Ww2eto End

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US In WWII - North Africa & Europe; War's End

1. The Strengthening Alliance

2. North Africa & the Invasion of Italy

3. The German Retreat From Russia

4. The Nazi "Final Solution"

5. The Allied Invasion of France

6. The Fall of Germany7. The Fall of Japan




Events

● January 12, 1943 Roosevelt & Churchill begin meeting atCasablanca

● November 28 Churchill, Roosevelt, & Stalin begin meeting atTehran




A. The Casablanca Conference

● 12-13 Jan 43,

● FDR, Churchill meet at Casablanca

●

Decide on accepting only unconditional surrender fromGermany

● Discussed situation in Pacific

● Agreed on invasion of Sicily

● Agreed to hold off Allied invasion of Europe acrossEnglish Channel until summer, 1944

● Agree to intensify bombing operations vs Germany




B. The Tehran Conference

● 28 Nov – 1 Dec 43 in Tehran, Iran

● FDR, Churchill, Stalin

●

Discuss Allied invasion of Europe –● Operation Overlord; Stalin wants western front engaged

ASAP; Churchill & FDR want Germany’s defensessoftened up

●

Stalin commits USSR to enter war vs Japan onceGermany is defeated



2. North Africa & The Invasion of Italy - Events

January 12, 1941 Britain capturesTobruk, Libya

June 21, 1942 Germans retake Tobruk

October 23 Battle of El-Alamein begins

November 8 Operation Torch; jointU.S.-British landing in French NorthAfrica

November 11 Britain retakes Tobruk

November 25 Allies begin offensive

into Tunisia

March 7, 1943 Tunis falls to Alliedforces

July 10 Allied invasion of Sicily(Operation Husky) begins

July 22 Palermo falls to Allies

July 24 Mussolini is overthrown in apeaceful coup

September 2 Allied invasion of Italybegins

September 8 Italy surrenders to Allies

October 1 Allies capture Naples

May 18, 1944 Monte Cassino falls toAllies

June 5 Rome falls to Allies



2. North Africa & The Invasion of Italy

A. Up to Nov '42

– Troubles in N. Africa primarily due to Italian aggressionin '40 & '41

– One of the primary flash points in North Africa was the

key port of Tobruk, Libya, changed hands betweenthe Germans & British several times; site of severalmajor battles.

– June 1942, Tobruk fell to the Germans after a long &intensive siege by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s tankforces.

– Then, in November 1942, Tobruk fell once more to theBritish & remained under their control for the rest of the war.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/animations/wwtwo_map_n_africa/index_embed.shtml






B. El-Alamein

– Perhaps the most decisive battle in North Africa was theBattle of El-Alamein, from October 23 to November 3,1942

– Powerful British offensive defeated German forcesoverwhelmingly. The British outnumbered theGermans 2:1

– Romme “Desert Fox” away on sick leave

– As the battle started, Rommel’s substitute died of aheart attack; by the time Rommel arrived, the situationwas hopeless.




C. Operation Torch

– Allies launched Operation Torch, code name for their invasion of North Africa.

– On November 8, 1942, British & American forces carried

out an amphibious landing on the coast of FrenchNorth Africa (present-day Morocco).

– The invasion involved more than 100k men & over 600ships; among the largest such invasions in history.

–

Operation Torch was highly successful & enabled theAllies to take more than 1,000 miles of North Africancoastline.




D. Tunisia

– Allies energetically pursue the Axis forces that hadbegun retreat into Tunisia.

– Desert terrain in Tunisia ideal for a defending force:

Rommel planned to make a stand

– The Allies did not begin their offensive into Tunisia untilNov 25, '42; delay gave Germany & Italy time to airliftmore troops & equipment. Axis forces substantiallyoutnumber Allies.

– Allies progress very slow. Rommel’s forces fought withtenacity; fighting continued well into the spring of 1943.

– Allies consistently gain ground on the Axis forces.

– May , Allies took Tunis & soon remaining Axis forces in




E. Results of the North African Campaign

– War in North Africa an adventure initiated by Italy in anattempt to seize former colonial territories of Britainand France.

– Italian military had taken on more than it could handle,Germany was forced to come to Italy’s defense.

