The World at War 1939–1945

Chapter 25 The World at War 1939–1945 Teaching Resources 5. Hitler became chancellor in 1933, assumed dictatorial powers, and, as he made clear in Chapter Instructional Objectives his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), sought to overturn the territorial settle- After you have taught this chapter, your students ments of the Versailles treaty, to “restore” should be able to answer the following questions: all of the Germans of Central and Eastern Europe to a single German fatherland, and 1. What were the key elements of American foreign to annex large areas of Eastern Europe. policy prior to World War II? 6. Part of Hitler’s vision was that “inferior 2. How and why did America edge closer to war be- races” and other “undesirables” had to tween 1939 and 1941? make way for the “master race”; in 1933 Hitler established the first concentration 3. How did mobilization and war affect American camp at Dachau. society? 7. Wanting to avoid a war with Germany, 4. How did the Allies fight and win World War II? Britain and France were proponents of what became known as “appeasement.” 5. How did American war aims affect plans for post- 8. Germany withdrew from the League of war settlement? Nations in 1933, and Hitler’s 1935 an- nouncement of plans to rearm Germany Chapter Annotated Outline —in violation of the Versailles treaty— met with no resistance. I. The Road to War 9. Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in A. The Rise of Fascism 1936, and later that year Hitler and Italy’s 1. The nation’s neutrality was challenged by Benito Mussolini joined forces in the the aggressive actions of Germany, Italy, Rome-Berlin Axis. and Japan, all determined to expand their 10. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, borders and their influence. Germany and Italy armed the Spanish 2. In 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria; then Fascists. in 1937 it launched a full-scale invasion of 11. Also in 1936, Germany and Japan signed China. The League of Nations condemned the Anti-Comintern Pact, a precursor to the aggression, and Japan withdrew from the military alliance between Japan and the League. the Axis that was formalized in 1940. 3. In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia, and by B. Isolationists vs. Interventionists 1936 the Italian subjugation of Ethiopia 1. During the early years of the New Deal, was complete. America limited its involvement in inter- 4. Germany presented the gravest threat to national affairs. the world order in the 1930s. There, huge 2. One of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s few diplo- World War I reparations payments, eco- matic initiatives was the formal recogni- nomic depression, fear of communism, tion of the Soviet Union in 1933. labor unrest, and rising unemployment 3. A second significant initiative was the fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Na- Good Neighbor Policy, under which the tional Socialist (Nazi) party. United States voluntarily renounced the 375 376 Chapter 25: The World at War, 1939–1945 use of military intervention in the Western 13. In August 1939 Hitler signed the Nonag- Hemisphere and recognized that the gression Pact with the Soviet Union, friendship of Latin American countries which assured Germany it would not have was essential to U.S. security. to wage war on two fronts at once. 4. Although Congress repealed the Platt 14. On September 1, 1939, German troops at- Amendment, which asserted the United tacked Poland; two days later Britain and States’ right to intervene in Cuba’s affairs, France declared war on Germany. World the Good Neighbor Policy had its limits— War II had begun. the U.S. Navy kept a base at Cuba’s Guan- C. Retreat from Isolationism tanamo Bay and continued to meddle in 1. President Roosevelt, with the support of Cuban politics, and it also used economic most Americans, sought to keep the pressure to influence other Latin Ameri- United States neutral. can nations. 2. By mid-1940, Germany had overrun West- 5. Partly owing to disillusionment with ern Europe, leaving Great Britain as the American participation in World War I, only power in Europe fighting Hitler. isolationism built in Congress and the na- 3. In America, the Committee to Defend tion throughout the 1920s. America by Aiding the Allies led the inter- 6. Gerald P. Nye, a senator from North ventionists, while the isolationists formed Dakota, headed a congressional investiga- the America First Committee, which had tion into the profits of munitions makers the support of the conservative press, to during World War I; his committee con- keep America out of the war. cluded that war profiteers, whom it called 4. The National Defense Advisory Commis- “merchants of death,” had maneuvered the sion and the Council of National Defense nation into World War I for