Aryans

Blitzkrieg

"Lighting war", typed of fast-moving warfare used by German forces against Poland n 1939

Lebensraum

(German for "habitat" or literally "living space") served as a major motivation for Nazi Germany's territorial aggression. In his book Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum (for a Grossdeutschland, land, and raw materials), and that it should be taken in the East. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, Germanize or enslave the Polish, and later also Russian and other Slavic populations, and to repopulate the land with reinrassig Germanic peoples. The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing their replacement by a German upper class.

Aryans

(according to Nazi doctrine) a Caucasian person of Nordic descent (and not a Jew)

Non-Agresssion Pact of 1939

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Munich Conference

1938 conference at which European leaders attempted to appease Hitler by turning over the Sudetenland to him in exchange for promise that Germany would not expand Germany's territory any further.

Battle of Kursk

German forces are soundly defeated by the Soviets, greatest tank battle of WWII

Wannese Conference

January 1942, Nazi leaders made the decision to move toward Hitler's "Final Solution"

Madagascar Plan

Nazi plan to get rid of the Jews by expelling them to either the Middle East of Madagascar

"Diplomatic Revolution"

Period when long standing alliances between European countries shifted.

Einsatzgruppen

SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories.

Nazi New Order

The Nazi plan for their conquered territories. It included the extermination of Jews and other inferiors, ruthless exploitation of resources, German colonization in the East, and the use of the Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians for slave labour.

Rome-Berlin Axis

The alliance between Italy and Germany (Mussolini and Hitler)

The Holocaust

The mass murder of 6 million Jews and others in Nazi concentration camps.

Claus Von Stauffenberg

Tried to kill Hitler by planting a bomb in Hitler's East Prussian headquarters but the attempt fails

Battle of 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.

Pearl Harbor

United States military base on Hawaii that was bombed by Japan, bringing the United States into World War II. Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.

Dunkirk

a city in northern France on the North Sea where in World War II (1940) 330,000 Allied troops had to be evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk in a desperate retreat under enemy fire

Maginot line

a fortification built before World War II to protect France's eastern border

Sudentenland

a region of Czechoslovakia where many Germans lived; demanded by Hitler in 1938 to have control of this land; when Czechs refused, Hitler threatened war

Battle of Britain

an aerial battle fought in World War II in 1940 between the German Luftwaffe (air force), which carried out extensive bombing in Britain, and the British Royal Air Force, which offered successful resistance.

Final solution

final solution of the Jewish question-murder of every single Jew-had begun-mass arresting, and trafficking of Jews to the concentration camps-mass killings occurred as well in the gas chambers

Aushwitz

largest concentration camp; located in poland; work camp, administrative center, an extermination camp

Rhineland

name of the territory in which Hitler sent troops into in defiance of the Versailles treaty in 1935.

Normandy

site of D-Day

Neville Chamberlin

British prime minister Before churchill

"Peace in our time"

At the Munich Conference in 1938, western democracies caved into Hitler's demands while Hitler in exchange promised he had no further plans for expansion- a flat out lie. When Neville Chamberlain returned home to Britain he told the cheering crowds that "peace for our time" had been achieved. French Leader, Edourd Daladierr, however, correctly predicted this was not the case- only a taste of Hitler's menace had been felt.

Stalingrad

City in Russia, site of a Red Army victory over the Germany army in 1942-1943. The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point in the war between Germany and the Soviet Union. Today Volgograd. (p. 793)

Winston Churchill

A noted British statesman who led Britain throughout most of World War II and along with Roosevelt planned many allied campaigns. He predicted an iron curtain that would separate Communist Europe from the rest of the West.

Anglo-German Naval Pact

British and German pact that allowed Germany to build a navy that would be 35% the size of the British navy and equal the amound of submarines. Brit signed this pact because they though germany would be satisfied with the additional powers but Germany jsut pushed for more.

Appeasment

the practice of giving in to aggression in order to avoid war