Lead-Up to World War IICould it have been avoided?

At what point, if any, should the U.S. have intervened?

Choosing a path of aggression…

Benito Mussolini Adolf Hitler Emperor Hirohito

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Italy and Germany both elected fascist leaders who consolidated their power and pursued aggressive foreign policies. In Japan, the military leaders that held political power demanded worship of the Emperor and called for expansion into China.

Japan invades Manchuria (1931)

Japan lacked its own natural resources, but Manchuria was rich in coal and iron

China resisted, but Western powers did not intervene

Hitler seizes total power (1934) Declared himself Führer

(supreme leader), marking the beginning of the Third Reich

All political opposition was banned

All German soldiers were required to swear allegiance to Hitler

Begins rapid militarization

Nazis enact Anti-Semitic policies… After gradual erosion

of their civil rights, the Nuremburg Laws (1935) stripped German Jews of citizenship and all rights

Hitler regularly referred to Germany’s “Jewish Problem”

(Above) Jewish passport, good only for emigration from Germany

(Below) Chart used to detirmine Jewish heritage

(Far left) Jews were required to identify themselves in public

The WWI peace begins to fail… Breaking the Treaty of Versailles, Germany sends

troops to occupy the de-militarized Rhineland (the border area with the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France) in 1936

France and Britain decide not to intervene

German troops enter Mainz, 1936

The Axis forms… Beginning in 1936, Germany signed pacts with both

Italy and Japan Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact

in 1941 to officially become the Axis Powers Other smaller countries would join as well

Hitler meets with Italian and Japanese representatives Height of Axis control (Black), 1942

This aggression will stand? Germany annexes Austria (this was forbidden by the

Treaty of Versailles) and the Sudetenland (German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia).

At the Munich Conference (1938), Britain and France choose appeasement = making concessions in order to avoid war

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (left) meets with Hitler

Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass), Nov. 9, 1938

Following the murder of a German diplomat by a Jew, Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues

Thousands of Jews were arrested and 91 were murdered Turning point: Marked beginning of physical repression of Jews

The war starts in Europe… 1939: Rejecting British and French requests,

Hitler invades Poland on September 1 Unveils “Blitzkrieg” (“Lightening War”)

tactics combining airplane bombing strikes with rapid movement of troops and tanks on the ground

Britain and France declare war on Germany on September 3, 1939

U.S. picks a side (but does not enter) Needing support, the

Allied nations (G.B., France, China, U.S.S.R) turn to the U.S.

Franklin Roosevelt signs the Lend/Lease program into law in March, 1941

U.S. loaned Allies over $50 billion in military supplies over the course of the war

Repression turns to genocide… Unable to export all of the Jews in the newly German-dominated areas,

the Nazis sought to eliminate them – first by forcing them into fenced-in ghettos (left) and then by shipping them to concentration camps

By 1941, Hitler had grown impatient, and he enacted the “Final Solution” to the Jewish Problem: genocide = planned killing of an entire people

Extermination camps like Auschwitz (right) were created with the purpose of wiping out all Jews

Tension grows in the Pacific… In 1941, Japan began advancing into

Southeast Asia, particularly for access to rubber and oil

Concerned about its territories in the Philippines, the U.S. Navy moves its entire Pacific fleet to Hawaii

U.S. also halts all oil shipments to Japan (it had supplied 80% of Japanese oil imports)

Pearl Harbor

As seen from a Japanese plane Sinking of the U.S.S. West Virginia

Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941 Japanese launch an un-announced attack on the U.S.

naval base in Hawaii 353 Japanese aircraft bomb the base, killing 2,402

U.S. personnel, sinking or damaging 13 ships, and destroying 133 aircraft

Roosevelt called it “a date that will last in infamy” Congress declared war the next day Japan formally declares war on the U.S. on

December 8, and Germany and Italy declared war follow three days later