Just How Did WWII Get Started?

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Just How Did WWII Get Started?
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Italy

• Suffered greatly under the worldwide depression
  after WWI

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Benito Mussolini

• Mussolini captures Rome with his Blackshirt Party
  in 1922
• Fascism - Single person leads the country
• Totalitarianism - Govt. controls every facet of
  your life

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Germany

• Germany was destroyed after WWI
• Were blamed by the World for the war and
  following depression
• Treaty of Versailles had them paying 33 billion,
  which they do not have
• Very angry as a people

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Adolf Hitler

• Dad sent Hitler to Vienna, Austria at 12 to study
  - Learns to hate Jews
• Fails as an artist, joins the military to fight
  in WWI
• While in jail after WWI, he writes Mein Kampf (My
  Struggle) - blamed communists, intellectuals, and
  Jews for Germanys defeat

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Hitler and the Nazi Party

• Hitlers Nazi Party gets 32 of vote in elections
  in 1932
• 1933 - Hitler is elected Chancellor
• Takes dictatorial power and forms a fascist,
  totalitarian state
• Rebuilds army to show power and pride in Germany

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Japan

• Suffers greatly during the Depression
• Lack of natural resources
• Attacks mineral-rich Manchuria (North of China)
• League of Nations condemns attack, but can do
  nothing
• 1937 - Japan invades China
• 1940 - Japan joins Germany and Italy in Axis
  Alliance

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Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

• Communist country
• 1924 - Lenin dies and Joseph Stalin wins a power
  struggle to become leader
• Stalins Purges - In the 1930s, Stalin creates a
  personal police force of kill millions and send
  others to force labor camps in Siberia

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United States

• US is stuck in the Great Depression
• FDR and most Americans are concerned about
  Germany, Italy, and Japan, but choose to be
  isolated
• Neutrality Acts (1935 and 1937) - Banned weapons
  sales with countries who are at war

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Germany on the Move

• Lebensraum - Hitler wants living space for
  Germans, free Germanic people in other countries
• 1936 - Creates the Axis Powers (a military
  alliance) with Italy
• 1936 - Rhineland Recaptured - in violation of
  the Treaty of Versailles, Germany takes land
  between it and France
• 1938 - Austria (3/1938) - Hitler claims Germans
  in Austria should be part of Germany, so he takes
  it
• 1938 - Sudetenland (9/1938) - This area in
  Czechoslovakia was home to German speakers and
  Hitler said they were being mistreated.

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Reaction to German Expansion

• Munich Conference - France and Great Britain meet
  with Germany and agree to give Hitler the
  Sudetenland as long as he promises to stop
  expanding
• Appeasement - giving in to the aggressor to keep
  peace - BAD IDEA
• Hitler takes over Czechoslovakia anyway in March
  1939
• Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact (8/1939) -
  Germany and USSR agree not to fight one another
• Hitler now free to take Poland

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The government had to choose between shame and
war. They have chosen shame and they will get
war. -Winston Churchill, a British official and
soon to be Prime Minister of the Munich
Conference
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Anti-Semitism

• Nazi Party bans Jews from govt. and takes away
  citizenship
• Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) 11/9/1938-
• 91 Jews killed
• Hundreds seriously wounded
• 7500 Jewish businesses destroyed
• 200 synagogues destroyed
• Took place in Germany and Austria

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The burned-out synagogue of Aachen, Germany,one
of nearly 200 synagogues destroyed during
Kristallnacht.
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The Fighting Begins

• 9/1/1939 - Germany attacks Poland with a new
  style of fighting - Blitzkrieg (lightning war)
• Poland was conquered in three weeks
• Poland was spilt up between the USSR and Germany
  by the end of the month

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Britain and France begin to Move

• Begin to mobilize their forces
• Maginot Line - Defensive structure along Frances
  border with Germany

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Germany Kicks into High Gear

• April 1940 - Denmark and Norway fall
• May, 1940 - Belgium, Luxembourg, and the
  Netherlands fall
• Allows German troops to avoid the Maginot Line
• 330,000 Allied troops escape to Great Britain
• June 1940 - France falls to Germany
• June, 1941 - Germany attacks USSR, violating the
  Non-Aggression Pact
• Germany takes 500,000 Soviet troops captive
• Soviet citizens burn and destroy everything so
  that Germany cannot use it

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Battle of Britain

• With most of Europe under his control, Hitler
  looks to the island of Great Britain
• Luftwaffe attacks Royal Air Force (RAF) and
  Britain for 2.5 months
• British repel the attack with the help of radar
  and blackouts

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US Begins to Notice Trouble

• Most Americans oppose Hitler, but still believe
  in isolationism
• FDR re-elected in 1940 and promises not send our
  boys to foreign wars
• FDR decides to prepare for war just in case
• Selective Service and Training Act - first
  peacetime draft in US history, called on men from
  21 to 35
• Lend-Lease Act - Allows FDR to loan 7 billion in
  war supplies to Great Britain as long as they
  come and get the goods

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Pearl Harbor

• 12/7/1941
• Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, and US naval bases in
  the Philippines, Guam, Midway, and Wake Islands
• 12/8/1941 - FDR asks Congress to declare war,
  calling 12/7 a day that will live in infamy.

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