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World War II in American History: Teaching “The Good War”?

World War II in American History: Teaching “The Good War”?. Michael S. Neiberg neiberg102@gmail.com. “The Good War”. The Good War. New Themes in Teaching World War II. Theme One: The US Role in the World. Europe in Ruins. 75% of Berlin’s buildings uninhabitable

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World War II in American History: Teaching “The Good War”?

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  1. World War II in American History:Teaching “The Good War”? • Michael S. Neiberg • neiberg102@gmail.com

  2. “The Good War”

  3. The Good War

  4. New Themes in Teaching World War II

  5. Theme One: The US Role in the World

  6. Europe in Ruins • 75% of Berlin’s buildings uninhabitable • Food rationing continued in Britain until 1954 • 10,000,000 DPs, most in Germany against their will • France lost 500,000 buildings • USSR lost 70,000 villages • Yugoslavia lost 75% of its livestock

  7. Europe in Ruins • Two-thirds of all German males born in 1918 were dead • USSR lost 20,000,000 men • 200,000 Polish children had no parents alive • Hungary’s ration was 550 calories per day (US intake is 3,000) • 5,000,000 Jews killed • Infant mortality in Europe exceeded 25% in 1945

  8. Potsdam Conference17 July to 2 August 1945 • Unconditional Surrender for Japan • “The freely expressed will of the Japanese people” will determine its government • Each power to take reparations from its sector of Germany • Germany to be “denazified” • Surrender of Japanese forces in Korea and Vietnam agreed. Clement Atlee, Harry Truman, and Josef Stalin at Potsdam. France was not invited to send a representative.

  9. Role of the USA • Marshall Plan • $4.6 billion in aid to democratic capitalist states • Rapid redevelopment of Germany • Creation of NATO • Permanent place of the USA • Insertion of US firms into European economy • Formation of the United Nations, IMF

  10. Theme Two: Home Front USA Women welders at Ingalls Shipbuilders in Pascagoula, Mississippi, 1943

  11. Aircraft Production

  12. Artillery Pieces

  13. Major Naval Vessels

  14. Major Naval Vessels (USA included)

  15. Steel (in millions of tons)

  16. Labor Forces • 90 Division Gamble and Selective Service • US had three latent labor pools (women, African Americans, Mexicans) • US added 6,000,000 jobs in three years • GM alone added 750,000 • In Germany there were 400,000 fewer female workers in 1941 than 1939

  17. Japanese Internment

  18. (Un)intended Consequences? Detroit Race Riot, 1943

  19. What did the war really change? Lunch counter sit in Greensboro, NC, 1960

  20. Theme Three: World War II’s Uniqueness Eisenhower and other senior American officers tour a liberated concentration camp

  21. The American Century Signing of the UN Charter, San Francisco, 1945

  22. Unity

  23. Contrast to Later Wars Vietnam “Police Action” in Korea

  24. Some Further Reading • Paul Fussell, Wartime • Studs Terkel, The Good War • E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed • David Nichols, ed. Ernie’s War • J. Glenn Gray, The Warriors Studs Terkel

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