WW2 Study Guide Chapter 14

Blitzkrieg

"lighting war" Germany used the Blitzkrieg when they invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Tactic based on speed & surprise. Germany utilized improved tank & air power technology to strike a devastating blow against the enemy.

Battle of Midway

(1942 1 month later) -crucial battle of Pacific war: location of an American air force base. As Japan began their assault on Midway by Sea, U.S swooped in by air and attacked - the strategy was a success. 1st major defeat inflicted on Japan & changed the naval balance in the pacific. The tide of the war was beginning to turn.

Turning point: Battle of the coral Sea

(1942) -1st naval battle in history in which opposing ships never saw each other. Both sides fought by sending off planes from aircraft ships to attack opposing sides. Allied victory: U.S stopped Japan's Southward advance.

Operation Torch

(1942) Invasion of North Africa headed by U.S General Eisenhower and British General Montgomery.

Nazi Party

(National Socialist Party) Most popular in Germany, the party was led by Hitler. The country became aggressive while they were run by the Nazi Party.

Winston Churchhill

(future prime minister) had long warned of the Nazi threat. He judged the diplomats (someone appointed) of the Munich agreement harshly saying , "They had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor, they will have war." Leader who encourages citizens to continue their support for war.

Neutrality Acts

- a series of acts passed by the United States congress from 1935 to 1939 that aimed to keep the U.S from becoming involved in WW2. (wanted to stay out)

Battle of Britain: Luffwaffe vs. RAF

-British Royal Air Force fought bravely against the German Luftwaffe. Britain suffered 40,000 causalities including 16,000 civilians. Britain defeated Germany which was a huge moral boost. Winston Churchhill stated "This is Britain's finest hour." Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few. [At the beginning of August 1940, the Luftwaffe (the German air force) launched a major offensive against British air & naval bases, harbors, communication centers, and war industries. The British fought back]

Neville Chamberlain

-British prime minister, returned from Munich and told cheering crowds he had a achieve "peace for our time". Honestly believed that appeasement with Germany would bring lasting peace to Europe. (created appeasement)

Why did Britain and France adopt a policy of appeasement?

-France was demoralized, suffering from political divisions at home. It could not take on Hitler without British support. The British, however, had no desire to confront the German dictator.

The Blitz

-Hitler ordered massive bombing on London and other cities to break the British people's will to resist

Siege at Leningrad

-Soviets stopped German advance & for 2 years the city was surrounded & defined by fighting, starvation and disease but the Soviets held out. Germans shifted south and Hitler ordered a major strike against Stalingrad (important industrial center)

Vichy France

-city in central France where a puppet state governed unoccupied France and the French colonies. A "puppet" government called the Vichy Government was set up to control the rest of France. Charles de Gaulle, a French General refused to accept the Vichy Government.

Anschluss (union or Austria and Germany)

-is the move by Hitler to capture and annex (to attach, append, or add) Austria with Germany. Hitler demands from Austria that they join with Germany. The Austrian's actually agree at first but on returning to Austria calls for a yes or no vote by the people whether to join with Germany. Days before the vote was held Hitler begins the invasion and captures and annexes Austria with little resistance Anschluss, was significant because reunification, something the - German's had pushed for decades, was achieved but also because he began to move on Jew's in Austria.

Munich Conference

-meeting with Britain, France, Italy, and Germany to decide how to handle Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland. Munich Pact signed by Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, stated that Hitler could occupy the Sudetenland if he promised he would not take anymore European territory. Assured Britain & France that he had no further plans to expand his territory.

Appeasement

-policy of giving into an aggressor's demands in order to keep the peace.

Island Hopping

-the U.S strategy to recapture Japanese held islands while bypassing others. They would bypass the most heavily fortified Japanese posts, capturing nearby islands, and setting up airfields on them in order to "leapfrog" to the next target. Each conquered island served as a stepping stone to conquer the next. Island hopping started when MacArthur's command landed on the soloman islands on Guadalcanal.

Operation Overlord

-the invasion of Normandy (France) was an amphibious assault, on water and on land to attack the German forces occupying France. The Germans knew an invasion was coming, but they did not know when and where. Secrecy was important to success.

D-Day -JUNE 6, 1944 (know date)

-the operation started with paratroopers landing behind enemy lines followed by amphibious assault on the Normandy coast. The Allies broke through the German defense line and pushed into the interior of France. Paris was liberated in August 1944. Allied forces pushed the Germans back through Belgium and the Netherlands and American forces crossed the western border of Germany.

