World War II

Vocabulary, People, Multiple Choice, Sequencing Events, Political Cartoon, Essay.

Vocabulary
Dictator ​- leaders who control their nations by force

Fascism ​- a political system that calls for extreme nationalism, racism and no
tolerance of opposition

Anti-Semitism​ - hostility toward or discrimination against Jews

Totalitarian ​- a political system in which the government suppresses all opposition

and controls most aspects of people’s lives.

Appeasement ​- accepting demands in order to avoid conflict

Blitzkrieg ​- ​ ame given to the sudden, violent offensive attacks the Germans used
n
during WW II “lightning war”

Disarmament ​- removal of weapons

Mobilization ​- gathering resources and preparing for war

Ration ​- to give out scarce items on a limited basis

Civil Defense​ - protective measures taken in case of attack

Internment Camp​ - detention center where Japanese Americans were moved to and
confined during WWII

Siege ​- military blockade

Genocide ​- the deliberate destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

Holocaust ​- the name given to the mass genocide of Jews and other groups by the
Nazis during WWII

Concentration Camps​ - ​prison camps used to hold people for political reasons

Island Hopping​ - strategy that called for attacking and capturing certain key islands and
using these islands as bases to leapfrog to others

Kamikaze ​- During WWII, a Japanese suicide pilot whose mission was to crash into
his target

Marranos ​- Jews in Spain who were forced to convert to Catholicism.

Pogroms ​- a time when mobs attacked Jews or stole their property without punishment to
relieve public unrest in Russia.

Volk ​- the national master race of Nazi Germany

Eugenics ​- the idea to produce the genetically perfect child

Moslems​ - those who wore the blank stare of death on their faces in concentration camps

Prominenten​ - survivors of prison camps for many years

Fuhrer​ - german leader

People
Benito Mussolini:
● won power by appealing to Italians who resented that Italy had little in Versailles
Treaty
● fascism (extreme nationalism)
● Fascist Party forced Italy’s king to name Mussolini head of govt. who banned all
other political parties-ended democratic rule in Italy
● known as ​II Duce​ (the leader)

Adolf Hitler:
● German Dictator
● Believed in a superior Aryan race
● Gained power in 1933
● Led the Nazis
● Hated Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, disabled, Jehovah’s witness, communists,
and political opponents
● Committed suicide

Emperor Hirohito:
● Invaded China’s northeastern region for land and resources (Manchuria)
● Followed after Tojo in leadership of Japan
● Monarchy
● Joined Axis powers
Josef Stalin:
● Leader of the Soviet Union
● Communist
● Rivals and Disobeyers were send to Labor Camps in Persia, arrested or killed

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)

● President of the United States from 1933-1945
● Tried to keep the US neutral until the bombing of Pearl Harbor
● Drafted Atlantic Charter
● Made Congress pass a new Neutrality Act in 1939
● Passed the Lend-Lease Act in 1941
● Made America apply economic pressure on Japan and asked Congress to
declare war on Japan

Winston Churchill
● British Prime Minister
● Drafted Atlantic Charter
● Inspired the people of GB to defend their country during Germany’s brutal attack

Herman Goering
● Successful German pilot
● Joined the Nazis in 1922
● President of the Reichstag in 1932
● Held several high positions (Prussian minister of the interior)
● Polite, interested in culture, jolly, yet greedy and ruthless

Joseph Goebbels
● Minister of Propaganda
● Said that "Propaganda made the Third Reich"
● Helped instill the stigma in the German public that the Jews are the reason for all
their problems

Heinrich Himmler
● Joined Nazi party in 1925
● Rose the ranks and became the leader of the SS by 1929
● Second most powerful leader in Germany because of his talent for organization
and his secret files
 ● Devoted to creating Master Race and said, "Nature is cruel; therefore, we may be
cruel too."
● Divided police into Ordo and Sipo

