2. Before we even begin, let’s get the teams straight…. Major AXIS Powers Germany Italy Japan Major ALLIED Powers United States Soviet Union (eventually) Great Britain

3. Section 1: Paths to War The BIG Idea: Competition Among Countries The ambitions of Japan and Germany paved the way for the outbreak of World War II. Focus Question: How did German and Japanese actions lead to World War II?

4. WW2 in Europe had its beginnings in the ideas of Adolf Hitler. –Germans belonged to a superior Aryan race. –Germany should build a great civilization. –A great civilization needs more land to support a large population. They would go East and fight the Soviet Union for land. –Slavic people would be used as slave labor to build the Third Reich.

5. Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by creating a new air force and expanding Germany’s army. France, Great Britain, and Italy condemned these actions. Treaty of Versailles Germany has to take full responsibility for the war. Germany has to pay Allied governments for war damages. Germany has to reduce its army size. The Rhine River must become a demilitarized zone.

6. Definitions Demilitarized—elimination or prohibition of weapons, fortifications, and other military installations. Appeasement—satisfying reasonable demands of dissatisfied powers in an effort to maintain peace and stability.

7. Hitler’s first aggressive move occurred when he invaded a demilitarized zone in Germany known as the Rhineland. Great Britain adopted a policy of appeasement and did not take military action against Germany.

8. Hitler looked for allies with common political and economic interests, which he found in Benito Mussolini of Italy. Mussolini and Hitler created the Rome-Berlin Axis, a pact recognizing their shared political and economic goals. By November of 1936, Hitler formed an anti-communist alliance with Japan known as the Anti- Comintern Pact.

9. Hitler annexed his homeland of Austria on March 13, 1938. Hitler announced, in 1938, that he would wage a world war if he was denied occupation of Sudetenland, an area in northwestern Czechoslovakia. France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany all agreed to Hitler’s plan at the Munich Conference, abandoning the Czechs. Hitler continued to advance into Czechoslovakia and eventually demanded the Polish Port of Danzig. Great Britain and France soon realized they would need help from Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union to contain Nazi aggression.

10. To avoid fighting a war on two fronts and to gain access into Poland, Hitler signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact on August 23, 1939, with Joseph Stalin. On September 1, 1939, German forces invaded Poland, causing Britain and France to declare war on Germany two days later.

11. The need for natural resources fueled the Japanese plan to seize other countries. The Japanese cleverly devised a ruse to justify conquering Manchuria, a country containing 30 million Chinese and vast natural resources. –On September 18, 1931, Japanese troops dressed as Chinese and blew up a portion of a Japanese-owned railway. Japan then blames the Chinese for the incident. –Against worldwide protest, Japan “retaliated” by seizing and renaming Manchuria as Manchukuo.

13. Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party, was embattled in a civil war against the Chinese Communist Party and did not want to go to war with Japan. Chiang and the Communists put their differences aside and united against the Japanese for the entire length of the war.

14. Japan wanted a New Order in East Asia, which would comprise Japan, China, and Manchuria, and act as a model for other developing nations. Japan did not want to fight the European colonial powers or the United States, but by 1940, they began to demand rights to French Indochina. The United States objected and warned that it would retaliate with economic sanctions including refusing to import oil and scrap iron. Focus Question: How did German and Japanese actions lead to World War II?

15. Section 2: The Course of World War 2 The BIG Idea: Devastation of War Allied perseverance, effective military operations, and Axis miscalculations brought the devastation of World War II to an end. Focus Question: How did the entrance of the United States into the war change its course?

16. Germany’s use of blitzkrieg, or “lightning war,” to attack Poland stunned Europe with the speed and efficiency of the attack. –Blitzkrieg or “lightening war”—a form of attack that used tank divisions supported by air attacks In September 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland.

17. By spring 1940, Hitler used blitzkrieg tactics to attack Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

18. On June 22, 1940, the French signed an armistice allowing German armies to occupy three-fifths of France. –Armistice—a truce or ceasefire. U.S. citizens did not want to get involved in the war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt adopted a policy of isolationism, but denounced Germany’s attacks. A series of neutrality acts prevented the United States from becoming involved.

19. In August of 1940, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, launched a major offensive on Great Britain. The British air force inflicted enough damage on Luftwaffe bombers to persuade Hitler to postpone the invasion of Great Britain.

20. Hitler believed that Britain would not remain in the war without the support of the Soviet Union. Hitler confidently invaded the Soviet Union, hoping to obtain full occupation by winter. The German forces quickly captured two million Russian soldiers and swept through Ukraine. An early winter turned the tide of German successes; German troops did not have adequate winter supplies and were forced to halt their advances. The Soviet forces launched a counterattack in December of 1941.

21. On December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, hoping to destroy the Pacific fleet and any attempt of U.S. involvement. Japan quickly acquired territory throughout Southeast Asia, creating the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan had hoped that their lightening strike in the Pacific would destroy the U.S. fleets and that the U.S. would have to accept the Japanese domination of the Pacific. With overwhelming public support, the United States joined forces with European nations and Nationalist China to battle Japan. Four days later, Hitler declared war on the United States, creating a global war.

24. The three major Allied forces agreed to fight until the Axis Powers surrendered unconditionally. Hitler was still confident in 1942, as Japan continued to advance in the Pacific, and German forces fought in the Soviet Union and North Africa. In May of 1943, the tide of the war turned when a British and American coalition forced German and Italian troops to surrender in French North Africa. By the spring of 1943, Hitler realized that the battle over Stalingrad would end in a German defeat.

25. The turning point of the war in Asia came when Japanese forces were defeated at the Battle of Midway Island when U.S. planes destroyed four attacking Japanese aircraft carriers. With the help of General Douglas MacArthur, the U.S. Army, Marine, and Navy forces freed the Japanese- held islands of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

26. The Allies turned the tide of the war with the surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia on May 13, 1943. In September, the Allies took Sicily (an island off the coast of Italy), an area Winston Churchill referred to as the “soft underbelly” of Europe. The Allied forces planned a strategic invasion of France from Great Britain known as D-Day.

27. Allied Forces, under U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, landed on the Normandy beaches in history’s greatest naval invasion on June 6, 1944. Allied troops liberated Paris by the end of August 1944.

30. With the imminent defeat of Germany and the partisan murder of Mussolini, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Soviet forces advanced through Eastern Europe until Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945, after President Harry S. Truman authorized the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II was finally over, with casualty estimates totaling 60 million.

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