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Adolf Hitler
- Austrian-born German politician
- Leader of German Workers Party, nazi regime in Germany
- Lost his father at 14 and his mother at 19, dropped out of highschool at 16
- Rejected from Vienna Fine Arts Academy twice, lived in homeless shelter and had various menial jobs, then moved to Munich
- Dispatch runner in WWI, received Iron Cross
- 1923 coup d��etat (beer hall putsch) failed and put Hitler in jail where he wrote Mein Kampf
- Hitler gained popularity by:
- Attacking the Treaty of Versailles
- Promoting pan-Germanism
- Anti-Semitism
- Anticommunism
- Charismatic orator
- Nazi propaganda
- 1933 - 1945 as chancellor of Germany, Seized dictatorship from Reichstag fire and the enabling act
- 1934 �C 1945 as dictator of Germamny
- 1935 Nuremberg law
- 1936 adopted a 4 year economic plan plan
- 1938 Kristallnacht, night of broken glass, attacked on Jews, rounded 300,000 to concentration camps
- Churches, labour unions ��coordinated�� with him, children were discouraged from religious schools, rearmamen program absorbed unemployment
- Centre of founding nazi fascism, starting WWII, starting holocaust
- annexed Austria in 1938. invaded Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, initiating WWII
- 1941 he blackmailed cajoled Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary into joining Axis and occupied Yugoslavia
- June 22, 1941 invaded U.S.S.R.
- Hitler took over command after Moscow was saved by winter
- In the final days of war, 1945, married his mistress Eva Braun
- Both committed suicide to avoid being captured by the Red Army 2 days later
- murders 6 million jews and other unsavory
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Joseph Stalin
- Russian born politician, totalitarian communist regime
- 1941 �C 1953 Premier of Soviet Union
- paranoid dictator of soviet union
- Stalin launched 1928 five year plan, rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture, second five year plan 1932 �C 1937, third one interrupted by German war
- Soviets for geographical reasons did not send troops to Spanish war but technicians and political advisors
- Nazi-Soviet Pact: if either country went to war the other would remain neutral
- agreed to split up Poland together (eastern half of Poland), allowed hitler to avoid two front war
- conflict after hitler attempted to invade soviet union
- Stalin had ignored the warnings he had received, was completely caught by surprise, momentarily was incapable of mounting defense
- Stalin replaced some military commanders, rallied to country to fight with great stubbornness -> saved by Russian winter
- After Barbarossa, Stalin joined the Allies
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Mao Tse-Tung
- leader of chinese communist movement, authoritarian, dictator of china
- commanded long march, where he rose to power
- land reform, and nationalization of businesses (based off marxist ideas)
- allied with soviets
- Joined his army with Zhu De to create Peasants�� Red Army of China
- Thousands died under his purge
- He built modest and effective army, with methods usually referred to as guerrilla warfare
- Alliance with KMT to form united front against Japan, agreed to form New Fourth army and 8th army under command of National Revolutionary Army
- During WWII, he advocated avoiding open confrontations with Japanese and focusing on guerrilla warfare from Yenan
- Let KMT take on brunt of fighting and tremendous casualties
- He directed CPC to concentrate on absorbing and eliminating if necessary, Chinese militia behind enemy lines
- While in Yenan, he divorced He Zizhen and married Lan Ping, who later became known as Jiang Qing
- Expanded CPC��s sphere of influence outside of Japanese control, mainly through rural mass organizations, administrative land and tax reform that favoured poor peasants
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Benito Mussolini
- totalitarian fascist regime, part of axis, Rome-berlin axis, ruled 1922-1943
- Italian born politician, son of blacksmith
- Became corporal in WWI
- Campaign targeted propertied class, patriots and nationalists, and lower middle class
- 1922 came to power through the March on Rome, black shirts threatened to coup
- Came into power almost legally
- Before expiation of his emergency powers he forced a law that party with largest number of votes should get 2/3 seats in legislature
- Called himself Il Duce
- Had a fascist corporative system that divided the economy into 22 sectors
- wanted revenge for treatment in ww1, invaded Ethiopia
- 1938 after recognition of Axis, Mussolini accepted what he had denied to Hitler in 1834, German absorption of Austria
- along with Hitler pushed boundaries of League of Nations
- inspired Hitler in terms of policies
- allied with Hitler in ww2 and army used by Hitler
- attacked France in June 1940 when it was clear that Hitler had defeated it
- soon after he invaded Greece and moved against Britain in north Africa theatre
- Offered to send troops to Eastern front b/c he thought that Germans would defeat Russians before Italian troops arrived. He was wrong and Italian army suffered heavy loss
- August 1943, British, Canadians and Americans conquered Sicily -> Mussolini fell
- He tried to set up ��Italian Social Republic�� in the north, became German puppet government
- April 1945, tried to flee the country and was shot by anti-Fascist Italians
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Blackshirts
- Fascist paramilitary groups in Iatly -> armed squad under Mussolini
- Italian fascists used by Mussolini as military arm of fascist political movement -> tool for violent fascist Italianization of territories given to Italy for joining WWI
- enforced fear for the regime -> none dared step out and stop Mussolini��s fascist movements
- used by Mussolini to break general strike in 1920 and repression of state to crush socialist movement
- In march on Rome, took all the strategic positions in the country -> put Mussolini in power
- Fought in Spanish civil war and Ethiopian campaign
- Later copied by others who shared similar political ideas (such as Hitler in Germany)
- Followers of Mussolini and fought for Italy
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Brownshirts (SA Sturm Abteilung / storm troopers)
- Paramilitary organization of Nazi Party, Hitler's private army
- Carried out numerous violent acts against competing socialist groups ->Played key role in Hitler��s rise to power
- Protected party meetings
- Beat up opposition and instilled fear in people ->no one dared to speak up
- inspired by black shirts of Mussolini
- Used for Hitler��s acquisition of political power until Nazis evolved to unquestioned leaders of government
- After Hitler��s gained power, they were independent and street violence -> seen by Hitler as direct threat to newly gained political power and executed during purge ��The Night of the Long Knives��
- Didn��t really play a major role in WWII
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SS
- Major paramilitary organization under Hitler
- Under Heinrich Himmler��s command, responsible terrorizing Jews, participated in ��final solution��; leaders in concentration camps who
- gassed/tortured/mistreated Jews
- Originally a small permanent guard unit of volunteers, under Himmler from 1929 to 1945 renamed and grew to one of the largest + most powerful of the third Reich
- They fought, defended land, and maintained concentration camps
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Gestapo
- Official secret police of Nazi Germany
- Began 1934, under leadership of Heinrich Himmler
- Gestapo became a national state agency rather than Prussian state agency
- Had authority to investigate cases of treason, espionage, sabotage and criminal attacks on Nazi Party
- Job to round up all the Jews and other ��undesirables ��in Germany/conquered land and send to concentration camps or death
- Brutal interrogation methods to obtain confessions
- Use to spy on people at all times
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Einsatzgruppen
- SS paramilitary death squads
- responsible for mass killings (especially shooting) of Jews and other population groups and political categories
- mobile killing units that operated in German-occupied Europe
- Responsible for death of over 1 million people
- First Nazi organization to commence mass killing of Jews as organized policy
- Believed that systematic killing was the first step to the ��final solution�� that murders all European Jews
- Extermination of groups as German troops advanced, followed German army into Soviet land
- Shooting was initially used until Heinrich Himmler noted psychological burdens it had on his men and requested a more convenient mode of killing -> which induced invention of gas van
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Sonderkommando
- Work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews forced or threatened
- healthy/active Jewish men made to dispose of bodies after mass shootings and gas chambers
- worked with Einsatzgruppen to disguise evidence of murders
- lived in better conditions than other prisoners
- Often were gassed/shot after doing the deeds
- Often lived longer, although not many survived the death camps
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Joseph Goebbels
- Hitler��s propaganda minister,
- He burned the books, controlled all media, radio/posters/film in Germany
- good orator
- Extremely anti-Semitic propaganda against Jews supporting Hitler��s ideology, used modern propaganda to prepare German people for war
- Contributed to the Holocaust
- During WWII, he increased his influence through shifting alliances with other Nazi leaders
- Continued to press for ��final solution�� to the Jews problem
- 1943, although war was in Allies favour, Goebbels intensified propaganda to urge Germans to accept total war and mobilization
- Succeeded Hitler as chancellor of Germany
- He and his wife Magda killed their 6 young children and then committed suicide
- Promoted theatrical element in the Nazi leader and inducing the self-surrender of the German masses
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Hermann Goring
- German politician, military leader, leading member of the Nazi Party
- Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag
- War advisor to Hitler
- Founder of the Gestapo
- Minister in charge of 4 year economic plan that prepared for WWII
- He and other senior officers were concerned that Germany was not ready for war when Hitler pushed for war
- In 1939 named by Hitler as his ��successor��
- Played key roles in destroying Polish air force, battle of Netherlands and battle of France in 1940
- Promised victory at Dunkirk with use of Luftwaffe, which caused Hitler to halt his ground forces, which turned out to be a failure
- Goring expected that invasion of Britain would be able to proceed within 4 weeks and neutralize Royal Air Force, failed to decrease British morale and inhibited the planned Operation Sea Lion
- Initially Luftwaffe at an advantage in Barbarossa; destroyed a lot of soviet air crafts. They focused on capturing Moscow and failed due to poor weather conditions, fuel shortages and overstretched supply lines
- Battle of Stalingrad: when German troops in the city entered the city after bombing campaign by Luftwaffe, they became surrounded. Goring promised that air force can deliver 300 tons of supplies every day -> so Hitler demanded no retreat
- But Luftwaffe failed and deliveries never exceeded 120 tons a day -> remnants of the German Sixth Army surrendered
- Hitler grew frustrated with Goring by 1942 for the Luftwaffe��s failure on both fronts
- Ordered the elimination of Jews from the German economy
- Hearing that Hitler was going to commit a suicide, he telegrammed Hitler to ask for control of Reich -> Hitler expelled him from the party and ordered his arrest
- Made efforts to surrender to the Americans than to the Russians
- Convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg trials, committed suicide by ingesting cyanide the night before sentence carried out
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Rudolf Hess
- Hitler's deputy leader in Nazi party
- dictated "Mein Kampf" for Hitler in prison, always been a loyal supporter
- 3rd most powerful at start of WWII, named ��successor�� after Hitler and Goring
- Hoped that Britain would accept Germany as ally
- Augsburg bound for Scotland on a peace mission on May 10 1941 (after battle of Britain)
- attempted to peace between Britain and Germany
- terms given by Hitler for control of Europe & such
- When he tried to negotiate peace with U.K., arrested and became prisoner of war
- convinced that Germany would win sooner or later
- Tried at Nuremberg and sentenced for life
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Bernard Montgomery
- a British Army officer
- nicknamed ��Monty�� or ��Spartan General��
- Head of BEF in north Africa
- Anticipated disaster, spent the Phoney war practicing tactical retreat
- led the 2nd Corps but was forced professional retreat to Dunkirk
- Starting August 1942, commanded 8th army in Western Desert until Allied victory in Tunisia
- Established Allied position at 1st battle of El Alamein
- Frequently visited troops, friendly, famous for wearing black beret instead of officer��s cap -> his arrival changed atmosphere
- defeated Rommel��s lines at the Battle of Alam Halfa
- Oversaw 2nd battle of El Alamein, Montgomery predicted length battle and number of casualties, allied decisive victory
- Commanded 8th army in invasion of Sicily
- During autumn 1943, continued to command 8th army for eastern side of Italian campaign
- Played key role in the planning process for D-Day
- Oversaw the Battle of Normandy in command of all allied ground forces
- Then he continued in command of 21st army group for campaign in North West Europe
- Accepted German surrender in northern Germany, Netherlands, Denmark
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
- U.S. president 1953-1961
- 5-Star general in U.S. army during WWII, supreme leader of allied forces in Europe
- Had responsibility for planning and supervising invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch (1942-1943), and invasion of France in Germany in 1944-1945
- 1942, appointed Supreme Commander Allied Force of North African theatres
- After capitulation of Axis forces in North Africa, Eisenhower oversaw the invasion of Sicily
- 1943, Roosevelt appointed him supreme leader of allied forces in Europe over Marshall
- Planned and saw the carrying out of Allied assault on Normandy in June 1944 under Operation Overlord
- Also responsible for planning and carrying out liberation of Western Europe and invasion of Germany
- Late 1944-1945 he commanded the Allied forces in the last great counter-attack by the Germans: the Battle of the Bulge
- He decided that it would be a military mistake for him to attack Berlin like Churchill wanted -> allowed the actual divisions of Germany to follow the line that Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed on
- Eisenhower and Montgomery and Churchill clashed over strategy but never upset their relationships
- First supreme commander of NATO
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Winston Churchill
- Pre-war, Churchill warned of Hitler��s plans and spoken out against appeasement, resulting in some people labelling him a ��warmonger��
- became First Lord of the Admiralty when the war broke out?
- Replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister of Britain in May 1940
- Promised ��blood, toil, tears and sweat��
- To the Americans, he said: ��Give us the tools, and we will finish the job��.
- Pressed President Roosevelt for help, which helped lead to the Lend Lease Act.?
- During battle of Britain, sent troops and supplies to North Africa for the desert campaigns --> moved into Egypt, then Lybia, then Ethiopia --> ended Mussolini��s East African empire (though the Germans later pushed the British back to Egypt)
- Made the Atlantic Charter with Roosevelt
- He and Roosevelt met with Stalin twice during the war, planned a two-front offensive on Germany (Russia in east, Allies in west)
- With Roosevelt (at the Yalta conference), made Stalin promise to allow provisional governments representative of the people and elected by the people in the eastern European countries Russia liberated
- Insisted that Germany should be divided into occupation zones administrated by the Big 3 and France
- Didn��t support ��diplomacy by friendship��
- Was replaced by Clement Attlee as PM in the midst of the Potsdam Conference
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
- American president 1932-1945 (ended by his death), was elected to four terms
- Introduced the New Deal in U.S. to counter the Depression --> legislation for recovery, relief and reform (supported unions, more government control in the economy): called ��Roosevelt Revolution��, enlarged role of federal government, more social service/welfare
- Interventionist: thought America was endangered --> wanted to help the Allies without fighting (using ��measures short of war��) --> 1939: changed neutrality legislation to allow the sale of weapons to other countries
- The Lend-Lease Act which provided Britain with badly needed supplies and equipment and the oil embargo on Japan in response to their aggression in Asia were major components of his policy.?
- Called Britain ��the spearhead of resistance to world conquest�� and the U.S. ��the great arsenal of democracy�� --> said both were fighting for the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear
- Was the one who named the 26 nations allied against the Axis the ��United Nations��
- With Churchill, drew up the Atlantic Charter, which resembled the spirit of Woodrow Wilson��s 14 Points (postwar peace free from fear and want, right to self-government for countries that had ben deprived of it during war, equal access to world trade and resources)
- During war, wanted to postpone controversial territorial and political discussions to preserve the Western-Soviet unity (also thought wartime harmony would lead to postwar cooperation)
- At the Yalta meeting, Roosevelt acted as a mediator between Churchill and Stalin when it came to European issues; didn��t want Stalin to think of Roosevelt and Churchill being united against him
- Was suspicious of Churchill��s devotion to empire and colonial ties; thought them old-fashioned
- Thought it was important for the Soviets to join a postwar international organisation (UN), believing the Great Powers acting as international police and cooperating could preserve world peace
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Harry S. Truman
- Replaced Roosevelt as president in 1945, attended the Potsdam conference in his place
- Was convinced the Soviets wanted worldwide Communism and were willing to bring it about forcefully, so it was the US��s responsibility to contain them
- Denounced the Soviets for violating their pledge of free elections for the East European states and for not cooperating with the other countries who occupied Germany
- Often compared Soviet control over eastern Europe to the Nazi and Fascist expansionist goals of the ��30s
- State Department (US department dealing with foreign affairs): policy of containment, argued that the West should be patient and firm and that Soviet society would change in time, but in the meantime, the West should stay strong militarily and use economic and other pressures to resist the Soviets
- When Britain couldn��t financially help the anti-Communist forces in Greece or support Turkey��s resistance to the Soviets, Truman agreed to step and take their place
- March 1947: policy to contain communism everywhere in the world ��The Truman Doctrine��
- Saw the ��loss of China�� to the Chinese Communist victory in 1949 as a test of the ��free world��s commitment to liberty��
- Saw the North Korean invasion of South Korea as an attack by the Soviets on democracy --> ordered American troops to Korea without an American declaration of war because it was a ��police action��
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Hirohito
- only one with enough prestige to stop the military
- had been enthroned in 1926, taking as his reign name Sh��wa (��Enlightened Peace��)
- more progressive --> he had traveled in the West (interested in marine biology)
- people close to him feared that if he took a strong stance, it could lead to him losing the throne
- The constitution could only be amended with his permission
- Emperor was ��sacred and inviolable��; he commanded the armies, made war and peace, and could dissolve the lower house
- the executive (the branch of a government responsible for putting decisions or laws into effect) basically had the power because they could say that they��re representing the emperor��s wishes
- At first, he wanted to avoid war with the West, but was persuaded otherwise by army and navy
- he was kept informed of all military operations and frequently questioned his senior staff and asked for changes.
- Hirohito?authorized the use of?chemical weapons?against Chinese civilians and soldiers.
- E.g. the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the invasion of?Wuhan?in 1938.?
- Ordered Japanese surrender after atom bombs were dropped even though military didn��t want it
- Wasn��t charged with any war crimes
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Yamamoto
- Was Japanese admiral
- responsible for major battles such as?Pearl Harbor?(came up with it) and?Midway
- He died when his was shot down during an ambush by American?fighter planes --> his death was a major blow to Japanese military morale during WWII
- opposed the invasion of?Manchuria?in 1931, the subsequent 2nd Sino-Japanese War, and the 1940 Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy
- These issues made him a target of assassination by pro-war militarists
- Was worried and doubtful about entering war but fought anyway for loyalty to country
- planned for a quick victory by destroying the US fleet at Pearl Harbor while simultaneously thrusting into the oil and rubber resource rich areas of Southeast Asia, especially the Dutch East Indies, Borneo and Malaya
- hoped if the Americans could be dealt blows early in the war, they might be willing to negotiate an end to the conflict.
- BUT the note officially breaking diplomatic relations with the United States was delivered late, and so the attack on Pearl Harbour was seen as underhanded and sneaky --> Americans wanted revenge
- he later lamented Nagumo's failure to seek out and destroy the American carriers that weren��t in the harbour that day, or to bomb strategically important places on Oahu even more
- When asked by?Prime Minister?Fumimaro Konoe?in mid-1941 concerning the outcome of a possible war with the United States, Yamamoto made a well-known and prophetic statement: If ordered to fight, "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years."[16]?His prediction would be vindicated as Japan easily conquered territories and islands for the first six months of the war until it suffered a shattering defeat at the?Battle of Midway?on June 4�C7, 1942, which ultimately tilted the balance of power in the Pacific towards the U.S.
- Having studied at?Harvard University, he was reluctant to enter into war with the United States. He was aware of their overwhelming industrial capacity compared to that of Japan, and felt that only a knockout blow would remove the US threat to Japan
- his famous ��all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant�� quote, referring to the attack on America at Pearl (might not actually be true that he said this)
- he also warned the government: ��I can run wild for six months �� after that, I have no expectation of success.��?
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Japanese Militarists
- Meiji government convinced that Japan needed a unified national government to get military and material equality with the West
- ��Fukoku ky��hei�� (��Enrich the country, strengthen the military��) --> Meiji slogan
- The Meiji leaders ended the feudal class system
- 1880s: government feared inflation, so sold its remaining plants to private investors��usually individuals with ties to those in power --> a small group of men (known as the zaibatsu �C financial cliques) started to dominate many industries
- Sino-Japanese War brought the government internal support; also increased military involvement in national affairs
- Great Depression --> more popular: the idea that expansion through military conquest would solve Japan��s economic problems because worldwide depression was wrecking Japan��s foreign markets, which its urban classes depended on
- Growing population needed more food imports, which needed more exports to balance it out, but Western tariffs limited exports and discriminatory legislation in many countries and anti-Japanese racism were barriers to citizens wanting to leave Japan
- Japanese tried to get racial equality in the League of Nations, but it was rejected; could be said that Japan had no choice but to use force
- Washington Conference allowed less navy strength than the Japanese navy wanted
- 1925: the army was cut down by four divisions
- Many military men wanted Japan to be tougher in China.
- 1929: Hamaguchi became PM and had policy of moderation restored --> The army and its supporters didn��t want this
- 1930: Hamaguchi accepted the London Naval Conference��s limits on heavy cruisers
- Many military leaders objected to this --> but they still had a lot of power --> there were many army officers who thought like this
- civilian ultranationalists portrayed parliamentary government as being ��un-Japanese.��
- Rightist organisations talked about internal purity and external expansion --> against western influence
- The Black Dragon Society (Kokury��kai), was for adventurism and nationalism, against party government, big business, and Westernization.
- May 15, 1932: naval officers led a terrorist attack in Tokyo
- The army now announced that it would accept no party cabinet.
- The world criticised Japan��s aggression, resulting in many Japanese supporting the army
- Japan��s state structure didn��t approach the totalitarianism of the Nazis.
- The structure of the Meiji constitution was never altered, and the wartime governments never got full control.
- They didn��t live their lives around a leader
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Marshal Petain (Philippe Petain)
- 1917: French commander, General Neville, launched a bloody, unsuccessful offensive that resulted in mutiny --> he was replaced by Petain, restoring discipline
- When 2/3 of france was German-occupied, headed the authoritarian regime in Vichy along with Pierre Laval: claimed they were shielding France from more suffering --> collaborated with the Nazis to make Vichy France part of the ��new order�� in Europe (occupied by or allied with Germany)
- Signed an armistice that gave Germany northern France
- He became Head of the State of France, ruled with PM, Laval
- Vichy gov sent French workers as slave labourer to Germany and identified and deported French Jews to Nazi death camps
- Was trialled after the liberation of france
- the ��hero of Verdun��
- fired Laval in Dec 1940, because Laval supported a policy of close Franco-German collaboration
- secretly sent a representative to London to meet with Francisco Franco and urge him to not let Hitler��s army pass into North Africa
- maintained a cordial relationship with Admiral William?Leahy, the U.S. ambassador to Vichy until 1942.
- April 1942: the Germans forced Petain to take Laval back as premier --> Petain didn��t want to resign because he thought that if he did, Hitler would place all of France directly under German rule.
- In August 1944, after the liberation of Paris by General Charles de?Gaulle, P��tain wanted to arrange for peaceful transfer of power, but de Gaulle refused
- 1945: trial in France for his behaviour after 1940, condemned to death, but sentence changed to solitary confinement for life
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General de Gaulle
- After liberation of france, became provisional president
- Was a symbol of the Resistance --> figurehead of the Free French Movement based in Britain during WWII: his pride, patriotism, sense of mission impressed people
- During WWII
- Commanded a tank division --> good leader
- After French surrender, fled to Britain --> called on Fr people to resist the Nazis
- He wasn��t easy to get along with, and was a difficult ally for Churchill and Roosevelt (wasn��t invited to attend Yalta and Potsdam meetings with the Big 3)
- 1943: moved his headquarters to Algiers, became president of the French Committee of National Liberation
- His return to France, 1944, he was greeted as a national hero
- Allies recognised him as head of French government
- Didn��t like the constitution being prepared in 1946, the return of party rivalries and the large role of the legislature --> they interfered with his vision of a strong France that would once again be a leader in world affairs, so he resigned in protest in December 1946
- Sometimes he would return to politics, leading a movement called the ��Rally of the French People��, which he thought was ��above parties�� --> later became dissastisfied with RPF and in 1955, it was disbanded
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Marshal Gamelin
- French army commander in chief at the beginning of?WWII
- Preferred to spend his time at headquarters, cut off from the men
- He had direct control of planning and strategy while his frontline commanders were in charge of operations and communication amongst themselves --> bad command structure, with inefficient communication and coordination
- He didn��t get along with key commanders
- Too influenced by WWI strategies: thought infantry were supreme on the battlefield, didn��t think tanks on their own could breach a long defence line
- Gamelin supported the defensive strategy based on the?Maginot Line
- As commander of Allied forces in the West when WW II broke out, he took no offensive action even though at that time most of the German forces were engaged in Poland.
- His passive strategy made the prime minister angry, tried to have Gamelin dismissed twice
- wanted an advance into Belgium and the Netherlands to meet the attacking German forces because it was far away from French land --> this was known as the Dyle Plan: Gamelin used much of the French Army and the entire British Expeditionary Force for this strategy
- He was taken by surprise by the German offensive through the Ardennes that cut the Allied front in two in May 1940.
- Despite reports of the build-up of German forces and even knowing the date of the Germans attack, Gamelin did nothing, said he would wait
- When the Germans attacked, Gamelin moved 40 best divisions northwards to conform to the Dyle Plan.?
- Fr + Brit withdrew when they were worried about being outflanked, but didn��t pull back fast enough
- Germans, with Luftwaffe aid, crossed the River Meuse faster than the Allies had expected
- French were ordered not to fire too much in case they ran out of ammunition
- Gamelin withdrew forces in this area so that they could defend Paris (thought that was the German goal, not the coast)
- Thought he had been betrayed, so sacked 20 commanders (didn��t think it was his own fault for bad tactics)
- The speed of German advance, German air supremacy, the inability of the British and French to successfully counter-attack forced the Allies to retreat --> Dunkirk evacuation
- Gamelin was removed from his post on 18 May 1940.
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Arthur ��Bomber�� Harris
- was?Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief?of RAF Bomber Command?
