World War II - CISD · 2013-08-22 · 808 Hitler’s Vision n February 3, 1933, Adolf Hitler met secretly with Germany’s leading generals. He had been appointed chancellor of Germany

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World War II1939–1945

Key EventsAs you read this chapter, look for the key events in the history of World War II.

• Adolf Hitler’s philosophy of Aryan superiority led to World War II in Europe and wasalso the source of the Holocaust.

• Two separate and opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis Powers, waged a world-wide war.

• World War II left lasting impressions on civilian populations.

The Impact TodayThe events that occurred during this time period still impact our lives today.

• By the end of World War II, the balance of power had shifted away from Europe.• Germany and Japan’s search for expanded “living space” is comparable to nations

fighting over borders today.• Atomic weapons pose a threat to all nations.

World History Video The Chapter 26 video, “The Holocaust,”illustrates the horrors of Hitler’s Final Solution.

1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940

1939Britain andFrance declarewar whenGermany invades Poland

1936Germany signsseparate pacts withItaly and Japan

1935Hitler violatesTreaty ofVersailles

1940France fallsto GermanyAdolf Hitler and Nazi

officers in Paris, 1940

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The Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington County, Virginia, depicts marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in February 1945.

HISTORY

Chapter OverviewVisit the Glencoe WorldHistory Web site at

and click on Chapter 26–ChapterOverview to preview chapter information.

1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

1942Nazi death campsin full operation

1945Japanese surrenderafter United Statesdrops atomic bombson Japan

1946Churchill proclaimsexistence of “iron curtain” in Europe

1941United Statesenters war afterJapan attacksPearl Harbor

1945Germanysurrenders

Self-Portrait with a Jewish Identity Card byFelix Nussbaum, 1943

Soldiers and civilianscelebrate VE-Day, Paris

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

tx.wh.glencoe.com

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/worldhistory/gwh2003/tx/content.php4/759/1

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Hitler’s Visionn February 3, 1933, Adolf Hitler met secretly withGermany’s leading generals. He had been appointed

chancellor of Germany only four days before and was by no means assured that he would remain in office for long.Nevertheless, he spoke with confidence.

Hitler told the generals about his desire to remove the“cancer of democracy,” create “the highest authoritarian stateleadership,” and forge a new domestic unity. All Germanswould need to realize that “only a struggle can save us andthat everything else must be subordinated to this idea.” Theyouth especially would have to be trained and their willsstrengthened “to fight with all means.”

Hitler went on to say that Germany must rearm by institut-ing a military draft. Leaders must ensure that the men whowere going to be drafted were not “poisoned by pacifism,Marxism, or Bolshevism.” Once Germany had regained itsmilitary strength, how should this strength be used? Hitlerhad an answer. Because Germany’s living space was too smallfor its people, it must prepare for “the conquest of new livingspace in the east and its ruthless Germanization.”

Even before he had consolidated his power, Hitler had aclear vision of his goals. Reaching those goals meant anotherEuropean war. Although World War I has been described as atotal war, World War II was even more so. It was fought on ascale unprecedented in history and led to the most widespreadhuman-made destruction that the world had ever seen.

O Why It MattersWorld War II in Europe was clearlyHitler’s war. Other countries mayhave helped make the war possibleby not resisting Germany earlier,before it grew strong, but it wasNazi Germany’s actions that madethe war inevitable. Globally, WorldWar II was more than just Hitler’swar. It consisted of two conflicts.One arose, as mentioned above,from the ambitions of Germany inEurope. The other arose from theambitions of Japan in Asia. By 1941,with the involvement of the UnitedStates in both conflicts, these twoconflicts merged into one globalworld war.

History and You The decision by the United States to use atomicbombs against Japan led to the endof World War II. Find two contrast-ing views on the potential of nuclearwarfare today and analyze theperspectives.

After becoming dictator in 1933, Hitler often heldlarge rallies to inspire the loyalty of Germans.

Poster, c. 1938,which proclaims“One People, oneState, one Leader!”

Paths to WarGuide to Reading

Main Ideas• Adolf Hitler’s theory of Aryan racial

domination laid the foundation foraggressive expansion outside of Germany.

• The actions and ambitions of Japan and Germany paved the way for theoutbreak of World War II.

Key Termsdemilitarized, appeasement, sanction

People to IdentifyAdolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, JosephStalin, Chiang Kai-shek

Places to LocateRhineland, Sudetenland, Manchukuo

Preview Questions1. What agreement was reached at the

Munich Conference?2. Why did Germany believe it needed

more land?

Reading StrategyCategorizing Information Create a chartlisting examples of Japanese aggressionand German aggression prior to the out-break of World War II.

Japanese Aggression German Aggression

✦1931 ✦1932 ✦1933 ✦1934 ✦1935 ✦1936 ✦1937 ✦1938 ✦1939

1931Japanese forcesinvade Manchuria

1937Japanese seizeChinese capital

1939World War IIbegins

1938Hitler annexesAustria

1936Hitler and Mussolinicreate Rome-Berlin Axis

Preview of Events

CHAPTER 26 World War II 809

After the leaders of France and Great Britain gave in to Hitler’s demands on Czecho-slovakia in 1938, Winston Churchill spoke to the British House of Commons:

“I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but whichmust nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigateddefeat. . . . And I will say this, that I believe the Czechs, left to themselves and told theywere going to get no help from the Western Powers, would have been able to makebetter terms than they have got. . . . We are in the presence of a disaster of the firstmagnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France. . . . And do not suppose thatthis is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning.”

—Parliamentary Debates, London, 1938

Churchill believed that Hitler’s actions would lead to another war. He proved to be right.

The German Path to WarWorld War II in Europe had its beginnings in the ideas of Adolf Hitler. He

believed that Germans belonged to a so-called Aryan race that was superior to allother races and nationalities. Consequently, Hitler believed that Germany wascapable of building a great civilization. To be a great power, however, Germanyneeded more land to support a larger population.

Already in the 1920s, Hitler had indicated that a Nazi regime would find thisland to the east—in the Soviet Union. Germany therefore must prepare for warwith the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union had been conquered, according toHitler, its land would be resettled by German peasants. The Slavic peoples could

Voices from the Past

Winston Churchill

demilitarized Rhineland but would not act withoutBritish support.

Great Britain did not support the use of forceagainst Germany, however. The British governmentviewed the occupation of German territory by Ger-man troops as a reasonable action by a dissatisfiedpower. The London Times noted that the Germanswere only “going into their own back garden.”Great Britain thus began to practice a policy ofappeasement. This policy was based on the beliefthat if European states satisfied the reasonabledemands of dissatisfied powers, the dissatisfiedpowers would be content, and stability and peacewould be achieved in Europe.

New Alliances Meanwhile, Hitler gained newallies. Benito Mussolini had long dreamed of creat-ing a new Roman Empire in the Mediterranean, and,in October 1935, Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia.Angered by French and British opposition to hisinvasion, Mussolini welcomed Hitler’s support. Hebegan to draw closer to the German dictator.

In 1936, both Germany and Italy sent troops toSpain to help General Francisco Franco in the SpanishCivil War. In October 1936, Mussolini and Hitler madean agreement recognizing their common political andeconomic interests. One month later, Mussolini spokeof the new alliance between Italy and Germany, calledthe Rome-Berlin Axis. Also in November, Germanyand Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, promisinga common front against communism.

Union with Austria By 1937, Germany was oncemore a “world power,” as Hitler proclaimed. He wasconvinced that neither France nor Great Britainwould provide much opposition to his plans. In 1938,he decided to pursue one of his goals: Anschluss(ANSH•luhs), or union, with Austria, his native land.

By threatening Austria with invasion, Hitler forcedthe Austrian chancellor to put Austrian Nazis incharge of the government. The new governmentpromptly invited German troops to enter Austria and“help” in maintaining law and order. One day later,on March 13, 1938, after his triumphal return to hisnative land, Hitler annexed Austria to Germany.

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be used as slave labor to build the Third Reich, anAryan racial state that Hitler thought would domi-nate Europe for a thousand years.

The First Steps After World War I, the Treaty of Ver-sailles had limited Germany’s military power. Aschancellor, Hitler, posing as a man of peace, stressedthat Germany wished to revise the unfair provisionsof the treaty by peaceful means. Germany, he said,only wanted its rightful place among the Europeanstates.

On March 9, 1935, however, Hitler announced thecreation of a new air force. One week later, he begana military draft that would expand Germany’s armyfrom 100,000 to 550,000 troops. These steps were indirect violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

France, Great Britain, and Italy condemned Ger-many’s actions and warned against future aggressivesteps. In the midst of the Great Depression, however,these nations were distracted by their own internalproblems and did nothing further.

Hitler was convinced that the Western states hadno intention of using force to maintain the Treaty ofVersailles. Hence, on March 7, 1936, he sent Germantroops into the Rhineland. The Rhineland was partof Germany, but, according to the Treaty of Versailles,it was a demilitarized area. That is, Germany wasnot permitted to have weapons or fortifications there.France had the right to use force againstany violation of the

This 1937 Italian illustration depicts Hitlerand Mussolini. What ideology broughtHitler and Mussolini together?

History

Demands and Appeasement Hitler’s next objec-tive was the destruction of Czechoslovakia. On Sep-tember 15, 1938, he demanded that Germany begiven the Sudetenland, an area in northwesternCzechoslovakia that was inhabited largely by Ger-mans. He expressed his willingness to risk “worldwar” to achieve his objective.

At a hastily arranged conference in Munich,British, French, German, and Italian representativesdid not object to Hitler’s plans but instead reached anagreement that met virtually all of Hitler’s demands.German troops were allowed to occupy the Sudeten-land. The Czechs, abandoned by their Western allies,stood by helplessly.

The Munich Conference was the high point ofWestern appeasement of Hitler. When Neville Cham-berlain, the British prime minister, returned to Eng-land from Munich, he boasted that the agreementmeant “peace for our time.” Hitler had promisedChamberlain that he would make no more demands.Like many others, Chamberlain believed Hitler’spromises.

Great Britain and France React In fact, Hitler wasmore convinced than ever that the Western democra-cies were weak and would not fight. Increasingly,Hitler was sure that he could not make a mistake,and he had by no means been satisfied at Munich.

In March 1939, Hitler invaded and took control ofBohemia and Moravia in western Czechoslovakia. Inthe eastern part of the country, Slovakia became apuppet state controlled by Nazi Germany. On theevening of March 15, 1939, Hitler triumphantlydeclared in Prague that he would be known as thegreatest German of them all.

At last, the Western states reacted to the Nazithreat. Hitler’s aggression had made clear that hispromises were worthless. When Hitler began todemand the Polish port of Danzig, Great Britain sawthe danger and offered to protect Poland in the eventof war. At the same time, both France and Britainrealized that only the Soviet Union was powerfulenough to help contain Nazi aggression. They beganpolitical and military negotiations with JosephStalin, the Soviet dictator.

811CHAPTER 26 World War II

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German occupation, 1936German acquisitions,1938–1939Italy and possessions, 1935Italian acquisitions, 1935–1939

German and Italian Expansion, 1935–1939

Germany and Italyexpanded their territories in the years leading up toWorld War II.

1. Interpreting MapsApproximately howmuch territory did Germany annex between1936 and 1939? How didits size in 1939 compareto its size in 1935?

2. Applying GeographySkills Use the informa-tion on the map to cre-ate a chart comparingGerman and Italianexpansion. What reasonscan you give for themore aggressive of thetwo being the moreaggressive country?

