Unit 7: World War II

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

During the final stage of World War II, the United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. The United States dropped the bombs after obtaining the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. The two bombings killed at least 129,000 people, most of whom were civilians. They remain the only use of nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.

Neville Chamberlain

a British statesman of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany. However, when Adolf Hitler later invaded Poland, the UK declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and Chamberlain led Britain through the first eight months of World War II.

Winston Churchill

a British statesman, army officer, and writer, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Over the course of his career as a Member of Parliament (MP), he represented five constituencies in both England and Scotland. During his time as Prime Minister, Churchill led Britain to an allied victory in the Second World War. He was Conservative Party leader from 1940 to 1955. In 1953, Churchill won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his lifetime body of work; the prize cited "his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".

Charles de Gaulle

a French general and statesman. He was the leader of Free France (1940-1944) and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944-1946). He was a decorated officer of the First World War, wounded several times, and later taken prisoner at Verdun. During the interwar period, he advocated mobile armoured divisions. During the German invasion of May 1940, he led an armoured division which counterattacked the invaders; he was then appointed Under-Secretary for War. Refusing to accept his government's armistice with Nazi Germany, de Gaulle exhorted the French population to resist occupation and to continue the fight in his Appeal of 18 June. He led a government in exile and the Free French Forces against the Axis. Despite frosty relations with Britain and especially the United States, he emerged as the undisputed leader of the French resistance. He became head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in June 1944, the interim government of France following its Liberation. As early as 1944, de Gaulle introduced a dirigiste economic policy, which included substantial state-directed control over a capitalist economy which was followed by 30 years of unprecedented growth, known as Les Trente Glorieuses ("the glorious thirty").

Adolf Hitler

a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP), Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer ("Leader") of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.[a] As dictator, Hitler initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and was central to the Holocaust. Hitler sought Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people in Eastern Europe and his aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. In December 1941, he formally declared war on the United States, bringing them directly into the conflict. Failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, he married his long-time lover Eva Braun. Less than two days later on 30 April 1945, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army and their corpses were burned. Under Hitler's leadership and racially motivated ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of at least 5.5 million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen (sub-humans) or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare and the casualties constituted the deadliest conflict in human history.

Jospeh Stalin

a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Georgian ethnicity. Governing the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953, he served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and as Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1953. Initially heading a collective one-party state government, by 1937 he was the country's de facto dictator. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, Stalin helped to formalise these ideas as Marxism-Leninism while his own policies became known as Stalinism. Stalin's government promoted Marxism-Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported anti-fascist movements throughout Europe during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil War. However, in 1939 they signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, resulting in their joint invasion of Poland. Germany ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941. Despite initial setbacks, the Soviet Red Army halted the German incursion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The Soviets annexed the Baltic states and helped establish pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the two world superpowers, and a period of tensions began between the Soviet-backed Eastern Bloc and U.S.-backed Western Bloc known as the Cold War.

Francisco Franco

a Spanish general who ruled over Spain as a military dictator from 1939, after the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, until his death in 1975.[3] This period in Spanish history is commonly known as Francoist Spain. As a conservative and a monarchist, Franco opposed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic secular republic in 1931. With the 1936 elections, the conservative Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups lost by a narrow margin, and the leftist Popular Front came to power. Intending to overthrow the republic, Franco followed other generals in attempting a failed coup that precipitated the Spanish Civil War. With the death of the other generals, Franco quickly became his faction's only leader. Franco gained military support from various regimes and groups, especially Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while the Republican side was supported by Spanish communists and anarchists as well as the Soviet Union, Mexico, and the International Brigades. It is disputed among historians whether Franco personally ordered, requested or knew of beforehand the German and Italian aerial bombing of Guernica in 1937. In 1939, Franco won the war, which claimed half a million lives. He established a military dictatorship, which he defined as a totalitarian state.[4] Franco proclaimed himself Head of State and Government under the title El caudillo, a term similar to Il duce (Italian) for Benito Mussolini and Der Führer (German) for Adolf Hitler. In April 1937, Franco merged the fascist and traditionalist political parties in the rebel zone (FE de las JONS and Traditionalist Communion), as well as other conservative and monarchist elements, into FET y de las JONS. At the same time he outlawed all other political parties, and thus Spain became a one-party state. Upon his rise to power, Franco implemented policies that were responsible for the repression and deaths of as many as 400,000 political opponents and dissenters[5][6][7][8][9] through the use of forced labor and executions in the concentration camps his regime operated.[10][11] Despite maintaining an official policy of neutrality during World War II, he provided military support to the Axis in numerous ways: he allowed German and Italian ships to use Spanish harbors and ports, the Abwehr gained intelligence in Spain on Allied activities, Spain imported war materials for Germany and the Blue Division fought alongside the European Axis against the Soviet Union until 1944. His regime has frequently been identified as fascist, but Spanish history books typically categorize it as conservative and authoritarian.[12][13][14][15] Spain was isolated by the international community for nearly a decade after World War II. By the 1950s, the nature of his regime changed from being openly totalitarian and using severe repression to an authoritarian system with limited pluralism.[16] During the Cold War, Franco was one of the world's foremost anti-Communist figures: his regime was assisted by the West, and it was asked to join NATO. After chronic economic depression in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Franco presided over the Spanish miracle, abandoning autarky and pursuing economic liberalization, delegating authority to liberal ministers.

