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Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power in Germany
In Germany, Adolf Hitler had followed a path to power similar to Mussolini’s. At the end of World War I, Hitler had been a jobless soldier drifting around Germany. In 1919, he joined a struggling group called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the Nazi Party. Despite its name, this party had no ties to socialism. -
Benito Mussolini's Fascist Government in Italy
By 1921, Mussolini had established the Fascist Party. Fascism stressed nationalism and placed the interests of the state above those of individuals. To strengthen the nation, Fascists argued, power must rest with a single strong leader and a small group
of devoted party members. -
Mein Kampf
In his book Mein Kampf [My Struggle], Hitler set forth the basic beliefs of Nazism that became the plan of action for the Nazi Party. In the book he said that he wanted to "secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this Earth." -
Japanese Invasion of Manchuria
Ignoring the protests of more moderate Japanese officials, the militarists launched a surprise attack and seized control of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. Within several months, Japanese troops controlled the entire province, a large region about twice the size of Texas, that was rich in natural resources. -
Storm Troopers
Many men who were out of work joined Hitler’s private army, the storm troopers (or Brown Shirts). The German people were desperate and turned to Hitler as their last hope. -
Third Reich
In January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor (prime minister). Once in power, Hitler quickly dismantled Germany’s democratic Weimar Republic. In its place he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire. According to Hitler, the Third Reich would be a “Thousand-Year Reich”—it would last for a thousand years. -
Hitler's Military buildup in Germany
In 1935, he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and the League of Nations did nothing to stop him. -
Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia
Meanwhile, Mussolini began building his new Roman Empire. His first target was Ethiopia, one of Africa’s few remaining independent countries. By the fall of 1935, tens of thousands of Italian soldiers stood ready to advance on Ethiopia. The League of Nations reacted with brave talk of “collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression.” When the invasion began, however, the League’s response was an ineffective economic boycott—little more than a slap on Italy’s wrist. -
Hitler Invades the Rhineland
In 1936, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, a German region bordering France and Belgium that was demilitarized as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. The League did nothing to stop Hitler. -
Francisco Franco
In 1936, a group of Spanish army officers led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the Spanish republic. Revolts broke out all over Spain, and the Spanish Civil War began. The war aroused passions not only in Spain but throughout the world. About 3,000 Americans formed the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and traveled to Spain to fight against Franco. -
Rome-Berlin Axis
Although the Soviet Union sent equipment and advisers, Hitler and Mussolini backed Franco’s forces with troops, weapons, tanks, and fighter planes. The war forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. -
Hitler's Anschluss
Germany announced that its Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete. The United States and the rest of the world did nothing. -
Munich Agreement
On September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired. Chamberlain returned home and proclaimed: “My friends, there has come back from Germany peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time.” -
Joseph Stalin's Totalitarian Government in the Soviet Union
By 1939, Stalin had firmly established a totalitarian government that tried to exert complete control over its citizens. In a totalitarian state, individuals have no rights, and the government suppresses all opposition. -
Nonaggression Pact
As tensions rose over Poland, Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact with Hitler. Once bitter enemies, on August 23, 1939 fascist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other. Germany and the Soviet Union also signed a second, secret pact, agreeing to divide Poland between them. With the danger of a two-front war eliminated, the fate of Poland was sealed. -
Blitzkrieg
The invasion od Poland was the first test of Germany’s newest military strategy, the blitzkrieg, or lightning war. Blitzkrieg made use of advances in military technology—such as fast tanks and more powerful aircraft—to take the enemy by surprise and then quickly crush all opposition with overwhelming force. -
Britain and France declare war on Germany
France’s Maginot Line proved to be ineffective; the German army threatened to
bypass the line during its invasion of Belgium. Hitler’s generals sent their tanks
through the Ardennes, a region of wooded ravines in northeast France, thereby
avoiding British and French troops who thought the Ardennes were impassable. The Germans continued to march toward Paris. -
Phony War
For the next several months after the fall of Poland, French and British troops on the Maginot Line, a system of fortifications built along France’s eastern border, sat staring into Germany, waiting for something to happen. On the Siegfried Line a few miles away German troops stared back. The blitzkrieg had given way to what the Germans called the sitzkrieg (“sitting war”), and what some newspapers referred to as the phony war. -
Lend-Lease Act
Britain had no more cash to spend in the arsenal of democracy. Roosevelt tried to help by suggesting a new plan that he called a lend-lease policy. Under this plan, the president would lend or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the United States.” -
Hitler's Invasion of Denmark and Norway
Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, Hitler launched a surprise invasion
of Denmark and Norway in order “to protect [those countries’] freedom and independence.” But in truth, Hitler planned to build bases along the coasts to strike at Great Britain. Next, Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. -
Hitler's Invasion of the Netherlands
