World War II began as a conflict between European powers but expanded into a World War after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It ended with the ascension of the United States and the Soviet Union to the status of the only two World Super-Powers, and the subsequent Cold War between these nations.
The Events Leading up to World War II
The punishment clauses of Germany in the Versailles treaty that ended the First World War caused Germans to hate it and the German people to support Hitler’s actions to defy the treaty. The reparation payments helped trigger WWII.
The Germans supported Hitler because they wanted a strong leader.
Great Britain and France allowed Hitler to annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia as part of the Munich Pact. This policy became known as appeasement, and is still condemned today.
Hitler believed that the Jews were to blame for Germany’s defeat in WWI.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact was similar to the treaty that created the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis in that it enabled the signers to engage freely in aggressive actions. It only said that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union would not fight each other. Both these regimes were totalitarian and used their secret police to enforce their rule.
Hitler’s invasion of Poland launched World War II because it caused Britain and France to abandon their policy of appeasement.
War in Europe
Germany began World War II mostly surrounded by the Allied countries.
France was rapidly overrun by the German offensive in the West and forced to surrender to Germany.
Winston Churchill after the Dunkirk evacuation stated: “Hitler knows that he will have to break us or lose the war.” This justified Churchill’s resolve to fight on against Germany. But Great Britain also had the best natural geographic protection against German ground forces in the English Channel. And the German navy was not strong enough to risk invasion in 1940.
Early Nazi military successes resulted in the conquest of most of Europe and North Africa.
The Battle of the Bulge (Dec 1944) was the last time that Nazi forces went on the offensive in Western Europe. Hitler hoped to repeat his spectacular defeat of France in 1940 by separating the British and American armies, preventing the port of Antwerp from becoming a major Anglo-American supply point, and to force the U.S. and Britain to sign a separate peace so that he could focus his defense on the Eastern Front. Hitler always thought he could convince the Western Allies that their ally Stalin (and Communism) was a bigger threat to their long-term wellbeing than Hitler was and to join him in a crusade against Communism.
Ultimately, the Axis underestimated the cost of fighting on multiple fronts.
The Holocaust
The Germans built six special camps in occupied Poland to implement Hitler’s “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” These camps became killing centers in an attempt to wipe our European Jews entirely.
The main target of the Nazi’s in their extermination camps were Jews. However they also targeted gypsies, also known as Roma.
The allied nations’ response to the Holocaust was that they considered it primarily a “refugee situation” and they did not want it to interfere with their war efforts. For example, Jewish groups in the United States urged the bombing of the concentration camps (to stop executions and disrupt lethal work routines), but the heads of the strategic bombing force objected that such a diversion of resources would delay the end of the war. Near the end of the war the allies did focus efforts on liberating the camps.
War in the Pacific
Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 because Japanese militarists wanted to build an empire to rival the Western colonial empires like that of Great Britain.
Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in order to build a Pacific empire without interference from the U.S. Pacific fleet.
General Douglas MacArthur developed the tactic of “island-hopping.” This involved capturing bases in the Pacific by bypassing Japanese areas of strength and instead attacking “strategically important islands that were not well defended but capable of supporting the drive to the main islands of Japan.” (Wikipedia) Island-hopping allowed the United States to more quickly reach Japan and not expend the time, manpower, and supplies to capture every major Japanese base along the way.
After the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, Japanese militants in the government and armed forces still refused to contemplate surrender. It took the intervention of Emperor Hirohito to force the government to sue for peace.
Miscellaneous
By the late 1930’s, Western countries refused to accept more immigrants because they were burdened with the effects of the Great Depression. They also were desperate and the governments of the west tried to protect their economies from foreign competition and increased taxes on imports, worsening the spread of the depression.
Technology greatly advanced in WWII, allowing fleets of large aircraft to enter the war as opposed to the relatively small biplanes of a generation earlier.
As in World War I, World War II opened up many new job opportunities for women because many men were committed to military service overseas. Women obtained new jobs in war industries and took over typical male jobs such as plumbers and stevedores. Women became farmers and worked in agriculture. Women also joined the armed services (to free up men to fight) and worked as truck drivers, engineers, repaired airplanes, rigged parachutes, and served as radio operators.
The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, and the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, helped discredit totalitarian and military-based regimes. They established new legal principles such as crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. They documented the extent of the crimes of the Nazi’s and Japanese militarists, revealed the extent of their leaders’ depravity, and left a lasting impression on the world.
The combined efforts of the Allies, particularly the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union overpowered Germany and Japan, eventually ending the war in 1945.
The United Nations was created after World War II in an effort to ensure peace in the world (the League of Nations had the same goal after World War I). It has led to increased collaboration between Western nations and has been active for seventy years and the world has so far avoided a World War III (“knock on wood”).
Using this answer these questions.
1. How did the fighting in WWII differ from the fighting of WWI? (Make sure to answer the questions with at least 2-3 sentences)(6 points)
2. What were two effects of WWII? (Make sure to answer the questions with at least 2-3 sentences)(6 points)
1. The fighting in WWII differed from WWI in several ways. Firstly, WWII involved more countries and was truly a global conflict, whereas WWI was primarily fought in Europe. Secondly, WWII saw the use of new and more advanced technology, such as tanks, airplanes, and submarines, which greatly impacted the tactics and outcomes of battles. Finally, WWII also witnessed a more brutal and widespread use of civilian targeting and atrocities, such as the Holocaust and the strategic bombing campaigns, which were not as prevalent in WWI.
2. Two effects of WWII were the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and the subsequent start of the Cold War between them. The war led to the rise of the United States as a global leader and the Soviet Union as a major power. This shift in global dynamics shaped the political and military landscape for the rest of the 20th century. Additionally, WWII also led to the establishment of the United Nations, which aimed to prevent future global conflicts and promote international cooperation.