This document summarizes the key events leading up to America's involvement in World War II, beginning with the rise of totalitarian regimes in Europe and Asia in the early 20th century. It then discusses the expansionist actions of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and militarist Japan in the 1930s, as well as America's initial isolationism. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, starting WWII in Europe, the document outlines America's increasing support for Britain through Lend-Lease and its entry into the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

1. WWII: Causes & American
Involvement

2. Totalitarianism form of government in which the government practices
complete control over its citizens
· Communism  economic and political
system based on one party
government and state ownership of
property
- No boundaries (workers of the
world)
- Atheistic
- Future revolution
- No privately owned business or
property
- No blatant racism
- Repression of opposition
· 1922, Soviet Union
· 1924, Joseph Stalin took control of
USSR
- Make USSR model state
- 1927, collectivization of agriculture
- 1928, 1933, 1937, “five year plan”
· Turn USSR into industrialized
nation
· State-owned factories, mills,
plants, etc…
Fascism  political system based on a
centralized autocratic government headed by
a dictator
Nationalistic
Religion
Glorious past
Private business and property
Racial scapegoats for problems
Repression of opposition
1921, Italy
Benito Mussolini established fascism
1922, Mussolini and “black shirts” take over
government
Adolf Hitler
National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi)
Mein Kampf (1925 & 1927)
Unite all German-speaking people

3. Militarists in Japan
· Emperor Hirohito
· Need for more “living space”
· 1931, invasion of Manchuria
- Militarists in control
· 1941, Hideki Tojo becomes prime minister
· Importance of U. S. supplies and oil

4. Isolationism in U. S.
· North Dakota senator Gerald Nye
- Congressional committee formed to look into charges
that banks and arms dealers had dragged America
into WWI
· 1937 poll  70% of Americans believed that the
U.S. should not have entered WWI
· Neutrality Acts, 1935
- Meant to keep U.S. out of foreign affairs
- Outlawed arms sales or loans to nations at war
- Breakdown  Spanish Civil War

5. Spanish Civil War
· Fascist general Francisco Franco attempts
to overthrow democratic government,
1936
· Hitler & Mussolini aid Franco
- Saw it as a testing ground for their new forces
- Americans found it difficult not to support
democratic government
· 3,000 Americans joined Abraham Lincoln Brigade
to fight Franco
· Aid from U.S. and other countries too small (fear of
larger war outbreak) 1939, Franco took power

6. Europe Aggression
· Mussolini
- 1935 invaded Ethiopia to expand new Roman Empire
- 1936, Ethiopia fell
· Haile Selassie, “It is us today. It will be you tomorrow.”
· Nazi Aggression
- 1933, Germany left LON
- 1935, violated Versailles through military buildup
- 1936
· Occupied Rhineland (supposed to be demilitarized)
· Signed Rome-Berlin Axis Pact (alliance between Italy and
Germany)
- 1938
· Hitler unites Austria with Germany
· Hitler threatens Sudetenland

7. Munich Pact
· France and Great Britain had promised to
protect Czechoslovakia
· Hitler invited Edouard Daladier and Neville
Chamberlain to Munich
- September 30, 1938 signed Munich Pact
· Hitler promised Sudetenland was last territorial
acquisition (and it was given to him)
· Chamberlain, “Peace in our time.”
- Winston Churchill disagreed
- Appeasement giving up principles to pacify an
aggressor
- p. 550

8. German Offensive
· Czechoslovakia
- March 15, 1939 Hitler invaded
· Poland
- Sizable German-speaking population
· Hitler again charged that the Poles were mistreating these people
- Potential Problems of German Invasion:
· France & Great Britain had pledged to help Poland militarily if invaded
· Would the USSR protect its western neighbor?
- Solution: August 23, 1939  nonaggression pact signed between Hitler and Stalin
agreeing not to fight one another
» Also agreed to split up Poland
» Threat of two-front war avoided for Hitler
- Blitzkrieg (lightning war)
· Take the enemy by surprise and crush all opposition with overwhelming force
· September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland
- Planes bombed bases, airfields, railroads and cities
- Tanks
· September 3, 1939 France & Great Britain declared war on Germany
- Blitzkrieg worked too quickly for French or British forces to arrive and help

10. Germany Turns Attention Westward
· Phony War
- Blitzkrieg gave way to waiting
· French, British, and German troops waited almost 7 months
- Stalin consolidated land in the east (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, & Finland)
· Denmark & Norway
- April 9, 1940 Germany invades
· Netherlands, Belgium, & Luxembourg
- All fell by May of 1940
· France
- French & British officials feared a German invasion through Belgium and
sent forces north
- Hitler anticipated this and sent forces (tanks) through the Ardennes
· Allied forces cut off in the north
· Road to Paris clear
· Italy invaded from the south
- June 21, 1940 Paris fell to Hitler
· France occupied and puppet government set up in Vichy
- General Charles de Gaulle fled to England and set up a government-in-exile

