Chapter 16-World War II, 1939-1945

Hitler’s Lightning War 16.1

President of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, names Hitler Chancellor of Germany on January of 1933
Beginning of the Third Reich (1933-1945)
Adolf Hitler was leader of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, NSDAP, Nazi Party (Austrio-Hungarian later nationalized German)
Hindenburg dies in 1934 and Hitler merges Chancellery and Presidency becoming Fuhrer, sole leader
As dictator he turned Germany into a fascist totalitarian state
Germans gain strength with annexations under Hitler:
Rhineland 1936
Austria 1938
Czechoslovakia 1938
Poland is invaded beginning WWII under idea for lebensraum or more “living space” for the German people in 1939
France and Great Britain declare war on Germany
Germans implement the Blitzkrieg or Lightning War (created by Heinz Guderian and successfully implemented in Dunkirk, Operation Barbarossa,
Withdrawal at Dunkirk and invasion of Poland)
Consisted of: fast moving planes and tanks followed by massive infantry
Panzer units – 2 regiments of tanks
1 ground infantry regiment
1 artillery regiment
Stalin invades eastern Poland (had an agreement with Hitler) Poland falls in 3 weeks followed by the Baltics
Finland is invaded and falls, March 1940
Germans settle at Siegfried Line
Germans have a Sitzkrieg or Sitting War along the French border in the Phony War along the Maginot Line
NE France has system of fortification on French-German border
Hitler’s ends Sitzkrieg with surprise attack on Denmark and Norway
Other European countries fall including Denmark in 4 hours, Norway 2 months, plan to build bases at these to invade GB
Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg & France are attacked
Germans squeeze through Maginot & control north coast of France
Allied Troops are cornered in Dunkirk, coast of France: British fleet of 850 plus
Royal Navy and
civilian Yachts,
lifeboats,
motorboats,
paddle streamers and
fishing boats
338,000 soldiers are brought to safety into Britain
Benito Mussolini, Fascist from Italy joins the Germans, attacks France from south
France is attacked by both and with Paris’s fall, Henri Petain becomes Prime Minister – puppet government is set, June 1940
General Charles de Gaulle flees to Britain and sets government in exile to lead resistance until liberation in 1944
Winston Churchill leads Great Britain and are attacked by Germans in Operation Sea Lion - invasion of Britain – called the Battle of Britain
Churchill: “we shall never surrender”
German Luftwaffe (4,500) and British RAF (2,900) fight to prevent invasion of 250,000 German soldiers
Airfields, aircraft factories attacked; later attacked cities to break morale
Germans switch to night bombings to avoid RAF; British hide in small and big bomb shelter and basements
British RADAR and capture of German Enigma machine prevented German invasion; Hitler withdraws astonished by British resistance
Hitler turns to the Balkans & Mediterranean Sea: ultimate goal Russia
Mussolini declares war on GB and France to gain territory after French invasion; becomes most important Axis ally
Italians fight in North Africa moving from Libya to British-controlled Egypt for control of Suez Canal
Italians push 60 miles, British push them back 500 miles and capture 130,000 Italians
German Irwin Rommel known as the Desert Fox comes to their rescues leading Panzer units; captures Suez Canal with his Africa Korps
Rommel late takes Agheila and later Tobruk in north Africa
Hitler plans to build bases for invasion of Russia; overwhelmed Bulgaria, Romania & Hungary join Axis
Yugoslavia & Greece resist due to relations with GB: fall within 11 & 17 days each
1941, Operation Barbarossa – German invasion to Russia began with a Blitzkrieg – Russians apply scorched-earth policy
Russian army was the largest in the world but not well equipped – 5 million strong
Germans surround Leningrad: they isolate it and bombard it destroying warehouses with food
Russians resort to eating: horses
Cattle feed
Cats
Dogs
Crows
Rats (1 million Russians died of hunger)
Hitler turns to capital of Moscow since Leningrad would not give in
Russian winter sets in and Siberian troops under command of Gen. Georgi Zhukov arrive (100 fresh divisions)
Germans initially retreat and trucks, weapons and tanks become useless (oil, fuel and parts froze)
Hitler orders no retreat and 1/2 a million Germans die
US remains outside of war helping Great Britain due to Neutrality Laws (illegal to sell arms or lend money to nations at war)
Roosevelt knows war participation is eminent and persuades Congress to sell arms as long as they pay in cash and use their own ships
Lend-lease Act of 1941 permits lending or leasing to nations essential to the US
US Navy escorts British ships and Hitler orders sinking of cargo ships
Atlantic Charter signed in a secret meeting on a battleship off the coast of Newfoundland, a joint declaration between Roosevelt & Churchill
upholding free trade among nations & the right of people to choose their own governments
later served as Allies peace plan at the end of the war
US involved only in undeclared naval war with Germany due to sinking of US destroyer as escort
Japan Strikes in the Pacific 16.2
Prior to the war Japan had already invaded Manchuria due to Japanese overpopulation (1931)
Japan plans to expand on SE Asia and Pacific (Philippines & Guam are at risk; under US control)
US sends help to reinforce Chinese resistance (US cracked a code with Japanese plan on SE Asia)
US cuts oil shipments to Japan due to planned attack to SE Asia on US controlled lands and overrunning of French Indochina
Isoroku Yamamoto, Japan’s greatest naval strategist described Pearl Harbor as “dagger pointed at our throat”
Pearl Harbor is attacked (Dec. 7, 1941 – “quoted: a day that will live in infamy” by President T. Roosevelt) and Congress declares war on Japan
the next day
US knew of attack would happen but did not know when
18 ships sunk:
 included 8 battleships
 2,400 Americans killed
 1,000 wounded (Most US Pacific fleet sunk in 2 hrs.)
