World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 268

Republic of the Philippines

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN PHILIPPINES
University Town, Northern Samar
Web: http://uep.edu.ph ; Email: uepnsofficial@gmail.com

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

World History 2
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ERA
Second Semester, School Year 2020-2021

LEAH A. DE ASIS, EdD

All photos are from www.google.com/search

World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 269

Module 9
THE WORLD AT WAR

9.1 The First World War

9.2 World War II
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 270

OVERVIEW

Module 9 focuses on the World at War – The First World War and the
World War II. This is the last module in this subject.

World War I on the Great War began in 1914 after the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder had catapulted into a war
across Europe that lasted until 1918.

At the turn of 20th century, the nations of Europe had been largely at
peace with one another for nearly 30 years. Efforts to outlaw war and achieve
peace had been gaining momentum in Europe.

Since the middle of 19th century, by 1900, hundreds of peace

organizations were active. Some Europeans believed that progress had made
war a thing of the past. Yet in a little more decade, a massive war engulf
Europe and spread across the globe. In Europe, military buildup, nationalistic
feelings, and rival alliances set the stage of continental war. Ethnic conflict in
the Balkan region, which helped start the war, continued to erupt.

By 1914, Europe was divided into two (2) rival camps. One alliance, the
Triple Entente, include Great Britain, France, and Russia. The other, known
as the Triple Alliance, included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Austria-
Hungary‘s declaration of war against Serbia set off a chain reaction within the
alliance system. The countries of Europe followed through on their pledges to
support one another. As a result, nearly all Europe soon joined what would be
the largest, most destructive war the world had yet seen.

Much of the technology of modern warfare, such as fighter planes and

tanks, was introduced in World War I. The League of Nations was formed to
solve disputes between and among countries, however, it failed because it
played safe in the guise of nationality.

Hitler, a German dictator basically set off World War II. Using the
sudden mass attack called the blitzkrieg, Germany overrun much of Europe
and North Africa.

The United States was challenged by the bombing of Pearl Harbor in

Hawaii, by the Japanese, thus World War II spreaded throughout the world.

LEAH A. DE ASIS, EdD

Course Professor
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 271

THE WORLD AT WAR

9.1 WORLD WAR I

Learning Outcomes
World War I, also known
as the Great War, began in 1914  explain how military built up,
after the assassination of nationalistic feelings, and rival
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of alliances set the stage for the First
Austria. His murder catapulted World War;
into a war across Europe that  discuss the victories and failures
lasted until 1918. During the of the League of Nations;
conflict, Germany, Austria-  describe the results of Hitler‘s
Hungary, Bulgaria and the blitzkrieg in his invasion of
Ottoman Empire (the Central European nations;
Powers) fought against Great  discuss the chilling effects of the
Britain, France, Russia, Italy, holocaust to civilization;
Romania, Japan and the United  internalize the hollow victories in
States (the Allied Powers). war and condemn acts of terror.
Thanks to new military  Form fair judgment based on
technologies and the horrors of merits; and
trench warfare, World War I saw  Be an advocate of peace.
unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war
was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million
people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe —especially in

the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe —for years before
World War I actually broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman

Empire, Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 272

instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and

Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo,

Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand—heir to the Austro-
Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by
the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and
other nationalists were struggling to end Austro -Hungarian rule over
Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly

escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many countries
around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack an d
hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of
Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria -Hungary

waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from
German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their
cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention
would involve Russia‘s ally, France, and possibly Gr eat Britain as
well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving

Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or ―blank check‖
assurance of Germany‘s backing in the case of war. The Dual
Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with
such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.

9.1.1 World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the

Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and
appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe‘s
great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and

Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World
War I had begun.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 273

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as

the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field
Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen),
Germany began fighting World War I on
two fronts, invading France through
neutral Belgium in the west and
confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German

troops crossed the border into Belgium.
In the first battle of World War I, the
Germans assaulted the heavily fortified
city of Liege, using the most powerful
weapons in their arsenal—enormous
siege cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left
death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium
toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they
had accused of inciting civilian resistance.

First Battle of the Marne

In the First Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6-9,

1914, French and British forces confronted the invading Germany
army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France,
within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German
advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the
Germans back to north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in
France. Both sides dug into trenches, and the Western Front was the
setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three
years.

Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought

at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the
Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered
close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 274

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the

difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended,
inspired such works of art as ―All Quiet on the Western Front‖ by Erich
Maria Remarque and ―In Flanders Fields‖ by Canadian doctor
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. In the latter poem, McCrae writes
from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a

symbol of remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters

Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand
experience as soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the
anguish of trench warfare and exploring the themes of technology,
violence and landscapes decimated by war.

The Eastern Front

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded

the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland, but were
stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of
Tannenberg in late August 1914.

Despite that victory, Russia‘s assault had forced Germany to

move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to
the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability

of Russia‘s huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east
ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory
Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 275

Russian Revolution

From 1914 to 1916, Russia‘s army mounted several offensives

on World War I‘s Eastern Front, but was unable to break through
German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability

and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting
discontent among the bulk of Russia‘s population, especially the
poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was
directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his
unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia‘s simmering instability exploded in the Russian

Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and
the Bolsheviks, which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian
participation in World War I.

Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early

December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies
on the Western Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained

on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality
favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in
commerce and shipping with European
countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, was

increasing difficult to maintain in the
face of Germany‘s unchecked
submarine aggression against neutral
ships, including those carrying
passengers. In 1915, Germany declared
the waters surrounding the British Isles
to be a war zone, and German U-
boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including
some U.S. ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British

ocean liner Lusitania—traveling from New York to Liverpool, England
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 276

with hundreds of American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped

turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February
1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill
intended to make the United States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following

month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress
and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in

Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman
Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers
in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the

Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain
launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April
1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916
Allied forces staged a full retreat from the sho res of the peninsula
after suffering 250,000 casualties.

Did you know?

The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty,
resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a
commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt

and Mesopotamia, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops
faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at
the border between the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of
1915, soon after Italy‘s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the
Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of
Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria -
Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy‘s allies jumped in to offer increased

assistance. British and French—and later, American—troops arrived
in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 277

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain‘s

Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation‘s fleet, but the
Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap
between the two naval powers.
Germany‘s strength on the high
seas was also aided by its lethal
fleet of U-boat submarines.

After the Battle of Dogger

Bank in January 1915, in which the
British mounted a surprise attack
on German ships in the North Sea,
the German navy chose not to
confront Britain‘s mighty Royal
Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk
of its naval strategy on its U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of

Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea
intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an
Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of
planes. Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or
Germany‘s U-boats, the use of planes in World War I presaged their
later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field;

the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years
before, in 1903. Aircraft were initially used primarily for
reconnaissance missions. During the First Battle of the Marne,
information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots
in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of
France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in

June of 1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed
incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it
came from. The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 278

solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that

prevented bullets from hitting it. The Morane -Saulnier Type L was
used by the French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army),
the British Royal Navy Air Service and the Imperial Russian Air
Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used
for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French

deflector system in 1915. His ―interrupter‖ synchronized the firing of
the guns with the plane‘s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his
most popular plane during WWI was the single -seat Fokker Eindecker,
Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-

engine bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long -range
heavy bombers like Germany‘s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917)
were used to strike cities like London. Their speed and
maneuverability proved to be far deadlier than Germany‘s earlier
Zeppelin raids.

By war‘s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft
than the Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air
Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch
independent from the navy or army.

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front

after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off
another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the
United States were able to arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become

the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined
by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British
Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne. The Allies
successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their
own counteroffensive just three days later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call

off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretchin g
between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany‘s
best hope of victory.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 279

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively
towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and
Belgium in the months that followed.

Role of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions

By the time World War I began, there were four all -Black
regiments in the U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th
and 10th Cavalry. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers
who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars,
and served in the American territories. But they were not deployed for
overseas combat in World War I.

Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in

Europe was inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first
African American troops sent overseas served in segregate d labor
battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and
shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included
unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and
ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, r emoving barbed
wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights

organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American
soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in
1917, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions. Trained separately and
inadequately in the United States, the divisio ns fared differently in the
war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse -
Argonne campaign in September 1918. The 93rd Division, however,
had more success.

With dwindling armies, France asked America for

reinforcements, and General John Pershing, commander of the
American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to
over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers
from their Senegalese French Colonial army. The 93 Division‘s, 369
regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters , fought so gallantly, with
a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than any AEF regiment,
that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their heroism. More
than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in World War I in
various capacities.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 280

Toward Armistice

By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveli ng on all

fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading

forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and
devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in
late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing

nationalist movements among its diverse
population, reached an armistice on
November 4. Facing dwindling resources on
the battlefield, discontent on the homefront
and the surrender of its allies, Germany was
finally forced to seek an armistice on
November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

At the Paris Peace Conference in

1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to
build a post-war world that would safeguard
itself against future conflicts of such
devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I

―the War to End All Wars.‖ But the Treaty of Versailles, signed on
June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance

into the League of Nations, Germany felt tricked into signing the
treaty, having believed any peace would be a ―peace without victory,‖
as put forward by President Wilson in his famous Fourteen
Points speech of January 1918.

As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its

authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would,
two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 281

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21

million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10
million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France,
each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations
between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.

The political disruption surrounding World War I also

contributed to the fall of four venerable im perial dynasties: Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions

of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and
those who never came back. The first global war also helped to
spread one of the world‘s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish
flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million
people.

World War I has also been referred to as ―the first modern war.‖
Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict —
machine guns, tanks, aerial combat and radio communications—were
introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas

and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I
galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use.
The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the
use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remains in effect
today.