12. Battle of Britain
· August 1940
- Germany assembled an invasion fleet on French coast
- Germany could not compete with British navy
· Luftwaffe (German air force) began bombing runs over Britain
- Targeted military targets first and eventually bombed cities (London)
· Great Britain turns Hitler away
- Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940
· “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall
fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall
fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We
shall never surrender.”
- Royal Air Force (RAF)
· Used radar and fought off the Luftwaffe
· September 1940  indefinite suspension of invasion
declared by Hitler

13. Holocaust
· The systematic murder of 11 million people across
Europe, more than half of whom (6 million) were
Jews.
- Began in Germany
· Nuremberg Laws (1935)  stripped Jews of their civil rights and
property if they tried to leave Germany
- Star of David patch
- Final Solution
· Meant to rid Germany and the world of its “Jewish problem”
· Genocide deliberate and systematic killing of an entire people
- Death Squads moved behind Hitler’s army
· Set up concentration camps
- Communists, Catholics, Gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, people with disabilities, homosexuals & POW’s also sent
- Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Belsen etc…
- Labor, experimentation, extermination

14. America Moves Toward War
· “Cash-and-carry”
- September 1939, Neutrality Acts revised
- Allowed nations to buy American arms as long as they paid cash and
carried them back in own ships
· FDR thought providing arms to Britain and France was best way to keep
U.S. out of war
· Tripartite Pact
- September 1940
· Japan, Germany, and Italy signed a mutual defense treaty
- Axis Powers
- Implications for U.S.
· FDR supplied British with “all aid short of war”
· FDR & Congress increased military spending and implemented draft
· Election of 1940
- FDR runs for third term and wins
· 22nd Amendment (1951) set term limits

15. The Great Arsenal of Democracy
· Lend-Lease Act, 1941
- Lend or lease arms and supplies to “any country whose
defense was vital to the United States”
· Importance of Great Britain
· Soviet Union
- Hitler invaded USSR on June 22, 1941
» Scorched-earth policy and Russian winter halt Hitler
- German wolf packs (15-20 U-boats) disrupt supply to Britain
- FDR ordered Navy to protect shipments as far east as
Iceland
· Met secretly with Winston Churchill in August 1941 near
Newfoundland
- Atlantic Charter
» Declaration of principles regarding why WWII was fought and the
Allies’ intentions
» “A Declaration by the United Nations”  formed Allies

16. Japan Attacks the U.S. · Militarism in Japan
- Expansionist desires
· French Indochina, Dutch East Indies, Burma, India, Malaya, Guam, & the Philippines
- July 1941
· Japanese take Indochina
- U.S. placed embargo on Japan
» Importance of American oil
- Hideki Tojo
· Prime Minister, October 1940
- Began planning attack on U.S. in November 1941
· Pearl Harbor
- December 7, 1941
- U.S. had broken Japanese code and knew attack was coming, but didn’t know where
- 180 Japanese warplanes launched from 6 aircraft carriers attacked the U.S. Navy base at
Pearl Harbor for an hour and a half
- 18 American ships badly damaged
· 4 sunk
- Oglala, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Utah
- 350 planes damaged
- 2,400 people dead (1,178 wounded)
- Pacific Fleet crippled
· No aircraft carriers sunk

19. U.S. Declares War
· Japanese Admiral, Isoroku Yamamoto
- “I fear all we have done is to awaken a
sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible
resolve.”
· FDR addressed Congress December 8,
1941
- “A date which will live in infamy”
- Declaration of war against Japan passed
· Three days later Germany and Italy declared war
on U.S.

20. America Increases Forces
· Selective Service
- 5 million volunteers
- 10 million draftees
· Women & minorities
- Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (1942)
· 250,000 women throughout WWII
· Served in auxiliary roles
- African Americans
· Over 1 million
· Tuskegee Airmen
- Mexican Americans
· Over 500,000
- Native Americans
· Over 25,000
· First opportunity for many to leave reservations
- Asian Americans
· 13,000 Chinese Americans
· 33,000 Japanese Americans
- Influential as spies/code breakers

21. America Increases Production
· Industrial Production
- February 1942
· Automobile plants shut down
- Reformed for production of tanks, planes, boats, and command cars
- Other plants shut down to begin producing war products as well
· Henry Kaiser
- 7 new shipyards
- “a ship a day”
· Laborers
- 1944, 18 million workers laboring in war industries
- 1945, unemployment < 2%
- Women
· 6 million
· Rosie the Riveter
- Minorities
· 2 million
· “Second Great Migration”
· A. Philip Randolph

