Chapter 12: World War II

Battle of the Bulge

(16 December 1944 - 25 January 1945) was a last major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. United States forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties for any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany's armored forces on the western front which Germany was largely unable to replace. German personnel and Luftwaffe aircraft also sustained heavy losses.

Korematsu v. U.S

(1941) *Executive Powers This was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship. Court ruled that the race was 'suspect classification', and exclusion was necessary during wartime.

San Francisco Conference

(April 25-June 26, 1945), international meeting that established the United Nations. It concluded with the signing of the Charter of the United Nations by 50 nations on June 26.

Pearl Harbor

(December 7, 1941) The US thought the Japanses would attack British Malaya or the Philipines. But instead they attacked here, at several naval bases wiping out many ships and killing 3000 men. The next day the US declares war on Japan. The Day after that the Germans and Italy declare war on the US. The US decided this was the only way to keep the US safe from anarchy.The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II

Stalingrad

(July 17, 1942-Feb. 2, 1943), was the location of the successful Soviet defense (now Volgograd) in the U.S.S.R. during World War II. Russians consider it to be the greatest battle of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest battles in history, with combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million.

Blitzkrieg

A German term for "lightning war," This is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated firepower. Its successful execution results in short military campaigns, which preserves human lives and limits the expenditure of artillery.

Ghetto

A part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups. In WWII it was an area in Poland that was used to "quarantine" the Jews before they were shipped of to concentration camps. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe, located in the territory of General Government in occupied Poland during World War II. Established in November 1940, it was surrounded by wall and contained nearly 500,000 Jews. About 45,000 Jews died there in 1941 alone, as a result of overcrowding, hard labor, lack of sanitation, insufficient food, starvation, and disease.

Fascism

A system of government characterized by strict social and economic control and a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator. First found in Italy by Mussolini.

Tehran Conference

A war time conference held in Iran that was attended by FDR, Churchill, and Stalin. It was the first meeting of the "Big Three" and it agreed on an opening of a second front (Overlord), and that the Soviet Union should enter the war against Japan after the end of the war in Europe

Mary McLeod Bethune

An American educator and civil rights leader best known for starting a school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida, that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University and for being an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was known as "The First Lady of The Struggle" because of her commitment to bettering African Americans.

Lend-Lease Act

Approve by Congress in March 1941; The act allowed America to sell, lend or lease arms or other supplies to nations considered "vital to the defense of the United States."

D-Day

Code named Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior this invation, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.

Benito Mussolini

Fascist dictator of Italy (1922-1943). He led Italy to conquer Ethiopia, joined Germany in the Axis pact, and allied Italy with Germany in World War II. He was overthrown in 1943 when the Allies invaded Italy., right-wing movement, socialist, influenced by Nietzsche; after WWI broke out, he wanted Italy to participate with France. There was many problems going on in Italy, thus he promised improvement and got into power.

Security Council

Important part of the United Nations; has to maintain international peace and security; takes care of the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of international sanctions, and the authorization of military action

Spanish Civil War

In 1936 a rebellion erupted in Spain after a coalition of Republicans, Socialists, and Communists was elected. General Francisco Franco led the rebellion. The revolt quickly became a civil war. The Soviet Union provided arms and advisers to the government forces while Germany and Italy sent tanks, airplanes, and soldiers to help Franco.

Appeasement

In a political context is a diplomatic policy of making political or material concessions to an enemy power in order to avoid conflict. In WWII it was the term for the British-French policy of attempting to prevent war by granting German demands.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Is a U.S. Civil Rights Organization that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. Founded in 1942, it was one of the "Big Four" civil rights organizations, along with the SCLC, the SNCC, and the NAACP. Though still existent, it has been much less influential since the end of the 1955-68 civil rights movement.

Hiroshima

Japanese city which the first atomic bomb was dropped (August 6, 1945). (The US had warned Japan that it had weapons of mass destruction. The Japanese were warned to surrender or suffer the consequences.)

Nagasaki

Japanese city which the second atomic bomb was dropped (August 9, 1945).

A. Philip Randolph

Labor and Civil Rights leader in the 1940s who led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; he demanded that FDR create a Fair Employment Commission to investigate job discrimination in war industries. FDR agreed only after he threatened a march on Washington by African Americans.

Neutrality Acts

Originally designed to avoid American involvement in World War II by preventing loans to those countries taking part in the conflict; they were later modified in 1939 to allow aid to Great Britain and other Allied nations. They were four laws passed in the late 1930s that were designed to keep the US out of international incidents.

