World War II - Overview

Aim: How did the Allied Powers win WWII and defeat the Axis Powers?

Lesson Overview:

Item	Approx Time
Do Now	3-5 Min
Mini Lesson	15-20 Min
Activity	15 Min
Discussion	5-7 Min

World War 2 Overview

World War 2, also known as the Second World War, was a war fought from 1939 to 1945 in Europe and, during much of the 1930s and 1940s, in Asia.

The war in Europe began in earnest on September 1, 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, and concluded on September 2, 1945, with the official surrender of the last Axis nation, Japan. However, in Asia the war began earlier with Japanese interventions in China, and in Europe, the war ended earlier with the unconditional surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945.

The conflict spilled over into Africa, included a handful of incidents in the Americas, and a series of major naval battles.

It was the largest armed conflict in history, spanning the entire world and involving more countries than any other war, as well as introducing powerful new weapons, culminating in the first use of nuclear weapons.

However, despite the name, not all countries of the world were involved; some through neutrality (such as the Eire - though Eire supplied some important secret information to the Allies; D-Day's date was decided on the basis of incoming Atlantic weather information supplied from Ireland - Sweden, and Switzerland), others through strategic insignificance (Mexico).

The war ravaged civilians more severely than any previous conflict and served as a backdrop for genocidal killings by Nazi Germany as well as several other mass slaughters of civilians which, although not technically genocide, were significant.

These included the massacre of millions of Chinese and Korean nationals by Japan, internal mass killings in the Soviet Union, and the bombing of civilian targets in German and Japanese cities by the Allies. In total, World War II produced about 50 million deaths, more than any other war to date.

Start of World War II - Overview

WWII is divided into two areas, the European Theater and the Pacific Theater.

European Theater

Start of War: German Invasion of Poland

September 1, 1939: Germany launched the blitzkrieg (lightening war) tested three years earlier during the Spanish Civil War upon Poland. Poland's two million man army was easily defeated, many of whom were on horseback against German tanks. The Soviet Union attacked from the west on September 17 according to the Nazi-Soviet non-Aggression pact signed a month earlier. The British declared war on Germany on September 3.

European Theater - Timeline of World War II - Overview

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In 1940, Germany launched its next initiative by attacking Denmark and Norway, followed shortly thereafter by attacks on Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. All of these nations were conquered rapidly.

The Battle of Britain

Later in the summer of 1940, Germany launched a further attack on Britain, this time exclusively from the air. The Battle of Britain was Germany’s first military failure, as the German air force, the Luftwaffe, was never able to overcome Britain’s Royal Air Force. Greece and North Africa

As Hitler plotted his next steps, Italy, an ally of Germany, expanded the war even further by invading Greece and North Africa. The Greek campaign was a failure, and Germany was forced to come to Italy’s assistance in early 1941. The USSR

Later in 1941, Germany began its most ambitious action yet, by invading the Soviet Union. Although the Germans initially made swift progress and advanced deep into the Russian heartland, the invasion of the USSR would prove to be the downfall of Germany’s war effort. The country was just too big, and although Russia’s initial resistance was weak, the nation’s strength and determination, combined with its brutal winters, would eventually be more than the German army could overcome. In 1943, after the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, Germany was forced into a full-scale retreat. During the course of 1944, the Germans were slowly but steadily forced completely out of Soviet territory, after which the Russians pursued them across eastern Europe and into Germany itself in 1945.

The Normandy Invasion

In June 1944, British and American forces launched the D-Day invasion, landing in German-occupied France via the coast of Normandy. Soon the German army was forced into retreat from that side as well. Thus, by early 1945, Allied forces were closing in on Germany from both east and west. The Soviets were the first to reach the German capital of Berlin, and Germany surrendered in May 1945, shortly after the suicide of Adolf Hitler.

The Holocaust - Overview

One of Adolf Hitler's main goals once taking control of Germany was the extermination of all European Jews. Hitler had written in his book "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) about the evils of the Jews. The Jewish population of Europe had often been persecuted due to their religious difference from the majority Christian population. However, the Holocaust would mark a turning point in that persecution.

On January 20, 1942, a group of fifteen Nazi officials met in a villa in the Wannsee district outside Berlin in order to settle the details for resolving the so-called “Jewish question.” The meeting was led by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police), and included several members of the S.S. (The top elite military group) along with representatives of several German government ministries. Neither Hitler nor any heads of government ministries were present. The conference leads to the "Final Solution" of the Jewish question which begins the systematic murder of over 6 million Jews and another 5 million Gypsies, homosexuals, African-European, and mentally ill people were also murdered.

