WW2

Question 1

Causes of WW2

Answer 1

• Adolf Hitler
• First world war
• Bad peace

Question 2

The treaty of Versailles (came out of WW1)

Answer 2

• Standard: treaty was bad piece of work, achieved none of good that it might have achieved and achieved lots of bad
• Needlessly strict – to much on Germany – financial ruin – opened door for national socialism
  o Made it possible for nazis to take over
• Wasn’t treaty itself – how treaty was used after been signed
  o Hwo the great powers misused it
  o Ink was barley dry befire great powers argued over what it meant
• Britain and France couldn’t agree on how strict to be w Germany
  o Britain  lenient
  o France  strict
  o Germany couldn’t please both
  o Finally U.S persuaded for opinion and reluctantly and agreed w Britain
   Didn’t smooth things over
   Britain and France wanted deal on what they owe U.S  U.S said no
• German gov cam up w way to reduce money it was gonna pay  create inflation so value would drop and real cost of paying debts reduce
  o Didn’t recognize onece u start inflation hard to control
  o Currency becaome valueless
  o That’s what opens door for nazis
• War guilt clause – Article 231
  o Assign financial responsibly
  o Reason
  o Legitimization
  o CAUSING – makes Germany liable to pay for everything including military build up by great powers before the war  ramps up cost enormously
  o RESPONSIBILTY  financial responsibility  translated to german, not direct translation “shault” meaning guilty  translator provided by german gov provided moral part
• Stab in the back theory
  o Myth: argues that Germany did not suffer military defeat but betrayed by civilians in Germany  socialist and Jews  signed treaty, accepted humiliation
  o Allows German military to remain unstained

Question 3

Collective security

Answer 3

• Creation of legue of nations  international gov  keep world at peace
• Great powers as police, restraining smaller nations and each other
• Inspired idea for its time
• Nothing wrong w treaty , problem w great powers
• Emporer Hirohito  lumped in w dictator but not acc dictator
• Mossalini  Italy
  o Turned to socialism
  o 1921; INVITED TO join Italy coaltion gov  so he wouldn’t force his way in
  o March on rome 2022  sent blackshirts to rome
  o Mossalini was invited to form gov by king  mossalini never looked back
  o 1924  made himself supreme leader (il duce)  democary irrelvent  almost unlimted power  revolutionary nationalism (“make Italy great again”)

Question 4

Barbrossa: Invasion of Russia

Answer 4

• Race war
• one ideolgy cant survive w out the other - must destroy the other

Question 5

Joesph Stalin

Answer 5

• Premier of Soviet Union
• 5”4 and consious of height
• Psyco history - suggest brain disorder
• refused priosner exchange for his son
• On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west
• Stalin decided Poland is not enough, - take baltics and Finland

Question 6

Barborossa: The plan

Answer 6

• non agression treaty between Germany and Russia gonna be broken (just between who moves first)
• Under the codename Operation “Barbarossa,” Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. This was the largest German military operation of World War II.
• 2 stage operation
• Stalin undertaken purge of army – included some of best genrals (wanted to take out people who are not dedicates communists)
  o Added people who were dedicated communists but not as competent
  o Added communist watchdogs (poltical conesar)
  o Soilders were memorizing communist slogans rather than military training
  -

Question 7

Barborossa: Soviet Union

Answer 7

• Almost no communications equipment
• Railway network was old
• Military stuck in past

Question 8

Barborossa: The Campaign

Answer 8

• nazi invasion began – Russians caught by surprise even tho everyone told them they were going to be attacked RIGHT DOWN TO HOUR
• stalin didn’t belive anything , thought he was safe
• only prep was moving most of units into front lines, making them vunrable  magnified weakness in them
• German divsions rolled right past Russians
• 100 of thousands captured in first few weeks
• Advanced continues till Russians reached Moscow
• Winter set in  Russia coukd fight in cold brought divisons from Russia found it warm
• Germans could not fight well in cold
• Late 1941, Russia worked out lots of problems
• Soviets getting numbers into battlefield, men and women
• Women not rare in soviet army
• Gender discrimination seen as evil in Marxist and communist ideology
  o Women closer to equality in soviet union then most other places in world
  o Soviet women not turned away

