Chapter 32: World War II

Kristallnacht

"Night of Broken Glass", when Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues throughout Germany

Blitzkrieg

"lightning war." It involved using fast-moving airplanes and tanks, followed by massive infantry forces, to take enemy defenders by surprise and quickly overwhelm them

Dwight D. Eisenhower

American general who led Operation Torch. On November 8, an Allied force of more than 100,000 troops—mostly Americans—landed in Morocco and Algeria.. Caught between Montgomery's and Eisenhower's armies, Rommel's Afrika Korps was finally crushed in May 1943.

Pearl Harbor

Early in the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese bomb a US naval station in Hawaii bringing America into WWII.

They helped the Jews escape or survive or sabotaged the war effort.

How did some non-Jews oppose Hitler's "Final Solution"?

General Dwight D. Eisenhower the commander of this enormous force, planned to strike on the coast of Normandy, in northwestern France. The Germans knew that an attack was coming. But they did not know where it would be launched. To keep Hitler guessing, the Allies set up a huge dummy army with its own headquarters and equipment. This make-believe army appeared to be preparing to attack the French seaport of Calais.

How did the Allies try to conceal the true location for the D-Day landings?

They planned massive attacks on British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia and on American outposts in the Pacific—at the same time.

How did the Japanese plan to catch the European colonial powers and the United States by surprise?

Hitler believed that his plan of conquest depended on the purity of the Aryan race. To protect racial puritythe Nazis had to eliminate other races, nationalities, or groups they viewed as inferior—as "subhumans." They included Roma (gypsies), Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, the disabled, and the incurably ill. But the Nazis focused especially on the Jews.

How was the "Final Solution" a natural outcome of Nazi racial theory?

Both Japanese and the Americans used a new kind of naval warfare. The opposing ships did not fire a single shot instead they used airplanes taking off from huge aircraft carriers. The Battle of the Coral Sea was something of a victoryfor the Allies had stopped Japan's southward advance.

In what way was the Battle of the Coral Sea a new kind of naval warfare?

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Japan's greatest naval strategist, called for an attack on the U.S. fleet in Hawaii.

Kamikazes

Japanese sucide pilots trained to sink Allied ships by crashing bomb filled planes onto them

Aryans

To the Nazis the "germanic" peoples who formed a "master race"

Nazis built extermination camps equipped with huge gas chambers that could kill as many as 6000 human beings in a day. Those labeled as weak would die. They were told to undress for a shower and then led into a chamber with fake shower heads. After the doors were closed, cyanide gas poured from the shower heads. All inside were killed in a matter of minutes.

What Nazi action marked the final stage of the "Final Solution"?

One was an electronic tracking system known as radar. Developed in the late 1930s radar could tell the number, speed, and directionof incoming warplanes. The other device was a German code-making machine named Enigma. A complete Enigma machine had been smuggled into Great Britain in the late 1930s. Enigma enabled the British to decode German secret messages. With information gathered by these devices RAF fliers could quickly launch attacks on the enemy.

What advantages did Britain have against the Germans?

The A-Bomb

What brought about the Japanese surrender?

He believed that he could defeat the Soviet Union swiftly before the Russian winter set in.

What does the fact that German armies were not prepared for the Russian winter indicate about Hitler's expectations for the Soviet campaign?

(1) Nuremberg Laws, passed in 1935, deprived Jews of their rights to German citizenship and forbade marriages between Jews and non-Jews; (2) Emigration of Jews to other countries; (3) Segregation in Ghettos hoping that the Jews inside would starve to death or die from disease. (4) Concentration Camps, work camps, or slave-labor prisons. Hitler hoped that the horrible conditions in the camps would speed the total elimination of the Jews. (5) Genocide or systematic mass murder or a culture or race.

What steps did Hitler take to rid Germany of Jews?

MacArthur believed that storming each island would be a longcostly effort. Instead, he wanted to "island-hop" past Japanese strongholds. He would then seize islands that were not well defended but were closer to Japan.

What was General Douglas MacArthur's island-hopping strategy?

President Roosevelt knew that if the Allies fell-the United States would be drawn into the war. In September 1939, he asked Congress to allow the Allies to buy American arms. The Allies would pay cash and then carry the goods on their own ships. Under the Lend-Lease Act, passed in March 1941, the president could lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country vital to the United States. By the summer of 1941, the U.S. Navy was escorting British ships carrying U.S. arms. In response Hitler ordered his submarines to sink any cargo ships they met.

Why did President Franklin Roosevelt want to offer help to the Allies?

Stalin had asked his allies to relieve German pressure on his armies in the east. He wanted them to open a second front in the west. This would split the Germans' strength by forcing them to fight major battles in two regions instead of one. Churchill agreed with Stalin's strategy. The Allies would weaken Germany on two fronts before dealing a deathblow. At first Roosevelt was torn, but ultimately he agreed.

Why did Stalin want the United States and Britain to launch a second front in the west?

Egypt's Suez Canal was key to reaching the oil fields of the Middle East.

Why was Egypt of strategic importance in World War II?

The French and British had mobilized their armies and stationed their troops along the Maginot Line and waited for the Germans to attack but nothing happened. The Allies then moved eastward toward the enemy while the enemy moved back from their Siegfried Line.

Why were the early months of World War II referred to as the "phony war"?

Charles de Gaulle

a French general, set up a government-in-exile in London

Atlantic Charter

a declaration of principles issued by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt, on which the Allied peace plan at the end of World War II was based on

Battle of Britain

a series of battles between German and British air forces, fought over Britain

Nuremberg Trails

a series of court proccedings held in Nuremberg, Germany after World War II, in which Nazi leaders were tried for aggression violations of the rules of war and crimes aganist humanity

Nonaggression pact

an agreement in which nations nations promsie not attack one another

Battle of the Bulge

battle in which Allied forces turned back that last major German offensive of World War II

Battle of Stalingrad

battle in which German forces were defeated in their attempt to capture the city of Stalingard in the Soviet Union

Battle of Guadalcanal

battle when allied troops drove Japanese foreces from the Pacific island of Guadalcanal

Ghettos

city neighbourhoods in which European Jews were forced to live

General Erwin Rommel

commander of a German tank force called Afrika Korps sent in to help the Italians win the war in North Africa against the British. He was successful in defeating the English and earned the name "Desert Fox".

Battle of Midway

sea and air of World War II, in which American forces defeated Japanese forces in central Pacific

Douglas MacArthur

the commander of the Allied land forces in the Pacific, developed a plan to handle vast distances and hundreds of islands occupied by the Japanese.

D-Day

the day on which the Allies began their invasion of the European mainland

Winston Churchill

the new British prime minister, had already declared that his nation would never give in to the Nazi's.

Genocide

the systematic killing of an entire people.

Holocaust

the systematic mass slaughter of Jews and other groups judged inferior by the Nazis.