WW2: 1939 - 1945 Flashcards
Causes
Hitler
Economic/political factors
WWI Treaty of Versailles
Diplomacy
Causes: “H”
HITLER
- challenged ToV/reparations
- rebuilt German military (begins draft, build weapons)
- territorial aggression
- extreme nationalism
- anti-Semitism as a scapegoat
- lebensraum (living spaces for the master race)
Causes: “E”
ECONOMIC/POLITICAL
- economic depression in Germany caused by inflation/reparations
- Hitler = threat, but defense against communism (remember Red Scare?)
- Dawes Plan ties US economy to Europe through reparations
Causes: “W”
WWI TREATY OF VERSAILLES
- boundaries redrawn: Germany loses 10% territory and wants to gain it back
- German reparations cripple economy
- creation of weak nations: Poland/Austria/Hungary
- restriction of military/war guilt clause/weapon limits
Basically makes everyone mad
Causes: “D”
DIPLOMACY
- policy of appeasement (peace at any cost) by LN
- -ex: Hitler can have Sudentenland if he leaves rest of Czechoslovakia alone; doesn’t stop
- US Neutrality Acts; basically isolationism
- 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression pact
- Germany allies with Italy and Japan
Tactics of War: Europe
“Europe first”
- 1st war with unconventional weapons (not as many guns)
- Submarine warfare
- strategic/fire/carpet bombing (Dresden , Berlin)
- Maginot line (fortified defense line against Rhine river; ineffective bc Germany attacks from N instead of S)
- Blitzkrieg - speed, surprise, terror
- Propaganda
Tactics of War: Pacific Theater
Atomic bombs in Nagasaki, Hiroshima, bombing of Tokyo
Submarines/airplanes/air craft carriers
Kamikaze = suicide pilots
Bonzai Charge
Bushido code: never surrender
Island hopping instead of direct (US takes over weak Japanese islands as staging areas for further assault)
Strategies of War
-Cash and Carry: policy/trade embargoes; supply allies with weapons
-destroyers for bases
Operation Barbarossa: German invasion of Russia
-extend fighting to civilians/city populations
-war of movement (gain territory) instead of attrition
Nature of War
“Total War” - involve civilians (Guernica/Dresden), no distinction bw soldiers/civilians, nuclear weapons
- Final Solution/Holocaust
- economies turn to war efforts
- weapons more deadly
- women in workplace
RESULTS: Europe
- USSR occupy central Europe (buffer zone)
- France/UK economically devastated
- power split bw US/USSR -> Cold War
- Germany/Berlin separated by Yalta
- power in Europe –> bipolar division
- Nuremberg Trials
RESULTS: Pacific theater
Japan occupied by MacARthur and demilitarized by US
Unconditional surrender demanded
US has nuclear monopoly
RESULTS: both
UN emerges from LN Zionist Movement = extension from Balfour Declaration and creates Israel Policy of containment Arms Race NATO formed, then Warsaw Pact US = industrial giant
Warsaw Pact
Mutual defense organization bw USSR and seven satellite states
USSR in charge of armed forces
Truman Doctrine
Containment
- economically support Greece/Turkey to prevent them from joining Soviet sphere
- start of containment policy
Marshall Plan
American initiative to aid Europe
-help rebuild European economies after WWII to stop the spread of communism