– North Africa was a large-scale conflict and forced Hitler to divert considerable resources, severely weakeningGerman efforts elsewhere.

– Ultimately, the North Africa campaign was a seriousdefeat for the Axis powers. It also marked the firstmajor involvement in the European theater by U.S.forces.




F. Operation Husky

●

Allies invade island of Sicily. On July 10, 1943● July 22, the Sicilian capital of Palermo falls; Sicily secured




G. Invasion of the Italian mainland

● The day after the fall of Sicily, Italy’s Fascist ruler, BenitoMussolini, overthrown by peaceful coup; Italian officials

promptly began approaching the Allies about armistice.● Prior to Mussolini’s ouster, U.S. and British forces had

planned an invasion of the Italian mainland, these eventstook the Allied leaders by surprise.




G. Invasion of the Italian mainland, cont'd.

● Italy officially surrenders to Allies on Sep 8, '43

●

Allied invasion of Italy proceeded as planned, as there werestill a large number of German forces stationed in thecountry.

● British forces landed at Taranto, on the southeastern tip of Italy, Sep 2. Main invasion begins Sep 9, day after Italy’s

surrender.





● Italy officially surrenders to Allies on Sep 8, '43

●

Allied invasion of Italy proceeded as planned, as there werestill a large number of German forces stationed in thecountry.

● British forces landed at Taranto, on the southeastern tip of Italy, Sep 2. Main invasion begins Sep 9, day after Italy’s

surrender.





● The two forces planned to fight their way across thecountry to meet in the middle. German resistance very

heavy; U.S. forces suffered great casualties.● After slow & treacherous fighting, the Allies finally captured

the port of Naples on October 1, putting all of southern Italyunder Allied control.




H. Monte Cassino and Rome

● Even though the Italian government had surrendered, theGermans were determined not to allow Rome to fall to the

Allies.● As the Allies secured their position in southern Italy,

German forces formed a defensive line across the width of Italy, called the Winter Line, just south of Rome.

●

Winter Line crosses at the fortified monastery of MonteCassino.




H. Monte Cassino and Rome, cont'd.

● Winter Line presented a very formidable obstacle to theAllied forces, who assaulted the entrenched Germans over

and over again and each time were pushed back. Thestalemate persisted for more than six months until MonteCassino finally fell on May 18, 1944.

● Rome was liberated June 5.

●

Germans retreated a short distance and formed a newdefensive line in northern Italy, the Gothic Line, whichwould hold until the spring of 1945.




I. Italy’s Role in the War

● Italy’s participation in World War II provided little strategicbenefit for Germany; hindered the German war effort by

diverting German forces from more important tasks.● Italy’s actions at the whim of Mussolini, decisions became

so erratic & potentially costly that his underlings eventuallydecided to overthrow him.

●

Italy’s initially frivolous & aimless campaigns becameincreasingly devastating. North Africa cost tens of thousands of lives, battles on the Italian mainland betweenAllied & German forces proved even more devastating.




● Events

● July 5, 1943 Battle of Kursk begins

● July 12 Germany retreatsfrom Kursk

● September 25 Sovietforces liberate Smolensk

● November 6 Soviet forcesliberate Kiev

● Jan 27, '44 Siege of Leningrad is broken

● June 22 Russian offensive

through Belorussia(Operation Bagration)begins

● July 3 Soviet forces

liberate Minsk● July 24 Soviet forces

capture Majdanekextermination camp inPoland






● B. The Battle of Kursk

● The clash between German and Soviet forces began onthe night of Jul 4, '43, 200-mile front with a total of roughly

5k tanks and 4k aircraft in place—one of the largestarmored conflicts in history.

● Germans effective at removing & neutralizing the Sovietminefields.

●

Central episode of the battle on July 12 at the village of Prokhorovka, where nearly 2k tanks clashed at once.




● B. The Battle of Kursk, cont'd

● Battle of Kursk was over in only a few weeks. By Jul 14,Germany was in retreat, with the Soviets pursuing them

close behind.● August 5, Soviets liberate Orel, which lay to the north of

Kursk, closing another major gap in the front. From thispoint forward, the USSR had the initiative & commenced along offensive push that would slowly drive the Germans

back to the west.




