Main Battles and Events of World War II

Hitler, Mussolini and the Build-Up to World War II

-In both Italy and Germany, Fascist states form in the years after WWI

-In Italy, Mussolini (Il Duce) and his Blackshirts take over the government after their March on Rome (Oct. 1922)

-In Germany, the Weimar Republic collapses by 1933 and the conservative President Paul Von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler chancellor

-In 1934, after Von Hindenburg dies, Hitler and his Brownshirts (S.A.) take over the country

-The Nazis begin to imprison their political opponents and start on a secret program to build up the military

-On The Night of the Long Knives (1934), Hitler purges his party of some of his political rivals (Ernst Roehm, e.g.)

-In 1938, in the so-called Anschluss, Hitler annexes Austria

-Hitler also embarks on a program to attack the Jews; in the Nuremberg Laws(1935), many Jews are restricted in terms of occupations, etc.; some are even stripped of their citizenship; on Kristallnacht(9-10 Nov.1938), many synagogues and Jewish businesses are vandalized

German expansionism and Appeasement

-In foreign affairs, Hitler insists that Czechoslovakia turn over to Germany the Sudentenland, a strategically important area comprised largely of ethnic Germans

-Should Great Britain and France refuse and risk going to war with Germany to help defend Czechoslovakia, or should they give in and try to appease the aggressor (Germany)?

Chamberlain and Hitler at Munich (1938)-In Sept. 1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier meet with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich to discuss the Sudentland’s fate

-In the end, Great Britain and France agree to Germany’s demands

-The Sudentenland is to be handed over to Germany without a shot being fired

-Hitler is ecstatic; the Czechs are outraged; but Great Britain and France are hopeful that this territorial concession will appease Germany and that Hitler will fulfill his promise to seek no more territory; tragically, events will prove them wrong

-In early 1939, the German army seizes the rest of Czechoslovakia

The Invasion of Poland-In August 1939, Hitler and Joseph Stalin, the Communist leader of Russia, negotiate a treaty called the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

-In the public part of this treaty, Germany and the Soviet Union agree not to attack each other; secretly, they also agree to divide Poland up among themselves

-On Sept. 1, 1939, the German army and air force attack Poland from the west in a blitzkrieg; simultaneously, the Soviet army attacks Poland from the East

-In short order, France and Great Britain, allied with Poland via treaty, declare war on Germany

-World War II has begun

The Fall of France (1940)

-Poland falls to the Germans and Russians within a month; attention now turns to the probability of a German attack on France; for several months, during the so-called Phony War, neither side attacks the other

-Then, on 10 May 1940, Germany attacks France through Belgium (thereby going around France’s heavily-defended Maginot Line); by 25 June, France is defeated and British troops are forced to flee via Dunkirk

-Northern France is occupied by the victorious German forces; Southern France (the so-called Free Zone) is soon controlled by French forces loyal to the ultra-conservative Field Marshall Petain; they cooperate with the Germans and switch their capital to Vichy, formerly just a resort town

-Great Britain, led by Winston Churchill, is now alone; the U.S. remains officially neutral even if its sympathies are with the British

Fall of France (continued)

-The Germans occupy France for four years

-During this time, a resistance movement develops

-Some French, however, for political and other reasons, choose to cooperate with the Germans; they are called collaborators

-General De Gaulle, in exile in Great Britain, organizes Free French forces under his leadership

Hitler in front of the Tour Eiffel (in Paris)

Battle of Britain (1940)-In preparation for an invasion of Great Britain, Hitler orders an air assault on Great Britain

-The attack devastates Great Britain but ultimately the British fend off the Luftwaffe

-Hitler is forced to call off his plans to invade Great Britain

Battle of Britain(continued)

-The Victory of the Royal Air Force (or RAF), although costly in terms of men and aircraft, inspires the British people

Operation Barbarossa: Invasion of the Soviet Union (1941)

-Hitler next turns his attention to the East

-In keeping with his low opinion of the Slavs, he decides to break his treaty with Stalin and to attack Russia in June 1941

