Lecture 16: WWII

I. Announcements

A. Reading for 11/22 available on line

B. Study guide on line

C. Review -- Rise of Nazism

D. Questions

1. what is the relationship between the Nazi rise to power and the second world war?

2. what were the other causes of WWII?

3. how were the racial objectives and war objectives of WWII intertwined?

II. Nazi State

A. Hitler retained power by constantly balancing two extremes

1. balanced terror and material benefits

2. punished degenerate art and supported artistic development

3. articulates a racialized vision of the world that is binary

a. Lebensraum

4. followed policy of appeasement/aggression

B. 1933- 1939 Hitler pursued policies of Aggression and Appeasement

1. 1933-1934

a. aggression: secret rearmament; withdraws from League of nations

b. appeasement -- 1934 – German-Polish Non-Aggression Treaty:

2. 1935-1936

a. aggression:

aa. Hitler reintroduces military conscription

bb. 1936 reoccupies Rhineland; engages in Spanish civil war

b. appeasement - Hitler Naval agreement with Great Britain; 1936 creates pact with Japan

3. 1938: turning point.

a. March 1938 - Anschluß (annexation) of Austria

b. Czechoslovakia,

aa. Munich Agreement (September 29 1938)

4. August 1939 Non-aggression Pact between Germany and USSR.

III. The War

A. Invasion of Poland == September 1 1939

1. Motivations

2. Invasion (Eastern Front precedes Western Front)

3. Nazi rule in Poland

B. Western Front

1. Postponed until Spring 1940

2. April 1940 blitzkrieg

3. May 10 attack against Belgium, Netherlands and France

4. France surrendered on June 22 1940

5. Britain focused on out producing the Germans in the air industry

6. August 1940 – Luftwaffe (German airforce) efforts against Britain

7. focus on the Mediterranean and North Africa.

C. invasion of Russia

1. Motivations

2. Operation Barbarossa; had 3 significant parts

3. .Offensive June 22 1941

D. War in Asia

1. Japanese ambitions and motivations

2. Pearl harbor (December 7 1941)

3. After US declared war on Japan, Hitler declared war on the United states.

E. Turning point of the war (1942-1943)

1. entry of the US into the war created a coalition (Grand Alliance)

2. shift in fall 1942

3. still took a long time to achieve the goal of unconditional surrender

F. Last years

1. assault divisions on the Normandy beaches June 6 1944

2. 1945 advances by British/American forces

3. 1943-1945 advances by Soviets

4. January 1945 Hitler moved into a bunker

5. April 1945 Hitler committed suicide

6. Germany surrendered May 1945

7. War in Asia continued.

a. atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

b. Japanese surrendered unconditionally on August 14

8. WWII – 17 million died in battle; perhaps 18 million civilians perished as well (some estimate losses at 50 million)

F. Society at War

Questions

1. What were the causes of WWII?

2. how would you describe the narrative of WWII? How does it differ from that of WWI?

3. Was it obvious in the 1930s that Europe would go to war? Why or why not?

4. For lecture: Who is Primo Levi? How does he describe the camps and what does he say that he learned there? Who are the drowned? The saved?

5. Is a cartoon of the Holocaust appropriate? What does Spiegelman try to convey in his cartoon?

6. What animals does Spiegelman use to represent different religious and national groups? Why?

TERMS

Dachau

Book Burnings

Degenerate Art

Sinti-Roma

Nuremberg Laws

Lebensraum

German-Polish Non-Aggression Treaty

Danzig

Anschluß

Molotov Ribbentrop Treaty

Blitzkrieg

Vichy

Henri Petain

Winston Churchill

Luftwaffe

Operation Barbarossa

Wehrmacht

Pearl Harbor

El Alamein

Stalingrad

Battle of the Bulge

Normandy

Bunker