● C. Soviet Victories in the Ukraine

● During the late summer/autumn '43, Soviets advancedsteadily, achieving a series of victories as they pushed the

Germans westward across the Ukraine.● The first major victory Aug 22, when the

Red Army retook the city of Kharkov.

● Meanwhile, the Germans were planning the construction of

a massive defensive wall all the way from the Gulf of Finland in the north to the Sea of Azov in the south, thePanther Line

● The wall was never built, however, for the Soviets

advanced too quickly






● D. End of the Seige of Leningrad

● Leningrad still starving under German siege that hadbegun back in Sep '41; completely encircled by German

troops, aside from a sliver of land that allowed access tonearby Lake Ladoga.

● Russians were able to get some food & medical suppliesinto the city via trucks driving across the frozen lake. Manytrucks fell victim to German shelling or broke through the

ice &sank, but the supplies helped Leningrad’s populationendure the Germans’ brutally long siege.




● D. End of the Seige of Leningrad, cont'd

● Jan 27, '44, the siege of Leningrad was finally broken,roughly 900 days after it had begun.

● Combined forces of the Red Army pushing in from theoutside & Soviet troops & resistance fighters pushing outfrom the inside broke the German siege line.

● Within days, the German forces surrounding the city were

forced out of the Leningrad region entirely.




● D. End of the Seige of Leningrad, cont'd

● The liberation of Leningrad was a tremendous victory for the Soviets, both literally and symbolically.

● More than 600,000 Russians died from starvation,exposure, or disease during the siege, and the rest werekept alive only barely by the supplies delivered across LakeLadoga.

●

Throughout the siege, Soviet forces trapped within the cityhad stood firm and prevented German forces from ever entering.




● E. German Atrocities

● All German forces on Soviet territory, except for theCrimea, were in active retreat during early 1944. With each

passing month, more and more Soviet cities and townswere liberated.

● The retreat was brutal as the Germans stepped up their murder campaigns to a frenzy. As the Nazi forcesabandoned their positions, they executed any remaining

Jewish slave laborers & Soviet prisoners, along withanyone even remotely suspected of partisan involvement.

● In Belorussia, entire towns were burned to the groundtogether with their residents.




● F. Operation Bagration

● Not until the summer of '44 that a major Soviet offensivetook place. Operation Bagration began three years to the

day after Germany’s initial invasion of Russia, on June 22,'44. Objective: drive out completely the German forcescentered in Belorussia & central Russia.

● The Soviets advanced with nearly 2 million troops &thousands of tanks and within days had broken the

German front line in two.

● On July 3, Soviet forces took the Belorussian capital of Minsk, & less than two weeks later, the Red Army reachedthe Polish border.




● G. The Discovery of Concentration Camps

● As the Red Army advanced west into Europe via Poland,Slovakia, & Romania, they uncovered a growing body of

evidence concerning German atrocities.● Jul 24, '44, Soviet soldiers at Lublin, Poland, captured

Majdanek extermination camp before its German operatorscould destroy the evidence.

●

Found hundreds of dead bodies, along with gas chambers,crematoria, & thousands of living prisoners in varyingstates of starvation.

● West had received reports of such atrocities for some time,this was the first absolute proof.




● H. The Polish Insurgency

● an active Polish insurgency continued to fight the Germans inWarsaw and throughout western Poland.

● Allies had limited success in their efforts to airdrop supplies andother means of support.

● Soviet government refused to assist in these airdrops and evenactively discouraged them, claiming that they would havenegligible effect on the war and were a waste of time.

● Stalin’s intentions became clearer, as reports surfaced in theWest that Soviets “liberating” Polish territory were actuallyarresting members of the Polish insurgency in large numbers.




● I. Germany in the defensive

● Germany’s defeat at Kursk in Jul 1943 almost

simultaneous with the Allied invasion of Sicily,Hitler forced to withdraw some generals andforces to fight the new threat in Italy. This multi-front war began to take a serious toll on

Germany’s capability to control the territory ithad seized over the previous four years.