- early years of war, Bomber Command didn��t contribute much because Brits hadn��t explored the idea of offensive bombing --> not enough good aircraft, inexperienced crew
- Harris was convinced that aggressive bombing would work --> improved training standards
- Harris led the area bombing (a.k.a. ��terror bombing��) of German cities: attack industrial centres to destroy houses, so the workforce wouldn��t have homes and would disrupt their work (was controversial)
- Thought sustained area bombing would force Germany to surrender --> resisted attempts to get him to switch to precision bombing
- Battle of Berlin: massive raids on Berlin (Nov 1943-Mar 1944)
- City was better prepared; no firestorm ever ignited
- Good anti-aircraft defences
- Most controversial air raid of WWII: Feb 1945: bombing of Dresden by RAF and USAAF --> resulted in firestorm that killed tens of thousands of civilians
- Harris thought the point of night-time bombing of urban areas was to decrease morale of civilians, and air campaigns on German cities like Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, killed approx.. 600,000 civilians
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Oppenheimer
- ��father of the A-bomb��
- Studied at Harvard and Cambridge
- Strongly against fascism
- Introduced to atomic bomb project in 1941, 1st task was to calculate critical mass of uranium-235 (amount of uranium needed to sustain a chain reaction)
- June 1942, he was appointed director of the Manhattan Project
- set up a research station at Los Alamos, New Mexico, brought best minds in physics to try to create an atomic bomb.
- Test, code name ��Trinity�� July 16, 1945, the first explosion of an atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert, he said, "We knew the world would not be the same"
- Strongly opposed to development of the H-bomb
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Einstein
- Developed theory of relativity: The notion that time, space and motion are not absolute, but relative to the observer
- matter is transmutable �C it is even convertible into energy --> e = mc2
- some background on atomic energy:
- 1932, scientists at Cambridge: the cyclotron made it possible to penetrate the nucleus of an atom at high speed
- 1938, German chemist, Otto Hahn: discovered that when the atomic nucleus of uranium (heavy, radioactive) is bombarded with neutrons, it becomes unstable and splits into two, releasing the energy trapped inside
- fled to the U.S. from Nazi Germany in 1934 and told the U.S. government that they should explore the military use of atomic energy before the Germans could do it successfully
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Stimson
- secretary of state under president Herbert Hoover
- issued the Stimson Doctrine in response to Japan's invasion of Manchuria -->was the official U.S. position against the Japanese invasion: refusal to recognize the territorial claims of ��illegal aggression��
- 1940 re-entered the cabinet as secretary of war, FDR asked him to
- Expansion of military: built the American military up to 10 million.
- His leadership during the war was invaluable in maintaining an overwhelming demand for men and raw materials.
- Supported design and use of atomic bomb
- Opposed Morgenthau Plan to deindustrialise and partition Germany into a few smaller states because he thought Germany was important for other European countries to trade with and worried that bad economy would make Germans forget about the Nazi��s crimes
- Roosevelt and Truman followed Stimson��s advice on every aspect of the atomic bomb
- He overruled military officers who opposed his views
- his role to report to the president on the atomic bomb project
- April 25, 1945 Stimson gave President Truman his first full briefing on the atomic bomb.
- Supported atomic bombing of Japan, wrote article, "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb" defending his opinion
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Molotov
- USSR?foreign minister?and the major spokesman for the?Soviet Union?at Allied conferences during and immediately after?WWII
- In 1930 he was made chairman of the Council of People��s Commissars (i.e.,?prime minister?of the Soviet Union), a post he held until 1941.
- he negotiated the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with Nazi Germany.
- Molotov arranged Soviet alliances with Great Britain and the?United States?and attended the Allies�� conferences at Tehr��n (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945) as well as the?San Francisco Conference?(1945), which created the?United Nations.
- reputation for hostility to the West
- Along with Joachim von Ribbentrop, concluded the pact between Germany and the Soviet Union which called for the partition of Poland and the dividing up of the Baltic states.? --> the Pact governed Soviet-German relations until Germany attacked USSR
- Molotov announced war instead of Stalin
- Throughout the war, Molotov was a tough negotiator with the other allies and secured their promise of a second front in Europe.?
- Ratified a Lend-Lease Treaty between USSR and US
- Was in charge of the Soviet atomic bomb project, but was later replaced
- uncooperative attitude towards the Western powers.
-
Joachim Von Ribbentrop
- Joined Nazi party in 1932
- 1938, Ribbentrop became Germany's foreign minister.
- Worked closely with Hitler about negotiations with Brit and Fr
- Arranged signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, which cleared the way for Hitler��s attack on Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, thus beginning World War II.
- 1940 Hitler considered invading USSR, so sent Ribbentrop to negotiate a new treaty with Japan.
- Rippentrop became a background figure during WWII
- was arrested and charged with war crimes in June, 1945.
- denied knowledge of German?concentration camps?and racial extermination policies, but was found guilty at the?Nuremberg Trials?and was executed
- negotiated the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan (1936)
- signed the Tripartite Pact with Japan and Italy (Sept. 27, 1940), which provided for mutual assistance against the?United States
-
Erwin Rommel
- General and Field Marshall
- Scored early victories in France
- famous for leading his Afrika Corps against the British in North Africa.?
- Hitler had Rommel command his HQ staff in Austria and?Czechoslovakia. The year after, he did the same thing in Poland.
- commanded the 7th Panzer Division that invaded?France?in May, 1940. Rommel's troops moved faster and farther than any other army in military history.
- Because of his work in France, was promoted to the rank of general.
- Hitler?sent Rommel to command the new?Deutsches Afrika Korps?to help Mussolini out --> drove the British 8th Army out of Libya.
- Summer 1944: Rommel was approached by?Ludwig Beck?and?Carl Goerdeler?about joining an assassination attempt for Hitler --> Rommel refused, thought killing him would turn Hitler into a martyr �C instead, he should be trialled
- Rommel was unable to stop the Allied troops during Operation Overlord, and warned Hitler was Germany was about to be defeated
- Fall 1944: Hitler discovered Rommel had been plotting against him --> Rommel could choose to commit suicide or be arrested for high treason --> he killed himself (officially stated that he died of brain seizure)
- His force was nicknamed ��Ghost Division�� and he was nicknamed ��knight of the apocalypse�� because of their speed during invasion of France
-
*Nicolai Ceaucescu
- He was isolated in a rigid autocracy with a large private security force (he preferred this to the regular army)
- Wanted to transform an agrarian society into a modern industrial one regardless of the cost to citizens
- For his modernization program, he borrowed from the West, but he wanted to stay independent, so he made the country pay the interest on its debt regularly despite the already suffering population��s sacrifices
- He used state resources to build a huge palace
- What was special about him was his break from Moscow and his independent position in foreign and military affairs �C he supported Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars and didn��t join the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968
- Fall of 1989: he ignored the upheavals in central and eastern Europe
- December: riots in Timisoara, a provincial capital, and his security forces killed hundreds (the military refused to fire on them) --> the brutality created more protests and angry crowds forced the dictator to flee to the capital
- After days of fighting, his security was defeated and Ceaucescu and his wife were executed by a firing squad --> a National Salvation Front (former officials of Ceaucescu��s regime and opposition leaders) took over
- He had been the most repressive dictatorship of the Eastern bloc
-
*Francisco Franco
- In 1936, there were elections, and the Left won, but in July, a group of military men led an insurrection (violent uprising) against the government, General Francisco Franco became leader
- The Left parties united in resistance and civil war began
- March 1939: Franco won war, established authoritarian, fascist rule
-
*Fidel Castro
- Promised to end economic dependence on the U.S. and start land reform
- He confiscated American corporate investments and landholdings, and the U.S. started a trade embargo as revenge
- Wasn��t a Moscow-oriented Communist at first, but became involved with the Soviets later
- Only Marxist state in the Western Hemisphere
- Castro was against anti-imperialism,
- Presented himself as a Marxist-Leninist defender of oppressed colonial peoples around the world:
- helped leftists in Bolivia, Central America
- sent 50,000 troops to Angola (which had recently become independent of Portugal and there were groups competing for power) <-- Castro sent the troops to a Marxist group
- in Cuba, created social services, promoted public health and literacy, improved life for country people
- economic failures and totalitarian rule
- became more dependent on the USSR for economic aid, received good terms for exporting sugar and importing oil (in time, 4/5 of his trade was with Soviets and eastern Europe)
- at first, kept his regime set apart from the party, but later was with the Cuban Communist party as the first secretary
- political opponents fled or were imprisoned
- when the Soviet union collapsed, Castro lost the economic aid that he depended on and became isolated in international affairs
-
at first, many people thought Castro was progressive and pretty okay with democracy, committed to change that was necessary after Batista had kept the people poor and repressed
- later, when he aligned himself with communism openly, the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations and the CIA secretly trained some Cuban refugees for an armed invasion of Cuba
- 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
- Khrushchev said he wanted to defend Cuba against a 2nd American invasion (after Bay of Pigs) so he sent Soviet soldiers and technicians to construct missile sites in Cuba that would have made America within target range
- Kennedy: blockade of Cuba, forbade delivering arms or supplies --> said any missile that was launched would mean the US would retaliate against USSR
- Khrushchev backed down --> Oct 25, Soviet ships turned back
- Sent two notes:
- One: agreed to remove missile sites if the Americans promised not to invade Cuba
- Two: (more aggressive) he demanded the Americans remove missile sites in Turkey
- Kennedy only responded to the first message, but privately said that the US would eventually remove the Turkey missiles
- By Oct 28, the crisis was over
-
*Juan Peron & Evita
- Went from social democracy to totalitarianism
- From socialism to populism (socialist is for the state, populist is the for the people)
- Mussolini and Hitler influenced his ideology, and when he went to Europe, it was pre-WWII, so he saw all of their successes and not failures yet
- 1946: became president (first democratically elected one, which the people appreciated)
- His ideology was social justice and economic independence
- In the end, Argentina��s economic dependence on Europe was the main reason for its downfall
- Argentina wasn��t powerful at the time of Peron��s rise to power, so they wanted to become a superpower
- Peron had a deep admiration for Mussolini
- Charismatic, moving speeches
- He was opposed by catholics and the upper class; before Peron, there was distinct class segregation
- The lower classes could now become more economically independent, and the upper classes resented this
- The church was against his social reforms: he abolished religion in schools, legalised divorce and prostitution --> Peron was excommunicated from the church
- Church was important in Argentina, so Catholics became Anti-Peron (AP)
- 1947: union leader organised a strike against Peron
- He didn��t successfully implement a single-party state:
- Secret police: Peron said, for every Peronist that dies, kill 5 opposition members
- Censorship: controlled media, newspapers and magazines that opposed him were shut down, but there were so many AP that it didn��t work out
- Propaganda: widespread, he tried to make Peron synonymous with Argentina, through school textbooks and media
- 1951: 1st military revolt against Peron (beginning of the end)
- 5-year plan: increase workers�� pay (resulted in a lot of inflation)
- Better working conditions
- Policy of economic independence didn��t last because after WWII, their largest market (Europe) left them
- Social policies: consolidated unions, universal healthcare, subsidised military
- Women��s rights: suffrage --> his approval soared because of this
- There were 200,000 Jews in Argentina (his regime wasn��t anti-Semitic)
- He accepted both Nazi war criminals (post-WWII) and jewish refugees, so was effectively involved in both sides (like neutrality, except he does interfere a little bit by accepting these people)
- Post-WWII, more AP because they knew that Hitler and Mussolini had influenced Peron and the two dictators had lost the war
- Argentina was official neutral during WWII
- Peron steered away from the Cold War
- Downfall: 1950s: countries Argentina sold to were stable, but the Marshall plan (of the U.S.) forced Europe to buy from the U.S., so this caused the Argentine economy to gradually collapse:
- He had to cut wages, remove civil liberties from the working class
- People lost faith
- The church��s animosity increased
- 1955: military launched a coup and military leaders seized power; Peron was exiled
- By the end of his term, there were more AP than pro-Peronists, and they tried Peron for corruption; his exile destroyed his reputation
- (side note: Peronists were mostly radicals: burned churches, killed people)
- In his first term, Peron had a good dictatorship, but he couldn��t handle economic troubles past WWII
- He was essentially dedicated to fixing Argentina��s economic troubles
-
*Julius Nyerere
- Pros:
- Health and education
- Foreign affairs
- Enforced ideas without war
- Made sure government wasn��t corrupt
- Cons: economy collapsed
- Tortured people
- Destroyed people��s property to force them into communal living
- Agriculture drastically decreased --> led to starvation
- Tanzania was created from Zanzibar and Tangaryika
- Didn��t use fear to control country
- Was single-party
- As economic policies failed, Tanzania went from biggest exporter to biggest importer in Africa
- Bad economy
- The Tanzanians didn��t trust Europeans, so they supported Nye
- Didn��t use propaganda, just speeches
- Spoke in New York to speak to UN
- Large-scale nationalisation
- Mix of socialism and communal life, social philosophy: Ujamaa, all people in one town sharing property and crops, holding harvests together
- CONSOLIDATION:
- Preventative Detention Act, blocked opposition
- Prison camps to torture rebels and opposition
- Censored press and media with verification of publication by government
- Police and military force pushed people to support vision of collectivisation
- Severe about corruption to keep economy and government stable
- ��father of the nation�� for his hard work
- Went to other countries to gain foreign support: charismatic speeches garner respect
- POLICIES:
- Arusha Declaration (1967): must policies come from this, guiding principles of TANU --> 7 main laws about unity of people under one party, everyone sharing, etc.
