WWII (1939-1945) Flashcards
German Aggression
Rhineland
Germany marched into the Rhineland (area bordering France, Belgium, and Netherlands) in 1936, breaking the Treaty of Versailles. This march strengthened Hitler’s power and prestige. The balance of power changed in Germany’s favor since France and Belgium were open for attack.
German Aggression
Anschluss
Germany partners with Austria and makes it under their rule, against the treaty of versailles.
German Aggression
Munich Conference and appeasement
Hitler demanded Sudetenland (area bordering Czechoslovakia containing majority ethnic Germans) in 1938 because of nationalism. This led to the Munich Conference, where Fr. Germ, Gb, and Italy were trying to keep “peace”. They gave them appeasement for their aggression to not cause issues.
German Aggression
Czechoslovakia
Six months after the Munich Conference, Germany takes the rest of Czechoslovakia.
German Aggression
Non-aggression pact (1939)
USSR and Germ. Split poland, and don’t attack each other. They were neutral to each other at this time.
German Aggression
Poland
Germany invades after the non-aggression pact in 1939 and takes over poland, making USSR super pissed.
German Aggression
France
Belgium was the easiest way into france for Germany. Their strategy was Blitzkrieg/Lightning War, where fighter planes scattered enemy troops, disrupted communication, tanks charge into enemy territory. France is forced to surrender poland, austria, norway, denmark, and belgium in early days of war. France falls and is out mechanized. Germany deports “lesser peoples’ to concentration camps.
German Aggression
Invasion of USSR (1941)
Germany needs oil. It was guns vs. people. Blitzkrieg didn’t work, but Germany underestimated Russian people’s #’s. Lend-lease act was extended from the US to the soviets and got trucks.
Japanese Aggression
Manchuria was rich in iron and coal deposits, things they needed for industrialization. Japanese claim Chinese attacked a railway owned by Japan, and attacked (1931-1932). Chinese nationalists and communists halt their own civil war to fight Japanese. Nationalists stockpile weapons, and communists fight japanese gaining peasant support. They had little success. In 1937, territorial control was essential to japanese survival, using naval/air force bombs on Beijing, moving south to the capital to Nanjing. The rape of Nanjing was when thousands were killed, women raped, murdered soldiers/civilians.
England
Battle for Britain
Germany’s Air Force bombs air bases and then heavily populated areas, leading to 40k dying. Bombings, however, gave cities time for the military to rebuild, coming out with superior planes/radars.
England
Imperial assistance
They had Gurkha soldiers in Nepal and south-asians.
England
US assistance
In 1939, “cash-and-carry” war supply policy to britain, where they pay cash for goods, and british then carry these resources on their own ships. US “lent” destroyer ship/war goods to the Brits, in the lend lease deal of 1941.
Governments gain power to win the war
Governments and production
They switch production from consumer goods to war goods, making it a command economy filled with tanks, guns, planes, artillery, destroyers, aircraft carriers, and machine guns. Liberty ships were made in the US, transferring thousands of soldiers and tons of resources/weapons to allies. Women must work in factories to replace men, just like WWI
Governments gain power to win the war
Governments and consumers
People had to consume less/ration their money so soldiers could be fed. Government raise money to pay for the war with loans and income taxes. 41% of the war was raised through taxes.
Women
During WWII
Women were often raped in Nanjing, 1937, and in Spain under Mussolini. Women had to work in factories to replace men fighting at war.
Women
After WWII
Women were finally given some sort of rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Germany Loses
Two Front War
Germany, japan, and italy declares war on US, GB, and USSR. They were the Axis powers. Italy then left the axis powers in 1944. The US and Britain invade from the south and the west (France). USSR invades from the east and pushed germans out of Russia.
Germany Loses
US production
More people and industrial capacity will with nis war. The US could build more armored cars and liberty ships than the Germans could sink. Creation of sonar, aircraft patrols, escort aircrafts finished the U-boat strategy where they would stay in a larger ship’s shadow and then attack.
Germany Loses
Fire bombing
Germany loses factories due to allied bombings around the clock, and lost access to oil. Firebombing of Dresden led to 135,000 germans being cooked in their bomb shelters underground, called D-Day, 1944.
Leapfrogging
US leapfrogs from across the pacific, hopping from one island to the other in order to reach Japan. Had multiple different groups of soldiers going from heavily populated military islands close to Japan to take out their army supply quickly before reaching Japan.
Yalta Conference
The big three, GB, US, USSR meets in Yalta on how to end the war. US asks for Soviet help, but changes their mind because the US wanted to frighten USSR because of their atomic weapons.
Atomic Bomb
Impact on the War
US drops the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan (1945)
Reasons for dropping the a-bomb
It would save more American and Japanese soldiers lives than letting the war continue. It was the also intimidate soviets out of E. Europe.
Holocaust
It was the Final Solution to eradicate those who Hiteler didn’t like or didn’t fit into the perfect race. This resulted into mass killing fields in Russia, work camps in Austria, concentration camps/killing camps in Poland and Austria, leading to 6 million dead jewish people killed in less than a decade. This led to the Establishment of Israel in 1952 when Jewish people were given a homeland by GB. Poles, Romanis, homosexuals, gay people, disabled people, non-protestants, and Russian POWs.
