Fifth Party System [1933–1972] II Flashcards
Review - Timeline: Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1941
1932: Franklin Roosevelt elected president. 1933: First New Deal legislation passes. 1934: ‘Southern Tenant Farmer Union’ organizes. 1935: Supreme Court strikes down key elements of the New Deal; Second New Deal begins. 1936: Roosevelt re-elected in a landslide. 1938: U.S. encounters recession when government spending is curtailed; ‘Fair Labor Standards Act’ passes.
Timeline: Fighting the Good Fight in World War II, 1941-1945
1941: Lend Lease begins; Japanese planes bomb U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 1942: ‘Fair Employment Practices Committee’ instituted; U.S. Navy defeats Japan at Midway; U.S. begins internment of Japanese Americans. 1943: Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin meet in Tehran; U.S. troops invade Italy. 1944: Allied Forces land in France for D-day invasion. 1945: Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa fought; Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin meet at Yalta; U.S. drops atomic bombs on Japan; WWII ends.
F.D.R. Pre-WWII Foreign Policy - Summarize Roosevelt’s internationalist leanings.
Roosevelt never lost sight of the international arena. Roosevelt was an ardent internationalist and believed that many of the issues within the United States could be solved through a strong international agenda. He believed that the Great Depression, for instance, could be mitigated by strengthening ties with foreign markets rather than weakening them like the actions taken by his predecessor President Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt understood that he had to tread carefully. The move away from isolation had to be nurtured, especially since the First World War was still ingrained in the minds of Americans.
F.D.R. Pre-WWII Foreign Policy - Recognize the United States’ isolationist behavior following World War I.
The First World War was still ingrained in the minds of many Americans and most Americans were concerned with surviving the depression.
F.D.R. Pre-WWII Foreign Policy - Provide examples of how Roosevelt expanded American involvement in the world.
Roosevelt’s hope was that the cordial relations with new markets would alleviate the economic strain of the Great Depression. Roosevelt agreed to establish friendly relations with the U.S.S.R. for American trade markets. He established the ‘Good Neighbor Policy’ with Latin America, which ended the U.S.’s ability to intervene in hemispheric affairs. He also removed American forces stationed in various Latin American nations, returned controlling power to Cuba, and granted more Panamanian autonomy in controlling the Panama Canal. In 1934, Congress passed the ‘Reciprocal Trade Agreement’ which allowed to drastically lower tariffs within the United States as long as the overseas trade partners did the same.
F.D.R. Pre-WWII Foreign Policy - Explain the restrictions imposed by the ‘Neutrality Acts’ that were established following World War I.
Isolationist sentiment was widely felt when Congress passed the ‘Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1936’. These restrictive pieces of legislation called for an embargo on weaponry and funding to any nation involved in a conflict and prohibited Americans from traveling aboard ships that belonged to nations engaged in war. Later, Congress passed a second round of legislation known as the ‘Neutrality Acts of 1937’, which established an embargo on all trade to nations at war, except those who were able to pay cash and carry the products away on non-American vessels.
F.D.R. Pre-WWII Foreign Policy - Remember how America became an interventionist nation once again after the bombing of Peal Harbor.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, Roosevelt officially entered the United States into war, completing the transition from isolationism to intervention.
The Origins of War: Europe, Asia, and the United States (A)
America sought, at the end of the First World War, to create new international relationships that would make such wars impossible in the future. But as the Great Depression hit Europe, several new leaders rose to power under the new political ideologies of Fascism and Nazism. Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany were both proponents of Fascism, using dictatorial rule to achieve national unity. Still, the United States remained focused on the economic challenges of its own Great Depression. Hence, there was little interest in getting involved in Europe’s problems or even the China-Japan conflict.
The Origins of War: Europe, Asia, and the United States (B)
It soon became clear, however, that Germany and Italy’s alliance was putting democratic countries at risk. Roosevelt first sought to support Great Britain and China by providing economic support without intervening directly. However, when Japan, an ally of Germany and Italy, attacked Pearl Harbor, catching the military base unaware and claiming thousands of lives, America’s feelings toward war shifted, and the country was quickly pulled into the global conflict.
The Home Front
The brunt of the war’s damage occurred far from United States soil, but Americans at home were still greatly affected by the war. Women struggled to care for children with scarce resources at their disposal and sometimes while working full time. Economically, the country surged forward, but strict rationing for the war effort meant that Americans still went without. New employment opportunities opened up for women and ethnic minorities, as white men enlisted or were drafted. These new opportunities were positive for those who benefited from them, but they also created new anxieties among white men about racial and gender equality. Race riots took place across the country, and Americans of Japanese ancestry were relocated to internment camps. Still, there was an overwhelming sense of patriotism in the country, which was reflected in the culture of the day.
Victory in the European Theater (A)
Upon entering the war, President Roosevelt believed that the greatest threat to the long-term survival of democracy and freedom would be a German victory. Hence, he entered into an alliance with British prime minister Winston Churchill and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin to defeat the common enemy while also seeking to lay the foundation for a peaceful postwar world in which the United States would play a major and permanent role. Appeasement and nonintervention had been proven to be shortsighted and tragic policies that failed to provide security and peace either for the United States or for the world.
Victory in the European Theater (B)
With the aid of the British, the United States invaded North Africa and from there invaded Europe by way of Italy. However, the cross-channel invasion of Europe through France that Stalin had long called for did not come until 1944, by which time the Soviets had turned the tide of battle in eastern Europe. The liberation of Hitler’s concentration camps forced Allied nations to confront the grisly horrors that had been taking place as the war unfolded. The Big Three met for one last time in February 1945, at Yalta, where Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to several conditions that strengthened Stalin’s position. They planned to finalize their plans at a later conference, but Roosevelt died two months later.