Hitler began his program by first limiting the rights of Jews. Jews were restricted to a separate part of town, called a Ghetto, could no longer run businesses, nor could Holocaust Memorial they marry outside of their race. As World War II progressed, Hitler began forcing them into concentration camps, where they were either immediately murdered, usually by poison gas, or used as slave labor until they died. Their bodies were disposed of through cremation in the concentration camp ovens. The Nazis also used Jews in horrific pseudo medical experiments. The treatment of the Jews by the Nazis in World War II was a motivating factor of the United Nations in writing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp - Overview

Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp in the Nazi death camp system.

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Victory in Europe - Overview

Mussolini's death:

On April 27, 1945, as Allied forces closed in on Milan, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans. He was trying to flee Italy to Switzerland and was traveling with a German anti-aircraft battalion. On April 28, Mussolini was executed in Giulino (a civil parish of Mezzegra); the other Fascists captured with him were taken to Dongo and executed. The bodies were then taken to Milan and hung for public display in one of the main squares of the city. On April 29, Rodolfo Graziani surrendered all Fascist Italian armed forces at Caserta. This included Army Group Liguria. Graziani was the Minister of Defense for Mussolini's Italian Social Republic puppet state.

Hitler's death:

On April 30, as the Battle of Berlin raged above him, realizing that all was lost and not wishing to suffer Mussolini's fate, German dictator Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker along with Eva Braun, his long-term mistress whom he had married just hours before their joint suicide. In his will Hitler appointed his successors; Karl Dönitz as the new Reichspräsident ("President of Germany") and Joseph Goebbels as the new Reichskanzler (Chancellor of Germany). However, Goebbels committed suicide on May 1, 1945, leaving Dönitz as sole leader of Germany.

German forces in Berlin surrender:

The Battle of Berlin ended on May 2. On this date, General of the Artillery Helmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, unconditionally surrendered the city to General Vasily Chuikov of the Soviet army.[1] On the same day the officers commanding the two armies of Army Group Vistula north of Berlin, (General Kurt von Tippelskirch commander of the German Twenty-First Army and General Hasso von Manteuffel commander of Third Panzer Army) surrendered to the Western Allies.

Germany Surrender:

Jodl and Keitel surrender all German armed forces unconditionally: One half hour after the fall of "Fortress Breslau" General Alfred Jodl arrived in Reims and, following Dönitz's instructions, offered to surrender all forces fighting the Western Allies. The Germans wanted conditions, and the British and American Allies advised the Germans that they would have to surrender to the Russians if they didn't sign the unconditional surrender. Shortly after midnight Dönitz, accepting the inevitable, sent a signal to Jodl authorizing the complete and total surrender of all German forces. The problem was that the Russians were not at the signing, and demanded that the Germans surrender to them as well.

The next day, General Wilhelm Keitel and other German representatives traveled to Berlin, and shortly before midnight signed a similar document, explicitly surrendering to Soviet forces, in the presence of General Georgi Zhukov.

VE Day in Europe:

News of the surrender broke in the West on May 8, and celebrations erupted throughout Europe. In the United States, Americans awoke to the news and declared May 8 V-E Day

War with Japan - Pacific Theater - Overview

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, hoping to destroy the United States Pacific Fleet at anchor. Even though the Japanese knew that the U.S. had the potential to build more ships, they hoped that they would feed reinforcements in piecemeal and thus the Japanese Navy would be able to defeat them in detail. This nearly happened during the Battle of Wake Island shortly after.

Within days, Germany declared war on the United States, effectively ending isolationist sentiment in the U.S. which had so far prevented it from entering the war.

The Pacific War saw the Allied powers against the Empire of Japan, the latter briefly aided by Thailand and to lesser extent by its Axis allies Germany and Italy. The war culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and other large aerial bombing attacks by the United States Army Air Forces, accompanied by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 8 August 1945. These resulting in the surrender of Japan and the end of fighting during World War II on 15 August 1945. The formal and official surrender of Japan occurred aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945.

Causes of Japan's Aggression

One of the causes for the attack on Pearl Harbor was the U.S. restriction on selling oil to Japan. The U.S. thought that if they limited selling oil to Japan then Japanese territory expansion would stop. Japan's search for natural resources which Japan had little to none, led Japan to search for those resources by island hopping and invading the Asian mainland.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan achieved a long series of military successes. In December 1941, Guam and Wake Island fell to the Japanese, followed in the first half of 1942 by the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma. Thailand remained officially neutral. Only in mid-1942 were Australian and New Zealander forces in New Guinea and British forces in India able to halt the Japanese advance.

The turning point in the Pacific war came with the American naval victory in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The Japanese fleet sustained heavy losses and was turned back. In August 1942, American forces attacked the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, forcing a costly withdrawal of Japanese forces from the island of Guadalcanal in February 1943. Allied forces slowly gained naval and air supremacy in the Pacific, and moved methodically from island to island, conquering them and often sustaining significant casualties. The Japanese, however, successfully defended their positions on the Chinese mainland until 1945.

