WWII parts of Chapter 30

2. Early War Years

3. Early War Years
• August 23, 1939 – Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
• USSR and Germany agreed to divide Poland
• Western Poland – Germany
• Eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – Soviet Union
• September 1, 1939 – Nazi Germany invades Poland
• Within Germany, Hitler also orders the terminally ill be euthanized (he says it is
to make room for injured soldiers in hospitals)
• September 3, 1939 – GB and France (and their territories) declare war
on Germany
• September 16, 1939 – Soviet Union occupies Eastern Poland and the
Baltics
• By October 6 Poland ceased to exist

4. Early War Years
• Meanwhile in America
• Neutrality Act of 1935
• Banned selling weapons to nations at war
• Revised in 1936 – banned loans to warring nations
• Neutrality Act of 1937
• Non-military goods could only be sold on a “cash and carry” basis
• What does that mean?
• Neutrality Act of 1939
• Britain and France could get military supplies, but had to send troops to America to take
them back (seen as helping, without drawing the US into the war
• FDR saw that the US military was vastly undersized and started increasing the
size of the army and building more airplanes
• US Army in the interwar period had been reduced to 175,000
• Due to information given to the government by Albert Einstein, FDR ordered
the creation of the Manhattan Project
America First Committee, non-
interventionist group founded
in 1940

5. Early War Years
Old Town Warsaw before the war
(left), after the Nazi invasion
(middle), and now (right).
The Germans not only sought to
take over the Polish capital, but
to destroy it so thoroughly that
the Polish people would lose
their history. The royal castle and
old town were bombed to
oblivion, and the rubble was
removed (top middle).
Warsaw University was also
destroyed thoroughly, and later
rebuilt (bottom row).

6. Early War Years
• After taking Poland, German forces prepared for war in the west, but
had to pause for the winter
• Spring 1940 – Germany takes Denmark and subjugates Norway
• Why Denmark and Norway first?
• Late Spring into Summer 1940 – Netherlands, Belgium, Northern
France
• Blitzkrieg was crucial in the rapid advancement through France, again
following the Schlieffen Plan
• Summer to Fall 1940 – Battle of Britain – What was this?
• With the western front at a stalemate, Hitler and Germany turn to
another goal, invading the Soviet Union (violating the pact from 1939)

7. Japanese Expansion
• In 1937 Japan forms an alliance with Germany and Italy
• This “Axis” Alliance established spheres of dominance for these countries
• Japan and Asia
• Beginning in 1927 China entered a period of Civil War
• In 1931, Japan uses the chaos in China to takeover Manchuria and set up a
puppet state (Manchukuo) – they already had control over Korea since 1910,
and a presence in Manchuria since 1904-1905 (Ruso-Japanese War)
• In 1937 Japanese troops went to the fortress at Beijing and request entrance,
they were denied and attempted a night raiding party, which was repelled
(this was in order to “look for a deserter”)
• They then take over Beijing and start taking more Chinese territory
• Communists and Nationalist cease fighting each other to try to repel the Japanese
• The Japanese continue their expansion in Asia seeing themselves as the first among the
Asian peoples

8. Japanese Expansion
This map shows the territory
taken over by Japan by 1939.
Most concerning for the US was
the expansion into the islands
around Guam and Saipan (US
Territories) and the territories
close to the Philippines.
As war drew closer, the Japanese
would continue to expand,
especially into French Indochina
(present day Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia).

9. US Entry (Background)
• In 1940 after the Battle of Britain and the Blitz (what was this?), FDR began
actively trying to get more Americans behind the idea of helping the British.
“All aid short of war.”
• Believing a German sea invasion was inevitable, FDR and Churchill negotiate
a trade of 50 aging US warships in exchange for allowing the US to build
bases in British territories.
• The US Congress approved the Selective Training and Service Act in Sept.
1940 – men 21-35 (later 18-45) had to register to be drafted.
• FDR ran for a third term, promising not to take the US into a foreign war.
• After his reelection, he introduces the Lend-Lease Act, passed in March
1941, allowing the US to send $50 billion in supplies between 1941-1944 to
GB, the Soviet Union, the French in exile, China (to fight Japan) and others.

