World War II Georgia Studies

Start of the War World War II resulted from two regional conflicts between Europe and East Asia. During the 1930’s, Germany and Japan wanted to expand their borders, but in order to expand, they had to conquer other countries. With each country they invaded and occupied, the area of conflict expanded.

Each country either defended their own borders, or acted in defense of an ally. Eventually, the two sides of the war were the Allied Powers (Britain, France the Soviet Union and the United States) and the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan.) World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945.

Germany’s Third Reich Adolf Hitler created the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the Nazi Party) and brought it to power in 1933. In 1936, Germany formed alliances with Japan and Italy (each country wanted more resources.)

In 1938, Germany took over Austria to create what Hitler called “Greater Germany.” Next, Germany took over Czechoslovakia. Hitler then wanted Poland to become the next part of the German empire (the Third Reich.) At this point, Great Britain and France declared they would defend Poland’s independence.

France nor Great Britain could move their troops fast enough to Poland in order to stop Germany's invasion. The British informed Germany that if it didn’t stop it’s attack on Poland, that it would declare war. Germany disregarded Great Britain’s warning, and the British declared war. In less than a year, Germany had conquered almost all of Europe.

Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France were all defeated. The German armies overrunning country after country was known as a blitzkrieg, a German word meaning “lightning war.” The Germans used fast-moving tanks and other motorized equipment that made it easy for them to complete their blitzkrieg attack on the European continent.

The Holocaust At first, Hitler began to discriminate against German Jews, and Jewish businesses were boycotted and Jews were fired. Jewish children were forbidden to go to schools. The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s systematic killing of Jews, Gypsies, communists, intellectuals, and political dissenters.

Kristallnacht Known as “Night of Broken Glass.” On the evening of November 9, 1938, anti-Jewish rioters began looting, burning, and destroying Jewish synagogues, businesses and homes. Nazi police arrested more than 30,000 Jewish men and sent them to concentration camps (Nazi prison camps.) Hitler’s ultimate goal was to eliminate all Jewish and minority groups in Germany.

At the same time of the tragedies in Europe, Jewish communities in the U.S faced discrimination in their own homes. The U.S. was not engaged in the war, but local communities organized support efforts, Atlanta’s Jewish social service agencies raised money to combat discrimination abroad. (Which was successful) The Holocaust ended in 1945, when the allied powers won the war and freed the people held captive in the concentration camps.

Japan Builds an Empire in the East Japan invaded China in 1937, for the second time during the decade. Japan’s plan was to capture as much of China as it could, and control Southeast Asia’s resources. When Germany defeated France, Japan was successful in gaining control of the French colonies in SE Asia. The U.S. opposed Japan’s aggression. (It threatened to cut off Japan’s oil supplies.)

U.S. Involvement The U.S. followed a policy of isolationism in which it kept itself politically and militarily apart from the rest of the world. (*Great Depression*) President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned with the effect with the fighting in Asia and Europe could have on the U.S. if it continued to grow. In 1940, he announced that the U.S. would sell weapons to its allies- Great Britain and France.

As the war grew, the U.S.’s European allies found it hard to pay for the weapons they needed. In 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which gave Roosevelt the right to send weapons to allies who were fighting a common enemy, but couldn’t pay. Diplomacy between the U.S. and Japan was failing, and Japan attacked the U.S. Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

The attack on Pearl Harbor led to the U.S entrance into WW II. To end the conflict the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. These events motivated Japan to surrender and the Allies won the war.

Georgia During the War Before World War II, GA was mostly a rural state. Most people worked on farms and were having a hard time recovering from the Great Depression. GA played a significant role in the in the war effort, and three men in particular helped shape GA’s experience during the war……. (see next slides.)

Carl Vinson: known as the “Father of the Two Ocean Navy” Was a congressman who helped build the U.S. navy in the years leading up to WW II. From 1934 until 1941, Vinson wrote many bills that expanded the U.S. Navy. This expansion enabled the U.S. to ship supplies to Allies during the Lend-Lease Act

Richard B. Russell, Jr. Senator who served on the Senate Naval Affairs Committee. He worked to bring wartime opportunities to GA. He also helped to bring over a dozen military bases to GA, including the largest infantry in the United States (Fort Benning). Senator Russell traveled to both the Pacific region and Europe during the war, and became an expert in military strategy.

Franklin D. Roosevelt By the beginning of WW II, Roosevelt had a close relationship with Georgia. The Bell Aircraft plant in Marietta was built in honor of his close relationship with the state. The plant produced military planes and created jobs for over 28,000 Georgians. Once the war ended, plant employees used their skills to find other jobs instead of farming. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs while he was still president in 1945.

Bell Aircraft Bell Aircraft won a contract with the federal government to build the B-29 bomber in a new factory in Marietta. It was the largest aircraft assembly plant in the world. In 1943, the plant employed 1,200 people, and by 1945, 27,000 employees were assembling 60-65 planes a month. In the end, 668 planes had been built by the time the contract ended at the end of 1945. In 1950, the Air Force convinced Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to reopen the Marietta plant. The plant is still open and operated by the Lockheed Martin Corporation.