Holocaust

-the systematic genocide of about 6 million European Jews by the Nazis during WW2. (Nazis had massacred some 6 million Jews) Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire" Ended in 1945 when the Allies stormed into Germany & Poland.

Lebensraum

-the territory that a state or nation believes is needed for its natural development, especially associated with Nazi Germany. Haushofer's works on geopolitics described a nation as a living organism that has a life, a death, and a past from which it evolved. In order to live, he said, it must conquer other nations to gain needed Lebensraum or "living space." Through a series of conquests, Germany had envolved from a group of small states to a large empire. Haushofer argued that to survive Germany must continue to conquer and expand.

Key Battle in Pacific (Okinawa)

-this well defended Japanese island was next on the list, it was needed for closer bases from which to bomb enemy cities. Fighting on for 3 months, but Japanese soldiers finally surrendered after 80,000 American deaths & far more Japanese casualties. American navy faced severe damage.

Lend-Lease Act

-was passed in the U.S allowing Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) to sell or lend war materials to "any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the U.S

Battle of the Bulge

-was the largest battle in Western Europe during WW2 and the largest battle to ever be fought by the U.S army. After this battle most Nazi leaders recognized the war was lost.

Nuremberg Trials

-were a series of trials held between 1945 & 1949 in which the Allies prosecuted German military leaders, political officials, industrialists, and financiers for crimes they had committed during WW2.

Joy of the victory was everywhere, but the excitement was diminished by 3 factors

1. Realities of the concentration camps were revealed to the world 2. The war in the Pacific continued to rage 3. FDB had died on April 8, 1945

Key Battle in the Pacific: (Iwo Jima)

25 day fight was carried out on the tiny island. The island was needed as a place for American bombers to land upon returning from Japan. After 4,000 American casualties, the island was captured in March 1945.

September 1938

At the Munich Conference British & French leaders again chose appeasement. They caved into Hitler's demands and then persuaded the Czechs to surrender the Sudetenland without a fight. In exchange, Hitler assured Britain & France that he had no further plans to expand his territory.

Nazi-Soviet Pact

August 1939 Hitler stunned the world by announcing a non-aggression pact with his great enemy Joseph Stalin. Definition: agreement between Germany and the the Soviet Union in 1939 in which the 2 nations promised not to fight each other and to divide up land in Eastern Europe. Bounded by Hitler & Stalin.

What nations fell to Nazi aggression 1939-1941?

Austria, Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland, Poland, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark

Why were the Japanese angry with the U.S?

Because the U.S cut off trade with Japan because they did not approve Japan taking over Pacific Islands. They lost their largest supplier of oil & iron. To stop Japanese aggression, the U.S banned the sale of war materials, such as iron, steel, & oil to Japan. Japanese leaders saw this move as an attempt to interfere in Japan's sphere of influence.

Final Solution

By 1941 however German leaders had devised plans for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" -the genocide of all European Jews. To accomplish this goal, Hitler had 6 special "death camps" built in Poland.

Battle of Stalingrad

Germans were fire bombing & taking control of most of the city through house to house combat. But, taking advantage of the fierce winter the Soviets counterattacked & Germans surrendered. Stalingrad was a major turning point on the Eastern Front: Germany's unstoppable offense was over.

Hitler's acts of aggression

Germany (1936) -1st violation of treaty of versailles. Hitler sent troops into the "demilitarized" Rhineland bordering France-another treaty violation. Germans hated the Versailles treaty, and Hitler's successful challenge made him more popular at home.

U.S strategy when they entered the war

Grand strategy of the Allies was to defeat Germany and its allies in Europe first, and then focus could shift towards Japan in the Pacific. The Americans concurred with the British in the grand strategy of "Europe first" (or "Germany first") in carrying out military operations in WW2.

Kamikaze

Japanese fighter pilots who underwent suicide missions crashing their planes into American warships.

Nuremberg Laws

Jews no longer were German citizens. Marriages between Jews and "Aryans" prohibited. Jews no longer allowed to fly the German flag. Germany defines a "Jew". The "Nuremberg Laws" established a pseudo-scientific basis for racial discrimination. Only people with 4 German grandparents were of "German blood." Jewish is who descends from 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents.