- State controlled production, cooperating with UN, war with Uganda to try and remove Idi Amin (bad for economy because used up depleted resources)
- Democratic socialist government was what he believed it, but wasn��t always the case in Tanzania
- Thought multiple parties would lead to conflict (of the ethnic sort)
- Arusha Declaration �C 5-year plan: increased rate of education and healthcare (literacy rate went from 17% to 63%, life expectancy from 37 to 52.
- Art and propaganda rarely used, but wrote monographs like ��freedom and socialism��
- No animosity towards one particular group
- Used the violent situation in Kenya to promote non-violent change
- May 1961: majority vote
- 1985: resigned from head position in TANU, but ruled until 1992
- Nye elected 3 times in a row for 5 years
-
The Ardennes
- thought to be impenetrable forest
- Primarily Belgium and Luxemburg, stretching into France
- crossed over by the Nazis to invade France
- Wasn��t defended by the Maginot line
- Quick defeat and occupation by Germany
- Battle of the Bulge was also through the forest of Ardennes
-
The Maginot Line
- vast fortifications such as large forts, tank obstacles, defenses spread along the French/German border and French/Italian boarder
- Established to provide time for French army time to mobilize if attacked
- Prevented direct confrontation, although strategically ineffective
- military liability when the Germans invaded Belgium and attacked France in the spring of 1940 using blitzkrieg through Ardennes forest
- problems: not mobile and assumed that the Ardennes = impenetrable
- Britain was the only major European power left
- French demoralized seemed that ww2 was already over
- French signed armistice w/ germany
-
Dunkirk
- The evacuation of Dunkirk, commonly known as ��miracle of Dunkirk�� and ��operation dynamo��
- British, French and Belgian troops were cut off by German troops during Battle of Dunkirk
- Hitler halted his troops for 2 days because of Goring��s promise, but remobilized after the plan didn��t deliver
- hundreds and thousands British and French troops evacuated from French shore by little boats
- avoided being slaughtered by Germans to fight again
- lost most of their equipment to Germans (half of air crafts)
- special conditions: perfect water and mist inland
- Goring promised slaughter by Luftwaffe to Hitler = never happened
- And boosted British morale
-
Juno Beach
- One of the 5 sectors in Allied invasion of German-occupied France
- Taken by Canadians in part of operation overlord
- In between 2 British sectors (sword and gold)
- Provided flanking support to the British drive on Caen from Sword
- Goals were to meet up with other two sectors and to capture German airfield
- Broken through the Atlantic wall and established a bridgehead in France
- Preliminary bombing not as effective as it should have been
- Delay in landing time allowed some defense to be mounted
- Major problem was supposed to land at low tide, landed at high tide -> German defensives hidden
- Heavy casualties
- Did not get to D-day objective, but ended up ahead of British and American troops
- Considered most strategically successful of the D-day landings
-
Omaha Beach
- One of the 5 sectors in Allied invasion of German-occupied France
- Taken by Americans as part of operation overlord
- Primary objective was to secure beachhead and link up with Gold beach
- most intensely fought after beach on D-Day on June 6th, 1944
- many units were landed in the place wrong
- Germans had built formidable defences around Omaha, Allied troops did not expect such strong defense
- dragon teeth and gun emplacements
- amphibious Sherman tanks
- only way off the beach was to scale the cliffs led by rangers
-
Hamburg, Germany
- Second largest city in Germany
- Suffered a series of Allied air raids, devastated much of the inhabited city
- 1943 Allied firebombing resulted in a firestorm that spread from the central station to entire boroughts
- The raids ��Operation Gomorrah�� by Royal Air Force killed at least 40,000 and evacuated 1 million civilians
- 1945 Surrendered without a fight to British forces, became in British zone of occupation part of Federal Republic of Germany
- The Beatles became famous by playing music here
-
Rhineland
- Loosely defined region on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe
- The ��buffer zone�� claimed by France after WWI
- 1935 returned to German Reich
- Was demilitarized under Treaty of Versailles, remilitarized in 1936 by Nazis as a test of will
- Taking of will contributed to Hitler going further with his actions to declaration of war
-
Saar
- Region of Germany occupied by British and French under League of Nations mandate
- 1920, under massive French pressure, Saar was separated from Rhine and administered by League of Nations
- Most population was German, Hitler and Goebbels pushed propaganda for return of Saar
- Was returned to Germany in 1935 after plebiscite was held
- After this, Hitler announced that he had no more requests for France (which turned out to be a lie)
-
Sudetenland
- part of northern, southern and western Czech inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans
- March 1938 Anschluss of Austria into Third Reich
- prompted Munich pact
- Hitler did not stop after this and took over entire Czech
- Shortly after annexation, Jews in Sudentenland widely persecuted
- Few weeks afterwards, Kristallnacht happened also in Sudentenland
-
Danzig
- Semi-autonomous free city under control of League of Nations that existed from 1920 to 1939
- Consisted of Baltic Sea port of Danzig and surrounding areas
- Created November 1920 according to Treaty of Versailles
- Was to be separated from Germany and from Poland
- Designed to give Poland sufficient access to sea and recognizing its population was mainly German
- 1933 City government was taken over by Nazi Party
- After Poland invasion of 1939, incorporated into Third Reich, and was a place for
- Was supposed to be a part of Poland from Potsdam agreement, Polish settlers replaced German population
-
Polish Corridor
- Aka ��Danzig corridor�� or ��Corridor to Sea��
- Located in Pomerelia
- Provided Poland with access to Baltic sea
- Divided Germany from province of East Prussia
- Poland refused to let Nazi Germany renegotiate status of Danzig, led to ultimatum and Germany invading Germany (since it could not get these places by appeasement)
-
Auschwitz
- Network of concentration and extermination camps, largest ones in WWII
- Built and operated in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
- Operated 1940-1945 by SS
- Designated by SS Heinrich Himmler as ��final solution��, included others such as Poles, Roma, prisoners of war
- Estimated kill about 1.1 million
- Those not killed in gas chambers died of starvation, forced labour, disease, executions and medical experiments
- Liberated by Soviet Troops Jan 27, 1945
-
Stalingrad ***
- part of operation Barbarossa
- august 1942
- germans suffered catastrophic losses
- hitler wanted to take city for pyshcological purposes
- stalin ordered defense at all costs
- red army counterattacked (led by Zhukov) and trapped German army
- less than 100,000 was left to surrender to Russians in Feb 1943
- turning point for counteroffensive westwar = regained losses
- floor-by-floor, close-quarters
- first counteroffensive, after this, Soviet was mostly on offensive
- u.s. provided supplies through arctic sea and Persian gulf
- hitler defeated at great cost to soviets
- pressure taken off western allies, british rebuilds, U.S. enters war
- cost hitler
-
Hiroshima
- august 6, 1945
- after ignoring Potsdam Declaration
- major Japanese city, headquarters for 2nd army, large depots of military supplies, key center for shipping
- where first atom bomb dropped, uranium bomb ��little boy�� used
- directly killed 78,000
- long term radiation also in effect
- Culmination of efforts of U.S. government /research
- proved power of U.S.
- 2 days after, Russia declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria
-
Nagasaki
- august 9, 1945
- largest sea ports in southern Japan great wartime importance b/c produced war products
- the 2nd smaller atom bomb ��fat man�� dropped, plutonium used
- killed tens of thousands of people
- led to surrender of Japanese
- led to surrender being signed on Sept 2, 1945
-
El-Alamein
- At the height of the Battle of Britain, Churchill decided to send troops to Africa
- Swept Italian forces of Egypt, overran Ethiopia
- But Britain was weakened by split to Greece, with Rommel arriving in March 1941, Rommel captured much of the lost territories
- Important port of Tobruk was not captured by Rommel
- After Tobruk fell, Churchill called loss ��one of the heaviest blows��. British did not stop until they covered 30 miles of the desert between Qattara and the coast, where roads and railway ran through El Alamein
- Rommel had been brought to a halt by Macksey, but Montgomery did not know that he was weak
- Montgomery led the British forces and Rommel led the German forces
- There were talks of Axis offensive through Egypt to link up with German drive down from Russia, put pressure on Britain��s gain or loss over Egypt
- Montgomery planned 2 main phases, 1 (lightfoot) was a powerful artillery bombardment 2 infantry of XXX corps would attack in north, some in south. Would open up gaps in minefields through the x-corps can pass
- Bulk of Axis were captured
- Had not simply secured Egypt and Middle East, but also a major Axis defeat in North Africa
- Restored British self confidence in prestige
- Hitler put great importance to North Africa and sent massive reinforcement tot this theatre after El Alamein resulted in Axis loss in North Africa being greater than at Stalingrad
- Used mines and anti-tank guns
-
Monte Cassino (British and U.S. vs Germany)
- A rocky hill in Italy
- Costly series of 4 battles during WWII, Allies against Germans and Italians with intention of breaking through winter line and seizing Rome
- Beginning of 1944, Western half of Winter line was anchored by Germans holding the Gustav line, in Abruzzi and Campania
- Germans decided to not occupy/integrate the historic hilltop abbey of Monte Cassino, founded 500 A.D.
- Feb 1944, monastery on a peak overlooking Cassino was destroyed by 1,400 tons of bombs dropped by American bombers because they feared the abbey was used as a lookout post for Germans
- 2 days after bombing, German paratroopers took up the positions in the ruins; destruction caused by bombing and resulted wasteland gave troops improved protection from air artillery attack more viable defensive position
- Jan to May, Gustav defences were assaulted 4 times by Allied troops
- Last attack, Allies gathered 20 divisions for major assault, drove German defenders from positions at a high cost
- Around 110,000 killed for Allies, German unsure
- No German paratroopers was captured, only wounded German solders
- Opened the way to Rome, signaled the beginning of the end for German occupation of Italy
-
Sicily
- July-August 1943 campaign: British, Canadian and American forces conquered the island of Sicily, resulting in the fall of Mussolini --> used an amphibious attack (involving forces landed from the sea)
- Mussolini set up an ��Italian Social Republic�� in northern Italy, but it was basically a German puppet government
- The Allies crossed to the Italian mainland from Sicily to attack the south
- Rome
- German forces blocked the Allies�� advance to Rome (post-Sicily campaign) despite the Allies�� new landings and beachheads (a defended position on a beach taken from the enemy by landing forces)
-
Berlin
- The capital city of (Nazi) Germany
- Last place that the Nazis retreated to as they were being defeated and where they fought the hardest because it was really only the true Nazis (ones who actually believed in the ideology) that still continued to fight when it was obvious they were losing
- the Americans wanted a clear dividing line between them and the Russians before invading Berlin --> this decision was partly to reward the Russians for making such heavy sacrifices on the Allied side during WWII, so they were being allowed to take Berlin --> also preserves the Western-Soviet cooperation until the final victory
- 1948-49: Berlin Blockade and Airlift:
- Post-WWII, Germany had been divided into four sections occupied by US, USSR, Brit, and Fr.
- When West Germany��s occupiers decided to change their currency, USSR objected because violated the agreement to treat Germany as a single economic unit --> resulted in USSR blockade of all road and rail access to Berlin
- West responded with a huge air lift: for almost a year, the Western aircraft flew food and other supplies to the occupation forces and the West Berlin inhabitants
- Soviets avoided direct confrontation and in May 1949, lifted the blockade
- major Western Allied contribution to the battle for Berlin was a strategic bombing
- 1945 the West started large daytime raids on Berlin and for 36 consecutive nights, bombers raided the German capital, ending on the night of 20/21 April 1945, just before the Soviets entered the city.
- On 20 April, Hitler's birthday, Soviet artillery began to shell the centre of Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered.
-
London
- capital city of England (Great Britain)
- During Battle of Britain
- The planned German landings in the Dover and Ramsgate areas would also be carried out in waves and the final objective would undoubtedly be London.
- In the end, 20,000 Londoners killed
- Phase 3. (September 7th - September 30th 1940) Bombing of London, Major Cities & Airfields
- RAF were losing, but Hitler changed his strategy, ordering Luftwaffe to switch from attacking airfields, factories, etc. to civilians because of bombing attack on Berlin (wanted revenge)
- Attacks on RAF airfields would continue on a lesser scale, and the daylight bombing of London would continue until the end of the month.
- Heavy night bombing was then planned to continue until the city and its people were bombed into submission.
- King George, Queen-Consort Elizabeth, and Churchill all remained in London��a great source of inspiration for resistance
- Phase 4. (October 1st - October 31st 1940) Concentrated Night Bombing Tactics
- Night raids continued, kept most bombers on London, Luftwaffe suffered heavier losses than RAF
- late September "Operation Sealion" was cancelled.
