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