Hitler and the Soviets Meanwhile, Hitler pressedon in the belief that the West would not fight overPoland. He now feared, however, that the West andthe Soviet Union might make an alliance. Such analliance could mean a two-front war for Germany. Toprevent this possibility, Hitler made his own agree-ment with Joseph Stalin.

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the SovietUnion signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Init, the two nations promised not to attack each other.To get the nonaggression pact, Hitler offered Stalincontrol of eastern Poland and the Baltic states.Because he expected to fight the Soviet Union any-way, it did not matter to Hitler what he promised—he was accustomed to breaking promises.

Hitler shocked the world when he announced thenonaggression pact. The treaty gave Hitler the free-dom to attack Poland. He told his generals, “NowPoland is in the position in which I wanted her. . . . Iam only afraid that at the last moment some swinewill submit to me a plan for mediation.”

Hitler need not have worried. On September 1,German forces invaded Poland. Two days later,Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Identifying Where did Hitler believehe could find more “living space” to expand Germany?

The Japanese Path to WarIn September 1931, Japanese soldiers had seized

Manchuria, which had natural resources Japanneeded. Japan used as an excuse a Chinese attack ona Japanese railway near the city of Mukden. In fact,the “Mukden incident” had been carried out byJapanese soldiers disguised as Chinese.

Worldwide protests against the Japanese led theLeague of Nations to send investigators to Manchuria.When the investigators issued a report condemningthe seizure, Japan withdrew from the league. Overthe next several years, Japan strengthened its hold onManchuria, which was renamed Manchukuo. Japannow began to expand into North China.

By the mid-1930s, militants connected to the gov-ernment and the armed forces had gained control ofJapanese politics. The United States refused to recog-nize the Japanese takeover of Manchuria but wasunwilling to threaten force.

War with China Chiang Kai-shek tried to avoid aconflict with Japan so that he could deal with whathe considered the greater threat from the Communists. When clashes between Chinese and

Reading Check

Japanese troops broke out, he sought to appeaseJapan by allowing it to govern areas in North China.

As Japan moved steadily southward, protestsagainst Japanese aggression grew stronger in Chi-nese cities. In December 1936, Chiang ended his mil-itary efforts against the Communists and formed anew united front against the Japanese. In July 1937,Chinese and Japanese forces clashed south of Beijingand hostilities spread.

Japan had not planned to declare war on China.However, the 1937 incident eventually turned into amajor conflict. The Japanese seized the Chinese capitalof Nanjing in December. Chiang Kai-shek refused tosurrender and moved his government upriver, first toHankou, then to Chongqing.

812 CHAPTER 26 World War II

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Japanese Expansion,1933–1941

Japanese territory, 1933Japanese acquisitionsto November 1941

Like Germany, Japan attempted to expand its territoriesprior to the beginning of the war.

1. Applying Geography Skills Pose and answer yourown question about the territories Japan did notacquire but wanted to acquire.

The New Asian Order Japanese military leadershad hoped to force Chiang to agree to join a NewOrder in East Asia, comprising Japan, Manchuria,and China. Japan would attempt to establish a newsystem of control in Asia with Japan guiding itsAsian neighbors to prosperity. After all, who couldbetter teach Asian societies how to modernize thanthe one Asian country that had already done it?

Part of Japan’s plan was to seize Soviet Siberia,with its rich resources. During the late 1930s, Japanbegan to cooperate with Nazi Germany. Japanassumed that the two countries would ultimatelylaunch a joint attack on the Soviet Union and divideSoviet resources between them.

When Germany signed the nonaggression pactwith the Soviets in August 1939, Japanese leadershad to rethink their goals. Japan did not have theresources to defeat the Soviet Union without help.Thus, the Japanese became interested in the rawmaterials that could be found in Southeast Asia tofuel its military machine.

A move southward, however, would risk war withthe European colonial powers and the United States.Japan’s attack on China in the summer of 1937 hadalready aroused strong criticism, especially in theUnited States. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1940,Japan demanded the right to exploit economicresources in French Indochina.

The United States objected. It warned Japan that itwould apply economic sanctions—restrictionsintended to enforce international law—unless Japan

withdrew from the area and returned to its borders of1931. Japan badly needed the oil and scrap iron it wasgetting from the United States. Should theseresources be cut off, Japan would have to find themelsewhere. Japan viewed the possibility of economicsanctions as a threat to its long-term objectives.

Japan was now caught in a dilemma. To guaranteeaccess to the raw materials it wanted in SoutheastAsia, Japan had to risk losing raw materials from theUnited States. After much debate, Japan decided tolaunch a surprise attack on U.S. and Europeancolonies in Southeast Asia.

Explaining Why did Japan want toestablish a New Order in East Asia?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Define appeasement, demilitarized,

sanction.

2. Identify Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini,Joseph Stalin, Chiang Kai-shek.

3. Locate Rhineland, Sudetenland,Manchukuo.

4. Explain why Japan felt the need to control other nations. Also explain thedilemma facing Japan as it sought toacquire access to needed resources.

5. List the reasons why Hitler’s pact withStalin was a key factor in forcing Britainand France to declare war on Germany.

Critical Thinking6. Explain In what sense was World

War II a product of World War I?

7. Sequencing Information Create achart like the one below listing inchronological order the agreementsthat emboldened Hitler in his aggres-sive expansion policies.

Analyzing Visuals8. Analyze the illustration on page 810 to

determine what opinion the artist hadabout Italy’s alliance with Germany.What aspects of the illustration indicatethat its creator and its publisher eitherdid or did not support Hitler’s relation-ship with Mussolini and Italy?

9. Persuasive Writing Imagine youare the editor of a British newspaperin 1938. Write an editorial that cap-tures the essence of your viewpoint.Use a headline that offers sugges-tions on how war can be avoided.

Agreements Encouraging Hitler’s Aggression Leading to World War II

Cabinet of Japanese prime minister Tojo (front center), 1941

1940Germans bombBritish cities

1943Germans defeatedat Stalingrad

Guide to Reading

The Course of World War II

Preview of Events

1942Japanese defeated at theBattle of Midway Island

1944Allied forces invadeFrance on D-Day

✦1939 ✦1940 ✦1941 ✦1942 ✦1943 ✦1944 ✦1945

On September 1, 1939, after beginning his attack on Poland, Hitler addressed theGerman Reichstag:

“I do not want to be anything other than the first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on the uniform which was once most holy and precious to me. I shall only take it off after victory or I shall not live to see the end. . . . As a NationalSocialist and as a German soldier, I am going into this struggle strong in heart. Mywhole life has been nothing but a struggle for my people, for their revival, for Ger-many . . . Just as I myself am ready to risk my life any time for my people and for Germany, so I demand the same of everyone else. But anyone who thinks that he canoppose this national commandment, whether directly or indirectly, will die! Traitorscan expect death.”

—Nazism 1919–1945, A Documentary Reader, J. Noakes and G. Pridham, 1995

Hitler had committed Germany to a life-or-death struggle.

Europe at WarHitler stunned Europe with the speed and efficiency of the German attack on

Poland. His blitzkrieg, or “lightning war,” used armored columns, called panzerdivisions, supported by airplanes. Each panzer division was a strike force of aboutthree hundred tanks with accompanying forces and supplies.


Main Ideas• The bombing of Pearl Harbor created a

global war between the Allied and theAxis forces.

• Allied perseverance and effective mili-tary operations, as well as Axis miscal-culations, brought an end to the war.

Key Termsblitzkrieg, partisan

People to IdentifyFranklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur,Winston Churchill, Harry S Truman

Places to LocateStalingrad, Midway Island, Normandy,Hiroshima

Preview Questions1. Why did the United States not enter

the war until 1941?2. What major events helped to end the

war in Europe and Asia?

Reading StrategyCause and Effect Create a chart listingkey events during World War II and theireffect on the outcome of the war.


Event Effect

Hitler addresses the Reichstag on September 1, 1939.


The forces of the blitzkrieg broke quickly throughPolish lines and encircled the bewildered Polishtroops. Regular infantry units then moved in to holdthe newly conquered territory. Within four weeks,Poland had surrendered. On September 28, 1939,Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland.

Hitler’s Early Victories After a winter of waiting(called the “phony war”), Hitler resumed the attackon April 9, 1940, with another blitzkrieg againstDenmark and Norway. One month later, on May 10,Germany launched an attack on the Netherlands,Belgium, and France.The main assault wasthrough Luxembourgand the Ardennes(ahr•DEHN) Forest.German panzer divi-sions broke throughweak French defen-sive positions there and raced across northernFrance. French and British forces were taken by sur-prise when the Germans went around, instead ofacross, the Maginot Line (a series of concrete andsteel fortifications armed with heavy artillery alongFrance’s border with Germany). The Germans’action split the Allied armies, trapping French troopsand the entire British army on the beaches ofDunkirk. Only by the heroic efforts of the RoyalNavy and civilians in private boats did the Britishmanage to evacuate 338,000 Allied (mostly British)troops.

The French signed an armistice on June 22. Germanarmies now occupied about three-fifths of France. Anauthoritarian regime under German control was setup over the remainder of the country. It was known asVichy France and was led by an aged French hero ofWorld War I, Marshal Henri Pétain. Germany wasnow in control of western and central Europe, butBritain had still not been defeated. After Dunkirk, theBritish appealed to the United States for help.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounced theaggressors, but the United States followed a strictpolicy of isolationism. A series of neutrality acts,passed in the 1930s, prevented the United States fromtaking sides or becoming involved in any Europeanwars. Many Americans felt that the United States hadbeen drawn into World War I due to economicinvolvement in Europe and they wanted to prevent arecurrence. Roosevelt was convinced that the neu-trality acts actually encouraged Axis aggression andwanted the acts repealed. They were gradually

relaxed as the United States supplied food, ships,planes, and weapons to Britain.

The Battle of Britain Hitler realized that anamphibious (land-sea) invasion of Britain could suc-ceed only if Germany gained control of the air. At thebeginning of August 1940, the Luftwaffe (LOOFT•vah•fuh)—the German air force—launched a majoroffensive. German planes bombed British air andnaval bases, harbors, communication centers, andwar industries.

The British fought back with determination. Theywere supported by an effective radar system thatgave them early warning of German attacks. Never-theless, by the end of August, the British air force hadsuffered critical losses.

In September, in retaliation for a British attack onBerlin, Hitler ordered a shift in strategy. Instead ofbombing military targets, the Luftwaffe began mas-sive bombing of British cities. Hitler hoped in thisway to break British morale. Instead, because mili-tary targets were not being hit, the British were ableto rebuild their air strength quickly. Soon, the Britishair force was inflicting major losses on Luftwaffebombers. At the end of September, Hitler postponedthe invasion of Britain indefinitely.

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London buildings collapse as aresult of nightly German bombing.

Attack on the Soviet Union Although he had nodesire for a two-front war, Hitler became convincedthat Britain was remaining in the war only because itexpected Soviet support. If the Soviet Union wassmashed, Britain’s last hope would be eliminated.Moreover, Hitler had convinced himself that theSoviet Union had a pitiful army and could bedefeated quickly.

Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was sched-uled for the spring of 1941, but the attack wasdelayed because of problems in the Balkans. Hitlerhad already gained the political cooperation of Hun-gary, Bulgaria, and Romania. However, the failure ofMussolini’s invasion of Greece in 1940 had exposedHitler’s southern flank to British air bases in Greece.To secure his Balkan flank, Hitler therefore seizedboth Greece and Yugoslavia in April.