23. Manhattan Project
· Office of Scientific Research and Development
(OSRD), 1941
- Improvements in radar and sonar
- Pesticides (DDT) and penicillin
- Atomic Bomb
· Breakthrough in atomic physics by German scientists,
1939
- German refugee scientists draft letter to FDR warning him of this
» Led by Albert Einstein
» FDR sets up department in OSRD to develop atomic bomb
» Offices in NY  Manhattan Project

24. Japanese American Internment
· Executive Order 9066
- February 19, 1942
· Removal of all people of Japanese ancestry from
California, Washington, Oregon, and Arizona
· Fear of espionage
· 110,000 Japanese Americans interned in WWII
· Pacific War  racial
· European War  liberation
· Similarities and differences to concentration
camps

25. Economic Controls
· Office of Price Administration (OPA)
- Fought inflation by freezing wages, prices, rents, and
increasing taxes
- Rationed foods such as meat, butter, cheese, vegetables,
sugar, and coffee
· Coupon books
· Gas also rationed (carpools)
· Department of Treasury
- Issued war bonds to raise money for the war effort
- “America on Guard” campaign
· War Production Board (WPB)
- Decided which companies would convert from peacetime to
wartime production and allocated raw materials to key
industries
· Organized nationwide drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper,
etc…

26. Europe First
· Churchill & FDR meet after Pearl Harbor
- Decide on a “Europe First” policy
· Reasons
- 1) FDR had always considered Hitler the most dangerous threat
to the United States
- 2) Stalin was desperate for a second front
» Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941
» USSR now an Allied country
- 3) Only after Germany was defeated could the United States look
to Britain and the Soviet Union for help in defeating Japan
- Decide only to accept unconditional surrender of the
Axis powers
· To avoid the situation WWI provided

27. Control of the Atlantic
· 1942
- German U-boats sank 87
American ships off Atlantic
shore
· Allied convoys protect
cargo ships and seek and
destroy U-boats
- Liberty ships
· “a ship a day”
· 1943
- 140 Liberty ships each
month produced
· 1943
- Allies controlled the Atlantic

28. Eastern Front
· German invasion of USSR stalled in winter 1941/1942
- Hitler changed focus from Moscow to Stalingrad in summer 1942
· Control of Stalingrad would give Germans ability to cut the
movement of military supplies along the Volga River to Moscow
· Battle of Stalingrad
- Lasted from July 1942 to February 1943
- By September 1942, Germans controlled 9/10 of the city
- November 1942, Soviets launched massive counterattack
defending “Stalin’s city”
· Russian winter affected Germans worse
- February 2, 1943, 91,000 Germans surrendered
· German invading force totaled 330,000 in July ’42
· Soviets lost 1,250,000 soldiers and civilians in defending city
- Significance not known at the time
· Ended Hitler’s offensive capabilities
· USSR pushes westward toward Germany now

29. North Africa
· Stalin pleaded for second front during Stalingrad
· Allies not ready yet for invasion across English
Channel into France
· Operation Torch, November 1942—May 1943
- Invasion of Axis controlled North Africa
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded Allied forces
· German forces led by “Desert Fox” General Erwin Rommel
· Landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers
· Chased Rommel eastward
· May 1943, Afrika Korps surrendered

31. Italian Campaign
· Americans wanted invasion across English Channel
through France into Germany
- Churchill still thought Allies weren’t ready yet
· Compromise: Began planning D-Day while Allied troops invaded Italy
(Churchill, “the soft underbelly of the Axis”)
· Captured Sicily in summer of 1943
- Hitler seized control of the rest of Italy and dug forces in
- Battle of Rome, May/June 1944
- Germans surrendered Italy, May 1945
· 60,000 Allied casualties
· 50,000 German casualties

32. Operation Overlord
· Allied invasion of Nazi-controlled Europe
- D-Day
· June 6, 1944
· Planned for two years
· Paratroopers  June 5
· Americans faced brutal resistance on Utah and Omaha
beach
· Despite heavy casualties, Allies eventually held the beach,
allowing for invasion force to arrive
- 1 million troops & 170,000 vehicles
· Largest land-sea-air operation in history
- 150,000 troops
- 11,000 planes
- 4,000 landing craft
- 600 warships
- U.S. Third Army under General George Patton
pushed forward into France
· August 25, 1944 liberated Paris and thus France

34. Hitler’s Last Push in the West
· November 1944  FDR elected to fourth term, Harry
Truman new VP
· Battle of the Bulge
- December 16, 1944
· German tank (panzer) divisions broke through weak American
defenses along the Ardennes
- Pushed Americans back to Bastogne, Belgium
» Demanded American surrender
» Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the 101st
Airborne, “Nuts!”
- By the end of January, 1945 American forces had pushed
the Germans back
· 120,000 German casualties
· 70,000 American casualties
- Largest engagement/loss by American forces in WWII