3. Germany's Retreat From Russia

● As Soviet forces advanced farther west during early 1944, theGerman military leadership also had to prepare for the expectedBritish and American invasion of France.

●

Consequently, Germany withdrew still more forces from thecollapsing eastern front. Although Hitler was still far from givingup, his conquests were clearly in decline and his war machinegradually collapsing.



4. Germany's “Final Solution”

● Events

● December 8, 1941 Concentration camp at Chelmno, Poland,begins gassing Jewish prisoners

● January 20, 1942 Wannsee Conference held




● A. The Beginning of the Holocaust

● By late 1941, the first Jews from Germany and western Europe

were gathered

& transported, along with many other minorities, toconcentration camps in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania,Latvia, Ukraine, and western Russia, where they were first usedas slaves and then systematically murdered.




● A. The Beginning of the Holocaust, cont'd

– At this point, the notorious gas chambers of the later Naziconcentration camps were not yet common.

– Most victims were taken in groups to secluded areas wherethey were stripped of clothing, pushed into open

pits, machine-gunned, and then quickly covered over, inmany cases even before all were dead.

– One of the reasons for creating the gas chambers andextermination camps was that many troops in the GermanS.S. experienced severe psychological repercussionscarrying out the gruesome tasks put before them.




● A. The Beginning of the Holocaust, cont'd

– The German atrocities were not directed solely at Jews.Precisely the same fate awaited millions of non-

Jewish Russian and eastern European civilians, as well asmany Soviet prisoners of war.

– By December 1941, the number of Nazi murders wasalready in the hundreds of thousands and growing rapidly.




● B. The Wannsee Conference

● On January 20, 1942, a group of fifteen Nazi officials met in avilla in the Wannsee district outside Berlin in order to settle thedetails for resolving the so-called “Jewish question.” Themeeting was led by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Gestapo(the Nazi secret police), and included several members of theS.S. along with representatives of several German governmentministries. Neither Hitler nor any heads of governmentministries were present.





– The topics discussed included the logistics of expelling Jewsfrom Germany by emigration, the possibility of mandatorysterilization, and the best ways to deal with people of mixedblood.

– considerable attention to the matter of who would be legallyconsidered a Jew; ultimately, it set different conditions for pure Jews and those of mixed blood, in turn classified by

first generation and second generation. – Delegates also discussed how to handle Jews who would

not or could not leave the country; it was decided that theseJews would be sterilized and sent to live in all-Jewish“retirement ghettos.”





– The official record of the Wannsee Conference made nomention of mass killing of Jews or of extermination camps.

– did set a secret goal to remove 11 million Jews from Europeby whatever means and expressed concern that the massemigration process already taking place was becomingexpensive and more difficult to negotiate.

– The terms “final solution” and “absolute final solution” wereused, although the specifics were not elaborated.




● C. The Death Camps

● Nazi forces had begun the mass killing of Jews as early as

1939, when Germany first invaded Poland. These actionsexpanded greatly during the invasion of the USSR in 1941. By1942, the so-called Endlösung, or “final solution,” took shape,as the murders become increasingly systematic and Hitler pressed his underlings to speed up the process.

● During the previous year, S.S. commanders had experimentedwith different methods, and gas chambers proved to be themethod of choice.




● C. The Death Camps, cont'd

● Although prisoners died by the thousands from disease,overwork, or starvation in German labor camps throughoutEurope, there were only seven designated exterminationcamps.

● Six were located in Poland, one in Belorussia. These campsexisted purely for the purpose of killing, and most of theprisoners taken to them were dead within hours of arrival. A

limited number of prisoners deemed fit enough to work weretemporarily forced to labor in these camps, but they wereunderfed and overworked until they too were unfit for labor andsubsequently killed.

M f N i D th C



Map of Nazi Death Camps




● C. The Death Camps, cont'd

● More than 90 percent of the victims sent to these exterminationcamps were Jews, brought in from all over Germany and other German-controlled areas of eastern and western Europe.

● Christians, Romany (Gypsies) and homosexuals also lost their lives in the camps in significant numbers, as did some Sovietprisoners of war.

● The camps continued operation virtually unimpeded until the

Allies finally liberated them near the end of the war.