- The night bombing raids continued though October, hoping that RAF would start to lose, but didn��t happen
-
Stalingrad
- Was vital to all transport on the lower Volga
- August 1942: German forces started an assault on Stalingrad
- Stalin was determined to hold the city at all costs, Hitler was determined to take it at all costs
- After weeks, Germans occupied most of the city --> suddenly, a Red Army counterattack led by General Zhukov, trapped the German army --> fewer than 100,000 Germans were left to surrender in Feb 1943
- Soviets followed this victory with a new counteroffensive: attacking westward to get back what they lost in the 1st year of the war --> the USSR remained on the offensive for the rest of the war
- Stalingrad was a turning point for the history of the war and the history of central/eastern Europe
-
Moscow
- Later the capital city of USSR , became capital due to German invasion and Petrograd was too close to Germany
- Stage for which Moscow trials were held for stalin's great purge -> show trials killing most old bolsheviks and who Stalin saw as a threat
- Red army stationed here
- Food shortages in Moscow placed heavy demands on Bolsheviks = Moscow CHEKA one of first created
-
The German forces, three million men and 3,400 tanks, advanced in three groups.
- The north group headed for Leningrad, the centre group for Moscow and the southern forces into the Ukraine.
- By October, 1941, German troops were only 15 miles outside Moscow.
- Ordered mass evacuation: in two weeks, two million people left Moscow and headed east.
- Stalin kept morale up by staying Moscow in a bomb shelter
- In November 1941, the German Army launched a new offensive on Moscow.
- The Soviet army held out and the Germans were brought to a halt.
- Stalin called for a counter-attack--on 4th December the Red Army attacked.
- The German army was taken by surprise and started to retreat.
- By January, the Germans had been pushed back 200 miles.
- Stalin's military strategy was simple: attack the enemy as often as possible
- By pushing the German Army back at Moscow, Stalin proved to the Soviet troops that Blizkrieg could be counteracted.
-
Kiev
- Kiev was under siege and Stalin's Chief of Staff, Georgi Zhukov, suggested that the troops defending the capital of the Ukraine should be withdrawn.
- Stalin insisted that the troops stayed and by the time Kiev was taken, the casualties were extremely high. It was the most comprehensive defeat experienced by the Red Army in its history
- However, the determined resistance put up at Kiev, had considerably delayed the attack on Moscow.
-
Minsk
- Current capital of Belarus
- 1939: Britain tried to form an anti-German alliance with USSR but Poland and the Baltic states didn��t want Soviet armies in their borders, even if they were helping with defending themselves against the Germans
- The Brit and French representatives didn��t pressure Poland & the Baltic states into accepting USSR into them
- USSR thought Brit and French were being too soft, since in 1920, the Allies had let the Poles push their eastern border almost to Minsk (which was further than the Allies had originally meant for them to have)
- USSR didn��t want the Germans to launch an attack on them from a point as far east as Minsk (they might have thought that the French and Brits actually wanted USSR to take the worst of the Nazi attack)
- These failed negotiations likely resulted in USSR officially signing the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 23, 1939 (even though negotiations had been taking place earlier that spring)
- Within six days of invading Russia, the German Army had captured Minsk.
- General Demitry Pavlov, the man responsible for defending Minsk, and two of his senior generals were recalled to Moscow and were shot for incompetence.
- the German Army massacred the people of Minsk.
-
��Black Pit��
- The 300-mile gap in the mid-Atlantic that allowed Germany to maintain the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic for the years; place where 50% of all ships were lost in the war (no Allied cover for supply ships here)
- 1941-1943. The introduction of escort carriers and the long-range B-24 Liberator bomber finally closed the gap by mid-1943
-
Manchuria
- Name of the geographic region in northeast Asia -> usually falls entirely within ROC and sometimes divided between China and Russia
- Under Japanese influence instead of Russia as result of Russo-Japense war in 1904-1905
- Important region for its rich mineral and coal reserves and soil for barley/soy prediction -> essential source of raw material for Japan pre WWII -> helped Japan carry out their plan of conquest over Southeast Asia
- Area where the Manchukuo -> puppet government was set up -> allowed Japanese control and further invasion of China
- direct action in Manchuria began with the murder in 1928 of Chang Tso-lin, the warlord ruler of Manchuria.
- September 18, 1931��the Mukden Incident launched Japanese aggression in East Asia.
- Kwantung Army claimed that Chinese soldiers had tried to bomb a South Manchurian Railway train (which arrived at its destination safely) resulted in a speedy and unauthorized capture of Mukden, followed by the occupation of all Manchuria.
- The civilian government in Tokyo could not stop the army, and even army headquarters was not always in full control of the field commanders.
-
Manchukuo
- Rather than oppose the military, the government agreed to reconstitute Manchuria as an ��independent�� state, Manchukuo.
- The last Manchu emperor of China, P��u-i, was declared regent and later enthroned as emperor in 1934
- The Soviets consented to sell the Chinese Eastern Railway to the South Manchurian Railway in 1935, thereby strengthening Manchukuo.
- In 1937 the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with China, and in 1938 and 1939 Soviet and Japanese armies tested each other in two full-scale battles along the border of Manchukuo.
-
Nanking
- Originally chosen capital of new Republic of China in 1912 -> which Yuan Shikai decided against to replace Sun as president and exchange for emperor��s abdication
- 1927 chosen again as capital by Chiang Kai-shek -> marked beginning of Nanjing decade
- Republic established and Sun��s provisional government set in Nanking
- City where Guomingdang operated from for the years until the 2nd united front in civil war to eradicate communists
-
On July 7, 1937, Japanese troops engaged Chinese units at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing, leading to warfare between China and Japan.
- Japanese armies took Nanking, Han-k��ou, and Canton despite vigorous Chinese resistance; Nanking was brutally pillaged by Japanese troops.
- To the north, Inner Mongolia and China��s northern provinces were invaded.
- On discovering that the Nationalist government refused to compromise, the Japanese installed a puppet regime at Nanking in 1940.
-
Hong Kong
- 1941: Japan attacked Guam, Midway, Hong Kong and Malaya
- Canadian forces had two battalions there ��C Force��, lacked heavy equipment
- Japan demanded that Canadians surrender, but they refused, so Japanese started shelling HK��s northern shore
- Demanded again for surrender on Dec 17, but was refused again
- Christmas morning, Japanese captured British field hospital and tortured and killed some prisoners
- Finally, the Allied forces surrendered HK
- Later known as ��Black Christmas��
- Was the beginning of a string of victories in Southeast Asia for Japan
-
Midway Is.
- When asked by?Prime Minister?Fumimaro Konoe?in mid-1941 concerning the outcome of a possible war with the United States, Yamamoto made a well-known and prophetic statement: If ordered to fight, "I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years."[16]?His prediction would be vindicated as Japan easily conquered territories and islands for the first six months of the war until it suffered a shattering defeat at the?Battle of Midway?on June 4�C7, 1942, which ultimately tilted the balance of power in the Pacific towards the U.S.
- The Imperial Japanese Navy's codes were decrypted by the United States; this proved to be a fatal development, as it resulted in the biggest direct blow to the Imperial Japanese Navy at the?Battle of Midway. The battle proved to be Yamamoto's most prominent defeat��his force lost four aircraft carriers and 228 planes, and suffered significant casualties, losing 3500 men.
-
Wake Is.
- Small island in central Pacific
- December 1941, battle for it starts, between U.S. and Japan
- Was the site of a half-completed US air and submarine base
- Japan first attacked Wake a few hours before Pearl Harbour
- Naval forces were repulsed by the guns and aircraft defending the coast
- However, US relief force didn��t reach the area before Japanese returned with a more powerful force, and the Americans surrendered
- Japanese fortified Wake, but repeated attacks by US aircraft throughout the war devastated it, and they surrendered Wake in Sept 4, 1945
-
Iwo Jima
- March 1945: Americans fought to take over this island (heavy casualties)
- After getting Okinawa, they launched aircraft from all their new Allied bases, including Iwo Jima, against Japan and destroyed Japanese industry, navy, and giving the Japanese government serious reasons to consider surrendering
-
Siberia
1942: when Germany invaded Russia, USSR shifted industries to the new Ural and Siberian cities
-
Wannsee Conference
- Jan 1942, in Berlin
- Conference for high-level Nazi
- Was to inform administrative leaders of Departments related to Jews that Reinhard Heydrich had been appointed as chief executor of ��final solution��
- To establish overall control of deportation program
- Discussed the annihilation policy, deportation of Jews of Europe and French North Africa, and German-occupied areas in Eastern Europe, labour of Jews (in the course of which they would die) and surviving ones annihilated -> what was to become the holocaust
- Was supposed to be a ��final solution�� for the Jews
- Instead, the Jews in practicality was sent to concentration camps to be exterminated/killed
- Decision was already made; Heydrich was Himmler emissary to tell them about it
-
Kristallnacht
- Night of broken glass November 9th, 1938 anti-jewish riots by German
- Started off when 17 year old Polish-Jewish student, distraught by mistreatment of parents, shot and killed German diplomatic officials in German Embassy in Paris
- Broken store windows, synagogues burned, homes brutalized, Jews killed, 300,000 sent to camps
- 1 billion placed on Jews for the assault
- the turning point towards the holocaust
- gov't sanctioned reprisal
- Realizes that deportation = not solution, laws put in stripping civil liberties
- Jews tried to flee but most countries rejected the Jews
-
Anschluss
- Union/annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938
- Violation of Treaty of Versailles
- Hitler testing limits, no help from France/Britain
- Reasoning for takeover of Austria
- Wehrmacht troops entered Austria to enforce Anschluss, Nazi held a plebiscite and claimed to have had 99.7% in favour
- Part of appeasement
- Austrian people embraced German annexation
- 1st major step in Hitler��s creation of the 3rd Reich
-
Munich Crisis
- Sudetenland dispute
- led to the munich pact 1939 -> appeasement of hitler
- hitler threatening to invade sudetenland, czechslovakia
- Chamberlain flew to negotiate with Hitler twice, the second time, Hitler raised the terms that were too high for France and Britain
- Mobilization began and war seemed imminent
- In midst of this tension, Hitler invited France, British and Italian powers to conference, exclusing Soviet Union and Czech
- British and French accepted Hitler��s terms and then began to put enormous pressure on Czech government to yield and sign their own death sentence
- czech couldn't rely on French allies, soviet willing to step up but was ignored by the French
- allowed Germany to annex more German-occupied land; seemed to prevent ww2
- hitler promised not to make any further territorial demands in Europe, which Chamberlain and the people of Europe actually believed in
-
September 1, 1939
- Occasion of outbreak of WWII with Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland
- Using the Gleiwitz incident (staged attack) by Nazi as Poles, seized a radio station and played anti-German message in Polish
- Carried out by Abwehr and SS forces
- Morning after Gleiwitz, German forces invaded Poland from North, South and West
- Caused 2 countries allied with Poland to declare war on Germany
- Ended Oct 6, 1939 when Germany and Russia annexed the whole Poland
-
Battle of Britain
- attempt to begin operation sea-lion -> control english channel in the air first
- avoid german ships being bombed by RAF
- germany aircrafts outnumbered 4k to br 1,660
- RAF lacked trained pilots most killed in france
- july 10, 1940 initially bombed british airfields, factories docks -> devestating
- counter attack by british -> bombed berlin, enraged hitler = change in strategy
- august - sept night bombings of cities -> angered citizens
- change to cities saved britain
-
Battle of the Atlantic ***
- persisted entire war 1939-1945
- cutting off supplies would defeat br w/o invasion
- initially used pocket battleships than switched to u-boats
- Allied naval blockade of Germany
- 1941-2 heavy ship losses and supplies not getting through, risk of starvation
- 1943 churchill/roosevelt top priority to defeat u-boats
- development new equip/strategy: huff-duff, radar, corvettes
-
Operation Overlord
- planned allied invasion into germany occupied europe
- culmination of three years of joint strategic planning by the UK and the US
- beginning of the end of the war in Europe, liberation from nazi rule
- naval aspect & amphibious tanks
- d-day was successful b/c dieppe practice, immense planning, false info given to ger for thrust at calais
- towards victory: aug paris, sept crossed into germany
- utah beach first landing
-
Operation Sea Lion
- Germany��s plan to invade Britain during WWII
- Required air and naval supremacy over British channel
- With German defeat in Battle of Britain, Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on September 1940
- Operation Barbarossa
- code name?for?Germany's invasion of the?Soviet Union
- Start date set for May 15, 1941
- Hitler thought this would give the German Army enough time to take control of Russia before the harsh winter
- German forces, made up of three million men and 3,400 tanks, advanced in three groups
- north group to Leningrad, centre group to Moscow and southern forces to Ukraine
- Joseph Stalin would punish any commander whom he believed had let down the Soviet Union. .
- German Army massacred the people of Minsk.
- Terrified of both Stalin and Hitler, the Soviet people would fight until they were killed.
- first few months of the war disastrous for the Soviet Union
- German northern forces surrounded Leningrad while the centre group made steady progress towards Moscow.
