WWII

The long-term causes of the Second World War include, in Europe, the rise of nationalism in Germany and Italy, the economic legacy World War I and the burden that reparations placed on Germany, the Great Depression, the weakness of the League of Nations, the fear of the spread of communism, and the long history of anti-Semitism in Germany.

Short-term causes of the war include the policy of appeasement for example at the Munich conference, when Hitler was given the Sudetenland and the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in August of 1939, which assured Hitler that he would not be fighting a two-front war.

A long-term cause of the war in the Pacific was the Sino-Japanese war, which began in 1937 and which was partly provoked by Japan’s need for access to oil. A short-term cause was the US embargo that was placed on shipments of oil to Japan in 1941, cutting off 80% of Japan’s oil supply.

The war began on September 1, 1939, with Hitler’s invasion of Poland. On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The first eight months of WWII have been called the Phoney War or Sitzkreig because there was not much conflict.

The French had constructed vast fortifications called the Maginot Line, but these did not extend through Belgium. However, in May, 1940, the Germans launched a blitzkrieg attack, sweeping around the end of the Maginot Line, through Belgium and the Netherlands, and compelling the surrender of France in June. France was divided into Vichy, France, a German puppet state, and the northern part of France which was occupied by the Germans.

In France, the Resistance emerged. French partisans planned attacks on the Germans and acted as spies. Many women were included in the Resistance. Britain withstood fierce German attacks; first the Battle of Britain and then the Blitz, in which the Germans bombed civilian targets. Italy joined the war in 1940. It fought in North Africa, Greece, and the Balkans, but without great success.

In Germany, Jews were first confined to concentration camps and Ghettos, and then sent to extermination camps like Auschwitz. Slavs, Roma, homosexuals, and handicapped people were also sent to the camps. Eleven million died, including 6 million Jews.

In 1941, Germany launched an invasion of the USSR, Operation Barbarossa. The USSR then entered the war and signed the Anglo-Polish Treaty. The Germans suffered terrible losses in the war as they besieged Stalingrad and Leningrad. On the Russian side, women fought on the front lines and served as pilots.

Prior to its entry in the war, the US had been sending supplies to Britain through the “Cash and Carry” clause in the 1939 Neutrality Act and the Lend-Lease Act. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and on December 8th, the US declared war. The US entered the war in Africa and then fought north through Italy, causing Mussolini to be overthrown in 1943, although he continued to rule a German puppet state called the Salo Republic until 1945.

The D-Day invasion (June 6, 1944) began the liberation of France. In Germany, Italy, Britain, and the United States, rationing took place. The United States also interned 120,000 Japanese for the duration of the war.

Women in the United States and Britain joined the armed forces (as non-combatants) and served in factories. Some worked at Bletchley Park in Britain, where the British were struggling to crack the codes of the German Enigma Device. Germany and the United States began to work to develop a nuclear weapon. The German development was sabotaged, but by 1945, the United States had created its first nuclear weapons through the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.

Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945 (VE Day). Japan, however, fought on. By this time, in the War in the Pacific, Japan had almost no oil. Kamikaze pilots aimed their planes at US ships to ensure their attacks did maximum damage. Nevertheless, the Japanese did not surrender.

Leaders in the United States believed that an amphibious attack on Japan, similar to D-Day, could lead to 500,000 US casualties. The US decided to use its nuclear weapons against Japan, dropping bombs on Hiroshima on August 6^th and Nagasaki on August 9^th; the two bombings killed about 200,000 people. On August 15^th, Japan surrendered.

In the aftermath of the war, as many as 20 million people were displaced. The trials were held for war criminals at Nuremberg and some Nazi war criminals were convicted and executed. The Japanese describe the time immediately before and during the war as the ‘Dark Valley’. They emerged from the valley into a period of occupation. They acquired a new constitution and Japanese women had the right to vote.

The USSR had expanded through much of Eastern Europe, and after the war, it continued to hold these countries as satellites as part of the Eastern Bloc. Fear of Soviet expansion led to the Cold War.

In 1945, the United Nations was founded as an international peacekeeping organization. In France, women suspected of having fraternized or collaborated with the Germans were harshly treated. Marriages and divorces spiked, and the baby boom created an enormous post-war generation. In the United States, the last internment camps were closed in 1946.