Notes Wwii Notes Blanks

Notes World War II The German Path to War (pages 809–812) A. _______________ believed that Germany could build a great civilization. To do this, Germany needed more land to support more German people. He wanted lands in the east in the Soviet Union and prepared for war. His plan was to use the land for German settlements. The Slavic people would become slaves. B. _______________ proposed that Germany be able to revise the unfair provisions of the Treaty of Versailles that had ended World War I. At first he said he would use peaceful means. However, in March of 1935, he created a new air force and began a military draft. C. France, Great Britain, and Italy condemned _______________ moves. Due to problems at home caused by the Great Depression, however, they were not prepared to take action. _______________ became convinced that the Western states would not stop him from breaking the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. D. In March of 1936, _______________ sent German troops into the Rhineland, which was supposed to be a demilitarized area. France would not oppose Germany for this treaty violation without British support. Great Britain saw _______________ actions as reasonable and not call for military response. This was the beginning of the policy of appeasement, one based on the belief that if European states satisfied reasonable demands of dissatisfied states, the dissatisfied states would be content and peace would be preserved. E. _______________ gained new allies. _______________ was the Fascist leader of Italy. He invaded Ethiopia in 1935 with the support of German troops. In 1936, both Italy and Germany sent troops to Spain to support General _______________. Later in the year, _______________ and _______________ became allies and formed the Rome-Berlin Axis. Germany also signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan forming an alliance against communism. F. By 1937, Germany had become a very powerful nation. In 1938, Hitler pursued a long held goal, union with Austria, or Anschluss. By threatening to invade Austria, Hitler forced the Austrians to put Austrian Nazis in charge of the government. The new government then invited German troops into Austria to “help” maintain order. _______________ then annexed Austria to Germany. G. In 1938, _______________ demanded that the Sudetenland in northwestern Czechoslovakia be given to Germany. The British, French, Italian, and German representatives then met in Munich. Britain, France, and Italy gave in to all of _______________ demands. German troops were allowed into Czechoslovakia. H. After the Munich Conference, the British prime minister, _______________, announced that the settlement meant “peace for our time.” He believed _______________ promises that Germany would make no more demands. I. After Munich, _______________ was even more convinced that France and Great Britain would not fight. In March of 1939, _______________ invaded western Czechoslovakia, and made a Nazi puppet state out of Slovakia in eastern Czechoslovakia. J. France and Great Britain began to react. Great Britain said it would protect Poland if _______________ invaded. France and Britain began negotiations with _______________, the Soviet dictator. They knew that they would need the Soviet Union to help contain the Nazis. K. _______________ was afraid of an alliance between the West and the Soviet Union. In August of 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. They promised not to attack each other. _______________ offered _______________ eastern Poland and the Baltic states. Hitler knew that eventually he would break the pact. However, it enabled him to invade Poland without fear. 1