Th Alli d I i f F



5. The Allied Invasion of France

● Events

● June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion begins

● July 20 Attempt on Hitler’s life nearly succeeds

● Late July Allied forces make first significant inland progress

● August 15 Allies forces land on Mediterranean coast of France

● Mid-August Hitler orders evacuation of southern France

● Soviet forces enter Germany from the east

● August 30 Soviet forces capture Ploesti, Romania

● September 10 First Allied troops enter Germany from west

● October 18 Hitler authorizes conscription of all healthy men aged 16–60

O ti O l d



Operation Overlord

● By early 1944, the Allies, under the leadership of U.S. generalDwight D. Eisenhower, had been planning an invasion of France for more than a year.

● The Germans, anticipating such an invasion since 1942, hadbegun building the Atlantic Wall, a series of heavily armedfortifications all along the French coast.

● As the Allied invasion plan became more specific, it wasdubbed Operation Overlord, and preparations and training for

the mission began in earnest.

O ti O l d



Operation Overlord

● As part of the invasion plan, the Allies instigated a massdisinformation campaign in hopes of directing German forcesaway from the actual landing point.

● As part of this effort, the Allies made use of German spies inBritain who had been turned and were serving as doubleagents.

● These double agents helped convince the German leadershipthat the invasion would take place near Calais, the point where

the English Channel was narrowest, when in fact the invasionwas targeted farther south, in Normandy.

D Da



D-Day

● The invasion was launched early in the morning of June 6, 1944—the famous D-Day—barely a day after U.S. troops hadliberated the Italian capital of Rome.

● Overnight, roughly 20,000 British and American airborne troopshad been dropped by parachute and glider a short distanceinland of the Normandy coast, ordered to do as much damageas possible to the German fortified coastal defenses.

● Meanwhile, over 6,000 ships were making their way across the

English Channel to deliver a huge expeditionary force onto fiveseparate beaches between Cherbourg and Caen.

D Day Beaches



D-Day Beaches

The Normandy Invasion



The Normandy Invasion

● The first wave alone brought 150,000 Allied soldiers to theFrench shore, and over the coming weeks, more than 2 millionmore would enter France via the Normandy beaches—to thisday the largest seaborne invasion in history.

● Opposing the invaders were thousands of German troopsmanning the fortifications above the beaches.

The Normany Invasion cont'd



The Normany Invasion, cont d

● The first day of the invasion was costly for the Allies in terms of casualties--especially at one landing point, Omaha Beach—butthe Germans were vastly outnumbered and rapidlyoverwhelmed by the incoming forces.

● The German high command still believed that a larger invasionwas imminent at Calais or elsewhere, so they withheld reserveforces in the area from moving against the Normandy invaders.

● The Allies therefore accomplished nearly all of their set

objectives for the first day, which included fully securing thelanding areas.

The Battle of Normandy



The Battle of Normandy

● Breaking out of the Normandy coast and into inland Franceproved more difficult, in part because of stubbornly defendedGerman defense posts at Cherbourg and Caen, which framedthe area.

● The Allies were unable to advance inland in significant numbersuntil July 28, 1944, by which time the two German forts hadbeen defeated.

● During August, the Allied forces that continued to land in

Normandy were able to move rapidly into the heart of France.

Operation Dragoon



Operation Dragoon

● On August 15, a second Allied assault was made into France,this time along the Mediterranean coast in the south.

● This campaign, called Operation Dragoon, involved nearly100,000 troops, who rapidly spread out northward into France.

● With this southern operation a success, Allied forces were ableto approach the French capital from two directions.

Paris



Paris

● By mid-August 1944, most of northwestern France was under Allied control, and from there, the Allied advance moved rapidly.

● Hitler ordered the evacuation of southern France, and Germantroops also began the process of evacuating Paris itself.

● At almost the same time, Soviet troops invading from the other front first crossed Germany’s eastern border.

Paris, cont'd



Paris, cont d

● Even as it became inevitablethat France would fall to theAllies, however, the Nazi war machine continued deporting

French Jews to Auschwitzand other exterminationcamps without letup.

● A few days later, on August25, Allied forces entered

Paris, by which point allremaining German troopshad either evacuated or beentaken prisoner.

