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Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power in Germany
In 1919, Hitler joined a struggling group called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, better known as the NaziParty. Despite its name, this party had no ties to socialism. Hitler proved to be such a powerful public speaker and organizer that he quickly became the party’s leader. -
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. Nazism, the German brand of fascism, was based on extreme nationalism. -
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. -
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
By 1932, some 6 million Germans were unemployed. 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. -
Battle of Stalingrad
Germans pressed in on Stalingrad. By the end of September, they controlled 90% of the city. As winter set in, the
Soviets saw the cold as an opportunity to use tanks and begin a massive counterattack, closing around Stalingrad, trapping the Germans and cutting off their supplies, and Germans eventually surrendered. Soviets lost 1,100,000 soldiers in Stalingrad. Despite the death toll,the Soviet victory marked a turning point. From then on, the Soviet army began to move westward toward Germany. -
Lend-Lease Act
By late 1940, however, 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.” Isolationists were against it, though many americans favored it, as did Congress. -
US Convoy System
The Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys. Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as 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.
With this tracking, the Allies were able to find and destroy German Uboats faster than they were manufactured. -
Mussolini's Invasion of Ethiopia
Mussolini's 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.” The League of Nations never did anything in response. -
Hitler's Military Build-up in Germany
The failure of the League of Nations to take action against Japan did not escape the notice of Europe’s dictators. In 1933, Hitler pulled Germany out of the League. In 1935, he began a military buildup in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. -
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. -
Hitler's Anschluss
Austria was Hitler’s first target. The Paris Peace Conference following World War I had created the relatively small nation of Austria out of what was left of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The majority of Austria’s 6 million people were Germans who favored unification with Germany. On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria unopposed. A day later, Germany announced that its Anschluss, or “union,” with Austria was complete. The United
States and the rest of the world did nothing. -
Munich Agreement
Hitler invited French premier Daladier and British prime minister Chamberlain to meet with him in Munich. He declared that the
annexation of the Sudetenland would be his “last territorial demand.” To avoid war, they chose to believe him. On
September 30, 1938, they signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired. Churchill thought the Munich Agreement was a policy of
appeasement (giving up principles to pacify an aggressor) -
Hitler's Invasion of the Netherlands
Right after Hitler's invasion of Denmark and Norway, he turned against the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which were overrun by the end of May 1939. The phony war had ended. -
Nonagression 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. -
Britain and France Declare War on Germany
On September 3, two days following Germany's blitzkrieg attack on Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. -
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg was Germany’s newest military strategy - 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. First used in Poland -
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. -
Joseph Stalin's Totalitarian Government in the Soviet Union
Stalin focused on creating a model communist state. He made both agricultural and industrial growth the prime economic goals of the Soviet Union. Stalin abolished all privately owned farms and replaced them with collectives—large government-owned farms, each worked by hundreds of families. By 1939, he 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 -
Rome-Berlin Axis
The Spanish Civil War forged a close relationship between the German and Italian dictators, who signed a formal alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. -
Hitler's Invasion of Denmark and Norway
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. It ended the phony war. -
Germany and Italy's Invasion of France
The German offensive trapped almost 400,000 British
and French soldiers. A few days later, Italy entered the war on the side of Germany and invaded France from the south as the
Germans closed in on Paris from the north. On June 22,
1940, at Compiègne, Hitler presented France his terms of surrender. After France fell, a French general named Charles
de Gaulle fled to England, where he set up a government-in-exile. -
The Battle of Britain
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. Every night for two solid months, bombers pounded London. With radar technology, Britain was able to shoot down the German planes - even at night. Hitler called off the invasion of Britain indefinitely. -
Marshal Philippe Petain
Head of Nazi-controlled puppet government set up at Vichy, in southern France -
Pearl Harbor Attack
Peace talks went on for a month. Then on December
6, 1941, Roosevelt received a decoded message that instructed
Japan’s peace envoy to reject all American peace proposals.
Early the next morning, more than 180 Japanese warplanes were launched from six aircraft carriers. 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. -
Office of Price Administration
Roosevelt responded to the threat of extreme price raises by creating the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods. -
War Productions Board
Rationed fuel and materials vital to the war effort, such as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, and plastics -
Internment
Early in 1942, the War Department called for the mass evacuation of all Japanese Americans from Hawaii. General Delos Emmons, the military governor of Hawaii, resisted the order because 37 percent of the people in Hawaii were Japanese Americans. To remove them destroy the island's economy and hinder 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. -
Battle of the Atlantic
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered raids against ships along America’s east coast. Their aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union.In the first four months of 1942, the Germans sank 87 ships off the Atlantic shore. Seven months into the year, German's had destroyed a total of 681 Allied ships in the Atlantic. The Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys and destroyed German U Boats. -
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
When the military work force needed more people, Army Chief of Staff, George Marshall, urged the formation of the WAAC. Under this bill, women volunteers would serve in noncombat positions -
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In November 1942, some 107,000 Allied troops, the great majority of them Americans, landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers in North Africa. From there they sped eastward, chasing the Afrika Korps led by General Erwin Rommel, the legendary Desert Fox. After months of heavy fighting, the last of the Afrika Korps surrendered in May 1943. -
Unconditional Surrender
Enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies dictated. After Operation Torch, the US and Britain met in Casablanca and agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. -
D-Day
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region. -
Korematsu vs US
A response to the internment of Japanese in the U.S. Korematsu argued that this order was unconstitutional because it was based on
race. The initial results were discouraging. 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.” -
Bloody Anzio
Mussolini was forced to resign, and the Italians were celebrating the end of the war, but Hitler was determined to stop the Allies in Italy rather than fight on German soil. Bloody Anzio was one of the hardest battles the Allies encountered, lasting four months. about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. During the year after Anzio, German armies continued to put up strong resistance. The effort to free Italy did not succeed until 1945, when Germany was close to collapse. -
The Battle of the Bulge
On December 16, under cover of dense fog, eight German tank divisions broke through weak American defenses along an 80-mile front. Hitler hoped that a victory would split American and British forces and break up Allied supply lines. Tanks drove 60 miles into Allied territory, creating a bulge in the lines that gave this desperate last ditch offensive its name -
Death of Hitler
He wrote out his last address to the German people.
In it he blamed the Jews for starting the war and his generals
for losing it. 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. -
Harriet 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
A week after Hitler's death, General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich. On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day—Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over. -
Manhattan Project
the OSRD set this 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