Japan seize Guam & Wake Islands (US)
In January they take Manila, Philippines & Island of Corridor
Hong Kong is followed and then invade Malaya (both British)
Japanese move to Dutch East Indies including Java, Sumatra, Borneo and India; later took Burma which supplied China to force it to surrender
Japan controlled 1 million square miles and 150 million people (dropped old idea of “Asia for the Asians” for a conquering policy)
Bataan Death March – Philippines and American POWs were forced on a march about 60 miles long
Between 60 and 80,000 Filipino and 100 to 650 Americans died on the forced trek due to beatings, random bayonet stabs and other abuses
Americans & Australians look for victory in the Pacific
1942 – Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle sends 16 B-25s to bomb Tokyo and other cities for psychological point the Japan was at grasp
Japanese – “we started to doubt we were invincible”; empire had become too big to control or protect
Battle of Coral Sea (May 1942) – draw where Allies met Japanese over control of Port Moresby, a critical airbase – stopped Japanese expansion
south but with larger number of Allied ships sunk
Japanese needed airbase to attack Australia
Both forces used carriers – new naval warfare
Battle of Midway (June 1942) – over American fieldstrip on Midway, west of Hawaii; Largest Japanese fleet with 150 ships and Yamamoto
(Japanese military leader) and largest Battleship (Battleship Yamato) were met by Commander Chester Nimitz with an ambush after a Japanese
code was broken, Allies were outnumbered 4 to 1 but US avenged Pearl Harbor winning the battle turning tide against the Japanese
Douglas MacArthur (Supreme Commander of the Allied powers), Plans Island hopping to close in on Japan
Battle of Guadalcanal – fight over new Japanese air base – 26,000 Japanese died and was called the “island of death”
The Holocaust 16.3
Holocaust in Germany: Nazis proclaim Aryan Race the “master race”
1. Forbade Jews to hold office
2. Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, jobs and property (1935)
3. Wearing of the yellow Star of David for easy identification
4. Kristallnacht or night of broken glass were property was damaged and about 100 Jews were killed (after killing of German diplomat in
Paris by a Jewish refugee, 1938)
5. Favoring and forcing of Jewish migration (Einstein to US)
6. Relocation to ghettos, fenced Polish cities to starve to death (open ghettos, 1940/ closed ghettos 1941)
7. Genocide or “the Final Solution” – mass extermination of Jews (started in 1941)
“Subhuman” groups: Jews, other races, inferiors such as gypsys, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, insane, disabled & incurable
Auschwitz – largest concentration camp – 6 of the 11 million dead were Jews
Oscar Schindler: German who was a member of the Nazi German Intelligence and member of the Nazi Party; responsible for saving over 1,200
Schindler Jews (my children); bribed SS officers spending his entire-earned fortune; Named Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli
government; wanted to be buried in Jerusalem “my children are here”
The Allies are Victorious 16.4
Battle of Alamein – Bernard Montgomery (British Field Marshall) and Allies attack Rommel with 1,700 British guns in North Africa
Operation Torch – Dwight D. Eisenhower crushed Rommel’s Africa Korps
Battle of Stalingrad – Germans try to take Stalingrad but again fall to Russian winter – more than I million soviets died for a city destroyed in 99%
German force of 330,000 that invaded fall to Russians – 90,000 surrender – Germans are now on the defensive and in retreat from then on
Mussolini is overpowered by Allies in Sicily and is fired by Victor Emmanuel III – he later comes back to power but later falls to Italian Resistance
fighters and is captured in a convoy disguised as a German soldier – he is shot and body hanged in town square
Back in the US the country moves into total war as well as Russia
31,275 Japanese imprisoned in the US – 2/3 were Nisei, American-born Japanese
Allies gather huge surprise offensive for D-Day for the start of Operation Overlord as a French invasion in Normandy
 1million allies – 700,000 Germans
 5500 allied tanks – 1400 German Tanks
 28% American
 28% Canadian
 26% British
 5% French
Eisenhower – Supreme commander of Allied Forces in Europe attacks Normandy and I month later Gen. George Patton’s (commanding general of
US operations in North Africa) Third Army cut through enemy lines – France, Belgium, Luxemburg and most Netherlands are freed
Patton was in charge of the Ghost Army distracting the Germans over the Strait of Dover (there were 2-30,000 fake strong Ghost armies)
Allies move to Germany
Battle of the Bulge – Hitler decided to counterattack – battle to decide whether Germany lives of dies – Germans push back but eventually Allies
push them back, too. Hitler lost most of remaining soldiers, most war died out after this point.
