Unit 4B: The 20th Century Crisis

Chapter 17: The West Between the Wars

Chapter 19: World War II (1919 - 1945)

Western Democracies:

Early 1900's:

Scientific Advancements:

•Experiments with radioactivity (radium/uranium) – Madame Curie

•Theory of Relativity – Albert Einstein

•Psychoanalysis – Sigmund Freud

Western Democracies:

Early 1900's:

Modern Art and Architecture:

•Cubism – Pablo Picasso

•Surrealism – Salvador Dali

•Architecture – Francis Loyd Wright

Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso

Salvador Dali

Francis Lloyd Wright

Western Democracies:

1920's:

A Changing Society:

•New Culture – Influence of Jazz Music

•Younger Generation – Rebelled against the Victorian Age values; “Lost Generation”;

“Flappers” – liberated young woman

Western Democracies:

1920's and 1930's:

Postwar Issues:

•3 powerful democracies – Great Britain, France, and the United States

•Obstacles to Peace – Failure of League of Nations

•Underlying Economics Problems

United States:

Late1920's and 1930's:

•Risky Investing “Margin Buying”

•1929 Stock Market Crash

•Great Depression of the 1930’s

•High Unemployment

•Impacted Global Market

•New Deal – 1932 Election of Franklin Roosevelt

Totalitarianism:

Common Characteristics of Totalitarian Governments:

1. A Single-Party Dictatorship

2. State Control of the Economy

3. Use of Police Spies and Terror to Enforce the Will of the State

4. Strict Censorship and Government Monopoly of the Media

5. Use of Schools and Media to Indoctrinate and Mobilize Citizens

6. Unquestioning Obedience to a Single Leader

Facism in Italy:• Facism – Term used to describe any authoritarian government

that is not communist

• Facists pursue national goals (Communist pursue international change)

1920’s and 1930’s:

• Looking for order during uncertainty

• Increasing influence of Italian nationalists

• 1919 – Benito Mussolini

• Seized control of government and under-minding the constitutional democracy

• Economy brought under state (government) control

• “Blind” loyalty to the state (“Believe! Obey! Fight!”)

• Children were taught to obey strict military discipline

Nazi Germany:

1920’s:

•Germany in economic turmoil (inflation & unemployment)

•Germans turned to a new energetic leader

Adolf Hitler:

•Born in Austria

•Fought for Germany in World War I

•Imprisoned after a failed attempt to take over the government – wrote Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”)

Nazi Germany:

Adolf Hitler:

•Rise of Nazi Party – won majority of the seats in the legislature – Hitler was elected chancellor and took power of German government, brutally executing any opposition

Hitler’s Third Reich:

•Totalitarian State – Controlled everything from government to religion to education

•SS Troops – Hitler’s soldiers to enforce his will

•Gestapo – Hitler’s secret police to root out opposition

Nazi Germany:

Hitler’s Third Reich:

•“Purged” German Culture

•Beginning of the Campaign Against Jews

“Kristallnacht”

Aggression of Dictators:Japan:

•1931 – Armies invaded much of Eastern China

Italy:

•1935 – Invaded Ethiopia

Germany:

•Rebuild German military

•Sent troops in “Rhineland” – border with France

•Western democracies began appeasement policy

Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis

German Aggression:

1938:

•Austria

•Czechoslovakia

1939:

•Nazi-Soviet Pact (Hitler and Stalin)

•Invasion of Poland

•September 1, 1939

•Blitzkrieg (“Lightning War”)

•Britain and France declaring war on Germany

1939 - 1940:

“Phony War” – French defending its

borders at the Maginot Line

1940 – Germany invaded Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium

June 22, 1940 – Fall of France

Axis forces also pushing into North Africa, Balkans, Greece

New Technology – radar (to detect airplanes) and sonar (to detect submarines)

1941:“*Battle of Britain and the London Blitz – failure for Germany

Germany turned attention to the Soviet Union – siege of Leningrad

Germany fighting on the Western and Eastern Fronts

Involvement of the United States:

•Lend-Lease Act – US serving as the “Arsenal of Democracy” providing war materials

•Atlantic Charter – Agreement between F. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill

•December 7, 1941 – Japanese attacked on Pearl Harbor

The Allied War Effort:

European Theater

1942:

“The Big Three” – Roosevelt (US), Churchill (Great Britain), Stalin (Soviet Union)

American forces under General Dwight Eisenhower

1943: Fall of Italy and Mussolini

1944, June 6 – “D-Day” – Allied invasion of France

1945, May 8 – War in Europe ends with the capture of Berlin - V-E (Victory in Europe) Day

The Allied War Effort:

Pacific Theater

1942:

General MacArthur pledges to return to defeat the Japanese in the Philippines

1942 – 1943:

“Island-hopping”

Key victories at the Battle of Midway and Guadalcanal

1944:

MacArthur returns to the Philippines

The Allied War Effort:

Pacific Theater

1945:

Invasion of Japan vs. the Bomb

Concerns about kamikaze pilots

August 6, 1945 – Hiroshima

August 9, 1945 – Nagasaki

August 15, 1945 – V-J (Victory in Japan) Day

Aftermath of War:

•75 million people dead – globally

•Soviet Union – 22 million dead

•Germany, Poland, Russia, Japan in ruins

•Millions of refugees

•Hunger and disease

•Horrors of the Holocaust – Liberation of Death Camps

•Nuremberg Trials – War Crime Trials holding political and military leaders accountable for their actions

•Allied occupation of Europe

Aftermath of War:

•Formation of the United Nations

•Beginning of Cold War – Tensions between the United States and Soviet Union

•Emergence of New Conflicts:

•Truman Doctrine – Military and Economic assistance to Turkey and Greece

•Marshall Plan – Assistance to Western Europe

•Division of Germany – Berlin Airlift

•Military Alliances – NATO and the Warsaw Pact

•Beginning of an Arms Race

•Beginning of a Propaganda War