9.1.2 Marching Toward War

9.1.2.1 Rising Tensions in Europe

While peace and harmony characterized much of Europe at the

beginning of the 1900s, there were less visible—and darker—forces at work
as well. Below the surface of peace and goodwill, Europe witnessed several
gradual developments that would ultimately help propel the continent into war.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 282

The Rise of Nationalism

One such development was the growth of nationalism, or a deep

devotion to one‘s nation. Nationalism can serve as a unifying force within a
country. However, it also can cause intense
competition among nations, with each
seeking to overpower the other. By the turn
of the 20th century, a fierce rivalry indeed
had developed among Europe‘s Great
Powers. Those nations were Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, Russia,
Italy, and France.

This increasing rivalry among

European nations stemmed from several
sources. Competition for materials and
markets was one. Territorial disputes were another. France, for example, had
never gotten over the loss of Alsace- Lorraine to Germany in the Franco-
Prussian War (1870). Austria-Hungary and Russia both tried to dominate in
the Balkans, a region in southeast Europe. Within the Balkans, the intense
nationalism of Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, and other ethnic groups led to
demands for independence.

Imperialism and Militarism

Another force that helped set the stage for war in Europe was
imperialism. The nations of Europe competed fiercely for colonies in Africa
and Asia. The quest for colonies sometimes pushed European nations to the
brink of war. As European countries continued to compete for overseas
empires, their sense of rivalry and mistrust of one another deepened.

Yet another troubling development throughout the early years of the

20th century was the rise of a dangerous European arms race. The nations of
Europe believed that to be truly great, they needed to have a powerful
military. By 1914, all the Great Powers except Britain had large standing
armies. In addition, military experts stressed the importance of being able to
quickly mobilize, or organize and move troops in case of a war. Generals in
each country developed highly detailed plans for such a mobilization.

The policy of glorifying military power and keeping an army prepared

for war was known as militarism. Having a large and strong standing army
made citizens feel patriotic. However, it also frightened some people. As early
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 283

as 1895, Frédéric Passy, a prominent peace activist, expressed a concern

that many shared:

Primary Source
The entire able-bodied population are preparing to massacre one another;
though no one, it is true, wants to attack, and everybody protests his love of
peace and determination to maintain it, yet the whole world feels that it only
requires some unforeseen incident, some unpreventable accident, for the
spark to fall in a flash . . . and blow all Europe sky-high.
FRÉDÉRIC PASSY, quoted in Nobel: The Man and His Prizes

9.1.2.2 Tangled Alliances

Growing rivalries and mutual mistrust had led to the creation of several
military alliances among the Great Powers as early as the 1870s. This
alliance system had been designed to keep peace in Europe. But it would
instead help push the continent into war. Bismarck Forges Early Pacts
Between 1864 and 1871, Prussia‘s blood-and-iron chancellor, Otto von
Bismarck, freely used war to unify Germany. After 1871, however, Bismarck
declared Germany to be a ―satisfied power.‖ He then turned his energies to
maintaining peace in Europe.

Bismarck saw France as the greatest threat to peace. He believed that

France still wanted revenge for its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
Bismarck‘s first goal, therefore, was to isolate France. ―As long as it is without
allies,‖ Bismarck stressed, ―France poses no danger to us.‖ In 1879, Bismarck
formed the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria- Hungary. Three
years later, Italy joined the two countries, forming the Triple Alliance. In 1881,
Bismarck took yet another possible ally away from France by making a treaty
with Russia.

Coffee for a while. It will help your remember what you

have read.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 284

Shifting Alliances

Threaten Peace In 1890, Germany‘s foreign policy changed

dramatically. That year, Kaiser Wilhelm II—
who two years earlier had become ruler of HISTORY MAKER
Germany—forced Bismarck to resign. A
proud and stubborn man, Wilhelm II did not
wish to share power with anyone. Besides
wanting to assert his own power, the new
kaiser was eager to show the world just how
mighty Germany had become. The army
was his greatest pride. ―I and the army were
born for one another,‖ Wilhelm declared Kaiser Wilhelm II
shortly after taking power. 1859–1941
Wilhelm II was related to the
Wilhelm let his nation‘s treaty with leaders of two nations he
Russia lapse in 1890. Russia responded by eventually would engage in war.
forming a defensive military alliance with Wilhelm, George V of Great
France in 1892 and 1894. Such an alliance Britain, and Nicholas II of Russia
had been Bismarck‘s fear. War with either were all cousins.
Russia or France would make Germany the
enemy of both. Germany would then be The kaiser thought a great deal of
forced to fight a two-front war, or a war on himself and his place in history.
both its eastern and western borders. Once, when a doctor told him he
had a small cold, Wilhelm
Next, Wilhelm began a tremendous reportedly responded, “No, it is a
shipbuilding program in an effort to make the big cold. Everything about me
German navy equal to that of the mighty must be big.”
British fleet. Alarmed, Great Britain formed
an entente, or alliance, with France. In 1907, He also could be sly and
Britain made another entente, this time with deceitful. After forcing the popular
both France and Russia. The Triple Bismarck to resign, Wilhelm
Entente, as it was called, did not bind Britain pretended to be upset. Most
to fight with France and Russia. However, it people, however, including
did almost certainly ensure that Britain would Bismarck, were not fooled.
not fight against them.

By 1907, two rival camps existed in Europe. On one side was the Triple
Alliance—Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. On the other side was the
Triple Entente—Great Britain, France, and Russia. A dispute between two
rival powers could draw all the nations of Europe into war.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 285

9.1.2.3 Crisis in the Balkans

Nowhere was that dispute more likely to occur than on the Balkan
Peninsula. This mountainous peninsula in the southeastern corner of Europe
was home to an assortment of ethnic groups. With a long history of nationalist
uprisings and ethnic clashes, the Balkans was known as the ―powder keg‖ of
Europe.

A Restless Region

By the early 1900s, the Ottoman Empire, which included the Balkan
region, was in rapid decline. While some Balkan groups struggled to free
themselves from the Ottoman Turks, others already had succeeded in
breaking away from their Turkish rulers. These peoples had formed new
nations, including Bulgaria,
Greece, Montenegro,
Romania, and Serbia.

Nationalism was a
powerful force in these
countries. Each group
longed to extend its borders.
Serbia, for example, had a
large Slavic population. It
hoped to absorb all the
Slavs on the Balkan
Peninsula. Russia, itself a
mostly Slavic nation,
supported Serbian Figure 9.1.2.3 The Balkan Peninsula, 1914
nationalism. However,
Serbia‘s powerful northern neighbor, Austria-Hungary, opposed such an
effort. Austria feared that efforts to create a Slavic state would stir rebellion
among its Slavic population.

In 1908, Austria annexed, or took over, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These were two Balkan areas with large Slavic populations. Serbian leaders,
who had sought to rule these provinces, were outraged. In the years that
followed, tensions between Serbia and Austria steadily rose. The Serbs
continually vowed to take Bosnia and Herzegovina away from Austria. In
response, Austria-Hungary vowed to crush any Serbian effort to undermine its
authority in the Balkans.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 286

A Shot Rings Throughout Europe

Into this poisoned atmosphere of mutual dislike and mistrust stepped

the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his
wife, Sophie. On June 28, 1914, the couple HISTORY IN DEPTH
paid a state visit to Sarajevo, the capital of
Bosnia. It would be their last. The royal pair
was shot at point-blank range as they rode
through the streets of Sarajevo in an open
car. The killer was Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-
old Serbian and member of the Black Hand.
The Black Hand was a secret society
committed to ridding Bosnia of Austrian rule. The Armenian Massacre

Because the assassin was a Serbian, One group in southeastern

Austria decided to use the murders as an Europe that suffered greatly for its
excuse to punish Serbia. On July 23, Austria independence efforts was the
presented Serbia with an ultimatum Armenians. By the 1880s, the
containing numerous demands. Serbia knew roughly 2.5 million Armenians in
that refusing the ultimatum would lead to war the Ottoman Empire had begun to
against the more powerful Austria. Therefore, demand their freedom. As a
Serbian leaders agreed to most of Austria‘s result, relations between the
demands. They offered to have several group and its Turkish rulers grew
others settled by an international conference. strained.

Austria, however, was in no mood to Throughout the 1890s, Turkish

negotiate. The nation‘s leaders, it seemed, troops killed tens of thousands of
had already settled on war. On July 28, Armenians. When World War I
Austria rejected Serbia‘s offer and declared erupted in 1914, the Armenians
war. That same day, Russia, an ally of Serbia pledged their support to the
with its largely Slavic population, took action. Turks’ enemies. In response, the
Russian leaders ordered the mobilization of Turkish government deported
troops toward the Austrian border. nearly two (2) million Armenians.
Along the way, more than
Leaders all over Europe suddenly took 600,000 died of starvation or were
notice. The fragile European stability seemed killed by Turkish soldiers.
ready to collapse into armed conflict. The
British foreign minister, the Italian government, and even Kaiser Wilhelm
himself urged Austria and Russia to negotiate. But it was too late. The
machinery of war had been set in motion.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 287

9.1.3 Europe Plunges into War

9.1.3.1 The Great War Begins

In response to Austria‘s declaration of war, Russia, Serbia‘s ally, began

moving its army toward the Russian-Austrian border. Expecting Germany to
join Austria, Russia also mobilized along the German border. To Germany,
Russia‘s mobilization amounted to a declaration of war. On August 1, the
German government declared war on Russia.

Russia looked to its ally France for help. Germany, however, did not
even wait for France to react. Two days after declaring war on Russia,
Germany also declared war on France. Soon afterward, Great Britain
declared war on Germany. Much of Europe was now locked in battle.

Nations Take Sides

By mid-August 1914, the battle lines were clearly drawn. On one side
were Germany and Austria-Hungary. They were known as the Central Powers
because of their location in the heart of Europe. Bulgaria and the Ottoman
Empire would later join the Central Powers in the hopes of regaining lost
territories.

