World War II

1. World War II

2. Study Guide Identifications Roots of War Treaty of Versailles Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere Adolph Hitler Pearl Harbor American Propaganda Manhattan Project

3. Study Guide Questions What were the causes of WWII? Why were most Americans reluctant to get involved in WWII? What were some of the foreign policy of the United States?

4. WWII • Began two decades before it started • Growing resentments from WWI R. Senator Gerald Nye committee 1934 Investigate U.S. involvement in WWI Greed of Big Business/Imperialist intervention • Worldwide depression • International political instability • Rise of ultra-nationalist movements • Japan, Italy, Germany – economic collapse • Promise of recovery – military buildup and territorial expansion

5. WWI – Treaty of Versailles • Germany had to accept the Blame for starting the war • Germany had to pay £6,600 million (called Reparations) for the damage done during the war. • Germany was forbidden to have submarines or an air force.   She could have a navy of only six battleships, and an Army of just 100,000 men.   In addition, Germany was not allowed to place any troops in the Rhineland, the strip of land, 50 miles wide, next to France. • Germany lost Territory (land) in Europe Germany’s colonies were given to Britain and France.

6. Roots of War • Treaty of Versailles • Creation of Small vulnerable nations • Italy and Japan empire building • 1930s economic crisis and political instability fueled the rise of right wing dictatorships • that offered territorial expansion by military conquest as the way to redress of rivalries, dominate trade, and gain access to raw materials. • Japanese nationalists Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

7. What was the rhetoric of the United States government during WWII that argued it was a just and glorious war? • War against the enemy who represented totalitarianism, racism, militarism, overt aggressive warfare. • The rhetoric included that the US entered the war to defend the principle of non-intervention in affairs of other countries. • The argument included that the US was a democracy with certain liberties while Germany was a dictatorship that persecuted Jews and other minorities, imprisoning dissidents and proclaiming Nordic supremacy.

8. Italy Invades Ethiopia • 1922 Benito Mussolini came to power and launched military buildup • 1935 invaded Ethiopia. • General Franco overthrows left-wing democracy in Spain

9. What governments and “conflicts” did the United States Government support abroad? What characterized those governments and their motives for engaging in conflict? • The United States supported Mussolini's war against Ethiopia by sending oil, • ignored the persecution of Jews, • supported Franco and his coup against the socialist/democratic government by claiming neutrality.

10. What were the priorities that determined foreign policy and who would be considered allies and who would be considered enemies? National power, economic interest – not human and civil rights

11. Japan Invades China • 1937 Rape of Nanjing • 370,000 civilians killed • 80,000 women and girls raped, some murdered • Pro-claimed Japan’s intention to lead a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity sphere • Self sufficient economic zone to liberate peoples of Asia from Western colonialism

12. Adolph Hitler • 1933 Hitler and the Nationalist Socialist Party came to power • instituted a fascist regime, one party dictatorship • Denounced the Versailles agreement • Blamed Germany’s plight on a Jewish conspiracy • Declared genetic superiority of Aryan race and German speaking peoples • Promised new Empire of the 3rd Reich

13. Hitler’s Goals & Domestic Policy • remove the “cancer” of democracy • create a new authoritarian leadership • forge a new domestic unity • struggle First: all else subordinate • Lebensraum: rearm-prepare for living space • Mein Kampf: race is the key to history (founders, bearers and destroyers of culture)

14. Death Camps • Auschwitz and Treblinka, the SS organized the extermination of 6 million Jews and 1 million Poles, Gypsies, and others who failed to fit the Nazi vision of the master race. • Soviet soldiers overran the death camps and freed the few survivors of the Holocaust.

15. Further Expansion of Japan • As European nations lost contact with Asian colonies • Japan swept in calling for incorporation of S.E. Asia into East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere • U.S. banned aviation fuel & Scrap Metal • Expanded trade embargo • Promised further assistance to China • Accelerated military build up in pacific • Froze Japanese assets in U.S.