Japanese-American Internment

Similar to the Red Scare in WWI, many Americans feared Japanese Americans were a threat to American safety. 110,000 Japanese-Americans were forced into these camps because the US feared that they might act as saboteurs for Japan in case of invasion. The camps deprived the Japanese-Americans of basic rights, and the internees lost hundreds of millions of dollars in property. In the Supreme Court ruling in Korematsu v. U.S. (1944), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the concentration camps.

Quarantine Speech

Speech given by Franklin D. Roosevelt on October 5, 1937 in Chicago, calling for an international "quarantine of the aggressor nations" as an alternative to the political climate of American neutrality and non-intervention that was prevalent at the time. The speech intensified America's isolationist mood, causing protest by non-interventionists and foes to intervene. No countries were directly mentioned in the speech, although it was interpreted as referring to Japan, Italy, and Germany. Roosevelt suggested the use of economic pressure, a forceful response, but less direct than outright aggression. Public response to the speech was mixed.

Double V Campaign

The African American community in the United States resolved on a "Double Victory": African Americans pledged to fight not only for victory over Hitler in Europe, but also against racism at home.

Salerno

The Allied Invasion of Italy was the Allied landing on mainland Italy on 3 September 1943, by General Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group (comprising Lieutenant General Mark Clark's U.S. Fifth Army and General Bernard Montgomery's British Eighth Army) during the Second World War. The operation followed the successful invasion of Sicily during the Italian Campaign. The main invasion force landed around Salerno on the western coast in Operation Avalanche, while two supporting operations took place in Calabria (Operation Baytown) and Taranto (Operation Slapstick).

Nazism

The body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer

Homefront

The civilian population and activities of a nation whose armed forces are engaged in war abroad.

Normandy

The invasion by and establishment of Western Allied forces in Normandy, during Operation Overlord in 1944 during World War II; the largest amphibious invasion to ever take place.

Coral Sea

The location where a key battle was fought during 4-8 May 1942, this major major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. The battle was the first action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other, as well as the first in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other.

Nuremburg Trials

These trials were held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was never brought to trial. Although the legal justifications for the trials and their procedural innovations were controversial at the time, They are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent international court, and an important precedent for dealing with later instances of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

"Four Freedoms"

These were goals articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech, he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy: Freedom of speech Freedom of worship Freedom from want Freedom from fear

Adolf Hitler

This dictator (1889-1945) was the leader of the Nazi Party. He believed that strong leadership was required to save Germanic society, which was at risk due to Jewish, socialist, democratic, and liberal forces. German Nazi dictator during World War II.

V-J Day

This is a name chosen for the day on which Japan surrendered, in effect ending World War II, and subsequent anniversaries of that event. The term has been applied to both of the days on which the initial announcement of Japan's surrender was made - to the afternoon of August 15, 1945, in Japan, and, because of time zone differences, to August 14, 1945 (when it was announced in the United States and the rest of the Americas and Eastern Pacific Islands) - as well as to September 2, 1945, when the signing of the surrender document occurred, officially ending World War II.

General Assembly

This is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation. Its powers are to oversee the budget of the United Nations, appoint the non-permanent members to the Security Council, receive reports from other parts of the United Nations and make recommendations in the form of General Assembly Resolutions.

Final Solution

This was Nazi Germany's plan during World War II to systematically exterminate the Jewish population in Nazi-occupied Europe through genocide. This policy was formulated in procedural terms at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, and culminated in the Holocaust which saw the killing of two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.

Atlantic Charter

This was a policy issued on August 14, 1941 by Great Britain and the US early in World War II, defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. It outlined a vision in which a world would abandon their traditional beliefs in military alliances and spheres of influence and govern their relations with one another though democratic process, with an international organization serving as the arbiter of disputes and the protector of every nation's right of self determination.

Auschwitz

This was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps opened in 1940. Located in southern Poland initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79). During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz. In January 1945, with the Soviet army approaching, Nazi officials ordered the camp abandoned and sent an estimated 60,000 prisoners on a forced march to other locations. When the Soviets entered Auschwitz, they found thousands of emaciated detainees and piles of corpses left behind.

Midway

U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet in June 1942, in which the Japanese lost four of their best aircraft carriers. It marked a turning point in World War II. This was a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Between 3 and 6 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chuichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondo near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's first naval defeat since the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in 1863.

United Nations

UN is international body formed to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars; much like the former League of Nations in ambition, it was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big Five Powers in keeping peace in the world, thus guaranting veto power to all permant members of its Security Council (Britian, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States)

V-E Day

Victory in Europe Day, generally known as V-E Day, VE Day or simply V Day was the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 (7 May in Commonwealth realms) to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe.

Holocaust

Was the genocide in which approximately six million Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its collaborators. Some historians use a definition of the Holocaust that includes the additional five million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders, bringing the total to approximately eleven million. Killings took place throughout Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories.