Chapter 26 – World War II “The War Begins”

World War II Memorial Washington, DC

World War II (Video 4 min)
 Steps to War – Hitler Takes
The Industrial Rhine River Valley
• Hitler ignores the Versailles
Treaty
• Hitler knew the west would not
raise a hand to stop him, he was
right
• March 7, 1936 he took back
the Rhineland
• Appeasement – European
nations would satisfy
reasonable demands in
exchange for peace.
• Great Britain allowed Hitler to take
back the Rhineland
 Nazi Soldiers Retake The Rhineland
Major Industrial Region along the Rhine River
 March 13,1938
Hitler Defies Versailles Treaty and Marches into Austria – Video 1:00
“You have only to Appeasement
look at the map to
see that nothing
we could do could
possibly save
Czechoslovakia
from being overrun
by the Germans.”
- British PM Neville
Chamberlain, writing to his
sister in 1938.

The Rhineland

The world’s leaders

stood by and allowed
Hitler’s rise. This photo
shopped image
humorously shows a
rather dire situation.
Hitler grows in power.
 Munich Conference – Height of Appeasement
• British, French, German and Italian representatives
• Reached an agreement to allow Hitler to have his demands
• Hitler got Sudetenland and the Czechs were
abandoned by the west.
• Neville Chamberlain – Prime Minister of
Britain claimed he had negotiated:
“Peace for our time”
 The Happy War?

Crest of the
Sudetenland
Germany, France, England & Italy Sign Treaty – Video 2:00
 From left to right, Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini as they prepare Sudeten Woman Weeps as Hitler
to sign the Munich Agreement motorcade moves through her city.

“I will begin by saying what everybody else would like to ignore or forget… we have sustained a total and unmitigated
defeat… And I will say this, that I believe the Czechs, left to themselves… would have been able to make better terms than
they got. We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude which has befallen Great Britain and France…
And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning.” - Winston Churchill,
Parliamentary Debates, 1938

Angry Czechs experience Prime Minister Chamberlain's "peace".

 Nazi-Soviet Pact Allows Hitler Invades Poland
• Hitler demanded the Polish port of Danzig
The map shows the beginning of World War II in
• Great Britain offered to protect Poland September 1939 in a wider European context.

• France & Britain tried to negotiate a deal with

Soviets to protect Poland
• August 23, 1939 Hitler and Stalin agree on a treaty:
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
Stalin gets control of Eastern Poland
Sept. 1, 1939 Hitler invades Poland
Hitler Betrays Poland to Sign Friendship Treaty with Moscow (USSR) – Video 1:00
 Sept 1, 1939 Hitler reviews troops in
Hitler Addresses Reichstag Warsaw, Poland. October 5,
“I do not want to be anything but the first soldier of the 1939
German Reich. I have once more put on the
uniform which was once most holy and precious
to me. I shall only take it off after victory or I shall
not live to see the end…
Just as I myself am ready to risk my life any time for
my people and for Germany, so I demand the same of
everyone else. But anyone who thinks that he can
oppose this national commandment, whether
directly or indirectly, will die!
Traitors can expect death!”
- From Nazism 1919-1935, A Documentary Reader
German Soldiers Enter Poland
September 1939
German Blitzkrieg 1940
German soldiers march through Warsaw, Poland.
 German Blitzkrieg “lightning war”
using armored columns called
panzer divisions with air support
– Stuka dive-bomber planes first
– Then, Panzer Tanks = 300 per division
Sept.1939: In 4 weeks, Poland Surrenders, then…
April 1940: Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia
May 1940: Netherlands, Belgium and then France!

The classic characteristic of what is commonly known as "blitzkrieg" is a highly

mobile form of infantry and armor working in combined arms teams.
German Stuka dive-bombers
September 1, 1939 Hitler Invades Poland (Video 1:39)
Danish troops await a
German Invasion of
Denmark, 1940
Hitler Invades Norway and Denmark (video :40)
AXIS Powers – Pact of Steel
May 22, 1939
Alliance of Germany and
Kingdom of Italy
 Axis Powers later add Japan
with the Tripartite Pact September 1940.
Battle of France, 1940 Hitler’s Troops Bear Down on Paris

