chapter 11: a world in flames, 1931-1941 · pdf fileworld war ii, the most destructive war in...

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1931–1960

GlobalStruggles

The rise of dictatorships in the 1930s led toWorld War II, the most destructive war in the

history of the world. After the war, the fragilealliance between the United States and the

Soviet Union collapsed into the Cold War—aperiod of intense political, economic, and mili-

tary competition. Learning about the events ofthis crucial period in our nation’s history will

help you understand the events occurring inthe nation and around the world today. The

following resources offer more informationabout this period in American history.

Primary Sources LibrarySee pages 976–977 for primary source read-

ings to accompany Unit 4.

Use the American History PrimarySource Document Library CD-ROM to find

additional primary sources about global struggles.

Why It Matters

American soldierin World War II

Dog tags

“More than an end to war,we want an end to thebeginning of all wars.”

—Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1945

532 CHAPTER 12 Becoming a World Power532532

A World in Flames

1931–1941

. The Big Ideas ,SECTION 1: America and the World

Societies change over time. In the years following World War I, aggressive and expansionist govern-ments took power in both Europe and Asia.

SECTION 2: World War II BeginsThe fate of nations is forever changed by monumental world events. World War II officially

began with the Nazi invasion of Poland and the French and British declaration of war on Germany inSeptember 1939.

SECTION 3: The HolocaustThe fate of nations is forever changed by monumental world events. Nazis steadily increased

their persecution of Jews and eventually set up death camps and tried to kill all the Jews in Europe.

SECTION 4: America Enters the WarThe fate of nations is forever changed by monumental world events. When World War II first

began, the United States attempted to continue its prewar policy of neutrality.

The American Vision: Modern Times Video The Chapter 11 video,“Holocaust Stories,” presents firsthand accounts from survivors of the Holocaust.

1931• Jane Addams awarded

Nobel Peace Prize

1932• Bonus Army arrives

in Washington, D.C.

1931• Japan invades

Manchuria

1933• Hitler appointed

chancellor of Germany

1936• Hitler reoccupies

Rhineland

• Spanish Civil War begins

▲

▼

▲

▼ ▼

▲

1930 1933 1936

1933• Franklin Delano

Roosevelt inaugurated

▲F. Roosevelt1933–1945

1935• First Neutrality

Act passed

533533

German chancellor Adolf Hitler reviews a parade of Nazi troops.

1940• Roosevelt makes

“destroyers-for-bases”deal with Britain

December 7, 1941• Japan attacks Pearl

Harbor

▲▲

1939• SS St. Louis denied

permission to dockin United States

▲

1941• Roosevelt and

Churchill coauthorAtlantic Charter

▲

1937• Neutrality Act

limits trade with all warring nations

▲

▼1939• World War II

begins with Hitler’sattack on Poland

▼1940• France falls to

the Nazis

▼

1939 1942

1938• Munich Conference

appeases Hitler

HISTORY

Chapter OverviewVisit the American Vision:Modern Times Web site at

andclick on Chapter Overviews—Chapter 11 to preview chapterinformation.

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http://tav.mt.glencoe.com

534 CHAPTER 11 A World in Flames534 CHAPTER 11 A World in Flames

You learned in Chapter 5 that effective readers use a skill called makinginferences to understand the deeper, and sometimes hidden, meanings

of the text. While some may call it “reading between the lines,” it is really aprocess of questioning, predicting, and connecting in order to understandwhat is not directly said.

An excellent way to improve your skills of making inferences is to talkwith a partner about the material you just read. You will often discover thatdifferent people understand the same text in slightly different ways. Whenyou talk with someone else about your predictions, questions, and connec-tions, both of you benefit from the ideas you gather from the information inthe text. You can also learn from one another how to develop and refine theskills necessary to make inferences.

Read the following paragraph about the beginning days of World War II and useinferences to draw conclusions about how each of the countries mentioned felt aboutthe war in western Europe.

MAKING INFERENCES

Use your backgroundknowledge to help youunderstand the passage.What do you already knowabout World War II?

534

In contrast to the war in Poland, westernEurope remained eerily quiet. The Germansreferred to this situation as the sitzkrieg, or sittingwar. The British called it the “Bore War,” whileAmerican newspapers nicknamed it the “PhonyWar.” The British sent troops to assist France, butbecause both countries remained on the defen-sive, waiting for the Germans to attack, therewere no battles or warfare. (page 545)

After you have read the passage, thinkabout the various names the Germans, British,and Americans used to describe the war inwestern Europe. Then discuss these questionswith a partner:

• Based on this passage, how did Germany feelabout the war?

• Is this similar to, or different from, the British andAmerican outlooks?

• What do you believe the public wanted in thesecountries?

• What do you expect will happen next?

Making Inferences

CHAPTER 11 A World in Flames 535

TK

You learned in Chapter 1 that events can cause changes. At times these changesoccur quickly, while other times they spread over many years. To understand

cause and effect is to know why and how an event occurred. A cause is an action orsituation that produces an event. What happens as a result of a cause is an effect.Sometimes the effect of one event can be the cause of future events.

Historians use cause-and-effect relationships to explain why events occurred. Asthey analyze events, they know that there are limitations to their cause-and-effectanalyses. In some cases the causes are not clear, while in other cases the effects maynot be known for decades.

Read the following passages about the increasing involvement of the United States intoWorld War II.

Worried that growing German and Italian aggression might lead to war, Congresspassed the Neutrality Act of 1935. (page 540)

President Roosevelt officially proclaimed the United States neutral two days afterBritain and France declared war on Germany. Despite this declaration, he was determinedto do all he could to help the two countries in their struggle against Hitler. (page 557)

Widespread public acceptance of the destroyers-for-bases deal demonstrated a markedchange in American public opinion. The shift began after the German invasion of Franceand the rescue of Allied forces at Dunkirk. (page 558)

By December 1940, Great Britain had run out of funds. . . . Roosevelt came up witha way to remove the cash requirement of the Neutrality Act. . . . Congress passed theLend-Lease Act by a wide margin. (pages 559–560)

In the mid-1930s, Americans did not wantto get involved in another war in Europe.They took steps with the Neutrality Act of1935 to avoid such an involvement. Withincreasing German aggression, the UnitedStates began to aid the Allies in Europe, firstwith the destroyers-for-bases deal and thenwith the Lend-Lease Act.

Read the text under the heading “JapanAttacks the United States” on pages 561–563of your textbook. Explain how PresidentRoosevelt’s efforts to help Britain led toJapan’s decision to attack the United States.

Historical Interpretation When you study historical events, you will learn to recognizethe complexity of historical causes and effects, including the limitations on determiningcause and effect.

Understanding ChangeAnalysis Skill Standard HI2

535


Guide to Reading

ConnectionIn the previous chapter, you learnedabout President Roosevelt’s efforts to endthe Great Depression. In this section, youwill discover how events in Europe andAsia pushed the nation to adopt a policyof neutrality.

• Strong dictatorial rulers took control ofthe governments of Italy, the USSR,Japan, and Germany. (p. 537)

• Despite Roosevelt’s emphasis on inter-nationalism, most Americans felt thatthey did not want to be involved inanother war in Europe. (p. 539)

Content Vocabularyfascism, internationalism

Academic Vocabularyimpose, investigate, civil

People and Terms to IdentifyBenito Mussolini, Vladimir Lenin, JosephStalin, Adolf Hitler, Manchuria, NeutralityAct of 1935

Reading Objectives• Describe how postwar conditions con-

tributed to the rise of antidemocraticgovernments in Europe.

• Explain why many Americans sup-ported a policy of isolationism in the 1930s.

Reading StrategyTaking Notes As you read about theevents in Europe and Asia after WorldWar I, use the major headings of the sec-tion to create an outline similar to theone below.

Preview of Events

America and the World

America and the WorldI. The Rise of Dictators

A.B.C.D.

II.

1922Fascist Party takes powerin Italy; USSR established

✦1927 ✦1932

1931Japan takes controlof Manchuria

1933Hitler takes powerin Germany

1937Japan attacksChina

1935Congress passes firstNeutrality Act

✦1937✦1922

. The Big Idea ,Societies change over time. While the United States was battling the GreatDepression, European nations saw the rise of dictatorships. Italy’s BenitoMussolini based his leadership on the ideas of fascism and anti-communism;Joseph Stalin cemented Communist rule in Russia; and in Germany, Adolf Hitlerand the Nazi Party based their rule on nationalism. In Japan, militarists gainedcontrol of the government and pursued a policy of expansion in Asia.Discouraged Americans responded to these developments by supporting isola-tionism. Congress began to legislate neutrality, hoping to keep the United Statesout of any future wars.

The following are the mainHistory–Social Science Standardscovered in this section.

11.7.1 Examine the origins ofAmerican involvement in the war,

with an emphasis on the events thatprecipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor.

11.7.4 Analyze Roosevelt’s foreign policy during World War II (e.g., Four

Freedoms speech).

The Rise of Dictators

Strong dictatorial rulers took control of thegovernments of Italy, the USSR, Japan, and Germany.

Reading Connection How do you think your life wouldchange if you lived in a country ruled by a dictator? Read on tolearn about repressive governments that arose during the1920s and 1930s.

When World War I ended in 1918, the future ofdemocracy in Europe seemed bright. PresidentWoodrow Wilson announced, “Everything for whichAmerica fought has been accomplished.” Wilsonhoped that the United States could “aid in the estab-lishment of just democracy throughout the world.”Instead, the treaty that ended the war, along with theeconomic depression that followed, contributed tothe rise of antidemocratic governments in bothEurope and Asia.

In August 1934, American journalist DorothyThompson received an urgent call from the porter ather Berlin hotel. A member of Germany’s secret statepolice wanted to talk to her. Thompson had beenreporting on Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, and she hadwritten various anti-Nazi articles for the Americanpress. In one she described the beautiful singing shehad heard at a Hitler youth camp, where thousands ofboys ages 10 to 16 marched and sang. The boys’ lovelyvoices echoing across the hills stirred Thompson, butthe words on an enormous banner hanging acrossone hillside chilled her:

“It was so prominent that every child could see itmany times a day. It was white, and there was aswastika painted on it, and besides that only sevenwords, seven immense black words: YOU WERE BORNTO DIE FOR GERMANY.”

When Thompson met with the police, they orderedher to leave Germany immediately. “I, fortunately, aman American,” Thompson observed, “so I was merelysent to Paris. Worse things can happen to one.”

—quoted in The Women Who Wrote the War

It was less than 20 years since Woodrow Wilsonexpressed his optimism about the world that the

dictatorial German government expelled DorothyThompson. The antidemocratic governments ofEurope and Asia were already strong.

Mussolini and Fascism in Italy One of Europe’sfirst major dictatorships arose in Italy. There, aformer schoolmaster and journalist named BenitoMussolini returned from World War I convinced thathis country needed a strong leader.

In 1919 Mussolini founded Italy’s Fascist Party.Fascism was a kind of aggressive nationalism.Fascists believed that the nation was more importantthan the individual. They argued that individualismmade countries weak and that a strong governmentled by a dictator was needed to impose order on soci-ety. Fascists believed a nation became great byexpanding its territory and building up its military.

Fascism was also strongly anticommunist. Afterthe Communist revolution in Russia, manyEuropeans feared that Communists, allied with laborunions, were trying to bring down their govern-ments. Mussolini exploited these fears by portrayingfascism as a barrier to Communism. Fascism beganto stand for the protection of private property and ofthe middle class. Mussolini also offered the workingclass full employment and social security. Hestressed national prestige, pledging to return Italy tothe glories of the Roman Empire.

