20th Century Dictators/WW2

• Hideki Tojo


  Japanese politician and military leader who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1941-1944
• Hideki Tojo


  • Believed that the United States and other Western countries stood in the way of Japan's goals and that they needed to defend their country's interests
  • Supported imperialism and extreme nationalism
  • Promoted the belief that the only way to improve Japan's economy would be by going to war against China and the Soviet Union
• Joseph Stalin


  Soviet Revolutionary and politician who served as the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 till his death in 1953
• Joseph Stalin


  • His official title was General Secretary
  • Promoted the belief in a Leninist interpretation of Marxism, which eventually became known as Stalinism
  • Proposed the first of several "five-year plans" in 1928
  • The government, under Stalin, controlled all economic activity
  • Controlled agriculture by ordering all peasants to farm on state-owned farms or collectives
  • Used terror as a weapon against his people by violating their rights, opening private letters, planting listening devices, having no free press, and having no safe way of protesting
  • Grumblers or critics of Stalin were rounded up and sent to the Gulag, a system of brutal labor camps where many died
  • Used propaganda to build a "Cult of Personality" around himself
• Benito Mussolini


  Dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943
• Benito Mussolini


  • Considered the 'father of Fascism'
  • Set up a Fascist Party and promised to solve Italy's problems
  • Promised to rebuild Italy and recreate the Roman Empire
  • Organized armed gangs called the "Blackshirts"
  • Was called 'Il Duce' (il Doo-chay), the leader
  • Forced all the other political parties to be illegal, and he also got rid of democracy
  • His opponents were put to jail by his secret police
  • The government took control of all the radio stations and all the other Media to broadcast only the doctrines of fascism
  • Mussolini and his government controlled all the multi-medias, including radio, press, newspaper, and education, to force people to think that fascism was the right and the best doctrine
  • In October 1936, Mussolini signed an entire defensive alliance with Nazi Germany in the 'Pact of Steel'
• Adolf Hitler


  Fascist Dictator and founder of the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in Germany from 1933 until his death by suicide in 1945
• Adolf Hitler


  • Was born on April 20th, 1889, in Austria
  • Had a poor relationship with his father and was close to his mother
  • Was an aspiring painter and was twice rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna
  • It was at this time, in 1908, that Hitler began a movement based on the belief that Germans were the master race
  • Was a German soldier/messenger during WWl and was awarded the Iron Cross – the highest military honor in Germany
  • Wrote Mein Kampf ("My Struggle) in 1925 while he was in prison, which became the Nazi ideology – and it attacked Jews, Communists, democracy, and the Treaty of Versailles
  • After the 1933 election, Hitler proposed the Enabling Act, essentially giving him a dictatorship – and it passed!
  • The Enabling Act banned all political parties, declared Germany a one-party state, and prevented Jews from being in civil service professions
  • The Nazi Party used the Swastika because they felt it had connections to original caste systems that avoided racial mixing
  • The SS were Hitler's private bodyguards and were led by Heinrich Himmler, they arrested and killed anyone who challenged Hitler
  • The SS took over law enforcement in Germany and implemented the 'Final Solution'
  • The Gestapo were the secret police of Nazi Germany who helped set up concentration camps
  • The Hitler Youth was an organization under the Nazi Party, by 1936 they had over five million members who were indoctrinated in anti-Semitism and even drafted into the military ranks during WWII
• Holocaust


  A program of mass murder
• Genocide


  The annihilation of an entire race of people
• The NAZI party and Adolf Hitler's program against the Jews of Germany

  1. 1933: NAZIS boycott Jewish businesses, issue a decree that defines non-Aryans, Hermann Goering creates the GESTAPO, first concentration camps are built

  2. 1934: Jews are not allowed to have national health insurance, the SS (Schutzstaffel) is formed, Hitler became Der Fuherer and received a 90% approval rating

  3. 1935: Nuremberg Race Laws, Jews lose further rights to citizenship, Jews are banned from marrying Aryan women

  4. 1936: SS Deathshead division is created to guard camps, Heinreich Himmler is appointed Chief of the German Police, Jews are treated better at the Olympic games in Berlin - briefly

