EUH 3206 REVIEW: FROM SECOND WORLD WAR TO COLD WAR, Divided Europe
First Stage Outbreak of war: what were Hitler’s war aims in 1939? Impact of Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 (division of Eastern Europe, etc.) Allied response to invasion of Poland. Russo-Finnish war/Scandinavian interlude
Stage 2 Western Offensive, May 1940 Battle for Britain: A turning point? Italy’s parallel war: Mussolini an asset or liability? African theater of war. Britain stands alone? US/British relations up to Operation Barbarossa: How does it change the course of the war?
The “Inner War” Internal developments: Creating (colonizing) a “New Europe”; resistance movements; German hegemony in Europe; Life behind the lines; Women at War; role of intelligence and industrial productivity; the Holocaust and crimes against humanity.
Turning points U.S. enters the war, 1941 Battle of Stalingrad, (Kursk, etc.) North African campaign/Italy defeated, Opening a second front, 1944: Operation Overlord and Bagration.
Politics of War War-time conferences Events: Warsaw uprising of Manhattan project Role of personalities: Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, etc.
End of War Defeating Germany, : Significance of final battles (Arnhem, Bulge, Berlin) Europe transformed: origins of Cold War Greek Civil War, ; Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan Berlin Airlift,
Cold War, cont. Western democracies: Great Britain, France, and Italy – Two Germanys – Cold War after Stalin, Khrushchev’s “secret speech” Suez Crisis, 1956, Hungarian Uprising, 1956 Berlin Crises, (Berlin Wall) Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 Czechoslovakian Crisis, 1968