World War II

1939-1942McKay 975-980 Palmer

21.106

World War II

1939 1940 1941 1942

Hitler Invades Poland

9/1

Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact

8/23

France surrenders

6/22

The Blitz 9/1940-5/1941

Miracle of Dunkirk5/26-6/4

Phony War10/39-4/40

Operation Barbarossa

6/22

Pearl Harbor attacked

12/7

The Invasion of PolandSeptember 1, 1939-October 6, 1939

• The Gleiwitz incident (8/31/39)– was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles

against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany

– Left gun-shot ridden body of known Polish sympathizer there

• 1 million German soldiers invaded Poland next morning

• Poland had 1.5 million soldiers & finest cavalry in world

• No match for Germans• Blitzkrieg (lightning war)

– Utilized rapidly moving armored divisions, infantry, and a massive air assault (Luftwaffe)

• Quickly overran Polish forces• Soviet Union invaded from east on 9/17 (secret

agreement)• Stalin ordered execution of 15 thousand Polish

officers in the Katyn forest• Established fortified bases in Baltic states (Estonia,

Latvia, Lith)

The Invasion of Poland

The Phony WarOctober-April

• After October, deceptively quiet in the West• Allies & Axis powers had declared war but little

fighting had taken place• Few would “die for Danzig”• RAF dropped only leaflets over Germany• Germans did not cross the Siegfried Line (West

Wall) of the Rhineland (German version of Maginot Line)

• French felt protected by the Maginot Line• West rejected Hitler peace overtures but kept

their peacetime outlook• Winter War

– Russia invaded Finland (11/39)– Fins hoped to hold out in time for GB and

French intervention– Fins finally subdued in March 1940– Soviets expelled from League of Nations

• Chamberlain said Hitler “missed the bus” by not attacking France sooner

• Meanwhile, German forces trained throughout bitter winter for the spring

Germany Invades the West• On April 9, 1940 Germany attacked/overran

Norway and Denmark (under pretext that GB was blocking iron flow from Sweden)

• Invaded Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg (5/10)– Winston Churchill, who had greatly opposed

appeasement named Prime Minister same day• British Expeditionary Force and French forces

gathered at Belgian border• Hitler bypassed Maginot Line and invaded

France via Luxembourg and the Ardennes• Raced to channel ports to cut off retreating

armies• German army captured large section of French

army• British Expeditionary Force (BEF) cut off at

Dunkirk in Belgium • Miracle of Dunkirk (June 3-4)

– 330 thousand BEF evacuated with motley crew of boats

The Fall of France• Occupied Paris 6/13/40

– Given without a fight• France surrendered on June 22, 1940• French mindset geared for defensive

war • Caught totally off guard by Blitzkrieg• Mussolini invaded (June, 1940)• Also attacked Greece and N. Africa

(British territory)• Divided population were led by

defeatist leaders• Fall shocked the world (fell in 1

month)• Free France movement under General

Charles de Gaulle fled to GB• British forced to scuttle French fleet in

Algerian harbor of Oran rather than allow it to fall to Germans

The Invasion of the West

Vichy France• Northern 2/3rd occupied by

Germany• 3rd Republic now held capital in

Vichy• Stunned parliament voted for

an authoritarian regime headed by Marshal Petain (hero of Battle of Verdun, WWI) and Pierre Laval

• Republic is dead!• Slogan “liberty, equality, and

fraternity” were officially banned

• Replaced with “Country, Family, Work”

• French fascists (Anti-Dreyfusards) and the new leaders claimed that they were trying to protect France from more suffering

Vichy France• Collaborated with the Nazis• Extremely xenophobic and anti-Semitic• Enacted laws that mirrored the

Nuremberg laws of Germany• Jews forbidden from jobs in government, government,

education, law, medicineeducation, law, medicine• “sought to eliminate all Jewish influence in

the national economy”• Actively cooperated with Nazis in rounding

up and deporting Jews to concentration camps

• Sent hundreds of thousands of French workers as slave laborers to Germany

• Identified and deported thousands of French Jews to death camps

• Some collaborated, a few joined Underground Resistance

• Most of population tried to go on with day-to-day life

Festung Europa• Does history repeat?• Germans controlled almost same territory

as Napoleon• Created a new “continental system” to

govern, exploit and coordinate resources, industry and labor

• Impressed millions, prisoners of war and civilians as slave labor

• Festung Europa (Fortress Europe) • Soldiers were garrisoned throughout

Europe• Found sympathizerssympathizers, collaborators or

quislingsquislings (those who cooperate with Fascists)– Vidkun Quisling Quisling was organizer of Norwegian

Fascist party in 1933 and premier from 1942-45

• ½ million non-Germans fought in Waffen SS

• AND only foe was Great Britain!!!!!!!!