German Troops in Paris, France 1940

Dunkirk – Triumph of man over machine (Video 2:20)
Battle of Dunkirk
Germans drive the Allies into the
sea.
June 10, 1940 Mussolini Enters the War (Video 1:00)
 Hitler Takes Continental Europe
• French sign an armistice on
June 22, 1940 with Germany.
• Britain was his last target to defeat
• US stands by under
isolationist policy
• FDR wanted to go to war, but did not have
public support
Hitler Gloats Over Victories – Video :40
 The Battle of Britain
• German bombing raids of Britain
• Hitler’s 1st mistake:
mistake
Frustration led to a
change of targets in
Britain from military to
civilian targets
• Move backfires –
British people show
remarkable resolve
and determination
• British military able to
respond w/out attacks
• By September Hitler
postponed British invasion
German Luftwaffe (LOOFT vah fuh)
German air force
 Hitler Invades Soviet Union
• June 22, 1941 – Hitler breaks
non-aggression pact, invades
USSR
• 1,800 mile long front
• Early winter and fierce Soviet
fighting halted German advance
• 2nd big mistake for Hitler
Invading the USSR creates a 2
front war
 Japanese Imperialism in Asia
• Like Germany, Japan wanted “living space” and
“resources”
• Sept 1931 – Japanese seize Manchuria (north of
China)
• Japan moved steadily south taking over Northern
Chinese territory
• Planned to take over the USSR with Germany’s help
• Japan wanted more lands in the South Japanese Leader Hideki Tojo
Pacific, the US protested and said they
would cut off aid and raw materials to
Japan

Japanese Emperor Hirohito

Churchill & FDR Meet in Secret
 Video: The Path to Infamy (Video – 3:49)

Click on picture to see video

 Pearl Harbor Attacked Dec. 7, 1941
• Japanese aircraft bomb US Pearl Harbor base in
Hawaii
• Japanese had launched assaults throughout
Asia with great success
• Japanese viewed Americans as soft, a surprise
attack would give them Pacific control
• 4 days after Pearl Harbor – Hitler declares war
on US. Believes US action in Pacific would
make them weak in Europe
Photograph from a Japanese plane of Battleship Row at the beginning of the
attack. The explosion in the center is a torpedo strike on the USS Oklahoma. Two attacking Japanese planes can
be seen: one over the USS Neosho and one over the Naval Yard.
Rosie the Riveter
 Axis vs. Allies
• ALLIES: Great Britain, USA, USSR agree to
fight until the Axis Powers surrender
unconditionally
• AXIS: Germany, Italy, Japan
• FDR and Winston Churchill (Britain) meet in US
and plan massive attacks in Europe
• US first attacks in Africa vs. Italian and German
troops Flags of the Third Reich, Japan and the
Kingdom of Italy, in Berlin (September 1940)
• May 1943 US/British troops force German/Italian
surrender in Africa

"The Big Three": Josef Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and

Winston Churchill meeting at the Tehran Conference in 1943.
4/5 of the World at War
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers over Stalingrad.
Battle of Stalingrad
 Stalingrad
• Most terrible battle of
the war
• Stalingrad – major
industrial center in Soviet holding the red banner high

USSR
• If Hitler could win the
city of Stalingrad it was
a portal to the middle
east and vast
resources of oil for his
war machine.
• Germans finally
stopped after fierce
fighting in winter
conditions
The entire German 6th Army (their
best) surrenders at Stalingrad
Vasily Zaytsev – inspiration for the movie “Enemy at the Gates”
Between October 1942 and January 1943, Zaytsev made 242 verified kills.
General Eisenhower with troops.
Training in Britain.
 D-Day: History’s greatest naval invasion
• June 6, 1944 Allied forces under command of US general
Eisenhower landed on Normandy beaches of France
• Within 3 months the Allies had landed 2 million men and ½
million vehicles
• Allies broke through German lines beginning the push towards
Germany
D-Day: History’s greatest naval invasion
The Bombing of
Germany
 Wilhelm Keitel signs
Germany Surrenders surrender terms, 7 May
1945 in Berlin
• January 1945, Adolf
Hitler moves into a
bunker 55 feet deep
under Berlin
• Hitler blamed Jews for
the war
• April 28th Mussolini
shot and killed by
Italian resistance
fighters
• April 30th Hitler
commits suicide in
bunker
• War in Europe was
over
(above) The remains of the above-ground
portion of the Führerbunker in the garden of
the Reich Chancellery. Entrance is to the left
and circular structure was for generators and
ventilation.
(below) The remains of the Führerbunker in
1946
Churchill sitting on a damaged chair from the Führerbunker in July 1945.