Reinhard Heydrich
● Himmler's choice to lead the Gestapo
● Worked more behind the scenes for the Nazis

Ernst Roehm
● Head of the SA
● Was more noticeable in the public for the Nazis
● The SA and him helped put Hitler in power
● Was shot to death along with other SA leaders in 1934 because Hitler didn't need
their services anymore

Laws/Agreements
● Lend-Lease Act
○ Allowed the U.S. to sell, lend. or lease weapons to any country
“vital to the defense of the U.S.”
● Munich Conference
○ Meeting where the British and French leaders agreed to give the
Sudetenland (area of Czechoslovakia where many Germans lived)
to Germany. Czechoslovakia was told to give up Sudetenland or
fight Germany.
● Potsdam Declaration
○ Issued by the Allies
○ warned Japan to surrender or face destruction.

Odds & Ends

1. Which nations were members of the Axis and Allies? How were the Axis
nations similar to one another? Allies?
● Axis- Germany, Italy, Japan
○ The Axis nations were all similar because they were all controlled
by one person. The Japs had a Emperor Hirohito , the Italians had
Mussolini, and the Germans had Hitler
○ They all wanted to build their own empire
 ○ Their governments were all very fascist
● Allies- U.S., Britain, France, USSR,, Belgium, Canada, China, Poland
○ The Allied nations were similar because they all had one common
goal: to take down Nazi Germany, Japan, and Italy in WW2.
○ Most allied powers were not fascist.

2. Did the U.S practice neutrality when the war began in Europe in 1939?
Explain.
● Neutrality Acts between 1935-1937:
○ Banned weapons sales and loans to nations that were at war
● American First Committee- set up by Isolationists to make sure Americans
stayed out of Europe’s problems
● Although neutral, FDR still prepared for war
○ 1938: Congress strengthened navy
○ 1939: Congress passed a new Neutrality Act
■ nations could buy U.S. goods as long as they paid cash and
kept goods in their own ship
○ 1940: Selective Training and Service Act: first peacetime draft;
applied to men within the of 21-35

3. What factors forced the U.S. to become involved European and Pacific
theaters of war?
● European
○ Atlantic Charter- set goals for “ending Nazi tyranny”
■ People free to choose their own form of government
■ People live free from “fear and want”
■ Disarmament- giving up military weapons
■ Creating permanent system of general security
○ FDR and Churchill agreed that Nazi party needed to be destroyed
● Pacific
○ Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)- Japanese airplanes came and
bombed Pearl Harbor
○ Wake and Guam- Japanese bombers also struck American airfields
in the Philippines (Wake and Guam were important bases)
■ Japanese captured Guam, Hong Kong, and Wake
○ Bataan Death March- Bataan prisoners were forced to march and
were later killed off
4. How was the U.S. economy mobilized to support the war effort?
○ Industries focused on producing more war goods
 ○ War Production Board supervised conversion of industries to war
production
○ Office of Price Administration established limits on consumer prices and
rents to prevent inflation
○ National War Labor Board helped resolve labor disputes that might slow
down war production

5. In what ways did minorities contribute to the war? How were these groups
affected by prejudice and discrimination?
● Industries geared to producing goods for the war
● Americans faced shortages of goods and were rationed
● Women
○ Contributed- served in the “Women’s Army Corps (WACs),
Women’s Appointed for Volunteer Emergency Service in the Navy
(WAVES), and helped as nurses
○ Prejudice- despite all their work, they were still paid less than men
○ Their jobs were just as important as the mens
● African Americans
○ Contributed- they served in the military and were a great advantage
in winning against Japan
○ Prejudice- they had to live in separate quarters from white men,
given low-level assignments, and were still ridiculed by their fellow
soldiers
● Native Americans (Navajo)
○ Contributed- Taught people a special language so the Japanese
would not understand what they were saying when they intercepted
communication
○ Prejudice- suffered from great racial discrimination and hate from
other Americans
● Latinos
○ More than 250,000 Hispanic Americans served in the armed forces
○ Thousands of farm and railroad workers from Mexico were
recruited by the US labor agents through a program called the
bracero​ which simulated emigration from Mexico
○ Prejudice- the Latino presence caused a lot of tension in many
cities resulting in riots such as the four-day riot in Los Angeles
when white sailors had attacked Mexican American teens
6. What was the significance of the following battles?
● Battle of Midway
 ○ This battle was the turning point of the war for Japan vs. America
○ America was able to destroy 4 Japanese aircraft carriers and 100s
of Japanese planes reducing the Japanese Navy
○ Lead to the “island hopping” tactic
● Battle of Guadalcanal
○ U.S was able to take over one of the Solomon Islands
○ Strategic island to island hop and eventually take over Japan
○ Was important U.S territory to set up bases