Backed by the Fascist militia known as theBlackshirts, Mussolini threatened to march on Romein 1922, claiming he was coming to defend Italyagainst a Communist revolution. Liberal members ofthe Italian parliament insisted that the king declaremartial law. When he refused, the cabinet resigned.Conservative advisers then persuaded the king toappoint Mussolini as the premier.

CHAPTER 11 A World in Flames 537CHAPTER 11 A World in Flames 537

“I, fortunately,am anAmerican . . .”

—Dorothy Thompson

Once in office, Mussolini worked quickly todestroy democracy and set up a dictatorship. Wearyof strikes and riots, many Italians welcomedMussolini’s leadership. With the support of industri-alists, landowners, and the Roman Catholic Church,Mussolini—who took the title of Il Duce, or “TheLeader”—embarked on an ambitious program ofbringing order to Italy.

Stalin Takes Over the USSR The Communistswere a much larger force in Russia than in Italy. Afterthe Russian Revolution began in 1917, the BolshevikParty, led by Vladimir Lenin, established Commu-nist governments throughout the Russian empire. In1922 they renamed these territories the Union ofSoviet Socialist Republics (USSR). They then pro-ceeded to establish control over these territories. Todo this, the Communists instituted one-party rule,suppressed individual liberties, and punished oppo-nents. After Lenin died in 1924, a power strugglebegan. By 1926, Joseph Stalin had become the newSoviet dictator. In 1927 Stalin began a massive effortto industrialize his country. Tolerating no oppositionto his rule, the effort brought about the deaths of 8 to10 million peasants who resisted the Communistpolicies.

Hitler and Nazism in Germany Adolf Hitlerwas a fervent anticommunist and an admirer ofMussolini. Hitler had fought for Germany in WorldWar I. Germany’s surrender and the subsequentVersailles Treaty left him and many other Germanswith a smoldering hatred for the victorious Alliesand for the German government that had acceptedthe peace terms.

The political and economic chaos in postwarGermany led to the rise of new political parties. Oneof these was the National Socialist German Workers’Party, or the Nazi Party. The party did not representthe working class, as its name suggested, but wasnationalistic and anticommunist. Adolf Hitler wasone of the party’s first recruits.

In November 1923, the Nazis tried to seize powerby marching on city hall in Munich, Germany. Hitlerintended to seize power locally and then march onBerlin, the German capital, but the plan failed andHitler was arrested.

While in prison, Hitler wrote his autobiography,titled Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”). In the book, Hitlercalled for the unification of all Germans under onegovernment. He claimed that Germans, particularlyblond, blue-eyed Germans, belonged to a “masterrace” called Aryans. He argued that Germans neededmore lebensraum, or living space, and called forGermany to expand east into Poland and Russia.According to Hitler, the Slavic people of EasternEurope belonged to an inferior race, which Germansshould enslave. Hitler’s prejudice was strongest,however, toward Jews. He believed that Jews wereresponsible for many of the world’s problems, espe-cially for Germany’s defeat in World War I.

After his release from prison, Hitler changed histactics. Instead of trying to seize power violently, hefocused on getting Nazis elected to the Reichstag, thelower house of the German parliament. When theGreat Depression struck Germany, many desperateGermans began to vote for radical parties, includingthe Nazis and Communists. By 1932 the Nazis werethe largest party in the Reichstag.

Many traditional German leaders supportedHitler’s nationalism. They believed that if theyhelped Hitler become leader of Germany legally, theycould control him. In 1933 the German presidentappointed Hitler as chancellor, or prime minister.

After taking office, Hitler called for new elections.He then ordered the police to crack down on theSocialist and Communist Parties. Storm Troopers, asthe Nazi paramilitary units were called, beganintimidating voters. After the election, the Reichstag,dominated by the Nazis and other right-wing

538 CHAPTER 11 A World in Flames

Supreme Soviets Joseph Stalin (right) took over control of the Soviet Unionafter Lenin’s death in 1924. He was determined to modernize and industrializehis nation. How many people died while opposing Stalin’s leadership?

History

Hulton-Deutsch/Getty Images


end the war, but when the Japanese prime ministerbegan negotiations, officers assassinated him. Fromthat point forward, the military was effectively incontrol. Although Japan still had a civilian govern-ment, it now supported the nationalist policy ofexpanding the empire, and it appointed several mili-tary officers to serve as prime minister.

Examining How did postwar con-ditions contribute to the rise of dictatorships in Europe?

America Turns to Neutrality

Despite Roosevelt’s emphasis on internation-alism, most Americans felt that they did not want to beinvolved in another war in Europe.

Reading Connection Do you think that the UnitedStates should become involved in the wars of other nationseven when it is not under attack? Read on to discover the attitude of Americans during the 1930s.

The rise of dictatorships and militarism afterWorld War I discouraged many Americans. The sac-rifices they had made during the war seemed point-less. Once again, Americans began to supportisolationism, or the belief that the United Statesshould avoid international commitments that mightdrag the nation into another war.

Reading Check

parties, voted to give Hitler dictatorial powers. In1934 Hitler became president, which gave him con-trol of the army. He then gave himself the new titleof führer, or “leader.” The following year, he beganto rebuild Germany’s military, in violation of theTreaty of Versailles.

Militarists Gain Control of Japan In Japan, asin Germany, difficult economic times helped under-mine the political system. Japanese industries had toimport nearly all of the resources they needed toproduce goods. During the 1920s, Japan did not earnenough money from its exports to pay for itsimports, which limited economic growth andincreased unemployment. When the Depressionstruck, other countries raised their tariffs. This madethe situation even worse.

Many Japanese military officers blamed the coun-try’s problems on corrupt politicians. Most officersbelieved that Japan was destined to dominate EastAsia. Many also believed that democracy was “un-Japanese” and bad for the country.

Japanese military leaders and the civilians whosupported them argued that the only way for Japanto get needed resources was to seize territory. Theytargeted the resource-rich province of Manchuria innorthern China as the perfect place to conquer.

A group of Japanese officers decided to act with-out the government’s permission. In September 1931,the Japanese army invaded Manchuria. After theinvasion began, the Japanese government tried to

Meeting of Minds Mussolini and Hitlerare shown here meeting in October 1940.What beliefs did they share?

History

The Nye Committee Isolationist ideas becameeven stronger in the early 1930s for two reasons.When the Depression began, many European nationsfound it difficult to repay money they had borrowedduring World War I. In June 1934, all of the debtornations except Finland announced they would nolonger repay their war debts.

At about the same time, dozens of books and arti-cles appeared arguing that arms manufacturers hadtricked the United States into entering World War I.In 1934 Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota heldhearings to investigate the country’s involvement inWorld War I. The Nye Committee documented thehuge profits that arms factories had made during thewar. The report created the impression that thesebusinesses influenced the U.S. decision to go to war.The European refusal to repay their loans and theNye Committee’s findings turned even moreAmericans toward isolationism.

Legislating Neutrality Worried that growingGerman and Italian aggression might lead to war,Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1935. Basedon the belief that arms sales had helped bring theUnited States into World War I, the act made it illegalfor Americans to sell arms to any country at war.

In 1936 a rebellion erupted in Spain after a coali-tion of Republicans, Socialists, and Communists waselected. General Francisco Franco led the rebellion.Franco was backed by the Falangists, or SpanishFascists, army officers, landowners, and CatholicChurch leaders.

The revolt quickly became a civil war andattracted worldwide attention. The Soviet Union pro-vided arms and advisers to the government forces,while Germany and Italy sent tanks, airplanes, andsoldiers to help Franco. To keep the United Statesneutral, Congress passed another neutrality act, ban-ning the sale of arms to either side in a civil war.

Shortly after the Spanish Civil War began in 1936,Hitler and Mussolini signed an agreement pledgingto cooperate on several international issues.Mussolini referred to this new relationship withGermany as the Rome-Berlin Axis. The followingmonth, Japan aligned itself with Germany and Italywhen it signed the Anti-Comintern Pact withGermany. The pact required the two countries toexchange information about Communist groups.Together Germany, Italy, and Japan became known asthe Axis Powers, although they did not formallybecome allies until September 1940.

With the situation in Europe getting worse,Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1937. This actcontinued the ban on selling arms to nations at war,but it also required warring countries to buy nonmil-itary supplies from the United States on a “cash-and-carry” basis. If a country at war wanted goods fromthe United States, it had to send its own ships to pickup the goods, and it had to pay cash. Loans were notallowed. Isolationists knew that attacks on neutralAmerican ships carrying supplies to Europe hadhelped bring the country into World War I. Theywere determined to prevent it from happening again.

Roosevelt and Internationalism When he tookoffice in 1933, President Roosevelt declared that “ourinternational relations, though vastly important, arein point of time and necessity secondary to the estab-lishment of a sound national economy.” Rooseveltknew that ending the Depression was his first prior-ity, but he was not an isolationist. He supportedinternationalism, the idea that trade betweennations creates prosperity and helps to prevent war.


Anti-Fascist Propaganda Spanish general Francisco Franco led theFascist rebellion that received support from Hitler and Mussolini. Thisposter translates to “The claw of the Italian invader intends to make slaves of us.” How did the United States respond to these events?

History

Archivo Iconografico, S.A./CORBIS


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: fascism, impose,

investigate, civil, internationalism.2. People and Terms Identify: Benito

Mussolini, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin,Adolf Hitler, Manchuria, Neutrality Actof 1935.

3. Explain why isolationism was strong inthe United States in the early 1930s.

Reviewing Big Ideas4. Examining What events caused

President Roosevelt to become more of an internationalist?

Critical Thinking5. Interpreting

Why did antidemocratic governmentsrise to power in postwar Europe andAsia? Could the United States haveslowed or prevented their rise? Explain.

6. Categorizing Use a graphic organizersimilar to the one below to comparethe antidemocratic governments thatarose in Europe and Asia.

Analyzing Visuals7. Analyzing Art Study the Spanish Civil

War era propaganda poster reproducedon page 540. Without being told thephrase, how would you be able to dis-cover the poster’s meaning?

CA HI1Writing About History

8. Persuasive Writing Write a newspapereditorial urging fellow citizens toembrace either isolationism or inter-nationalism after World War I. Be cer-tain to include reasons your readersshould back a specific position.

CA 11WS1.1; 11WA2.3a

Country Dictator Ideology

Imperial Expansion In 1931 Japan occupied the northeastChinese province of Manchuria. In 1937 the Japanese invadedall of China, prompting FDR to authorize the sale of arms to theChinese Army. How did Roosevelt justify his actions in lightof the Neutrality Act?

History

Internationalists also believed the United Statesshould try to preserve peace in the world.

Roosevelt supported internationalism but knewthat the public wanted neutrality. He warned that theneutrality acts “might drag us into war instead ofkeeping us out,” but he did not veto the bills.Isolationism was too strong to resist.

In July 1937, Japanese forces in Manchurialaunched a full-scale attack on China. Rooseveltdecided to help the Chinese. Since neither China norJapan had actually declared war, Roosevelt claimedthe Neutrality Act of 1937 did not apply, and heauthorized the sale of weapons from the UnitedStates to China. He warned that the nation shouldnot stand by and let an “epidemic of lawlessness”infect the world:

“When an epidemic of physical disease starts tospread, the community . . . joins in a quarantine ofthe patients in order to protect the health of the com-munity against the spread of the disease. . . . War is a contagion, whether it be declared or undeclared. . . .There is no escape through mere isolation orneutrality. . . .”

—quoted in Freedom from Fear

Despite Roosevelt’s words, Americans were stillnot willing to risk another war to stop aggressionoverseas. “It is a terrible thing,” the president said,“to look over your shoulder when you are trying tolead—and find no one there.”

Evaluating Why did manyAmericans support isolationism?