On the other side were Great Britain, France, and Russia. Together,
they were known as the Allied Powers or the Allies. Japan joined the Allies
within weeks. Italy joined later. Italy had been a member of the Triple Alliance
with Germany and Austria-Hungary. However, the Italians joined the other
side after accusing their former partners of unjustly starting the war.

In the late summer of 1914, millions of soldiers marched happily off to

battle, convinced that the war would be short. Only a few people foresaw the
horror ahead. One of them was Britain‘s foreign minister, Sir Edward Grey.
Staring out over London at nightfall, Grey said sadly to a friend, ―The lamps
are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.‖

9.1.3.2 A Bloody Stalemate

It did not take long for Sir Edward Grey‘s prediction to ring true. As the
summer of 1914 turned to fall, the war turned into a long and bloody
stalemate, or deadlock, along the battlefields of France. This deadlocked
region in northern France became known as the Western Front.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 288

The Conflict Grinds Along

Facing a war on two fronts, Germany had developed a battle strategy

known as the Schlieffen Plan, named after its designer, General Alfred Graf
von Schlieffen. The plan called for attacking and defeating France in the west
and then rushing east to fight Russia. The Germans felt they could carry out
such a plan because Russia lagged behind the rest of Europe in its railroad
system and thus would take longer to supply its front lines. Nonetheless,
speed was vital to the Schlieffen Plan. German leaders knew they needed to
win a quick victory over France.

Figure 9.3.1.2 World I War in Europe, 1914-1918

Early on, it appeared that Germany would do just that. By early

September, German forces had swept into France and reached the outskirts
of Paris. A major German victory appeared just days away. On September 5,
however, the Allies regrouped and attacked the Germans northeast of Paris,
in the valley of the Marne River. Every available soldier was hurled into the
struggle. When reinforcements were needed, more than 600 taxicabs rushed
soldiers from Paris to the front. After four (4) days of fighting, the German
generals gave the order to retreat.

Although it was only the first major clash on the Western Front, the
First Battle of the Marne was perhaps the single most important event of the
war. The defeat of the Germans left the Schlieffen Plan in ruins. A quick
victory in the west no longer seemed possible. In the east, Russian forces had
already invaded Germany. Germany was going to have to fight a long war on
two (2) fronts. Realizing this, the German high command sent thousands of
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 289

troops from France to aid its forces in the east. Meanwhile, the war on the
Western Front settled into a stalemate.

War in the Trenches

By early 1915, opposing armies on the Western Front had dug miles of
parallel trenches to protect themselves from enemy fire. This set the stage for
what became known as trench warfare. In this type of warfare, soldiers fought
each other from trenches. And armies traded huge losses of human life for
pitifully small land gains.

Life in the trenches was pure misery. ―The men slept in mud, washed in
mud, ate mud, and dreamed mud,‖ wrote one soldier. The trenches swarmed
with rats. Fresh food was nonexistent. Sleep was nearly impossible.

The space between the opposing trenches won the grim name ―no
man‘s land.‖ When the officers ordered an attack, their men went over the top
of their trenches into this bombed-out landscape. There, they usually met
murderous rounds of machine-gun fire. Staying put, however, did not ensure
one‘s safety. Artillery fire brought death right into the trenches. ―Shells of all
calibers kept raining on our sector,‖ wrote one French soldier. ―The trenches
disappeared, filled with earth . . . the air was unbreathable. Our blinded,
wounded, crawling, and shouting soldiers kept falling on top of us and died
splashing us with blood. It was living hell.‖

The Western Front had become a ―terrain of death.‖ It stretched nearly

500 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss border. A British officer described it
in a letter:

Primary Source
Imagine a broad belt, ten miles or so in width, stretching from the Channel to
the German frontier near Basle, which is positively littered with the bodies of
men and scarified with their rude graves; in which farms, villages and cottages
are shapeless heaps of blackened masonry; in which fields, roads and trees
are pitted and torn and twisted by shells and disfigured by dead horses, cattle,
sheep and goats, scattered in every attitude of repulsive distortion and
dismemberment.
VALENTINE FLEMING, quoted in The First World War

Military strategists were at a loss. New tools of war—machine guns,

poison gas, armored tanks, larger artillery—had not delivered the fast-moving
war they had expected. All this new technology did was kill greater numbers
of people more effectively.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 290

The slaughter reached a peak in 1916. In February, the Germans

launched a massive attack against the French near Verdun. Each side lost
more than 300,000 men. In July, the British
HISTORY IN DEPTH
army tried to relieve the pressure on the
French. British forces attacked the Germans
The New Weapons of War
northwest of Verdun, in the valley of the
Somme River. In the first day of battle alone,
Poison Gas
more than 20,000 British soldiers were killed.
Soldiers wore masks like those
By the time the Battle of the Somme ended in
shown at left to protect
November, each side had suffered more than
themselves from poison gas. Gas
half a million casualties.
was introduced by the Germans
but used by both sides. Some
What did the warring sides gain? Near
gases caused blindness or severe
Verdun, the Germans advanced about four
blisters, others death by choking.
(4) miles. In the Somme valley, the British
gained about five miles.
Machine Gun
The machine gun, which fires
ammunition automatically, was
9.1.3.3 The Battle on the Eastern Front
much improved by the time of
World War I. The gun, shown to
Even as the war on the Western Front
the left, could wipe out waves of
claimed thousands of lives, both sides were
attackers and thus made it difficult
sending millions more men to fight on the
for forces to advance.
Eastern Front. This area was a stretch of
battlefield along the German and Russian
Tank
border. Here, Russians and Serbs battled
The tank, shown to the left, was
Germans and Austro-Hungarians. The war in
an armored combat vehicle that
the east was a more mobile war than that in
moved on chain tracks—and thus
the west. Here too, however, slaughter and
could cross many types of terrain.
stalemate were common.
It was introduced by the British in
1916 at the Battle of the Somme.
Early Fighting
Submarine
At the beginning of the war, Russian
In 1914, the Germans introduced
forces had launched an attack into both
the submarine as an effective
Austria and Germany. At the end of August,
warship. The submarine’s primary
Germany counterattacked near the town of
weapon against ships was the
Tannenberg. During the four-day battle, the
torpedo, an underwater missile.
Germans crushed the invading Russian army
and drove it into full retreat. More than
30,000 Russian soldiers were killed.

Russia fared somewhat better against the Austrians. Russian forces

defeated the Austrians twice in September 1914, driving deep into their
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 291

country. Not until December of that year did the Austrian army manage to turn
the tide. Austria defeated the Russians and eventually pushed them out of
Austria-Hungary.

Russia Struggles

By 1916, Russia‘s war effort was near collapse. Unlike the nations of
western Europe, Russia had yet to become
industrialized. As a result, the Russian army SOCIAL HISTORY
was continually short on food, guns,
ammunition, clothes, boots, and blankets.
Moreover, the Allied supply shipments to
Russia were sharply limited by German
control of the Baltic Sea, combined with
Germany‘s relentless submarine campaign in
the North Sea and beyond. In the south, the
Ottomans still controlled the straits leading The Frozen Front
from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.
For soldiers on the Eastern Front,
like those shown above, the
The Russian army had only one overall misery of warfare was
asset—its numbers. Throughout the war the compounded by deadly winters.
Russian army suffered a staggering number “Every day hundreds froze to
of battlefield losses. Yet the army continually death,” noted one Austro-
Hungarian officer during a
rebuilt its ranks from the country‘s enormous
particularly brutal spell.
population. For more than three years, the
battered Russian army managed to tie up Russian troops suffered too,
hundreds of thousands of German troops in mainly due to their lack of food
the east. As a result, Germany could not hurl and clothing. “I am at my post all
its full fighting force at the west. the time—frozen [and] soaked . . .
,” lamented one soldier. “We walk
barefoot or in ropesoled shoes.
Germany and her allies, however,
It’s incredible that soldiers of the
were concerned with more than just the Russian army are in ropesoled
Eastern or Western Front. As the war raged shoes!”
on, fighting spread beyond Europe to Africa,
as well as to Southwest and Southeast Asia. In the years after it began, the
massive European conflict indeed became a world war.

9.1.4 League of Nations

The League of Nations was an international diplomatic group

developed after World War I as a way to solve disputes between
countries before they erupted into open warfare. A precursor to the
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 292

United Nations, the League achieved some victories but had a mixed
record of success, sometimes putting self -interest before becoming
involved with conflict resolution, while also contending with
governments that did not recognize its authority. The League
effectively ceased operations during World War II.

League of Nations and Its Identity

The League of Nations has its origins in the Fourteen

Points speech of President Woodrow Wilson, part of a presentation
given in January 1918 outlining of his ideas for peace after the
carnage of World War I. Wilson envisioned an organization that was
charged with resolving conflicts before they exploded into bloodshed
and warfare.

By December of the same year,

Wilson left for Paris to transform his 14
Points into what would become
the Treaty of Versailles. Seven months
later, he returned to the United States
with a treaty that included the idea for
what became the League of Nations.

Republican Congressman
from Massachusetts Henry Cabot
Lodge led a battle against the treaty.
Lodge believed both the treaty and the
League undercut U.S. autonomy in international matters.

In response, Wilson took the debate to the American people,

embarking on a 27-day train journey to sell the treaty to live
audiences but cut his tour short due to exhaustion and sickness. Upon
arriving back in Washington, D.C., Wilson had a stroke.

Congress did not ratify the treaty, and the United States refused
to take part in the League of Nations. Isolationists in Congress feared
it would draw the United Sates into international affairs unnecessarily.

Paris Peace Conference

In other countries, the League of Nations was a more popular

idea.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 293

Under the leadership of Lord Cecil, the British

Parliament created the Phillimore Committee as an exploratory body
and announced support of it. French liberals followed, with the leaders
of Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Czechoslovakia and other
smaller nations responding in kind.
In 1919 the structure and process of the League were laid out in a
covenant developed by all the countries taking part in the Paris Peace
Conference. The League began organizational work in the fall of
1919, spending its first 10 months with a headquarters in London
before moving to Geneva.

