Chapter 16 - World War Looms

Blitzkrieg

"Lightning war"; Germany's newest military strategy including intial strikes by luftwaffe followed by invasion of fast tanks and infantry in order to quickly destroy another nation.

Lebensraum

"Living space"; One thing Nazis wanted to obtain

Joseph Stalin

"Man of Steel"; took control of the communist Soviet Union after the death of Lenin. Made harsh reforms to restructure Russia including abolishing private ownership of farms and businesses and outlining a plan to make Russia into a leading industrial nation

Kristallnacht

"Night of Broken Glass"; November 9-10, 1938; Day Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish businesses, homes, and synagogues across Germany killing and injuring hundreds of Jews and arresting around 30,000

Sitzkrieg

"Sitting war"; mocking name for the fact that after France and Britain declared war on Germany, nothing happened for weeks

Third Reich

"Third German Empire"; what Hitler replaced the Weimar Republic with once he was appointed chancellor

Anschluss

"Union"; In order to take over Austria, Hitler simply announced a union with the country since most of its population favored unification anyway

The St. Louis

A German ocean liner filled with Jewish refugees, 740 (of 943) of whom had US immigration papers who were turned away from America and ultimately forced to return to Europe; more than half of its passengers were later killed in the Holocaust

Vichy France

A Nazi-controlled puppet state in Souther France established by Hitler and headed by Marshal Philippe Petain

What initally prevented Hitler from invading Poland?

A fear that invasion would provoke the Soviet Union.

Sigfried Line

A few miles away from the Maginot Line, location where Germans concentrated their troops along their western border awaiting French and British action

Ardennes

A heavily wooded region of Northeast France that Hitler invaded through in order to bypass the Maginot Line (was believed to be impassable)

Cash-and-Carry

A provision FDR persuaded Congress to pass to get around the Neutrality Acts that would allow warring nations to buy US arms as long as they paid cash adn transported them in their own ships; seemed like too little, too late and FDR would later begin providing "all aid short of war"

Maginot Line

A strongly defended area on the eastern border of France where British and French concentrated their troops in the early days of WWII, anticipating a German attack

Nonaggression Pact

An agreement not to go to war; In particular, one signed between Hitler and Stalin that allowed Hitler to invade Poland without fear of reprisal from the Soviet Union if he agreed (in a second secret pact) to divide Poland between them.

Why did Hitler want Austria to join his Third Reich?

Austria had only been created as a nation by the Paris Peace Conference following WWI and the majority of the small nation's population were German.

"Shoot on sight"

Before an actual declaration of war by the Americans, the Senate repealed a ban against arming merchant ships so they could combat German u-boats that were sinking many ships

What was one thing the Japanese had in common with Hitler's Nazi party?

Both wanted more living space and resources.

Which nation did Hitler's blitzkreig not succesfully invade?

Britain

Neville Chamberlain

British minister who, along with French primier Edouard Daladier, practiced a policy of appeasement toward Hitler

Death Camps

Built by Nazis to carry out the mass extermination of Jews through gas chambers along with other brutal methods; included Chelmno and Auschwitz; many would have crematoriums built to hide the evidence of this mass murder

Hideki Tojo

Chief of staff of the Japanese Kwantung Army and later prime minister who was responsible for the Manchurian invasion and spearheaded the Japanese push to expand throughout the Pacific during WWI

Manchuria

Chinese province seized by Japanese militarists in 1931 without the consent of the offical Japanese government

Soviet Union

Communist state established in Russia in 1922 led first by Lenin and later by Stalin

Countries invaded by Hitler during April and May of 1940

Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, & Luxembourg

US preparations for war

Despite being officially neutral, after 1940 the US begain to increase its spending on defense and passed the first peacetime military draft

Countries annexed by the Soviet Union in late 1939

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and also invaded Finland

Nationalism

Extreme pride in and devotion to one's country, often even over one's individual interests

Rome-Berlin Axis

Formal alliance between Mussolini and Hitler initiated by their mutual support of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War

September 3, 1939

France and Britain declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland

Charles de Gaulle

French general who fled to England after the fall of Paris and set up a government-in-exile

Munich Agreement

Gave Hitler his supposed "last territorial demand" (the Sudetenland) to avoid war

Luftwaffe

German air force

Rhineland

German region on the French and Belgian border that hitler reoccupied despite it being demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles.