Roosevelt died and Harry Truman takes control of US – Allies advance on Berlin – 3 million Allies and 6 million Soviets
Hitler marries Eva Braun and both of them take poison, Hitler also shoots himself (2 days after being married)
Eventually the Third Reich surrenders marking V-E Day or Victory in Europe – April 30th of 1945
Battle of Leyte Gulf – Japanese still fighting risk their entire navy and lost disastrously
Japanese pilots turn Kamikaze – suicidal pilots
Battle of Okinawa – bloodiest land battle of entire war set Japan on Allied sight (110,000 Japanese & 12,500 US dead)
Albert Einstein warns US of German a-bomb weapon and Roosevelt approves Manhattan Project becoming American atomic program
Project headed by Gen. Leslie Groves and Chief Scientist Robert J. Oppenheimer
Manhattan Project developed A-Bomb and Truman decides to use it on Japan due to a calculated loss of 1/2 a million Allies if they try to invade
Japanese mainland
The Allies issue the Potsdam Declaration as ultimatum to Japan’s surrender but failed to mention the atomic bombs
A B-29 plane called the Enola Gay with commander Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr.(the pilot’s mother’s name) ,accompanied by The Great Artiste &
Necessary Evil, drops a bomb named Little Boy over Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 at 8:15 am (contained 141 lbs. pounds of uranium-235) aimed
at Aioi Bridge slightly missing
Surface temperature reached 6,000 °C to 7,000 with winds of up to 980 mph
Bomb killed 80,000 on blast and somewhere around 90,000 to 200,000 from radiation, destroyed over 70% of the city (62,000 buildings)
Blast was equivalent to 16 kilotons of TNT
3 days later one is dropped on Nagasaki aimed at Mitsubishi Shipyards; bomb was named Fat Man carried by the bomber called Bockscar, August
9th, 1945
Truman had warned of “rain of ruin from the air”, Japanese had not answered warning
Bomb was more powerful, yet killed less, initial blast deaths were between 40,000 & 75,000
Japanese surrender on September 2nd aboard the Missouri in Tokyo Bay
Use of the bomb brought questioning of politician and scientist ethics
Nuremberg Trials begin from 1945 to 1946:
 Crimes against peace
 Crimes against humanity
 War crimes
 Conspiracy to wage aggressive war
24 defendants, 12 sentenced to death, 3 to life imprisonment, 4 given terms from 10 to 20 years, 3 were acquitted
Bodies of executed were cremated in the same ovens in Dachau concentration camp as their victims
Hitler’s men:
Hans Frank: “Slayer of the Poles”: Hitler’s personal lawyer; chief jurist and Governor General of occupied Poland who was involved in the mass
murder of Poles; only Nazi who expressed remorse.
Heinrich Himmler: police administrator, commander, head of the SS (Schutzstaffel: Hitler’s protection squadron responsible for most war crimes)
and the Nazi secret police, organized first extermination camp and others on Poland; placed Adolf Eichmann to administer camps; captured by the
British and inspected by a doctor who found 2 cyanide tablets; bit another embedded into his teeth and died shortly after Hitler’s death
Joseph Goebbels: Minister of Propaganda; used films to spread anti-Semitism and Nazi sentiment; poisoned his six children, shot his wife and
himself in Hitler’s bunker after Russian siege on Berlin
Josef Mengele (the Angel of Death, Uncle Mengele): Nazi doctor at Auschwitz who experimented cruelly with subjects, practiced castrations,
dissections, freezing, drug injecting, surgeries and other atrocities often with no anesthesia; known for his twin experimentation, escaped with the
help of the Red Cross to South America living in Argentina, Paraguay and dying in Brazil from a stroke swimming at the beach
Rudolph Hess: Nazi leader fiercely loyal to Hitler, edited Mein Kampf; was captured while trying to negotiate peace terms; given life sentence at
Nuremberg Trials and committed suicide at age 92
Hermann Goering: established the Gestapo (Secret State Police) which acted out of normal judicial process, the secret political police, ceded
position over to Himmler in 1934, poisoned himself the night he was condemned to be hanged by the Nuremberg Trials
Japanese leaders:
Hideki Tojo: was Prime Minister, Hanged for war crimes by an international Military Tribunal
Emperor Hirohito which means his Majesty the Emperor or his current Majesty, Emperors in Japan had no personal names
Shiro Ishii: Lt. General of the Medical Corps. In charge of biological and chemical weapons investigation. Ran facility with over 150 buildings with 2
secret prisons and 3 crematoria (largest biological weapons research center in the world)
He experimented on all nationalities, mostly in Manchurians. He practiced vivisection while patients were still alive to avoid data error due to
foreign substances. His center was known as: Togo Unit, Ishii Unit, Water Purification Unit and finally as Unit 731.