Operation Barbarossa

June 1941 (following the Battle of Britain), German invaded its short lived ally, the Soviet Union.

VE Day (know date)

Victory in Europe Day , MAY 8, 1945 , the day the Allies won WW2 in Europe. Background info: By early 1945 victory over Germany was near. The soviets had taken control in the East, while the Allies were making their way through Germany to Berlin. While Berlin was under, Hitler , unwilling to face defeat committed suicide in his underground bunker. MAY 8 , 1945 Germans signed an unconditional surrender.

Invasion of Italy & Sicily

Victory in North Africa made way for the second phase of the Allied offensive which was the invasion of Sicily & Italy. When the Allies invade Italy, the Italians become fed up with Mussolini's incompetence and force him to resign. By September 1943, Italy withdrew from the war. Conquest of Italy was difficult -Hitler ordered his troops not to surrender & although the Allies pushed northward, the Germans held out till the very end.

Japanese aggression: Manchuria & China

Viewed that desire for peace as weakness. Japanese military leaders and ultranationalists thought that Japan should have an empire equal to those of the western powers. In pursuit of this goal, Japan seized Manchuria in 1931. In 1937, Japanese armies overran much of eastern china, starting the second sino-Japanese war.

League of Nations response to aggression

When the League of Nations condemned (express complete disapproval) the aggression, Japan simply withdrew from the organization.

Nagasaki (know date)

city in Japan where the 2nd atomic bomb was dropped in August 9, 1945. More than 40,000 people were killed.

Manhattan Project

code name for the project to build the 1st atomic bomb during WW2

Concentration camps

detention center for civilians considered enemies of the state.

Maginot Line

massive fortifications built by the French along the French border with Germany in the 1930s to protect against future invasions. Unsuccessful because line did not extend into Belgium so Germans simply bypassed the line and invaded France through Belgium.

Hiroshima (know date)

mid-sized city in Japan where the first atomic bomb was dropped in AUGUST 6, 1945. Bomb flattened 4 square miles & killed more than 70,000 people.

Third Reich

official name of the Nazi Party for its regime in Germany; held power from 1933 to 1945.

Battle of El Alamein

one of the Allied turning points in the war where Rommel surrenders

Luftwaffe

or German air force bombed air fields, factories and towns and screaming dive bombers fired on troops and civilians. Then fast moving tanks and troops pushed their way into the defending Polish army, encircling whole divisions of troops and forcing them to surrender.

Erwin Rommel

or the "Desert Fox", was a German general who was successful in securing much of North Africa for the Axis Powers

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

was named the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces took command of a joint British & American force in Morocco & Algeria. Advancing on Tunisia from the west, the Allies trapped Rommel's army, which surrendered in May 1943.

Aushwitz

was one of the largest concentration camps from the Holocaust during WW2. It was used not only as a death camp, but also a labor camp & medical experimentation. -Aushwitz began operating in March 1942. At its height it has 4 gas chambers using Zyklon B and by its closure in November 1944, up to 1.5 million Jews had been murdered there, as were 10 of thousands of Gypsies & Soviet Prisoners of War.

Douglas Mc Arthur

was the commander of the U.S armed forces in the Pacific. January 1942- Japan attacked American controlled Philippines. Left Philippines once he realized the Americans and Filipinos were no match for the Japanese. Before he left, he promised the people of the Philippines , "I shall return."

Kristallnacht

was the name given to the first major attack on the Jewish population of Germany & Austria. Both the SS & general population participated in burning hundreds of Synagogues, shops, and houses. Thirty thousand Jews were arrested & deported.

September 1939

A week after the Nazi Soviet Pact, German forces invaded Poland. 2 days later, Britain & France declared war on Germany. WW2 had begun.

Bataan Death March

After Americans have surrendered, the Japanese take the captured American and Filipino soldiers on a 68 mile march. Took place on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese. (They want to kill them)

Phony War

After the fall of Poland, Germany and the Allies did not fight for 8 months. Journalists called this period the "phony war." The phony war ended on May 10, 1940, when Germany invaded the Low countries: Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Spanish Civil War

Definition: A war fought in the late 1930s in Spain. On one side were the Loyalists, Spaniards loyal to a recently elected government in the form of a republic; on the other side were fascists, led by General Francisco Franco.

