APWH: Unit 7, WWII

• New Economic Policy (NEP)


  Policy instituted by Lenin in 1920s that allowed farmers to sell portions of grain for profit.. this was successful but then Lenin died & Joseph Stalin rose to power and got rid of it
• NEP was successful

  But Lenin died and new Communist leader, Joseph Stalin discarded it
• Five-Year Plans


  1. Taking over private farms for state-owned enterprises (collectivization)

  2. Industrialized the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)

  3. Relied on terror (secret police, bogus trials, assassinations)
• The Great Depression was expensive and Europe owed a lot of money to America (especially France and Germany)
• Europe owed money to the U.S. post WWI and Money was based on credit, loans that would never be repaid = US stock market crash in 1929 leading to international catastrophe, the Great Depression
• US and Germany hit the hardest by the Great Depression - 1/3 of workforce unemployed, loss of trust in government -> fascism
• Fascism


  • Wanted a unified society like communists, but did not eliminate private property or class distinctions
  • Pushed for extreme nationalism - often on racial identity
• First fascist state

  Italy, founded by Benito Mussolini in 1919
• Mussolini's rise to power

  1. Squad called Blackshirts fought socialist and communist organizations to win over factory and land owners

  2. The Italian king named Mussolini Prime Minister

  3. Faced very little opposition and took over Parliament in 1922
• The German emperor was abdicated after WWI - a conservative democratic republic took over (Weimar Republic), but people began to reject this due to the economic crisis
• Mussolini's success with Facism in Italy influenced Germany - Nationalist Socialist Party (Nazis) rose to power in 1920s
• Adolf Hitler


  Became head of Nazi Party - believed in extreme nationalism and superior race - believed the Aryan race was the most superior race
• Hitler's rise to power

  1. By 1932, Nazis dominated German government

  2. Hitler became leader of Reichstag (elected government official basically) in 1933 and seized control of the government - his fascist rule is known as the Third Reich
• Spain was in turmoil after fall of Spanish monarchy - nationalist army under General Francisco Franco took control of large parts of Spain - established a dictatorship in Spain in 1939 with help from Germany and Italy
• Hitler's actions to restore Germany

  1. Rebuilt military (against the Treaty of Versailles)

  2. Withdrew Germany from League of Nations

  3. Took back the Rhineland part of Germany

  4. Formed alliance with militant Japan

  5. Annexed Austria

  6. Given Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia at Munich Conference of 1938 (Hitler, Mussolini, Neville Chamberlin of England) to cease his expansionist activities (appeasement) - did not work

  7. Invaded rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939
• Germany and Soviets signed a pact to stay out of each other's countries (Nazi-Soviet Pact) and agreed to divide rest of Europe's land between them
• Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France then declared war on Germany - start of WWII
• Japan

  • Economy thrived after WWI until the Great Depression - Japanese militarists gained momentum so then Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and renamed in Manchukuo
  • Withdrew from League of Nations and signed Anti-Comintern Pact (against communism) with Germany, beginning their alliance
  • In 1937, Japan began war on China which eventually merged into WWII
• Germany's invasion of Europe

  Hitler's blitzkrieg technique destroyed everything in its path - by early 1940 Germany had control of Poland (half with USSR), Holland, Belgium, France
• Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill did not give in to Germany's pressures - even with German airstrikes from their more powerful airforce (Battle of Britain)
• Germany invaded Greece in 1941, breaking their deal with Soviet Union, so they invaded the Soviet Union too
• US didn't want to get involved, but froze Japan's assets in US to respond to their hostility - Japan entered Tripartite Pact with Rome and Berlin, making the war worldwide. in response to US sanctions, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941 and declared war with US
• US began working on Manhattan Project: development of the atomic bomb
• Allied advances in WWII

  1. 1943: US and Britain take control of Italy

  2. 1944: US, Britain, and Canada land on French beaches (D-day) and eventually liberate France

  3. 1945: Allied forces close in on Germany and end Europe war when Hitler commits suicide
• Ending the war in the Pacific

  To end war in Pacific, US drops atomic bomb on city of Hiroshima in Japan - when Japan refused to surrender, they dropped another bomb on Nagasaki, causing them to surrender
• The Holocaust: Millions of Jews under German control were rounded up and killed in concentration camps to create the Aryan race
• The Peace Settlement: US and Soviet Union became superpowers and Germany and Japan forced to demilitarize
• US instituted Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe (only accepted by Western Europe nations) and rebuilt their economies in less than a decade
• During the war, women took over the workforce while men were fighting - after the war, many women kept their jobs
• United Nations, established in 1945, to prevent break out of another great war - goal was to mediate and intervene in international disputes (basically League of Nations part 2)
• United Nations published Universal Declaration of Human Rights in response to Holocaust
• World Bank, International Monetary Fund, General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs also formed to manage a global economy