World war 2

• World War One was not the war to end all wars like everyone wanted it to be, there was in fact a World War II
• There were two theaters of World War II: the European theater and the Pacific Theater
• Theater of war


  The stage upon which the events of a war unfold
• The war in the Pacific Theater began in 1937 when Chinese and Japanese forces clashed over the Japanese seizure of Manchuria
• In the European theater, the war was triggered by Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939
• The Allied Powers


  • Britain
  • France
  • Soviet Union
  • United States
• The Axis Powers


  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Japan
• Blitzkrieg


  1. Crushing an enemy at incredible speed using a combination of air power, tanks, and ground troops

  2. Plowing through enemy lines

  3. Terrorizing civilian populations
• The Axis powers, particularly Germany, came out strong in the beginning but eventually the tides began to turn
• Britain was the only Western country that had officially declared war on Germany and was continuing the resistance
• The United States was supplying the British with weapons of war through programs like Cash and Carry and destroyers for bases, even though they were not officially a belligerent in the war
• Japanese planes bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii


  December 7, 1941
• The United States declared war on Japan, and Germany declared war on the United States
• The United States' industrial capacity had a significant effect on the war, with factories transformed to produce weapons of war
• The D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 was a turning point for the war in the West
• The tide of the war changed in the Pacific Theater at the Battle of Midway, where American forces dominated the Japanese Navy
• Hitler committed suicide in his bunker, and the German government surrendered on May 7, known as VE Day or Victory in Europe Day
• Incendiary bombs


  Bombs with a casing designed to start fires, used in the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden
• Atomic bomb


  A bomb that destabilizes atoms and releases destructive energy, used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Japan surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  VJ Day
• One of the more devastating outcomes of World War II is the Nazi policy of the mass extermination of the Jews and what became known as the Holocaust
• Why the Holocaust happened


  1. Hitler came to power in Germany

  2. Hitler made no attempt to hide the racialist motivations that drove his actions

  3. Hitler believed the Aryans were the master race

  4. Hitler believed the Jewish population of Europe was the most violent threat to the flourishing of the modern Master race

  5. Hitler began implementing policies to establish this new racial order
• Nuremberg Laws


  • Put Hitler's racialist ideology into law
  • Established that only people of pure German blood could be citizens, thus stripping Jews of their citizenship
  • Made it illegal for pure blood Germans to intermarry with Jews
• Hitler's policy shift towards Jewish immigration


  1. Planned to ship all the Jews to the African island of Madagascar

  2. When World War II started, Hitler no longer had the time or attention to manage the complexities of his Jewish immigration plans
• Final Solution


  The complete extermination of the Jews, not their emigration
• How the Nazis systematized the mass extermination of Jews


  1. Built death camps like Auschwitz and Dachau

  2. Rounded up Jews in occupied territories, packed them tightly into train cars, and shipped them to the death camps

  3. Conducted brief medical exams upon arrival, sent 20-30% to work in the camps, murdered the remaining 70-80%

  4. Forced Jews into massive concrete boxes, pumped in hydrogen cyanide, killed them within 5 minutes
• Around 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis
• The Nazis also targeted other groups for extermination, including the Roma people, homosexuals, Slavic people, and people with disabilities, resulting in another 4-5 million deaths
• The transportation of Jews to the death camps always took priority on the rail lines, even if there was a desperate need on the war front
• Causes of the Weakness of the Democracies


  • Postwar bitterness
  • Economic instability
  • Pacifism and disunity of the West
  • March of Nazi and Fascist aggression
  • Spanish Civil War
• Pacifism and Disunity of the West


  • Western countries, especially Britain and the US, believed that WW I was a mistake and wanted to avoid another war at any cost
  • France was too politically divided during the 1930s to possess any firm foreign policy
  • Britain and the US were divided regarding the rise of dictators in Europe
  • Portions of their populations supported the fascist dictators as bulwarks against communism
  • European governments began a policy of appeasement
  • The US followed a policy of rigorous isolationism
• The USSR were resentful of the West, particularly the cordon sanitaire, and were fearful of attack from the West
• Western countries distrusted the USSR, looking at the Purges as having left the Soviets weak and undependable as allies
• March of Nazi and Fascist Aggression


  • Hitler played on the weaknesses of the democracies, knowing that they would not be likely to respond to aggressions
  • In 1934 Hitler attempted to take control of Austria, the Western powers did nothing
  • In 1935 Hitler repudiated the Versailles Treaty and began to openly build up Germany's military
  • In March, 1936 Hitler repudiated the Locarno agreements and occupied the Rhineland
• Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

  1. A mild revolution had driven out Alfonso XIII and brought about the establishment of a democratic Spanish Republic

  2. The new government undertook a program of social and economic reform

  3. In the 1936 election all the more liberal groups joined in a Popular Front against dictatorships

  4. In July 1936 a military insurgency, led by General Francisco Franco, rose up against the Republican government

  5. Britain and France refused to get involved, and prohibited the export of war materials to Spain

  6. Germany and Italy intervened on the side of Franco and the nationalist

  7. The USSR supported the Republican government
• In 1937 Japan launched a brutal full-scale invasion of eastern China and within a short time controlled most of the country
• Because war had not been declared the US continued to trade with both China and Japan
• No-one moved to stop Japan's aggressions
• Munich Crisis


  1. Hitler annexed Austria in 1938

  2. Czechoslovakia had a firm alliance with France and a lesser alliance with Romania and Yugoslavia

  3. Czechoslovakia had a well-trained military, with important munitions industries, and strong fortifications against Germany

  4. France and England avoided any firm stand that might precipitate war

  5. In the summer of 1938 the Czechs offered concessions to the Sudeten Germans, giving them regional autonomy

  6. Hitler declared that this was enough
• The Germans attacked quickly and with full-force, a strategy the Germans called Blitzkrieg, or lightening warfare