Axis Powers

Germany, Italy and Japan

Appeasement

Giving up principles to pacify an aggressor

Abraham Lincoln Batalion

Group of 3,000 Americans who traveled to Spain to fight Franco's fascism

Militarists

Group that seized power in Japan from the imperial government

Other groups targeted by the Holocaust

Gypsies, freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, homoxexuals, the mentally deficient, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, and teh incurably ill

Anti-Semitism

Hatred of the Jews which had been prevelant in Europe since long before the Holocaust

How did FDR get around the Neutrality Acts with respect to Japan?

He argued that Japan hadn't officially declared war on China, so he could send arms and supplies to China

How did FDR break tradition?

He decided to run for a third term and won nearly 55% of the popular vote

How did Hitler obtain the Sudetenland?

He made claims that the Czechs were abusing Sudeten Germans and built up troops on the border to prepare for invasion. In order to prevent an actual war and the complete fall of Czechoslovakia, the French and British agreed to give Hitler this region.

What happened to the rest of Czechoslovakia?

Hitler invaded the remainder of this nation in March 1939.

Schutzstaffel

Hitler's elite "security squadron" (SS)

Hitler's "Final Solution"

Hitler's policy of genocide as a way to rid Europe of its Jews

Nye Committee

Investigated the claim that America had been dragged into WWI by greedy bankers and arms dealers who wanted to profit

Reasons Germans resented the Treaty of Versailles

It blamed them completely for starting the war, it took away their colonies and border territories, it banned them from maintaining a strong army

What was Italy's role in the fall of France?

Italy invaded Paris from the South as Germany invaded from the North

Hirohito

Japanese Emperor

Albert Einstein

Jewish physicist who was among the 100,000 Jewish refugees accepted by the US; the US primarily accepted refugees of exceptional ability like him

Battle of Britain

Knowing they could not compete with Britain's powerful navy, the Germans tried to invade Britain by launching a massive air campaign that kept Britain under siege every night for two months and continued through the summer and fall

Concentration camps

Labor camps the Nazis forced Jews into; had been originally set up to imprison political opponents, but were turned over the the SS to house people like the Jews; in these camps people were staved, worked to death, and suffered from countless diseases

Wannsee

Location of a meeting in 1942 of Nazi leaders where the decision to begin using death camps was made

Dunkirk

Location where the Germans trapped almost 400,000 British and French soldiers on the French side of the English Channel (to which the British began ferrying people across the Channel to safety), to prevent them from protecting Paris

Lend-Lease Act

March 1941; FDR's plan to lend or lease arms to the Allies, even if they couldn't immediately pay for them; FDR compared to lending a garden hose to a neighbor whose house was on fire to avoid it spreading to your home

Tripartite Pact

Mutual defense treaty that joined the Axis Powers; Meant that if the US engaged in war with Germany, they would be fighting a two-ocean war with Japan as well

Mein Kampf

My Struggle; Hitler's book outlining the basic beliefs of the Nazi Party

Black Shirts

Name for Mussolini's followers (from the uniforms they wore)

Jewish Refugees

Nazis tried to speed up Jewish emigration, but other nations were hesitant to accept these people

Spanish Civil War

Occured 1936-39 when a group of army officers overthrew the Spanish republic; Over 3,000 Americans joined the fight to support the republican government, but it ultimately fell to fascism with the support of Mussolini and Hitler

Ethiopia

One of Africa's few independent nations at the beginning of WWII that was siezed by Mussolini's Italy

What happened to the League of Nations after Japan withdrew?

Other nations began to test its power and Germany also withrdrew

After taking Czechoslovakia, what nation did Hitler want to invade next?

