CH 27 Flashcards
Appeasement
Foreign policy of pacifying an aggrieved country through negotiation in order to prevent war.
Blitzkrieg
military tactic calculated to create psychological shock and resultant disorganization in enemy forces through the employment of surprise, speed, and superiority in matériel or firepower.
Genocide
the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race.
Neville Chamberlain
British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940.
Munich Conference
settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland, in western Czechoslovakia.
Maginot Line
a line of defensive fortifications built before World War II to protect the eastern border of France but easily outflanked by German invaders. 2 : a defensive barrier or strategy that inspires a false sense of security.
Vichy France
the common name of the French State (État français) headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. The regime was authoritarian, xenophobic, antisemitic, corporatist and traditionalist in nature.
Winston Churchill
an inspirational statesman, writer, orator and leader who led Britain to victory in the Second World War. He served as Conservative Prime Minister twice - from 1940 to 1945 (before being defeated in the 1945 general election by the Labour leader Clement Attlee) and from 1951 to 1955.
Axis powers
The fascist alliance between mainly Germany, Italy, Japan, and a few other countries, during World War II, against the Allies.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
American bombing raids on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945) that marked the first use of atomic weapons in war.
Aryan
name originally given to a people who were said to speak an archaic Indo-European language and who were thought to have settled in prehistoric times in ancient Iran and the northern Indian subcontinent.
Charles de Gaulle
led the Free French forces in resisting capitulation to Germany during World War II and became provisional president of France in the immediate aftermath of the war. Later he was an architect of the Fifth Republic and was president from 1959 to 1969.
Gestapo
the political police of Nazi Germany.
Holocaust
the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.
Final Solution
the deliberate and systematic mass murder of European Jews. It was the last stage of the Holocaust and took place from 1941 to 1945. Though many Jews were killed before the “Final Solution” View This Term in the Glossary began, the vast majority of Jewish victims were murdered during this period.
Yalta Conference
meeting of three World War II allies: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The trio met in February 1945 in the resort city of Yalta, located along the Black Sea coast of the Crimean Peninsula.
Potsdam Conference
was held in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945 to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.
Remilitarization of the Rhineland
The area known as the Rhineland was a strip of German land that borders France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This area was deemed a demilitarized zone to increase the security of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands against future German aggression.
Italian invasion of Ethiopia
an armed conflict that resulted in Ethiopia’s subjection to Italian rule. Often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for World War II, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers.
Annexation of Austria
political union of Austria with Germany, achieved through annexation by Adolf Hitler in 1938. Mooted in 1919 by Austria, Anschluss with Germany remained a hope (chiefly with Austrian Social Democrats) during 1919–33, after which Hitler’s rise to power made it less attractive.
Munich Agreement
the pact signed by Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany on September 29, 1938, by which the Sudetenland was ceded to Germany: often cited as an instance of unwise and unprincipled appeasement of an aggressive nation.
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
enemies Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the world by signing the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, in which the two countries agreed to take no military action against each other for the next 10 years.
Nuremberg Laws
Nürnberg Laws, two race-based measures depriving Jews of rights, designed by Adolf Hitler and approved by the Nazi Party
Wannsee Conference
a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel (SS) leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942.
Auschwitz
Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners.
Einsatzgruppen
paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass-murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
