CH 26
Clouds of War
The Rise of Hitler
• Adolf Hitler was not a German – He was Austrian
• High school dropout
• Wanted to be an artist but failed the art school
entrance exam twice
• Joined the German Army during WWI
• Was gassed and wounded during the war
• After WWI, he began to organize his own political
party
Adolf Hitler
• Hitler was driven by Anti-Semitism –
Hatred of Jews, who he blamed for
Germany’s defeat in WWI
• Scapegoating – blaming a country’s
problems on a particular group
• 1923 – Hitler was sent to prison after
failing in an attempted takeover of the
southern German state of Bavaria
• While in prison, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf
(My Struggle)
• In the book, Hitler declared Germans
were the “Master Race”
• He said democracy was a fraud and the
only good gov’t was dictatorship
• “Third Reich” – German empire that
was to last 1,000 years
• People began
joining Hitler’s
National Socialist
(Nazi) Party that
resented the
Versailles Treaty
after WWI and
reparations
• Germany’s democratic gov’t. was very
weak after WWI
• 12 political parties
• Its economy was in shambles
• Hitler blames the Jews for everything
• He would speak for hours with
messages of hate and glory
• When Hitler took power, he set up the
German Christian Church
• He set up concentration camps – sent
Jews, Catholics, anti-Nazi Protestants
• These camps had gas chambers
• Nazis extracted gold fillings from teeth
and used human ashes to fertilize farms
Auschwitz
“Work makes one free”
Other Countries at this time
• Communist Russia (USSR) under Josef
Stalin also had forced labor camps in Siberia
• Italy, under Benito Mussolini, was planning to
create a new Roman Empire
• Japan was also looking to expand
• Italy, Russia, and Japan were all allies of the
U.S. in WWI – Along with Germany, they
were building armies and military equipment
and weapons
Spain
• Hitler and Mussolini sent men and
weapons to Spain to assist Fascist
General Francisco Franco’s defeat of
the Spanish gov’t. that was supported
by the U.S., England, France, and
Russia
The Good Neighbor Policy
• 1933 – FDR pledged that the U.S.
would be “the good neighbor” in world
affairs.
• This became the name for FDR’s Latin
American policy
• The U.S. would not try to run their
governments
Japanese-American Relations
• 1931 – Japan attacked Manchuria and was
condemned by the League of Nations
• Japan withdrew from the League and attacked China
in 1937
• The countries of Western Europe spoke out against
this, but did not want to start a war with the Japanese
• Dec. 12, 1937 – Japanese sunk the U.S. gunboat
Panay on the Yangtze River in China (2 American
lives lost). Japan apologized and paid us $2 million
Hitler on the March
• Hitler wanted to bring the people of
“German blood” into the “Third Reich”
• March 1938 – Germany invaded Austria
and the Sudetenland on the CzechGerman border
• European nations did nothing
Hitler on the March
(continued)
• March 15, 1939 – Hitler seized the rest
of Czechoslovakia
• Great Britain then pledged aid to Poland
in case its independence was
threatened
• April 1939 – Mussolini invaded Albania
• Britain pledged aid to Greece and
Romania
Hitler and Mussolini
War Comes To Europe
• 1939 – Nonaggression Pact was signed
between Hitler and Stalin
• The secret terms gave Germany
western Poland
• The Soviet Union was free to take
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland,
eastern Poland, and part of Romania
• Hitler thought this would protect
Germany from war
War Comes to Europe
(continued)
• Summer 1939 – Hitler demanded that Poland return
areas containing people of “German blood”
• Sept. 1, 1939 – Hitler invaded Poland
• Sept. 3, 1939 – Britain and France declared war on
Germany
• Sept. 17, 1939 – USSR entered Poland
• Poland was divided between Germany and the
USSR
• “Phony War” – name given to the 6 months between
Germany’s invasion of Poland and the next attack
Billy Mitchell & Air Power
1920’s
• Billy Mitchell saw a greater use in airplanes in
warfare.
• He felt that air power could be used against any war
ships, cities, industrial centers, and supply centers.