The Approach to Germany




● Even though the war in Europe would continue for another seven months, September 1944 brought Germany perilouslyclose to defeat.

● During that month, Allied troops overran most of France,

pushed deep into Belgium, and were on the verge of enteringthe Netherlands.

● The first Allied soldier crossed into Germany on September 10;although this mission was only a brief excursion, Allied ground

missions into Germany would become increasingly frequent.




pp y

● After the success of Operation Overlord, the Allies had theability to launch bomber raids from France, Italy, and Britain,which vastly expanded the range and duration of aerial attacksinside Germany.

● Simultaneously, the Soviets were closing in from the east:although Warsaw was still under German control, the Red Armyhad taken much of eastern Poland.

● The Soviets also had advanced into Czechoslovakia, Romania,

Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia—the latter two of which even signedformal agreements of cooperation with the USSR.

Germany Surrounded



y

● By the autumn of 1944, Germany was surrounded on all sides.

● Allied air strikes on German industrial facilities, particularly oilreserves, prevented the Luftwaffe from posing the seriousthreat that it once had.

● This gap in Germany’s defense left the country very vulnerableto attack.

● Fuel situation in Germany

was becoming truly desperate, especially after the city of Ploiesti, Romania, fell to the Red Army on August 30.

Germany Surrounded, cont'd



y

● Few in the German high command could have failed torecognize that they were in serious trouble, even if they couldnot admit it publicly.

● A resistance movement against Hitler grew among the German

officer corps, and several attempts were made on Hitler’s lifethroughout the summer, including a bombing on July 20 thatnearly succeeded. (Valkyrie)

● After the failed attempt, Hitler cracked down mercilessly on

known opponents, executing more than 4,000 of them.

Germany Surrounded, cont'd



● On October 18, Hitler ordered the conscription of all healthyGerman men aged sixteen to sixty in order to defend thecountry from an obviously imminent invasion.

● Hitler intended for the country to fight to the last man and

planned to employ a scorched-earth policy similar to thestrategy the Soviets had used against Hitler’s own forces in theUSSR in 1941.



German Desperation



● During the second half of 1944, the Nazi empire graduallyimploded as its enemies invaded from east, west, and south.Supplies and manufacturing dwindled on a daily basis.

● The once-mighty Luftwaffe had some of the best military aircraft

in the world but lacked fuel to fly them and parts to maintainthem.

German Desperation



● Evidence suggests that Hitler himself became addicted to avariety of drugs and that he may also have suffered fromsyphilis, Parkinson’s disease, or both.

● Far separated from reality, Hitler placed his last hope of winning

the war on the latest developments of German technology.These developments were both impressive and real but weretoo late and too poorly executed to change the outcome of thewar or even delay it by much.

V-Weapons



● Among Germany’s most fearsome new weapons were twomissiles, the V1 and the V2. The V1 was the world’s first cruisemissile, the V2 the world’s first weaponized ballistic missile.

● Other German innovations included both jet- and rocket-

propelled aircraft. However, nearly all of these innovations werestill experimental in nature and not truly ready for effective usein combat.

● German scientists were also busily working on the developmentof an atomic bomb, but the war ended before they couldsucceed.

V-Weapons



The Battle of the Bulge



● On December 16, 1944, the Germans began their last major counteroffensive of the war, as three German armies surgedinto the Ardennes Forest, dividing the Allied front with theultimate goal of retaking the Belgian city of Antwerp.

● This time, Allied intelligence failed to intercept the Germanplans, and the action was a complete surprise.

● The Germans launched the attack during a heavy snowstormthat grounded all aircraft, making it difficult for the Allies toevaluate the extent of the attack.

● The Germans deployed a group of about thirty English-speakingsoldiers behind Allied lines, dressed in American uniforms anddriving captured American vehicles.







● By December 24, the Germans had penetrated deep intoFrench territory, making a distinct bulge in the front line that lentthe Battle of the Bulge its name.

● German forces surrounded a large contingent of U.S forces in

the town of Bastogne and attempted to intimidate them with aninvitation of surrender. The offer was refused.

● As the weather cleared and Allied aircraft could fly again, theGermans were pushed back, and supplies were airdropped tothe trapped American troops.




● In the meantime, other Allied armies were diverted from other areas of France to help. By early January 1945, the Germanswere once again in retreat, and on January 16, the soldierstrapped at Bastogne were free, and the “bulge” was no more.

The German Retreat from the East



● Throughout the fall and winter of 1944, Soviet forces slowly butsteadily made their way toward Germany through easternEurope.

● The brunt of the assault was concentrated on Poland, where

most of the Nazis’ concentration camps were located.

● By early November 1944, the German S.S. was trying franticallyto dismantle these camps and hide evidence of the atrocitiesthat had taken place. The Nazis forced those prisoners whowere still living to march on foot westward to Germany.

● On November 20, Hitler himself retreated, abandoning his staff headquarters at Rastenburg along the Polish-German border and relocating to Berlin.

The Yalta Conference



● On Feb 4, 1945, FDR, Churchill, and Stalin came together for anow-famous meeting at Yalta, a resort on the CrimeanPeninsula in the USSR.

● The “Big Three,” discussed their strategy for the last stages of

the war. They agreed that Britain and the United States wouldprovide bomber support for Soviet troops fighting along theeastern front.

● The three leaders also spoke about the issue of how Europewould be divided after the war, with particular concern regardingthe situation in Poland, which was by this point controlledentirely by the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Advance



● Red Army had moved deep into Hungary and, by early Dec '44,had taken most of the country

● US & UK aircraft provided support as the Soviets advanced intoGerman territory, making devastating bombing attacks on

Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin.● By late Mar '45, the Red Army had secured all of eastern

Europe.

● By this time, the Allied forces coming from France had crossed

the Rhine River and were moving swiftly toward Berlin from thewest.

● The Allies decided to let Soviet forces enter Berlin first, whileBritish and U.S. forces concentrated on other areas to the northand south.



The End of Nazi Germany



● Just days after Roosevelt’s death, on April 16, 1945, theSoviets began their final offensive against the Third Reich.

● Over the coming days, more than 3,000 tanks crossed theNeisse River,assaulting Berlin’s outer defenses while Allied

aircraft bombed the city from above.● On April 20, Hitler spent his birthday in an underground bunker

and soon resigned to kill himself when the city fell. Althoughimminent defeat was obvious, Hitler not only refused to allowhis troops to surrender but also insisted that the conscriptedcivilian army was to defend Berlin to the last man.

The End of Nazi Germany



● On April 25, the Allied armies advancing from east and westmet for the first time, when a small group of American andSoviet soldiers met at the German village of Stehla.

● On April 28, the former dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, under

arrest since his ouster nearly two years before, was executedby Italian partisans and hung upside down in the center of Milan.

● April 30, Adolf Hitler killed himself in the bunker in which he hadbeen living since the beginning of the month.

The Formal Surrender



● Over the following days, there was a great deal of confusionthroughout Germany.

● Early on the morning of May 7, 1945, General Alfred Jodlsigned the official surrender on behalf of all German forces,

which went into effect the next day. Some sporadic fightingcontinued in the interim, particularly in Czechoslovakia.

● During the course of May 8, nearly all remaining German forcessurrendered, and that night, additional members of the Germanhigh command signed a formal surrender.

● The Western Allies thus celebrated May 8, 1945, as V-E Day(Victory in Europe Day).

The Seeds of the Cold War



● As it turned out, the dividing line between the Red Army’sposition and the Western Allied armies’ position at the end of the war in Europe would solidify into roughly the same line asthe Iron Curtain, the line dividing Western Europe from EasternEurope in the Cold War.

● Berlin itself would remain divided into Soviet and Westernzones—which became East and West Berlin, respectively—for decades.

The Seeds of the Cold War



7. The Fall of Japan



● Events

● March 1945 Allies begin mass bombing raids of Tokyo and other cities

● July 16 United States successfully tests first atomic bomb

● July 26 Potsdam Declaration signed

● August 6 United States drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima

● August 8 USSR enters war against Japan

●

August 9 United States drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki● USSR invades Manchuria

● August 15 Hirohito announces Japan’s surrender

● September 2 Japan signs formal surrender



The Tokyo Air Raids



● Many of these raids wereconducted on the capital of Tokyo itself, though other citiessuch as Kobe were also hit. Inthe spring and summer of 1945,

the severity of these air raidsgrew exponentially, somecausing firestorms thatproduced death tolls in thehundreds of thousands.

●

By late summer, little of Tokyoand the other targeted citieswere left standing.

The Potsdam Declaration



● Between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Truman, Churchill Stalin of metin Potsdam, Germany, with other Allied leaders to discuss the futureadministration of Germany.

● On July 26, the three also held a special meeting to settle on theterms of surrender for Japan in order to end the war.

● The agreement was set forth in a document known as the PotsdamDeclaration. In short, it demanded an unconditional surrender thatincluded the complete demilitarization of the country and the

replacement of Japan’s current leadership by a “peacefully inclinedand responsible government.”

The Manhattan Project



● During the summer of 1945,American scientists succeededin completing a working atomicbomb, which was tested asingle time, on July 16, at a

remote location in New Mexico.● Scientists around the world had

theorized about the concept of such a weapon for years, andactive research on its

development had been takingplace not only in the UnitedStates but also in NaziGermany, Japan, and theUSSR.

The Manhattan Project



● The American effort, which was conducted with substantial helpfrom Canada and Britain, was code-named the ManhattanProject.

● Shortly after the July test, the Truman administration began

seriously to consider using the bomb against Japan. Eventually,Truman made the difficult decision to do so, in spite of considerable resistance from U.S. military leaders.

● Despite the fact that the bomb would kill tens of thousands of innocents, Truman felt that it would ultimately save both U.S.

military and Japanese civilian casualties that would inevitablyresult from a ground invasion of Japan.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki



● The first atomic bomb was dropped from a B-29 called theEnola Gay on the morning of August 6, 1945, onto

the city of Hiroshima.

● The blast obliterated most of the central city, killing 80,000 in asingle moment. By the end of the year, 60,000 more victimswould die from radiation poisoning, and thousands more woulddie in the years to come, from cancer and other long-termeffects of the radiation. It is estimated that the total death tollfrom Hiroshima was well over 200,000.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki



● The immediate reaction to the bomb in Japan was one of totalincomprehension. All communications with Hiroshima were lost,and rumors quickly spread that the city had vanished in somekind of cataclysmic explosion. Yet Japanese military radar hadindicated that only a few isolated planes had been in the area.

● The Japanese would learn the truth sixteen hours following theexplosion, when the U.S. government released a publicstatement explaining what had taken place.

● Three days later, on August 9, a second atomic bomb was

dropped on the port city of Nagasaki with similarly devastatingresults.

Japan Surrenders



● The day before the Nagasaki bombing, the Soviet Unionentered the war against Japan and commenced an attack onthe Chinese province of Manchuria, which was still held by theJapanese. The combination of the atomic bombings with thepotential threat of a full-scale invasion of Japan by the USSRwas enough to remove any hope that Japan may have held for continuing the war.

● On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’scapitulation in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration.

● A formal surrender was signed on September 2 aboard thebattleship USS Missouri.



Hiroshima

08:15 hrs, August 6th 1945

Before take-off, the crew relax





The Flight-Crew



Ferebee, Van Kirk, Tibbets, Lewis,

Caron, Stiborik, Duzenbury, Nelson, Shumard





Reversing the Enola Gay over the

bomb loading bay





Loading “Little Boy”









The air temperature at the point of

explosion exceeded a million degrees



Celsius.

Temperatures on the ground at the

hypocentre rose to 3,000-4,000ºC.

The abrupt change in atmospheric

conditions created a giant mushroom

cloud.

"A bright light filled the plane, we

turned back to look at Hiroshima.

The city was hidden by that awful



cloud...boiling up, mushrooming."

Colonel Paul Tibbets,

the pilot, later.

The mushroom

cloud climbed to

10,000 metres.



"Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!"

Robert Lewis,

the co-pilot

“My God, what have wedone?”- Robert Lewis

















Dead: 66,000

Injured: 69,000











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