  5. 1937: Jews are not allowed to teach Germans, not allowed to be accountants or dentists, "Eternal Jew" exhibit opened in Germany

  6. 1938: Nazi troops enter Austria, League of Nations considers helping Jews fleeing Hitler but no country will take them, Jews are not allowed to practice medicine

  7. 1939: Reinhard Heydrich is ordered to speed up the emigration of Jews, the St. Louis is turned away from the US, Jews must hand over all gold and silver, Nazi troops seize Czechoslovakia, Jews in Poland are forced to wear yellow stars

  8. 1940: German Jews are deported to Poland, ghettos of Lodz, Krakow, and Warsaw are sealed off

  9. 1941: Nazis invade the Soviet Union, Hitler issues infamous "Commissar Order", SS Einsatzgruppen follow the German Army
• The Final Solution - Nazi plan to wipe out the Jewish population of Europe


  1. Phase 1 - Shooting: Jews were rounded up and told they were to be relocated, then taken to the woods and shot one by one, their bodies were buried in mass graves

  2. Phase 2 - Gas Vans: Jews were rounded up and told they were to be relocated in vans, the vans were equipped so that the van's exhaust was piped back into the van

  3. Phase 3 - The Camps: Nazi leaders decided to speed up the Final Solution drastically, there were two different types of camps - Concentration Camps and Extermination Camps, Jews from all over occupied Europe were brought here
• Concentration Camps


  • 100 of these in Nazi-occupied Europe, prisoners used for forced labor, prisoners usually lasted less than 1/2 year, communists, homosexuals, criminals, social democrats, artists
  • The first camp was opened in 1933, right after the Nazis came to power
  • Ravensbruck - Camp for women only, run by German women who were criminals, prisoners worked on remodeling furs, 50,000 were killed, 14,000 rescued by a Swedish diplomat
  • Theresienstadt - Most humane camp, well-connected Jews and war veterans, Jews married to Aryans could pay to go to this camp, Red Cross inspected this camp and gave it a good rating, a stopover on the way to Auschwitz
• Extermination Camps


  • Started as ordinary concentration camps, later modified with gassing installations for use on humans, now "DEATH CAMPS"
  • Majdanek - Established in 1941 as a POW camp, started its part in the Final Solution in 1942, Jews, Poles, and Soviet POW's sent here, had two gas chambers to exterminate
  • Auschwitz - Started operations in January 1940 (Poland), Himmler chose Auschwitz as the place for the Final Solution, had 4 gas chambers/crematories by 1943, mass killings with Zyklon B gas, commanded by Rudolph Hoess, recorded 12,000 kills in one day
• Zyklon-B


  Gas that is used to kill vermin, it was inexpensive compared to gas, dropped from ceilings
• Ultimately, the Holocaust saw the extermination of over 6 Million Jewish People
• Causes of WWII


  • Worldwide Depression
  • Treaty of Versailles
  • Appeasement
  • Expansionism
  • League of Nations
  • Totalitarianism
• Key Events of WWII in Europe

  1. Germany Invades Poland (1939)

  2. Germany Invades France and the Netherlands (1940)

  3. September 1940-May 1941 - Blitz of Britain

  4. Invasion of the Soviet Union (1941)

  5. Battling in North Africa (1942-1943)

  6. Stalingrad (1942)

  7. D-Day (1944)

  8. Victory in Europe, V-E Day (1945)
• Key Events of WWII in the Pacific

  1. Pearl Harbor (1941)

  2. Battle of Coral Sea

  3. Battle of Midway

  4. Island Hopping

  5. Battle of Guadalcanal

  6. Japanese "Kamakazies"

  7. Iwo Jima and Okinawa
• The Manhattan Project


  U.S. program to develop the atomic bomb
• Use of the Atomic Bombs

  1. President Truman warned Japan to either surrender or else face "complete destruction"

  2. Japan refused

  3. U.S. drops bombs on Hiroshima (70,000 killed) and Nagasaki (40,000 killed)

  4. Japan surrenders five days later – official surrender is on 9/2/1945