Isolationism

a category of foreign policies institutionalized by leaders who assert that their nations' best interests are best served by keeping the affairs of other countries at a distance. One possible motivation for limiting international involvement is to avoid being drawn into dangerous and otherwise undesirable conflicts. There may also be a perceived benefit from avoiding international trade agreements or other mutual assistance pacts. Also known as non-interventionism: the diplomatic policy whereby a nation seeks to avoid alliances with other nations in order to avoid being drawn into wars not related to direct territorial self-defense, has had a long history of popularity in the government and among the people of the United States at various periods in time.

Rosie the Riveter

a cultural icon of World War II, representing the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies.[1][2] These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who joined the military. Rosie the Riveter is used as a symbol of American feminism and women's economic power.[3] Similar images of women war workers appeared in other countries such as Britain and Australia. Images of women workers were widespread in the media as government posters, and commercial advertising was heavily used by the government to encourage women to volunteer for wartime service in factories.[4] Rosie the Riveter became the subject and title of a song and a Hollywood movie during WWII.

Appeasement

a diplomatic policy of making political or material concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the British Prime Ministers Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy between 1935 and 1939. At the beginning of the 1930s, such concessions were widely seen as positive due to the trauma of World War I, second thoughts about the treatment of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, and a perception among the upper-classes that fascism was a healthy form of anti-communism. However, by the time of the Munich Pact—concluded on 30 September 1938 among Germany, Britain, France, and Italy—the policy was opposed by most of the British left and Labour Party; by Conservative dissenters like Winston Churchill and Duff Cooper; and even by Anthony Eden, a former proponent of appeasement. As alarm grew about the rise of fascism in Europe, Chamberlain resorted to news censorship to control public opinion. Nonetheless, Chamberlain confidently announced after Munich that he had secured "peace for our time".

Fascism

a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe .The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I before it spread to other European countries.Opposed to liberalism, Marxism and anarchism, fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left-right spectrum. Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation. Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky through protectionist and interventionist economic policies

Hideki Tojo

a general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), the leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and the 27th Prime Minister of Japan during much of World War II, from October 17, 1941, to July 22, 1944. As Prime Minister, he was responsible for ordering the attack on Pearl Harbor, which initiated war between Japan and the United States, although planning for it had begun in April 1941, before he entered office. After the end of the war, Tojo was arrested and sentenced to death for Japanese war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and hanged on December 23, 1948.

Korematsu v. U.S.

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. In a 6-3 decision, the Court sided with the government,[2] ruling the exclusion order was constitutional. Six of the eight appointees of President Franklin Roosevelt sided with Roosevelt. The two others and the lone Herbert Hoover appointee, Owen Roberts, dissented.

GI Bill of Rights

a law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). It was designed by the American Legion, who helped push it through Congress by mobilizing its chapters (along with the Veterans of Foreign Wars); the goal was to provide immediate rewards for practically all World War II veterans. The act avoided the highly disputed postponed life insurance policy payout for World War I veterans that caused political turmoil for a decade and a half after that war.[1] Benefits included dedicated payments of tuition and living expenses to attend high school, college or vocational/technical school, low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business, as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It was available to all veterans who had been on active duty during the war years for at least 90 days and had not been dishonorably discharged—exposure to combat was not required.[2] The recipients did not pay any income tax on the GI benefits, since they were not considered earned income.

A. Philip Randolph

a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, the American labor movement, and socialist political parties. In 1925, he organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African-American labor union. In the early Civil Rights Movement and the Labor Movement, Randolph was a voice that would not be silenced. His continuous agitation with the support of fellow labor rights activists against unfair labor practices in relation to people of color eventually led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. The group then successfully pressured President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, ending segregation in the armed services.

