From World War to Cold War

1. From World War to Cold War By: Allison Sheets Adapted from a presentation byAlli Sheets 2012

2. Aftermath of War • WWII killed as many as 75 million people around the world • In Europe about 38 million people lost their lives, many of them civilians • More than 22 million people from the Soviet Union died • Investigation brought new atrocities to light • The Nazi nightmare in Europe • The Japanese brutality in Asia

3. Horrors of the Holocaust • Not until after war did the Allies fully understand the inhumanity and misery of the Holocaust • United States General, Dwight Eisenhower, visited the camps • Was stunned to come “face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every sense of decency.” • Rudolf Hoess, Nazi commander at Auschwitz • admitted supervising the killing of some two and a half million people, not counting those who died of disease or starvation

4. War Crimes Trials • At wartime meetings, Allies agreed the Axis leaders should be tried for “crimes against humanity” • 177 Germans and Austrians were tried, and 142 found guilty • Some top Nazis received death sentences, others imprisoned • Similar war crimes trials were held in japan and Italy • The trials showed that political and military leaders could be held accountable for actions in wartime

5. Allied Occupation • The trials also discredited the Nazi, fascist, and militarist ideologies that had led to the war • People still had disturbing questions • What made the Nazi horrors possible? • Why had ordinary people in Germany, Poland, France, and elsewhere accepted and even collaborated in Hitler’s final solution”? • How could the world prevent the rise of future dictators? • The U.S. felt strengthening democracy would ensure tolerance and peace • Western Allies built new government with democratic constitutions to protect the rights of all citizens • In German School, Nazi textbooks and courses were replaced with a new curriculum teaching democratic principles

6. The United Nations • WWII Allies set up an international organization to ensure peace • In April 1945, delegates from 50 nations met in san Francisco to draft a charter for the United Nations • The UN’s work would go far beyond peacekeeping • Preventing outbreak of disease • Improving education • Protecting refugees • Aiding nations to develop economically • UN agencies have provided help for millions of people around the world • World health Organization, Food and Agricultural organization

7. Growing differences • By 1945 the wartime alliance was crumbling • Confliction ideologies and mutual distrust soon led to the conflict known as the cold War • The Cold War was a state of tension and hostility among nations, without armed conflict between the major rivals

8. Origins of the Cold War • Stalin had two goals in Eastern Europe • Wanted to spread communism into the areas • Wanted to create a buffer zone of friendly governments as a defense against Germany • At wartime conferences, Stalin tried to persuade the West to accept soviet influence in Eastern Europe • Bluntly stated “Whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his armies can reach. It cannot be otherwise.” • The U.S. was not consulting the soviet Union about peace terms of Italy or Japan, defeated and occupied by American and British troops • Russia would determine the fate of the Eastern European lands overrun by the Red Army on its way to Berlin • Roosevelt and Churchill rejected Stalin’s view, made him promise “free elections” • Stalin ignored pledge, and destroyed rival political parties and even assassinated democratic leaders • By 1948, Stalin had installed pro-soviet communist governments throughout Eastern Europe

9. A Divided Europe • In the West , the “iron curtain” became a symbol of the Cold War • Expressed the growing fear of communism • Described the division of Europe into “eastern” and “western” blocs • In the East were the soviet-dominated, communist countries of Eastern Europe • In the West were the western democracies, led by the U.S.

10. New Conflicts Develop • To deal with the treat of communism, the U.S. abandoned its traditional isolationism • Became the leading role on the world stage • Stalin showed his aggressive intentions • In Greece, Stalin backed communist rebels who were fighting to overturn a right-wing monarchy supported by Britain • By 1947, Britain could no longer afford to defend Greece • Stalin was also menacing Turkey in the Dardanelles, the strait linking the Russian Black Sea coasts and the Mediterranean

11. Truman Doctrine • On March 12, 1947, Truman outlined a new policy to Congress • The Truman doctrine, would guide the U. S for decades • The Americans would resist soviet expansion in Europe or elsewhere in the world • Truman sent military and economic aid and advisers to Greece and Turkey so that they could withstand the communist threat • Rooted in the idea of containment, limiting communism to the areas already under Soviet control • George Kennan, believed communism would eventually destroy itself • Stalin, saw containment as “encirclement” by the capitalist world that wanted to isolate the soviet Union

12. The Marshall Plan • Postwar hunger and poverty made western European lands fertile ground for communist ideas • To Strengthen democratic governments, the U.S. offered an aid package, called the Marshall Plan • Funneled food and economic assistance to Europe to help countries rebuild • Helped war shattered Europe recover rapidly • President Truman also offered aid to the Soviet Union and its satellites, dependent states, in Eastern Europe • Stalin saw it as a trick to win Eastern Europe over to capitalism and democracy • Forbade Eastern European countries to accept American aid, promising help form the Soviet Union in its place

13. Divisions in Germany • The soviet Union dismantled factories and other resources in Germany’s occupation zone and used them to help rebuild Russia • France, Britain, and the U.S. encouraged Germany to rebuild businesses and industries • German became a divided nation • West Germany, allowed the people to write their own constitution and regain self-government • East Germany, The Soviet Union installed a communist government tied to moscow

14. Berlin Airlift • Stalin’s resentment towards Western moves to rebuild Germany as a democracy trigged a crisis over Berlin • Berlin was occupied by 4 Allied Nations even though it was completely inside East Germany • Stalin attempted in 1948 to force the other Allied Nations out of Berlin by sealing off every railroad and highway into the western sectors of Berlin • Western Nations responded by round-the-clock air drops into West Berlin, including food and fuel. This continued for more than a year. • The Soviets eventually dropped the blockade, but the crisis deepened hostilities between the West and East.

15. Military Alliances • With tensions high between the East and West 2 Military Alliances formed • 1949-The United States, Canada, Great Britain, and 8 other European countries formed NATO- North Atlantic Treaty Organization, members said they would help if any were attacked • 1955-The Soviet Union along with 7 satellite countries [Eastern Block countries controlled by the USSR] formed the Warsaw Pact, this was to oppose NATO but moreover a way to control the countries by the USSR [Soviet Union]

16. The Arms Race • Each side in the Cold War armed itself to withstand an attack • By 1949 both sides had Nuclear weapons and spent the next 40 years trying to get a leg up on the other, costing each side billions of dollars • Churchill warned of this “Balance of Terror” but it did nothing to stop it from happening

17. The Propaganda War • Both the West and East participated in a propaganda war • The United States spoke of defending capitalism and democracy against communism and totalitarianism • The Soviet Union claimed the moral high ground in the struggle against western imperialism • Both sides, though, sought World Power