Reassured, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union onJune 22, 1941. He believed that the Russians couldstill be decisively defeated before the brutal winterweather set in.

The massive attack stretched out along a frontsome 1,800 miles (about 2,900 km) long. Germantroops advanced rapidly, capturing two million Rus-sian soldiers. By November, one German army grouphad swept through Ukraine. A second army wasbesieging the city of Leningrad, while a thirdapproached within 25 miles (about 40 km) of Moscow,the Soviet capital.

An early winter and fierce Soviet resistance, how-ever, halted the German advance. Because of theplanned spring date for the invasion, the Germanshad no winter uniforms. For the first time in the war,German armies had been stopped. A counterattack in


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World War II in Europe and North Africa, 1939–1945

Axis PowersAxis-controlled area, November 1942Farthest Axis advance, December 1941Vichy France and territoriesAllied PowersAllied-controlled area, November 1942

Neutral nationsMajor battle with dateMajor city severely damaged by bombingAir battleMaginot Line

December 1941 by a Soviet army came as an ominousending to the year for the Germans.

Evaluating In the spring of 1941,what caused Hitler to delay his invasion of the Soviet Union?What halted the German advance once it had begun?

Japan at WarAs you will learn, the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor outraged Americans and led tothe entry of the United States into the war. On December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked the

U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in the HawaiianIslands. The same day, other Japanese units launchedadditional assaults on the Philippines and beganadvancing toward the British colony of Malaya. Soon

Reading Check

after, Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indiesand occupied a number of islands in the Pacific Ocean.In some cases, as on the Bataan Peninsula and theisland of Corregidor in the Philippines, resistance wasfierce. By the spring of 1942, however, almost all ofSoutheast Asia and much of the western Pacific hadfallen into Japanese hands.

A triumphant Japan now declared the creation of a community of nations. The name given to this new “community” was the Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. The entire region would now beunder Japanese direction. Japan also announced itsintention to liberate the colonial areas of SoutheastAsia from Western colonial rule. For the moment,however, Japan needed the resources of the regionfor its war machine, and it treated the countriesunder its rule as conquered lands.


Battle Deaths in World War IICountryUSSRGermanyYugoslaviaPolandRomaniaUnited States United Kingdom FranceHungaryFinlandItalyGreeceCanada

Battle Deaths 7,500,0003,500,000

410,000320,000300,000292,000245,000210,000140,00082,00077,00074,00037,000

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Heavy fighting took place in Europe and North Africa.

1. Interpreting Maps Name at least six major land bat-tles of the war in Europe. Which side, the Allies or theAxis Powers, was more aggressive at the beginning ofthe war? Summarize the changes in direction of thisside’s offensives during the first three years of the war.

2. Applying Geography Skills Using information fromall of the maps on pages 816 and 817, create an imagi-nary model of the war’s outcome had Hitler chosen notto invade the Soviet Union. Your model could take theform of a map, a chart, or a database and include suchitems as battles, offensives, and casualties.

Axis Offensives, 1939–1941 Allied Offensives, 1942–1945Axis offensives, 1939Axis offensives, 1940Axis offensives, 1941

Allied offensives, 1942–1943Allied offensives, 1944–1945


Japanese leaders had hoped that their lightningstrike at American bases would destroy the U.S. fleetin the Pacific. The Roosevelt administration, theythought, would now accept Japanese domination ofthe Pacific. The American people, in the eyes ofJapanese leaders, had been made soft by materialindulgence.

The Japanese miscalculated, however. The attackon Pearl Harbor unified American opinion aboutbecoming involved in the war. The United Statesnow joined with European nations and NationalistChina in a combined effort to defeat Japan. Believingthe American involvement in the Pacific would makethe United States ineffective in the European theaterof war, Hitler declared war on the United States fourdays after Pearl Harbor. Another European conflicthad turned into a global war.

Describing By the spring of 1942,which territories did Japan control?

The Allies AdvanceThe entry of the United States into the war created

a new coalition, the Grand Alliance. To overcomemutual suspicions, the three major Allies—GreatBritain, the United States, and the Soviet Union—

Reading Check

agreed to stress military operations and ignore polit-ical differences. At the beginning of 1943, the Alliesagreed to fight until the Axis Powers—Germany,Italy, and Japan—surrendered unconditionally. Theunconditional surrender principle, which requiredthe Axis nations to surrender without any favorablecondition, cemented the Grand Alliance by making itnearly impossible for Hitler to divide his foes.

The European Theater Defeat was far fromHitler’s mind at the beginning of 1942. As Japaneseforces advanced into Southeast Asia and the Pacific,

September 1939• Germany invades

Poland• Great Britain and

France declare waron Germany

April 1940• Blitzkrieg against

Denmark andNorway

May 1940• Attacks against

Netherlands,Belgium, France

August 1940• Air attack

against Britain

December 1941• Japan attacks

Pearl Harbor,Philippines, andDutch East Indies

• United Statesenters war

Spring 1942• United States wins

battles of Coral Seaand Midway

February 1943• Germans surrender

at Stalingrad

June 1944• Rome falls

to Allies• D-Day, June 6

May 1945• Germany

surrenders

June 1940• France

surrenders

April 1941• Greece and

Yugoslaviaare captured

June 1941• Hitler invades

Soviet Union

Spring 1942• Japan controls most

of Southeast Asia

Fall 1942• Germans attack

Stalingrad• Britain and United States

invade North Africa

May 1943• German and Italian

troops surrender inFrench North Africa

July 1943• Soviets defeat

Germans atBattle of Kursk

August 1944• Paris is

liberated

April 1945• Soviets enter Berlin• Hitler and

Mussolini die

March 1945• Germany is

invaded

August 1945• United States

drops atomicbombs on Japan

• Japan surrenders

World War II: Attack and Counterattack

Axis attacks and victoriesAllied attacks and victories

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

The time line above traces the major events of thewar, from September 1939 to Japan’s surrender in August 1945.

1. Identifying How much time elapsed from thebeginning of the war until France’s surrender?From France’s surrender until Germany’s surrender?

2. Compare and Contrast Use the time line andyour knowledge of world history to compare theSoviet Union’s involvement in World War II toRussia’s involvement in World War I. How do youexplain the successes and failures of the SovietUnion and Russia in these two wars?

819CHAPTER 26 World War II 819CHAPTER 5 Rome and the Rise of Christianity 819CHAPTER 5 Rome and the Rise of Christianity

Women as Spies in World War IIFor thousands of years, governments have relied on

spies to gather information about their enemies. Untilthe twentieth century, most spies were men. DuringWorld War II, however, many women became active inthe world of espionage.

Yoshiko Kawashima was born in China but raised inJapan. In 1932, she was sent to China by Japaneseauthorities to gather information for the invasion ofChina. Disguised as a young man, Kawashima was anactive and effective spy until her arrest by the Chinesein 1945. The Chinese news agency announced that “along-sought-for beauty in male costume was arrestedtoday in Beijing.” She was executed soon after herarrest.

Hekmath Fathmy was an Egyptian dancer. Her hatredof the British, who had occupied Egypt, caused her tobecome a spy for the Germans. Fathmy sang anddanced for British troops in the Kit Kat Club, a nightclubin Cairo. After shows, she took British officers to herhouseboat on the banks of the Nile. Any informationshe was able to obtain from her guests was passed onto John Eppler, a German spy in Cairo. Eventually, shewas caught, but she served only a year in prison for herspying activities.

Violette Szabo of French/Eng-lish background became a spyafter her husband died fightingthe Germans in North Africa.She joined Special OperationsExecutive, an arm of BritishIntelligence, and was sent toFrance several times. In August1944, she parachuted intoFrance to spy on the Germans.Caught by Gestapo forces atSalon La Tour, she was torturedand then shipped to Ravens-bruck, a women’s concentrationcamp near Berlin. She was exe-cuted there in April 1945.

Hitler and his European allies continued fighting thewar in Europe against the armies of Britain and theSoviet Union.

Until late 1942, it appeared that the Germansmight still prevail on the battlefield. In North Africa,the Afrika Korps, German forces under GeneralErwin Rommel, broke through the British defenses inEgypt and advanced toward Alexandria. A renewedGerman offensive in the Soviet Union led to the cap-ture of the entire Crimea in the spring of 1942. InAugust, Hitler boasted:

“As the next step, we are going to advance southof the Caucasus and then help the rebels in Iran andIraq against the English. Another thrust will bedirected along the Caspian Sea toward Afghanistanand India. Then the English will run out of oil. In twoyears we’ll be on the borders of India. Twenty tothirty elite German divisions will do. Then the BritishEmpire will collapse.”

This would be Hitler’s last optimistic outburst. By the fall of 1942, the war had turned against theGermans.

In North Africa, British forces had stopped Rom-mel’s troops at El Alamein (EL A•luh•MAYN) in thesummer of 1942. The Germans then retreated backacross the desert. In November 1942, British andAmerican forces invaded French North Africa. Theyforced the German and Italian troops there to surren-der in May 1943.

On the Eastern Front, after the capture of theCrimea, Hitler’s generals wanted him to concentrateon the Caucasus and its oil fields. Hitler, however,decided that Stalingrad, a major industrial center onthe Volga, should be taken first.

In perhaps the most terrible battle of the war,between November 1942 and February 2, 1943, theSoviets launched a counterattack. German troopswere stopped, then encircled, and supply lines werecut off, all in frigid winter conditions. The Germans

� Violette Szabo spiedfor the Allies to avengeher husband’s death.

People have different motives for becoming spies.List several motives that might draw someone toespionage. Do you think the motives are different inpeacetime? Investigate current espionage activitiesusing the Internet or library. What various methodsdo governments use today to gather intelligence?

The Asian Theater In 1942, the tide of battle in theEast also changed dramatically. In the Battle of theCoral Sea on May 7 and 8, 1942, American navalforces stopped the Japanese advance and saved Aus-tralia from the threat of invasion.

The turning point of the war in Asia came on June 4, at the Battle of Midway Island. U.S. planesdestroyed four attacking Japanese aircraft carriers.The United States defeated the Japanese navy andestablished naval superiority in the Pacific.

By the fall of 1942, Allied forces in Asia were gath-ering for two operations. One, commanded by U.S.general Douglas MacArthur, would move into thePhilippines through New Guinea and the SouthPacific Islands. The other would move across thePacific with a combination of U.S. Army, Marine, andNavy attacks on Japanese-held islands. The policywas to capture some Japanese-held islands and bypassothers, “island hopping” up to Japan. After a series ofbitter engagements in the waters off the Solomon


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World War II in Asia and the Pacific, 1941–1945

“Island hopping,” the Allied strategy in Asia and the Pacific,focused more on the islands in the Pacific than on the main-land of Asia.

1. Interpreting Maps What was the approximate dis-tance from Japan, in miles and kilometers, to its farthestpoint of control?

2. Applying Geography Skills Compare this map to theearlier maps in the chapter dealing with the war inEurope. Then analyze the effects of geographic factorson the major events in the two different theatres of war.

were forced to surrender at Stalingrad. The entireGerman Sixth Army, considered the best of the Ger-man troops, was lost.

By February 1943, German forces in Russia wereback to their positions of June 1942. By the spring of1943, even Hitler knew that the Germans would notdefeat the Soviet Union.