36. Unconditional Surrender
· Allied forces in the west and Soviet forces in
the east pushed towards Berlin
- Liberated death camps
· April 25, 1945
- Soviets reached Berlin first and stormed city
- Hitler committed suicide April 30, 1945
· May 8, 1945
- V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day)
- Third Reich unconditionally surrendered to Dwight
D. Eisenhower

37. The War in the Pacific
· Japanese consolidate empire
- Simultaneous attacks with Pearl Harbor
· General Douglas MacArthur eventually left the Philippines
· April 18, 1942
- American retaliation
» Hornet launched air raids on Tokyo
· The Battle of Midway
- June 1942
- Americans had intercepted/decoded Japanese message that an
invasion force (over 110 ships) was headed to Midway
· Set trap
- Admiral Chester Nimitz
- Aircraft carriers launched planes
- Four Japanese aircraft carriers sunk and 322 planes destroyed
- Turning point in the Pacific (without knowing it at the time)
· Japanese losses irreplaceable
- Japan made 6 more aircraft carriers during the war
- U.S. made 20 more aircraft carriers
· U.S. established naval base at Midway submarines

39. Island Hopping
· Japanese empire stretched thousands of miles
· U.S. adopted policy of Island Hopping
- Bypassed Japanese strongholds and hopped from one
island to the next
· Seized less fortified islands, built airfields/bases to stage attacks on
other islands and cut off enemy supplies
· Guadalcanal
- August 1942
- First land offensive/first land loss for Japanese
· Return to the Philippines
- October 1944
- MacArthur returns
- Japanese employ kamikaze (suicide-plane)

41. Yalta Conference
· February 1945
· FDR, Churchill, &
Stalin meet at Yalta
· Set up U.N.
· Stalin agreed to enter
the war against Japan
after Germany
surrendered
- Also agreed to set up
democracies in
territories taken in
Eastern Europe

42. Iwo Jima and Okinawa
· Iwo Jima
- February 19—March 17, 1945
- Importance
· U.S. could set up base for bombers that could reach Japan
- 20,700 Japanese defended the island
- 6,000 marines died taking it
· Okinawa
- Last island between Allies and Japan
- April 1—June 22, 1945
- FDR died on April 12, 1945
· Inexperienced Truman came to power during the middle of the
operation
- 1,900 kamikaze attacks
- 7,600 American casualties
- 110,000 Japanese casualties

44. The War in the Pacific Ends · Manhattan Project
- 600,000 Americans worked on the project
· J. Robert Oppenheimer
- Truman learned of MP and Yalta only after becoming president
- July 16, 1945
· Alamogordo, New Mexico
- First successful atomic bomb test
- Debate over using the bomb
· AGAINST
- Immoral
- Demonstration
· FOR
- Problems with a demonstration (3)
- Save American lives  no need for invasion  high casualties from Iwo Jima and Okinawa
- Needed to use weapon to justify the cost ($2 billion)
- Defeat Japan without the Soviet Union
» Distrust already forming
· August 6, 1945
- Little Boy (fission bomb) dropped over Hiroshima
· August 8, 1945
- Soviet Union declared war on Japan
· August 9, 1945
- Fat Man (fission bomb) dropped over Nagasaki
· Estimated 200,000 people died in the blast or from radiation
· September 2, 1945

45. Postwar Germany
· July 1945
- Truman, Churchill, & Stalin met at Postdam,
Germany
· Decide Nazis must face “stern justice”
- Nuremberg trials
» 22 Nazi leaders tried by international tribunal
» 12 sentenced to death
» 200 additional Nazis given jail time in lesser trials
· Germany divided into four zones
- U.S., U.K., France, and Soviet Union each occupied and
administered one zone
» Berlin also divided into four zones (despite being in Soviet
territory)

46. Postwar Japan
· Japan was occupied by U.S. forces for 6 years
under General Douglas MacArthur’s command
· Japanese officials tried
- Hideki Tojo
- 7 sentenced to death
· MacArthur worked to change Japanese society
- Free market economic principles
- New democratic constitution
· MacArthur Constitution

47. Postwar America
· Great Depression ended by war spending
· “Second Great Migration”
· GI Bill of Rights (1944)
- Provided for education and training for veterans, paid for by the federal
government
· Opportunity and Discrimination
- New opportunities for minorities in military
· Segregation still existed
- Korematsu v. United States (1944)
· Supreme Court ruled that the government’s policy of removing Japanese
Americans was justified by “military necessity”
· 1965, Congress paid $38 million in compensation
· New Threat
- Communism
- “Iron Curtain” and the Truman Doctrine