler had truly grown impatient with the Jewish people. He had his Nazis build extermination camps with gas chambers, which could kill as many as 6,000 humans a day. In Auschwitz, the largest extermination camp, prisoners had to go before an elite security force doctor. The doctor would determine who was strong enough to be spared. Mostly men were kept alive. Women, children, the ill, and the elderly were most commonly labeled weak. Anyone who was labeled weak, would be killed that same day. Victims would be told to head to the chambers to take a shower. However, these chambers had fake showerheads. The real purpose of the chambers was to expose the weak to cyanide gas, which would kill all people in the chamber within minutes. Later, crematoriums were installed in extermination camps to burn the bodies of the murdered.
About 6 million Jewish people were killed in the death camps and in Nazi massacres. Fewer than 4 million Jews survived. Many people survived with the help of non-Jewish people, who helped them escape. There were also many revolts, that began in 1943, which sparked a change. In 1944, women like Ella Gartner and Roza Robota helped make a revolt at Auschwitz possible. They organized resistance in the camp. These women died making efforts to help change the outcome of each Jewish person's life. Less than a month after their execution on January 6, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated.
The Allied Victory
Wherever Allied forces fought, people on the home front rallied to support them. In war-torn countries like the Soviet Union and Great Britain, civilians endured extreme hardships. Many lost their lives and their loved ones. Americans also contributed to the war effort. We produced the weapons and equipment that would help win the war. To defeat the Axis powers, the Allied forces would have to mobilize for total war. Factories in the United States had to convert to wartime production and made everything from machine guns to boots. Automobile factories produced tanks. Typewriting companies even made armor-piercing shells. By 1944, about 18 million Americans had a job in a war industry.
To continue receiving support from their people, Allied governments began to use highly effective propaganda. Propaganda inspired many youths and families to give as much effort as they could to help finance and produce helpful things for their country. Youths collected scrap metal to produce artillery shells, and saved money to buy stamps that would help finance the war. Families used their life savings to buy things like tanks for their army.
However, propaganda also had negative effects. Pearl Harbor was a very surprising and scary event. It sent a wave of prejudice across the United States. Japanese Americans had suddenly become a "threat" in the eyes of many Americans. People were so frightened by the bombing, that they turned against the Japanese almost entirely. On February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt even issued an executive order for the internment of Japanese Americans. In March, the U.S military started to round up "aliens" and shipped them to relocation camps. The camps were restricted military areas, which were located far away from the coast. These locations were meant to prevent the "enemy aliens" from assisting in any other Japanese invasions. Propaganda blinded Americans so much, however, that they were oblivious to the fact that many of the captive Japanese Americans were native to the United States. Many of them had even volunteered for military service, even though their families remained in camps.
In 1943, the Allies secretly began building an invasion force in Great Britain. Their plan involved an attack on German-held France across the English Channel. By May of 1944, everything had been set for the attack across the English Channel. Thousands of planes, ships, tanks, landing craft, and more than three million troops were waiting for the order to attack. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the commander of this large force, and planned to strike on the coast of Normandy, in northwestern France. In addition to their original plan, the Allies kept Hitler guessing where the attack would come from by setting up a dummy army with a headquarters and equipment. This fake army seemed to be preparing for an attack on the French seaport of Calais.
On June 6, 1944 the actual invasion started. Of course there were many casualties as the Allied forces fought, but on July 25 the Allied forces were able to punch a hole in the German defenses near Saint-Lo. This allowed the United States Third Army to break out, under the command of General George Patton. A month after this, the Allied forces marched into Paris triumphantly. France, Belgium, and Luxembourg had been liberated after their efforts in Normandy. This victory also had given the Allied forces an edge over the Axis Powers moving forward.
Moving forward, the Allied forces were quickly able to get the unconditional surrender of Germany. After the Battle of the Bulge, there was not much the Nazis could do. So on May 7, 1945 General Eisenhower accepted the Third Reich's surrender from the German military. The surrender was officially signed on May 9, in Berlin. This day became known as V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe had finally ended, and the Japanese would soon come to surrender as well. On September 2, 1945 the Japanese surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur. Their surrender followed the destruction of some of their largest cities, and the casualties of many of their people in atomic bombings
Europe and Japan in Ruins
By the end of World War II, Europe was in ruins. About 40 million people had been died, and two-thirds of the victims were civilians. Bombing and shelling had reduced hundreds of cities to rubble. Much of the countryside had been destroyed by ground war. There were also many people left homeless after the war. There was desolation everywhere, and hardly any life left. People even had to live without water, electricity, and with very little food. Survivors of concentration camps, prisoners of war, and refugees took to the road. They wandered across Europe in search of family or even simply a safe place to live.
Misery had continued in Europe for several years after the wear. The fighting had ravaged Europe's countryside, and agriculture had been completely disrupted. Few people remained to be able to harvest crops. Transportation systems had also been destroyed. Thousands continued to die of famine and disease that spread throughout the bombed cities.
Following the war, the Communist Party membership and influence also began to decline. During the Nuremberg Trials in Europe, Nazi leaders were faced with the charges that they deserved. However, leaders like Hitler had committed suicide long before the trials started.
Japan was faced with similar conditions, as two million lives had been lost. Major cities like Tokyo had been destroyed by bombing raids. Atomic bombs left barren wastelands. Japan had basically been stripped of its colonial empire by the Allies. General Douglas MacArthur was able to make reforms in Japan, however. He demilitarized Japan, leaving them with only a small police force. War criminals were brought to trial and were condemned. There was also democratization, where people had finally been able to have more of a say in government. With government reforms, there also came a new and fair constitution for the Japanese in 1946. It went into effect on May 3, 1947. MacArthur also broadened land ownership and increased the participation of workers and farmers. He gave workers the right to create independent labor unions. Japanese emperors also had less control of their people now, and were declared not divine.
In September of 1951, the United States and 47 other nations signed a formal peace treaty with Japan. This treaty officially ended the war. Moving forward, Japan also had agreed to allow the United States to protect them. Japan and the United States were now allies. However, Japan was not allowed to start a war. The only time that Japan can fight, is in defense to an invasion on its territory.
Atomic Bomb