Reading Check

For help with the concepts in this section of AmericanVision: Modern Times go to andclick on Study Central.

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Study CentralHISTORY

CORBIS



Guide to Reading

ConnectionIn the previous section, you learned howthe United States tried to stay neutral as militarism gained strength in theworld. In this section, you will read about the circumstances surrounding the beginning of World War II.

• European nations tried to prevent warby giving in to Hitler’s demands. (p. 543)

• Although Poland and France fell to theNazis, the British were able to evacuatethousands of trapped British andFrench troops from Dunkirk in France.(p. 544)

• Disregarding the bombing of Londonand other major cities, Britain’sWinston Churchill stood firm againstthe threat of Nazi invasion. (p. 547)

Content Vocabularyappeasement, blitzkrieg

Academic Vocabularyregime, furthermore, anticipate

People and Terms to IdentifyAnschluss, Maginot Line, WinstonChurchill, Battle of Britain

Reading Objectives• Explain why Hitler was able to take

over Austria and Czechoslovakia.

• Describe the early events of the warand why Britain was able to resist theNazis.

Reading StrategySequencing As you read about theevents leading up to the beginning ofWorld War II, record them by completinga time line similar to the one below.

Preview of Events

World War II Begins

1937Sept.1939

March1938

Oct.1938

Aug.1939

Feb.1938

Sept.1938

March1939

March 1938Hitler announces German-Austrian unification

✦1939 ✦1941✦1938 ✦1940

August 1939Hitler and Stalin signNazi-Soviet pact

September 1939World War II begins

June 1940France surrenders toGermany

August 1940Battle of Britainbegins

. The Big Idea ,The fate of nations is forever changed by monumental world events.After establishing his rule in Germany, Adolf Hitler began his conquest of Europeby seizing Austria. His claims to the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia promptedGreat Britain and France to pursue a policy of appeasement to avoid war. Despitean agreement, Hitler sent troops into Czechoslovakia and demanded the return ofDanzig, a Polish seaport with German roots. When Germany invaded Poland andbegan the war, Britain and France fulfilled their promise to come to the aid ofPoland. Hitler’s tactics led to a quick victory in Poland and the fall of France.Britain remained defiant despite constant bombing raids by the Germans.


11.7.1 Examine the origins ofAmerican involvement in the war,with an emphasis on the events thatprecipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor.

11.7.4 Analyze Roosevelt’s foreign policies during World War II (e.g., FourFreedoms speech).

11.7.6 Describe major developments inaviation, weaponry, communication, andmedicine and the war’s impact on thelocation of American industry and use of resources.

“Peace in Our Time”

European nations tried to prevent war bygiving in to Hitler’s demands.

Reading Connection Do you think giving in to Hitler’sdemands was a good idea? Read on to learn about the eventsleading to another world war.

Prior to 1940, when the Nazi regime was muchweaker, European leaders did not try to stop Hitler.Instead, they vainly tried to buy peace by giving in tohis demands. By 1940, however, the German armyhad been rebuilt, and Hitler was bent on conquest.

In February 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt sentUndersecretary of State Sumner Welles to Europe toreport on the political situation. A few months earlier,Germany had invaded Poland, and Roosevelt hoped tonegotiate peace before wider hostilities erupted.

In Italy Welles found Mussolini intent on war andjudged that “there was not the slightest chance of anysuccessful negotiation.” In Paris Welles glumly notedthe “sullen apathy” in people’s faces and concludedthat France had little will to resist a German onslaught.After speaking to Hitler, Welles concluded that a nego-tiated peace settlement was impossible: “It was onlytoo tragically plain that all decisions had already beenmade.” In London, Welles did not feel the sense ofdoom he had in Paris. The British, he reported, would“fight to the very last ditch.” Welles later reflected onhis mission:

“Only one thing could have deflected Hitler fromhis purpose: the sure knowledge that the power of theUnited States would be directed against him if heattempted to carry out his intention of conquering theworld by force. . . . At that time no representative ofthis government could have been authorized to inti-mate any such thing. . . . My mission, therefore, was aforlorn hope.”

—quoted in Roosevelt and Churchill

Whether or not the United States could haveforced Hitler to negotiate is uncertain. Europe’s lead-ers had several reasons for hoping that Hitler could

be satisfied and war avoided. First, the memory ofWorld War I made many leaders fearful of anotherbloody conflict. Second, some thought Hitler’sdemand that all German-speaking regions of Europebe united with Germany was reasonable. Third,many people assumed that the Nazis would be moreinterested in peace once they gained more territory.

The Austrian Anschluss In late 1937, Hitlerstepped up his call for the unification of all German-speaking people, including those in Austria andCzechoslovakia. Seizing Austria and Czechoslovakiawould also gain food supplies, defensible frontiers,and soldiers for Germany. Hitler believed thatGermany could only expand its territory by“resort[ing] to force with its attendant risks.”

In February 1938, Hitler threatened to invadeGerman-speaking Austria, his native land, unlessAustrian Nazis were given important governmentposts. Austria’s chancellor quickly gave in to thisdemand. Several weeks later, the chancellor tried toput the matter of unification with Germany to a dem-ocratic vote. Fearing the outcome, Hitler sent troopsinto Austria in March and announced the Anschluss,or unification, of Austria and Germany.

The Munich Crisis and Appeasement Shortlyafter Germany annexed Austria, Hitler announcedGerman claims to the Sudetenland, an area ofCzechoslovakia with a large German-speaking pop-ulation. Since Austrians shared a common cultureand language with Germany, many people hadaccepted the Anschluss. In Czechoslovakia, however,people spoke several different languages. In addi-tion, while Austria had an authoritarian government, Czechoslovakia was a democracy.Furthermore, Austria had no allies to help it defenditself, but Czechoslovakia was allied with Franceand the Soviet Union.

CHAPTER 11 The World in Flames 543

Sumner Welles ➤

The Czechs strongly resisted Germany’s demandsfor the Sudetenland. France threatened to fight ifGermany attacked, and the Soviet Union also prom-ised assistance. British Prime Minister NevilleChamberlain publicly promised to support France.

Representatives of Britain, France, Italy, andGermany agreed to meet in Munich to decideCzechoslovakia’s fate. At the Munich Conference onSeptember 29, 1938, Britain and France agreed toHitler’s demands, a policy that came to be known asappeasement. Appeasement is the policy of givingconcessions in exchange for peace. Supporters ofappeasement mistakenly believed that Hitler had afew limited demands. They felt that if they gave Hitlerwhat he wanted, he would be satisfied and war wouldbe avoided. Czechoslovakia was informed that it mustgive up the Sudetenland or fight Germany on its own.

Chamberlain had gambled that sacrificing part ofCzechoslovakia would satisfy Hitler. He also knewthat Britain’s military was not ready for war. WhenChamberlain returned home he promised “a peacewith honor . . . peace in our time,” but he also beganto speed up British rearmament.

The following March, in brazen violation of theMunich agreement, Germany sent troops intoCzechoslovakia and broke up the country. Slovakiabecame independent in name, but it was actually asatellite state under German control. The Czech landsbecame a German protectorate.

Danzig and the Polish Corridor After theMunich conference, Hitler turned his sights onPoland. In October 1938, he demanded the return ofDanzig, a Baltic Sea port with strong German roots.Although Danzig was more than 90 percent German,it had been separated from Germany at the end of

World War I to give Poland access to the sea. Hitleralso requested a highway and railroad across thePolish Corridor, which separated western Germanyfrom the German state of East Prussia.

Hitler’s demands on Poland convinced the Britishand French that appeasement had failed. On March31, 1939, the British announced that if Poland went towar to defend its territory, Britain and France wouldcome to its aid. This encouraged the Polish govern-ment to refuse Hitler’s demands.

In May 1939, Hitler ordered the German army toprepare to invade Poland. He also ordered his for-eign minister to begin negotiations with the USSR. IfGermany was going to fight Britain and France,Hitler wantd to avoid the strain on his army of hav-ing to fight the Soviets too.

The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact WhenGerman officials proposed a nonaggression treaty tothe Soviets, Stalin agreed. He believed the best wayto protect the USSR was to turn the capitalist nationsagainst each other. If the treaty worked, Germanywould go to war against Britain and France, and theUSSR would be safe.

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the USSRsigned the nonaggression pact. The Nazi-Soviet pactshocked the world. Communism and Nazism weresupposed to be totally opposed to each other.Leaders in Britain and France knew that Hitler madethe deal to free himself for war against their countriesand Poland. They did not know that the treaty alsocontained a secret deal between Germany and theSoviet Union to divide Poland between them.

Explaining What were three rea-sons European leaders agreed to a policy of appeasement?

The War Begins

Although Poland and France fell to the Nazis,the British were able to evacuate thousands of trappedBritish and French troops from Dunkirk in France.

Reading Connection Can you think of a historical orcontemporary situation in which people acted heroically tosave those in danger? Read on to learn of the heroism of civilians and armed forces in World War II.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Polandfrom the west, and soon after the Soviets invaded fromthe east. On September 3, Britain and France declaredwar on Germany, marking the start of World War II.

Reading Check


Appeasement in Action At Munich in September 1938, Mussolini (third from left), Britain’s Neville Chamberlain (second from left), and Hitler(second from right) were among those deciding Czechoslovakia’s fate.

Blitzkrieg in Poland Poland bravely resistedGermany’s onslaught but was unable to stop theattack. The Germans used a new type of warfarecalled blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Blitzkrieg usedlarge numbers of massed tanks to break through andrapidly encircle enemy positions. Supporting thetanks were waves of aircraft that bombed enemy posi-tions and dropped paratroopers to cut their supplylines. Blitzkrieg depended on radios to coordinate thetanks and aircraft. The attack left the German enemycompletely surrounded, cut off from supplies, andwith heavy losses. The Polish army was unable tocope with the German attack. On September 27, thePolish capital of Warsaw fell to the Germans. ByOctober 5, 1939, the Polish army had been defeated.

The Fall of France In contrast to the war in Poland,western Europe remained eerily quiet. The Germansreferred to this situation as the sitzkrieg, or sitting war.The British called it the “Bore War,” while Americannewspapers nicknamed it the “Phony War.” The

British sent troops to assist France, but because bothcountries remained on the defensive, waiting for theGermans to attack, there were no battles or warfare.

After World War I, the French had built a line ofconcrete bunkers and fortifications called theMaginot Line along the German border. Rather thanrisk their troops by attacking, the French preferred towait behind the Maginot Line for the Germans toapproach. Unfortunately, this decision allowedGermany to concentrate on Poland first, without theneed to simultaneously fight the French, before turn-ing west to face the British and French.

After conquering Poland, Hitler and his generalsdecided to attack Norway and Denmark beforeinvading France. France continued to wait for attack.Germany’s industry depended on iron ore fromSweden that had to be shipped down Norway’s coastpart of the year. If the British sent troops to Norway,they could block the iron shipments. On April 9,1940, the attack began, and within a month, Germanycontrolled both countries.

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Axis nationsAxis satellite statesAxis conquestsAllied controlNeutral countriesAxis advanceInternationalboundary, Jan. 1938Maginot Line

1. Interpreting Maps Satellite states were independent inname, but they were under German control. What wasthe French satellite state called?

2. Applying Geography Skills Why was Czechoslovakiaphysically in danger once the Anschluss took place?

With his northern flank secure, Hitler turned hisattention to France. Hitler planned to go around theMaginot Line, which protected France’s border withGermany but not France’s border with Belgium andLuxembourg. To get around the Maginot Line, theGermans would have to invade the Netherlands,Belgium, and Luxembourg first—which is exactlywhat they did. On May 10, Hitler launched a newblitzkrieg in the west. While German troops para-chuted into the Netherlands, an army of tanks rolledinto Belgium and Luxembourg.