Question 9

Barborossa: The blunders

Answer 9

• Hitler inflated sense of understanding of miltray operations (magic pipline of miltray blah blah)
• In reality it was no where as good as his poltical intuition
• Moscow – need to defend capital desrroy soviet army in field
  o Best possible plan
  o Hitler disagreed
  o He decided they should advance across whole front
  o Wasting time and resources
  o Few weeks later hitler decided he was wrong
• Descion that stopped nazis from achving descive result in 1941
• Cost Germany real chance to defeat Russia
• Ideological blunder: outgrowth of nazis fixation on race
  o Inilation
  o Pop of Russia needed to be exterminated
  o Ukrain civillans welcome german invaders
  o Realized people not intrested in being ruled by stalin/ Russia
   Wanted intependance
   Sympathetic to germans
   The Holodomor – blamed stalin
   Germans treated as liberators
   Could have been powerful base of support for nazis
   But to nazis they were worse then human could not eb delt with
• Killing squads
• No german would be convicted to crimes against soviet
• Geneva convention
  o Some laws for warfare (civillans, prisoners)
  o Germany signed
  o Russia didn’t sign  so nazis ignored in east
   Russian civillans completely unprotected
  o Followed in west
  o Slaugether on appaling proprtions
• Stalin decided to take advantage of nazis ideological blunder
  o After assult on civillan pop, messages from conasars changed from communist ideology to nationalism
  o Holy mother Russia In danger
  o “for the motherland”
  o More people understood this idea
  o Russian society would fight for every farm, village building
  o Bought more stringent coundtermeasures from nazis
• Became war w out mercy
• Public hangings
• “Campaign of incredibky nasty”

Question 10

Secret Wars: Underground Armies

Answer 10

• Parts in history where wars were underground (Gorilla fighting)
• Britsh gov starts to think about this and tries to organize underground armies that were forming (Train them, control them)
• “set europe a blaze” winston chruchhill

Question 11

Secret wars: set europe a blaze

Answer 11

• Special operations executive: intended to take on specfic tasks in occupied countries
• main task was to organize underground armies
• SOE JOb: conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany
• the SOE operates all around the world seprate reactions for each occupied country (some more sucessful than others)
  France was the main battle ground ( seprate sections- F section)

Question 12

Secret Wars: F section

Answer 12

• A special division of British intelligence, called F-Section, or French Section, strictly devoted to aiding the resistance groups
• train + equip britsh personnel
• Parachute into france
• head was not a miltray person
  (easy to teach someone to be a secret agent, hard to teach them to be french)
  all sorts of Jobs not many miltray/ inteligence people

Question 13

Kevin Macallister (f section)

Answer 13

• From guelph
• Bright - didnt put in max effort - drove teachers crazy
• got by on personality to UofT to study law
• became a sucess - won every academic prize
• regarded as “brillant” and “best mind in century”
• Rhodes scholarship - law at oxford - more intrested in IR
• married french women and lived there, got out b4 german invasion

Question 14

Frank Pickersgill (f section)

Answer 14

• Mantoba - Uoft Masters in Classics - Phd in Paris - Became journalist
• determined to travel difficult places
• in france when germans invaded - interned - escaped
• came back to britan and met Kevin Mcallister
• both him and kevin genrally not suited to milatay (bad eyesight/balence)
• Both knew France well
• Ideal Candidates for SOE
• they did traning camp together and were together everyday (to learn to be secet agents)
• learned to lie steal and kill
• Parachuted into occupied france in 1942

Question 15

Physcian mystery

Answer 15

Frank and kevins job was to join a network called physcian
- Physcian covers most f north france
- covered by Francis Sutil
- physican was already infultrated by Nazi SD (intelligence agency) but they didnt know
- SD started with least important and moved in, did this carefully to get to the central command structure
- when kevin and frank parachuted was when SD decided to strike
- they were taken to a prison in Paris
-they were there for weeks and then moved to civillan prison
- they were eventually sent to bokenbault, put on death block and hung and creamated (normandy invasion - SD wants to cover tracks - important people sent to concentration camps)
- story wasnt known till end pf war @ time no one understood what was happening