Late in 1944, American forces liberated the Philippines and began massive air attacks on Japan. British forces recaptured Burma. In early 1945, American forces suffered heavy losses during the invasions of Iwo Jima (February) and Okinawa (April), an island of strategic importance off the coast of the Japanese home islands. Despite these casualties and suicidal Japanese air attacks, known as Kamikaze attacks, American forces conquered Okinawa in mid-June 1945.

President Truman had weighed the cost of lives of invading the Japanese home island and determined on August 6, 1945, the United States Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima to hasten the quick surrender of Japan. Tens of thousands of people died in the initial explosion, and many more died later from radiation exposure. Three days later, the United States dropped a bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Approximately 120,000 civilians died as a result of the two blasts. As a direct result of the bombings, on August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria.

After the second bombing, Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945, American forces began to occupy Japan. Japan formally surrendered to the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union on September 2, 1945 aboard the Battleship USS Missouri.

Results/Outcomes of World War II - Overview

Germany was totally defeated, and the Nazi regime brought down. Its leaders were tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg, the former site of Nazi propaganda triumphs. Hitler escaped trial and execution by committing suicide in his Berlin bunker at the end of the war. German cities were in ruins from a massive bombing campaign.

Germany was divided into 4 zones of occupation by the victorious powers, pending a more permanent political settlement. The division of occupied Germany would result in the creation of two Germany's, an East Germany (Allied with Soviet/Russian) and West Germany (Allied with France/Britain/United States). These tensions will be a factor during the Cold War between the West (Democratic nations) and the East (Communist nations).

Japan also was in ruins from extensive bombing. Prominent military leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes, but the emperor was allowed to retain his position. Japan was temporarily placed under U.S. military rule.

England was devastated by the war, having experienced extensive bombing during the 1940 blitz by the Germans. The economy depended for recovery upon aid from the United States. England rapidly phased out most of its remaining imperial holdings in the years immediately following the war.

France had not experienced the enormous human losses sustained in the First World War, but would have to recover from the effects of Nazi occupation. Retribution was taken upon collaborators. Like England, France would be compelled to dismantle its colonial empire in the years following the war. This was a particularly traumatic and drawn out process for the French, in Algeria and in Vietnam where they fought prolonged and bitter wars in an attempt to maintain their colonial control.

England and France no longer held a status of power comparable either to the United States or the Soviet Union.

Russia: The Russian people had suffered immeasurably during the war, and western Russia was devastated by the land warfare which was primarily on Russian territory. But, in the process of defeating the Germans, the Russians had built a large and powerful army, which occupied most of Eastern Europe at the end of the war. The great resources and population of Russia assured that the Soviet Union would be, along with the United States, one of two super-powers.

The United States economy was greatly stimulated by the war, even more so than in World War I. The depression was brought decisively to an end, and new industrial complexes were built all over the United States. Spared the physical destruction of war, the U.S. economy dominated the world economy. After 4 years of military buildup, the U.S. had also become the leading military power. The position of the United States as world leader was now more obvious than ever.

WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR UPON THE NON-EUROPEAN WORLD?

The struggle for national independence of non-European peoples was greatly enhanced and stimulated by the war. The weakness of England and France, the two major European imperial powers, provided opportunities. The stage was set for the collapse of European empires in the 3 decades following the war.

New technology, developed during the war to fight disease, would, when applied to the non-European world, result in sharply lower mortality rates and soaring population growth.

WHAT EFFECTS DID THE WAR HAVE UPON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY?

Enormous technological progress was made during the war. The English developed radar which would be the forerunner of television. Progress in electronics and computers, made during the war, provided a foundation for further development which fundamentally transformed the postwar world.

The development of the atomic bomb by European and American scientists during the war, not only transformed the nature of potential future wars, it marked the beginning of the nuclear power industry.

WHAT POLITICAL CHANGES OCCURRED IN REGARD TO THE PROSPECT OF FUTURE WARS?

World War II had appeared to pose an unprecedented threat to human civilization and gave impetus to the renewal of Wilson's vision of an international organization to keep the peace. Organizing efforts were begun even while the war was on. In June, 1945, 51 nations were represented at the founding conference in San Francisco. In October, 1945, the United Nations was officially established. Unlike the League of Nations, the UN had the full support and leadership of the United States. The Soviet Union and all the most significant nations of the world were members. With no real police powers or a standing army, the United Nations is limited in its effectiveness for situations in which a military action is necessary or needed to keep peace when used as a deterrent.

In 1944, representatives of the major economic powers met to create an International Monetary Fund and to agree to supply money and support to countries in financial and/or distress. There was a determination to avoid the mistakes of the interwar years which had exacerbated the Great Depression.

The world community was thought to be entering a new era of international cooperation.

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Lesson Activity: WWII Homework Packet #11

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