- German forces had also gotten into the Ukraine
- The Red Army counterattack in Moscow caught the Germans by surprise and they retreated a bit
- 6th Army was rescued by General Paul von Kleist and his 1st Panzer Army when they struck Timoshenko's exposed southern flank on 17th May.
- Paulus was now able to launch a counter-attack on 20th May and by the end of the month all Soviet resistance had come to an end
- Summer 1942: Stalingrad: As the German Army advanced into Stalingrad the Soviets fought for every building
- The deeper the troops got into the city, the more difficult the street fighting became and casualties increased dramatically.
- Ended with German defeat at Stalingrad; turning point of the war
-
Battle of the Bulge
- Hitler��s last attempt to turn events in his favour, the Ardennes offensive
- Plan: the 5th and 6th Panzer Army, with the 7th Army to the south, would break through the Allied front in southern Belgium and eastern France to reach the Meuse --> 5th would make for Brussels, 6th for Antwerp, encircle and destroy the Allied forces to the north of this advance
- Was unrealistic
- In the beginning, was successful: with three armies against a point in the Allied line meant that within 5 days, the American line had been pushed back by 80 km, making a ��bulge�� in the line (cut communication between commander Bradley, south of bulge, and Hodges and Simpson, north of bulge
- Eisenhower transferred the armies temporarily to Montgomery��s 21st Army Group, and Montgomery stationed units along the Meuse --> no German units got near the river (within 8 km)
- The American forces (most of them) resisted the attack and brought it to an end within days
- The town of Bastogne was completely surrounded but never fell
- Dec 26: Allied forces in Bastogne were relieved by Patton��s Third Army and German commander asked Hitler��s permission to withdraw --> Hitler ordered armies to remain in the Ardennes and to take Bastogne
- The Allies launched a counterattack on Dec 30, and in January 1945, retook St Vith, 8 km from the German starting line --> Ardennes offensive had been broken
- Costed Germans 120 000 men
-
VE Day
- V-E Day 1: May 7, 1945
- May 7, German General Jodl signs instrument of surrender at Rheims
- General Susloparov, chief Soviet liaison officer with SHAEF, signed on behalf of the Soviet high command
- Stalin wanted surrender in Berlin and taken by Red Army, who had taken brunt of fighting
- Allies wanted to announce Victory in Europe next day
- Could not prevent papers publishing details
- Stalin felt this was premature
- Fighting still continuing in areas
- Crowds already gathering London to celebrate
- Churchill insists announcement be made May 8
- Stalin asks that announcement come just past midnight May 8, after surrender in Berlin, to no avail
- V-E Day 2: May 8, 1945
- Winston Chruchill speech to Great Britain:
- Stalin wished to delay the celebrations in the West, but to no avail
- Soviet troops picked up radio signals from London and shared it with comrades
- News spread fast in Berlin, Russians begin celebration early
- Shortly before midnight May 8, a second unconditional surrender was signed
- Signed at Karlshorst, Berlin
- Soviet Field Marshall Zhukov opened ceremony
- German Command Representatives led by General Field Marshall Keitel invited in
- Sign German Act of Unconditional Surrender
- Enacted 23:01 Central European Time
- German General Field Marshall Keitel signs Unconditional Surrender at Karlshorst, Berlin, May 8, 1945
- May 9, 1945
- Victory Day Parade in Moscow (May 9, 1945) --> all tanks and military (in a photo of the parade), no people
-
December 7, 1941
- Attack on Pearl Harbour
- Japanese launched a heavy air raid on American naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii
- Meanwhile, Japanese representatives in Washington were carrying on discussions with Americans
- Americans were taken by surprise: 2,500 killed, fleet was greatly damaged --> temporarily disabled American navy, allowing Japanese to dominate the western Pacific
- Resulted in U.S. and Brit declaring war on Japan on Dec 8 --> led to Ger + It declaring war on U.S. (and Axis puppet states, too)
- Essentially made the war a global conflict
-
VJ Day
- In Japan, August 14 = the day that the Pacific War ended.
- Imperial Japan actually surrendered on August 15, so this is "V-J Day�� for the West
- formal Instrument of Surrender signed September 2, 1945, on the battleship USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay
- surrender was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur as "Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers", with representatives of several Allied nations, from a Japanese delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu and Yoshijiro Umezu.
-
D-Day
- Operation Overlord
- Was the result of three years of planning by UK and US
- UK didn��t want a direct invasion (WWI knew the coast of human lives in battles of attrition) --> wanted to make Germany surrender by other methods, like economic pressure, aerial bombing
- Us wanted frontal attack as quickly and with as much force as possible
- The Normandy landings required a large amount of organisation
- Massive deception operation (Germans were convinced the main objective was the Pas de Calais) --> lots of landing craft docking at artificial harbours built for the purpose
- Landings were made at 5 separate locations: the British Sword, Juno and Gold beaches, and the American Omaha and Utah
- Within a week, a continuous beachhead had been established along 80 km of coastline
- These landings were the beginning of the end of the war in Europe
-
Bay of Pigs invasion
- the Bay of Pigs:
- Kennedy came into office and didn��t really assess the Castro situation --> he just decided to go ahead and try to end the Communist ��problem��, so he invaded in April 1961, without good air protection --> failure --> most of the 1,500 invaders were captured
-
Nuremburg Trials
- 1945-1946
- Four Allies held an international trial at Nuremberg
- 22 Nazi leaders and major Nazi organisations were indicted for:
- Crimes against peace (potting and waging a war of aggression)
- War crimes (violations of the accepted laws and conventions of warfare)
- Crimes against humanity (acts of mass murder and genocide)
- Critics question:
- The appropriateness of the decision to try leaders of a defeated sovereign nation for planning and waging war and to indict an agency like the General Staff
- The appropriateness of the USSR judging the Nazis (since it had contributed to the outbreak of war, attacking Poland and incorporating the Baltic states into its borders)
- Whether the trials are just victors�� justice
- Trials reinforced international standards of ��civilised�� behaviour
- Condemned 12 defendants to execution, 7 to prison terms, 3 were acquitted
-
Spanish Civil War
- War: 1936-1939
- Pre-war
- 1931: mild revolution brought the establishment of a democratic Republic
- New republican government --> social and economic reform: church and state separate, Jesuit order dissolved, schools removed from religious control
- Redistributed land to peasants to make them happy
- property owners and the church didn��t like this
- 1933: government fell to conservative parties, who ruled through ministries (ineffective and unpopular)
- 1936: new elections
- All Left groups joined in a Popular Front against the Right (monarchists, clericals, army officers, Falangists, Spanish fascists)
- The Left won the election
- July: a group of military men led an insurrection (violent uprising) against the government, General Francisco Franco became leader
- The Left parties united in resistance and war began
- Most devastating war in Spanish history, 600,000+ deaths
- Extreme cruelty on both sides
- March 1939: Franco won war, established authoritarian, fascist rule
- During war: Britain and france didn��t allow the shipment of war materials to the republican government, the U.S. also didn��t export weapons to Spain
- 27 nations, including all major European powers agreed not to intervene or take sides
- Still, this non-intervention didn��t work because Germany, Italy and USSR intervened anyway --> Ger + It supported Franco, USSR supported the republic (also helped the Spanish Communists grow in strength)
- All 3 sent military equipment, testing it in battle
- Ger + It sent troops, Rus didn��t (but sent technicians, political advisers)
- Many volunteers from U.S. & Europe went to spain to fight for Republicans
- Spain became battlefield for different ideologies --> the Civil War split the world into fascist and antifascist groups
- The war brought Ger + It together --> 1936 (soon after war started): Mussolini and Hitler came up with the Rome-Berlin Axis
-
Little Red Book
- book of quotes by Mao Zedong-> ideologies
- published from 1964 to about 1976, widely distributed during the Cultural Revolution
- Most popular versions were printed in small sizes to be easily carried
- at one point more books in circulation than people in world
- required by all Chinese to have even if illiterate
- The book is the symbol of Mao Zedong thought
- Most visible icon in mainland China in 1960s,
-
Final Solution
- Nazi Germany��s plan and execution of systematic genocide of European Jews in WWII, to annihilate the Jewish People
- Resulted in most deadly phase of Holocaust
- Heinrich Himmler was chief architect of the plan, named ��final solution�� by Adolf Hitler
- Plan was fully implemented in 1942
- Before the plan was fully implemented 1 million jews were massacred
- Only with the decision to eradicatete entire Jewish population that extermination camps were built and industrialized mass slaughter
- This decision was made either at or by the Wannasee Conference (in Berlin)
- Used as a term of euphemism instead of outright killing
-
Zyklon-B
- Trade name for cyanide-based pesticide
- Infamous for use by German Nazis to kill human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during Holocaust
- Consists of hydrogen cyanide, stabilizer
- Used in Auschwitz Birkenau, Majanek, and Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Most victims were Jews and Poles
- Deliberately made without warning odorant
- Also used for de-licing of control typhus (disease)
-
Huff-Duff
- high frequency direction finding
- radio listening device to locate U-boat transmissions
- allowed capture U-boat -> break code -> target other U-boats
- essential in fight against U-boats
- Starting 1942, Allies began to install Huff-duff on convoy escorts��, allowing them much more accurate triangulation fixes on U-boats
- Allowed hunter-killer ships and aircrafts to be dispatched at high-speed in direction of the U-boat, which could be illuminated by radar if still on surface and by ASDIC if dived
- Combination of these technologies turned the tide against U-boats
- Also used during battle of Britain to locate German squadron
-
Hedgehog
- Anti-submarine projector weapon developed by Royal Navy during WWII
- Deployed on convoy escort warships such as destroyer to supplement depth charge
- Worked by firing projectile-type weapons that throw small projectiles ahead of attacking vessel
- The projectile arms explode on contact with U-boats
- Started to be used in 1941 because depth chargers were usually thrown blind
- Did not disturb ASDIC detection of U-boats from random explosions
-
U-Boat
- Military submarines used by Germans (and some Austrians), fast on surface slow under water
- Equipped with torpedoes, deck guns, mines and could attack submerged
- Limited time underwater
- most effectively used in economic warfare (commerce raiding), enforcing naval blockade against enemy shipping
- Major targets were supplies to Britain from U.S., Canada or British Empire
- U-boat strategy -> wolf packs, a bunch would stay together to sink one specific target
- Radio to gather around convoy, attacked at night, disengaged in daylight
- Almost crippled Britain (island) w/o invasion -> cut off provisions
- The thing that frightened Churchill the most
- Extremely effective in early stages of war
- Sunk almost 3000 Allied ships during the war
-
Corvette
- Small maneuverable, lightly armed warship
- battle of the Atlantic, ship w/ anti-submarine equipment
- built for patrol and to convoy escort vessels
- Designed on whaler, cheap and easy to manufacture
- used depth charges, ramming, shells and sonar to find/destroy U-boats
- very crowded, living conditions were appalling
- Too slow to catch the surfaced submarines
- Crucial in preventing England from defeat in 1941/42 from starvation, protected vulnerable merchant ships
-
Frigate
- Originated in the 1500s
- Modern frigates related to earlier frigates only by name
- Adopted during WWII by Royal Navy to describe new type of anti-submarine escort vessel
- Larger than a corvette, smaller than a destroyer
- Introduced to remedy shortcomings in corvette design
- Had more and newer armament, form suited to open-ocean work, increased speed and maneuverability, and increased range
- First introduced in 1941, designed for convoy duties and not fighting
- Carry sonar, torpedoes, anti-submarine torpedoes
-
Convoy
- Group of ships or vehicles travelling together for mutual support and protection
- Usually organized with armed defensive support
- Britain adopted a convoy system the moment WWII was declared
- Canadian and American supplies were vital for Britain to continue its war effort
-
Aircraft Carrier
- Warships with flight decks, primarily designed to deploy and recover aircraft, acting as a mobile airbase
- allowed naval force to attack from air for staging aircraft operations
- typically treated as the capital ship of a fleet, extremely expensive to build and important to protect
- Used extensively in WWII
- ended the dangers in the black pit, where Allied ships were always sunk by German forces
-
Merchant Marine
- Fleet of merchant vessels registered in a country
- In WWII (Canadian?) merchant navy played a major role in Battle of Atlantic to bolster allies merchant fleet due to high losses in the British Merchant Navy
-
Radar
- Object detection system using radio waves to determine range, altitude, direction or speed
- British used it against aircraft attack; alerted presence of German planes -> allowed British troops to send backup
- Britain place radar in multiple spots, Germans had a small choice for attack on top of fuel shortage from flying across British channel
- In comparison, Germany had large area couldn't protect all w/ radar
- Also used by escorts to find U-boats + destroy
- Detected submarines on the surface
- Secretly developed by several nations before and during WWII, coined the term RADAR in 1941
- Short range of detection since things in sea move
-
Depth-Charge
- Anti-submarine weapon intended to destroy or cripple target submarine by exploding near it
- Most use explosives and Suez to go off at preselected depth in the option
- explosive canister that would detonate when it made contact
- used by corvettes to destroy U-boats
- helped form one of the first hunt to kill groups
- aided in eliminating U-boat threat
- Shortcoming of depth charges was that after the submarine was detected by sonar, it had to pass over the contact to drop depth charges, losing SONAR contact and making the attacker blind, allowing skillful submarines to evade contact to bomb
-
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
- Also known as the ��Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact�� signed in Moscow
- both countries promised not to interfere if other started war or was attacked by a 3rd party
- promised split to Poland through invasion
- also Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland
- Invaded on September 1 and 17th, respectively, on respective sides of the land
- soviet got eastern half, regaining lost territory
- during WWII, had expansion of raw materials and military trading
- Finnish and Baltic invasions by Stalin irritated Berlin, especially invading Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia
- Deteriorated due to boarder and occupation issues
- remained effective until June 22, 1941 when Germany invaded the soviet\
-
Lebensraum
- One of the major genocidal political ideas of Hitler, important component in Nazi ideology
- Motivation for expansionist policies of Nazi Germany
- Aimed to provide extra space for growth of German population -> a greater Germany
- Included land and raw materials
- Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that it should be found in Eastern Europe
- Believed it was historically justified as these lands were taken from Germans
- The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, creating agricultural surplus for Germany, allowing people to be replaced by a German upper class
-
Anti-Semitism
- Suspicion, hatred, discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to Jewish heritage
- May be manifested from expression of hatred to organized violent attacks on Jewish communities