16. Pearl Harbor • Japan planned for attack on US • December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor • 19 ships • 288 aircraft • 2,200 Americans • United & Galvanized a Nation

17. Pearl harbor has long been portrayed as a surprise attack, caused simply by the barbarism of Japanese. What actions by the United States led to the bombing and why did the United States make the decisions it had that led to a path of war?

18. Pearl Harbor is the event that brought us fully into war. • First Japan was empire building and seeking to be the supreme power in southeast Asia. • The US in response placed a total embargo on scrap iron, and oil in 1941. • Economic sanctions were recognized as a path leading to war. • The white house anticipated war with Japan, in fact had been avoiding it for generations. • As the United states supported China through support needed to bolster defense, and by providing economic credits, this escalated tensions with Japan

19. War in Pacific continued • First 6 months in Japan’s favor • “War without Mercy” racial prejudice reinforced brutality. • Japan – a war to establish superiority of divine Yamato Race • Prisoners (most Asian) Brutalized in unimaginable ways - survival rate low • Tested bacterial weapons on Chinese

20. Pacific Campaign • During 1943 and 1944 submarines choked off food, oil and raw materials bound for Japan and other island bases. • Conventional bombing destroyed 42% of Japans industrial capacity • by the time the US captured the Islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945 Japan’s position was hopeless. • Yalta Conference in 1945: Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill debated plans for the postwar world,

21. American Propaganda • Images played on themes of racial inferiority of Japanese • Superiority of Americans • Japanese Animalistic sub-humans

22. Pacific Strategy • 1945 – Japan essentially beat but would not surrender • FDR died one month before Germany’s surrender and Five before Japan’s • Harry S. Truman • Atomic Power – Arms Race • Manhattan project

23. Why Drop the Bombs? August 6 – Hiroshima (80,000) August 8 Nagasaki (40,000) immediate deaths (fat man mushroom cloud) Dropped 2 of 3 available leading to formal surrender on September 2, 1945

24. Atomic Age • New level of Violence • Instantaneous incineration of humans and structures • Radiation disease • Inaugurated new atomic age • Dreams of peace mingled with Armageddon • Formal surrender – September 2, 1945

25. War at Home

26. Study Guide Identifications Rationing Progressive taxation Labor gains New Job Opportunities Social issues raised by the war Office of War Information Gender inequality Double V Campaign

27. Identifications continued FEPC Port of Chicago, 1944 Zoot Suit Urban Relocation Program Executive Order 9066 Richard Wright Gunnar Mydral

28. Study Guide Questions Why did mobilization for war produce complex economic and social changes in American life? What major institutions and policies shaped the reconstruction of the postwar period?

29. I. Economy • WWII transformed political economy, government, business, financial institutions and its labor force. • Federal bureaucracy quadrupled in size, new economic agencies proliferated. • War production Board • Government regulation survived post war • 1940-1945 economy expanded GNP rose 15% every year of the war.

30. a. Government, Science & Technology • Unprecedented relationship between government and industry to promote scientific and technological research and development • The Office of Scientific Research and Development headed by Vannenar Bush.

31. c. War bonds, rationing, and progressive taxation • Few goods - invested in bonds • Rationing of essentials food, fabric and gasoline • Shared more equitably than before the war • sense of shared sacrifice, helped ease class tensions of 1930s • Higher taxes on the wealthier (Progressive Taxes) • redistributed income • narrowed the gap between poor and well to do

32. Work Force • First 2 years of military build up • Employment rose, jobs created went to men • skilled labor went to white men • Government sponsored training progress went to white men • Refused women and minorities

33. Changing Composition • As military service drained supply white male workers, women and minorities stepped in • African Americans • migrated north into the industrial cities • Mexicans • entered US as Bracero guest unskilled worker program. • Women assumed jobs never before open • welders, ship builders, lumberjacks and minors • Minority women • domestics to clerical and secretarial jobs

34. Conservation Propaganda • “Wear it out, use it up, make it do, or do without it” • war now equated parsimonious life style with patriotism rather than poverty.