The British and French had expected the Germanattack. As soon as it began, British and French forcesraced north into Belgium. This was a mistake. Insteadof sending their tanks through the open countrysideof central Belgium, the Germans sent their main forcethrough the Ardennes Mountains of Luxembourgand eastern Belgium. The French did not think thatlarge numbers of tanks could move through themountains, and they had left only a few troops todefend that part of the border. The Germans easilysmashed through the French lines, then raced west

across northern France to the English Channel. TheBritish and French armies were still in Belgium andcould not move back into France quickly enough.They were now trapped in Belgium.

The Miracle at Dunkirk After trapping the Alliedforces in Belgium, the Germans began to drive themtoward the English Channel. The only hope forBritain and France was to evacuate their survivingtroops by sea, but the Germans had captured all butone port, Dunkirk, a small town in northern Francenear the Belgian border.

As German forces closed in on Dunkirk, Hitlersuddenly ordered them to stop. No one is sure whyhe gave this order. Historians know that Hitler wasnervous about risking his tank forces, and he wantedto wait until more infantry arrived. HermannGoering, the head of the German air force, was alsoassuring Hitler that aircraft alone could destroy thetrapped soldiers. There is also some evidence thatHitler thought that the British would be more willingto accept peace if the Germans did not humiliatethem by destroying their forces at Dunkirk.

Whatever Hitler’s reasons, his order provided athree-day delay. This gave the British time tostrengthen their lines and begin the evacuation. Some850 ships of all sizes, from navy warships to smallsailboats operated by civilian volunteers, headed toDunkirk from England. The British had hoped to res-cue about 45,000 troops. Instead, when the evacua-tion ended on June 4, an estimated 338,000 Britishand French troops had been saved. This stunningsuccess led British newspapers to refer to the evacua-tion as the “Miracle at Dunkirk.”

The evacuation had its price, however. Almost allof the British army’s equipment remained atDunkirk—90,000 rifles, 7,000 tons of ammunition,and 120,000 vehicles. If Hitler invaded Britain, itwould be almost impossible to stop him from con-quering the country.

Three weeks later, on June 22, 1940, Hitleraccepted the French surrender in the same railwaycar in which the Germans had surrendered at the endof World War I. Germany now occupied much ofnorthern France and its Atlantic coastline. To governthe rest of the country, Germany installed a puppetgovernment at the town of Vichy and made MarshalPhilippe Pétain the new government’s figureheadleader. Pétain predicted that Britain “will have herneck wrung like a chicken.”

Summarizing Why was Germanyable to overtake Poland?

Reading Check


Dunkirk Allied troops wade out to ships waiting to evacuate them from Dunkirk

Britain Remains Defiant

Disregarding the bombing of London andother major cities, Britain’s Winston Churchill stoodfirm against the threat of Nazi invasion.

Reading Connection Describe a time when you felt theodds were against you. How did you react? Read on to find outabout the resolve of the British when faced with Nazi air attack.

Neither Pétain nor Adolf Hitler anticipated thebravery of the British people or the spirit of theirleader, Winston Churchill, who had replaced NevilleChamberlain as prime minister. Hitler fully expectedthe British to negotiate peace after France surren-dered. For Winston Churchill, however, peace wasnot an option. The war was a fight to defend civiliza-tion. On June 4, 1940, Churchill delivered a defiantspeech in Parliament, intended not only to rally theBritish people but to alert the isolationist UnitedStates to Britain’s plight:

“Even though large tracts of Europe have fallen . . .we shall not flag or fail. . . . We shall defend ourisland, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight onthe beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shallfight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

—quoted in Freedom from Fear

When Hitler realized that Britain would not sur-render, he ordered his commanders to prepare toinvade. Only the choppy waters of the narrowEnglish Channel separated Britain from Germany’spowerful army, but getting across the Channel poseda major challenge. Germany had few transport ships,and the British air force would sink them if they triedto land troops in England. To invade, therefore,Germany first had to defeat the British air force.

In June 1940, the German air force, called theLuftwaffe, began to attack British shipping in theEnglish Channel. Then, in mid-August, the Luftwaffelaunched an all-out air battle to destroy the British


NEVER GIVE IN Few photographs capture theBritish resolve to keep a stiffupper lip better than this one.Night after night betweenSeptember 1940 and May 1941, German warplanesrained bombs on London,Coventry, and other Britishcities.The attacks wereintended to destroy Britishmorale and war production,but Royal Air Force pilots shotdown bombers faster thanGermany could replace them.Plucky British civilians, like thismilkman making his roundsthrough a debris-strewnLondon street, remained determined to carry on asusual each morning.

MOMENTinHISTORY

Royal Air Force. This air battle, which lasted into thefall of 1940, became known as the Battle of Britain.

On August 23, German bombers accidentallybombed London, the British capital. This attack oncivilians enraged the British, who responded bybombing Berlin the following night. For the first timein the war, bombs fell on the German capital.Infuriated, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to stop itsattacks on British military targets and to concentrateon bombing London.

Hitler ’s goal now was to terrorize the Britishpeople into surrendering. The British people

endured, however, hiding out in the city’s subwaytunnels whenever German bombers appeared.Hitler’s attempt to destroy the morale of the Britishpeople failed.

Although the Royal Air Force was greatly out-numbered, the British had one major advantage.They had developed a new technology called radar.Using radar stations placed along their coast, theBritish were able to detect incoming German aircraftand direct British fighters to intercept them.

Day after day, with the ability to detect Germanaircraft, the British fighters inflicted more losses onthe Germans than they suffered. The skill of a fewhundred pilots saved Britain from invasion. Praisingthe pilots, Churchill told Parliament, “Never in thefield of human conflict was so much owed by somany to so few.” On October 12, 1940, Hitler can-celled the invasion of Britain.

Evaluating Why was Britain able toresist Hitler and the Nazis?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: regime, further-

more, appeasement, blitzkrieg,anticipate.

2. People and Terms Identify: Anschluss,Maginot Line, Winston Churchill, Battleof Britain.

3. Explain why Hitler was able to takeover Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Reviewing Big Ideas4. Describing How did the policy of

appeasement affect France and GreatBritain?

Critical Thinking5. Evaluating Why

do you think the British were able toprevent the Germans from invadingtheir country? Do you think Hitler waswise in canceling the attemptedinvasion?

6. Organizing Use a graphic organizersimilar to the one below to list the earlyevents of the war in Poland and west-ern Europe.

Analyzing Visuals7. Analyzing Photographs Study the

photographs on pages 547 and 548.How do they reflect the British resolveto “never surrender”?

CA HI4 Writing About History8. Expository Writing Using library or

Internet resources, find more informa-tion on the German annexation ofCzechoslovakia. Use the information towrite a report detailing the events lead-ing up to and including the annexation.Share your report with the class.

CA 11WS1.6; 11WA2.4b; 11WA2.4d

Events

Never Surrender Hitler ordered Nazi aircraft to bomb Britishcities, intending to weaken the people’s will. Though shaken, theBritish, like the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral (right), stood firm.What technology allowed the outnumbered Royal Air Force toresist the German Luftwaffe?

History


tav.mt.glencoe.com



Guide to Reading

ConnectionIn the previous section, you learned howHitler’s aggressive actions led to WorldWar II. In this section, you will discoverthe Nazi ideology about Jews and the“final solution.”

• The Nazis blamed the Jews for every-thing and required them to resign theirjobs and wear special clothing or live inspecially designated sections of town.(p. 550)

• Hitler’s atrocities included sending mil-lions of Jews to concentration campsand extermination camps. (p. 553)

Content VocabularyHolocaust, concentration camp, extermi-nation camp

Academic Vocabularyimplement, prohibit, method

People and Terms to IdentifyShoah, Nuremberg Laws, WannseeConference

Reading Objectives• Describe Nazi prejudices against Jews

and early persecution of German Jews.• Explain the methods Hitler used to try

to exterminate Europe’s Jewishpopulation.

Reading StrategyOrganizing As you read about theHolocaust, complete a graphic organizersimilar to the one below by listing exam-ples of Nazi persecution of German Jews.

Preview of Events

The Holocaust


Autumn 1935Nuremberg Laws depriveGerman Jews of citizenship

✦1936✦1933 ✦1939

November 1938Anti-Jewish violence eruptsduring Kristallnacht

June 1939SS St. Louis denied permissionto dock in the United States

January 1942Nazis’ Wannsee Conference de-termines “final solution” for Jews

✦1942

Examplesof

Persecution

. The Big Idea ,The fate of nations is forever changed by monumental world events.Once the Nazis had taken power in Germany, they quickly acted on Hitler’s racialpolicies. They enacted laws denying citizenship to Jews and taking away theirrights. Soon Jews faced severe unemployment and violence. Many Jews tried toflee the country, and some managed to escape to the United States or otherEuropean countries. Immigration was made difficult because many countries,including the United States, imposed restrictions. Jews who remained in Germanyfaced the concentration camps and extermination camps that marked the Nazis’pursuit of the “final solution.”


11.7.5 Discuss the constitutionalissues and impact of events on theU.S. home front, including the intern-ment of Japanese Americans (e.g., FredKorematsu v. United States of America)and the restrictions on German andItalian resident aliens; the response ofthe administration to Hitler’s atrocitiesagainst Jews and other groups; the rolesof women in military production; and theroles and growing political demands ofAfrican Americans.

11.7.6 Describe major developments in aviation, weaponry, communication, andmedicine and the war’s impact on the locationof American industry and use of resources.

Nazi Persecution of the Jews

The Nazis blamed the Jews for everythingand required them to resign their jobs and wear specialclothing or live in specially designated sections of town.

Reading Connection Describe how you would feel andreact if you were a Jewish person living under these restrictionsin Nazi Germany. Read on to learn about the prejudice againstJewish people in Nazi Germany.

During the Holocaust, the catastrophe that rav-aged Europe’s Jews, the Nazis killed nearly 6 millionJews. The Nazis also killed millions of people fromother groups they considered inferior. The Hebrewterm for the Holocaust is Shoah, meaning “catastro-phe,” but it is often used specifically to refer to theNazi campaign to exterminate the Jews during WorldWar II.

Mira Ryczke was born in 1923 to a middle-classJewish family in Danzig, Poland, a port on the BalticSea. After World War II broke out in September 1939,the Nazis expelled Danzig’s Jews to Warsaw, wherethey were forced to live in deplorable conditions in aspecial area known as the Warsaw ghetto. In 1943 theNazis emptied the Warsaw ghetto. The Ryczkes had toride for three days in a suffocating cattle car headedfor Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp, and itsneighboring camp of Birkenau.

After arriving at the camps, the terrified newcomerslearned that a selection was to take place. When 20-year-old Mira asked what the selection was for, an old-time prisoner pointed to chimneys on top of a buildingand replied, “Selected for the gas chambers to go upin smoke.” Mira later wrote:

“[W]e were told by the old-timers to try to lookstrong, healthy, and to walk in an upright positionwhen our turn came. . . . Because the women I waswith were young, only a few were taken out. Theirnumbers, tattooed on their left arms, were writtendown by the SS, and after a few days during roll call,their tattoo numbers were called out and thesewomen were marched to the gas chamber.”

—quoted in Echoes from the Holocaust


Mira Ryczke

➤

Mira Ryczke and her family were only a few of themillions of Jews who suffered terrible persecutionbefore and during World War II.