financial gain. were created in 1940 to put America’s 7. Although most of the committee’s charges economy and government on a defense were dubious or simplistic, they gave mo- footing. mentum to the isolationist movement, 5. Also in 1940, the United States instituted a contributing to the passage of the Neutral- peacetime draft registration and conscrip- ity Act of 1935. tion and made a deal with Britain in which 8. The Neutrality Act imposed an embargo destroyers were traded for the right to on arms trading with countries at war and build military bases on British possessions. declared that American citizens traveled 6. After winning an unprecedented third on the ships of belligerent nations at their term as president in 1940, Roosevelt con- own risk; in 1936 the Neutrality Act was centrated on persuading the American expanded to ban loans to belligerents, people to increase aid to Britain. and in 1937 it adopted a “cash-and-carry” 7. In 1939 Congress amended the Neutrality provision. Act of 1937 to allow the Allies to buy 9. Despite their Loyalist sympathies, the neu- weapons from the United States—but tral stance of the United States, Great only on the cash-and-carry basis. Britain, and France virtually assured a fas- 8. In March 1941, Roosevelt convinced Con- cist victory in the 1936 Spanish Civil War. gress to pass the Lend-Lease Act, to “lease, 10. In 1938 Hitler sent troops to annex Aus- lend, or otherwise dispose of” arms and tria, while simultaneously scheming to other equipment to any country whose seize part of Czechoslovakia. defense was considered vital to the secu- 11. At the Munich Conference in September rity of the United States. 1938, Britain and France capitulated to 9. The “lend-lease” was extended to the So- Germany’s aggression, agreeing to let Ger- viet Union, which became part of the Al- many annex the Sudetenland—the Ger- lied coalition after it was invaded by Ger- man-speaking border areas of Czechoslo- many; the full implementation of vakia—in return for Hitler’s pledge to lend-lease marked the unofficial entrance seek no more territory. of the United States into the European 12. Within six months, Hitler’s forces had war. overrun the rest of Czechoslovakia and 10. The United States and Britain’s Atlantic were threatening to march into Poland. Charter called for economic collaboration Chapter 25: The World at War, 1939–1945 377 between the two countries and for guar- 2. Defense mobilization definitively ended antees of political stability after the end of the Great Depression. In 1940 the Gross the war and also supported free trade, na- National Product stood at $99.7 billion; in tional self-determination, and the princi- 1945 it reached $211 billion. The national ple of collective security. debt grew steadily, topping out at $258.6 11. By September 1941, Nazi submarines and billion in 1945. American vessels were fighting an unde- 3. The Revenue Act of 1942 taxed not only clared naval war in the Atlantic, unknown the wealthy and corporations but also, for to the American public; without a dra- the first time, average citizens. Tax collec- matic enemy attack, Roosevelt hesitated to tions rose to $35.1 billion and the system ask Congress for a declaration of war. was sold to the taxpayers as a way to ex- D. The Attack on Pearl Harbor press their patriotism. 1. The final provocation came not from Ger- 4. The number of civilians employed by the many but from Japan. government increased almost fourfold; 2. Throughout the 1930s, Japanese military leadership of federal agencies was turned advances in China had upset the balance over to volunteer business executives, so- of political and economic power in the called “dollar-a-year men,” such as Henry Pacific; Roosevelt suggested that aggres- J. Kaiser, a contractor who had built the sors such as Japan be “quarantined” by monumental Hoover Dam. peace-loving nations, but the United 5. Many wartime agencies extended the States avoided taking a strong stand. power of the federal government, one of 3. During the sack of Nanking in 1937, the the most important of which was the War Japanese sunk the American gunboat Production Board (WPB), which awarded Panay; the United States accepted Japan’s defense contracts, evaluated military and apology and more than $2 million in civilian requests for scarce resources, and damages. oversaw the conversion of industry to mil- 4. Japan craved the conquest of more terri- itary production. tory and signed the Tri-Partite Act with 6. The WPB preferred to deal with major Germany and Italy in 1940. corporations; these very large businesses 5. After Japan occupied part of French Indo- would later form the core of the military- china, Roosevelt retaliated with trade re- industrial complex of the postwar years. strictions and embargoes on aviation fuel 7.

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