The Covenant of the League of Nations went into effect on

January 10, 1920, formally instituting the League of Nations. By 1920,
48 countries had joined.

League of Nations Plays it Safe

The League struggled for the right opportun ity to assert its
authority. Secretary-general Sir Eric Drummond believed that failure
was likely to damage the burgeoning organization, so it was best not
to insinuate itself into just any dispute.

When Russia, which was not a member of the League, attac ked
a port in Persia in 1920, Persia appealed to the League for help. The
League refused to take part, believing that Russia would not
acknowledge their jurisdiction and that would damage the League‘s
authority.

Adding to the growing pains, some European countries had a

hard time handing over autonomy when seeking help with disputes.

There were situations in which the League had no choice but to

get involved. From 1919 to 1935, the League acted as a trustee of a
tiny region between France and Germany called the Saar. The League
became the 15-year custodian of the coal-rich area to allow it time to
determine on its own which of the two countries it wished to join, with
Germany being the eventual choice.

A similar situation happened in Danzig, which was set -up as a

free city by the Treaty of Versailles and became the center of a
dispute between Germany and Poland. The League administered
Danzig for several years before it fell back under German rule.
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 294

Disputes Solved by the League of Nations

Poland was in frequent distress, fearing for its independence

against threats from neighboring Russia, which in 1920 occupied the
city of Vilna and handed it over to Lithuanian allies. Following a
demand that Poland recognize Lithuanian independence, the League
became involved.

Vilna was returned to Poland, but hostilities with Lithuania

continued. The League was also brought in as Poland grappled with
Germany about Upper Silesia and with Czechoslovakia over the town
of Teschen.

Other areas of dispute that the League got involved in included

the squabble between Finland and Sweden over the Aaland Islands,
disputes between Hungary and Rumania, Finland‘s separate quarrels
with Russia, Yugoslavia and Austria, a border argument between
Albania and Greece, and the tussle between France and England over
Morocco.

In 1923, following the murder of Italian General Enrico Tellini

and his staff within the borders of Greece, Benito Mussolini retaliated
by bombing and invading the Greek island Corfu. Greece requested
the League‘s help, but Mussolini refused to work with it.

The League was left on the sidelines watching as the dispute

was solved instead by the Conference of Ambassadors, an Allied
group that was later made part of the League.

The Incident at Petrich followed two years later. It‘s unclear

precisely how the debacle in the border town of Petrich in Bulgaria
started, but it resulted in the deaths of a Greek captain and retaliation
from Greece in the form of invasion.

Bulgaria apologized and begged the League for help. The

League decreed a settlement that was accepted by both countries.

Larger Efforts by the League of Nations

Other League efforts include the Geneva Protocol, devised in

the 1920s to limit what is now understood as chemical and biological
weaponry, and the World Disarmament Conference in the 1930s,
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 295

which was meant to make disarmament a reality but failed after Adolf
Hitler broke away from the conference and the League in 1933.

In 1920 the League created its Mandates Commission, charged

with protecting minorities. Its suggestions about Africa were treated
seriously by France and Belgium but ignored by South Afric a. In 1929,
the Mandates Commission helped Iraq join the League.

The Mandates Commission also got involved in tensions

in Palestine between the incoming Jewish population and Palestinian
Arabs, though any hopes of sustaining peace there was further
complicated by Nazi persecution of the Jews, which lead to a ri se in
immigration to Palestine.

The League was also involved in the Kellogg-Briand Pact of

1928, which sought to outlaw war. It was successfu lly adapted by over
60 countries. Put to the test when Japan invaded Mongolia in 1931,
the League proved incapable of enforcing the pact.

The Fall of the League of Nations Fail

When World War II broke out, most members of the League

were not involved and claimed neutrality,
but members France and Germany were.

In 1940, League members Denmark,

Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the
Netherlands and France all fell to Hitler.
Switzerland became nervous about hosting
an organization perceived as an Allied one,
and the League began to dismantle its
offices.

Soon the Allies endorsed the idea of the United Nations, which
held its first planning conference in San Francisco in 1944, effectively
ending any need for the League of Nations to make a post -war return.

The League of Nations, 1920

The League of Nations was an international organization,

headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, created after the First World War to
provide a forum for resolving international disputes. Though first proposed by
President Woodrow Wilson as part of his Fourteen Points plan for an
equitable peace in Europe, the United States never became a member.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 296

Speaking before the U.S. Congress on January 8, 1918,

President Woodrow Wilson enumerated the last of his Fourteen Points, which
called for a ―general association of nations…formed under specific covenants
for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and
territorial integrity to great and small states alike.‖ Many of Wilson‘s previous
points would require regulation or enforcement. In calling for the formation of
a "general association of nations," Wilson voiced the wartime opinions of
many diplomats and intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic who believed
there was a need for a new type of standing international organization
dedicated to fostering international cooperation, providing security for its
members, and ensuring a lasting peace. With Europe‘s population exhausted
by four years of total war, and with many in the United States optimistic that a
new organization would be able to solve the international disputes that had
led to war in 1914, Wilson‘s articulation of a League of Nations was wildly
popular. However, it proved exceptionally difficult to create, and Wilson left
office never having convinced the United States to join it.

The idea of the League was grounded in the broad, international

revulsion against the unprecedented destruction of the First World War and
the contemporary understanding of its origins. This was reflected in all of
Wilson‘s Fourteen Points, which were themselves based on theories of
collective security and international organization debated amongst academics,
jurists, socialists and utopians before and during the war. After adopting many
of these ideas, Wilson took up the cause with evangelical fervor, whipping up
mass enthusiasm for the organization as he traveled to the Paris Peace
Conference in January 1919, the first President to travel abroad in an official
capacity.

Wilson used his tremendous influence to attach the Covenant of the

League, its charter, to the Treaty of Versailles. An effective League, he
believed, would mitigate any inequities in the peace terms. He and the other
members of the ―Big Three,‖ Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd
George of the United Kingdom, drafted the Covenant as Part I of the Treaty of
Versailles. The League‘s main organs were an Assembly of all members, a
Council made up of five permanent members and four rotating members, and
an International Court of Justice. Most important for Wilson, the League would
guarantee the territorial integrity and political independence of member states,
authorize the League to take ―any action…to safeguard the peace,‖ establish
procedures for arbitration, and create the mechanisms for economic and
military sanctions.

The struggle to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant in the
U.S. Congress helped define the most important political division over the role
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 297

of the United States in the world for a generation. A triumphant Wilson

returned to the United States in February 1919 to submit the Treaty and
Covenant to Congress for its consent and ratification. Unfortunately for the
President, while popular support for the League was still strong, opposition
within Congress and the press had begun building even before he had left for
Paris. Spearheading the challenge was the Senate majority leader and
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Henry Cabot Lodge.

Motivated by Republican concerns that the League would commit the

United States to an expensive organization that would reduce the United
States‘ ability to defend its own interests,
Lodge led the opposition to joining the
League. Where Wilson and the League‘s
supporters saw merit in an international
body that would work for peace and
collective security for its members, Lodge
and his supporters feared the
consequences of involvement in Europe‘s
tangled politics, now even more complex
because of the 1919 peace settlement.
They adhered to a vision of the United
States returning to its traditional aversion to commitments outside the
Western Hemisphere. Wilson and Lodge‘s personal dislike of each other
poisoned any hopes for a compromise, and in March 1920, the Treaty and
Covenant were defeated by a 49-35 Senate vote. Nine months later, Warren
Harding was elected President on a platform opposing the League.

The United States never joined the League. Most historians hold that
the League operated much less effectively without U.S. participation than it
would have otherwise. However, even while rejecting membership, the
Republican Presidents of the period, and their foreign policy architects,
agreed with many of its goals. To the extent that Congress allowed, the
Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations associated the United States
with League efforts on several issues. Constant suspicion in Congress,
however, that steady U.S. cooperation with the League would lead to de facto
membership prevented a close relationship between Washington and
Geneva. Additionally, growing disillusionment with the Treaty of Versailles
diminished support for the League in the United States and the international
community. Wilson‘s insistence that the Covenant be linked to the Treaty was
a blunder; over time, the Treaty was discredited as unenforceable, short-
sighted, or too extreme in its provisions, and the League‘s failure either to
enforce or revise it only reinforced U.S. congressional opposition to working
with the League under any circumstances. However, the coming of World War
II once again demonstrated the need for an effective international organization
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 298

to mediate disputes, and the United States public and the Roosevelt
administration supported and became founding members of the new United
Nations.

9.2. THE WORLD WAR II

9.2.1 World War II (1939-1945)

World War II, also called Second World War, conflict that involved
virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The
principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and
the Allies—France, Great Britain,
the United States, the Soviet Union,
and, to a lesser extent, China. The
war was in many respects a
continuation, after an uneasy 20-
year hiatus, of the disputes left
unsettled by World War I. The
40,000,000–50,000,000deaths
incurred in World War II make it the
bloodiest conflict, as well as the
largest war, in history.

Along with World War I,

World War II was one of the great
watersheds of 20th-century
geopolitical history. It resulted in the
extension of the Soviet Union‘s
power to nations of eastern Europe, enabled a communist movement to
eventually achieve power in China, and marked the decisive shift of power in
the world away from the states of western Europe and toward the United
States and the Soviet Union.

Axis Initiative and Allied Reaction

The Outbreak of War

By the early part of 1939 the German dictator Adolf Hitler had become
determined to invade and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees
of French and British military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler
intended to invade Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility
that the Soviet Union would resist the invasion of its western neighbor. Secret
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 299

negotiations led on August 23–24 to the signing of the German-Soviet

Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans
and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the
western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds
being taken over by the U.S.S.R.

Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which

stupefied Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler
thought that Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or British
intervention and gave orders for the invasion to start on August 26. News of
the signing, on August 25, of a formal treaty of mutual assistance between
Great Britain and Poland (to supersede a previous though temporary
agreement) caused him to postpone the start of hostilities for a few days. He
was still determined, however, to ignore the diplomatic efforts of the western
powers to restrain him. Finally, at 12:40 PM on August 31, 1939, Hitler
ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. The
invasion began as ordered. In response, Great Britain and France declared
war on Germany on September 3, at 11:00 AM and at 5:00 PM, respectively.
World War II had begun.

Outbreak of World War II

Invasion of Poland (1 September 1939)

Ghettos

Between 2.7 and 3 million Polish Jews died during the Holocaust out of
a population of 3.3 – 3.5 million. More Jews lived in Poland in 1939 than
anywhere else outside the United States (where more than 4.6 million lived);
another 3 million lived in the Soviet Union. When the
German Wehrmacht (armed forces) invaded Poland on 1 September 1939,
triggering declarations of war from the UK and France, Germany gained
control of about two million Jews in the territory it occupied. The rest of Poland
was occupied by the Soviet Union, which invaded Poland from the east on 17
September 1939.

The Wehrmacht in Poland was accompanied by

seven SS Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolitizei ("special task forces of the
Security Police") and an Einsatzkommando, numbering 3,000 men in all,
whose role was to deal with "all anti-German elements in hostile country
behind the troops in combat". German plans for Poland included expelling
non-Jewish Poles from large areas, settling Germans on the emptied
lands, sending the Polish leadership to camps, denying the lower classes an
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 300

education, and confining Jews. The Germans sent Jews from all territories
they had annexed (Austria, the Czech lands, and western Poland) to the
central section of Poland, which was termed the General Government. Jews
were eventually to be expelled to areas of Poland not annexed by Germany.
Still, in the meantime, they would be concentrated in major cities ghettos to
achieve, according to an order from Reinhard Heydrich dated 21 September
1939, "a better possibility of control and later deportation". From 1 December,
Jews were required to wear Star of David armbands.

The Germans stipulated that each ghetto be led by a Judenrat of 24

male Jews, who would be responsible for carrying out German orders. These
orders included, from 1942, facilitating deportations to extermination
camps. The Warsaw Ghetto was established in November 1940, and by early
1941 it contained 445,000 people; the second largest, the Łódź Ghetto, held
160,000 as of May 1940. The inhabitants had to pay for food and other
supplies by selling whatever goods they could produce. In the ghettos and
forced-labor camps, at least half a million died of starvation, disease, and poor
living conditions. Although the Warsaw Ghetto contained 30 percent of the
city's population, it occupied only 2.4 percent of its area, averaging over nine
people per room. Over 43,000 residents died there in 1941.

Pogroms in Occupied Eastern Poland

Peter Hayes writes that the Germans created a "Hobbesian world" in

Poland in which different parts of the population were pitted against each
other. A perception among ethnic
Poles that the Jews had
supported the Soviet
invasion contributed to existing
tensions, which Germany
exploited, redistributing Jewish
homes and goods, and
converting synagogues, schools
and hospitals in Jewish areas
into facilities for non-Jews. The Germans ordered the death penalty for
anyone helping Jews. Informants pointed out who was Jewish and the Poles
who were helping to hide them during the Judenjagd (hunt for the Jews).
Despite the dangers, thousands of Poles helped Jews. Nearly 1,000 were
executed for having done so, and Yad Vashem has named over 7,000 Poles
as Righteous Among the Nations.

Pogroms occurred throughout the occupation. During the Lviv

pogroms in Lwów, occupied eastern Poland (later Lviv, Ukraine) in June and
July 1941—the population was 157,490 Polish; 99,595 Jewish; and 49,747
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 301

Ukrainian—some 6,000 Jews were murdered in the streets by the Ukrainian

nationalists (specifically, the OUN) and Ukrainian People's Militia, aided by
local people. Jewish women were stripped, beaten, and raped. Also, after the
arrival of Einsatzgruppe C units on 2 July, another 3,000 Jews were killed in
mass shootings carried out by the German SS. During the Jedwabne pogrom,
on 10 July 1941, a group of 40 Polish men, spurred on by
German Gestapo agents who arrived in the town a day earlier, killed several
hundred Jews; around 300 were burned alive in a barn. According to Hayes,
this was "one of sixty-six nearly simultaneous such attacks in the province of
Suwałki alone and some two hundred similar incidents in the Soviet-annexed
eastern provinces".

German Nazi Extermination Camps in Poland

At the end of 1941, the Germans began building extermination

camps in Poland: Auschwitz II, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek,
Sobibór, and Treblinka. Gas chambers had been installed by the spring or
summer of 1942. The SS liquidated most of the ghettos of the General
Government area in 1942–1943 (the Łódź Ghetto was liquidated in mid-
1944), and shipped their populations to these camps, along with Jews from all
over Europe. The camps provided locals with employment and with black-
market goods confiscated from Jewish families who, thinking they were being
resettled, arrived with their belongings. According to Hayes, dealers in
currency and jewellery set up shop outside the Treblinka extermination camp
(near Warsaw) in 1942–1943, as did prostitutes. By the end of 1942, most of
the Jews in the General Government area were dead. The Jewish death toll in
the extermination camps was over three million overall; most Jews were
gassed on arrival.

Invasion of Norway and Denmark

Germany invaded Norway and Denmark on 9 April 1940,

during Operation Weserübung. Denmark was overrun so quickly that there
was no time for a resistance to form. Consequently, the Danish government
stayed in power and the Germans found it easier to work through it. Because
of this, few measures were taken against the Danish Jews before 1942. By
June 1940 Norway was completely occupied. In late 1940, the country's 1,800
Jews were banned from certain occupations, and in 1941 all Jews had to
register their property with the government. On 26 November 1942, 532 Jews
were taken by police officers, at four o'clock in the morning, to Oslo harbor,
where they boarded a German ship. From Germany they were sent by freight
train to Auschwitz. According to Dan Stone, only nine survived the war.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 302

Invasion of France and the Low Countries

In May 1940, Germany invaded the

Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France. After Belgium's surrender,
the country was ruled by a German military governor, Alexander von
Falkenhausen, who enacted anti-Jewish measures against its 90,000 Jews,
many of them refugees from Germany or Eastern Europe. In the Netherlands,
the Germans installed Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Reichskommissar, who began
to persecute the country's 140,000 Jews. Jews were forced out of their jobs
and had to register with the government. In February 1941, non-Jewish Dutch
citizens staged a strike in protest that was quickly crushed. From July 1942,
over 107,000 Dutch Jews were deported; only 5,000 survived the war. Most
were sent to Auschwitz; the first transport of 1,135 Jews left Holland for
Auschwitz on 15 July 1942. Between 2 March and 20 July 1943, 34,313 Jews
were sent in 19 transports to the Sobibór extermination camp, where all but
18 are thought to have been gassed on arrival.

France had approximately 330,000 Jews, divided between the

German-occupied north and the unoccupied collaborationist southern areas
in Vichy France (named after the town Vichy), more than half this Jewish
population were not French citizens, but refugees who had fled Nazi
persecution in other countries. The occupied regions were under the control of
a military governor, and there, anti-Jewish measures were not enacted as
quickly as they were in the Vichy-controlled areas. In July 1940, the Jews in
the parts of Alsace-Lorraine that had been annexed to Germany were
expelled into Vichy France. Vichy France's government implemented anti-
Jewish measures in Metropolitan France, in French Algeria and in the two
French Protectorates of Tunisia and Morocco. Tunisia had 85,000 Jews when
the Germans and Italians arrived in November 1942; an estimated 5,000 Jews
were subjected to forced labor. The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum estimates that between 72,900 and 74,000 Jews perished during the
Holocaust in France.

Madagascar Plan

The fall of France gave rise to the Madagascar Plan in the summer of
1940, when French Madagascar in Southeast Africa became the focus of
discussions about deporting all European Jews there; it was thought that the
area's harsh living conditions would hasten deaths. Several Polish, French
and British leaders had discussed the idea in the 1930s, as did German
leaders from 1938. Adolf Eichmann's office was ordered to investigate the
option, but no evidence of planning exists until after the defeat of France in
June 1940. Germany's inability to defeat Britain, something that was obvious
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 303

to the Germans by September 1940, prevented the movement of Jews across

the seas, and the Foreign Ministry abandoned the plan in February 1942.

Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece

Yugoslavia and Greece were invaded in April 1941 and surrendered

before the end of the month. Germany, Italy and Bulgaria divided Greece into
occupation zones but did not eliminate it as a country. The pre-war Greek
Jewish population had been between 72,000 and 77,000. By the end of the
war, some 10,000 remained, representing the lowest survival rate in the
Balkans and among the lowest in Europe.

Yugoslavia, home to 80,000 Jews, was dismembered; regions in the

north were annexed by Germany and Hungary, regions along the coast were
made part of Italy, Kosovo and western
Macedonia were given to Albania, while
Bulgaria received eastern Macedonia. The
rest of the country was divided into
the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an
Italian-German puppet state whose territory
comprised Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,
with the Croatian fascist Ustaše party placed
in power; and German occupied Serbia,
governed by German military and police
administrators who appointed the
Serbian collaborationist puppet
government, Government of National Salvation, headed by Milan Nedić. In
August 1942 Serbia was declared free of Jews,[194] after the Wehrmacht and
German police, assisted by collaborators of the Nedić government and others
such as Zbor, a pro-Nazi and pan-Serbian fascist party, had murdered nearly
the entire population of 17,000 Jews.