Blitzkrieg

a method of warfare whereby an attacking force, spearheaded by a dense concentration of armoured and motorised or mechanised infantry formations with close air support, breaks through the opponent's line of defence by short, fast, powerful attacks and then dislocates the defenders, using speed and surprise to encircle them with the help of air superiority. Through the employment of combined arms in manoeuvre warfare, blitzkrieg attempts to unbalance the enemy by making it difficult for it to respond to the continuously changing front, then defeat it in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht (battle of annihilation).

Ghettos

a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, typically as a result of social, legal, or economic pressure.[1] The term was originally used in Venice to describe the part of the city to which Jews were restricted and segregated but has since been applied in various contexts. During World War II, ghettos were established by the Nazis to confine Jews and Romani people into tightly packed areas of the cities of Eastern Europe. The Nazis most often referred to these areas in documents and signage at their entrances as Jüdischer Wohnbezirk or Wohngebiet der Juden, both of which translate as "Jewish quarter". These Nazi ghettos sometimes coincided with traditional Jewish ghettos and Jewish quarters, but not always. On June 21, 1943, Heinrich Himmler issued a decree ordering the dissolution of all ghettos in the East and their transformation into Nazi concentration camps.

Kamikaze

a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who initiated suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy warships more effectively than was possible with conventional air attacks. About 3,862 kamikaze pilots died during the war, and more than 7,000 naval personnel were killed by kamikaze attacks. Kamikaze aircraft were essentially pilot-guided explosive missiles, purpose-built or converted from conventional aircraft. Pilots would attempt to crash their aircraft into enemy ships in what was called a "body attack" in planes laden with some combination of explosives, bombs, torpedoes and full fuel tanks. Accuracy was much better than a conventional attack, and the payload and explosion larger; about 19% of kamikaze attacks were successful.[1] A kamikaze could sustain damage which would disable a conventional attacker and still achieve its objective. The goal of crippling or destroying large numbers of Allied ships, particularly aircraft carriers, was considered by the Empire of Japan to be a just reason for sacrificing pilots and aircraft.

Atlantic Charter

a pivotal policy statement issued during World War II on 14 August 1941, which defined the Allied goals for the post war world. The leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States drafted the work and all the Allies of World War II later confirmed it. The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war—no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people, self-determination; restoration of self-government to those deprived of it; reduction of trade restrictions; global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations. Adherents of the Atlantic Charter signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942, which became the basis for the modern United Nations. The Atlantic Charter set goals for the postwar world and inspired many of the international agreements that shaped the world thereafter. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the postwar independence of European colonies, and much more are derived from the Atlantic Charter.

Interventionism

a policy of non-defensive (proactive) activity undertaken by a nation-state, or other geo-political jurisdiction of a lesser or greater nature, to manipulate an economy and/or society. The most common applications of the term are for economic interventionism (a state's intervention in its own economy), and foreign interventionism (a state's intervention in the affairs of another nation as part of its foreign policy).

Cash-and-Carry

a policy requested by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a special session of the United States Congress on September 21, 1939, subsequent to the outbreak of war in Europe. It replaced the Neutrality Acts of 1936. The revision allowed the sale of materiel to belligerents, as long as the recipients arranged for the transport using their own ships and paid immediately in cash, assuming all risk in transportation.[citation needed] However, the sale of war materials was not allowed. Though "Cash and Carry" concepts had been introduced in the Neutrality Act of 1936, it only pertained to materials that could not be used in war efforts, which allowed them to aid warring countries. Originally presented to Congress by Senator Key Pittman (D-NV) earlier in 1939, the bill was designed to replace the Neutrality Act of 1937, which had lapsed in May 1939. The bill had been defeated repeatedly by the Senate and the House on more than one occasion as Isolationists feared that passing the bill would draw the US into the conflict in Europe. However, President Roosevelt felt that further help was needed in Europe after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. The bill passed in late October, gaining approval from the House on November 5, 1939. The President gave his signature the same day. The purpose of this policy was to maintain neutrality between the United States and European countries while giving aid to Britain by allowing them to buy non war materials. Various policies, such as the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937, forbade selling implements of war or lending money to belligerent countries under any terms. The U.S. economy was rebounding at this time, following the Great Depression, but there was still a need for industrial manufacturing jobs. The cash and carry program helped to solve this issue and in turn Great Britain benefited from the purchase goods.