35. Anti-discrimination Legislation • 1941 the Fair Employment Practices Commission tried to band discrimination in hiring • 1943 government would not recognize as collective bargaining agents any unions that denied admittance to minorities • War labor board, outlawed the practice of paying different wages to whites and non whites doing the same job.

36. Labor Unions – Temporary Gains • Labor unions – scarcity of labor strengthened unions • Still main beneficiaries remained white males • Unions fought for contracts stipulating equal pay form men and women in the same job, but only “male” jobs for the purpose to maintain wage levels for their return • During war women held 25% of all jobs in auto factories, and by mid 1946 only 7.5%

37. Economic Change • During war the workplace was more diverse than ever before • More people entered paid labor force • Earned more money than rationing restrictions allowed them to spend • Institutional scale of American life was transformed • Big government, big business, and big labor grew bigger • Science and tech forged new links of mutual interest among the three sectors.

38. Social Issues • The war most Americans believed was being fought to preserve democracy and individual freedom against political systems that trampled both • War time ideals highlighted everyday inequalities • Defining and redefining the American way of life.

39. War time Propaganda • WWI • Government propagandists asked Americans to fight for more democratic world and a permanent peace • Skeptical generation of the 1930 and 1940s • Failure of Wilson’s promises 

40. Visual propaganda • FDR • Fight to preserve the American way of life, not to save the world • Norman Rockwell and Frank Capra • Hollywood • “the American film is our most important weapon” • “ why we fight”

41. Print Propaganda • Sold benefits of freedom • Appeared in the guise of new and improved consumer goods • Americans were fighting to restore the consumer society of the 1920s • Office of War Information • coordinate policies related to propaganda and censorship • established branches around the world, published “victory” magazine, hundreds of films, posters and radio broad castes.

42. Gender (In) Equality • Nostalgic portraits of an American way of life often clashed with the socioeconomic changes that wartime mobilization brought • lives and status of women • As women took over jobs traditionally held by men, many people began to take more seriously the idea of gender equality

43. Gains? • 350,000 women volunteered for military duty • 1,000 served as civilian pilots • (WASP) Women’s Air Force Service Pilots • 2% of the military personnel they broke stereotypes

44. Women’s Roles • “What has become on the manhood of America, that we have to call on our women?” • Women’s Corps with full status for each branch of the military. • Framed changes in women’s roles in highly traditional terms • short term sacrifice necessary to preserve women’s special responsibilities, hearth and home • “a woman can do anything if she knows she looks beautiful doing it.”

45. Inequalities exacerbated • Women to blame • Rise in juvenile delinquency • Rise in divorce rate during the war years • Widened the symbolic gap between femininity and masculinity • “Pin – up mentality • Manliness equated with brutality and casual sex Tough guy fiction - violent and misogynist edge

46. Racial (In)equality • Messages about race: wartime culture both propelled yet firmly resisted change • Fight against fascism challenged traditional lack of or limited access to political, legal, or economic systems of African Americans

47. New Thinking • Nazism, a philosophy based on the idea of racial inequality • Exposed racist underpinnings of much of the 20th century social science theory • The view that racial difference was not a function of biology but a function of culture gained wider popular acceptance • Helped to lay the foundation for the postwar power struggle against discrimination.

48. African American Challenge • Challenged the government to live up to its own rhetoric about freedom and democracy • Harlem newspaper called for a Double V campaign, victory at home and abroad. • A Phillip Randolph threatened march on Washington to demand more defense jobs and integration of the military forces

49. Precedents for Change • Roosevelt - concessions in exchange for canceling the march • FEPC, Fair Employment Practices Commission (Executive Order 8802) "there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin." • Conservative coalition in congress prevented its passage in 1950 • The army remained segregated, “NAACP paper “a Jim crow army cannot fight for a free world” • forced change, need for soldiers “Are You Beyond the Call of Duty?”

50. Discrimination Peaked 1944 • Explosion at a naval ammunitions depot in Port Chicago • killed 300 • Next group refused, military court marshaled 50 • Sentences 8-15 years • 1994 Freddie Meeks, at 80 requested and received a presidential pardon.