Japan and Japanese-controlled area, 1942Maximum extent of Japanese control, 1942

Major Allied air operation

Major battle or attack

Conventional bombing

Atomic bombing

Allied offensive

Islands from August to November 1942, Japanesefortunes were fading.

Summarizing Why was the Germanassault on Stalingrad a crushing defeat for the Germans?

Last Years of the WarBy the beginning of 1943, the tide of battle had

turned against Germany, Italy, and Japan. Axis forcesin Tunisia surrendered on May 13, 1943. The Alliesthen crossed the Mediterranean and carried the warto Italy, an area that Winston Churchill had calledthe “soft underbelly” of Europe. After taking Sicily,Allied troops began an invasion of mainland Italy inSeptember.

The European Theater After the fall of Sicily, Mus-solini was removed from office and placed underarrest by Victor Emmanuel III, king of Italy. A newItalian government offered to surrender to the Alliedforces. However, Mussolini was liberated by the Ger-mans in a daring raid and then set up as the head ofa puppet German state in northern Italy. At the sametime, German troops moved in and occupied muchof Italy.

The Germans set up effective new defensive linesin the hills south of Rome. The Allied advance up theItalian Peninsula turned into a painstaking affairwith very heavy casualties. Rome did not fall to the

Reading Check

Allies until June 4, 1944. By that time, the Italian warhad assumed a secondary role as the Allied forcesopened their long-awaited “second front” in westernEurope.

Since the autumn of 1943, the Allies had beenplanning an invasion of France from Great Britain,across the English Channel. Finally, on June 6, 1944(D-Day), Allied forces under U.S. general Dwight D.Eisenhower landed on the Normandy beaches in his-tory’s greatest naval invasion. The Allies fought theirway past underwater mines, barbed wire, and horri-ble machine gun fire. There was heavy Germanresistance even though the Germans thought the bat-tle was a diversion and the real invasion would occurelsewhere. Their slow response enabled the Alliedforces to set up a beachhead. Within three months,the Allies had landed two million men and a half-million vehicles. Allied forces then pushed inlandand broke through German defensive lines.

After the breakout, Allied troops moved south andeast. In Paris, resistance fighters rose up against theoccupying Germans. The Allies liberated Paris by theend of August. In March 1945, they crossed the RhineRiver and advanced into Germany. At the end ofApril 1945, Allied armies in northern Germanymoved toward the Elbe River, where they linked upwith the Soviets.


Winston Churchill1874–1965British prime minister

Winston Churchill was GreatBritain’s wartime leader. At thebeginning of the war, Churchillhad already had a long politicalcareer. He had advocated a hard-linepolicy toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s.On May 10, 1940, he became British prime minister.

Churchill was confident that he could guide Britain toultimate victory. “I thought I knew a great deal about itall,” he later wrote, “and I was sure I should not fail.”Churchill proved to be an inspiring leader who rallied theBritish people with stirring speeches: “We shall fight onthe beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, in thefields, in the streets, and in the hills. We shall never sur-render.” Time magazine designated Churchill the Man ofthe Year in 1940 and named him the Man of the HalfCentury in 1950.

“Tears, Sweat, and Blood”? Winston Churchill is renowned for thespeeches he wrote during World War II and forthe expressions he created for those speeches.Of special fame is the “blood, toil, tears, andsweat” phrase. Supposedly, Churchill alsocoined the term “iron curtain.” In reality, however, phrases similar to “blood, toil, tears,and sweat” had been used by both JohnDonne and Lord Byron. The term “iron curtain”had been used by Joseph Goebbels in 1945,and by Queen Elizabeth of Belgium in 1914.

The Soviets had come a long way since the Battleof Stalingrad in 1943. In the summer of 1943, Hitlergambled on taking the offensive using newly devel-oped heavy tanks. German forces were soundlydefeated by the Soviets at the Battle of Kursk (July 5to 12), the greatest tank battle of World War II.

Soviet forces now began a steady advance west-ward. They had reoccupied Ukraine by the end of1943 and moved into the Baltic states by the begin-ning of 1944. Advancing along a northern front,Soviet troops occupied Warsaw in January 1945 andentered Berlin in April. Meanwhile, Soviet troops,along a southern front, swept through Hungary,Romania, and Bulgaria.

By January 1945, Adolf Hitler had moved into abunker 55 feet (almost 17 m) under the city of Berlinto direct the final stages of the war. In his final polit-ical testament, Hitler, consistent to the end in hisanti-Semitism, blamed the Jews for the war. Hewrote, “Above all I charge the leaders of the nationand those under them to scrupulous observance ofthe laws of race and to merciless opposition to theuniversal poisoner of all peoples, internationalJewry.”

Hitler committed suicide on April 30, two days afterMussolini had been shot by Italian partisans, or resist-ance fighters. On May 7, 1945, German commanderssurrendered. The war in Europe was finally over.

The Asian Theater The war in Asia continued.Beginning in 1943, U.S. forces had gone on the offen-

sive and advanced, slowly at times, across the Pacific.As Allied military power drew closer to the mainJapanese islands in the first months of 1945, Harry STruman, who had become president after the deathof Roosevelt in April, had a difficult decision tomake. Should he use newly developed atomicweapons to bring the war to an end or find anotherway to defeat the Japanese forces?

Using atomic weapons would, Truman hoped,enable the United States to avoid an invasion ofJapan. The Japanese had made extensive preparationsto defend their homeland. Truman and his advisershad become convinced that American troops wouldsuffer heavy casualties if they invaded Japan. At thetime, however, only two bombs were available, andno one knew how effective they would be.

Truman decided to use the bombs. The first bombwas dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima onAugust 6. Three days later, a second bomb wasdropped on Nagasaki. Both cities were leveled.Thousands of people died immediately after thebombs were dropped. Thousands more died in latermonths from radiation. Japan surrendered onAugust 14.

World War II was finally over. Seventeen millionhad died in battle. Perhaps twenty million civilianshad perished as well. Some estimates place totallosses at fifty million.

Identifying What was the “secondfront” that the Allies opened in Western Europe?

Reading Check


9. Descriptive Writing Imagine youlived in California during World War II. Write an essay about yourexpectations of a Japanese invasionof California. You can choose tobelieve that an invasion was possibleor impossible.

Checking for Understanding1. Define blitzkrieg, partisan.

2. Identify Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur, Winston Churchill,Harry S Truman.

3. Locate Stalingrad, Midway Island, Nor-mandy, Hiroshima.

4. Explain Hitler’s strategy of attackingthe Soviet Union. Why did his delay inlaunching the attack ultimately con-tribute to the Soviet victory over theGermans?

5. List events leading to U.S. entry intothe war.

Critical Thinking6. Evaluate How might the Allied

demand for unconditional surrenderhave helped Hitler to maintain his con-trol over Germany?

7. Sequencing Information Using a chartlike the one below, place the events ofWorld War II in chronological order.

Analyzing Visuals8. Examine the photo on page 815 show-

ing the destruction caused by the Luft-waffe’s bombing raids on London.Explain how this strategy of Hitler’shurt, rather than helped, Germany’sefforts.

Year Country Event

1939

823

A German Soldier at StalingradTHE SOVIET VICTORY AT STALINGRAD WAS Amajor turning point in World War II. These wordscome from the diary of a German soldier whofought and died there.

“Today, after we’d had a bath, the company com-mander told us that if our future operations are assuccessful, we’ll soon reach the Volga, take Stalin-grad and then the war will inevitably soon be over.Perhaps we’ll be home by Christmas.

July 29. The company commander says the Rus-sian troops are completely broken, and cannot holdout any longer. To reach the Volga and take Stalin-grad is not so difficult for us. The Führer knowswhere the Russians’ [Soviets’] weak point is. Victoryis not far away. . . .

September 4. We are being sent northward alongthe front towards Stalingrad. . . . It’s a happy thoughtthat the end of the war is getting nearer.

September 8. Two days of non-stop fighting. TheRussians [Soviets] are defending themselves withinsane stubbornness.

October 10. The Russians [Soviets] are so close to us that our planes cannot bomb them. We arepreparing for a decisive attack. The Führer hasordered the whole of Stalingrad to be taken asrapidly as possible. . . .

October 22. Our regiment has failed to break intothe factory. We have lost many men; every time youmove you have to jump over bodies. . . .

November 10. A letter from Elsa today. Everyoneexpects us home for Christmas. In Germany every-one believes we already hold Stalingrad. How wrongthey are. If they could only see what Stalingrad hasdone to our army. . . .

November 21. The Russians [Soviets] have goneover to the offensive along the whole front. Fiercefighting is going on. So, there it is—the Volga, victoryand soon home to our families! We shall obviouslybe seeing them next in the other world.

November 29. We are encircled. It wasannounced this morning that the Führer has said:

A German machine gunner endures the freezing Stalingrad winter in January 1943.

“The army can trust me to do everything necessaryto rapidly break the encirclement.”

December 3. We are on hunger rations and wait-ing for the rescue that the Führer promised. . . .

December 26. The horses have already beeneaten. I would eat a cat; they say its meat is alsotasty. The soldiers look like corpses or lunatics, look-ing for something to put in their mouths. They nolonger take cover from Russian [Soviet] shells; theyhaven’t the strength to walk, run away and hide. Acurse on this war!”—A German Soldier, On the Battle of Stalingrad

Analyzing Primary Sources

1. What city was the German army trying to take?2. How accurate was the information received

by the German soldiers prior to the attack?3. What evidence is there of both the

effectiveness of Nazi propaganda, and of the soldiers’ disenchantment?

Guide to Reading

The New Order and the Holocaust

Preview of Events

Rudolf Höss, commanding officer at the Auschwitz death camp, described theexperience awaiting the Jews when they arrived there:

“We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transportsof prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would makespot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into thecamp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tenderyears were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work. . . . At Auschwitz we fooled the victims into thinking that they were to gothrough a delousing process. Frequently they realized our true intentions and wesometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact.”

—Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 6, 1946

Millions of Jews died in the Nazi death camps.

The New Order in EuropeIn 1942, the Nazi regime stretched across continental Europe from the English

Channel in the west to the outskirts of Moscow in the east. Nazi-occupied Europewas largely organized in one of two ways. Some areas, such as western Poland,were directly annexed by Nazi Germany and made into German provinces. Mostof occupied Europe, however, was run by German military or civilian officialswith help from local people who were willing to collaborate with the Nazis.


Main Ideas• Adolf Hitler’s philosophy of Aryan

superiority led to the Holocaust.• The Japanese conquest of Southeast

Asia forced millions of native peoples to labor for the Japanese war machine.

Key Termsgenocide, collaborator

People to IdentifyHeinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich

Places to LocatePoland, Auschwitz

Preview Questions1. How did the Nazis carry out their Final

Solution?2. How did the Japanese create a

dilemma for nationalists in the landsthey occupied?

Reading StrategyCompare and Contrast Using a Venndiagram like the one below, compare andcontrast the New Order of Germany withthe New Order of Japan.


Germany Japan

1943Japan uses forced labor tobuild Burma-Thailand railroad

1941Einsatzgruppenactive in Poland

1944Nazis continue Final Solution even as they start losing the war

1942Two million ethnic Germansresettled in Poland

✦1940 ✦1941 ✦1942 ✦1943 ✦1944 ✦1945

Rudolf Höss

Resettlement in the East Nazi administration inthe conquered lands to the east was especially ruth-less. These lands were seen as the living space forGerman expansion. They were populated, Nazisthought, by racially inferior Slavic peoples. Hitler’splans for an Aryan racial empire were so important tohim that he and the Nazis began to put their racialprogram into effect soon after the conquest of Poland.

Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, was put incharge of German resettlement plans in the east.Himmler’s task was to move the Slavic peoples outand replace them with Germans. Slavic peoplesincluded Czech, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and Ukrainian. This policy was first applied to thenew German provinces created from the lands ofwestern Poland.

One million Poles were uprooted and moved tosouthern Poland. Hundreds of thousands of ethnicGermans (descendants of Germans who had migratedyears ago from Germany to different parts of southernand eastern Europe) were brought in to colonize theGerman provinces in Poland. By 1942, two millionethnic Germans had been settled in Poland.

The invasion of the Soviet Union made the Naziseven more excited about German colonization in theeast. Hitler spoke to his intimate circle of a colossalproject of social engineering after the war. Poles,Ukrainians, and Russians would be removed fromtheir lands and become slave labor. German peasantswould settle on the abandoned lands and “german-ize” them.

Himmler told a gathering of SS officers that 30 mil-lion Slavs might die in order to achieve Germanplans in the east. He continued, “Whether nationslive in prosperity or starve to death interests me onlyinsofar as we need them as slaves for our culture.Otherwise it is of no interest.”

Slave Labor in Germany Labor shortages in Ger-many led to a policy of rounding up foreign workersfor Germany. In 1942, a special office was set up torecruit labor for German farms and industries. By thesummer of 1944, seven million European workerswere laboring in Germany. They made up 20 percentof Germany’s labor force. Another seven millionworkers were forced to labor for the Nazis in theirown countries on farms, in industries, and even inmilitary camps.

The use of forced labor often caused problems,however. Sending so many workers to Germany dis-rupted industrial production in the occupied coun-tries that could have helped Germany. Then, too, the

brutal way in which Germany recruited foreignworkers led more and more people to resist the Nazioccupation forces.

Describing What was Hitler’s visionfor the residents of eastern Europe?

The HolocaustNo aspect of the Nazi New Order was more terri-

fying than the deliberate attempt to exterminate theJews. Racial struggle was a key element in Hitler’sworld of ideas. To him, racial struggle was a clearlydefined conflict of opposites. On one side were theAryans, creators of human cultural development. Onthe other side were the Jews, parasites, in Hitler’sview, who were trying to destroy the Aryans.

Himmler and the SS closely shared Hitler’s racialideas. The SS was given responsibility for what theNazis called their Final Solution to the Jewish prob-lem. The Final Solution was genocide (physicalextermination) of the Jewish people.

The Einsatzgruppen Reinhard Heydrich, head ofthe SS’s Security Service, was given the task ofadministering the Final Solution. Heydrich created

Reading Check


Anne Frank1929–1945Dutch Holocaust victim

Anne Frank is one of the best-known victims of the Nazi Holocaust.When the Nazis began to round upJews in the Netherlands, the Frank fam-ily, along with another family, moved intoa secret annex above a warehouse owned by thefamily business. Employees of the Frank family providedfood and a lifeline to the outside world.

Anne remained hopeful. She kept a diary to whileaway the time spent in hiding. On July 15, 1944, shewrote, “In spite of everything I still believe that peopleare really good at heart.”

On August 4, 1944, after the Franks had spent twoyears in hiding, the Nazis found the secret annex. Anneand her sister were sent to Bergen-Belsen, a concentra-tion camp in Germany. There they died of typhus. Anne’sfather, Otto Frank, who survived, later found Anne’sdiary. He had it published in 1947. The Diary of AnneFrank became an international best-seller.

special strike forces, called Einsatzgruppen, to carryout Nazi plans. After the defeat of Poland, he orderedthese forces to round up all Polish Jews and put themin ghettos set up in a number of Polish cities. Condi-tions in the ghettos were horrible. Families werecrowded together in unsanitary housing. The Nazisattempted to starve residents by allowing only mini-mal amounts of food. Despite suffering, residentstried to carry on and some ghettos organized resist-ance against the Nazis.

In June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen were given thenew job of acting as mobile killing units. These SSdeath squads followed the regular army’s advanceinto the Soviet Union. Their job was to round up Jewsin their villages, execute them, and bury them inmass graves. The graves were often giant pits dug bythe victims themselves before they were shot.

The leader of one of these death squads describedthe mode of operation:

“The unit selected for this task would enter a vil-lage or city and order the prominent Jewish citizensto call together all Jews for the purpose of resettle-ment. They were requested to hand over their valu-ables to the leaders of the unit, and shortly beforethe execution to surrender their outer clothing. Themen, women, and children were led to a place ofexecution which in most cases was located next to a more deeply excavated anti-tank ditch. Then theywere shot, kneeling or standing, and the corpsesthrown into the ditch.”

The Death Camps Probably one million Jews werekilled by the Einsatzgruppen. As appalling as thatsounds, it was too slow by Nazi standards. They

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Major Nazi Camps

The Nazis devoted extensive resources to what they termedthe Final Solution.

1. Interpreting Maps How many concentration campsare shown on the map? How many death camps?

2. Applying Geography Skills What geographical factorsdo you think were involved in the Germans’ decisionsabout the locations of the death camps?

� Concentration camp survivors

826

Concentration campDeath campLocation ofEinsatzgruppenInternationalboundary, Jan. 1938

decided to kill the European Jewish popu-lation in specially built death camps.

Beginning in 1942, Jews from countriesoccupied by Germany (or sympathetic toGermany) were rounded up, packed likecattle into freight trains, and shipped toPoland. Six extermination centers werebuilt in Poland for this purpose. The largestwas Auschwitz (AUSH•VIHTS).

About 30 percent of the arrivals atAuschwitz were sent to a labor camp,where many were starved or worked todeath. The remainder went to the gaschambers. Some inmates were subjected tocruel and painful “medical” experiments.

By the spring of 1942, the death campswere in full operation. First priority wasgiven to the elimination of the ghettos inPoland. By the summer of 1942, however,Jews were also being shipped from France, Belgium,and Holland. Even as the Allies were winning thewar in 1944, Jews were being shipped from Greeceand Hungary. Despite desperate military needs, evenlate in the war when Germany faced utter defeat, theFinal Solution had priority in using railroad cars toship Jews to death camps.

The Death Toll The Germans killed between fiveand six million Jews, over three million of them in thedeath camps. Virtually 90 percent of the Jewish pop-ulations of Poland, the Baltic countries, and Germanywere killed. Overall, the Holocaust was responsiblefor the death of nearly two out of every three Euro-pean Jews.

The Nazis were also responsible for the deliberatedeath by shooting, starvation, or overwork of at leastanother nine to ten million non-Jewish people. TheNazis considered the Gypsies of Europe, like theJews, to be a race containing alien blood. The Gypsieswere rounded up for mass killing. About 40 percent of

Europe’s one mill ionGypsies were killed inthe death camps.

The leading citizens ofthe Slavic peoples—theclergy, intellectuals, civill eaders , judges , andlawyers—were arrestedand killed. Probably anadditional four millionPoles, Ukrainians, andBelorussians lost their

lives as slave laborers for Nazi Germany. Finally,probably at least three million to four million Sovietprisoners of war were killed in captivity.

This mass slaughter of European civilians, partic-ularly European Jews, is known as the Holocaust.Jews in and out of the camps attempted to resist theNazis. Some were aided by friends and evenstrangers, hidden in villages or smuggled into safeareas. Foreign diplomats would try to save Jews byissuing exit visas. The nation of Denmark savedalmost its entire Jewish population.

Some people did not believe the accounts of deathcamps because, during World War I, allies hadgreatly exaggerated German atrocities to arouseenthusiasm for the war. Most often, people pre-tended not to notice what was happening. Evenworse, collaborators (people who assisted theenemy) helped the Nazis hunt down Jews. The Allieswere aware of the concentration camps and deathcamps but chose to concentrate on ending the war.Not until after the war did they learn the full extentof the horror and inhumanity of the Holocaust. ;(See page 999 to read excerpts from The Holocaust—The CampVictims in the Primary Sources Library.)

The Other Victims Young people of all ages werealso victims of World War II. Because they wereunable to work, Jewish children, along with theirmothers, were the first ones selected for gas cham-bers upon their arrival in the death camps of Poland.Young Jewish males soon learned to look as adult aspossible in order to survive. Altogether, 1.2 millionJewish children died in the Holocaust.


Jewish men, women, and children being taken by the Nazis

HISTORY

Web Activity Visitthe Glencoe WorldHistory Web site at

andclick on Chapter 26–Student Web Activity to learn more aboutconcentration camps.

tx.wh.glencoe.com

http://www.glencoe.com/qe/qe34tx.php?&st=759&pt=2&bk=22

Many children were evacuated from cities duringthe war in order to avoid the bombing. The Germanscreated about 9,000 camps for children in the country-side. In Japan, 15,000 children were evacuated fromHiroshima before its destruction. The British movedabout 6 million children and their mothers in 1939.

Some British parents even sent their children toCanada and the United States. This, too, could bedangerous. When the ocean liner Arandora Star washit by a German torpedo, it had 77 British children onboard. They never made it to Canada.

Children evacuated to the countryside did notalways see their parents again. Some of them, alongwith many other children, became orphaned whentheir parents were killed. In 1945, there were perhaps13 million orphaned children in Europe.

In Eastern Europe, children especially sufferedunder harsh German occupation policies. All second-ary schools in German-occupied Eastern Europewere closed. Their facilities and equipment weredestroyed.

Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, said of theseSlavic children that their education should consistonly “in teaching simple arithmetic up to 500, thewriting of one’s name, and that God has ordered obe-dience to the Germans, honesty, diligence, and polite-ness. I do not consider an ability to read as necessary.”

At times, young people were expected to carry theburden of fighting the war. In the last year of the war,

Hitler Youth members, often only 14 or 15 years old,could be found in the front lines. In the Soviet Union,children as young as 13 or 14 spied on German posi-tions and worked with the resistance movement. Somewere even given decorations for killing the enemy.

Summarizing What was the job ofthe Einsatzgruppen?

The New Order in AsiaJapanese war policy in the areas in Asia occupied

by Japan was basically defensive. Japan hoped to useits new possessions to meet its growing need for rawmaterials, such as tin, oil, and rubber. The new pos-sessions also would be an outlet for Japanese manu-factured goods. To organize these possessions,Japanese leaders included them in the Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. This was the economiccommunity supposedly designed to provide mutualbenefits to the occupied areas and the home country.

Japanese Policies The Japanese had conqueredSoutheast Asia under the slogan “Asia for the Asiat-ics.” Japanese officials in occupied territories quicklymade contact with anticolonialists. They promisedthe people that local governments would be estab-lished under Japanese control. Such governmentswere eventually set up in Burma, the Dutch EastIndies, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Reading Check


American and Filipino prisoners of war wereheld in the Philippines. What role did prison-ers of war play in the Japanese war effort?

History

In fact, real power rested with Japanese militaryauthorities in each territory. In turn, the local Japanesemilitary command was directly subordinated to theArmy General Staff in Tokyo. The economic resourcesof the colonies were used for the benefit of the Japan-ese war machine. The native peoples in occupiedlands were recruited to serve in local military units orwere forced to work on public works projects.

In some cases, these policies brought severe hard-ships to peoples living in the occupied areas. InVietnam, for example, local Japanese authoritiesforcibly took rice and shipped it abroad. This leddirectly to a food shortage that caused over a mil-lion Vietnamese to starve to death in 1944 and 1945.