In the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), the Nazi regime demanded

that its rulers, the Ustaše, adopt antisemitic racial policies,
persecute Jews and set up several concentration camps. NDH leader Ante
Pavelić and the Ustaše accepted Nazi demands. By the end of April 1941 the
Ustaše required all Jews to wear insignia, typically a yellow Star of David and
started confiscating Jewish property in October 1941. During the same time
as their persecution of Serbs and Roma, the Ustaše took part in the
Holocaust, and killed the majority of the country's Jews; ] the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 30,148 Jews were
murdered. According to Jozo Tomasevich, the Jewish community
in Zagreb was the only one to survive out of 115 Jewish religious communities
in Yugoslavia in 1939–1940.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 304

The state broke away from Nazi antisemitic policy by

promising honorary Aryan citizenship, and thus freedom from persecution, to
Jews who were willing to contribute to the "Croat cause". Marcus Tanner
states that the "SS complained that at least 5,000 Jews were still alive in the
NDH and that thousands of others had emigrated, by buying ‗honorary Aryan‘
status". Nevenko Bartulin, however posits that of the total Jewish population
of the NDH, only 100 Jews attained the legal status of Aryan citizens, 500
including their families. In both cases a relatively small portion out of a Jewish
population of 37,000.

In the Bulgarian annexed zones of Macedonia and Thrace, upon

demand of the German authorities, the Bulgarians handed over the entire
Jewish population, about 12,000 Jews to the military authorities, all were
deported.

Invasion of the Soviet Union (22 June 1941)

Reasons

Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, a day Timothy

Snyder called "one of the most significant days in the history of Europe ... the
beginning of a calamity that defies description". German propaganda
portrayed the conflict as an ideological war between German National
Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism, and as a racial war between the Germans
and the Jewish, Romani, and Slavic Untermenschen ("sub-humans"). The war
was driven by the need for resources, including, according to David Cesarani,
agricultural land to feed Germany, natural resources for German industry, and
control over Europe's largest oil fields.

Between early fall 1941 and late spring 1942, Jürgen Matthäus writes,
2 million of the 3.5 million Soviet POWs captured by the Wehrmacht had been
executed or had died of neglect and abuse. By 1944 the Soviet death toll was
at least 20 million.

Mass Shootings

As German troops advanced, the mass shooting of "anti-German

elements" was assigned, as in Poland, to the Einsatzgruppen, this time under
the command of Reinhard Heydrich. The point of the attacks was to destroy
the local Communist Party leadership and therefore the state, including "Jews
in the Party and State employment", and any "radical elements". Cesarani
writes that the killing of Jews was at this point a "subset" of these activities.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 305

Typically, victims would undress and give up their valuables before

lining up beside a ditch to be shot, or they would be forced to climb into the
ditch, lie on a lower layer of corpses, and wait to be killed. The latter was
known as Sardinenpackung ("packing sardines"), a method reportedly started
by SS officer Friedrich Jeckeln.

According to Wolfram Wette, the German army took part in these

shootings as bystanders, photographers, and active shooters.[ In Lithuania,
Latvia and western Ukraine, locals were deeply involved; Latvian and
Lithuanian units participated in the murder
of Jews in Belarus, and in the south,
Ukrainians killed about 24,000 Jews.
Some Ukrainians went to Poland to serve
as guards in the camps.

Einsatzgruppe A arrived in the Baltic

states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania)
with Army Group
North; Einsatzgruppe B in Belarus with Ar
my Group Center; Einsatzgruppe C in
the Ukraine with Army Group South;
and Einsatzgruppe D went further south into Ukraine with the 11th
Army. Each Einsatzgruppe numbered around 600–1,000 men, with a few
women in administrative roles. Traveling with nine German Order Police
battalions and three units of the Waffen-SS, the Einsatzgruppen and their
local collaborators had murdered almost 500,000 people by the winter of
1941–1942. By the end of the war, they had killed around two million,
including about 1.3 million Jews and up to a quarter of a million Roma.

Notable massacres include the July 1941 Ponary

massacre near Vilnius (Soviet Lithuania), in which Einsatgruppe B and
Lithuanian collaborators shot 72,000 Jews and 8,000 non-Jewish Lithuanians
and Poles. In the Kamianets-Podilskyi massacre (Soviet Ukraine), nearly
24,000 Jews were killed between 27 and 30 August 1941. The largest
massacre was at a ravine called Babi Yar outside Kiev (also Soviet Ukraine),
where 33,771 Jews were killed on 29–30 September 1941. The Germans
used the ravine for mass killings throughout the war; up to 100,000 may have
been killed there.

Toward the Holocaust

At first the Einsatzgruppen targeted the male Jewish intelligentsia,

defined as male Jews aged 15–60 who had worked for the state and in certain
professions. The commandos described them as "Bolshevist functionaries"
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 306

and similar. From August 1941 they began to murder women and children
too. Christopher Browning reports that on 1 August 1941, the SS Cavalry
Brigade passed an order to its units: "Explicit order by RF-SS [Heinrich
Himmler, Reichsführer-SS]. All Jews must be shot. Drive the female Jews into
the swamps."

Two (2) years later, in a speech on 6 October 1943 to party

leaders, Heinrich Himmler said he had ordered that women and children be
shot, but according to Peter Longerich and Christian Gerlach, the murder of
women and children began at different times in different areas, suggesting
local influence.

Historians agree that there was a "gradual radicalization" between the

spring and autumn of 1941 of what Longerich calls Germany's Judenpolitik,
but they disagree about whether a decision—Führerentscheidung (Führer's
decision)—to murder the European Jews had been made at this
point. According to Browning, writing in 2004, most historians say there was
no order, before the invasion of the Soviet Union, to kill all the Soviet
Jews. Longerich wrote in 2010 that the gradual increase in brutality and
numbers killed between July and September 1941 suggests there was "no
particular order". Instead, it was a question of "a process of increasingly
radical interpretations of orders".

Concentration and Labor Camps

Germany first used concentration camps as places of terror and

unlawful incarceration of political opponents. Large numbers of Jews were not
sent there until after Kristallnacht in November 1938. After war broke out in
1939, new camps were established, many outside Germany in occupied
Europe. Most wartime prisoners of the camps were not Germans but
belonged to countries under German occupation.

After 1942, the economic function of the camps, previously secondary

to their penal and terror functions, came to the fore. Forced labor of camp
prisoners became commonplace. The guards became much more brutal, and
the death rate increased as the guards not only beat and starved prisoners
but killed them more frequently. Vernichtung durch Arbeit ("extermination
through labor") was a policy; camp inmates would literally be worked to death,
or to physical exhaustion, at which point they would be gassed or shot. The
Germans estimated the average prisoner's lifespan in a concentration camp at
three months, as a result of lack of food and clothing, constant epidemics, and
frequent punishments for the most minor transgressions. The shifts were long
and often involved exposure to dangerous materials.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 307

Transportation to and between camps was often carried out in closed

freight cars with little air or water, long delays and prisoners packed tightly. In
mid-1942 work camps began requiring newly arrived prisoners to be placed in
quarantine for four weeks. Prisoners wore colored triangles on their uniforms,
the color denoting the reason for their incarceration. Red signified a political
prisoner, Jehovah's Witnesses had purple triangles, "asocials" and criminals
wore black and green, and gay men wore pink. Jews wore two yellow
triangles, one over another to form a six-pointed star. Prisoners in Auschwitz
were tattooed on arrival with an identification number.

Germany's Allies

 Romania

According to Dan Stone, the murder of Jews in Romania was

"essentially an independent undertaking". Romania implemented anti-Jewish
measures in May and June 1940 as part of its efforts towards an alliance with
Germany. By March 1941 all Jews had lost their jobs and had their property
confiscated. In June 1941 Romania joined Germany in its invasion of the
Soviet Union.

Thousands of Jews were killed in January and June 1941 in

the Bucharest pogrom and Iași
pogrom. According to a 2004 report by Tuvia
Friling and others, up to 14,850 Jews died
during the Iași pogrom. The Romanian military
killed up to 25,000 Jews during the Odessa
massacre between 18 October 1941 and
March 1942, assisted by gendarmes and the
police. In July 1941, Mihai Antonescu,
Romania's deputy prime minister, said it was
time for "total ethnic purification, for a revision
of national life, and for purging our race of all those elements which are
foreign to its soul, which have grown like mistletoes and darken our
future." Romania set up concentration camps in Transnistria, reportedly
extremely brutal, where 154,000–170,000 Jews were deported from 1941 to
1943.

 Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Hungary

Bulgaria introduced anti-Jewish measures between 1940 and 1943
(requirement to wear a yellow star, restrictions on owning telephones or
radios, and so on). It annexed Thrace and Macedonia, and in February 1943
agreed to a demand from Germany that it deport 20,000 Jews to the Treblinka
extermination camp. All 11,000 Jews from the annexed territories were sent to
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 308

their deaths, and plans were made to deport 6,000–8,000 Bulgarian Jews
from Sofia to meet the quota. When this became public, the Orthodox
Church and many Bulgarians protested, and King Boris III canceled the
plans. Instead, Jews native to Bulgaria were sent to the provinces.

Stone writes that Slovakia, led by Roman Catholic priest Jozef

Tiso (president of the Slovak State, 1939–1945), was "one of the most loyal of
the collaborationist regimes". It deported 7,500 Jews in 1938 on its own
initiative; introduced anti-Jewish measures in 1940; and by the autumn of
1942 had deported around 60,000 Jews to Poland. Another 2,396 were
deported and 2,257 killed that autumn during an uprising, and 13,500 were
deported between October 1944 and March 1945. According to Stone, "the
Holocaust in Slovakia was far more than a German project, even if it was
carried out in the context of a 'puppet' state."

Although Hungary expelled Jews who were not citizens from its newly
annexed lands in 1941, it did not deport most of its Jewsuntil the German
invasion of Hungary in March 1944. Between 15 May and early July 1944,
437,000 Jews were deported, mostly to Auschwitz, where most of them were
gassed; there were four transports a day, each carrying 3,000 people. In
Budapest in October and November 1944, the Hungarian Arrow Cross forced
50,000 Jews to march to the Austrian border as part of a deal with Germany
to supply forced labor. So many died that the marches were stopped.