After he invaded Denmark and Norway, Hitler turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May. The phony war had ended. -
The Battle of Britain
In the summer of 1940, the Germans began to assemble an invasion fleet along the French coast. Because its naval power could not compete with that of Britain, Germany also launched an air war at the same time. Its goal was to gain total control of the skies by destroying Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF). -
Marshal Philippe Petain
William Shirer and the rest of the world watched, Hitler handed French officers his terms of surrender. Germans would occupy the northern part of France, and a Nazi-controlled puppet government, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, would be set up at Vichy, in southern France. -
Germany and Italy's invasion of France
The German offensive trapped almost 400,000 British and French soldiers as they fled to the beaches of Dunkirk on the French side of the English Channel. In less than a week, a makeshift fleet of fishing trawlers, tugboats, river barges, pleasure craft—more than 800 vessels in all—ferried about 330,000 British, French, and Belgian troops across the Channel. A few days later, Italy entered the war on Germany's side and invaded France from the south as the Germans came into Paris from the north. -
Pearl Harbor Attack
In less than two hours, the Japanese had killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178 more. The surprise raid had sunk or damaged 21 ships, including 8 battleships—nearly the whole U.S. Pacific fleet. More than 300 aircraft were severely damaged or destroyed. These losses constituted greater damage than the U.S. Navy had suffered in all of World War I. By chance, three aircraft carriers at sea escaped the disaster. Their survival would prove crucial to the war’s outcome. -
Office of Price Administration
The OPA fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods. Congress also raised income tax rates and extended the tax to millions of people who had never paid it before. The higher taxes reduced consumer demand on scarce goods by leaving workers with less to spend. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Soviets won by waiting for the winter and rolling in with tanks against the Germans. Many Germans surrendered. This battle marked a turning point in the war. -
Manhattan Project
In 1941, the committee reported that it would take from three to five years to build an atomic bomb. Hoping to shorten that time, the OSRD set up an intensive program in 1942 to develop a bomb as quickly as possible. Because much of the early research was performed at Columbia University in Manhattan, the Manhattan Project became the code name for research work that extended across the country. -
War Productions Board
The WPB decided which companies would convert from peacetime to wartime production and allocated raw materials to key industries. The WPB also organized drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper, rags, and cooking fat for recycling into war goods. -
Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps
The military’s work force needs were so great that Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall pushed for the formation of a Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC). Under this
bill, women volunteers would serve in noncombat positions. -
Internment
To remove the Japanese-Americans from Hawaii would have destroyed the islands’ economy and hindered U.S. military operations there. However, he was eventually forced to order the internment, or confinement, of 1,444 Japanese Americans, 1 percent of Hawaii’s Japanese-American population. -
Operation Torch
Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t think the Allies had enough troops to attempt an invasion on European soil. Instead, they launched Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
Battle of the Atlantic
The German aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Britain depended on supplies from the sea. The 3,000-mile long shipping lanes from North America were her lifeline. Hitler knew that if he cut that lifeline, Britain would be starved into submission. -
Unconditional Surrender
Enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies dictated. Churchill and Roosevelt also discussed where to strike next. The Americans argued that the best approach to victory was to assemble a massive invasion fleet in Britain and to launch it across the English Channel, through France, and into the heart of Germany. Churchill, however, thought it would be safer to first attack Italy. -
U.S. Convoy System
Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done in the First World War. The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater. They were also accompanied by airplanes that used radar to spot U-boats on the ocean’s surface. -
The Battle of the Bulge
The battle raged for a month.The Germans had lost 120,000 troops, 600 tanks and assault guns, and 1,600 planes in the Battle of the Bulge— soldiers and weapons they could not replace. From that point on, the Nazis could do little but retreat. -
D-Day
Operation OVERLORD was pushed back a day because of bad weather. June 6, 1944, the first day of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions parachuted down behind German lines. They were followed in the early morning hours by thousands upon
thousands of seaborne soldiers—the largest land-sea-air operation in army history. -
Bloody Anzio
Hitler was determined to stop the Allies in Italy rather than fight on German soil. One of the hardest battles the Allies encountered in Europe was fought less than 40 miles from Rome. This battle, “Bloody Anzio,” lasted four months—until the end of May 1944—and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. -
Korematsu v. United States
In 1944, the Supreme Court decided, in Korematsu v. United States, that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese Americans to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity.” -
Harry S. Truman
President Roosevelt did not live to see V-E Day. On
April 12, 1945, while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, the president had a stroke and died. That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president. -
V-E Day
On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over -
Death of Hitler
On April 29, he married Eva Braun, his longtime companion. The
next day Hitler shot himself while his new wife swallowed poison. In accordance with Hitler’s orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned.