Miracle at Dunkirk

Dunkirk: port in France from which 300,000 allied troops were evacuated when their retreat by land was cut off by the German advance in 1940. British & French troops between the Nazi army & the English Channel were trapped. Britain had removed troops from France, back across the English Channel in the "Miracle of Dunkirk" so they could not defend Paris. In this heroic rescue 300,000 troops were brought to safety by boats.

Holocaust horrors

During the war the Allies were aware of the existence of Nazi Concentration camps & death camps. (Inhumanity) pg.488 in book

Pearl Harbor (know date)

General Tojo ordered a surprise attack on DECEMBER 7, 1941. Early in the morning on December 7, 1941 Japanese airplanes bombed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The next day President Franklin Roosevelt told the nation that December 7th was a "date which will live in infamy." He asked congress to declare war on Japan. On December 11, Germany & Italy, as Japan's allies declared war on the U.S. Took lives of 2,400 people & destroyed battleships & aircraft.

March 1939

Hitler broke his promises and gobbled up the rest of Czechoslovakia. The democracies finally accepted the fact that appeasement had failed. At last throughly alarmed, they promised to protect Poland, most likely the next target of Hitler's expansion.

Sudetenland Crisis

Hitler insisted that the 3 million Germans in the Sudetenland - a region of western Czechoslovakia be given autonomy. (Self-rule) Czechoslovakia was one of only 2 remaining democracies in Eastern Europe. (Finland was the other) Britain & France not willing to go to war to save it. Hitler demanded that the Sudetenland must be annexed to Germany.

August 1939

Hitler stunned the world by announcing a nonaggression pact with his great enemy Joseph Stalin. Publicly, the Nazi - Soviet Plan bound Hitler & Stalin to peaceful relations.

March 1938

Hitler was ready to engineer the Anschluss or union of Austria & Germany. He forced the Austrian chancellor to appoint Nazis to key cabinet posts. When Austrian leader balked at other demands in March, Hitler sent in the Germany army to "preserve order." To indicate his new role as ruler of Austria, he made a speech.

Italy's acts of aggression under Mussolini

In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, located in northeastern Africa. The League voted sanctions against Italy for violating international law. But the League had no power to enforce the sanctions, and by early 1936, Italy had conquered Ethiopia.

Rome Berlin Tokyo Axis (Axis Powers)

In the face of the apparent weakness of Britain, France and the U.S, Germany, Italy & Japan formed known as the Axis powers. The 3 nations agreed to fight Soviet communism. They also agreed not to interfere with one another's plans for territorial expansion. The agreement cleared the way for these anti-democratic, aggressor powers to take even bolder steps.

5 different beach heads

Omaha, Utah , Juno, Sword, Gold Utah & Omaha (Am) Gold & Sword (Br) Juno (Can)

Invasion of Poland: Why did this start WW2?

On September 1, 1939, a week after the Nazi Soviet Pact, German forces invaded Poland. 2 days later Britain & France declared war on Germany. WW2 had begun. Britain & France had promised Poland that they would go to war with Germany if Germany invaded Poland. When Germany did invade Poland, Britain & France issued an ultimatum (a threat) to Hitler saying that unless he removed his troops from Poland they would declare war. Hitler didn't remove his troops so on the 3rd of September Britain & France honoured their arrangement with Poland and declared war on Germany.

Germany re-militarized the Rhineland

The re-militarization of the Rhineland was Hitler's first major military move against the Versailles treaty. In March of 1936 Hitler sent his military into the Rhineland against the Treaty of Versailles. The Rhineland was an area of the German territory west of the Rhine River that had been demilitarized (remove all military forces from an area) as a buffer zone with the treaty of versailles. The re-militarization of the Rhineland is significant because it was the first major breach in the treaty and was the first step towards the coming war.

Why did the U.S use the "atomic bomb"?

To end the war more quickly & without so much bloodshed. As the U.S got closer to Japan it was so bloody that it made Americans think they would get killed.

More info

Trouble in Spain started in 1931, when popular unrest against the old order forced the king to leave Spain. The government passed a series of controversial reforms, taking land and privileges away from the church and old ruling classes. Still, leftists demanded more radical reforms. Conservatives, backed by the military, rejected change. In 1936, a conservative general named Francisco Franco led a revolt that touched off a bloody civil war. Fascists & supporters of right-wing policies, called Nationalists, rallied to back Franco. Supporters of the republic, known as Loyalists, included communists, socialists, and those who wanted democracy.