War in Europe and Africa

Section 4: pages 770-776

Ms. Taylor

Famous Generals of the War

Erwin Rommel

Dwight D. Eisenhower

George Patton

General Erwin Rommel

• German general.• Leader of the AXIS

forces in North Africa.• He was known as

“Desert Fox” because of his success in desert warfare.

• He was defeated at the famous battle:Battle of El Alamein

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

• American general.• Leader of ALLIED forces

in Europe.• Directed the D-Day

invasion and helped defeat the AXIS powers in Europe and North Africa.

• “We will accept nothing less than total victory.”

- General Eisenhower

General George Patton

• American general.• Leader of the ALLIED

forces in North Africa.• Helped defeat the

Germans at the Battle of El Alamein.

• Pushed the Axis powers out of North Africa in 1943.

• Along with General Eisenhower, Patton also helped defeat the AXIS powers in Europe.

Famous World War II Battles

Siege at Leningrad

Battle of Stalingrad

D-Day invasion

Battle of the Bulge

Siege at Leningrad

• Siege – military blockade.• By September 1941, the Germans had invaded

the Soviet Union and began a siege around the city of Leningrad that lasted 900 days.

• The Soviet citizens of Leningrad nearly starved to death. Many resorted to eating horses, cats, and dogs to stay alive. Thousands died.

• The siege was eventually broken by 1944. The city of Leningrad never fell to the Germans.

Battle of Stalingrad

• In the spring of 1942, the Germans launched their final attack on the Soviets.

• Why did they want to invade Stalingrad?• Stalingrad is a major city in the Soviet Union with very oil-rich

lands.• At first, the Germans looked successful, but then the Soviet

Red Army surrounded the city and cut off German supply lines. • The German army was starving and very cold. They were

forced to leave the city of Stalingrad.• The Germans were pushed back hundreds of miles and

eventually pushed out of the Soviet Union. • The German defeat at Stalingrad marked a major turning point

in the war.

Time to defeat the Germans

• Military Strategy: • 1) The Soviet Red Army would attack

Germany from the East.• 2) The rest of the Allied forces – Great

Britain and the United States – would attack Germany from the West.

-The Axis powers would feel closed in. • 3) The D-Day invasion was the surprise

Allied invasion coming from the West.

D-Day Invasion

• On June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy off the coast of France. (Operation Overlord)

• The Germans were waiting there with open fire.• Many Allied soldiers died before they could even get off the boats and on to the beach.• The D-Day invasion involved land, sea, and air combat.• More than one million Allied troops were involved in the invasion.• The Allied troops were too much for the Germans to handle.• By August 25, the Allied troops had defeated the Germans and pushed their way into Paris

to liberate the French from Nazi rule.

Battle of the Bulge

• After the D-Day invasion, it looked as though the Germans were defeated.

• However, they gave it one last try in the Battle of the Bulge.

• On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched a surprise attack along a 50-mile front in Belgium.

• The Germans were able to cause a “bulge” in the Allied front lines.

• However, the Allies were able to push the Germans back.

• 100,000 troops died in this battle• Marked the end of the war for the Germans and the

Axis Powers.

Victory in Europe

• By 1945, the German defenses had begun to collapse. On April 30, Adolf Hitler commited suicide. Germany surrendered soon after.

• May 8, 1945 became known as V-E Day.

• The War in EUROPE was over – now to the Pacific to defeat Japan.

FDR dies

• President Roosevelt never lived to see the Allied victory in Europe.

• On April 12, 1945, FDR died of a massive stroke in Warm Springs, Ga.

• Harry Truman, the Vice-President, was quickly sworn in as President of the United States.

• It would be Truman’s responsibility to fight the Japanese and finish the war in the Pacific.

THE HOLOCAUST

“the final solution of the Jewish question”

Hitler’s “final solution”

• After the war in Europe was over, the Allied troops began discovering all the Nazi concentration camps.

• Important definitions:

genocide – wiping out an entire group of people.

Holocaust – the murder of 6 million Jews during WWII.

It wasn’t just the Jews…

• Genocide was Hitler’s “Final Solution” to destroy the Jews, and millions others, in Europe.

• During the Holocaust, the Nazis also murdered: - Soviet prisoners of war - gypsies - homosexuals - the mentally retarded - handicapped people - any Polish or even Germans that helped Jews

The Ghettos

Deportation – on cattle trains

Arrival at the Concentration Camp

Sorting would take place after the prisoners arrived in the camp

If you were sent to the left…(mostly older women, children, infants, and the elderly)

If you were sent to the right…(mostly young men and women – teenagers, age 20’s- strong men, fit men)

Concentration Camps

• Over 15,000 concentration camps were created by the Nazis during WWII – this number does not include the ghettos.

• Largest and most famous camps:

- Auschwitz-Birkenau

- Mauthausen

- Dachau

- Treblinka

Did some of them survive?

YES

In Remembrance

www.ushmm.org/

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is located in

Washington, D.C.