Nazi Ideology Once the Nazis took power inGermany, they acted swiftly to implement the politi-cal racial policies Hitler had outlined in Mein Kampf.Although the Nazis persecuted anyone who daredoppose them, as well as people with disabilities,Gypsies, homosexuals, and Slavic peoples, theyreserved their strongest hatred for the Jews. Thisloathing went far beyond the European anti-Semitism common at the time. Over the centuries,people who were prejudiced against Jews had putdown Jewish religious practices and discriminatedagainst Jews in many ways. For example, Jews weresometimes segregated in ghettos or prohibited fromowning land. For the Nazis, however, all Jewish peo-ple were evil no matter what their religion, occupa-tion, or education.

The Nuremberg Laws After the Nazis tookpower, they quickly moved to deprive German Jewsof many rights that all citizens had long taken forgranted. In September 1935, the Nuremberg Lawstook citizenship away from Jewish Germans andbanned marriage between Jews and other Germans.Two months later, another decree defined a Jew as aperson with at least one Jewish grandparent and pro-hibited Jews from holding public office or voting.Other laws forbade Jews from employing femaleGerman servants under age 35 and compelled Jewswith German sounding names to adopt “Jewish”names. Soon the passports of Jews were marked witha red “J” to clearly identify them as Jewish.

By the summer of 1936, at least half of Germany’sJews were jobless, having lost the right to work as civilservants, journalists, farmers, teachers, and actors. In1938 the Nazis also banned Jews from practicing lawand medicine and from operating businesses. With nosource of income, life became very difficult.

Despite worsening conditions, many Jews chose toremain in Germany during the early years of Nazirule. Well integrated into German society before thistime, they were reluctant to leave and give up thelives they had built there. Many also thought thatconditions would surely improve after a time. In fact,they soon became worse.

Kristallnacht On November 7, 1938, a youngJewish refugee named Herschel Grynszpan shot andkilled a German diplomat in Paris. Grynszpan’sfather and 10,000 other Jews had been deported fromGermany to Poland, and the distraught young manwas seeking revenge for this act and for the persecu-tion of the Jews in general.

In retaliation for the killing, an infuriated Hitlerordered his minister of propaganda, JosephGoebbels, to stage attacks against the Jews thatwould appear to be a spontaneous popular reactionto news of the murder. On the night of November 9,this plan played out in a spree of destruction.

In Vienna a Jewish child named Frederick Mortonwatched in terror that night as 10 young Nazi StormTroopers broke into his family’s apartment:

“They yanked out every drawer in every one of ourchests and cupboards, and tossed each in the air. Theylet the cutlery jangle across the floor, the clothes scatter,and stepped over the mess to fling the next drawer. . . .‘We might be back,’ the leader said. On the way out hethrew our mother-of-pearl ashtray over his shoulder,like confetti. We did not speak or move or breathe untilwe heard their boots against the pavement.”

—quoted in Facing History and Ourselves

The anti-Jewish violence that erupted throughoutGermany and Austria that night came to be calledKristallnacht, or “night of broken glass,” because bro-ken glass littered the streets afterward. When day-light came, more than 90 Jews lay dead, hundredswere badly injured, and thousands more were terror-ized. The Nazis had forbidden police to interferewhile roving bands of thugs destroyed 7,500 Jewishbusinesses and wrecked over 180 synagogues.

The lawlessness of Kristallnacht did not end withthe dawn. Following that night of violence, theGestapo, the government’s secret police, arrested atleast 20,000 wealthy Jews, releasing them only if they

The Final Solution

Before the war, a Jewish family in Germany posesfor a photograph during a family outing. Few membersof this family would survive the war.

On Kristallnacht, roaming bands of thugsdestroyed Jewish property and menacedJewish families throughout Germany.

agreed to emigrate and surrender all their posses-sions. The state also confiscated insurance paymentsowed to Jewish owners of ruined businesses.

The week after Kristallnacht, Nazi interior ministerHermann Goering added insult to injury by finingthe Jewish community to pay for the damage.“German Jewry,” he proclaimed “shall, as punish-ment for their abominable crimes . . . have to make acontribution for one billion marks. . . . I would like tosay that I would not like to be a Jew in Germany.”

Jewish Refugees Try to Flee Kristallnacht and itsaftermath marked a significant escalation in the Nazipolicy of persecution against the Jews. Many Jews,including Frederick Morton’s family, decided that itwas time to leave and fled to the United States.Between 1933, when Hitler took power, and the startof World War II in 1939, some 350,000 Jews escapedNazi-controlled Germany. These emigrants includedprominent scientists such as Albert Einstein andbusinesspeople like Otto Frank, who resettled hisfamily in Amsterdam in 1933. Otto’s daughter AnneFrank would later keep a diary of her family’s life inhiding after the Nazis overran the Netherlands.

By 1938 the American consulate in Stuttgart,Germany, had a backlog of over 100,000 visa applicationsfrom Jews trying to leave Germany and come to theUnited States. Following the Nazi Anschluss, 3,000Austrian Jews each day applied for American visas.

Many never received visas to the United States or to theother countries where they applied. As a result, millionsof Jews remained trapped in Nazi-dominated Europe.

Several factors limited Jewish immigration to theUnited States. First, Nazi orders prohibited Jews fromtaking more than about four dollars out of Germany.Second, many countries refused to accept Jewishimmigrants. In the United States, laws restrictedgranting a visa to anyone “likely to become a publiccharge.” American customs officials tended to assumethat this applied to Jews since Germany had forcedthem to leave any wealth behind. High unemploy-ment rates in the 1930s also made immigration politi-cally unpopular. Few Americans wanted to raiseimmigration quotas, even to accommodate Europeanrefugees. The existing immigration policy allowedonly a total of 150,000 immigrants annually, with afixed quota from each country. The law permitted noexceptions for refugees or victims of persecution.

At an international conference on refugees in 1938,several European countries, the United States, andLatin America stated their regret that they could nottake in more of Germany’s Jews without raising theirimmigration quotas. Meanwhile, Nazi propagandachief Joseph Goebbels announced that “if there is anycountry that believes it has not enough Jews, I shallgladly turn over to it all our Jews.” Hitler also declaredhimself “ready to put all these criminals at the dis-posal of these countries . . . even on luxury ships.”

After the war broke out, the Nazis methodically deprived Jews oftheir rights, confining many to overcrowded ghettos. After weeks offierce resistance, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were rounded up fordeportation to concentration camps in May 1943.

As war loomed in 1939, many ships departed fromGermany crammed with Jews desperate to escape.Some of their visas, however, had been forged or soldillegally, and Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina, and CostaRica all denied access to Jews with such documents.So too did the United States.

On May 27, 1939, the SS St. Louis entered the harborin Havana, Cuba, with 930 Jewish refugees on board.Most of these passengers hoped to go to the UnitedStates eventually, but they had certificates improperlyissued by Cuba’s director of immigration giving thempermission to land in Cuba. When the ships arrived inHavana, the Cuban government, partly in response toanti-Semitic sentiment stirred up by Nazi propaganda,revoked the certificates and refused to let the refugeescome ashore. For several days, the ship’s captainsteered his ship in circles off the coast of Florida,awaiting official permission to dock at a United Statesport. Denied such permission, the ship turned backtoward Europe on June 6. The forlorn passengersfinally disembarked in France, Holland, Belgium, andGreat Britain. Within two years, the first three of thesecountries fell under Nazi domination. Many of therefugees brought to these countries aboard the SS St.Louis perished in the Nazis’ “final solution.”

Analyzing Why did many Jewsremain in Germany even though they were persecuted?

Reading Check

The Final Solution

Hitler’s atrocities included sending millions ofJews to concentration camps and extermination camps.

Reading Connection Explain your opinion on forcingpolitical prisoners to work hard labor. Read on to discovermore about the work camps the Nazis built.

On January 20, 1942, 15 Nazi leaders met at theWannsee Conference, held in a Berlin suburb, todetermine the “final solution of the Jewish question.”Previous “solutions” had included rounding upJews, Gypsies, and Slavs from conquered areas,shooting them, and piling them into mass graves.Another method required forcing Jews and other“undesirables” into trucks and then piping inexhaust fumes to kill them. These methods, however,had proven too slow and inefficient for the Nazis.The T4 Project, set up by Hitler, used various meth-ods to kill people with disabilities that were in thegovernment’s care in an effort to find the methodNazis would use at extermination camps.

At Wannsee, the Nazis made plans to round up Jewsfrom the vast areas of Nazi-controlled Europe and takethem to detention centers known as concentrationcamps. There, healthy individuals would work as slave

By 1943 the Nazis had started implementing theirplans to exterminate the Jews. The system of ghettoswas abandoned in favor of herding men, women, andchildren onto cattle cars for transport to death camps.

When the war ended, Allied troops managedto liberate the few surviving inmates of thedeath camps—many of whom were too shockedto believe they were being freed.

laborers until they dropped dead of exhaustion, dis-ease, or malnutrition. Most others, including the eld-erly, the infirm, and young children, would be sent toextermination camps, attached to many of the concen-tration camps, to be executed in massive gas chambers.

Concentration Camps The Nazis had establishedtheir first concentration camps in 1933 to jail politicalopponents. After the war began, the Nazis built con-centration camps throughout Europe.

Buchenwald, one of the first and largest concentra-tion camps, was built near the town of Weimar inGermany in 1937. During its operation, over 200,000prisoners worked 12-hour shifts as slave laborers innearby factories. Though Buchenwald had no gaschambers, hundreds of prisoners died there everymonth as a result of exhaustion and the horrible liv-ing conditions.

Leon Bass, a young American soldier, describedviewing a barracks in Buchenwald at the end of thewar. Built to hold 50 people, the room had housedmore than 150, with bunks built almost to the ceiling.Bass recalled:

“I looked at a bottom bunk and there I saw oneman. He was too weak to get up; he could just barelyturn his head. He was skin and bones. He looked like

a skeleton; and his eyes were deep set. He didn’tutter a sound; he just looked at me with those eyes,and they still haunt me today.”

—quoted in Facing History and Ourselves

Extermination Camps After the Wannsee Con-ference, the Nazis built extermination facilities in anumber of the concentration camps, mostly inPoland, to kill Jews more efficiently. At these camps,including the infamous Treblinka and Auschwitz,Jews were the Nazis’ main victims. Auschwitz alonehoused about 100,000 people in 300 prison barracks.Its gas chambers, built to kill 2,000 people at a time,sometimes gassed 12,000 people in a day. Of the esti-mated 1,600,000 people who died at Auschwitz,about 1,300,000 were Jews. The other 300,000 werePoles, Soviet prisoners-of-war, and Gypsies.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz, healthy prisoners suchas Mira Ryczke were selected for slave labor. Elderlyor people with disabilities, the sick, and mothers andchildren went immediately to the gas chambers, afterwhich their bodies were burned in giant crematori-ums. In her memoirs, Ryczke described “columns ofpeople marching slowly toward the gas chambers”and “the horrible stench in the air—the smell of burn-ing human flesh. I have never forgotten that smell.”

i n H i s t o r y

Albert Einstein 1879–1955

Among the Jews who left Nazi Germanyin the early 1930s was Albert Einstein,whose brilliant scientific theories revolution-ized physics. Einstein gained internationalfame in 1919 when the Royal Society ofLondon announced that calculations hadsupported his general theory of relativity.Einstein’s fame increased after he won theNobel Prize for Physics in 1921. Lecture invi-tations poured in from around the world.

Einstein never actively practiced Judaism,but he did proudly identify himself as a Jew.As anti-Semitism took hold in Germany,Einstein’s worldwide fame contrasted withthe insults he faced in Berlin for practicing“Bolshevism [Communism] in physics.” Hispublic support for Zionism, the right of Jewsto settle in Palestine (later Israel), arousedfurther anger among Nazis.

Soon after Hitler became Germany’schancellor in 1933, Einstein renounced hiscitizenship and left Germany for Belgium.Fears for his life prompted friends to takehim secretly by private yacht to England. Helater settled in Princeton, New Jersey.

