Chapter 28: Global Configuration: World War II, 1939-1945

• Hitler wished to united Germans under one singular nation   * Annexed Austria which violated Treaty of Versailles
• German troops occupied all of Czechoslovakia by 1939
• The Pact of Steel   * May 1939: Hitler formed a military alliance with Mussolini
• Axis Powers of World War II were established by Tripartite Pact (1940)   * Signed by Italy, Japan, and Germany
• Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939   * Started World War II   * British and France declared war against Germany on September 3, 1939
• Hitler postponed invasion of Europe due to bad weather   * War started again in spring of 1940
• German forces attacked france on June 5, 1940   * Paris fell 9 days later   * France surrendered June 22, 1940   * France was under Nazi occupation
• Hitler had no interests in going to war with Britain and offered the deal that Britain would keep its empire if it allowed him to conquer the continent   * Britain refused to compromise causing Germany to prepare for an invasion of Britain   * Germans bombed Britain until May 1941   * 60,000 British civilians were killed with many buildings being demolished or severely damaged
• Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941 and attacked Greece
• Hungary, Romania, & Bulgaria joined the Axis Powers
• Hitler wanted to “purify” Europe of Jews   * Did this through extermination labelled as the “Final Solution”   * Extermination by gas was introduced after death by firing squads for the Jews was deemed too inefficient   * First extermination camp was built in Chelmno, Poland in 1941   * Jews, Gypsies, criminals, Communists, homosexuals, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and political prisoners were sent to concentration camps   * An average of 12,000 people were killed daily at Auschwitz (concentration camp)   * About 75% of the European Jew population was killed
• Hitler saw the Soviet Union as Germany’s primary enemy   * Invaded Soviet Union on June 22, 1941
• The United States, despite being neutral, helped the Allies after the fall of France in 1940   * Provided Britain and the Soviet Union with weapons under the Lend-Lease Act in 1941
• Every new act of aggression by Japan to increase their empire caused tensions between Japan and the U.S. to increase
• In the morning of December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise air attack on the American naval base, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii   * Killed 2,400 people   * Destroyed 150 planes and 19 ships
• U.S. declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941
• Germany and Italy declared war on U.S. on December 11, 1941
• Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, ending the war in Europe
• Japan continued to expand after Pearl Harbor   * Air raids by America destroyed Japan’s navy, industrial plants, and parts of its cities   * Japan wouldn’t surrender despite 200,000 people being killed in Tokyo in one week   * U.S. President Harry Truman authorized the use of atomic bombs on Japan on August 6, 1945   * Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9) were bombed   * Bombs killed over 100,000 people with radiation from bombs continuing to kill people long after they were dropped   * Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945
• The Big Three   * Leaders of the three major allies of World War II who coordinated defeat of Germany and Japan and negotiated post-war settlements     * Churchill (Britain)     * Stalin (Soviet Union)     * Roosevelt, later Truman (U.S.)
• Around 50 million people were killed, 35 million injured, and 3 million missing after World War II   * 50% of deaths were those of civilians
• The total cost of war was over $1 Trillion

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