10. 1941 in the East and the Atlantic
• By 1941 German forces had pushed far into Soviet territory
• Began a siege on Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the summer which would last
until January 1944
• Reached the outskirts of Moscow in December 1941
• Captured Stalin’s own son (photo to the right), Stalin declined to trade for him
• Why did the advance halt?
• The Atlantic Charter was signed by eleven nations in the summer of
1941 (including the US and the Soviet Union)
• Agreed to the self-determination of all peoples after the defeat of Nazi tyranny
• Agreed to the creation of the United Nations
• After the charter, Nazi U-boats began attacking US ships in the Atlantic
• FDR ordered navy ships to protect commercial vessels, Congress modified the
1939 Neutrality Act to allow US ships to make port in warring nations

11. US and Japan, a growing conflict
• Japan continues expansion in
Asia, and build airfields in
Indochina
• This prompts FDR to freeze all
assets to Japan and to
increasingly cease most trade in
1940
• Japan fully takes over Indochina
for their resources and issues an
ultimatum to the US in
November 5, 1941 promising the
US would “face conflict” if they
didn’t lift the embargo
• US Pacific fleet commanders
were warned of the threat, but
expected it in Singapore or in the
Philippines

12. Pearl Harbor
• December 7, 1941
• Pearl Harbor in Oahu, HI
• 8 battleships destroyed or disabled
• 11 other ships
• 180 warplanes
• 2400 dead, 1200 injured
• Did not destroy most of the base’s infrastructure
• Did not destroy aircraft carriers, which were out at
sea (this was important, since future actions against
Japan relied heavily on air power)
• Simultaneously attacked:
• US stations in the Philippines, Guam, Wake Islands
• British bases in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya
• December 8, US declared war on Japan
• December 11, Germany and Italy declare war
on the US

13. Europe After US Entry

14. Life in the US
• Congress passes the War Powers Act, December 18, 1941
• Gives the President wide powers during the war
• War Production Board (1942) – oversees the conversion of industry to the
war effort
• Revenue Act of 1942 – increased taxes for most workers (5% of workers to
90% now paying taxes)
• Unemployment sinks to 2% (Federal civilian jobs go from 1 to 4 million)
• Office of Price Administration (1942) - sets price ceilings, initiates rationing
• Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act (1943) – allows the government to
seize industries when workers strike (severely limits strikes)
• Women go to work again, including 350,000 in all branches of the
US military
• “Rosie the Riveter,” propaganda used to recruit women workers
• With men and women out of the house, the government funds a day-care program

15. Life in the US (cont.)
• Life for People of Color
• Another 500,000 African Americans leave the South to find work
• A march planned in 1941 on DC pushed FDR to sign a Presidential Order
requiring equal treatment in the hiring of workers
• Many rushed to enlist after Pearl Harbor
• African Americans
• Units were still segregated, and African American troops were relegated to
roles behind the front lines between 1941 and 1944 (when more troops were
needed)
• The Tuskegee Airmen (600 pilots) flew more than 15,000 missions
• Units on the ground fought fiercely
• After the war, though, units were segregated, again
• Mexican Americans
• 300,000 served in the war with many earning Medals of Honor
• Racism still persisted stateside, though
• In 1943, several thousand off-duty white servicemen joined others in LA rioting
through the city, targeting Latinx people and other people of color
• These “Zoot Suit Riots” lasted a week

16. Life in the US (cont.)
• Life for People of Color
• Native Americans
• Were not segregated into separate units
• Nearly 1/3 of eligible men served
• “Code talkers” used the complicated Navajo language (and other native
languages) for allied communications because it could not be learned by
the Germans or the Japanese
• Japanese (Asian) Americans
• Racism in the US spread towards many Asian Americans
• Japanese Americans (the Nisei) saw the most persecution
• With no trials and no due process over 112,000 Japanese Americans were
taken from their homes and put into internment camps
• There were no cases of Japanese Americans committing espionage
• Only in 1983 were those still living given $20,000 each (keep in mind they lost
everything they couldn’t carry with them)
• 39,000 Japanese Americans served in the military, most in Europe

