The document summarizes the rise of totalitarian regimes in the 1920s-1930s including Stalin's Soviet Union, Mussolini's fascist Italy, and Hitler's Nazi Germany. It also discusses Japanese militarism and the aggression and expansion of these regimes which violated international agreements and led countries into World War II, including Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939 which prompted Britain and France's declaration of war against Germany.

1. The World War II Era

2. Aggression Leads to War

3. The Rise of Dictators
 1920s-1930s
 Several nations views democratic gov’ts as too weak
 Turned to dictators

4. Soviet Communism
 1929
 Josef Stalin dictator of Soviet
Union
 Made it a totalitarian state (a
nation in which a single party
controls the gov’t and every aspect
of people’s lives)
 Took brutal measures to control &
modernize industry & agriculture
 Peasant had to live crops, animals,
& land to gov’t run farms
 Those who resisted were
executed or sent to labor camps
 4 million other Soviets were killed
or imprisoned on false charges of
disloyalty

5. Fascism in Italy
 Economic & social problems after WWI
 Led to unrest
 Benito Mussolini
 Promised to restore prosperity & order
 1922 Mussolini & followers threatened to
overthrow elected gov’t
 King appointed Mussolini prime minister
 Turned Italy into world’s 1st fascist state
(political system based on militarism,
extreme nationalism, & blind loyalty to the
state & its leaders)
 Spoke of restoring Italy to time of Roman
Empire when Italy controlled Europe
 Ended freedom of the press & banned all
political parties, but his
 Critics were jailed or murdered
 Children in school recited the motto “Mussolini
is always right”

6. Nazi Germany
 Adolf Hitler
 Was one of many Germans mad at
WWI defeat & reparation payments
 1921 Hitler became leader of National
Socialist, Nazi, Party
 Nazism was a form of fascism
 Racism was at core of Nazi beliefs
 Hitler told Germans they were master
race
 Cornerstone of racial theories was hatred of
Jews
 Claimed Jews betrayed Germany in WWI
(that is why they lost); Jews & other groups
became the scapegoat

7.  1933
 Hitler named chancellor of Germany (leader of parliament)
 Created a totalitarian state
 All other parties outlawed
 Secret police enforced strict loyalty
 Anti-Semitic laws passed
 Jews banned from public schools & from certain professions
(medicine & law)
 Jews communities were attacked
 1938
 Troops began sending Jews to slave labor camps (the worse
was yet to come)

8. Militarism in Japan
 Great Depression undermined faith in democratic
gov’t
 Military leaders pressured gov’t to take control of nearby
countries
 Island nation need more space & raw materials for industries
 1936
 militarists completely controlled gov’t
 Preached racism
 Japanese were superior to other Asians & non-Asians

9. Military Aggression
 Japan attacks China
 1931 w/o gov’t approval Japanese army seized Manchuria
(in Northern China)
 League of Nations (founded to stop aggression) protested, but
did nothing
 1937 Japanese aggression increased in China
 Chinese treated brutally
 For 6 weeks Japanese forces pillaged Nanjing
 Quarter of a million civilians & prisoners of war were
massacred

10. Italy Invades Ethiopia
 1935
 Mussolini’s armies invade Ethiopia
 Ethiopians battled bravely but modern technology
prevailed
 Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie appealed to League of
Nations for aid
 Response was week

11. German Aggression
 Hitler vowed to create empire to unite all German speaking
people
 Began rebuilding German army (defined Treaty of Versailles)
 Moved troops to Rhineland region of western Germany
 1938 German armies occupy Austria
 European democracies did nothing to stop him
 France & Britain protest when Hitler threatened to invade
Czechoslovakia
 Met w/ Hitler in Germany(Munich) to appease him
 Munich Pact
 Agreed to let Germany invade Sudetenland (portion of Czech. Populated
by people who spoke German)
 In return Hitler promised not to seek further territory
 Neville Chamberlain (British Prime Minister) claimed he had won
peace
 A few month later Hitler occupied all of Czech.

12. Neutrality Act
 Passed by Congress in 1935
 1st of several laws designed to keep U.S. at peace
 Forbade President from selling arms, making loans, or giving
assistance to any nation involved in war

13. Good Neighbor Policy
 U.S. wanted to strengthen ties to Latin America
 Pres. Herbert Hover rejected Roosevelt Corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine
 U.S. no longer claimed right to intervene in Latin
American affairs
 Franklin Roosevelt created Good Neighbor Policy
 American troops withdrew from Nicaragua & Haiti
 Also cancelled Platt Amendment (had limited independence
of Cuba)

14. War Begins in Europe
 Poland was next target of Hitler
 France & Britain realize appeasement failed
 Would aid if invaded
 Invasion of Poland
 August 1939
 Hitler & Stalin sign nonaggression agreement (were enemies)
 Nazi-Soviet Pact
 Promised not to attach each other
 Secretly agreed to divide up Poland
 September 1, 1939
 Nazi troops invade Poland
 16 days later Soviet troops seize eastern Poland & invaded Finland & later annexed
Estonia, Lithuania, & Latvia
 Britain & France declared war on Germany
 WWII had begun
 At 1st Germany army was unstoppable
 1940 Germany army seized Denmark & Norway & later the Netherlands,
Luxembourg, Belgium, & moved into France

15. Fall of France
 Britain sent troops to help France
 Overpowered
 Retreated to Dunkirk a port on the English Channel
 Every British ship available was sent to rescue trapped soldiers
 Germans marched on to Paris
 June 22, 1940 Hitler accepted surrender of France

16. Battle of Britain
 Britain stood alone against Nazi war machine
 Winston Churchill was confident Britain could win
 Hitler ordered air assault on Britain
 Day after day assaults continued (thousands died, but
spirits never broke)
 They slept in subway stations at night & cleared wreckage,
buried the dead, & tried to carry on during the day
 British air force fought invading planes overhead
 Battle continued for many months
 Hitler abandoned plans to invade Britain

17. Invasion of the Soviet Union
 June 22, 1941
 Hitler broke pact w/ Stalin
 German forces invade Soviet Union
 Soviet Union now joined Britain in fighting Germans
 Churchill & Stalin mistrusted each other, but were forced to
work together