Japanese Behavior At first, many Southeast Asiannationalists took Japanese promises at face value andagreed to cooperate with their new masters. InBurma, for example, an independent governmentwas set up in 1943 and declared war on the Allies.Eventually, the nature of Japanese occupation policiesbecame clear, and sentiment turned against Japan.

Japanese officials provoked such attitudes by theirarrogance and contempt for local customs. In theDutch East Indies, for example, Indonesians wererequired to bow in the direction of Tokyo and to rec-ognize the divinity of the Japanese emperor. In Burma,Buddhist pagodas were used as military latrines.

Like German soldiers in occupied Europe, Japan-ese military forces often had little respect for the livesof their subject peoples. After their conquest of Nan-jing, China, in 1937, Japanese soldiers spent severaldays killing, raping, and looting. After the conquest

of Korea, almost eight hundred thousand Koreanpeople were sent to Japan, most of them as forcedlaborers.

In construction projects to help their war effort, theJapanese made extensive use of labor forces com-posed of both prisoners of war and local peoples. Inbuilding the Burma-Thailand railway in 1943, forexample, the Japanese used 61,000 Australian, British,and Dutch prisoners of war and almost 300,000 work-ers from Burma, Malaya, Thailand, and the DutchEast Indies. An inadequate diet and appalling workconditions in an unhealthy climate led to the death of12,000 Allied prisoners of war and 90,000 workers bythe time the railway was completed.

Such Japanese behavior created a dilemma formany nationalists in the occupied lands. They had no desire to see the return of the colonial powers, but they did not like what the Japanese were doing.Some turned against the Japanese. Others simply did nothing.

Indonesian patriots tried to have it both ways.They pretended to support Japan while actually sab-otaging the Japanese administration. In FrenchIndochina, Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Party madecontact with U.S. military units in South China. TheCommunists agreed to provide information onJapanese troop movements and to rescue downedAmerican fliers in the area. By the end of the war, lit-tle support remained in the region for the Japanese“liberators.”

Examining How did the Japanesetreat the native peoples in occupied lands?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Define genocide, collaborator.

2. Identify Heinrich Himmler, ReinhardHeydrich.

3. Locate Poland, Auschwitz.

4. Explain what the Nazis meant by theFinal Solution. How did Hitler’s com-mitment to the Final Solution hinderGermany’s war effort?

5. List examples of objectionable Japa-nese occupation policies in Asia.

Critical Thinking6. Evaluate What was the impact of the

Holocaust on history? What lessonsdoes the Holocaust have for us today?

7. Cause and Effect Create a chart givingexamples of Hitler’s actions to create aNew World Order in Europe and theoutcome of his efforts.

Analyzing Visuals8. Examine the scene pictured on page

827. Describe, based on your reading,the series of events that will most likelyfollow.

9. Persuasive Writing Imagine youare a member of Hitler’s inner circlein 1941 and are alarmed aboutHitler’s Final Solution. Compose a let-ter to Hitler, outlining the reasonswhy he should abandon plans tosend Jews to the death camps.

Hitler’s Actions Outcome

1943Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill meet inTehran to determine future course of war

1945Allies bombDresden

Guide to Reading

The Home Front and the

Aftermath of the War

Preview of Events

1946Churchill proclaims existence of “iron curtain” in Europe

✦1942 ✦1943 ✦1944 ✦1945 ✦1946 ✦1947

A German civilian described an Allied bombing raid on Hamburg in 1943:

“As the many fires broke through the roofs of the burning buildings, a column ofheated air rose more than two and a half miles high and one and a half miles indiameter. . . . This column was fed from its base by in-rushing cooler ground-surfaceair. One and one half miles from the fires this draft increased the wind velocity fromeleven to thirty-three miles per hour. At the edge of the area the velocities must havebeen much greater, as trees three feet in diameter were uprooted. In a short time thetemperature reached ignition point for all combustibles, and the entire area wasablaze. In such fires, complete burnout occurred, that is, no trace of combustiblematerial remained.”

—The Bombing of Germany, Hans Rumpf, 1963

The bombing of civilians in World War II made the home front dangerous.

The Mobilization of Peoples: Four ExamplesEven more than World War I, World War II was a total war. Fighting was much

more widespread and covered most of the world. Economic mobilization (the actof assembling and preparing for war) was more extensive; so, too, was the mobi-lization of women. The number of civilians killed—almost twenty million—wasfar higher. Many of these victims were children.


Main Ideas• World War II left a lasting impression

on civilian populations.• The end of the war created a new set

of problems for the Allies as the Westcame into conflict with the Soviet Union.

Key Termsmobilization, kamikaze, Cold War

People to IdentifyAlbert Speer, General Hideki Tojo

Places to LocateLondon, Dresden, Hiroshima

Preview Questions1. Why were the Japanese encouraged to

serve as kamikaze pilots?2. What was the outcome of the Yalta

Conference in 1945?

Reading StrategyCompare and Contrast Create a chartcomparing and contrasting the impact ofWorld War II on the lives of civilians.


Country Impact on Livesof Civilians

Soviet Union

United States

Japan

Germany

A B-26 drops bombs on Germany.

World War II had an enormous impact on civilianlife in the Soviet Union, the United States, Germany,and Japan. We consider the home fronts of those fournations next.

The Soviet Union The initial defeats of the SovietUnion led to drastic emergency measures thataffected the lives of the civilian population. Lenin-grad, for example, experienced nine hundred days ofsiege. Its inhabitants became so desperate for foodthat they ate dogs, cats, and mice. Probably 1.5 mil-lion people died in the city.

As the German army made its rapid advance intoSoviet territory, Soviet workers dismantled andshipped the factories in the western part of the SovietUnion to the interior—to the Urals, western Siberia,and the Volga regions. Machines were placed on thebare ground. As laborers began their work, wallswent up around them.

Stalin called the widespread military and indus-trial mobilization of the nation a “battle ofmachines.” The Soviets won, producing 78,000 tanksand 98,000 artillery pieces. In 1943, 55 percent of theSoviet national income went for war materials, com-pared with 15 percent in 1940. As a result of theemphasis on military goods, Soviet citizens experi-enced severe shortages of both food and housing.

Soviet women played a major role in the wareffort. Women and girls worked in industries, mines,and railroads. Overall, the number of women work-ing in industry increased almost 60 percent. Sovietwomen were also expected to digantitank ditches and work as airraid wardens. In addition, theSoviet Union was the only coun-try in World War II to use womenin battle. Soviet women served assnipers and also in aircrews ofbomber squadrons.

The United States The home front in the UnitedStates was quite different from that of the other majorpowers. The United States was not fighting the warin its own territory. Eventually, the United Statesbecame the arsenal of the Allied Powers; it producedmuch of the military equipment the Allies needed. Atthe height of war production in November 1943, thecountry was building six ships a day and ninety-sixthousand planes per year.

The mobilization of the American economyresulted in some social turmoil, however. The con-struction of new factories created boomtowns. Thou-sands came there to work but then faced a shortageof houses and schools. Widespread movements ofpeople took place. Sixteen million men and womenwere enrolled in the military and moved frequently.Another sixteen million, mostly wives and girl-friends of servicemen or workers looking for jobs,also moved around the country.

Over a million African Americans moved from therural South to the cities of the North and West, look-ing for jobs in industry. The presence of AfricanAmericans in areas where they had not lived beforeled to racial tensions and sometimes even racial riots.In Detroit in June 1943, for example, white mobsroamed the streets attacking African Americans.

One million African Americans enrolled in themilitary. There they were segregated in their ownbattle units. Angered by the way they were treated,some became militant and prepared to fight for theircivil rights.


Many Japanese American families in south-ern California were transported to intern-ment camps. Would you have supported the internment policy for JapaneseAmericans during the war? Explain.

History


Japanese Americans faced even more serious dif-ficulties. On the West Coast, 110,000 Japanese Amer-icans, 65 percent of whom had been born in theUnited States, were removed to camps surroundedby barbed wire and required to take loyalty oaths.Public officials claimed this policy was necessary forsecurity reasons.

The racism in the treatment of Japanese Americanswas evident when the California governor, CulbertOlson, said, “You know, when I look out at a group ofAmericans of German or Italian descent, I can tellwhether they’re loyal or not. I can tell how they thinkand even perhaps what they are thinking. But it isimpossible for me to do this with inscrutable Orien-tals, and particularly the Japanese.”

Germany In August 1914, Germans had enthusias-tically cheered their soldiers marching off to war. InSeptember 1939, the streets were quiet. Many Germans did not care. Even worse for the Naziregime, many feared disaster.

Hitler was well aware of the importance of thehome front. He believed that the collapse of the homefront in World War I had caused Germany’s defeat. Inhis determination to avoid a repetition of that experi-ence, he adopted economic policies that may havecost Germany the war.

To maintain the morale of the home front duringthe first two years of the war, Hitler refused to cut con-sumer goods production or to increase the productionof armaments. After German defeats on the Russianfront and the American entry into the war, however,the economic situation in Germany changed.

Early in 1942, Hitler finally ordered a massiveincrease in armaments production and in the size ofthe army. Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, was mademinister for armaments and munitions in 1942. Speerwas able to triple the production of armamentsbetween 1942 and 1943, despite Allied air raids.

A total mobilization of the economy was put intoeffect in July 1944. Schools, theaters, and cafes wereclosed. By that time, though, total war mobilizationwas too late to save Germany from defeat.

Nazi attitudes toward women changed over thecourse of the war. Before the war, the Nazis hadworked to keep women out of the job market. As thewar progressed and more and more men were calledup for military service, this position no longer madesense. Nazi magazines now proclaimed, “We see thewoman as the eternal mother of our people, but alsoas the working and fighting comrade of the man.”

In spite of this change, the number of womenworking in industry, agriculture, commerce, anddomestic service increased only slightly. The totalnumber of employed women in September 1944 was14.9 million, compared with 14.6 million in May 1939.Many women, especially those of the middle class,did not want jobs, particularly in factories.

Japan Wartime Japan was a highly mobilized soci-ety. To guarantee its control over all nationalresources, the government created a planning boardto control prices, wages, labor, and resources. Tradi-tional habits of obedience and hierarchy were used toencourage citizens to sacrifice their resources, andsometimes their lives, for the national cause.

The calls for sacrifice reached a high point in thefinal years of the war. Young Japanese were encour-aged to volunteer to serve as pilots in suicide mis-sions against U.S. fighting ships at sea. These pilotswere known as kamikaze, or “divine wind.”

Japan was extremely reluctant to mobilize womenon behalf of Japan’s war effort. General Hideki Tojo,prime minister from 1941 to 1944, opposed femaleemployment. He argued that “the weakening of thefamily system would be the weakening of thenation . . . we are able to do our duties only becausewe have wives and mothers at home.”

Female employment increased during the war, butonly in such areas as the textile industry and farming,where women had traditionally worked. Instead ofusing women to meet labor shortages, the Japanesegovernment brought in Korean and Chinese laborers.

Evaluating How did World War IIcontribute to racial tensions in the United States?

Reading Check

Kamikaze attacker being shot down in the Pacific, 1945

Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities

Bombing was used in World War II against a vari-ety of targets, including military targets, enemytroops, and civilian populations. The bombing ofcivilians in World War II made the home front a dan-gerous place.