17. Camps in Arkansas
Jerome
Rohwer

18. Europe After US Entry (cont.)
• Operation Torch
• 100,000 US/UK troops land in N. Africa
• Directed by Dwight D. Eisenhower
• General George S. Patton was a gifted tactician and took forces all the way to Egypt and back to Tunisia,
then into Sicily
• Casablanca Conference, Jan 1943
• Churchill and FDR meet, agree to step up bombing of Germany, supplies to China, and agree that there
should be no outcome but “unconditional surrender”
• Battle of the Atlantic
• German U-boats ruled the seas until the end of 1942, the Allies had lost 230 ships
• The Allies broke the German radio codes at that time, allowing them to avoid the subs, or destroy them
• When Allied troops entered Italy, the Italian King had Mussolini arrested and Italy switched sides
• Hitler sent German troops into Italy which slowed the Allied advance, taking Rome only two days before
D-Day
• In late fall, 1943, Churchill, FDR, and Stalin met in Tehran, Iran to coordinate the war effort, the US and UK
promised to reopen the front in France, the Soviets agreed to simultaneously push in the east
• In the months before D-Day the Allies ramp up their bombing of Germany, including killing many civilians
• Operation Overlord
• D-Day, 370,000 soldiers and sailors landed on the Normandy coast, while paratroopers landed behind
enemy lines, they pushed across northern France, within weeks the Soviets had also advanced

19. Europe After US Entry
• The Battle of the Bulge – Dec 1944, Hitler
launches a counter attack in the Ardennes
• The push fails and the Allied march
towards Berlin continues
• Feb 1945 – Yalta Conference
• Divided up Europe into spheres of
influence, appeased Stalin to keep
him in the war in the Pacific, though
Stalin agreed to allow elections
• FDR died on April 12, 1945
• Soviet troops reach Berlin on April 28th
• Hitler commits suicide in his bunker on the
30th
• May 2nd Berlin falls and forces in Italy
surrender
• May 7th German command surrenders
unconditionally

20. Historical Jewish Population in Europe

21. Nazi Camps in Europe

22. Jews being deported to the east (to the USSR)
from Poland, September 1939 (above)
Jews in Salonika, Greece, gathered for transport
to the camps, July 1942 (below)

23. Transportation Networks of the Holocaust

24. Loss of Human Life
Final portrait of Istvan Reiner, taken shortly
before he was killed in Auschwitz, c. 1943.
Separating those that would be processed and sent to
work, and those that would be immediately exterminated,
Auschwitz-Birkenau, May 1944

25. Sheer Magnitude
Wedding Rings, kept by the Nazis and hidden in a Salt
Mine, discovered by US troops in May 1945.
Silverware and kitchen items at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
During retreat the Nazis tried to burn any evidence,
including the stockpile of belongings taken from
camp victims.

26. Auschwitz-Birkenau (an example)
Soviet liberation of the original camp, 1945.
The same gates in 2014.
The smaller, original camp of the Auschwitz-
Birkenau complex was a repurposed army
barracks site in a town. You can see the stone
barrack buildings below. As time progressed,
political prisoners were sent here, while Jews
were increasingly sent to the larger Birkenau
complex.

27. Barracks – Auschwitz-Birkenau
The housing barracks were built using modified livestock
stable plans.
They had two large chimneys, one on either end, with
elongated brick fireplaces for heat in the winter.
The walls would have been lined with bunk beds.

28. Processing Building and Crematorium
The processing building (above) was were prisoners would be
sent after departing the train. Here their belongings would be
taken and sorted, they would be given prisoner uniforms,
examined medically, and forced to take showers before being
sent to different areas of the camp based on what kinds of work
they would do.
The crematoria were located near the processing
building. Those deemed unfit for labor or
experimentation would be killed (usually gassed to
death) and their bodies burned. The Soviet liberators
of Birkenau initially destroyed the buildings, before
deciding to leave the rubble (below) because they are
essentially mass graves.

29. Scope and Scale
Jews in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, 1941
Overhead view of the Birkenau site of the
Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, 1944. This
site is very large. Each of these rectangles was a barrack, as seen on the
slide before last. The area to the right was an
expansion being built when the camp was liberated.

30. Proximity
Town of Brzezinka
City of Oswięcim
It is difficult to believe any argument that
people living near concentration or death
camps did not know what was happening.
Consider the case of Auschwitz.
The original camp at Auschwitz was a
repurposed army barracks on the edge of
the city of Oświęcim, Poland. You can see
the houses in the town from the fences at
the camp. Likewise, parts of the town of
Brzezinka, Poland, were taken by the Nazis
to house their soldiers and guards who ran
the camps.

31. Remembrance
This photo is of Israeli high-
school students. Both Israeli
and Polish high-school
students take trips to visit
the camps in Poland every
year.
During one of my visits to
Auschwitz, one of the Israeli
groups was there, honoring
the millions of Jews that
were killed at the camps. It
is common for small items
to be left in remembrance,
such as flowers, photos, or
as is common in Jewish
culture, small stones.