Believed to be responsible for experimentation and death of as many as 10 to 12 thousand men, women and children. Also as many as 250
thousand killed in field tests…exceeding the victims of Nazi doctor experimentation. At the end of the war exchange of the information collected
took place between Japan and the US therefore granting immunity for these war crimes.
Allies v. Axis Powers:
Great Britain, France, US (later Russia) against Germany, Italy, Japan (Russia at the start and until 1941)
Oskar Groening - Accountant of Auschwitz – 300 counts of accessory to murder – age 93, was an Auschwitz guard and placed on trial in 2013.
The Devastation of Europe & Japan 16.5
WWII ends with the highest number of dead and worse destruction in history:
 60 million dead
 15 million in battle
 45 million civilian deaths
 40 million European deaths, 2/3 were civilian
Cities and countryside were destroyed
Undamaged by war:
 Paris
 Rome
 Brussels
Blitzkrieg damages London
Eastern Europe and Germany hit hardest, 95% of Berlin inner city was demolished
Shelter after the war:
 Partially destroyed homes
 Caves
 Cellars
Lack of:
 Water
 Electricity
 Food
Millions displaced especially Jews
Jews looked for refuge in British-controlled Palestine, they set up organization called Operation Flight
Members donned uniforms with CAJR label (Committee of Assistance to Jewish Refugees)
Insignia, official-looking papers and seal made few governments question authenticity
August 1945 – 4,000 died daily in Berlin
People traded valuables for potatoes
Winter was cruel on Europe with lack of coats and shoes
Pre-war governments returned in:
 Belgium
 Holland
 Denmark
 Norway
Hardest part of the end of the war fell on the following:
 Germany (Nazis left Germany in ruins)
 Italy (resistance fighters were communist & Mussolini led Italy to defeat)
 France (Vichy government collaborated with Germans)
Communist parties gained strength and post-war elections
Set up violent protests to speed-up process and people voted anti-communist
Communist power declined
Allies put Nazis on trial to avoid crimes to be committed again
In 1946 – International Military Tribunal representing 23 nations tried 22 Nazi leaders
Accused of:
 war crimes and
 waging a war of aggression
 Accused of violating laws of war
 committing “crimes against humanity” – murder of 11 million people
Nuremberg Trials, 12 of 22 accused put to trial were sentenced to death
The following all escaped trial by committing suicide…
 Adolf Hitler: Führer
 Heinrich Himmler: SS Chief
 Joseph Goebbels: Minister of Propaganda
Tried in court:
 Herman Göring: Marshal (escaped execution by committing suicide after his trial)
 Rudolf Hess: Deputy Fuhrer, helped Hitler write Mein Kampf – served life sentence and died at 93 years of age
 Hans Frank “Slayer of the Poles”: Hitler’s personal lawyer, responsible for mass murder of Jews and Poles, only Nazi to express remorse,
given the task of proving Hitler had no Jewish background, later in Nuremberg he confessed it was apparent Hitler’s dad could have been
half Jewish – found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging
Bodies of the executed were burned and cremated in Dachau Concentration Camp in the same oven as their victims

Glossary:
Nonaggression pact Battle of Guadalcanal Dwight D. Eisenhower
Blitzkrieg Aryans Battle of Stalingrad
Charles de Gaulle Holocaust D-Day
Winston Churchill Kristallnacht Battle of the Bulge
Battle of Britain Ghettos Kamikaze
Isoroku Yamamoto “final solution” Nuremberg Trials
Pearl Harbor Genocide demilitarization
Battle of Midway Erwin Rommel
Douglas MacArthur Bernard Montgomery

  Honduras: 8 December, 1941 – declared war on Axis Powers after attack on Pearl Harbor…I bet they were scared.