L. On September 1, Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany.

The Japanese Path to War (pages 812–813) A. In September 1931, Japanese soldiers seized Manchuria. The Japanese claimed that the Chinese had attacked them. In fact the Japanese had staged the attack themselves disguised as Chinese soldiers. B. When the League of Nations investigated and condemned the attack, Japan withdrew from the league. For several years, Japan strengthened its hold on Manchuria, which it renamed Manchukuo. C. By the mid-1930s, militants had gained control of Japanese politics. The United States opposed the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, but did nothing to stop it. D. _______________ tried to avoid a war with Japan. He was more concerned with the threat from the Chinese Communists. He tried to appease Japan by allowing the Japanese to occupy parts of northern China. Japan moved steadily southward. In December 1936, _______________ formed a united front against the Japanese. In July 1937 the Chinese and Japanese clashed south of Beijing. The Japanese seized the capital of Nanjing. _______________ refused to surrender and moved the capital. E. Japanese military leaders wanted to establish a New Order in East Asia. The order would include Japan, Manchuria, and China. The Japanese thought that, as the only modernized country, they could guide the other East Asian nations to prosperity. F. The Japanese planned to seize Soviet Siberia. During the 1930s, Japan began to cooperate with Nazi Germany. The Japanese thought that they and Germany could defeat the Soviet Union and divide its resources. G. The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact forced the Japanese to rethink their goals. The Japanese needed natural resources. They looked to expand into Southeast Asia for sources. At the same time they knew that they risked strong response from European colonial powers and the United States. They decided to take the risk. H. In 1940, the Japanese demanded the right to exploit economic resources in French Indochina. The United States responded by imposing economic sanctions, or restrictions on trade that are intended to enforce international law, unless Japan withdrew to its borders of 1931. I. The Japanese badly needed oil and scrap iron from the United States. The economic sanctions were a very real threat. In the end, after long debate, Japan decided to launch a surprise attack on U.S. and European colonies in Southeast Asia. Europe at War (pages 814–817) A. The 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany took just four weeks. The speed and efficiency of the German army stunned the world. Called blitzkrieg (“lightning war”), the Germans used panzer divisions (strike forces of about 300 tanks and soldiers) that were supported by airplanes. On September 28, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland. B. In the spring of 1940, _______________ invaded Denmark and Norway. In May, Germany attacked the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. The German armies broke through French lines and moved across northern France. The French had fortified their border with Germany along the Maginot Line, but the Germans surprised them by going around it. C. The Germans trapped the entire British army and French forces on the beaches of Dunkirk. The British navy and private boats were able to evacuate 338,000 Allied troops, barely averting a complete disaster. 2

D. On June 22, the French signed an armistice with the Germans, who occupied threefifths of France. An authoritarian French regime under German control was set up to govern the rest of the country. Led by _______________, it was named Vichy France. Germany now controlled western and central Europe. Only Britain remained undefeated. E. The British asked the United States for help. The United States had a strict policy of isolationism. A series of neutrality acts passed in the 1930s prevented the United States from involvement in European conflicts. Though President _______________ denounced the Germans, the United States did nothing at first. F. _______________ wanted to repeal the neutrality acts and help Great Britain. Over time, the laws were slowly relaxed and the United States sent food, ships, planes, and weapons to Britain. G. _______________ understood that he could not attack Britain by sea unless he first controlled the air. In August 1940, the Luftwaffe—German air force—began a major bombing offensive against military targets in Britain. Aided by a good radar system, the British fought back but suffered critical losses. H. In September, _______________ retaliated to a British attack on Berlin by shifting attacks from military targets to British cities. He hoped to break British morale. However, the shift in strategy allowed the British to rebuild their air power and inflict crippling losses on the Germans. Having lost the Battle of Britain, _______________ postponed the invasion of Britain indefinitely at the end of September. I. _______________ was convinced that the way to defeat Britain was to first smash the Soviet Union. He thought that the British were resisting only because they were expecting Soviet support. He also thought that the Soviets could be easily defeated. He planned to invade in the spring of 1941, but was delayed by problems in the Balkans. After the Italians had failed to capture Greece in 1940, the British still held air bases there. _______________ seized Greece and Yugoslavia in April 1941. J. Then _______________ invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. The attack on the Soviet Union stretched out for 1,800 miles. German troops moved quickly and captured two million Russian soldiers by November. The Germans were within 25 miles of Moscow. However, winter came early in 1941 and, combined with fierce Russian resistance, forced the Germans to halt. This marked the first time in the war that the Germans had been stopped. The Germans were not equipped for the bitter Russian winter. In December, the Soviet army counterattacked.

Japan at War (pages 817–818) A. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. They also attacked the Philippines and the British colony of Malaya. Soon after, they invaded the Dutch East Indies and other islands in the Pacific Ocean. In spite of some fierce resistance in places such as the Philippines, by the spring of 1942, the Japanese controlled almost all of Southeast Asia and much of the western Pacific. B. The Japanese created the Greater East-Asia Coprosperity Sphere, which included the entire region under Japanese control. Japan announced its intention to liberate colonial nations in Southeast Asia, but first needed their natural resources. They treated the occupied countries as conquered lands. C. The Japanese thought that their attacks on the U.S. fleet would destroy the U.S. Navy and lead the Americans to accept Japanese domination in the Pacific. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor had the opposite effect. It united the American people and convinced the nation that it should enter the war against Japan. D. _______________ thought that the Americans would be too involved in the Pacific to fight in Europe. Four days after Pearl Harbor, he declared war on the United States. World War II had become a global war. The Allies Advance (pages 818–821) 3