● Italian Invasion
○ U.S took over Sicily
○ Caused Italians to overthrow dictator, Mussolini and surrender
● D-Day/ Operation Overlord
○ This was the invasion of Normandy
○ Troops attacked from the English Channel, and came from the east
and west (ambush)
○ This battle liberated Paris and helped British and American troops
push to Germany
● Battle of the Bulge
○ This was the Germans pushing the Allied forces back
○ The Americans won the battle and invaded Germany and were able
to take over Berlin
○ This resulted in V-E Day, where the Allied powers won in Europe
7. When and how did the war end in Europe and the Pacific?
Europe
● May 7th, 1945 Germany surrendered, Actually V-E day was May 8th 1945
● The U.S. started to attack Northern Africa (controlled by Germany) so that they
could meet up with British troops in Egypt
● May 1943 the allies drove the enemies out of North Africa
● They moved north and took Italy, a major component in the Axis powers
● German troops withdrew from Russia to protect themselves against GB and the
US. The Soviets took advantage of this and massacred the Germans. They
drove the Germans back
● The turning point for the Russians was at Stalingrad
● Operation Overlord attacked Normandy, a part in North France. The Allies could
use that point to cut into the German empire. (D-Day was June 6th 1944)
● Hitler knew he couldn’t win and suicided on April 30th 1945
Pacific
 ● Japan surrendered to the US on August 15,1945 also known as V-J day and
signed the formal surrender on September 2nd, 1945
● August 6th, 1945, American b-29 bomber, the ​Enola Gay,​ dropped an atomic
bomb on the Japanese city- Hiroshima which killed between 80,000-120,000
people and leaving thousands injured
● Three days later a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki killing
between 35,000 and 74,000 people and leaving thousands injured
● The emperor could not bare the destruction any longer so he ordered his
government to surrender

Events
● 1931- Japan invades Manchuria
● 1933- Hitler comes into power
● 1933- FDR elected into office
● 1935- Italy conquers Ethiopia
● 1937- Neutrality Act limits trade with all warring nations
● September 1938- British and French leaders agree to turn Sudetenland over to
Germany
● November 1938- Nazi mobs attack German Jews (Kristallnacht)
● 1939- Hitler begins invading Poland
● September 1, 1939- Germany invades Poland; Great Britain and France declare
war on Germany
● June 1940- France surrenders to Germany
● Late 1940- First peacetime draft in U.S history
● June 1941- Germans turn on the Soviets
● December 7, 1941- Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
● January 1, 1942- Allies capture North Africa
● April 9, 1942- Bataan Death March
● Late 1942- U.S victories in the Battles of Midway and the Coral Sea
● 1943- Allies take Sicily
● February 1943- Russians defeat Germany at Stalingrad
● June 6, 1944- Allies land in Normandy, France
● 1944- U.S Supreme Court upholds internment of Japanese-American civilians
● May 1945- Russians surround Berlin; Germany is defeated
● August 1945- United States drop atomic bombs on Japan
● September 1945- Japan formally surrenders to the US and the war ends