Question 16

Maurice Southgate

Answer 16

• Southgate was regarded by Maurice Buckmaster, head of SOE’s French Section, as one of his best agents
• he was very boring (avg height, avg weight, avg hair colour)
  Lesson: Mundane is important and best trait 4 spies
• he was very forgettable despite his sucess no books written on him
• so much written on flashy people w little impact

Question 17

Arthur Harris head of Raf

Answer 17

• Aim of bombing: destroy civillan morale
• Being burned of ur home was a morale kill
• Destroy german morale  destroy residential areas
• Area bombing new aim was dehousing
• Harris proposed that this was how to win war
• Secret in his openion was force and consistency (every night w big aircrafts)

Question 18

Operation Millennium, Koln 1942

Answer 18

• Butcher Harris
• Bomber Harris
• Cocnsitency: cant bomb city than leave it alone (you have to hit it night after night after night)
• Force + concsitency = victory
• Bombing becomes science
• Operation gamora deminstartes this (Hamburg July 1943)

Question 19

Morality

Answer 19

• Harris being obsessed with cities worked against them
• For part of war allies had no way to strike back in support of soviet union against Germany?
• Some german sectors prosudced more?  bombings didn’t work  but how much more woud they have expaneded without the bombing
• Did bombing speed up defeat of Nazi Germany?
• “ oh ofc Germany was gonna be defeated so this was wrong” – hindsight
• Didn’t look so simple it 42 or 43
• Whether it worked is different matter
  o U.S strategic bombing sector
  o Using vast amounts of data and intreviews
  o Americans concluded that did have sig impact
  o Followed by nazis aggreging
  o What saved nazi Germany is that americans kept changing target
• Brute force agrment – allies won even tho soilders and genrals weren’t as good as Germany
  o Allies had more material resources
• Bristh tanks inferior but their wayyy more
• Limit less supply or arms and amunation
• Can argue that germans didn’t have that resource due to startgeic army – making it hard for production and transportation – where significance of startgeic bombing was felt (one way too look at it – cant be proved)

Question 20

Allied powers

Answer 20

• Britan
• US
• Soviet Union
  did not share common political aims, and did not always agree on how the war should be fought.
• France

Question 21

Axis powers

Answer 21

Japan and Germany

Question 22

Genocide

Answer 22

Geno (greeK) = race, cide (latin)= killing
- coined by lenkin
- first recognized by by intl law 1996
“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

(United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect)

in the UN Defenition
- cultural destruction doesnt count
- dispersing doesnt count
- has to be proven intent and target specfically ethical, national, racial or relgious group

Question 23

Holocaust (term)

Answer 23

-greek = sacrafice by fire
- was called extermnation during war
- some jews prefer the term “shoah” (hebrew)= complete and utter destruction and usally just applied to jews in eur

Question 24

War on Jews

Answer 24

• rooted in nazis understanding of race

Question 25

SS Ahnenerbe

Answer 25

• organization set up by nazi police to prove history of aryan race
• historians, archologists , ranks and wierdos
  Basic premise: aryan race began somewhere in frozen northland, migrated south and than founded other civillzations
• went to middle east, central asia looking for blonde blue eyed people who may be racially related to orginals

Question 26

eichmann himmler

Answer 26

• dull + colourless
• unpleasant person
• liked having other kids punished as a child
• not very bright but had an amazing capcity for detail (perf for nazi era)
• a conference of Nazi high officials was convened to organize the logistics of what the Nazis called the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Eichmann was to coordinate the details; thus, although it was not yet generally known that the “final solution” was mass execution, Eichmann had in effect been named chief executioner. Thereupon he organized the identification, assembly, and transportation of Jews from all over occupied Europe to their final destinations at Auschwitz and other extermination camps in German-occupied Poland.
• he was a master of deatil which allowed him to plan an extermanation of so many people
  Book: Eichman in Jeurselum
• made point that he wasnt a monster or demon
• said he was utterly unremarkable - and not capable of advanced emotion
• he didnt feel remorse because he was just too simple
• “banlity of evil” basically he was small of mind w little abilty