A pacifist who had opposed World War I,Einstein ironically saw his scientific ideasapplied to the creation of a powerful anddestructive weapon, the atomic bomb. Afterthe United States detonated the first atomicbomb in combat over Hiroshima, Japan, in1945, Einstein devoted his final years to pro-moting pacifism. The scientist’s greatestlegacy, however, would be the revolutionaryscientific discoveries he had made in theearly 1900s. As Einstein himself hadobserved, “Politics are for the moment. Anequation is for eternity.”


In only a few years, Jewish culture, which hadexisted in Europe for over 1,000 years, had been vir-tually obliterated by the Nazis in the lands they con-quered. Despite exhaustive debate, there is still greatcontroversy about why and how an event so horrify-ing as the Holocaust could have occurred. No con-sensus has been reached, but most historians point toa number of factors: the German people’s sense ofinjury after World War I; severe economic problems;Hitler’s control over the German nation; the lack of astrong tradition of representative government in


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: Holocaust, imple-

ment, prohibit, method, concentrationcamp, extermination camp.

2. People and Terms Identify: Shoah,Nuremberg Laws, WannseeConference.

3. List the groups of people who werepersecuted by the Nazis.

Reviewing Big Ideas4. Examining What are some factors that

attempt to explain the Holocaust?

Critical Thinking5. Analyzing What

responsibilities did you think othernations had to stop the persecution ofJews in Germany and German held territories of Europe?

6. Organizing Use a graphic organizersimilar to the one below to list themethods used to try to exterminateEurope’s Jewish population.

Analyzing Visuals7. Analyzing Photographs Study the

photographs of the Final Solution onpages 551–553. How do the photo-graphs show the systematic destructionof Jewish life?CA HI4

Writing About History8. Descriptive Writing Take on the role

of a person living in Germany duringKristallnacht. Write a diary entrydescribing the events of that night.Include a description of events duringthe days following Kristallnacht as well.

CA 11WA2.1a; 11WA2.1c; 11WA2.3a

N

SE

W

200 kilometers0Lambert AzimuthalEqual-Area projection

200 miles0

0° 20°E

50°N

NorthSea

Adriatic SeaBlackSea

BalticSea

FRANCE90,000

BELGIUM40,000

NETHERLANDS105,000

DENMARK500

GERMANY ANDAUSTRIA210,000

CZECHOSLOVAKIA155,000

POLAND3,000,000

ITALY8,000

YUGOSLAVIA26,000

HUNGARY450,000

BULGARIA14,000

ROMANIA300,000

UKRAINIANS.S.R.

900,000

BYELORUSSIANS.S.R.245,000

RUSSIANS.S.R.107,000

BALTICSTATES228,000

GREECE54,000

Jewish Losses, 1939–1945

83–9065–77

Percentage of JewishPopulation Annihilated

50–6011–26

Number of Jewskilled under Naziracial policies

FRANCE90,000

1. Interpreting Maps What country hadthe highest number of Jews in its popu-lation killed?

2. Applying Geography Skills A rela-tively low percentage of Italy’s Jewishpopulation died in the Holocaust. Fromthis information, how would you com-pare Fascists and Nazis in terms of theirJewish policies?

ExterminationMethods

Germany; German fear of Hitler’s secret police; and along history of anti-Jewish prejudice and discrimina-tion in Europe.

Summarizing What methods didHitler use to try to exterminate Europe’s Jewish population?

Reading Check


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Guide to Reading

ConnectionIn the previous section, you learnedabout the Holocaust the Jews faced inGermany. In this section, you will dis-cover how the United States was drawninto the war.

• Despite the Neutrality Act of 1939, FDRsupported the British with a destroyer-for-bases deal. (p. 557)

• In the midst of a debate about whetherAmerica should remain neutral,Roosevelt was elected for a third term.(p. 558)

• Roosevelt and Congress continued tosupport the British through the Lend-Lease Act and the idea of a hemisphericdefense zone. (p. 559)

• Angered by American policies that aidedthe British and an embargo on Japanesegoods, the Japanese attacked the navalbase at Pearl Harbor, forcing the UnitedStates to declare war. (p. 561)

Content Vocabularyhemispheric defense zone, strategicmaterials

Academic Vocabularyeliminate, policy, primary

People and Terms to IdentifyAmerica First Committee, Lend-Lease Act,Atlantic Charter

Reading Objectives• Explain how Roosevelt helped Britain

while maintaining official neutrality.• Trace the events that led to increasing

tensions, and ultimately war, betweenthe United States and Japan.

Reading StrategyOrganizing As you read about theefforts of the United States to stay neutralin the war, complete a graphic organizersimilar to the one below by naming twoevents that shifted American opiniontoward helping the Allies.

Preview of Events

America Enters the War

Events That Shifted AmericanOpinion

September 1940FDR makes destroyers-for-basesdeal with Britain

March 1941Congress passesLend-Lease Act

August 1941Roosevelt and Churchillsign Atlantic Charter

October 1941Germans sinkReuben James

December 7, 1941Japan attacks PearlHarbor

✦September 1940 ✦March 1941 ✦August 1941 ✦December 1941

. The Big Idea ,The fate of nations is forever changed by monumental world events.While Jews faced the Holocaust in Germany, Americans continued to debate isola-tionist policy. President Roosevelt declared the United States officially neutral at thebeginning of the war, but he supported laws that allowed him to help Great Britain.He was able to make a destroyers-for-bases deal with Britain and pushed throughthe Lend-Lease Act. To establish safe shipping in the Atlantic, he developed the ideaof a hemispheric defense zone. At the same time, Roosevelt began policies to discourage Japan from attacking the British Empire in the Pacific, restricting exportsto Japan and extending aid to China. When Japan sent troops to Indochina, thepresident added further restrictions. Japan responded by attacking the U.S. navalbase in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.


11.7.1 Examine the origins ofAmerican involvement in the war,with an emphasis on the events thatprecipitated the attack on Pearl Harbor.

11.7.4 Analyze Roosevelt’s foreign policies during World War II (e.g., FourFreedoms speech).

FDR Supports England

Despite the Neutrality Act of 1939, FDR sup-ported the British with a destroyer-for-bases deal.

Reading Connection Should presidents be able to workaround the decisions of Congress? Read on to learn howRoosevelt followed his own instincts to help Britain.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked thePearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii. The attack sur-prised many Americans. Most people had believedthat Germany posed the greatest danger.

December 7, 1941, dawned like any other Sunday inHawaii, where teenager Daniel Inouye lived with hisfamily. Like other Americans who lived through theexperience, Inouye would never forget what he wasdoing the moment American isolationism ended:

“As soon as I finished brushing my teeth and pulledon my trousers, I automatically clicked on the littleradio that stood on the shelf above my bed. I remem-ber that I was buttoning my shirt and looking out thewindow . . . when the hum of the warming set gaveway to a frenzied voice. ‘This is no test,’ the voice criedout. ‘Pearl Harbor is being bombed by the Japanese!’”

The Inouye family ran outside and gazed toward thenaval base at Pearl Harbor:

“And then we saw the planes. They came zooming upout of that sea of gray smoke, flying north towardwhere we stood and climbing into the bluest part ofthe sky, and they came in twos and threes, in neat for-mations, and if it hadn’t been for that red ball on theirwings, the rising sun of the Japanese Empire, youcould easily believe that they were Americans, flyingover in precise military salute.”

—quoted in Eyewitness to America

What Americans did not realize was that thecauses of the Japanese attack could be traced backmore than 40 years to the tension between the UnitedStates and Japan over the Open Door Policy. This ten-sion escalated two years earlier with PresidentRoosevelt’s policies for helping Britain againstGermany.


The Neutrality Act of 1939 President Rooseveltofficially proclaimed the United States neutral twodays after Britain and France declared war onGermany. Despite this declaration, he was deter-mined to do all he could to help the two countries intheir struggle against Hitler. Soon after the warbegan, Roosevelt called Congress into a special ses-sion to revise the neutrality laws.

He asked Congress to eliminate the ban on armssales to nations at war. Public opinion strongly sup-ported the president. Congress passed the new law,but isolationists demanded a price for the revision.Under the Neutrality Act of 1939, warring nationscould buy weapons from the United States only if theypaid cash and carried the arms on their own ships.

Destroyers-for-Bases Deal In the spring of 1940,the United States faced its first test in remaining neu-tral. In May British Prime Minister Winston Churchillbegan asking Roosevelt to transfer old Americandestroyers to Britain. Britain had lost nearly half itsdestroyers and needed more to protect its cargo shipsfrom German submarines and to block any Germanattempt to invade Britain.

Determined to give Churchill the destroyers,Roosevelt used a loophole in the provision of theNeutrality Act that required cash for purchases. Inexchange for the right to build American bases onBritish-controlled Newfoundland, Bermuda, andislands in the Caribbean, Roosevelt sent 50 oldAmerican destroyers to Britain. Since the deal did notinvolve an actual sale, the Neutrality Act did notapply. On September 3, 1940, he announced hisaction to an astonished press.

Examining How were theNeutrality Acts revised?

Reading Check

Daniel Inouye after joining the U.S. Army’s 442nd Infantry ➤

The Isolationist Debate

In the midst of a debate about whetherAmerica should remain neutral, Roosevelt was elected for a third term.

Reading Connection Do you believe that holders ofpublic office should be limited in the number of terms theyserve? Read on to find out about Roosevelt’s decision to breakwith the traditional two terms of office.

Widespread public acceptance of the destroyers-for-bases deal demonstrated a marked change inAmerican public opinion. Americans were now moreopen to the idea of assisting the Allies. The shiftbegan after the German invasion of France and therescue of Allied forces at Dunkirk. By July 1940 mostAmericans favored offering limited aid to the Allies.

The Range of Opinion American opinion washardly unanimous. While most people were open toaiding the Allies, there were those who believed theUnited States should not offer even limited assistance.In fact, beginning in the spring of 1940, a spirited


Peace Above All Many Americans were willing tohelp European democracies but did not want to sellthem arms. In what ways did the United Statesassist these nations?

Analyzing Political Cartoons

debate took place between people whowanted greater American involvementin World War II and those who felt thatthe United States should remain neutral.

At one extreme was the Fight forFreedom Committee, a group whichurged the repeal of all neutrality lawsand wanted stronger action againstGermany. Closer to the center, theCommittee to Defend America byAiding the Allies, headed by journalistWilliam Allen White, pressed forincreased American aid to the Alliesbut opposed armed intervention.

Roosevelt’s destroyers-for-bases dealled to the founding of the America FirstCommittee in September of 1940. TheAmerica First Committee was astaunchly isolationist group that firmlyopposed any American intervention oraid to the Allies. The group had many

famous members, including aviator CharlesLindbergh, former governor Philip LaFollette, andSenator Gerald Nye. The committee attempted toinfluence elections and public opinion in support ofisolationism with speeches and publications.

The Election of 1940 The heated debate over neu-trality took place in the midst of the 1940 presidentialelection campaign. For several months Americans hadwondered whether President Roosevelt would followlong-standing tradition by retiring at the end of hissecond term. With the United States in a precariousposition, many people feared that a change of leadersmight not be in the country’s best interest. Rooseveltdecided to run for an unprecedented third term.

During the campaign, FDR steered a carefulcourse between neutrality and intervention. TheRepublican nominee, Wendell Willkie, did the same,promising that he too would stay out of the war butassist the Allies. The voters re-elected Roosevelt by awide margin, preferring to stick with a president theyknew during this crisis period.

Analyzing Why did Roosevelt winan unprecedented third term in office?