A. A new coalition was formed called the Grand Alliance. It included Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The three nations agreed to focus on military operations and ignore political differences. They agreed in 1943 to fight until the Axis Powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—surrendered unconditionally. B. At the beginning of 1942, the Germans continued to fight the war against Britain and the Soviet Union. The Germans were also fighting in North Africa. The Afrika Korps under General _______________ broke through British lines in Egypt and advanced on Alexandria. During the spring, the Germans captured the entire Crimea in the Soviet Union. C. By the fall of 1942, the war had turned against the Germans. In the summer of 1942, the British in North Africa had stopped the Germans at El Alamein. The Germans retreated. In November, British and American forces invaded French North Africa and forced the German and Italian troops to surrender by May. D. On the Eastern Front, _______________ decided to attack Stalingrad, a major Soviet industrial center. Between November 1942 and February 1943 the Soviets counterattacked. They surrounded the Germans and cut off their supply lines. In May, the Germans were forced to surrender. They lost some of their best troops. _______________ then realized that he would not defeat the Soviet Union. E. In 1942, the Allies had their first successes in the Pacific. In the Battle of the Coral Sea in May, American naval forces stopped the Japanese and saved Australia from invasion. In June, the Battle of Midway Island was the turning point in the Pacific war. U.S. planes destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers and established naval superiority. F. By the fall of 1942, Allied forces were about to begin two major operation plans against Japan. One, led by General _______________, would move into South China from Burma through the islands of Indonesia. The other would move across the Pacific capturing some of the Japanese-held islands and ending up in Japan. G. By November 1942, after fierce battles in the Solomon Islands, the Japanese power was diminishing.

Last Years of the War (pages 821–822) A. By early 1943, the tide had turned against the Axis forces. In May the Axis forces surrendered in Tunisia. The Allies then moved north and invaded Italy in September. _______________ called Italy the “soft underbelly” of Europe. B. After the Allies captured Sicily, _______________ was removed from office. The king arrested him. A new Italian government offered to surrender to the Allies. However, the Germans rescued Mussolini and set him up as dictator of a puppet German state in northern Italy. C. The Germans established a strong defense south of Rome. The Allies had very heavy casualties as they slowly advanced north. They did not take Rome until June 4, 1944. D. The Allies had long been planning a “second front” in western Europe. They planned to invade France from Great Britain across the English Channel. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), the Allies under U.S. General _______________ landed on the beaches in Normandy. E. Though the Germans were expecting the invasion to take place in another location, there was still heavy resistance. However, because the Germans thought the invasion was a diversion, they were slow to respond. This gave the Allies the chance to set up a beachhead. By landing two million men and a half-million vehicles, the Allies eventually broke through the German lines. F. After the breakout, the Allies moved south and east. French resistance fighters rose up in German-occupied Paris. Paris was liberated by the end of August. In March of 1945, the Allies crossed the Rhine River. In the north they linked up with the Soviet army that was moving from the east. G. The Soviets had turned the tables on the Germans in 1943. They soundly defeated German troops in July at the Battle of Kursk in a huge tank battle. Then they moved steadily westward. By the end of 1943, they had reoccupied the Ukraine. By early 1944, they had moved into the Baltic states. In the north, Soviet troops occupied Warsaw in 4

January 1945 and entered Berlin in April. Along a southern front, the Soviets swept through Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. H. By January 1945, _______________ had moved into an underground bunker in Berlin. In the end he blamed the Jews for the war. On April 30, he committed suicide. Two days before, Italian partisans—resistance fighters—had shot _______________. On May 7, 1945, German commanders surrendered, and the war in Europe was over. I. The war in Asia continued. Beginning in 1943, the Allied forces had gone on the offensive and moved across the Pacific. As the Allies came closer to the Japanese home islands in 1945, U.S. president _______________ decided to drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities. He hoped that this would avoid an invasion of Japan. The first bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Both cities were completely destroyed. Thousands died immediately and thousands more died later of radiation sickness. The Japanese surrendered on August 14. J. World War II was over. Seventeen million people had died in battle in World War II. Some estimate that, including civilian losses, as many as fifty million people died in the war.