A few bombing raids had been conducted in thelast year of World War I. The bombing of civilianpopulations had led to a public outcry. The bombingsand the reaction to them had given rise to the argu-ment that bombing civilian populations would be aneffective way to force governments to make peace. Asa result, European air forces began to develop long-range bombers in the 1930s.

Britain The first sustained use of civilian bombingbegan in early September 1940. Londoners took thefirst heavy blows. For months, the German air forcebombed London nightly. Thousands of civilians werekilled or injured, and enormous damage was done.Nevertheless, Londoners’ morale remained high.

The blitz, as the British called the German airraids, soon became a national experience. The blitzwas carried to many other British cities and towns.The ability of Londoners to maintain their morale setthe standard for the rest of the British population.The theory that the bombing of civilian targets wouldforce peace was proved wrong.

Germany The British failed to learn from their ownexperience, however. Churchill and his advisersbelieved that destroying German communitieswould break civilian morale and bring victory. Majorbombing raids on German cities began in 1942. OnMay 31, 1942, Cologne became the first German cityto be attacked by a thousand bombers.

Bombing raids added an element of terror to cir-cumstances already made difficult by growing short-ages of food, clothing, and fuel. Germans especiallyfeared the incendiary bombs, which createdfirestorms that swept through cities. The ferociousbombing of Dresden from February 13 to 15, 1945,created a firestorm that may have killed as many as ahundred thousand inhabitants and refugees.

Germany suffered enormously from the Alliedbombing raids. Millions of buildings were destroyed,and possibly half a million civilians died. Neverthe-less, it is highly unlikely that Allied bombing sappedthe morale of the German people. Instead, Germans,whether pro-Nazi or anti-Nazi, fought on stubbornly,often driven simply by a desire to live.

Nor did the bombing destroy Germany’s indus-trial capacity. Production of war materials actuallyincreased between 1942 and 1944, despite the bomb-ing. Nevertheless, the widespread destruction oftransportation systems and fuel supplies made itextremely difficult for the new materials to reach theGerman military.


In 1945, as the war ended, the people of Dresden were facedwith the daunting task of rebuilding a city. List all the obsta-cles you can think of that confronted Dresden’s city leadersas they planned their rebuilding efforts in 1945.

Then and Now

� Dresden after the bombing in 1945

Dresden in the year 2000 �

Japan In Japan, the bombing of civilians reached anew level with the use of the first atomic bomb. Japanwas open to air raids toward the end of the warbecause its air force had almost been destroyed.Moreover, its crowded cities were built of flimsymaterials that were especially vulnerable to fire.

Attacks on Japanese cities by the new U.S. B-29Superfortresses, the biggest bombers of the war, hadbegun on November 24, 1944. By the summer of 1945,many of Japan’s industries had been destroyed,along with one-fourth of its dwellings.

The Japanese government decreed the mobili-zation of all people between the ages of 13 and 60into a People’s Volunteer Corps. Fearing high U.S.

casualties in a land invasion of Japan, President Tru-man and his advisers decided to drop the atomicbomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945.

Explaining Why were civilian popu-lations targeted in bombing raids?

Peace and a New WarThe total victory of the Allies in World War II was

followed not by a real peace but by a period of polit-ical tensions, known as the Cold War. Primarily anideological conflict between the United States andthe Soviet Union, the Cold War was to dominateworld affairs until the end of the 1980s.

Reading Check


The Atomic Bomb

S cientists at the beginning of the twentieth century discovered thatatoms contained an enormous amount of energy. The discov-

ery gave rise to the idea that releasing this energy by splitting theatom might create a devastating weapon.

The idea was not taken seriously until World War II. Then, the fear thatthe Germans might make an atomic bomb convinced the U.S. governmentto try to develop one first. In 1942, the United States set in motion the Man-hattan Project.

The Manhattan Project was a code name for the enormous industrial and technical enterprise that produced the first atomic bomb. It cost 2 billiondollars and employed the efforts of 600,000 people. U.S. Army BrigadierGeneral Leslie Groves had overall supervision. The physicist J. RobertOppenheimer was director of the Los Alamos, New Mexico, center wherethe bomb was actually built.

A successful test explosion on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mex-ico, meant that the bomb was ready. The war in Europe had ended, but thebomb could be used against the Japanese. A committee had already chosenthe city of Hiroshima as the first target.

The bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, by a U.S. B-29 bomber nick-named Enola Gay. The destruction was incredible. An area of about 5square miles (13 sq km) was turned to ashes. Of the 76,000 buildings inHiroshima, 70,000 were flattened. Of the city’s 350,000 inhabitants, 140,000had died by the end of 1945. By the end of 1950, another 50,000 had diedfrom the effects of radiation. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki onAugust 9. The world had entered the Nuclear Age.

Evaluating Was the decision to use the atomic bomb in Japan any different from Allied decisions to bomb civilian population centers inEurope? Why or why not?

Atomic bomb

Hiroshima after atomic bomb dropped,August 1945

Radar antenna

Uraniumwedge

Uranium target

help liberated Europe in the creation of “democraticinstitutions of their own choice.” Liberated countrieswould hold free elections to determine their politicalsystems.

At Yalta, Roosevelt sought Soviet military helpagainst Japan. (At that time, the atomic bomb was notyet a certainty.) Roosevelt therefore agreed to Stalin’sprice for military aid against Japan: possession ofSakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which were ruled byJapan, as well as two warm-water ports and railroadrights in Manchuria.

The creation of the United Nations was a majorAmerican concern at Yalta. Roosevelt wanted the BigThree powers to pledge to be part of such an interna-tional organization before difficult issues dividedthem into hostile camps. Both Churchill and Stalinaccepted Roosevelt’s plans for the establishment of aUnited Nations organization and set the first meetingfor San Francisco in April 1945.

The issues of Germany and Eastern Europe weretreated less decisively. The Big Three reaffirmed thatGermany must surrender unconditionally. It wouldbe divided into four zones, which would be occupiedand governed by the military forces of the UnitedStates, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. Acompromise was also worked out in regard toPoland. Stalin agreed to free elections in the future todetermine a new government in that country.

The issue of free elections in Eastern Europecaused a serious split between the Soviets and the


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Europe after World War II

The political map of Europechanged dramatically as aresult of World War II.

1. Interpreting MapsCompare the map onpage 753 to this mapand identify the politicalchanges in Europe fromthe 1920s to 1945.

2. Applying GeographySkills Create a chartthat shows how Europewas divided according to Soviet and Westerninfluence.

Area of Soviet influenceArea of Western influence

The Tehran Conference Stalin, Roosevelt, andChurchill were the leaders of what was called the BigThree (the Soviet Union, the United States, and GreatBritain) of the Grand Alliance. They met at Tehran inNovember 1943 to decide the future course of the war.Their major tactical decision had concerned the finalassault on Germany. Stalin and Roosevelt had arguedsuccessfully for an American-British invasion throughFrance. This was scheduled for the spring of 1944.

The acceptance of this plan had important conse-quences. It meant that Soviet and British-Americanforces would meet in defeated Germany along anorth-south dividing line. Most likely, EasternEurope would be liberated by Soviet forces. TheAllies also agreed to a partition of postwar Germany.

The Yalta Conference The Big Three powers metagain at Yalta in southern Russia in February 1945. Bythen, the defeat of Germany was obvious. The West-ern powers, which had once believed that the Sovietswere in a weak position, were now faced with thereality of eleven million Soviet soldiers taking pos-session of Eastern and much of Central Europe.

Stalin was deeply suspicious of the Western pow-ers. He wanted a buffer to protect the Soviet Unionfrom possible future Western aggression. This wouldmean establishing pro-Soviet governments along theborder of the Soviet Union.

Roosevelt, however, favored the idea of self-determination for Europe. This involved a pledge to

Americans. Eastern European governments were tobe freely elected, but it was clear Stalin might nothonor this provision. This attempt to reconcile twoirreconcilable goals was doomed, as soon becameevident at the next conference of the Big Three atPotsdam, Germany.

The Potsdam Conference The Potsdam confer-ence of July 1945 began under a cloud of mistrust.Roosevelt had died on April 12 and had been suc-ceeded as president by Harry Truman. At Potsdam,Truman demanded free elections throughout Eastern

Europe. Stalin responded, “A freely elected govern-ment in any of these East European countries wouldbe anti-Soviet, and that we cannot allow.”

After a bitter and devastating war in which theSoviets had lost more people than any other country,Stalin sought absolute military security. To him, thissecurity could be gained only by the presence ofCommunist states in Eastern Europe. Free electionsmight result in governments hostile to the Soviets.

By the middle of 1945, only an invasion by West-ern forces would have been able to undo the devel-opments in Eastern Europe. At the end of the world’smost destructive conflict, few people favored such a policy.

A New Struggle As the war slowly receded into thepast, a new struggle was already beginning. Many inthe West thought Soviet policy was part of a world-wide Communist conspiracy. The Soviets viewedWestern, and especially American, policy as nothingless than global capitalist expansionism.

In March 1946, in a speech to an American audi-ence, the former British prime minister WinstonChurchill declared that “an iron curtain” had“descended across the continent,” dividing Europeinto two hostile camps. Stalin branded Churchill’sspeech a “call to war with the Soviet Union.” Onlymonths after the world’s most devastating conflicthad ended, the world seemed to be bitterly dividedonce again.

Identifying Why did Stalin want tocontrol Eastern Europe after World War II?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Define mobilization, kamikaze.

2. Identify Albert Speer, General HidekiTojo, Cold War.

3. Locate London, Dresden, Hiroshima.

4. Explain how Hitler’s bombing of civil-ians in England backfired. What strat-egy do you think Hitler should havepursued instead?

5. List examples of Japan’s vulnerabilityto Allied air attack in late 1944. Whattype of U.S. aircraft was used for theheaviest bombing of Japanese targets?

Critical Thinking6. Explain Why did General Hideki Tojo

oppose female employment in Japan?

7. Organizing Information Create achart listing countries where bombingof heavily populated cities took place.

Analyzing Visuals8. Analyze the photo at the top of this

page. How might the seating arrange-ment for the three leaders be signifi-cant? Which of the three leaders doyou think came away from the meetingmost pleased with the results?

9. Persuasive Writing President Truman concluded that dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was ajustifiable way to end the war. Writean essay either condemning oragreeing with Truman’s decision.

Country City

Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta

Synthesizing InformationWhy Learn This Skill?

Consider what it would be like to get funding fora new after-school club. In order to present yourcase, you would need to talk to other students andto school administrators, and to read reports andarticles. Once you had gathered all the informa-tion you needed, you would synthesize—or puttogether—the most important points that couldhelp you achieve your objective.

Synthesizing information involves combininginformation from two or more sources. The abilityto synthesize information is important becauseinformation gained from one source often sheds newlight upon other information. It is like putting thepieces of a puzzle together to form a complete pic-ture. Being able to synthesize information will helpyou read and write more effectively.

Learning the SkillTo write a research report, you study several

sources—encyclopedias, books, and articles. Onceyou have gathered information, you synthesize itinto a report.

Before synthesizing information, analyze eachsource separately. Determine the value and reliabil-ity of each source. Then, look for connections andrelationships among the different sources.

Practicing the SkillStudy the passage and the photo on this page.

Bombing was used in World War II against a varietyof targets, including military targets, enemy troops,and civilian populations. The bombing of civilians inWorld War II made the home front a dangerousplace. A few bombing raids had been conducted inthe last year of World War I. The bombings and thereaction to them had given rise to the argument thatbombing civilian populations would be an effectiveway to force governments to make peace.

