Semester 2 Week 2

 Neither Petain nor Hitler anticipated the bravery of the British people or the spirit of their leader, Winston Churchill, who had replaced Neville Chamberlain as PM  Hitler fully expected GB to negotiate peace after France surrendered  For Churchill peace was not an option  When Hitler realized that GB would not surrender, he ordered his commanders to prepare to invade

 6/1940, the German air force, called the Luftwaffe, began to attack British shipping in the English Channel  in mid-August, the Luftwaffe launched an all-out air battle to destroy the British Royal Air Force (RAF)  8/23, German bombers accidentally bombed London  Berlin was bombed the following night  1 st time in WWII, bombs fell on the German capital  Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to stop its attacks on British military targets & to concentrate on bombing London  Hitler’s goal now was to terrorize GB into surrendering

 the RAF was greatly outnumbered, GB had one major advantage; the development of radar  Using radar stations placed along their coast, GB were able to detect incoming German aircraft & direct British fighters to intercept them  the British fighter inflicted more losses on the Germans than they suffered  10/12/1940, Hitler cancelled the invasion of GB

 9/1941, German U-boat fired on the U.S. destroyer Greer, which was radioing the U-boat’s position to GB  FDR promptly responded by ordering U.S. ships to follow a “shoot-on-sight” policy toward German U- boats  The Germans escalated hostilities the following month, targeting 2 U.S. destroyers  One of them, the Reuben James, broke in two after being torpedoed  sank into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, where 115 sailors died

 After calling off the invasion of Britain, Hitler returned to his original goal of carving out lebensraum for Germany in E’rn Europe  6/1941, in violation of the Nazi-Soviet pact, Hitler launched a massive invasion of the USSR  Churchill detested communism & considered Stalin a harsh dictator, he vowed that any person or state “who fights against Nazism will have our aid” ;FDR supported this policy

 Once the U.S. entered the war, Joseph Stalin - the leader of the Soviet Union; urged FDR to open a second front in Europe  If GB & U.S. opened a 2nd front by attacking Germany from the west, it would take pressure off the USSR  Churchill did not believe the U.S. & GB were ready to launch a full-scale invasion of Europe  Churchill wanted to attack edges of the German empire, FDR agreed  7/1942, FDR & Churchill ordered the invasion of Morocco & Algeria (two French territories indirectly under German control)

 Hitler was convinced that the only way to defeat the USSR was to destroy its economy  5/1942, he ordered his army to capture strategic oil fields, industries & farmlands in S’rn Russia & Ukraine  key to the attack was the city of Stalingrad  If the German army captured Stalingrad, the Soviets would be cut off from the resources they needed to stay in the war

 9/1942, German troops entered Stalingrad, Stalin ordered his troops to hold the city at all cost; retreat was forbidden  Germans were forced to fight from house to house, losing thousands of soldiers in the process.  11/23, Soviet reinforcements arrived & surrounded Stalingrad, trapping almost 250,000 German troops.  When the battle ended,91,000 Germans had surrendered; only 5,000 survived the Soviet prison camps & returned home after the war  Battle of Stalingrad was a major turning point in the war & put the Germans on the defensive

 TAKE OUT A SEPARATE SHEET OF PAPER  NUMBER 1-5

1. He replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister in Great Britain? 2. What was Hitler’s goal for Great Britain? 3. He was leader of the Soviet Union? 4. the Soviets would be cut off from the resources they needed to stay in the war if this place was captured ? 5. How many German POWs survived in the USSR?