The Battle of Britain and American Aid• Brits anticipated an invasion after Dunkirk• Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM in May

1940– Promised people nothing but “blood, toil,

tears, and sweat. You ask, what is our policy? I will say it is to wage war, by sea, land and air…to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.”

• Asked US for the “tools” to finish the job• US was officially neutral• Isolationist opposed any involvement

– Charles Lindberg and the America First Committee

• Interventionists wanted to provide aid to Allies• FDR proclaimed that ‘we must be neutral is ‘we must be neutral is

action but not neutral in thought’action but not neutral in thought’– Had secretly been corresponding with

Churchill since 1939

The Great Arsenal of Democracy• FDR called GB “spearhead of

resistance to world democracy • US would supply the Brits as the

“arsenal of democracy”• Fights for Four Freedoms:• Speech, worship, from want, from fearSpeech, worship, from want, from fear• Began to supply GB soon after

Dunkirk• 50 overaged destroyers in return for

bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, Caribbean

• Lend-Lease• Policy of providing arms, raw

materials, food to Allies• Introduced conscription• Created hemispheric defense with

Latin American nations

The Battle of Britain• Germany rapid success was too fast for them to devise a plan for invasion of

GB• Hoped GB might become an ally• Began pre-invasion air war in summer of ’40• Luftwaffe (Air Force) had to control skies in order for invasion to be successful• Battle of Britain was air war fought over English Channel & southern England

from July to Oct. 1940• Luftwaffe = 1, 200 Bombers & 1 thousand fighters• RAF = 900 fighters

– used radar radar to detect approaching bombers– Were highly skilledhighly skilled– Combined P51 Spitfire with Rolls Royce engine P51 Spitfire with Rolls Royce engine (faster than

Messerschmitt)• Frustrated Hitler turned to nighttime bombing• The Blitz

– 76 consecutive nighttime bombing raids on English cities– Reached climax in fall of ’40– Broke the code of German encoding device (Enigma Machine)

• 20 thousand killed in London alone• Yet war capacity and morale remained strong

The Blitz

Nazi New European Order• Hitler motivated by Space and Race• Lebensraum “living space”

– Nazi ideology claimed that Germans needed land and resources

– "Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.” Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

• Untermensch (subhumans) will be used as slave laborers and will gradually die of exhaustion

• Aryans & other Nordic/Germanic peoples will be Germanized and populate Eastern lands

• Jews, Gypsies, communists, and other undesirables would be eliminated

Operation Barbarossa• Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) similar to

Napoleon-Alexander I (Treaty of Tilsit)• Both were biding their time• Soviets quietly Sovietized 3 Baltic states

into USSR• Baltic barons were returned to

Germany• Took Bessarabia province of Romania• Hoped to win control of the Balkans and

Eastern Europe• 1941 Hitler ‘convinced’ Romania,

Bulgaria, Hungary to join Axis powers (German troops stationed there)

• Yugo and Greece also occupied• Hitler desired the wheat fields of

Ukraine, the oil fields of Caucasus

Barbarossa 6/7/1941

Operation Barbarossa• Operation Barbarossa began 6/22/1941 when Nazi Germany invaded Soviet

Union• Invasion was supposed to take 10 weeks• Stalin (although warned) was completely caught off guard (left it to

Molotov to address Russian people on radio• 3 million German forces went along 2 thousand mile front• By autumn Germans controlled Ukraine and Byelorussia and laid siege to

Leningrad• Took Crimea and laid siege to Sebastopol• Were within 25 miles of Moscow• Captured 500 thousand Russian soldiers• Followed a scorched earth policy and did not distinguish between soldiers

and civilians• But were not prepared for early and bitter winter

– -30 degrees Fahrenheit• Resistance stiffened to save Mother Russia• Counteroffensive of Red Army in winter saved Moscow• Hitler took control and pushed for attack in south towards oil fields• Laid siege to Stalingrad

The Savage War in the East

Pearl Harbor• Had been at war with China since ‘31• Joined Axis in 1940• Signed neutrality treaty with Soviets in ’41• Took French possession in Indochina• US cut trade of vital war making material

in effort to halt Japanese advance• General Hideki Tojo, new Japanese prime

minister publicly stated that Japan would eliminate US and GB influence in Asia

• Sent representatives to Washington as he launched attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/41)

• 2, 500 US forces killed• Fleet crippled• Attacked Philippines, Guam, Midway,

Hong Kong, Malaya• US and GB declared war on Japan 12/8

Pearl Harbor

1942• Japan took Singapore

(supposedly impregnable)• Sunk battleship Prince of

Wales (supposedly unsinkable)• Threatened invasion of

Australia and attacked Aleutians

• Seemed poised to invade India• Under banner of anti

imperialism they formed Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and found ready cooperators

• George Marshall noted “how close to complete domination of the world” were Germany and Japan