• He thought that whichever side had superiority in the
air would be victorious
• His beliefs and tests caused budgets to be redrawn
for further air development and forced the Navy to
look more closely at naval airpower
France
• The British were moving forces to
France
• The French sat behind their Maginot
Line – Elaborate defense constructed
by France on its border with Germany.
350 mile line of tunnels, concrete forts,
and anti-tank fields
Blitzkrieg
• April 1940- “Lightning war”
• The Blitzkrieg attack depended on air
power, an attack that came, like lightning
from the sky
• Germany invaded Denmark, Norway,
Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg
• Hitler bypassed the Maginot Line into
France
• June 14, 1940 – Nazis marched into Paris
• France surrendered by end of June
Hitler in Paris
U.S. Prepares for war
• 1940 – FDR announced a plan to build
50,000 planes every year until the Nazis
were defeated
• He also wanted to create a two-ocean
navy
• With France out of the war, FDR knew
that Britain needed help from the U.S.
or they too might be defeated
Battle of Britain
• Hitler sent bombers to London and other British cities
during the Summer and Fall of 1940
• Hitler wanted to defeat the British before the U.S.
could get involved
• A very big part of the Battle of Britain and the rest of
WWII was that the British figured out how to read
Germany’s secret coded messages
• The British called these messages “ULTRA” for Ultra
Secret
• The British used ULTRA and radar so they knew
when the German bombers were coming and where
they were headed so the Royal Air Force (RAF)
could be sent to stop them
Election of 1940
• As the Battle of Britain went on, the U.S. had a
presidential election
• Democrat – FDR (running for 3rd term)
• Republican – Wendell Willkie
• Winner – FDR (only Pres. Elected to 3rd term)
• After the election, FDR had some important
decisions to make
U.S. Involvement
• The British ran out of money and were
running out of ships
• FDR’s plan – “Lend-Lease” – U.S. would lend
or lease whatever war supplies we could
make to Britain
• Late 1941 – FDR had a secret meeting with
Winston Churchill and the two issued the
Atlantic Charter
– The Atlantic Charter was an up to date
version of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen
Points
USSR
• June 22, 1941 – Hitler invaded USSR
(Napoleon?)
• During the Winter, USSR was very cold
and the Germans had trouble using
their weapons and equipment because
the oil froze
The Atlantic
• The U.S. began convoying merchant ships in
the Atlantic Ocean
• Sept. 4, 1941 – U.S. destroyer Greer was
attacked by a German U-Boat
• FDR gave orders to shoot German subs on
sight
• Oct., 1941 – More U.S. destroyers were
attacked
• The U.S. was in an undeclared war in the
Atlantic
Trouble in the Pacific
• 1940 – Japan joined Germany and Italy
• Japan wanted to dominate the Far East
• Japan cut off the Burma Road so China could not
receive aid
• U.S. placed a trade embargo on Japan
• Japan wanted the U.S. to cut off aid to China
• U.S. demanded that Japan get out of China
• The U.S. broke Japan’s codes
• We called the intelligence “Magic”
• “Magic” – Name used for information
obtained by the U.S. after breaking
Japanese codes
• We knew when the Japanese would
attack, but not where
• Nov. 26, 1941 – Japanese aircraft
carriers left for Pearl Harbor in Hawaii
Attack on Pearl Harbor
• Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941
• A fleet of 191 Japanese warplanes attacked our base
at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii
• One hour later, a second fleet of 170 attacked
• This was the greatest military disaster in U.S. history
• 150 American warplanes were destroyed on the
ground
• 8 battleships, 3 destroyers, and 3 cruisers were also
destroyed
• More than 70 civilians and 2,300
servicemen were killed
• FDR called Dec. 7, 1941 a “Date which
will live in Infamy”
• U.S. declared war on Japan
• Dec. 11 – Germany and Italy declared
war on the U.S.
Pearl Harbor
October 1941
Rescuing survivors near USS
West Virginia
USS Arizona
USS Arizona Memorial
USS Shaw
USS Nevada