Session 4 Flashcards
World War II and the final demise of a Euro-centric world
Vichy France
- the regime lad by Marshal Petain that surrendered to Hitler’s Germany in June 1940 and subsequently controlled France until liberation in 1944
Tripartite Pact
- Mutual aid treaty, Germany, Japan, and Italy - 27 Sept 1940
- Intended to defer the US from interfering in the creation of a German new order in Europe and a Japanese new order in Asia
Lend-Lease Act
- March 1941
- US Congress empowered the president to lease/lend arms and supplies to any foreign government whose defense the administration considered essential to US national security
- Originally intended to rescue Britain
- Extended to more than 38 states fighting the Tripartite Pact Powers
unconditional surrender
- Jan 1943 - first articulated by Roosevelt, Allied doctrine
- could be no negotiated peace
- felt Germany had not been thoroughly beaten before the Versailles Treaty was imposed
Final Solution
- Nazi euphemism for the mass murder of European Jews
Why was the Spanish Civil War a crucial prelude to World War II?
i. Civil War with global meanings and reverberations
ii. Test
iii. Ideological choices: Ger/Ita vs. USSR
iv. Non-Intervention & appeasement
1. France & Britain
2. Fascist aggression
v. Volunteers & International brigades & intra-leftist/communist divisions
1. 1,000s, ex. Lincoln brigade – went to fight in Spain symbolic
vi. “Today in Spain, Tomorrow in Italy.” – Carlo Rosselli
Why did the main powers choose to “appease” Hitler?
a. Europe (1935-1939): Years of Appeasement
i. Underestimation of Hitler (German nationalist & legitimate grievances)
ii. Legacy of World War I: Pacifism & Necessity to Avoid War at Any Cost
iii. Fear of USSR/Communism
iv. Lack of preparation
1. Appeasing Hitler was a way to buy time
v. Isolation of the United States
vi. Fascination with Germany’s politics & social project
b. “Nazism is the German form of socialism”
c. “We are watching the birth more than the death of a world.” – Teilhard de Chardin
d. Paul Kennedy, 1987 – “Hitler was fundamentally unappeasable.”
How do we explain the different attitude of US vis-à-vis Japan’s expansionism?
a. Asia, 1937-41: Years of Firmness
i. US anti-Japanese activism
ii. Importance of China
iii. Japanese Invasion of China – 1937
iv. Race?
1. Anti-Japanese Propaganda
2. Quarantine Speech – FDR
a. “There is a solidarity and interdependence… against the spread of disease.”
b. Epidemic
b. Standing Firm vs. Japan
i. 1937 – Roosevelt chose not to invoke neutrality acts in the case of the Sino-Japanese war
ii. 12.1937 – Panay Incident: the USSR Panay & three Standard Oil tankers bombed and sunk by Japanese
iii. 1939: US moral embargo extended to aviation fuel (previously prevented exporting to Japan aircraft, aircraft equipment)
iv. 7.1940 – embargo to Japan (includes oil & iron)
v. 7.1941 – freezing of Japanese assets in the US
Which were the main examples of the policy of “appeasement”?
a. Appeasing Hitler
i. Spain
ii. Anschluss with Austria – 1938
1. Austria was annexed beginning of a large German state
2. Apply the principle of nationality and self-determination
iii. Germany’s Drive to the East
b. Munich (9.1938)
i. Germany, France, U.K. & Italy
ii. Dismemberment of Czechoslovakia
iii. Opportunism & national rivalries
iv. Symbolic value and analogical model: the lesson of Munich
v. Annexation of Czechoslovakia, 3.1939 further
vi. Slovakia – declared independence
1. George Bush – evoked the lesson of Munich when discussing going to Iraq
c. The Drive to War: August – September 1939
i. 8.1939 – Ribbentrop – Molotov Pact
ii. 9.1939 – Nazi Invasion of Poland
iii. 9.1939 – France & UK declare war vs. Germany
iv. Secret Additional Protocol
1. Deciding to divide among themselves
Which were the main features of Hitler’s “New European Order”?
a. Unification of Europe
i. Nazi dominated
b. 1940: The Nazi New European Order
i. Further expansion of Germany & satellite regimes
ii. Nazi order: race as organizing principle
1. Racial dogmatism vs. economic interest
a. “non-hegemonic order”
2. Possible German overexpansion & limits of autonomy
3. End European balance of power
a. Only one power that could eventually balance Germany - USSR
Why in 1941 did the war become “total” & “global”?
a. Decision by Hitler to invade Soviet Union
b. Pearl Harbor – Japan’s attack
c. 1941: Global & Total War
i. 6.1941 – German invasion of the Soviet Union
1. War of annihilation and extermination
ii. 12.1941 – Japanese attack of the US: globalization of conflict
1. Pearl Harbor
iii. Dehumanize – rules of war did not apply
1. Many POWs (Russian) became slaves in Germany, many died
iv. Global War
1. Military
2. Ideological
3. Wars within the war: civil, class, ethnic warfare
4. Visions of the future & of the World Order
a. Own propaganda
Why did the US change its approach once the war in Europe began?
a. 1939-1941:
i. FDR: War almost inevitable & emphasis on interdependence
ii. Threatening alteration of European balance of power: fear of “Garrison State”
iii. Support to Great Britain (cash & carry) & undeclared war on the Atlantic
1. Merchant ships escorted by Navy
iv. Anti-Japanese measures
v. Public opinion vs. U.S. participation to the war
1. Hostile to participation, but FDR supported involvement
vi. US as “Arsenal of Democracy” 12.1940 – FDR
1. If Great Britain goes down, axis powers will be in control
b. European Front
i. Bases for destroyers (9.1940): 50 destroyers from the US Navy in exchange for land in various British possessions
ii. Lend Lease Law – 3.1941
1. “to sell, transfer title to… to any such government”
2. UK, USSR
What was the impact of the US entry into the war?
a. Japanese attack (economic strangulation) & German declaration of war
b. US as the only global power (two fronts)
c. Europe First Strategy (Greater danger)
d. Economic support to USSR & Great Britain
e. Full mobilization of main industrial power
f. Accentuation of the ideological dimension of the war
i. US-anti-fascist language
g. Allies/Axis GDP
i. Economic determinism
ii. Radically altered by US entrance
iii. Huge increase in US defense spending
1. Finally recovered from depression, growth
iv. Women entering the workforce
1. Patriotic
What were the basic objectives of the main powers during the war?
a. US: Restore balance of power in Europe
i. Maintain/Reassert U.S. Primacy in the Pacific
ii. Promote Free Trade & Create an International Liberal Order (Lesson of the 1930s)
b. Soviet Union: War for Survival
i. Defense home of socialism; preservation “empire”
1. 23-28 million people died
c. Germany
i. New racial order, resources of Europe, pool of slave labor
d. Britain
i. Preserve empire & avoid Nazi geopolitical/ideological & racial order in Europe
e. Japan
i. Asia empire & resources, end of the US primacy in the Pacific
f. Alliance with USSR
i. Changed representation of Stalin
What were the ideological elements of the American war?
a. To prepare the world for the US leadership
b. To prepare domestic public opinion for a costly global commitment
c. To mobilize Europeans vs. Nazism & Facism
d. To re-launch an International/Globalist Rhetoric & Ideology
e. Four Freedoms
i. Norman Rockwell
f. Freedom of & freedom from
g. Atlantic Charter 8.1941
i. Wilsonian phrases