-At first, his forces are very successful

-Much Soviet territory is conquered by the Wehrmacht(or German army)

-However, by the time winter sets in, Hitler’s forces are stalled at Leningrad in the north of Russia and at Stalingrad in the south

-Eventually, many people, Soviet and German, will lose their lives in these battles before the Wehrmacht is finally defeated

Attack on Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941)

-In the Pacific, the Japanese decide upon a risky strategy towards the United States

-After defeating British, French and Dutch forces in the region, the Japanese launch a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii

-This surprise attack is militarily successful but fails to achieve the knockout blow that Japanese military planners had hoped for

-The Japanese occupation of the Philippines is also successful in the short-term but eventually it too is not permanent

-Within the next two years, the U.S. will defeat the Japanese navy at Coral Sea (May 1942) and Midway (June 1942)

-Many historians consider the Battle of Midway the turning point in the war

-The U.S. fight a series of brutal land battles with the Japanese as they take back islands that had fallen under Japanese control

-Eventually U.S. marine, army and naval forces will bypass some fortified islands (in a strategy called island-hopping) as they approach the Japanese home territory

General Hideki Tojo-This Japanese leader, prime minister from 1941 to 1944, had ordered his men to stand fast and defend Japanese-held islands to the last man

-The brutal fighting on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, undertaken by Tojo’ssuccessors, reflects this policy

-Tojo also sanctioned atrocities where militarily expedient

-Eventually Tojo was forced to give up power

-After the war, Tojo was convicted as a war criminal and executed by the Allies (in 1948)

D-DAY (6 June 1944)-The Allies launch an amphibious landing in Normandy, France

-This attack is succesful

-In less than a year, the Allies take back France, Belgium, and Holland, and advance on Germany

-Other allied armies advance on Germany from Italy and from the East

Yalta Conference (February 1945)-”The Big Three” – Churchill (U.K.), Roosevelt (U.S.) and Stalin (U.S.S.R.) had met at Yalta (a resort in the U.S.S.R.) to discuss the fate of Europe and Asia in the event of an Allied victory, which now seemed likely

-Roosevelt (aka FDR) was physically very weak at this time and would die within two months; he was replaced as U.S. leader by Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s vice president

-After Nazi Germany’s defeat, Churchill, Truman and Stalin will meet at Potsdam

End of war in Europe-The Allies will converge on Germany

-Hitler orders no retreat but eventually he is surrounded in Berlin and decides to commit suicide on 30 April 1945

V-E Day (8 May 1945)

-The fighting in Berlin and other parts of Germany is very bloody but Nazi Germany is compelled to surrender

-Victory in Europe is declared on 8 May 1945 (V-E Day)

The Holocaust and Concentration Camps in Europe

-After the War, the full extent of Nazi atrocities becomes known

-A network of concentration camps, including death camps, is discovered

-In these camps and in other parts of Europe, approximately 6 million Jews were killed

-The systematic and purposeful execution of the Jews, a genocide, was part of Hitler’s plan; leading Nazis referred to it as The Final Solution

The Pacific Theater of WWII (including Island Hopping)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki-U.S. President Harry Truman issues Japan an ultimatum to surrender unconditionally

-The Japanese reject the ultimatum

-Truman orders the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima (on 6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (on 9 August 1945)

Atomic Bomb-The U.S. atomic bomb resulted from researchers involved in the top-secret Manhattan Project

-The Soviets, however, knew of the project from their network of spies (Klaus Fuchs, e.g.)

Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989)-After the two atomic bombs fell, the emperor, revered by the Japanese as divine, ordered his countrymen to lay down their arms and surrender

-General Douglas MacArthurtook over in Japan as commander of U.S. occupying forces

Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946)

-German leaders accused of war crimes were put on trial after the war

-Many were found guilty and sentenced either to death (Joachim von Ribbentrop, e.g.) or to long prison terms (Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer, e.g.)

-Similar war crimes trials were conducted in Tokyo after the war