230 likes | 314 Views
NEW ORDER. Exploited industrial and agricultural potential of non-German land to aid German economy Requisitioned food from conquered regions Made forced laborers of conquered people Ruled by force and terror Symbolized by prison cell, firing squad, torture chamber, and concentration camp.
E N D
NEW ORDER • Exploited industrial and agricultural potential of non-German land to aid German economy • Requisitioned food from conquered regions • Made forced laborers of conquered people • Ruled by force and terror • Symbolized by prison cell, firing squad, torture chamber, and concentration camp
RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS • Resistance movements became stronger in conquered countries as Nazi barbarism intensified • Rescued downed airmen, radioed intelligence, and sabotaged German installations
RESISTANCE ACTIVITIES • Norwegians blew up the German stock of “heavy water” • Needed for atomic weapons research • Danish sabotaged railways and smuggled almost entire Jewish population into Sweden • Greeks blew up crucial viaduct for sending military supplies to North Africa • After D-Day, French delayed movement of German reinforcements and liberated sections of the country • Belgians captured vital port of Antwerp
POLISH RESISTANCE • Numbered 300,000 at is height • Reported on German troop movements and interfered with supplies destined for Eastern Front • Staged full-scale revolt in August 1944 against Germans in Warsaw • Appealed to Soviet troops for help but the Red Army did nothing • Polish underground surrendered after 63 days of fighting and the Nazis destroyed Warsaw
YUGOSLAVIAN RESISTANCE • Headed by Josef Broz • Better known as “Tito” • Moscow-trained, intelligent, and courageous • Disciplined fighting force that tied down a huge German army and ultimately liberated country from Nazi rule
JEWISH RESISTANCE • Emerged in Eastern Europe but suffered from handicaps • Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and others would not support them and sometimes even denounced them to Nazis • Warsaw Ghetto Uprising • Spring 1943 • Armed with only a few guns and homemade bombs • Fought Germans for several weeks
RESISTANCE IN ITALY AND GERMANY • Italian partisans helped liberate Italy after Allied landing in 1943 • Army officers plotted to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944 • Headed by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg • Hitler escaped serious injury • In retaliation, 5000 suspected anti-Nazis were tortured and executed
JAPAN • Had begun full-scale war against China in 1937 • War initially went well • Japan captured most important cities and seaports • Inflicted heavy casualties on Chinese forces • Engaged in atrocities • “Rape of Nanking” • Forced government of Chaing Kai’shek to withdraw to Chungking
PEARL HARBOR • Japan planned to take over French Indochina, British Burma and Malaya, and Dutch Indonesia • In order to obtain oil, rubber, tin, and rice • Knowing that the U.S would resist this plan, Japanese leaders decided on a quick strike against the American Pacific Fleet • Struck on December 7, 1941 at naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii • US lost 17 ships (7 battleships), 188 planes, and 2403 men • U.S. declared war against Japan the next day • Germany declared war on the U.S. several days later
NAZI EMPIRE IN EUROPE MIDWAY STALINGRAD EL ALAMEIN
BATTLE OF MIDWAY • June 4, 1942 • Japan sought to destroy what remained of U.S. Pacific Fleet • Battle waged entirely by aircraft carrier-based planes • U.S. won • Destroyed 4 Japanese aircraft carriers • Downed 322 Japanese planes • Japan loses initiative
BATTLE OF STALINGRAD • Germans renew offensive in Russia in Spring of 1942 • Goal was to capture Stalingrad • Epic battle • Commander of German 6th army, General Friedreich Paulus, asks permission to withdraw in November 1943 • Hitler refuses permission • Remnants of 6th army surrender on February 2, 1943 • Germans lost 260,000 men and had another 110,000 taken prisoner • Momentum of German invasion is lost
BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN • General Erwin Rommel drives British out of Lybia and tries to capture Egypt and Suez Canal • Although short of supplies, Rommel moves on Egypt in early 1942 • Stopped at Battle of El Alamein by British 8th army commanded by General Bernard Montgomery • October 1942 • Victory followed by joint Anglo-American invasion of North Africa in November 1942 • Germans and Italians defeated by May 1943
INVASION OF ITALY • Allies invade Sicily in July 1943 • Italians force Mussolini to resign and new government surrenders in September 1943 • Germany sends troops to Italy to halt Allied advance • Intense fighting that would last for the rest of the war • Mussolini captured and executed by Italian partisans in April 1945
D-DAY (JUNE 6, 1944) • Allies land on beaches of Normandy • 2 million men and 5000 ships • Germans caught by surprise • Despite stubborn German resistance on some beaches, all beaches were secured • Men and equipment then flooded through these gateways • By the end of July 1944, 1,500,000 men had entered France and began to move east towards Germany
WINTER, 1944 • Paris rises up and is liberated • Brussels and Antwerp are liberated • Allied bombers hitting German factories and civilian centers • Battle of the Bulge • December 1944 • Germans launch counter-offensive designed to split Allied forces and regain Antwerp • Heroic defense by Americans at Bastogne stops German offensive • Allied drive towards Germany resumes • Red Army liberates Baltic states, Poland, Hungary and penetrates Germany itself by February 1945
THE END OF THE THIRD REICH • US troops enter Germany in March 1945 • Red army approaches Berlin in April 1945 • Hitler commits suicide in bunker • Blames entire war on Jews in “Last Testament” • Germany unconditionally surrenders on May 7, 1945
ISLAND-HOPPING IN THE PACIFIC • US forces attack strategic islands held by Japan beginning in 1942 • Japan defends islands tenaciously and contest every inch of land • 21,000 Japanese soldiers die on Iwo Jima (March 1945) • 100,000 die on Okinawa (April 1945)
DAWN OF THE ATOMIC AGE • US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 • 78,000 people killed/60% of city demolished • Reason? • Truman said he ordered the attack to avoid US invasion of Japan and high casualties • Others argue that dropping the bomb was unnecessary because Japan was on verge of surrender • Some argue bomb was dropped because the Soviet Union was about to declare war on Japan • US drops second bomb on Nagasaki on August 9 • One day after USSR declared war on Japan • Japan surrenders two days later
LEGACY I • 50 million dead • Including 20 million Russians • Soviet Union annexed Baltic states, Poland took over East Prussia • Germans who had lived in these territories forced to leave • Material losses were enormous • Homeless and hungry people flooded roads everywhere
LEGACY II • US and USSR emerge as two most powerful states in the world • Dwarfing Great Britain, France, and Germany • Break-up of European colonial empires • GB gives up India in 1947 • France gives up Lebanon and Syria • Dutch abandon Indonesia • By the 1960s, virtually every former European colony had gained independence
LEGACY III • Nazi racial theories showed that the mind remained attracted to irrational beliefs • Nazi atrocities demonstrated that people could torture and kill with zeal and machine-like indifference • Nazi assault on reason and freedom demonstrated the precariousness of Western Civilization • Some intellectuals drifted into despair • Life was absurd, without meaning and out of control • Only a fool would still believe in progress or human goodness