Totalitarianism

a political concept where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.[1] Totalitarian regimes stay in political power through rule by one leader and an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that is often marked by political repression, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance and widespread use of terror. A distinctive feature of totalitarian governments is an "elaborate ideology, a set of ideas that gives meaning and direction to the whole society".[2] The concept was first developed in the 1920s by the Weimar German jurist and later Nazi academic Carl Schmitt as well as Italian fascists. According to Benito Mussolini, this system politicizes everything spiritual and human: "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state". Schmitt used the term Totalstaat in his influential work on the legal basis of an all-powerful state, The Concept of the Political (1927). Totalitarian regimes are different from authoritarian ones. The latter denotes a state in which the single power holder - an individual "dictator", a committee or a junta or an otherwise small group of political elite - monopolizes political power. "[The] authoritarian state [...] is only concerned with political power and as long as that is not contested it gives society a certain degree of liberty".[4] Authoritarianism "does not attempt to change the world and human nature".[4] In contrast, a totalitarian regime attempts to control virtually all aspects of the social life, including the economy, education, art, science, private life and morals of citizens. "The officially proclaimed ideology penetrates into the deepest reaches of societal structure and the totalitarian government seeks to completely control the thoughts and actions of its citizens".[5] It also mobilizes the whole population in pursuit of its goals. Carl Joachim Friedrich writes that "a totalist ideology, a party reinforced by a secret police, and monopoly control of [...] industrial mass society" are the three features of totalitarian regimes that distinguish them from other autocracies.

Lend-Lease Act

a program by which the United States supplied Free France, the United Kingdom, the Republic of China, and later the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945. This included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry. The policy was signed into law on March 11, 1941 and ended overnight without prior warning when the war against Japan ended. The aid was free for all countries, although goods in transit when the program ended were charged for. Some transport ships were returned to the US after the war, but practically all the items sent out were used up or worthless in peacetime. In return for the aid, the U.S. was given leases on army and naval bases in Allied territory during the war.

Manhattan Project

a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District; Manhattan gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $22 billion in 2016[1] dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Two types of atomic bombs were developed concurrently during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium, and therefore a simpler gun-type called Little Boy was developed that used uranium-235, an isotope that makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. Chemically identical to the most common isotope, uranium-238, and with almost the same mass, it proved difficult to separate the two. Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment: electromagnetic, gaseous and thermal. Most of this work was performed at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Bracero Program

a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated on August 4, 1942, when the United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico. The agreement guaranteed decent living conditions (sanitation, adequate shelter and food) and a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour; it also allowed the importation of contract laborers from Guam as a temporary measure during the early phases of World War II.[1] The agreement was extended with the Migrant Labor Agreement of 1951, enacted as an amendment to the Agricultural Act of 1949 (Public Law 78) by Congress,[2] which set the official parameters for the bracero program until its termination in 1964.[3]

Nuremberg Trials

a series of military tribunals held by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war after World War II. The trials were most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany, who planned, carried out, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, and their decisions marked a turning point between classical and contemporary international law. The first and best known set of these trials were those of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT). They were described as "the greatest trial in history" by Norman Birkett, one of the British judges who presided over them. Held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946,[2] the Tribunal was given the task of trying 24 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich - though the proceedings of Martin Bormann was tried in absentia, while another, Robert Ley, committed suicide within a week of the trial's commencement.

(attack on) Pearl Harbor

a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor,[11] led to the United States' entry into World War II. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI,[12][13] and as Operation Z during its planning.[14] Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions that were planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.[15]

Axis Powers

also known as the Axis and the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, were the nations that fought in World War II against the Allied forces. The Axis powers agreed on their opposition to the Allies, but did not completely coordinate their activity. The Axis grew out of the diplomatic efforts of Germany, Italy, and Japan to secure their own specific expansionist interests in the mid-1930s. The first step was the treaty signed by Germany and Italy in October 1936. Benito Mussolini declared on 1 November that all other European countries would from then on rotate on the Rome-Berlin axis, thus creating the term "Axis". The almost simultaneous second step was the signing in November 1936 of the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anti-communist treaty between Germany and Japan. Italy joined the Pact in 1937. The "Rome-Berlin Axis" became a military alliance in 1939 under the so-called "Pact of Steel", with the Tripartite Pact of 1940 leading to the integration of the military aims of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Holocaust

also referred to as the Shoah,[b] was a genocide during World War II in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945.[c] Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event involving the persecution and murder of other groups, including in particular the Roma (gypsies), ethnic Poles, and "incurably sick", as well as political opponents, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Soviet prisoners of war.