Question 27

Functionalists on Nazis

Answer 27

• rise of nazis was an evolutionary process and genocide was the chosen option after other things were tried

Question 28

Internationalists

Answer 28

from beggining destruction of jews was apart of hitlers national socialism (was the plan from the start)

Question 29

the process of the holocaust

Answer 29

• hitler and eichmann mean everything was very calculated
• everything appeared legitamate and legal
• nazis moved slow
• strated w boycott of jew businesses (to test to see if anyone protested before moving forward) no one did
• than jewish laws (no interaction w non jews, no public places, no property, if they left they had to leave all assets etc)
• very calculated and slow
  -Kristallnacht
• poland jews put in ghettos
  nazis bagan to expell jews to polond to create a resvoir of slave laboue
• turned people to things
• wanasse conferance final solution adopted

Question 30

Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass)

Answer 30

hattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes.
- police told not to intervene unless aryan property or business was in danger
- jews rounded up to concentration camps
- nazi gov expressed regeret bc looked bas on intl stage
- jews fired for damage and told to cleanup

Question 31

Wanasse conferance

Answer 31

conference of Nazi high officials was convened to organize the logistics of what the Nazis called the “final solution to the Jewish question.” Eichmann was to coordinate the details; thus, although it was not yet generally known that the “final solution” was mass execution, Eichmann had in effect been named chief executioner.

Question 32

Other victims

Answer 32

Classfied as genocide:
- Jahovas witnesses - refusing to accept
- poles - lines up w nazis plans for poland
- roma/gypsys - declared as enemies of state - habitual criminals and racial enemies

Not classfied as genocide
- mentally physically diables- cost to much “genetically deffective”
- Poltical prioners - socialists and communists
- gays and lesbians

does the idea of genocide provide hierarchy of suffering? or is it useful?

Question 33

The atlantic wall (VE and VJ day)

Answer 33

• long and extensive series of postions
• Italy was never more than a side show
• real decisive campaign was northwest europe
• was supposed to be may 1943, the revised date was may 1944
• invasion couldnt begin till they had ships to land so many people on beach (Higgins boat and landing ship tank)
  Location:
• dependant on limits of allied air cover (had to land somewhere with air cover)
• pas de calais was too obvious
• Normandy was most sutible choice w suitable beaches
  Decsion:
• 5 beach landing at Normandy
  Happened on June 6 1944 (D DAY)

Question 34

How campaign of normandy landings was sucessful

Answer 34

• unified command, esienhower was a great manager
• brutal force theory (overwelming superiorty)
  plus 3 unusal factors
  1.) approach to tech innovation
  basically difficult problems and simple solutions
• Diffrent tanks for diffrent things
• concrete blocks to land
• opearion fortitude: allies made dummy everything to confuse on where it would happen

Question 35

Normandy landings WW2 (D DAY)

Answer 35

• largest anphibian force in history
• greatest sucess was juno beach (CAD beach)
• first day was a sucess
• as reniforcents poured on D=1 (secound day) became clar it woild be difficult for nazis
• have to push nazis from both sides

Question 36

Warsaw uprising

Answer 36

• people of warsaw tried to liberate themselves in Oct 1944
• biggest underground army uprising
• resistance crushed, city demolished everyone left either executed or sent to GER for death
• example of ideolgy taking away from war on ground
• ger held vast numbers of prisoners of war
• some camp allied airman escaped through underground tunnel and this was a big deal for nazis
• Hitler overreacted as he thought they would start an uprising and 50 were executed
• doesnt seem like that much but nazis had wierd thinking and it bothered them more than holocaust
• rift in high command
• operation valkyerie - some involved in execution of escapees switched sides and joins hitler opps
• this was not princepal it was self preseravation

Question 37

Iorgau april 1945

Answer 37

• 2 sides meet
• hitker shot himself- uncondital surrender (they only thing allies would accept)
• actual surrender a week later (formality)