Beginning in early September 1940, the German airforce bombed London and many other British cities

and towns nightly. The Blitz, as the British called theGerman air raids, became a national experience.Londoners took the first heavy blows. Their ability tomaintain their morale set the standard for the rest ofthe British population.

1 What is the main idea of the passage?

2 What does the photo tell you about this topic?

3 By synthesizing the two sources, what informa-tion do you have about the bombing of Britain?

837

Applying the Skill

Find two sources of information about a current eventand write a short report. For your report, try to use aprimary and a secondary source, if possible. Answerthese questions: What are the main ideas from thesesources? How does each source add to your under-standing of the topic? Do the sources support or con-tradict each other? If there are contradictions, howwould you include the conflicting information in yourreport?

Glencoe’s Skillbuilder Interactive Workbook,Level 2, provides instruction and practice in keysocial studies skills.

Scottish city bombed in 1941

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Using Key Terms1. The policy of giving in to Hitler’s demands before World

War II has been called .

2. The German style of attack that called for rapidly overrun-ning the positions of opposing forces was called a .

3. Because the Rhineland was , Germany was not permitted to have weapons or fortifications there.

4. The United States threatened economic unless Japanreturned to its borders of 1931.

5. Civilians in occupied countries who joined resistance move-ments were often called .

6. What the Nazis called the Final Solution was actually of the Jewish people.

7. Japanese pilots who volunteered for suicide missions wereknown as .

8. People who assisted the Nazis in carrying out atrocitiesagainst Jewish people were known as .

Reviewing Key Facts9. Geography Where was the Sudetenland located? Why was

it important to Hitler?

10. Science and Technology What did the British develop toprepare for German air attack?

11. History What significant military action occurred at MidwayIsland in 1942?

12. Government Why did the Allied agreement to fight until theAxis Powers surrendered unconditionally possibly prolongthe war?

13. Citizenship In what way were Japanese Americans treateddifferently than German Americans and Italian Americans?

14. Citizenship What percentage of the Jewish populations ofPoland, the Baltic countries, and Germany were killed duringthe Holocaust?

15. Government What event triggered the entry of the UnitedStates into the war?

World War II was the most devastating total war in human history. Events engaged four continents, involved countless people and resources, and changed subsequent history. The chart below summarizes some of the themes and developments.

• Retakes Japanese positionsin Southeast Asia

• Makes huge troop movements at Dunkirk and Normandy

• Occupies Kuril and SakhalinIslands

• Takes control of much ofEastern Europe

• Takes over Austria, Poland,and Sudetenland

• Invades Ethiopia

• Seizes Manchuria andrenames it Manchukuo

• Invades China

• Relaxes neutrality acts• Meets with Allies at Tehran,

Yalta, and Potsdam

• Meets with Allies at Tehran,Yalta, and Potsdam

• Meets with Allies at Tehran,Yalta, and Potsdam

• Forms Rome-Berlin Axis• Signs Anti-Comintern Pact

• Forms Rome-Berlin Axis

• Signs Anti-Comintern Pact

United States

Great Britain

Soviet Union

Germany

Italy

Japan

• Leads war effort• Conducts island-hopping counterattacks• Drops atomic bombs on Japan

• Stops Rommel at El Alamein• Withstands heavy German bombing

• Defeats Germany at Stalingrad• Forces Germany to fight war

on two fronts

• Uses blitzkrieg tactics• Conducts genocide of Jews and others• Besieges Leningrad

• Becomes German puppet state(northern Italy)

• Attacks Pearl Harbor• Conquers Southeast Asia from

Indochina to Philippines

Country Movement Cooperation Conflict

Analyzing Maps and ChartsRefer to the map on page 820 to answer the following questions.

23. Why did the Allies not retake every Japanese-held island?

24. How far is it from Pearl Harbor to Japan?

Self-Check QuizVisit the Glencoe World History Web site at

and click on Chapter 26–Self-CheckQuiz to prepare for the Chapter Test.

HISTORY

CHAPTER 26 World War II 839

Critical Thinking16. Cause and Effect What factors caused President Truman to

order the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan?

17. Drawing Conclusions How did World War II affect theworld balance of power? What nations emerged from theconflict as world powers?

Writing About History18. Informative Writing Write an essay that examines the dif-

ferent approaches to colonial governing in Asia taken by theJapanese during World War II and by Europeans before thewar. Be sure to include information about key people,places, and events from each of the two periods in history.

Analyzing SourcesHeinrich Himmler, head of the German SS, argued:

“Whether nations live in prosperity or starve todeath interests me only insofar as we need them asslaves for our culture. Otherwise it is of no interest.”

19. Describe Heinrich Himmler’s opinion of the people that Germany conquered.

20. Compare the Nazi philosophy of creating a New Order withthe Japanese philosophy of Asia for the Asiatics.

Applying Technology Skills21. Using the Internet Use the Internet to research the daily

life of a Japanese American citizen in a U.S. internmentcamp. Compare and contrast the treatment of JapaneseAmericans to that of German Americans and Italian Amer-icans during this time.

Making Decisions22. Some historians believe that President Truman dropped

atomic weapons on Japan not to end the war in the Pacific,but to impress the Soviet Union with U.S. military power.Write a position paper evaluating this hypothesis in light ofwhat you have learned about Stalin and the United States.What were Truman’s other options? Do you think a leadertoday would make the same decision?

Directions: Use the map and your knowl-edge of world history to answer the follow-ing question.

UNITEDUNITEDKINGDOMKINGDOM

FRANCEFRANCE

SPAINSPAIN

GREECEGREECE

ITALYITALY

SWITZ.SWITZ.

NETH.NETH.

DENDENMARKMARK

BELG.BELG.

ALBALBANIAANIA

YUGOSLAVIAYUGOSLAVIABULGARIABULGARIA

ROMANIAROMANIA

HUNGARYHUNGARYAUSTRIAAUSTRIA

GERMANYGERMANY POLANDPOLAND

LITH.LITH.

LATVIALATVIA

ESESTONIATONIA

RUSSIARUSSIAGER.GER.

FINLANDFINLAND

SWEDENSWEDEN

NORWAYNORWAY

SLOVAKIASLOVAKIA

ALPS

UNITEDKINGDOM

FRANCE

LUX.

SPAIN

GREECE

ITALY

SWITZ.

NETH.

DENMARK

BELG.

ALBANIA

YUGOSLAVIABULGARIA

ROMANIA

HUNGARYAUSTRIA

GERMANY POLAND

LITH.

LATVIA

ESTONIA

RUSSIAGER.

FINLAND

SWEDEN

NORWAY

Mediterranean Sea

BalticSe

a

NorthSea

English ChannelSLOVAKIA

ALPS

German-Controlled Territory, 1943

What geographic factors influenced German militaryadvances?

F German troops had to cover long distances.

G Colder climates created problems that the German mili-tary could not overcome.

H The blitzkrieg relied on tanks that were most effective onflatter terrain.

J All of the above.

Test-Taking Tip: To answer this question about how geog-raphy affected history, look at the map carefully. Noticewhich areas the German military did not occupy. Use theseclues to make an inference about how geography affectedthe German army.

tx.wh.glencoe.com

http://www.glencoe.com/qe/qe34tx.php?&st=759&pt=3&bk=22

840

. . . Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to comeby, what would have happened had Shakespeare had awonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say.Shakespeare himself went, very probably—his motherwas an heiress—to the grammar school, where he mayhave learnt Latin—Ovid, Virgil and Horace—and theelements of grammar and logic. He was, it is wellknown, a wild boy who poached rabbits, perhaps shota deer, and had, rather sooner than he should havedone, to marry a woman in the neighbourhood, whobore him a child rather quicker than was right. Thatescapade sent him to seek his fortune in London. Hehad, it seemed, a taste for the theatre; he began byholding horses at the stage door. Very soon he gotwork in the theatre, became a successful actor, andlived at the hub of the universe, meeting everybody,knowing everybody, practising his art on the boards,exercising his wits in the street, and even getting access

from A Room ofOne’s Own

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf, who was born in 1882 inLondon, is considered one of the most signif-icant modernist writers of our time. Her workchanged the ways the novel was perceivedand written. She developed a techniqueknown as stream of consciousness in whichthe writer portrays the inner lives andthoughts of multiple characters. Additionally,she is known for her feminist writings. One ofthe most famous of these is A Room of One’sOwn. The title of this work is based on herassertion that a woman “must have moneyand a room of her own” in order to write.

Read to DiscoverHow does Virginia Woolf express her beliefthat gender influences the development oftalent? Do you think Woolf is being fair inher assessment? Does her analysis of the dif-ferences between treatment of men andwomen apply today?

Reader’s Dictionaryagog: full of intense interest or excitement

moon: to dream

� Many of WilliamShakespeare’s playswere performed at the Globe theater inLondon, shown left.

841

to the palace of the queen. Meanwhile his extraor-dinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained athome. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, asagog to see the world as he was. But she was notsent to school. She had no chance of learning gram-mar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Vir-gil. She picked up a book now and then, one of herbrother’s perhaps, and read a few pages. But thenher parents came in and told her to mend thestockings or mind the stew and not moon aboutwith books and papers. They would have spokensharply but kindly, for they were substantial peoplewho knew the conditions of life for a woman andloved their daughter—indeed, more likely than notshe was the apple of her father’s eye. Perhaps shescribbled some pages up in an apple loft on the sly,but was careful to hide them or set fire to them.Soon, however, before she was out of her teens, shewas to be betrothed to the son of a neighbouringwool-stapler. She cried out that marriage was hate-ful to her, and for that she was severely beaten byher father. Then he ceased to scold her. He beggedher instead not to hurt him, not to shame him inthis matter of her marriage. He would give her achain of beads or a fine petticoat, he said; and therewere tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him?How could she break his heart? The force of herown gift alone drove her to it. She made up a smallparcel of her belongings, let herself down by a ropeone summer’s night and took the road to London.She was not seventeen. The birds that sang in thehedge were not more musical than she was. She hadthe quickest fancy, a gift like her brother’s, for thetune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the the-atre. She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act,she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager—a fat, loose-lipped man—guffawed. He bellowedsomething about poodles dancing and women act-ing—no woman, he said could possibly be anactress. He hinted—you can imagine what. Shecould get no training in her craft. Could she evenseek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets atmidnight? Yet her genius was for fiction . . . At

1. What were “the conditions of life for a woman”that made Judith’s parents scold her for attemptingto read and write?

2. Why does Judith’s father beat her?

3. What is Woolf’s conclusion about the possibility ofa woman becoming Shakespeare?

4. CRITICAL THINKING Why does Virginia Woolfhave Shakespeare marry, but Shakespeare’s sisterrun away from marriage?

Applications Activity What does a person today need to succeed as a writeror artist? Write a descriptive account to illustrate yourargument.

last—for she was very young, oddly like Shake-speare the poet in her face, with the same greyeyes and rounded brows—at last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; [but] she . . .killed herself one winter’s night and lies buried atsome cross-roads where the omnibuses now stopoutside the Elephant and Castle. That, more orless, is how the story would run, I think, if awoman in Shakespeare’s day had had Shake-speare’s genius.

� William Shakespeare

Documents

World War II - CISD · 2013-08-22 · 808 Hitler’s Vision n February 3, 1933, Adolf Hitler met secretly with Germany’s leading generals. He had been appointed chancellor of Germany