 Italy, Finland, and Japan

Italy introduced antisemitic measures, but there was less antisemitism

there than in Germany, and Italian-occupied countries were generally safer for
Jews than those occupied by Germany. Most Italian Jews, over 40,000,
survived the Holocaust. In September 1943, Germany occupied the northern
and central areas of Italy and established a fascist puppet state,
the Republica Sociale Italiana or Salò Republic. Officers from RSHA IV B4,
a Gestapo unit, began deporting Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first group
of 1,034 Jews arrived from Rome on 23 October 1943; 839 were gassed.
Around 8,500 Jews were deported in all. Several forced labor camps for Jews
were established in Italian-controlled Libya; almost 2,600 Libyan Jews were
sent to camps, where 562 died.

In Finland, the government was pressured in 1942 to hand over its

150–200 non-Finnish Jews to Germany. After opposition from both the
government and public, eight non-Finnish Jews were deported in late 1942;
only one survived the war. Japan had little antisemitism in its society and did
not persecute Jews in most of the territories it controlled. Jews
in Shanghai were confined, but despite German pressure they were not killed.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 309

9.2.2 Final Solution

Pearl Harbor, Germany Declares War on the United States

On 7 December 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, an

American naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii, killing 2,403 Americans. The
following day, the United States declared war on Japan, and on 11
December, Germany declared war on the United States. According
to Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Hitler had trusted American Jews,
whom he assumed were all powerful, to keep the United States out of the war
in the interests of German Jews. When America declared war, he blamed the
Jews.

Nearly three (3) years earlier, on 30 January 1939, Hitler had

told the Reichstag: "if the international Jewish financiers in and outside
Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war,
then the result will be not the Bolshevising of the earth, and thus a victory of
Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!" In the view
of Christian Gerlach, Hitler "announced his decision in principle" to annihilate
the Jews on or around 12 December 1941, one day after his declaration of
war. On that day, Hitler gave a speech in his apartment at the Reich
Chancellery to senior Nazi Party leaders: the Reichsleiter and
the Gauleiter. The following day, Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of
Propaganda, noted in his diary:

Regarding the Jewish question, the Führer is determined to clear the table.
He warned the Jews that if they were to cause another world war, it would
lead to their destruction. Those were not empty words. Now the world war has
come. The destruction of the Jews must be its necessary consequence. We
cannot be sentimental about it.

Christopher Browning argues that Hitler gave no order during the Reich
Chancellery meeting but made clear that he had intended his 1939 warning to
the Jews to be taken literally, and he signaled to party leaders that they could
give appropriate orders to others. According to Gerlach, an unidentified
former German Sicherheitsdienst officer wrote in a report in 1944, after
defecting to Switzerland: "After America entered the war, the annihilation
(Ausrottung) of all European Jews was initiated on the Führer's order.‖

Four (4) days after Hitler's meeting with party leaders, Hans Frank,
Governor-General of the General Government area of occupied Poland, who
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 310

was at the meeting, spoke to district governors: "We must put an end to the
Jews ... I will in principle proceed only on the assumption that they will
disappear. They must go." On 18 December 1941, Hitler and Himmler held a
meeting to which Himmler referred in his appointment book as "Juden frage |
als Partisanen auszurotten" ("Jewish question / to be exterminated as
partisans"). Browning interprets this as a meeting to discuss how to justify and
speak about the killing.

Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942)

SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security

Head Office (RSHA), convened what became known as the Wannsee
Conference on 20 January 1942 at Am Großen Wannsee 56–58, a villa in
Berlin's Wannsee suburb. The meeting had been scheduled for 9 December
1941, and invitations had been sent between 29 November and 1
December, but on 8 December it had been postponed indefinitely, probably
because of Pearl Harbor. On 8 January, Heydrich sent out notes again, this
time suggesting 20 January.

The 15 men present at Wannsee included Heydrich, SS Lieutenant

Colonel Adolf Eichmann, head of Reich Security Head Office Referat IV
B4 ("Jewish affairs"); SS Major General Heinrich Müller, head of RSHA
Department IV (the Gestapo); and other SS and party leaders. According to
Browning, eight of the 15 had doctorates: "Thus it was not a dimwitted crowd
unable to grasp what was going to be said to them." Thirty copies of the
minutes, the Wannsee Protocol, were made. Copy no. 16 was found by
American prosecutors in March 1947 in a German Foreign Office
folder. Written by Eichmann and stamped "Top Secret", the minutes were
written in "euphemistic language" on Heydrich's instructions, according to
Eichmann's later testimony.

Discussing plans for a "final solution to the Jewish question"

("Endlösung der Judenfrage"), and a "final solution to the Jewish question in
Europe" ("Endlösung der europäischen Judenfrage"), the conference was
held to coordinate efforts and policies ("Parallelisierung der Linienführung"),
and to ensure that authority rested with Heydrich. There was discussion about
whether to include the German Mischlinge (half-Jews). Heydrich told the
meeting: "Another possible solution of the problem has now taken the place of
emigration, i.e. the evacuation of the Jews to the East, provided that the
Fuehrer gives the appropriate approval in advance." He continued:

Under proper guidance, in the course of the Final Solution, the Jews
are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews,
separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 311

areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large
portion will be eliminated by natural causes.

The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the
most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly because it is the
product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new
Jewish revival.

In the course of the practical execution of the Final Solution, Europe

will be combed through from west to
east. Germany proper, including
the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia, will have to be handled first
due to the housing problem and
additional social and political
necessities.
The evacuated Jews will first be sent,
group by group, to so-called transit
ghettos, from which they will be
transported to the East.

The evacuations were regarded as provisional

("Ausweichmöglichkeiten"). The final solution would encompass the 11 million
Jews living in territories controlled by Germany and elsewhere in Europe,
including Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, Turkey, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, and
Hungary, "dependent on military developments". According to Longerich, "the
Jews were to be annihilated by a combination of forced labour and mass
murder."

Extermination Camps

At the end of 1941 in occupied Poland, the Germans began building

additional camps or expanding existing ones. Auschwitz, for example, was
expanded in October 1941 by building Auschwitz II-Birkenau a few kilometers
away. By the spring or summer of 1942, gas chambers had been installed in
these new facilities, except for Chełmno, which used gas vans.

9.2.3 Hitler’s Lightning War

9.2.3.1 Germany Sparks a New War in Europe

At this point, as you recall from Chapter 15, Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin signed a ten-year nonaggression pact with Hitler. After being excluded
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 312

from the Munich Conference, Stalin was not eager to join with the West. Also,
Hitler had promised him territory. In a secret part of the pact, Germany and
the Soviet Union agreed to divide Poland between them. They also agreed
that the USSR could take over Finland and the Baltic countries of Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia.

Germany’s Lightning

Attack After signing this nonaggression pact, Hitler quickly moved

ahead with plans to conquer Poland. His surprise attack took place at dawn
on September 1, 1939. German tanks and troop trucks rumbled across the
Polish border. At the same time, German aircraft and artillery began a
merciless bombing of Poland‘s capital, Warsaw.

France and Great Britain declared war on Germany on September 3.

But Poland fell some time before those nations could make any military
response. After his victory, Hitler annexed the western half of Poland. That
region had a large German population.

The German invasion of Poland was the first test of Germany‘s newest
military strategy—the blitzkrieg, or ―lightning war.‖ It involved using fast-
moving airplanes and tanks, followed by massive infantry forces, to take
enemy defenders by surprise and quickly overwhelm them. In the case of
Poland, the strategy worked.

The Soviets Make Their Move

On September 17, Stalin sent Soviet troops to occupy the eastern half
of Poland. Stalin then moved to annex countries to the north of Poland.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia fell without a struggle, but Finland resisted. In
November, Stalin sent nearly one million Soviet troops into Finland. The
Soviets expected to win a quick victory, so they were not prepared for winter
fighting. This was a crucial mistake.

The Finns were outnumbered and outgunned, but they fiercely

defended their
country. In the freezing winter weather, soldiers on skis swiftly attacked Soviet
positions. In contrast, the Soviets struggled to make progress through the
deep snow. The Soviets suffered heavy losses, but they finally won through
sheer force of numbers. By March 1940, Stalin had forced the Finns to accept
his surrender terms.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 313

The Phony War

After they declared war on Germany, the French and British had
mobilized their
armies. They
stationed their troops
along the Maginot
Line, a system of
fortifications along
France‘s border with
Germany. There they
waited for the
Germans to attack—
but nothing
happened. With little
to do, the bored
Allied soldiers stared
eastward toward the
enemy. Equally
bored, German Figure 9.2.3.2 World War II: German Advances,
soldiers stared back 1939-1941
from their Siegfried
Line a few miles away. Germans jokingly called it the sitzkrieg, or ―sitting war.‖
Some newspapers referred to it simply as ―the phony war.‖

Suddenly, on April 9, 1940, the calm ended. Hitler launched a surprise

invasion of Denmark and Norway. In just four hours after the attack, Denmark
fell. Two months later, Norway surrendered as well. The Germans then began
to build bases along the Norwegian and Danish coasts from which they could
launch strikes on Great Britain.

The Fall of France

In May of 1940, Hitler began a dramatic sweep through the

Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. This was part of a strategy to strike
at France. Keeping the Allies‘ attention on those countries, Hitler then sent an
even larger force of tanks and troops to slice through the Ardennes. This was
a heavily wooded area in northern France, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Moving
through the forest, the Germans ―squeezed between‖ the Maginot Line. From
there, they moved across France and reached the country‘s northern coast in
10 days.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 314

Rescue at Dunkirk

After reaching the French coast, the German forces swung north again
and joined with German troops in Belgium. By the end of May 1940, the
Germans had trapped the Allied forces around the northern French city of Lille
(leel). Outnumbered, outgunned, and pounded from the air, the Allies
retreated to the beaches of Dunkirk, a French port city near the Belgian
border. They were trapped with their backs to the sea.

