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World War II

World War II. The Impact of Total War. Economic Damage: Western Europe. Impact of Strategic Bombing 75% of Berlin Uninhabitable 20 million homeless in Germany Dutch lose 219,000 hectares of land French lose 40% of pre-war transportation systems Norway lost 14% pre-war capital.

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World War II

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  1. World War II The Impact of Total War

  2. Economic Damage: Western Europe • Impact of Strategic Bombing • 75% of Berlin Uninhabitable • 20 million homeless in Germany • Dutch lose 219,000 hectares of land • French lose 40% of pre-war transportation systems • Norway lost 14% pre-war capital Dresden After Allied Bombing

  3. Economic Damage: Eastern Europe • Poland • 3/4 RR track • 1/6 farms • City of Warsaw leveled • Yugoslavia • 25% of vineyards • 50% livestock • 60% of roads • 75% of RR bridges • 1/5 of all dwellings • 1/3 of industry USSR • 70,000 villages & 1,700 towns • 32,000 factories • 40,000 miles of RR track Greece • 1/3 of forest • 2/3 merchant marine • Hyperinflation from German extraction of cost of occupation

  4. The Human Cost 36½ million Europeans die! Deadliest and Most Destructive Conflict in Human History

  5. Military Deaths D-Day Invasion

  6. Civilian Deaths

  7. Proportion of Pre-War Population Lost

  8. Demographic Change • Gender Imbalance • USSR: 20 million more women than men • Germany: 2/3 of men born in 1918 did not live to see 1945 • Yugoslavia: All men in entire villages wiped out • Orphans • Yugoslavia: 300,000 • Poland: 200,000 • Netherlands: 60,000 • Czechoslovakia: 49,000 Belgian Refugees

  9. Ethnic Cleansing • Germans exterminate… • Jews, Gypsies, Slavs Homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists • Red Army Rapes & Pillages • 87,000 women in Vienna raped in 3 weeks following occupation • 150-200,000 Russian babies born to German women 1945-1946 • Displaced Persons • Refugees • Allies force migration of ethnic minorities The Red Army Seizes Berlin (35,000 Soviets die in this battle alone!)

  10. The Impossible Peace Three Big Questions • What will Eastern Europe look like? • What to do with Germany? • What form will post-war international relations take?

  11. Allied Summits • Casablanca: January 1943 • Allies Agree to Call for Germany’s Unconditional Surrender • Teheran: December 1943 • Allies agree to divide Germany • Border between Poland & the USSR will move to the west • USSR to have access to Baltic Sea • Moscow: October 1944 (Stalin & Churchill only, no FDR) • “Secret Deal”… Churchill & Stalin agree on percentages of influence in Eastern Europe • Not too significant… ratified the inevitable • Only Balkans were up for grabs… both agreed to 50:50 split

  12. Eastern Europe • Soviet troops physically occupied E. Europe at end of WWII. • USSR viewed E. Europe as essential to its security… It wanted a sphere of influence.

  13. Yalta(February, 1945) • “Declaration of Liberated Europe” …Promise to form representative gov.s, facilitate elections, etc. • U.S. & GB formally accept Soviet domination of Eastern Europe • Left out issue of Germany b/c it was so divisive • Did FDR sell out? The “Big Three” at Yalta

  14. The Iron Curtain “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.” -Winston Churchill, March 5, 1946

  15. The German Question Plan A: The Morgenthau Plan • “Plan for the Leveling of the Post-War Economy” March 1946 Strictly limited German Industry, de-Nazification, abolished army • “It is of the utmost importance that every person • know, that this time, Germany is a defeated • nation.” • -Henry Morgenthau, Jr. U.S. Sec. of Treasury • Plan B • Re-build Germany so it can become a self-supporting ally. • “You can have peace, or you can have vengeance, but you can’t have both.” -Herbert Hoover to Harry Truman

  16. PotsdamJuly 17-August 2, 1945 • Nullified German annexations including Austria • Statement of Occupation Aims • Prosecution of war criminals • Expelled Germans living outside of new Germany • Germany to pay reparations • Division of Germany, Austria & their capitals into 4 zones • Potsdam Declaration: Unconditional Surrender in Japan • German question to be decided at final peace conference, which never occurs. Atlee Truman Stalin (GB) (USA) (USSR)

  17. Divided by Default Divided Berlin • US came to favor a unified Germany w/ reconstructed economy. • USSR still saw a restored Germany as a major threat. • Britain, France, USA merged zones to form West Germany (May, 1949). • USSR established East Germany as a satellite state (Oct. 1949). East Germany West Germany

  18. Postwar International Cooperation War Crimes Trials in Germany, Japan, & Italy The United Nations The Bretton Woods Accords

  19. The Nuremburg Trials • First known war crimes trial. • Originally tried 24 Germans for “crimes against humanity.” • No clear legal precedent. • Most suspects claimed the court had no jurisdiction… Claimed it was “victor’s justice” • 12 sentenced to death, 9 jailed, 3 acquitted • In all, about 1800 Germans tried after WWII

  20. The United Nations • UN founded Oct. 1945 • Security Council • Five permanent members w/ vetoes: United States, Great Britain, France, USSR & China • General Assembly • Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Truman Addresses the UN Conference (1945)

  21. The Bretton Woods Accords(July 1944) • Defined structure of postwar international finance & trade. • Created… • -International Monetary Fund (IMF) • -World Bank • -General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (precursor to World Trade Organization)

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