CORE

an African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission is "to bring about equality for all people regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or ethnic background." On April 10, 1947, CORE sent a group of eight white (including James Peck, their publicity officer) and eight black men on what was to be a two-week Journey of Reconciliation through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky in an effort to end segregation in interstate travel. The members of this group were arrested and jailed several times, but they received a great deal of publicity, and this marked the beginning of a long series of similar campaigns.

George Marshall

an American statesman and soldier. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army under presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, and served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman.[3] He was hailed as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II. After the war, in his service as Secretary of State, Marshall advocated a significant U.S. economic and political commitment to post-war European recovery, including the Marshall Plan that bore his name. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.

Harry S. Truman

an American statesman who served as the 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953), taking the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A World War I veteran, he assumed the presidency during the waning months of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. He is known for implementing the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, for the establishment of the Truman Doctrine and NATO against Soviet and Chinese Communism, and for intervening in the Korean War. In domestic affairs, he was a moderate Democrat whose liberal proposals were a continuation of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, but the conservative-dominated Congress blocked most of them. He used the veto power 180 times, more than any president since and saw 12 overridden by Congress; only Grover Cleveland and Franklin D. Roosevelt used the veto so often and only Gerald Ford and Andrew Johnson saw so many veto overrides.[2] He is the only world leader to have used nuclear weapons in war. He desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces, supported a newly independent Israel and was a founder of the United Nations.

Benito Mussolini

an Italian politician and journalist who was the leader of the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista; PNF). He ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943 - constitutionally until 1925, when he dropped the pretense of democracy and established a dictatorship. Known as Il Duce ("The Leader"), Mussolini was the founder of Italian Fascism. In 1912, Mussolini had been a leading member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. Mussolini served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the PSI, his views now centering on nationalism instead of socialism and later founded the fascist movement which came to oppose egalitarianism and class conflict, instead advocating revolutionary nationalism transcending class lines. Following the March on Rome in October 1922, Mussolini became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years, Mussolini had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means and aspired to create a totalitarian state. Mussolini remained in power until he was deposed by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1943, but a few months later he became the leader of the Italian Social Republic, a German client regime in northern Italy - Mussolini held this post until his death in 1945.

Allied Powers

called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War (1939-1945). The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese and Italian aggression. At the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, and dependent states, such as British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.[1] After the start of the German invasion of North Europe till the Balkan Campaign, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, and Yugoslavia joined the Allies. After first having cooperated with Germany in invading Poland whilst remaining neutral in the Allied-Axis conflict, the Soviet Union perforce joined the Allies in June 1941 after being invaded by Germany. The United States provided war material and money all along, and officially joined in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. China had already been in a prolonged war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, but officially joined the Allies in 1941. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942. However, the name United Nations was rarely used to describe the Allies during the war. The leaders of the "Big Three" - the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States - controlled Allied strategy; relations between the United Kingdom and the United States were especially close. China and the Big Three were referred as a "trusteeship of the powerful", then were recognized as the Allied "Big Four" in a Declaration by United Nation and later as the "Four Policemen" of the United Nations. In 1945, the Allied nations became the basis of the United Nations.

FDR's Four Freedoms

goals articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Monday, January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech (technically the 1941 State of the Union address), 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

Operation Barbarossa

he code name for the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, starting Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II. The operation stemmed from Nazi Germany's ideological aims to conquer the western Soviet Union so that it could be repopulated by Germans, to use Slavs as a slave-labour force for the Axis war-effort, and to seize the oil reserves of the Caucasus and the agricultural resources of Soviet territories. The failure of Operation Barbarossa proved a turning point in the fortunes of the Third Reich.[24] Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, in which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The Eastern Front became the site of some of the largest battles, most horrific atrocities, and highest casualties for Soviet and Axis units alike, all of which influenced the course of both World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century. The German armies captured 5,000,000 Red Army troops, who were denied the protection guaranteed by the Hague Conventions and the 1929 Geneva Convention. A majority of Red Army POWs never returned alive. The Nazis deliberately starved to death, or otherwise killed, 3.3 million prisoners, as well as a huge number of civilians through the "Hunger Plan" that aimed at largely replacing the Slavic population with German settlers.[25] Einsatzgruppen death squads and gassing operations murdered over a million Soviet Jews as part of the Holocaust.

