Unit 7 Flashcards
Define the Battle of Britain.
a series of battles between the British and German air forces
Define the Lend-Lease Act.
the president could lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country that was vital to the U.S.
Define Atlantic Charter.
Roosevelt and Churchill met secretly and issued a joint declaration before the U.S. entered the war
Define Holocaust.
a systematic mass slaughter of Jews and other groups judged inferior by the Nazis
Define Nuremberg Laws.
a government policy that deprived Jews of their rights to German citizenship and forbade marriages between Jews and non-Jews
Define ghettos.
overcrowded or segregated Jewish areas
Define the Battle of Stalingrad.
battle of WW2 in which German forces were defeated in their attempt to capture the city of Stalingrad in the Soviet Union
Define D-Day.
when the Allies invaded Normandy
Define kamikaze.
Japanese suicide pilots who would sink Allied ships by crash-diving their bomb-filled planes into them
What were the 2 technological devices that helped turn the tide in the Royal Air Force’s favor?
1) the radar: could tell the number, speed, and direction of incoming warplanes
2) the Enigma: enabled the British to decide German secret messages
Describe the bombing of Pearl Harbor and its significance.
The Japanese sunk 19 ships and maimed/killed over 3,000 U.S. soldiers. The attack caused President Roosevelt to declare war on Japan.
What was the role of the SS during the “Final Solution.”
The SS went around killing Jews and rounding them up to be killed.
How did the U.S. mobilize for war?
The favorites converted their peacetime to manufacturing the products needed for war.
How did the Allies deal with the Nazi war criminals after the war was over?
They put the criminals through the Nuremberg Trials and either sentenced them to prison or gave them a death sentence.
Who was Charles de Gaulle?
a French general who set up a government-in-exile in London; went on to organize Free French military forces that battled the Nazis until France was liberated in 1944
Who was Winston Churchill?
British Prime Minister who declared that Britain would never give in to the Axis Powers
Who was Erwin Rommel?
known as the “Desert Fox,” this German general commanded the Afrika Korps, an elite German tank force, to assist the Italians in Africa
Who was Douglas MacArthur?
the commander of the Allied land forces in the Pacific
Who was James Doolittle?
under his command, 16 B-25 bombers bombed Tokyo and several other Japanese cities
Who was Herschel Grynszpan?
a Jewish youth from Germany who shot a German diplomat living in Paris out of revenge for his father’s deportation to Poland
Who was Dwight Eisenhower?
an American general who led Allied forces into Morocco and Algeria during Operation Torch
What was an Aryan?
Germanic people who were considered by the Nazis to be the “master race”
Define blitzkrieg.
“lightning war”; a war strategy that involved fast moving attacks that were meant to overwhelm the enemy