The Mobilization of Peoples: Four Examples (pages 830–832) A. Even more than World War I, World War II was a total war. Economic mobilization was more extensive. The war had an enormous impact on civilian life in many parts of the world. B. In the Soviet Union initial defeats led to drastic emergency measures. For example, Leningrad was under siege for nine hundred days. Over a million people died there due to food shortages. People had to eat dogs, cats, and mice. C. Soviet workers dismantled factories in the west and shipped them to the east, out of the way of the attacking German army. At times workers ran machines as new factory buildings were built up around them. D. The military and industrial mobilization of the Soviet Union produced 78,000 tanks and 98,000 artillery pieces. In 1943, 55 percent of the national income went to war materials. As a result there were severe shortages of food and housing. E. Soviet women were an important part of the war effort. Women working in industry increased 60 percent. They worked in industries, mines, and railroads. They dug antitank ditches and worked as air raid wardens. Some fought in battles and flew in bombers. F. The war did not come to the home territory of the United States. The country became an arsenal for the Allies. The United States produced much of the military equipment needed to fight the Axis. In 1943, the United States was building six ships a day and ninety-six thousand planes per year. G. The American mobilization created some social turmoil. There were widespread movements of people. For example, many women and men enrolled in the military moved frequently. Also, as millions of servicemen and workers looking for jobs moved around, their wives and children or girlfriends often moved with them. H. African Americans were profoundly impacted by the war. Over a million African Americans moved from the South to cities in the North and West to work in war industries. At times the influx of African Americans led to social tensions and even violence. A million African Americans joined the military. They served in segregated units. Angered by their treatment, many returned from the war ready to fight for their civil rights. I. Japanese Americans on the West Coast were moved to internment camps away from the ocean. Sixty-five percent of them had been born in the United States. In spite of that, they were required to take loyalty oaths and were forced to live in camps surrounded by barbed wire. The government claimed to do this for national security. Of American descendants of the Axis Power countries, Japanese Americans were the only group to be put into camps.

5

J. In 1939 in Germany, many civilians feared that the war would bring disaster. Hitler understood the importance of the home front. He believed that lack of civilian support had led to the German defeat in World War I. To keep up public morale, Hitler refused to cut consumer-goods production for the first two years of the war. This decision may have cost Germany the war. After defeats on the Russian front, the policy changed. K. Early in 1942, _______________ increased arms production and the size of the army. _______________ became minister for armaments and munitions. He tripled armament production between 1942 and 1943. In July 1944, the German economy was totally mobilized. Schools, theaters, and cafes were closed. However, this came too late to avoid defeat. L. Before the war, the Nazis tried to keep women out of the job market. As the war progressed, more and more men had to serve in the military. The Nazis changed their policies and encouraged women to work. However, the number of working women increased very little between 1939 and 1944. M. Wartime Japan was a highly mobilized society. The government controlled prices, wages, labor, and resources. Citizens were encouraged to sacrifice for the national cause. In the final years of the war, young Japanese volunteered to serve as suicide pilots against U.S. ships. They were called kamikaze (“divine wind”) pilots. N. The Japanese government opposed employing women. General _______________, the Japanese prime minister from 1941 to 1944, argued that employing women would weaken the family system and the nation. Female employment increased only in areas in which women had traditionally worked, such as textiles and farming. The Japanese met labor shortages by using Korean and Chinese laborers.

Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities (pages 833–834) A. Bombing was used against military targets, enemy troops, and civilian populations. World War II was the first war in which large masses of civilians were bombed. B. At the end of World War I, there had been a few bombing raids against civilian targets. The raids had caused great public outcry. After the war, European nations began to think that bombing civilian targets could be used to force governments to make peace. During the 1930s, European nations developed long-range bombers. C. The first sustained civilian bombing was done by the Germans against London. For months, the Germans bombed the city nightly. There were heavy casualties and tremendous damage. In time, the blitz, as the bombing was called, was carried to other British cities. In spite of the heavy bombing, British morale remained high. The idea that bombing civilians would force peace was proved wrong. D. In 1942, the British began major bombing campaigns against German cities. Ignoring their own experience, the British hoped that the bombing would break the morale of the German people. Thousands of bombers were used to attack major German cities. E. The bombing of Germany added to civilian terror. The Germans particularly feared incendiary bombs, which spread fire when they exploded. In some cities, such as Dresden, enormous firestorms resulted from the bombing, killing hundreds of thousands of people and burning everything that could burn. F. The bombing of Germany by the Allies may have killed a half-million civilians. Millions of buildings were destroyed. In spite of the terrible destruction, the bombing did not seem to sap the morale of the German people or destroy the German industrial capacity. However, the destruction of transportation systems and fuel supplies strongly impacted the ability of the Germans to supply their military forces. G. In November 1944, the Allies began attacks on Japanese cities. By that time, the Japanese air force could no longer defend Japan. The crowded Japanese cities, filled with highly-combustible structures, were especially vulnerable. By the following summer, a fourth of Japanese dwellings had been destroyed and many of its industries. The bombing of civilians then reached an unprecedented level when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. 6

Peace and a New War (pages 834–836) A. After the end of World War II, a new international conflict emerged, the Cold War. The Cold War was primarily an ideological conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. It dominated world politics until the end of the 1980s. B. In November 1943, _______________, _______________, and _______________ met in Tehran to decide the future course of the war. Their countries were known as the Big Three of the Grand Alliance. The Big Three decided that the Americans and British would attack Germany through France in 1944. They would then meet the Soviet forces somewhere in a defeated Germany. This meant the Soviet troops would probably liberate most of Eastern Europe. They also agreed to partition postwar Germany. C. In February of 1945, the Big Three powers met at Yalta in southern Russia. By that time, they knew that the Germans were beaten. _______________ and _______________ realized that eleven million Soviet troops were taking possession of much of Eastern and Central Europe. _______________ favored the idea of self-determination for postwar Europe. This meant that each country would choose its own form of government. _______________ was suspicious of the Western powers and wanted a Communist buffer between the West and the Soviet Union. D. _______________ also sought Soviet military help against Japan. In return for military aid, _______________ agreed that the Soviets could take Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, two warm-water ports and railroad rights in Manchuria. E. _______________ wanted to create the United Nations organization to help resolve difficult international disagreements. The Big Three powers at Yalta accepted his plans and set the founding meeting of the United Nations for April 1945, in San Francisco. F. The Big Three also confirmed at the Yalta Conference that Germany would have to surrender unconditionally. They agreed to divide Germany into four zones. The zones would be occupied and governed by France, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. _______________ agreed to hold free elections in Poland at some future date. G. The Soviets and the Americans were deeply split about free elections in Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted these nations to be pro-Soviet. The Americans wanted free elections. These conflicting goals were never reconciled. H. The Potsdam Conference was held in July 1945. _______________ had died in April and was replaced by _______________. _______________ demanded that free elections be held throughout Eastern Europe. _______________ refused to concede. _______________ wanted absolute military security for his country. He thought this could only happen if all the Eastern European states had Communist governments. He saw free elections as a direct threat. The only way to force free elections in Eastern Europe would have been to invade the Soviet-held territory. As World War II had just ended, very few people favored that course. I. Many Western leaders thought that the Soviets intended to spread communism throughout the world. The Soviets saw Western policy, particularly that of the United States, as global capitalist expansionism. J. In March 1946, _______________ declared that an “iron curtain” had “descended across the continent.” This iron curtain divided Europe into two hostile sides. _______________ responded by calling _______________ speech a “call to war with the Soviet Union.” The world seemed to be bitterly divided again.

7