Genocide

intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group) in whole or in part. The hybrid word "genocide" is a combination of the Greek word génos ("race, people") and the Latin suffix -cide ("act of killing").[1] The United Nations Genocide Convention, which was established in 1948, defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". Before 1944, various terms, including "massacre" and "crimes against humanity" were used to describe intentional, systematic killings, and in 1941, Winston Churchill, when describing the German invasion of the Soviet Union, spoke of "a crime without a name".[7] In 1944, Raphael Lemkin created the term genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. The book describes the implementation of Nazi policies in occupied Europe, and cites earlier mass killings.[8] The term described the systematic destruction of a nation or people,[9] and the word was quickly adopted by many in the international community. The word genocide is the combination of the Greek prefix geno- (γένος, meaning 'race' or 'people') and caedere (the Latin word for "to kill").[10] The word genocide was used in indictments at the Nuremberg trials, held from 1945, but solely as a descriptive term, not yet as a formal legal term.

Neutrality Acts

passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. The legacy of the Neutrality Acts is widely regarded as having been generally negative: they made no distinction between aggressor and victim, treating both equally as "belligerents"; and they limited the US government's ability to aid Britain and France against Nazi Germany. The acts were largely repealed in 1941, in the face of German submarine attacks on U.S. vessels and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Japanese-American Internment

the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the western interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000[5] people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific coast. 62 percent of the internees were United States citizens.[6][7] These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt authorized the deportation and incarceration with Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942, which allowed regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded".[14] This authority was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the West Coast, including all of California and parts of Oregon, Washington, and Arizona, except for those in government camps.[15] Approximately 5,000 Japanese Americans voluntarily relocated outside the exclusion zone before March 1942,[16] while some 5,500 community leaders had been arrested immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack and thus were already in custody.[17] The majority of nearly 130,000 Japanese Americans living in the U.S. mainland were forcibly relocated from their West Coast homes during the spring of 1942.

Yalta Conference

the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union for the purpose of discussing Germany and Europe's postwar reorganization. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively. The conference convened near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov Palaces. The aim of the conference[1] was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security order but a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of post-Nazi Europe. The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. However within a few short years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy.

Nazism

the ideology and practices associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party in Nazi Germany and of other far-right groups. Usually characterized as a form of fascism that incorporates scientific racism and antisemitism, Nazism was influenced by German nationalism (especially Pan-Germanism), the Völkisch movement, and the anti-Communist Freikorps paramilitary groups that emerged during the Weimar Republic after Germany's defeat in the First World War. Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and Social Darwinism, identifying the Germans as a part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race. It aimed to overcome social divisions and create a German homogeneous society based on racial purity which represented a people's community (Volksgemeinschaft). The Nazis aimed to unite all Germans living in historically German territory, as well as gain additional lands for German expansion under the doctrine of Lebensraum and exclude those who they deemed either community aliens or "inferior" races. The term "National Socialism" arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of "socialism", as an alternative to both international socialism and free market capitalism. Nazism rejected the Marxist concept of class conflict, opposed cosmopolitan internationalism and sought to convince all parts of the new German society to subordinate their personal interests to the "common good" and accept political interests as the main priority of economic organization.

Concentration Camp (Nazis)

the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement, rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime. Use of these terms is subject to debate and political sensitivities. Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps (German: Konzentrationslager, KZ or KL) throughout the territories it controlled before and during the Second World War. The first Nazi camps were erected in Germany in March 1933 immediately after Hitler became Chancellor and his Nazi Party was given control of the police by Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick and Prussian Acting Interior Minister Hermann Göring. Used to hold and torture political opponents and union organizers, the camps initially held around 45,000 prisoners. Heinrich Himmler's SS took full control of the police and the concentration camps throughout Germany in 1934-35. Himmler expanded the role of the camps to hold so-called "racially undesirable elements", such as Jews, Romanis, Serbs, Poles, disabled people, and criminals. The number of people in the camps, which had fallen to 7,500, grew again to 21,000 by the start of World War II and peaked at 715,000 in January 1945.

D-Day

the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.

V-E Day

the public holiday celebrated on 8 May 1945 to mark the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces. The formal surrender of the German forces occupying the Channel Islands did not occur until the following day, 9 May 1945. It thus marked the end of World War II in Europe. The term VE Day existed as early as September 1944,[3] in anticipation of victory. On 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader, committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin. Germany's surrender, therefore, was authorised by his successor, Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz. The administration headed by Dönitz was known as the Flensburg Government. The act of military surrender was signed on 7 May in Reims, France[4] and on 8 May in Berlin, Germany.