Total War: WWII

Warm-Up: Why do you think TIME magazine said, “The political history of the 20 th century can be written as the biographies of six men: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.” In your notebook give the reasons you think TIME said this. I am NOT telling you how long it should be, but write what you know. Each have been covered in this class. You should KNOW something for each.

Objective: Students will be able to evaluate the use of Total War during WWII through the use of a power point showing the definition as well as different points of Total War. During the ppt. students will write comments about each slide within their peer group. At the end of the day, a writing assignment answering the key question will be assigned.

KEY QUESTIONS: How did nations cooperate to end the war? How did the citizens cooperate to bring about a successful end to the war? Write a paper judging how citizens cooperated to bring a successful end to the war. Your paper should reference what you have learned from the power point. You need a topic sentence, thesis, commentary, concluding sentence. (written in 3 rd person.)

Total war has 2 components. Firstly, the entire population is mobilized as part of a nation's war effort - those that don't fight work in the factories making war materiel or on the land, those that are too old or to young grow extra food in their gardens or collect scrap metal or do jobs on the Home Front. Secondly, a nation's war effort targets the entire enemy population (as they are all contributing to the enemy war effort), by all means available or possible. Carpet bombing of enemy cities to kill civilians is a good example of one aspect of Total War. This was carried out by both sides in WW2. Submarine attacks on unarmed merchant ships, again carried out by both sides, is another.

FF FD Roosevelt declares war on Japan December 8, 1941

World War II was a total war because it was not simply limited to the battlefield or even the troops. It was a total war because it involved everyone. Innocent civilians died in air raids and everyone was joining in the war effort. Taking the example of the firebombing of Dresden during the night of February 13-14, 1945, over 25,000 people were killed, destroying the splendor of the city and displacing hundreds of thousands of residents. Initial bombing raids on London targeted armament factories and other strategically sensitive sites, most of which were in the poorer East End. However, eventually, even Buckingham Palace was bombed. This placed the poor working-class of the East End and Princess Elizabeth both subject to the forces of war. As I mentioned earlier, World War II was a total war because it targeted everyone, not just troops and people on the battlefield. Living in a certain country defined a person as an enemy.

Rosie The Riveter

Women! American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during World War II, as widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. "Rosie the Riveter," star of a government campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for the munitions industry, became perhaps the most iconic image of working women during the war.

Men were off fighting women picked up the slack!

Sugar Rationing-our boys need it more!

Was It You?

The Tuskegee airmen were the first black servicemen to serve as military aviators in the U.S. armed forces, flying with distinction during World War II. Though subject to racial discrimination both at home and abroad, the 996 pilots and more than 15,000 ground personnel who served with the all-black units would be credited with some 15,500 combat sorties and earn over 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses for their achievements. The highly publicized successes of the Tuskegee Airmen helped pave the way for the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces under President Harry Truman in 1948.

Propaganda WWII OOg

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