- Hitler instituted repressive legislation denying Jews basic vicil rights
- Kristallnacht was one of the antisemetic programs that Jews were killed, property destroyed and synagogue torched
- Antisemitic laws and propaganda extended to other place of Europe
- Forced Jews into Ghettos
- 1941 Einsatzgruppen conducted a campaign of mass murder, systematic genocide
- 11 million targeted, 6 million killed
-
Augusto Pinochet (Chile)
- Chile had a history of fairly conservative and wealthy leaders
- Salvador Allende democratically elected in 1970 elections (socialist, leftist policies, but had economic crisis due to copper value dropping)
- Americans had interest in preventing spread of leftist ideology, put money in anti-Allende efforts
- CIA tried to prevent Allende from office; after that failed, U.S. decided on military coup
- Pinochet was a military leader, bad communication and interpersonal skills
- Was not inspiring figure, thinker or extraordinary speaker
- No political persona and no clear ideology
- 1973 coup, Allende publicized that he would not surrender, led to bombardment of presidential palace -> formed Junta
- Outlawed Leftist, Marxist, socialist oppositions, implemented military control
- Initially claimed that power would be shared but became ��supreme leader��, used concentration camp and torture centers to maintain power, had some propaganda, no personality cult
- Overall goal: to maintain own power and eliminate leftist ideas
- Seized land owned by indigenous people
- Women encouraged staying at home and minimizing political involvement
- held strict control of the media so that he could eliminate socialist ideas embedded in art, music, and other forms of entertainment
- Sent over Chicago boys to U.S. to learn about economy, used free market system, opened loans and led to recession
- 20% unemployment, long-term impact
- Once Pinochet took power, U.S. re-opened relations, gave a lot of loans for the low population of Chile
- Secret police: DINA, thousands of deaths and disappearance; ��Caravan of Death�� and military junta also used
- Free speech was repressed in 1980, opposition also suppressed
- Relied more on fear than popularity/charisma
- Called a vote to see if he would stay in power, shocked that his population removed him from power; stepped down 2 days later and became senator-for-life
- Arrested in London 1998 for surgery
- Not totalitarian
-
Julius Nyerere (Tanzania)
- Tanzania became UN territory under British control after WWII
- Attended uni in Britain, formed TANU (Tanzania African National Union)
- Aimed for socialism and independence, received his support from poor civilians through speeches
- 1961: managed to make independence from Britain and named himself prime minister
- 1963 established a single party state TANU
- Created socialist philosophy: Ujamaa (socialism and communal life)
- Used police and military to force people into Ujamaa
- Censored media that was his and government��s control
- Tried to keep government corrupt free ��faher of the nation��
- Had a 5 year plan for education
- Believed in freedom and equality, but had ethnic conflicts due to fear for other parties
- He wrote many books about socialism and freedom
- Leader of the Pan-African movement
- Neutral during Cold War
- Had a lack of agriculture problem
- Resigned in 1985
- Not totalitarian
-
Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt)
- King Farouk ruled before Nasser and had corrupt regimes and ideologies
- 1952, Nasser��s group ��free officers�� organized a bloodless military coup, forced king to exile
- Naguib was made the face of ��free officers��; Nasser was actual figure behind coup; led to power struggle between the two and Nasser replaced Naguib as president because most of his decisions were favoured by public
- Had 6 main targets:
- Destroy imperialism
- End feudalism
- End monopoly and Domination of capital over government
- Social justice
- Powerful army
- Sound democratic system
- Had problem with Israel
- Mukhabarat was his secret police
- His stand against European powers gave him popularity in Arab nation and Soviet Union
- Wanted to end class distinction and reinforce culture using healthcare and education
- Built a powerful national army by increasing it and modernizing it with U.S.S.R.
- Land reforms, land was confiscated and handed to the poor, improved petroleum industry, nationalized foreign banks and insurance companies
- Inspired other Arab nations with removal of colonization
- Decided to nationalize Suez canal after Britain and U.S. withdrew funds to build Aswan Dam (since Egypt had ties to Soviet and supported PRC in Taiwan conflicts). Suez crisis started in order to regain Western control. This cost his reputation amongst Arabs
-
Pol Pot (Saloth Sar; Cambodia)
- Khmer rouge served as police, army and special force; used for carrying out campaign to communify Cambodia, closed school, hospital, factories, banks
- Currency, religion and foreign aid outlawed
- Private properties confiscated
- Any opposition was executed; punished any groups that could threat the regime, intellectuals, individuals wearing glasses
- Remained a shadowy figure
- Lost power in 1979 when invaded by Vietnam
- His goals were all fulfilled except rice production
- Had little impact internationally, refused foreign aid and led to downfall of regime
- Negative impact on country, millions dead and millions of landmines remain
- Poverty still lasts today
- Was totalitarian
-
Kim Il Sung (North Korea)
- Communism was popular in North Korea as a result of Japanese imperialism occupation until the end of WWII
- Grew up in Manchuria, joined anti-Japanese forces at young age
- Fled to Soviet Union due to Japanese oppression but no one can confirm what he did there
- Returned to North Korea in 1945 and was welcomed as a hero
- First had a coalition government with different factions of communism, managed to eliminate his oppositions through Korean War and purges
- Policies
- Anti-foreign interference and exploitation, self-reliance
- Ideology: Juche, nationalism, focused on working class under direction of a carefully selected leader, one needs to count on himself instead of on others
- Divided classes and social structure according to loyalty towards him
- Focused on propagandizing his glorious revolutionary traditions for personality cult
- Not a good orator, image was most important
- Not diversified in religion, although he says that citizens have religious freedom
- Did improve women��s rights, although not to a great extent
- Highly centralized command economy and control over army
- 3 generation policy, limited radio and TV communications, monopolizes communications
- Whoever does not cooperate will face consequences
- Tried to repair relationship with U.S. and Japan but failed, tried to be a leader of 3rd world nations but also failed
- Manipulated Beijing and Moscow and played one against each other for his maximum benefit
- Did improve economic conditions since after the war
- Succeeded by his son, now his grandson
- Was totalitarian
-
Fascism
- introduced by Mussolini as Fascismo
- ideology that aimed to eliminate class antagonisms through control - nationalism and corporatism
- denounced all other ideologies as evil offspring of liberal and capitalistic society
- radical in its acceptance of conflict and willingness to employ force when necessary
- support mainly came from lower middle class whose ambitions had been thwarted by war and subsequent poor economy
- stressed charismatic, dynamic leadership (leader presented as a messiah figure)
- right-wing, stressed conservative values, e.g. family
- Mussolini: the "dictatorship of the state over many classes cooperating"
- came to be regarded as an alternative to democratic or parliamentary government, especially appealing because of the failure of democracies to prevent WWI
- nationalistic East European countries found it appealing, and many intellectuals thought that there was a need for discipline and authority after the perceived unsuccessfulness of freedom and individual choice
-
National Socialism
- Hitler's party
- appealed to German youth; party members generally younger than other political groups
- main appeal: national recovery, rapid change, personal advancement
- anti-intellectual, emphasised religiosity (they essentially replaced the Church), ceremony and order (indoctrination, secret ceremony/initiation)
- idealisation of pastoral past (country living, cultural tradition, old values)
- conservative (patriotism, family)
- mob mentality: getting caught up in the hysteria of mass meetings and crowds
- taking advantage of desires for stability
- recognised the people's need for ritual, romance and religion, providing this through rituals, symbols, sacraments, messiah figure
- due to Germany's poor economic conditions post-WWI, many people supported the Nazis not out of genuine belief in the ideology but rather out of hope of improvement in quality of life
- party membership was generally younger than other political parties; Hitler realised the usefulness of appealing to and indoctrinating youth in order to create a loyal future following
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6th Army
- On 9th May 1942, General Semen Timoshenko, with 640,000 men, attacked the 6th Army at Volchansk.
- General Freidrich Paulus, seriously outnumbered, decided to move his troops back toward Kharkov.
- The 6th Army was rescued by General Paul von Kleist and his 1st Panzer Army when they struck Timoshenko's exposed southern flank on 17th May.
- Stalingrad: On the 26th September the 6th Army was able to raise the swastika flag over the government buildings in Red Square but the street fighting continued.
- The heavy rains of October turned the roads into seas of mud and the 6th Army's supply conveys began to get bogged down. --> then snow and running out of food and ammunition
- By 7th December the 6th Army were living on one loaf of bread for every five men.
- Aware that the 6th Army was in danger of being starved into surrender, Adolf Hitler ordered Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and the 4th Panzer Army to launch a rescue attempt.
- It had cost Hitler dearly��the 6th Army, the force that had taken France, was crushed
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Appeasement
- post-WWI, people were not enthusiastic about the idea of another huge conflict
- Hitler exploited Western weaknesses, using a cycle of raging and taking what he wanted, then saying that��s all he wanted to do --> would make the West fearful, then relieved and hope that he was actually going to stop
- 1933: he left the League of Nations
- 1934: got Poland to sign a nonaggression treaty with him
- Austrian Nazis attempted to assassinate Austrian chancellor and demanded Austria-Germany union (West did nothing)
- 1935: openly built up German military, against the Versailles treaty clauses (Fr + Brit + It proteste, but did nothing. Brit signed a naval agreement with Ger)
- 1936: reoccupied Rhineland --> sent Ger troops into a demilitarised zone (Fr didn��t want to act without Br and Br didn��t want to risk war, so did nothing --> it is speculated that if Fr had made a stand at this time, Hitler might have been stopped because he was still rather weak militarily)
- Munich Crisis:
- Sudenten Germans of Czechoslovakia had never been content as minorities in a Slavic state (the ones who were adults in 1938 had been born under the Hapsburg empire)
- Hitler used this to demand a union with Germany
- May 1938: Czechs mobilised because there was a rumour of German invasion soon --> Russ + Fr + Brit issued warnings and Hitler issued assurances
- Czechs, under pressure from Br + Fr, offered Sudenten Germans special privileges, but didn��t satisfy Hitler --> USSR said they should be firm, but West wasn��t confident about USSR military strength and didn��t know if Hitler was bluffing (might back down or might fight)
- Late 1938: Hitler raised such high demands that Br + Fr couldn��t accept --> mobilisation started BUT then Hitler invited Br + Fr PM (Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier) to Munich with Mussolini
- At Munich, they accepted Hitler��s terms and pressured Czech to yield --> Fr abandoned treaty obligation to protect Czech
- Munich agreement gave Germany Sudentenland, left Czech militarily defenceless (Ger took mountains containing fortifications)
- Chamberlain said he had brought ��peace in our time��
- March 1939: illusion ended: Hitler marched into the actual Czech part of Czechoslovakia (Bohemia-Moravia) and the West realised he wouldn��t stop
- Appeasement ultimately failed
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Propaganda
- used by totalitarian regimes for indoctrination
- emphasised that other ideologies/systems of government were inferior or evil
- art, literature, film and science were politicised
- deification of the leader
- education system provided tool for indoctrination of youth
- Japan: promoted ideal of samurai loyalty, loyalty to the emperor and Confucian and Shinto ideology
- education indoctrination guaranteed that future generations would accept authority without question
- was often incorporated covertly into aspects of life, like films in the cinema in order to subconsciously indoctrinate people; shows a totalitarian regime's attempt at controlling all aspects of life and brainwashing
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Nuremburg Laws
- September 15, 1935: these laws deprive Jews of German citizenship and reduce them to the status of ��subjects��
- Forbid marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Aryans
- Forbid Jews to employ Aryan servants under the age of 35
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Incendiary Bomb
- Filled with combustible chemicals like magnesium, phosphorous or napalm
- Dropped in clusters to spread fires
- Luftwaffe used them
- Later in WWII, used by RAF to create firestorms, such as in Dresden
- USAAR (U.S. Army Air Force) also used them on cities like Tokyo, where there were many buildings made of wood
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Terror Bombing
- Battle of Britain: In the end, The German decision to use terror bombing allowed the RAF to recover and rebuild
- Arthur ��Bomber�� Harris led the terror bombing of German cities: attack industrial centres to destroy houses, so the workforce wouldn��t have homes and would disrupt their work (was controversial)
- Most controversial air raid of WWII: Feb 1945: bombing of Dresden by RAF and USAAF --> resulted in firestorm that killed tens of thousands of civilians
- Harris thought the point of night-time bombing of urban areas was to decrease morale of civilians, and air campaigns on German cities like Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, killed approx.. 600,000 civilians
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Bomber Theory
- Airplanes first emerged as a military technology during WWI
- Towards the end of that conflict they began to be used in an offensive capability
- With the development of the first Gotha bombers, some strategists suggested that air power could be used to defeat the enemy and avoid the slaughter of the trenches, and reintroduce battlefield mobility
- Three key theorists emerged during the interwar period
- Guilio Douhet
- Believed the bomber could fight its way to and back from the target, spawning the phrase ��the bomber will always get through.��
- Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart
- Favoured long range bomber offensives to deliver a sudden, massive strike to enemy industrial centres to destroy the ability to resist
- William Mitchell
- Airplanes should be used as strategic weapons to strike deep into enemy territory attacking vital areas such as factories and military installations
- Military strategists had been trying to find an effective way to win quickly and cheaply
- Air power had two advantages: no need for large and expensive armies; no need to spend money on air defence since the bomber ��would always get through��
- Nations invested heavily in developing bomber fleets between the wars
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Blitzkrieg
- Lightning warfare: rapid military advance
- Used by the Germans to invade Poland: troops closely supported by air power and moving quickly on motorcycles, trucks, armoured vehicles
- Shows how new tactics of offensive warfare can overpower the defensive strategies that had stopped armies in WWI
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Panzer
- German tanks
- During the Dunkirk evacuation, a key factor of German failure was they didn��t use available Panzer units to crush the troops waiting for evacuation, something that is still unclear as to why Hitler hesitated
- On 9th May 1942, General Semen Timoshenko, with 640,000 men, attacked the 6th Army at Volchansk.