Reading Check

Edging Toward War

Roosevelt and Congress continued to sup-port the British through the Lend-Lease Act and the ideaof a hemispheric defense zone.

Reading Connection How far from its shores should anation defend its borders? Read on to discover how Rooseveltexpanded the area of American defense.

With the election safely over, President Rooseveltwas able to expand the nation’s role in the war.Britain was fighting for democracy, he said, and theUnited States had to help Britain in this endeavor.Speaking to Congress, the president listed the “FourFreedoms” for which both the United States andGreat Britain stood: freedom of speech, freedom ofworship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.; (See page 999 for an excerpt from this speech.)

The Lend-Lease Act By December 1940, GreatBritain had run out of funds to wage its war againstGermany. Since Britain was unable to provide thecash needed to purchase weapons, PresidentRoosevelt came up with a way to remove the cashrequirement of the Neutrality Act.

With the Lend-Lease Act, the United States wouldbe able to lend or lease arms to any country considered“vital to the defense of the United States.” This actmeant that the United States could send much neededweapons to Britain without cash payment if Britainpromised to return or pay rent for them after the war.

The president warned that if Britain fell, an“unholy alliance” of Germany, Japan, and Italywould keep trying to conquer the world, and then“all of us in all the Americas would be living at thepoint of a gun.” The president argued that the UnitedStates should become the “great arsenal of democ-racy” to keep the British fighting and make it unnec-essary for Americans to go to war.


Neutrality Debate The America First Committee strongly opposed theincreasingly weak neutrality of theUnited States. Here an American sol-dier confronts an isolationist marchingoutside the White House. How didthe Lend-Lease Act further weakenthe nation’s official neutrality?

History

The America First Committee disagreed, butCongress passed the Lend-Lease Act by a wide mar-gin. By the time the program ended, the UnitedStates had contributed more than $40 billion inweapons, vehicles, and other supplies to the Alliedwar effort.

While shipments of supplies to Britain began atonce, lend-lease aid eventually went to the SovietUnion as well. After calling off the invasion ofBritain, Hitler returned to his original goal of carvingout lebensraum for Germany in eastern Europe. InJune 1941, in violation of the Nazi-Soviet pact, Hitlerlaunched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union.Although Churchill detested communism and con-sidered Stalin a harsh dictator, he vowed that anyperson or state “who fights against Nazism will haveour aid.” Roosevelt, too, supported this policy.

The Hemispheric Defense Zone Congressionalapproval of the Lend-Lease Act did not solve theproblem of how to get American arms and supplies

to Britain. German submarines patrolling the AtlanticOcean were sinking hundreds of thousands of tons ofshipping each month, and the British navy simplydid not have enough ships in the Atlantic to stopthem.

Roosevelt could not simply order the U.S. Navy toprotect British cargo ships, since the United Stateswas still technically neutral. Instead, he developedthe idea of a hemispheric defense zone. Rooseveltdeclared that the entire western half of the Atlanticwas part of the Western Hemisphere and, therefore,neutral. He then ordered the U.S. Navy to patrol thewestern Atlantic and reveal the locations of Germansubmarines to the British.

The Atlantic Charter In August 1941, Rooseveltand Churchill met face-to-face onboard American andBritish warships anchored near Newfoundland.During these meetings, the two men agreed on the textof the Atlantic Charter. It committed the two leadersto a postwar world of democracy, nonaggression, free

2

13

4

Haleiwa Field

Wheeler Field7:51, 9:10 A.M.

Ewa Marine CorpsAir Station

7:53, 9:05 A.M.

KaneoheNaval Air Station

7:53, 8:55 A.M.

Bellows Field8:30, 9:00 A.M.

Hickam Field7:55, 9:05 A.M.

Ford IslandNaval Air Station

7:55, 9:02 A.M.

Battleship Row

Opana radar station

O A H U

Diamond Head

Pearl Harbor

Kaena Point Kahuku Point

Waialua

Kaneohe

Kailua

Wahiawa

Kahuku

Laie

PearlCity

Waipahu

Ewa Beach

Nanakuli

Waianae

Honolulu

FIRST WAVE

SECONDWAVE

PaCIFICOCEaN

N

S E

W

First wave of Japanese aircraft

Second wave of Japanese aircraft

Radar site

Airfield attacked

7:51 A.M. Time of initial attack (First wave)

Time of initial attack (Second wave)

8:55 A.M.

Airfield

Town

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941

trade, economic advancement, and freedom of theseas. Churchill later said that FDR pledged to “forcean ‘incident’ . . . which would justify him in openinghostilities” with Germany.

An incident quickly presented itself. In earlySeptember a German U-boat fired on the Americandestroyer Greer, which had been radioing the U-boat’s position to the British. Roosevelt promptlyresponded by ordering American ships to follow a“shoot-on-sight” policy toward German submarines.

The Germans escalated hostilities with the UnitedStates the following month when they targeted twoAmerican destroyers. One of them, the Reuben James,broke in two after being torpedoed. It sank into thefrigid waters of the North Atlantic, where 115 sailorsdied. As the end of 1941 grew near, Germany and theUnited States continued a tense standoff in the NorthAtlantic.

Evaluating How did the Lend-Lease Act help the Allied war effort?

Reading Check

Japan Attacks the United States

Angered by American policies that aided theBritish and an embargo on Japanese goods, the Japaneseattacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor, forcing theUnited States to declare war.

Reading Connection Do you know of a situation inwhich a person became involved in a dispute because a friendor family member was involved? Read on to learn how Japanand its allies were able to draw the United States into a worldconflict.

Despite the growing tensions in the Atlantic, theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor was what finallybrought the United States into World War II.Ironically, Japan’s decision to attack the United Stateswas a direct result of Roosevelt’s efforts to helpBritain in its war against Germany.

8:55 A.M.: The second wave of 167 planesrenews the attack on airfields and ships. Oil tanks and most ship-repair facilities areignored, an omission the Japanese later regret.

7:49 A.M.: The first wave of 183 Japaneseplanes is ordered to attack. The force includes40 torpedo bombers and 49 high-altitudebombers—each armed with a singleprojectile—bound for Battleship Row. Other bombers and Zero fighters attack airfields.

7:02 to 7:39 A.M.: Army radar at Opanatracks a cloud of aircraft approaching fromthe north. An officer at Fort Shafter concludesit is a flight of B-17s due in from California.

6:45 A.M.: The destroyer Ward sinks aJapanese midget submarine near theentrance to Pearl Harbor.

2

1

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4

Americans responded heroically to Japan’s attack on PearlHarbor: 16 men received the Medal of Honor, the nation’shighest award; 5 were awarded the Distinguished Service

Cross; and 69 received the Silver Star. The Navy Cross wasawarded to another 51, including Dorie Miller, World War II’sfirst recognized African American hero, who bravely operated

an antiaircraft gun on his ship during the Japanese attack.

America Embargoes Japan Between August 1939and December 1941, Roosevelt’s primary goal was tohelp Britain and its allies defeat Germany. He knewthat one of the problems Britain faced was the need tokeep much of its navy in Asia to protect British terri-tories there from Japanese attack. As German sub-marines began sinking British shipping, the Britishbegan moving warships from Southeast Asia to theAtlantic, leaving their empire vulnerable. In response,Roosevelt introduced policies to discourage theJapanese from attacking the British Empire.

Roosevelt began by putting economic pressure onJapan. Japan depended on the United States for manykey materials, including scrap iron, steel, and espe-cially oil. Approximately 80 percent of Japan’s oilcame from the United States. In July 1940, Congresspassed the Export Control Act, giving Roosevelt thepower to restrict the sale of strategic materials (mate-rials important for fighting a war) to other nations.Roosevelt immediately blocked the sale of airplanefuel and scrap iron to Japan. Furious, the Japanesesigned an alliance with Germany and Italy, formallybecoming a member of the Axis.

In 1941 Roosevelt began sending lend-lease aid toChina. Japan had invaded China in 1937, and by1941, it controlled much of the Chinese coast.Roosevelt hoped that lend-lease aid would enable theChinese to tie down the Japanese and prevent themfrom attacking elsewhere. Despite assistance withweapons from the United States, the strategy failed.By July 1941, the Japanese had sent troops into south-ern Indochina, posing a direct threat to the BritishEmpire. Japanese aircraft were now in position tostrike British shipping in the Strait of Malacca andbomb Hong Kong and Singapore.

Roosevelt responded very quickly to the Japanesethreat against the British Empire. He froze allJapanese assets in the United States, reduced theamount of oil being shipped to Japan, and sentGeneral Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines tobuild up American defenses there.

Roosevelt made it clear that he would lift the oilembargo against Japan only if Japan withdrew fromIndochina and made peace with China. With the waragainst China now in jeopardy because of a lack of oiland other resources, the Japanese military began

making plans to attack the resource-rich British and Dutch colonies inSoutheast Asia. The Japanese alsodecided to seize the Philippines andto attack the American fleet at PearlHarbor. They could not risk leavingthe United States with a navy in thePacific to oppose their plans. Whilethe Japanese prepared for war, negoti-ations with the United States contin-ued, but neither side would backdown. On November 26, 1941, sixJapanese aircraft carriers, two battle-ships, and several other warships setsail for Hawaii.

Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor TheJapanese government appeared to becontinuing negotiations with theUnited States in good faith. This waspart of Japan’s strategy to surprise theUnited States. American intelligencehad decoded Japanese communica-tions that made it clear that Japan hadno intention of reaching an agreementand, instead, was preparing to go towar against the United States.


Attack on Pearl Harbor

➤

On November 27, American commanders at thePearl Harbor naval base received a war warningfrom Washington, but Hawaii was not mentioned asa possible target. It was a great distance from Japan toHawaii, and Washington officials doubted Japanwould try to launch such a long-range attack. Thiswould prove to be a fatal error.

The failure to collect sufficient information and thefailure of the branches of the U.S. military to sharethe available information left Pearl Harbor an opentarget. The result was devastating. Japan’s surpriseattack on December 7, 1941, sank or damaged 21ships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, including 8 battleships,3 cruisers, 4 destroyers, and 6 other vessels. Theattack also destroyed 188 airplanes and killed 2,403Americans. Another 1,178 were injured.

On the night of the attack, a gray-faced Rooseveltmet with his cabinet to tell them the country nowfaced the most serious crisis since the outbreak of theCivil War. The next day, the president asked Congressto declare war:

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which willlive in infamy—the United States of America was sud-denly and deliberately attacked by the naval and airforces of Japan. . . .I believe I interpret the will of theCongress and of the people when I assert that we willnot only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but wewill make very certain that this form of treachery shallnever endanger us again. . . . No matter how long itmay take us . . . the American people in their right-eous might will win through to absolute victory.”

—quoted in Franklin D. Roosevelt:A Rendezvous with Destiny

Following the president’sspeech, the Senate voted,unanimously, 82 to 0, and theHouse 388 to 1 to declare waron Japan.

Germany Declares WarAlthough Japan was now atwar with the United States,Hitler did not have to declarewar on the Americans. Theterms of the alliance withJapan specified that Germanyonly had to come to Japan’said if Japan was attacked, notif Japan attacked another country. Hitler, however,had grown frustrated with the American navy’sattacks on German submarines, and he believed thetime had come to declare war on the United States.

Hitler greatly underestimated the strength of theUnited States, and he expected the Japanese to easilydefeat the Americans in the Pacific. He hoped that byhelping Japan against the United States, he couldcount on Japanese support against the Soviet Uniononce the Americans had been beaten. On Decem-ber 11, Germany and Italy both declared war on theUnited States.

Examining What finally caused theUnited States to become involved in World War II?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: eliminate, policy,

hemispheric defense zone, primary,strategic materials.

