Hitler

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Hitlers Operation Barbarossa

• 3) The failed battle of Britain led a frustrated
  Hitler to turn on his former ally, and the Nazi
  war machine opened the Eastern Front by
  invading the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite
  the Non-Agression Pact, many had already
  concluded that the German invasion of the Soviet
  Union was an inevitibility.

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Hitlers Operation Barbarossa

• 5) Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union
  (Operation Barbarossa) was prompted by a number
  of other factors as well
• To attain the rich Russian oil fields in the
  Caucus Moutain region along the Caspain Sea,
• To destroy Communism and elimate the Soviet
  threat before another concentrated attack on
  Britain,
• Russia was home to the worlds largest population
  of non-European Jews,
• Lebenstraum

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Hitlers Operation Barbarossa

• 6) The invasion of the Soviet Union was much more
  brutal in nature as Hitler gave explicit orders
  to Army commanders to eliminate civilian
  populations in the Soviet Union.

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Hitlers Operation Barbarossa

• 7) After an area was conquered by the German
  Army, mobile killing squads known as the
  Einsatzgruppen specifically killed segments of
  the local civilian population like Jews,
  Communists, Gypsies, and local political leaders.

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Hitlers Operation Barbarossa

• 8) Over 1.5 million Jews were exterminated by the
  mobile killing squads. However, Hitler and other
  Nazi leaders felt that this was inefficient and
  developed the Final Solution to the Jewish
  problem in early 1942 by establishing the highly
  organized and brutal concentration camp system.

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Pearl Harbor

• 1) As Hitlers war machine stalled at the gates
  of Moscow during the Winter of 1941 / 42, the
  United States was suddenly attacked by the
  Japanese empire at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on the
  morning of December 7th, 1941.

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Pearl Harbor
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• 2) Late in 1940, the U.S. had finally issued a
  number of trade embargoes against the Japanese to
  halt their imperialistic conquests in Eastern
  Asia. In particular, the precious flow of oil,
  gasoline, and other war related supplies from the
  United States was suddenly cut-off to Japan.

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Pearl Harbor

• 6) On the morning of December 7th, 1941, two
  waves of over 350 Japanese planes attacked the
  U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The
  entire Pacific fleet of battleships was either
  sunk or severely damaged, 164 planes were
  destroyed, and over 3,000 U.S service personnel
  were killed or wounded.

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Pearl Harbor

• 7) On December 8th, President Roosevelt addressed
  Congress for a declaration of war against the
  Japanese. He famously declared, Yesterday,
  December 7, 1941a date which will live in
  infamythe United States of American was suddenly
  and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces
  of the Empire of Japan.

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Pearl Harbor

• 8) The Japanese attack was coordinated with an
  overall invasion of several Pacific islands
  (including Guam and the Philippines) and the
  nations of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Burma,
  Malaysia, etc

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Pearl Harbor

• 9) Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto felt that
  the attack was too limited and supposedly stated
  that, I fear all we have done is to awaken a
  sleeping giant.

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Hitler First

• 5) The U.S. employed a Hitler First strategy by
  diverting just enough forces to the Pacific to
  contain the Japanese while the majority of U.S.
  forces were directed to Europe to defeat Nazi
  Germany. Once Germany fell, the Allies could then
  concentrate their full force against the
  Japanese.

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Hitler First

• 6) The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin desperately
  wanted Roosevelt and Churchill to open a second
  front in Europe to divert German forces away from
  the Eastern Front. However, Churchill convinced
  Roosevelt to invade Northern Africa to prevent
  German control of Mediterranean Sea and the Suez
  Canal.

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North Africa

• 1) The German troops of the Afrika Korps under
  Field Marshall Erwin Rommel (The Desert Fox)
  had driven deep into Northern Africa and
  threatened to take Egypt and the vital Suez Canal
  from British control.

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North Africa

• 2) The British Army in Egypt was also the only
  major factor protecting the Middle East and its
  vast oil resources from a German invasion.

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North Africa

• 3) By August of 1942 the British were desperate
  for a victory and Winston Churchill moved to
  replace the British commander in North Africa
  with General Bernard Montgomery (Monty).

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North Africa

• 6) Montgomery prepared effective defenses around
  El Alamein and simply waited for Rommel to
  attack. Montgomery was so confident in his
  defense that when he was awakened by news of
  Rommels attack, he simply said, excellent,
  excellent and went back to sleep.

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North Africa

• 7) Rommels forces were easily repelled, but it
  took Montgomery several months to mount a
  counter-offensive in El Alamein. The arrival of
  over 300 Sherman tanks and troop reinforcements
  enabled Montgomery to take the offensive against
  the Desert Fox during the late fall of 1942.

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Stalingrad

• 1) After the German war machine failed to take
  Moscow in December 1941, Hitler shifted his
  forces south during the spring of 1942 to take
  the city of Stalingrad on the west bank of the
  Volga River.

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Stalingrad
Stalingrad
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• 2) Hitler believed the fall of Stalingrad would
  inevitably lead to the defeat of the Red Army
  (Soviet Union). If the Germans overran
  Stalingrad, they would cut Soviet supply lines on
  the Volga River and would gain control to the
  precious Soviet oil fields in the Caucus Mountain
  region along the Caspian Sea.

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Stalingrad

• 3) The Germans advanced on Stalingrad in
  September 1942 and laid siege to the Soviet
  forces within the city. Bloody urban warfare
  ensued as the German and Soviet forces fought
  from street to street as the city was reduced to
  rubble.

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Stalingrad

• Ex. Snipers were particularly destructive
  within the walls of the city. Soviet Sniper
  Vasily Zaitsev was widely recognized as a Russian
  war hero for killing over 149 Germans during
  siege of Stalingrad.

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Stalingrad

• 6) After three months of bloody fighting for
  streets and factories, the Germans controlled
  over 90 of the city and Soviet defeat seemed
  inevitable by November 1942.

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Stalingrad

• 7) However, Hitler was preoccupied with
  concentrating his forces within the city and
  little attention was given to reinforcing the
  weak German flanks. A massive Soviet
  counter-attack in late November actually
  surrounded over 250,000 troops of the German 6th
  Army.

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Stalingrad

• 10) The remnants of the German 6th Army finally
  surrendered on February 2nd 1943. Over 91,000
  prisoners of war were sent to brutal Soviet labor
  camps where only 6,000 would survive. Stalingrad
  was arguably the bloodiest single battle in
  history, with over two million casualties from
  both sides.

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Stalingrad

• 11) The German defeat at Stalingrad signaled the
  turning-point on the Eastern Front. An
  uninterrupted Soviet counter-offensive
  continuously regained previously lost territory
  until Germany surrendered in May 1945.

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