The Pacific Theater and the Atomic Bomb (A)
The way in which the United States fought the war in the Pacific was fueled by fear of Japanese imperialistic aggression, as well as anger over Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and its mistreatment of its enemies. It was also influenced by a long history of American racism towards Asians that dated back to the nineteenth century. From hostile anti-Japanese propaganda to the use of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, America’s actions during the Pacific campaign were far more aggressive than they were in the European theater. Using the strategy of island hopping, the United States was able to get within striking distance of Japan. Only once they adopted this strategy were the Allied troops able to turn the tide against what had been a series of challenging Japanese victories. The war ended with Japan’s surrender.
The Pacific Theater and the Atomic Bomb (B)
The combined Allied forces had successfully waged a crusade against Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan. The United States, forced to abandon a policy of nonintervention outside the Western Hemisphere, had been able to mobilize itself and produce the weapons and the warriors necessary to defeat its enemies. Following World War II, America would never again retreat from the global stage, and its early mastery of nuclear weapons would make it the dominant force in the postwar world.
F.D.R. Pre-WWII Foreign Policy - Describe the legislation that Roosevelt helped enact to wear down the U.S.’s isolationist tendencies.
Roosevelt helped lift the ‘Neutrality Acts’ ban on arms and supplied needed weapons to Britain and France. Roosevelt agreed to the ‘destroyers-for-bases’ deal, which provided naval vessels in return for the right to build American bases on British-owned land. He also navigated the ‘Lend-Lease Act’ through Congress, which loaned arms to American allies. Roosevelt structured the ‘Atlantic Charter’, which was essentially a proclamation of a wartime alliance with Britain and steered the repeal of the ‘Navigation Acts’ through Congress. The crafty president also froze Japanese assets in America while curbing trade with the empire.
WWII - Understand the conditions after World War I which set things up for a second world war.
Many Germans felt that the elites in Germany had surrendered too soon in WW1. The ‘Treaty of Versailles’ (1919) punished Germany severely and made economic conditions worse off than what they might have otherwise been. The Great Depression also helped make Germany ripe for fascism. The ‘League of Nations’ was largely a failure. The U.S. Senate’s ‘Nye Committee’ convinced the U.S. government that WW1 had been more about money than national security, leading to policies that established America’s neutrality in conflicts around the world.
WWII - List the major players and leaders of the Axis powers.
Germany, Japan, and Italy.
WWII - Summarize the various invasions by the different Axis nations which brought the Allied Powers to war.
- Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini, invaded Ethiopia first. - Germany’s chancellor, Adolf Hitler, occupied the Rhineland, made a military alliance with Italy, financed a fascist dictator in Spain, annexed Austria and invaded the Sudetenland. When Germany invaded Poland, France and Great Britain finally declared war in 1939. - Japanese military strategist Hideki Tojo invaded China, and later allied with Italy and Germany, hoping to secure resources by taking over European colonies in the Pacific.
WWII - Explain how the United States got involved in WWII.
Germany and Japan attacked the U.S. Navy, hoping to discourage American involvement in their wars. But, it was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that finally pushed America to declare war in 1941, despite the ‘Nye Committee’s’ earlier conclusion that the U.S. should stay out of foreign wars.
WWII - Holocaust
The Holocaust, between 1933 and 1945, was the murder of 11 million people at the hands of Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany. Five million ‘undesirable’ people and six million Jews were systematically stripped of their rights and property, imprisoned, and often killed. The ‘Final Solution’ attempted to exterminate all Jewish people in death camps, such as Auschwitz. Before their deaths, many prisoners were used as slave labor or as unwilling subjects in medical experiments. The Holocaust ended with Germany’s surrender at the end of World War II in May 1945.
WWII - Holocaust - Targets
Hitler wanted to cleanse his “Master Race” as soon as he achieved power, targeting more than six million Jews and five million non-Jewish victims as well. Political threats were targeted, such as communists, journalists, and various Christians; those who would “dilute” the Aryan gene pool, such as Romani, Jews, blacks, and the handicapped; others who drained the economic system, such as criminals; and homosexuals.
WWII - Holocaust - Concentration Camps
Depending on the offense, victims might find themselves subject to heavy labor, forced abortions, and sterilization. They were very likely to have their assets stolen and then be imprisoned in a concentration camp anywhere in the Third German Empire, or Reich, where they were often executed or worked to death. The exact number of camps varies, depending on the definition, but there were dozens of main camps, with many sub-units, serving different functions. Current estimates total about 20,000 camps.
WWII - Holocaust - Anti-Semitism - ‘Night of Broken Glass’
On November 1938, The ‘Night of Broken Glass’, or ‘Kristallnacht’, marked a turning point in Jewish persecution. The Nazis retaliated for the murder of a German embassy employee in Paris by a German-born Jewish student. More than 9,000 jewish-owned businesses, homes, and synagogues were destroyed or vandalized. 91 Jewish men were murdered and upward to 30,000 were arrested or sent to concentration camps. Within days, the German government eliminated Jews from the economy, with most property confiscated and children expelled from public schools. The Jewish community was fined as a whole one billion dollars to pay for damages.
WWII - Holocaust - Anti-Semitism - ‘Night of Broken Glass’
On November 1938, The ‘Night of Broken Glass’, or ‘Kristallnacht’, marked a turning point in Jewish persecution. The Nazis retaliated for the murder of a German embassy employee in Paris by a German-born Jewish student. More than 9,000 jewish-owned businesses, homes, and synagogues were destroyed or vandalized. 91 Jewish men were murdered and upward to 30,000 were arrested or sent to concentration camps. Within days, the German government eliminated Jews from the economy, with most property confiscated and children expelled from public schools. The Jewish community was fined as a whole one billion dollars to pay for damages.