2. People and Terms Identify: AmericaFirst Committee, Lend-Lease Act,Atlantic Charter.

Reviewing Big Ideas3. Justifying After Roosevelt made the

destroyers-for-bases deal with Britain,some Americans called him a dictator.Do you think Roosevelt was right orwrong in his actions? Explain youranswer.

Critical Thinking4. Interpreting Why was the United

States unprepared for Japan’s attack onPearl Harbor?

5. Organizing Use a graphic organizer tolist how Roosevelt helped Britain whilemaintaining official neutrality.

Analyzing Visuals6. Analyzing Maps Study the map on

pages 560-561. Based on the geographyof Oahu, why was the location of PearlHarbor selected for a naval base?

Writing About History7. Persuasive Writing Take on the role of

an American in 1940. Write a letter tothe editor of your newspaper explainingwhy you think the United States shouldeither remain neutral or becomeinvolved in World War II. CA 11WS1.2

Help to Britain

Student WebActivity Visit theAmerican Vision:Modern Times Web siteatand click on StudentWeb Activities—Chapter 11 for anactivity on PearlHarbor.

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HISTORY


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SOURCE 1:James Bryant Conant, the pres-ident of Harvard University,strongly supported Roosevelt.From 1939 on, Conant wasinvolved in the Office ofScientific Research andDevelopment, where he chairedthe National Defense ResearchCouncil and was central in thedevelopment of the atomicbomb. In 1940 he was asked togive his opinion about theworld crisis confronting theUnited States.

Let me ask you to visualizeour future as a democratic freepeople in a world dominatedby ruthless totalitarian1 states.There are those who argue thatHitler’s war machine, when itstask is done in Europe, will be converted to an instru-ment of peaceful industrial activity. I do not think so.There are those who imagine that a government whichhas broken promise after promise, which has scornedthe Democratic countries and all they stand for, whichmocks and laughs at free institutions as a basis for civi-lization – that such a government can live in a peacefulrelationship with the United States. I do not think so.

To my mind a complete Nazi victory over Franceand England would be, by necessity, but a prelude toHitler’s attempt to dominate the world. If Germanywere triumphant, at best there would result an armed

truce. . . . Our way of lifewould be endangered foryears to come. . . .

At this moment, today, thewar is in effect veering towardsour shores. The issue beforethe United States is, I repeat,can we live as a free, peaceful,relatively unarmed people in a world dominated by thetotalitarian states? . . .

. . . Action is the onlyanswer, action which mayhelp immediately, actionwhich will be to the Allies an earnest and encourage-ment of help to come. . . .

SOURCE 2:The America First Committeeopposed the entrance of theUnited States into World

War II. It was frequently asked about the nationalinterests of the American people. In 1941 the Com-mittee gave the following response.

It is difficult, of course, to define our national inter-ests, but it is always safe to assume that our chiefnational interest is the maintenance of our democracyand the well-being of our own American people. It istrue that we have a stake in the maintenance of democ-racy throughout the world. It is also true that manyAmericans have commercial interests abroad which theyare naturally interested in protecting. It is far from cer-tain, however, that this war or our involvement in it willprotect any of those interests.

With the onset of World War II in Europe, Americans began to debate whether or not to join thefight against Germany. President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that the United States had anobligation to aid democracies. Many other Americans disagreed. They wanted nothing to dowith international affairs and opposed any actions that would lead to war.


James Bryant Conant➤

➤1 totalitarian: a form of government in which the political leader

has full control and opposition is outlawed


Source 1: Why does Conant believe that the UnitedStates should join the war?

Source 2: According to America First, what are theobligations of the United States?

Source 3: Why does Lindbergh believe that theUnited States can avoid the war?

Comparing and Contrasting SourcesHow do Conant, Lindbergh, and America FirstCommittee differ in their views about the best wayto protect the United States?

Our part should be first ofall to protect our own democ-racy. Since experience hastaught us that democracyvanishes in wartime, it wouldseem that the surest way tokeep our form of governmentis to avoid involvement. Weshould also seek an adequatenational defense to makesure that we can maintainour territorial integrity in theevent we are attacked by a foreign power.

If, after announcing theirintention to stay out of thewar, as they have repeatedlydone, the American peoplewish to aid Great Britain, they should do so. But they should make certain tokeep aid and direct participation separate.

SOURCE 3:Charles A. Lindbergh became an international hero in1927 with the first transatlantic flight. When World WarII broke out, he became an outspoken opponent of U.S.involvement. Lindbergh joined the America FirstCommittee and toured the country, giving speeches such asthis one reported in the April 24, 1941 New York Times.

It is not only our right, but it is our obligation asAmerican citizens to look at this war objectively and toweigh our chances for success if we should enter it. I have attempted to do this, especially from the stand-point of aviation; and I have been forced to the con-clusion that we cannot win this war for England,regardless of how much assistance we send.

I ask you to look at the map of Europe today andsee if you can suggest any way in which we could winthis war if we entered it. Suppose we had a large armyin America, trained and equipped. Where would wesend it to fight? The campaigns of the war show onlytoo clearly how difficult it is to force a landing, or tomaintain an army, on a hostile coast. . . .

The United States is better situated from a militarystandpoint than any other nation in the world. Even inour present condition of unpreparedness no foreignpower is in a position to invade us today. If we concen-trate on our own defenses and build the strength that

this nation should maintain, no foreign army will everattempt to land on American shores.

War is not inevitable for this country. Such a claim isdefeatism in the true sense. No one can make us fightabroad unless we ourselves are willing to do so. Noone will attempt to fight us here if we arm ourselves as a great nation should be armed. . . .

The time has come when those of us who believe inan independent American destiny must band togetherand organize for strength. We have been led towardwar by a minority of our people. This minority haspower. It has influence. It has a loud voice. But it doesnot represent the American people.

Charles Lindbergh at an America First Committee rally➤

CA HR4; HI3

Time Life Pictures/Getty Iamges

1. fascism2. internationalism3. appeasement4. blitzkrieg5. Holocaust

6. concentration camp7. extermination camp8. hemispheric defense zone9. strategic materials

10. impose11. civil12. regime

13. furthermore14. anticipate15. implement

16. prohibit17. policy18. primary

Reviewing Content VocabularyOn a sheet of paper, use each of these terms in a sentence.

Reviewing Academic VocabularyOn a sheet of paper, use each of these terms in a sentence thatreflects the term’s meaning in the chapter.

•Mussolini’sFascist Partybelieved insupremepower ofthe state

•Cooperated withGermany from1936 onward

•Hitler’s Nazi Party believedin all-powerfulstate, territorialexpansion,and ethnicpurity

•Invaded Poland in 1939, Francein 1940, and the USSR in 1941 •Communists, led by

harsh dictator Joseph Stalin,created industrialpower

•Signednon-aggressionpact with Germany in 1939

•Received U.S. aid;eventually fought withAllies to defeat Germany

•Military leaderspushed for territorialexpansion

•Attacked Manchuriain 1931

•Invaded China in 1937

•Attacked Pearl Harborin 1941

•Tried to appease Hitler byallowing territorialgrowth

•Declared war onGermany in 1939

•Resisted Germanattack in 1940

•Received U.S. aid throughlend-lease program andcash-and-carry provision

•Along with Great Britain,tried to appease Hitler

•Declared waron Germanyin 1939 afterPoland wasinvaded

•Occupied by Nazisin 1940

•Passed Neutrality Actsin 1935, 1937, and 1939

•Gave lend-lease aid toBritain,China,and theUSSR

•Declared war on Japanin 1941

Allies

Axis

United States Great Britain France

Italy Germany

USSR

Japan

Section 321. What were four ways that Nazis persecuted Jews?

Section 422. In what three ways did Roosevelt help Britain during the

early years of World War II while maintaining an Americanpolicy of neutrality?

Critical Thinking23. Making Inferences Review the text

“Jewish Refugees Try to Flee” on pages 552–553. Explainwhat factors limited Jewish immigration to the United States.Why did other countries not allow entrance for the refugees?Discuss your answers with a partner. How do your answersdiffer from those of your partner?

24. Analyze How did the rise of dictatorships and the attack onPearl Harbor cause the United States to become involved inWorld War II?

25. Civics How did President Roosevelt use the power of theexecutive office to support the British and circumvent theNeutrality Acts?

Reviewing the Main IdeasSection 119. Who was the leader of Fascist Italy?

Section 220. Why was Austria easier for Hitler to annex than

Czechoslovakia?

Standards 11.7.1, 11.7.4, 11.7.5, 11.7.6


Self-Check QuizVisit the American Vision—Modern Times Web site at

and click on Self-Check Quizzes —Chapter 00 to access your knowledge of the chapter content.tav.mt.glencoe.com

HISTORY

Standards PracticeDirections: Choose the phrase that best completes the following statement.

When Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act in 1941, hesaid that the United States must become the “arsenal ofdemocracy” in order to

A end the Depression.

B help the Axis powers.

C remain neutral.

D help Great Britain.

31.

Standards Practice

26. Organizing Use a graphic organizer similar to the onebelow to list countries that Hitler and the Nazis seizedbetween 1936 and 1940.

Writing About History27. Understanding Change Explain

why some individuals believe the policy of appeasement wasa cause for World War II. Do you think the war may havecauses other than appeasement? Explain your answer.

28. Research and write a report explaining at leastthree possible reasons why the Japanese attacked the UnitedStates at Pearl Harbor.

29. Interpreting Primary Sources The America First Committeeorganized to prevent American involvement in the war. OnApril 24, 1941, aviator Charles Lindbergh, a leadingspokesperson for this committee, delivered a speech in New York. Read the excerpt from his speech and answer the questions that follow.

“War is not inevitable for this country. Such a claim isdefeatism in the true sense. No one can make us fightabroad unless we ourselves are willing to do so. No onewill attempt to fight us here if we arm ourselves as a greatnation should be armed. Over a hundred million peoplein this nation are opposed to entering the war. If the prin-ciples of democracy mean anything at all, that is reasonenough for us to stay out. If we are forced into war againstthe wishes of an overwhelming majority of our people, wewill have proved democracy such a failure at home thatthere will be little use fighting for it abroad.”a. Why did Lindbergh favor isolationism?

b. How do you think Lindbergh might have felt about isola-tionism after the attack on Pearl Harbor? CA 11RL3.8

CA HI2

CountriesSeized by Hitler

and the Nazis

N

S

EW

200 kilometers0Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area projection

200 miles0

30°E20°E0°

50°N

60°N

BalticSea

NorthSea

Adriatic Sea

Natzweiler-Struthof

Vught

Neuengamme

Bergen-Belsen

Ravensbr¨uk

HarkuKlooga Valvara

Buchenwald

Sachsenhausen

Stutthof

MauthausenDachau

SantaSabba Jasenovac

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Chelmno

Theresienstadt

TreblinkaSobibor

Majdanek

Belzec

London

Paris

Brussels

Amsterdam

Copenhagen

Berlin

Bern

Rome

Vienna

Prague

Warsaw

Budapest

Belgrade

Sofia

Bucharest

Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camps, 1933–1945

Capital cityNazi concentration camp/death camp

Geography and History30. The map above shows Nazi concentration and extermination

camps. Study it and answer these questions.a. Interpreting Maps In which two countries were most of

the concentration and extermination camps located? Whywere they located there?

b. Applying Geography Skills What can you concludeabout the extent of the Nazis’ “final solution”?

Self-Check QuizVisit the American Vision: Modern Times Web site at

and click on Self-Check Quizzes—Chapter 11 to assess your knowledge of chapter content.tav.mt.glencoe.com

HISTORY

Standard 11.7.1: Examine the origins of American involve-ment in the war, with an emphasis on the events that precip-itated the attack on Pearl Harbor.


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