- General Freidrich Paulus, seriously outnumbered, decided to move his troops back toward Kharkov.
- The 6th Army was rescued by General Paul von Kleist and his 1st Panzer Army when they struck Timoshenko's exposed southern flank on 17th May.
- Summer 1942: advance to Stalingrad:
- When fresh supplies reached him, General Friedrich Paulus decided to preserve fuel by moving forward with only his XIV Panzer corps.
- When General Gustav von Wietersheim, commander of the XIV Panzer Corps, complained about the high casualty rates, Paulus replaced him with General Hans Hube.
- However, Paulus, who had lost 40,000 soldiers since entering the city, was running out of fighting men and on 4th October he made a desperate plea to Hitler for reinforcements.
- A few days later five engineer battalions and a panzer division arrived in Stalingrad.
- By 7th December the 6th Army were living on one loaf of bread for every five men.
- Aware that the 6th Army was in danger of being starved into surrender, Adolf Hitler ordered Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and the 4th Panzer Army to launch a rescue attempt.
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Wehrmacht
the unified?armed forces?of?Germany?from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the?Heer?(army), the?Kriegsmarine(navy) and the?Luftwaffe?(air force).
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Luftwaffe
- In Germany, Hitler announced in 1935 that his newly created Luftwaffe was already equal in size to the RAF
- In 1940 the Luftwaffe possessed air superiority
- The had the largest number of planes and faced little opposition
- Employed terror bombing
- Seen as the key to decisive victory
- Goerring promised Hitler that his Luftwaffe would smash the RAF and bring Britain to its knees, paving the way for an amphibious invasion
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Enabling Act
- passed on March 23, 1933
- made Hitler dictator for a period of four years
- Germany became a one party state (all political opposition removed): Communist Party members arrested, Catholic Centre Party withdrew all opposition and Social Democratic Party was dissolved
- second major step through which Hitler established his dictatorship (after the Reichstag Fire Decree)
- the government had acquired the authority to pass laws without either parliamentary consent or control. Unprecedentedly, these laws could (with certain exceptions) even deviate from the Constitution
- it helped Hitler's dictatorship maintain a veneer of legality, as he had it renewed twice, every four years
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Fat Man & Little Boy
- July 26, 1945, U.S. President Truman and other Allied leaders issue terms of surrender for Japan with Potsdam Declaration. The Japanese government rejected it.
- Truman: ��If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on Earth.��
- Manhattan Project �C group working for Allies established to develop first nuclear weapon in WWII.
- headed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.
- Einstein urged Truman to beat Germans in nuclear race.
- Created ��Little Boy��, a uranium bomb, and ��Fat Man��, a plutonium bomb.
- On August 6, 1945, a US plane dropped an atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, in the first nuclear attack in history.
- On August 9, another was dropped on Nagasaki, in the last ever nuclear attack to date. More than 240,000 people were killed because of these bombings.
- The necessity of the atomic bombings has long been debated, with detractors claiming that a naval blockade and bombing campaign had already made invasion possible, and hence the atomic bomb, unnecessary.
- However, other scholars have argued that the bombings did stop invasion, including a planned Soviet invasion, or a prolonged blockade and bombing campaign, any of which may have exacted even higher casualties among Japanese civilians.
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Gulag
- Soviet institution: "Main Administration of Corrective Labour Camps"
- operated forced labour camps in the Stalin era
- the combination of violence, extreme climate, hard labour, little food and unsanitary conditions led to high death rates in camps
- prisoners included criminals and political/religious dissenters
- Gulag manpower used for Soviet economy; constructed canals, mined, etc.
- people could be arrested without warning for the Gulag and without a trial, so contributed to the atmosphere of fear and distrust
- camps had a certain economic goals to fulfill, so eventually police had to fabricate reasons for arresting people in order to fill their arrest quota; shows that the rights of individuals were discarded in favour of the good of the economy and of the state
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Operation Barbarossa
- june 1941
- operation meant for lebensraum (living space) expand into soviet union
- german advance so fast it compromised supply/comm. lines
- major moscow, smaller kiev, major leningrad
- more resistance than xpected fr russians
- treatment o citizens = rebel
- first successful counterattack by russians -> boost morale
- winter arrices unprep. ger ffreeze
- defeated by russians
- secure the oil resources in the Caucasus
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Battle of Britain
- supposed to be followed by operation sea lion -> but never happened since Goering��s promise had failed
- British concentrated radar in the territories (no gaps) directly facing Nazi forces
- Compared to Britain, Germany had to keep eye on more coastline -> required more radar which they didn��t have
- Caused gaps in radar region
- Because Britain had small airforce, their radar became important equalizer
- 4 main areas were German came from, 3 airfields from France, and 1 from Norway
- Industrial centers received a lot of attacks, along with airfields and factories, some cities were bombed completely flat ; There was hardly any part of England that was not touched
- Because they re-armed late and build air power late, they were inferior to Germany at the beginning -> they couldn��t be constantly fighting and sending planes up
- Radar was used to pinpoint bomber flights from German, planes were sent out to intercept bomber planes before they even reached Britain; They were also trying to build more planes and train more -> this provided a more effective use of limited man force
- The beginning bombing had significant impact on industrial production capacity
- Churchill really came to embody British resolve -> acted as inspiration to the British people
- Gave powerful speeches over the radio -> inspired people
- Inspired people to continue everyday lives, work and support war effort, even though the worst of bombing
- Goering��s strategies were very reasonable -> no plane, no radar, no production factories to replace lost materials, no military bases to launch attack fromEarly in the Battle of Britain it was very effective, 2:1 loss ratio in favour of Germany -> they had started out as more -> big disadvantage for Britain since they were losing planes and pilots faster than they could replace them
- Britain was really getting desperate, Churchill comes up with a bit of a bold idea with air force commanders -> they launched a bombing raid on Berlin which was at extreme range of British bombers because it was so unexpected, it was so distant, it shocked Nazi command and angered Hitler
- In his anger, Hitler makes a very fateful decision; He redirects Goering to shift his targets; told them to terror bomb civilians and cities instead of military centers-> especially London, which was bombed every day
- It allowed industrial areas to have full production; Not a sustainable effort, but got them through dangerous time
- Hitler wanted terror bombing to work as bomber theory, but Britain reacted the exact opposite way
- The battle��s outcome shifts completely as Hitler and Goering didn��t expect
- Britain became more effective in countering the attacks since they had better production of planes; Kill ratio shifted towards Britain to which Germany was losing pilots faster than that can be rebuilt
- Sea lion operation was cancelled. He started planning for operation Barbarossa
- He then listened to sea commanders to starve Britain into surrender -> battle of the Atlantic
- Battle of the Atlantic
- Early in war: surface vessels used to attack convoys
- b/c of terms of TOV, Germany had pocket ship (draft) which did not exceed TOV terms but heavily armed (fast lightweight raiders) great speed; later built lagre ships -> bismark, after they were not worried about West��s opinions, which inflicted GREAT DAMAGE
- u-boat -> fast on surface but slow under water (>15km/hr); torpedoes and deck guns 1-4��; could attack submerged with periscope �C limited time underwater (thin shell) to synthesize oxygen, which was a weak spot from attack
- Admiral Doenitz: U-boat strategy �C ��wolf packs��
- reconnaissance line �C radio messages to gather around convoys; intercept convoys and pack attack at night �C gunfire from the surface, torpedoes from beneath; in daylight disengaged �C move ahead of convoy for next night��s attack; to maximize impact of attack,
- 1941-1942 heavy ship losses �C supplies not getting through (from U.S. and CANADA, Halifax or NY); could not replace the ships fast enough �C Britain would starve/face defeat; Doenitz concentrated wolf packs in area between air coverage where U.S. and Britain didn��t have ; And also, their codes were compromised so German ships predicted when U.S. convoys would come; Convoys could only move as fast as the slowest ship
- Ships: the corvette: Small relatively slow (15km/hr) manoeuvrable but rolls easily
- Deapth charges �C explosive canister thrown or dropped
- ASDIC �C echo sounding device to detect submerged u-boat (later developed into sonar)
- Destroy u-boats with deapth charges, shells and rammingThe men: ��The Wave Navy�� life on board a corvette
- Inexperienced men led by few veterans
- Difficult to keep warm
- Ice on deck �C open bridges
- Survival was slim if torpedoed
- Poor wages compared to civilian war workers
- Crowded, smelly, poor bunkers/hammock �C monotony mixed with danger
- 1943 the top priority of Roosevlt and Churchill was to defeat the U-boats
- Escort Groups: Teams of corvette and escorts; Method of attack was depth charge, shells and ramming u-boat
- Radar detected submarines on the surface; Short range of detection
- ��Huff-duff�� (high frequency direction finding): Ratio listening devices to locate u-boat transmission; Helped support groups ��hunt to kill�� U-boats; while u-boats were trying to listen in on British radio, huff-duffs could try to locate, negating stealth of u-boats
- Frigates: Larger, longer range escort vessels; Armed with newer equipment (hedgehog �C 24 contact bombs fired ahead of ship)
- Escort aircraft carriers and long range aircraft: Ships with flight decks; Attack u-boats from the air; Helped close the danger of the ��black pit��; Kill ratio shifted in favour of allies -> lost too many u-boats that they could not sustain
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Operation Market-Garden
- September 1844 in North West Europe, Netherlands
- Failed attempt to prepare for allied advance into Germany
- Proposed by Montgomery that the operation would outflank German defenses by crossing Rhine river, and enable British to attack Ruhr from the NORTH
- 30TH corps pushing forward from Antwerp, relied on bridges over 3 rivers being secured beforehand, coordination of land and airborne forces, and some luck
- One of the boldest plans of WWII, 30,000 British and American troops were to be flown behind enemy lines to capture 8 bridges
- At the same time, British tanks and infantry were to push up a narrow road leading from Allied front to key bridges
- There the troops would be relived, and they would cross together
- Operation called for British paratroopers to hold their positions for 2 days, then the 30th corps would relieve them
- Germans set the plan off course, 30th corps arrived 2 days late and gave Germans opportunity to regroup
- Arnhem had worse situation, 2nd battalion and parachute regiment were completely surrounded by enemy forces until overwhelmed on September 20th
- Quarter of paratroopers managed to withdraw
- It would be 4 months until the Allies could cross the Rhine, German artillery still controlled it
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North African Campaign (British, U.S. vs Germany)
- July 1943, 8th and 7th army landed on southern tip of Sicily
- First European land fall by British troops in 2 years
- 8th army went north and skirt Mountain
- Advanced North and west and controlled a quarter of the island within 3 days
- By end of July, German and Italian forces were under attack from both 7th and 8th army, retreated and left the Italian occupation
- Salerno landing diverted substantial German forces ahead of d-day landing sin Jubne 1944
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