Lessons Learned from World War II

1. Lessons Learned from World War II • The Atomic Bomb • Holocaust • Post-war impact of the atomic bomb • Expanded roles of women • Growth of the US permanently?

2. Atomic Bomb

3. Hiroshima - 90,000 to 100,000 persons were killed immediately - 145,000 persons perish from the bombing by the end of 1945. Nagasaki Leveled Area: 6.7 million square metersDamaged Houses: 18,409CasualtiesKilled------73,884Injured-----74,909Total------148,793(Large numbers of people died in the following years from the effects of radioactive poisoning.) Little Boy Fat Man

4. Hiroshima, vicinity of ground zero

5. Devastation

7. Nuclear Strikes Aug 6, 1945. Uranium bomb “Little Boy” dropped on Hiroshima, killing 140,000 Aug 9, 1945. Plutonium bomb “Fat Man” dropped on Nagasaki, killing 74,000

8. Post-war Impact of Atomic Bomb • Changed the very nature of war • Presented the possibility of annihilation of humankind • US came to place great strategic reliance on atomic bomb • War plans emphasized sudden atomic attack against USSR to allow time for conventional mobilization 15 megaton thermonuclear device test on Bikini Atoll in 1954

9. Post-war Impact of Atomic Bomb • US held an atomic monopoly until 1949 • Huge US-USSR arms race followed • Eventually led to Mutually Assured Destruction (1967) • Massive retaliation strategy (1954) meant US was prepared to respond to Soviet aggression with a massive nuclear strike

10. Post-war Impact of Atomic Bomb • Nuclear weapons prove to not be a reasonable option in limited wars • We’ll see this in Lesson 30 (Korea) and Lesson 32-34 (Vietnam) The US considered, but did not use, atomic bombs in support of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954

11. Holocaustin Hebrew “Shoah”

12. Holocaust • Jews were the primary targets of Hitler’s racially motivated genocidal policies, but Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, communists, and others suffered as well • Nuremberg Laws took all citizenship away from Jews • Sometime during 1941, the Nazi leadership committed to “the final solution” of “the Jewish problem” • Kristallnacht; the plan to round up all Jews in Europe in 1938.

13. Holocaust • Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps mainly in Poland • The largest was Auschwitz(POL) where at least a million Jews died • The process was organized and technologically sophisticated • Gassing was the preferred method of killing, but electrocution, phenol injections, flamethrowers, hand grenades, and machine guns were also used

14. Roll Call at Auschwitz

15. Holocaust • Victims were subjected to industrial work, starvation, medical experimentation, and extermination • Large crematories were used to hide the evidence • Approximately 5.7 million Jews perished in the Holocaust • Helps generate support for the creation of Israel as a Jewish state • The US had strict refugee laws emplaced at the time Auschwitz crematory

16. Mass Grave at Bergen-Belsen

17. Children Subjected to Medical Experiments in Auschwitz

18. Survivors ofAmpfing Subcamp of Dachau

19. Prisoners liberated at Auschwitz

20. Do we really learn from history? • Rwanda Genocide 1994 • Bosnian Genocide • 1992-1995

21. Expanded Roles for Women • From 1940 to 1944 over 6 million women joined the workforce filling jobs that had been exclusively male • After the war, women were expected to return home and resume their traditional roles as wives and mothers Woman's Day, Oct 1950. The picture asks, "What more needs to be said about a woman's day?"

22. Post-WWII US Economy and Power Economy • Owns ½ of World’s Manufacturing Industry • Owns 2/3 of World’s Gold Reserves • GNP 2X prior to Great Depression Power • Creates United Nations (over 200 members) • Moves from 14 world bases to 30,000 bases • US losses: 405,000, USSR losses: 25,000,000, Germany 8,700,000 • 17th Power to 1st Power • Only Country with the atomic bomb • Isolationism ends permanently

23. Next • Early Cold War