Poland

Fascism

Political ideology that stresses nationalism and placed the interests of the state over those of individuals; includes power centralized with a single strong leader and a small group of party members

Isolationism

Political philosophy that Americans tried to stick to as WWII approached

Winston Churchill

Political rival of Chamberlain who regularly spoke out against the policy of appeasement toward Hitler

Chancellor

Prime Minister of Germany, position Hitler was appointed to in 1933 when his Nazi party was the most powerful in Germany

Aryan

Race Hitler considered "superior"; characterized by blond hair, blue eyes, etc.

Ghettos

Segregated Jewish areas in certain Polish cities where Jews were forced to migrate to; Were sealed off with barbed wire and stone walls; Terrible living conditions

Neutrality Acts

Series of acts passed by Congres beginning in 1935 that were aimed at keeping the US out of war; included outlawing sales of arms to nations at war or nations engaged in civil wars

Francisco Franco

Spanish army General who led a group of officers to rebel against the Spanish republic

"Five-year plans"

Stalin's plans to make Russia into an industrial leader through complete government control of all economic activity

Nuremberg Laws

Stripped Jews of their German citizenship, jobs, and property

Radar

Technology that helped Britain's Royal Air Force combat the German luftwaffe starting in the Battle of Britain

Nazism

The German brand of facism based on extreme nationalism

Der Fuhrer

The Leader; nickname for Hitler

How did Hitler's "final solution" begin?

The Nazi SS rounded up Jews in Poland and executed them on the spot

Holocaust

The Nazis' systematic murder of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jews

Genocide

The deliberate and systematic killing of an entire population

Weimar Republic

The democratic government set up in Germany after WWI that proved to be unable to contend with Germany's growing problems

National Socialist German Workers' Party

The formal name for the Nazi Party of Germany; despite this name the Nazis did not have ties to socialism

Pearl Harbor

The largest US naval base in the Pacific; attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941 which pushed the US to declare war on Japan and enter WWII

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

The reason the US was willing to supply the Soviet Union after Hitler broke their non-aggression pact

The Atlantic Charter

The result of a secret meeting between FDR and Churchill where both countries pledged collective security, disarmament, self-determination, economic cooperation, adn freedom of the sees; became the basis for Declaration of the United Nations

What was the Soviet Union's response to the German invasion of Poland?

They attacked Poland from the east to ensure that they received their fair share of territory

What happens to many new democracies set up by the WWI peace settlement?

They collapsed and totalitarian dictators were able to take power

What was the League of Nations' response to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria?

They condemned Japan who simply quit the League in response; they took no direct military intervention

What position did the Western Democracies take during the Spanish Civil War?

They remained neutral despite Germany and Italy offering official military support.

The Final State of Hitler's Final Solution

This began in early 1942 and included mass exterminations of Jews

Allies

Those nations that fought the Axis Powers (included Britain, The Soviet Union, and eventually the United States)

Japanese expansion

Took European colonies like French Indochina and began to move through the Pacific; The US responded by embargoing oil trade, an essential resource

Adolf Hitler

Took advantage of the instability in Germany by joining the Nazi party, getting appointed chancellor, and siezing absolute control of the country

Benito Mussolini

Totalitarian leader of Italy who played on Italy's weak economy, unstable government, and fear of communism to create a fascist state

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Treaty signed by 62 countries that denounced war, but had no provisions for how to deal with nations that broke the pact

Goals of Nazism

Unite all German-speaking people under a great German empire; enforce racial "purification"; national expansion (lebensraum)

German wolf-packs

Use of groups of up to 40 submarines to patrol areas of the Atlantic and attack convoys at night to prevent US supply ships from reaching Europe; US warships had permission to attack these wolf-packs

Sudetenland

Western border region of Czechoslovakia where about 3 million German-speaking people lived; a second target of Hitler's lebensraum

The Great Arsenal of Democracy

What the US tried to be in WWII by being the supplier of the Allies without actually declaring war

Totalitarian

a political system in which the government exer4cises complete control over its citizens' lives`