Strong isolationist sentiments - FDR called "a spreading epidemic of national lawlessness" - Fascist countries like Germany, Japan, Italy were taking land, breaking int'l law - Wanted to help out GB, FR to stave off war - Fierce debate between isolationists and interventionists Pearl Harbor ended the debate, involving the US in the World War. - Unified the country, people rushing to enlist - Huge government spending on Total War ended the Depression End of the war created the Cold War betwen US and Soviet Union. The Rise of Fascism in Europe - Fascism: dictator using propaganda and brute force seizes all parts of civil life (press, etc) - Expansionism in Japan based on "master race" ideas like Hitler's - Took power over government that couldn't handle unemployment, depression - Mussolini: "El Juche," coined fascism - Ordered political opponents murdered - Believed Hitler to be agressive and mad - Hitler uses nativist appeals to the masses, "German master race" - "Democracy must be destroyed" -Hitler - Similar political totalitarianism to Italy - Book burning, tyrannical police state Japanese occupy China - China fragmented by civil war between communists and nationalists - Japanese proclaimed Manchuria independent - Battles escalated into Sino-Japanese war - Japanese captured capital, murdering and looting civilians - Mussolini, similarly, was conquering Ethiopia - League of Nations retaliated w/ economic sanctions - Germany began rebuilding their military in violation of Versailles - Put soldiers in the Rhineland - Convinced Western democracies were cowards who wouldn't stop him - Good Neighbor Policy wanted to avoid intervention internationally - Nye Committee worried about "Merchants of Death," war profiteers who pushed America into war - FDR signed neutrality laws to avoid entry into the new war - 1935 Act: Prohibited American manufacturers from selling to belligerents - Roosevelt unsure US should remain neutral - Neutrality Act of 1937 allowed "cash and carry" sale of non-military goods Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis Alliance in 1937 - Germany seizes Austria, puts up "Jews not wanted" signs - No nation stepped up because Europe couldn't understand his ambition, moves, and lunacy - Germany used threat of war to steal the Sudetenland - Britain and France appeased him with Czech territory - 1938: French and GB prime ministers transferred it - Munich Pact - Germany was not satisfied and took the rest of Czechoslovakia - Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact masks Hitler's intention to take Ukraine - Stalin made a Great Purge of political (including Communist Party) enemies. - Sovs and Germans split up Eastern Europe - Millions of Poles arrested, enslaved, murdered Spring (after a 3mo wait) 1940: Germany begins attacking Denmark, Norway, France - Used Blitzkrieg strategy to stun opponents - GB is left standing alone - Churchill calls Allies a colossal military disaster - Churchill evacuates >300K of other Allies' troops from Dunkirk - Mussolini also declares war on France, GB - Germans want to destroy Royal Air Force, deploying 2500 airplanes, 2:1 ratio to GB - Wanted Brits to defend Britain in their "finest hour" - German bombers targeted British cities in night-raids "Blitz" - Britain wins Battle of Britain; Germany switches focus back to Sov - Churchill asked for any aid, specifically destroyers - FDR gave "all aid short of war," destroyer battleships - In exchange for mil bases in Brit. colonies - Congress approved Selective Service Act of peacetime draft - The War revitalized FDR - Charles Lindbergh, America First leader, claimed Jews in America pushed FDR to the brink of war - That Britain was doomed and to join hands with Hitler - "Disenfranchise the negro," - Wilkie (pres opponent) opposed FDR believing he would intervene - "Your boys will not go into any foreign wars" - Lend-Lease Act surpassed Cash-Carry, allowing Roosevelt to sell weapons for the defense of the United States Escalations in the War - German troops joined Italians in Libya - Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria under control of Germany; ambition unbound - Operation Barbarossa: Germany invaded Soviets to - destroy communism, enslave the population, and take natural rsrcs - Turning point of the war - German forces surround Leningrad - Winter set in, but Leningrad held out despite dying people - Some German armies reach Moscow - For isolationists, wanted to bleed the dictatorships to the death - Keep Nazis fighting USSR to protect Britain - US sends enough supplies to clothe every Russian soldier - Stalin classified surrendering soldiers as traitors - By late summer of 1941, US was no longer neutral - With Churchill, Roosevelt drew up Atlantic Charter to promote self-determination, economic cooperation, sea freedom, and UN - Undeclared war in Atlantic told warships to protect convoys across to Iceland - Germany began to sink German warships - 1940: US freezes all Japanese assets and embargoes - Tripartite pact of Axis declared mutual protection against any attack of any nation - Japan needed oil, declared full control of French Indoch - Time Magazine claimed restriction of oil exports was war - Embargo purportedly because of Chinese occupation - US and Japan realize attacks would happen. Japan secretly sends out surprise battleship attack to Hawaii - Failed because bombers ignored maintenance, oil tanks - After Pearl Harbor, Congress authorizes war on Japan - Hitler believed he couldn't lose the war - US attacks U-Boats, which had been a major strategic advantage - Stalin insisted Brits and Americans attack Nazis to draw them out of Russia. - Instead, they attack strongholds in Eastern countries - Treaty required defeat of Germany before Japan - Roosevelt, first president to fly abroad or go to Africa during pres, meets at Casablanca. - Roosevelt and Churchill step up bombing campaign against Germ - Increase supplies to Germany - Attack Sicily - Americans announce the war will only end on unconditional surrender - Germany defends Sicilian attack; maintains stalemate - Jun 1944, US forces enter Rome. Allies took control of Italy - Tehran developed United Nations - Roosevelt had "grown to like Stalin"; Stalin bugged Roosevelt - Dwight Eisenhower --- Supreme Allied Commander --- plans Operation Overlord - Very detail-oriented - Huge gamble, most complex operation - Amassed 5 million tons of military equipment - 370K soldiers of 5K ships attacked Normandy - Much drowning and capsizing, misdelivered boats, bodies pile up - In 3 weeks, Allies had landed more than a million troops - Small compared to Soviet offensive a few weeks later - Killed, wounded, captured more German soldiers (350K) than stationed in all of Western Europe a few weeks later - D-Day was a turning point: final victory a matter of time - Managed to surprise Germans; fooled them into thinking it was Lise - Germany was teetering - Yalta Declaration saved face for US,UK - Soviet Army "liberated" Eastern Germany, Czech, others. Plundered resources and rebuilded in the Union, imprisoning dissenters - Yalta Conference agreed to UN meetings - Roosevelt died before Germany surrendered - Hitler married his mistress Eva Braun the day of surrender - Mussolini and wife killed and hung - Eva and Adolf bodies were burned after poison/bullet - V- "Victory in Europe" Day - Japan still ongoing and Europe needed rebuilding The Holocaust - Systematic pogrom against Jews - Not fully revealed until the end of the war - Although stories were coming out in 1942 - Ghastly stories were beyond belief until the Allies liberated. - Eisenhower made sick by the Holocaust - American anti-semitism was feared, so American Senators wouldn't acknowledge Holocaust before it was undeniably revealed.