In one of the most heroic acts of the war, Great Britain set out to
rescue the army. It sent a fleet of about 850 ships across the English Channel
to Dunkirk. Along with Royal Navy ships, civilian craft—yachts, lifeboats,
motorboats, paddle steamers, and fishing boats—joined the rescue effort.
From May 26 to June 4, this amateur armada, under heavy fire from German
bombers, sailed back and forth from Britain to Dunkirk. The boats carried
some 338,000 battle-weary soldiers to safety.

France Falls

Following Dunkirk, resistance in France began to crumble. By June 14,

the Germans had taken Paris. Accepting the inevitable, French leaders
surrendered on June 22, 1940. The Germans took control of the northern part
of the country. They left the southern part to a puppet government headed by
Marshal Philippe Pétain, a French hero from World War I. The headquarters
of this government was in the city of Vichy.

After France fell, Charles de Gaulle, a French general, set up a

government-in-exile in London. He committed all his energy to reconquering
France. In a radio broadcast from England, de Gaulle called on the people of
France to join him in resisting the Germans:

Primary Source
It is the bounden [obligatory] duty of all Frenchmen who still bear arms to
continue the struggle. For them to lay down their arms, to evacuate any
position of military importance, or agree to hand over any part of French
territory, however small, to enemy control would be a crime against our
country.
GENERAL CHARLES DE GAULLE, quoted in
Charles de Gaulle: A Biography

De Gaulle went on to organize the Free French military forces that battled the
Nazis until France was liberated in 1944.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 315

9.2.3.3 The Battle of Britain

With the fall of France, Great Britain stood alone against the Nazis.
Winston Churchill, the new British prime
minister, had already declared that his nation HISTORY MAKER
would never give in. In a rousing speech, he
proclaimed, ―We shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets . . .
we shall never surrender.‖ Hitler now turned
his mind to an invasion of Great Britain. His
plan was first to knock out the Royal Air
Force (RAF) and then to land more than Winston Churchill
250,000 soldiers on England‘s shores. 1874–1965

In the summer of 1940, the Luftwaffe, Possibly the most powerful

Germany‘s air force, began bombing Great weapon the British had as they
Britain. At first, the Germans targeted British stood alone against Hitler’s
airfields and aircraft factories. Then, on Germany was the nation’s prime
September 7, 1940, they began focusing on minister—Winston Churchill. “Big
the cities, especially London, to break British Winnie,” Londoners boasted,
morale. Despite the destruction and loss of “was the lad for us.”
life, the British did not waver.
Although Churchill had a speech
The RAF, although badly defect as a youngster, he grew to
outnumbered, began to hit back hard. Two become one of the greatest
technological devices helped turn the tide in orators of all time. He used all his
the RAF‘s favor. One was an electronic gifts as a speaker to rally the
tracking system known as radar. Developed people behind the effort to crush
in the late 1930s, radar could tell the number, Germany. In one famous speech
speed, and direction of incoming warplanes. he promised that Britain would
The other device was a German code-making . . . wage war, by sea, land and
machine named Enigma. A complete Enigma air, with all our might and with all
machine had been smuggled into Great the strength that God can give us
Britain in the late 1930s. Enigma enabled the . . . against a monstrous tyranny.
British to decode German secret messages.
With information gathered by these devices, RAF fliers could quickly launch
attacks on the enemy.

To avoid the RAF‘s attacks, the Germans gave up daylight raids in

October 1940 in favor of night bombing. At sunset, the wail of sirens filled the
air as Londoners flocked to the subways, which served as air-raid shelters.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 316

Some rode out the bombing raids at home in smaller air-raid shelters or
basements. This Battle of Britain continued until May 10, 1941. Stunned by
British resistance, Hitler decided to call off his attacks. Instead, he focused on
the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. The Battle of Britain taught the Allies
a crucial lesson. Hitler‘s attacks could be blocked.

9.2.3.4 The Mediterranean and the Eastern Front

The stubborn resistance of the British in the Battle of Britain caused a

shift in Hitler‘s strategy in Europe. He decided to deal with Great Britain later.
He then turned his attention east to the Mediterranean area and the
Balkans—and to the ultimate prize, the Soviet Union.

Axis Forces Attack North Africa

Germany‘s first objective in the Mediterranean region was North Africa,

mainly because of Hitler‘s partner, Mussolini. Despite its alliance with
Germany, Italy had remained neutral at the beginning of the war. With Hitler‘s
conquest of France, however, Mussolini knew he had to take action. After
declaring war on France and Great Britain, Mussolini moved into France.

Mussolini took his next step in North Africa in September 1940. While
the Battle of Britain was raging, he ordered his army to attack British-
controlled Egypt. Egypt‘s Suez Canal was key to reaching the oil fields of the
Middle East. Within a week, Italian troops had pushed 60 miles inside Egypt,
forcing British units back. Then both sides dug in and waited.

Britain Strikes Back

Finally, in December, the British struck back. The result was a disaster
for the Italians. By February 1941, the British had swept 500 miles across
North Africa and had taken 130,000 Italian prisoners. Hitler had to step in to
save his Axis partner. To reinforce the Italians, Hitler sent a crack German
tank force, the Afrika Korps, under the command of General Erwin Rommel.
In late March 1941, Rommel‘s Afrika Korps attacked. Caught by surprise,
British forces retreated east to Tobruk, Libya.

After fierce fighting for Tobruk, the British began to drive Rommel back.
By mid-January 1942, Rommel had retreated to where he had started. By
June 1942, the tide of battle turned again. Rommel regrouped, pushed the
British back across the desert, and seized Tobruk—a shattering loss for the
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 317

Allies. Rommel‘s successes in North Africa earned him the nickname ―Desert
Fox.‖

The War in the Balkans

While Rommel campaigned in North Africa, other German generals

were active in the Balkans. Hitler had begun planning to attack his ally, the
USSR, as early as the summer of 1940. The Balkan countries of southeastern
Europe were key to
Hitler‘s invasion plan.
Hitler wanted to build
bases in
southeastern Europe
for the attack on the
Soviet Union. He
also wanted to make
sure that the British
did not interfere.

To prepare for his invasion, Hitler moved to expand his influence in the
Balkans. By early 1941, through the threat of force, he had persuaded
Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to join the Axis powers. Yugoslavia and
Greece, which had pro-British governments, resisted. In early April 1941,
Hitler invaded both countries. Yugoslavia fell in 11 days. Greece surrendered
in 17. In Athens, the Nazis celebrated their victory by raising swastikas on the
Acropolis.

Hitler Invades the Soviet Union

With the Balkans firmly in control, Hitler could move ahead with
Operation Barbarossa, his plan to invade the Soviet Union. Early in the
morning of June 22, 1941, the roar of German tanks and aircraft announced
the beginning of the invasion. The Soviet Union was not prepared for this
attack. Although it had the largest army in the world, its troops were neither
well equipped nor well trained.

The invasion rolled on week after week until the Germans had pushed
500 miles inside the Soviet Union. As the Soviet troops retreated, they burned
and destroyed everything in the enemy‘s path. The Russians had used this
scorched-earth strategy against Napoleon.

On September 8, German forces put Leningrad under siege. By early

November, the city was completely cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union.
To force a surrender, Hitler was ready to starve the city‘s more than 2.5
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 318

million inhabitants. German bombs destroyed warehouses where food was

stored. Desperately hungry, people began eating cattle and horse feed, as
well as cats and dogs and, finally, crows and rats. Nearly one million people
died in Leningrad during the winter of 1941–1942. Yet the city refused to fall.
Impatient with the progress in Leningrad, Hitler looked to Moscow, the capital
and heart of the Soviet Union. A Nazi drive on the capital began on October 2,
1941. By December, the Germans had advanced to the outskirts of Moscow.
Soviet General Georgi Zhukov counterattacked. As temperatures fell, the
Germans, in summer uniforms, retreated. Ignoring Napoleon‘s winter defeat
130 years before, Hitler sent his generals a stunning order: ―No retreat!‖
German troops dug in about 125 miles west of Moscow. They held the line
against the Soviets until March 1943. Hitler‘s advance on the Soviet Union
gained nothing but cost the Germans 500,000 lives.

9.2.3.5 The United States Aids Its Allies

Most Americans felt that the United States should not get involved in
the war. Between 1935 and 1937, Congress passed a series of Neutrality
Acts. The laws made it illegal to sell arms or lend money to nations at war. But
President Roosevelt knew that if the Allies fell, the United States would be
drawn into the war. In September 1939, he asked Congress to allow the Allies
to buy American arms. The Allies would pay cash and then carry the goods on
their own ships.

Under the Lend-Lease Act, passed in March 1941, the president could
lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country vital to the United
States. By the summer of 1941, the U.S. Navy was escorting British ships
carrying U.S. arms. In response, Hitler ordered his submarines to sink any
cargo ships they met.

Although the United States had not yet entered the war, Roosevelt and
Churchill met secretly and issued a joint declaration called the Atlantic
Charter. It upheld free trade among nations and the right of people to choose
their own government. The charter later served as the Allies‘ peace plan at
the end of World War II.

On September 4, a German U-boat fired on a U.S. destroyer in the

Atlantic. In response, Roosevelt ordered navy commanders to shoot German
submarines on sight. The United States was now involved in an undeclared
naval war with Hitler. To almost everyone‘s surprise, however, the attack that
actually drew the United States into the war did not come from Germany. It
came from Japan.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 319

9.2.4 The Holocaust

The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was

the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and
1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six
million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's
Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass
shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps;
and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps,
chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór,
and Treblinka in occupied Poland.

Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf

Hitler's appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a
network of concentration camps
in Germany for political
opponents and those deemed
"undesirable", starting
with Dachau on 22 March
1933. After the passing of
the Enabling Act on 24 March,
which gave Hitler plenary powers,
the government began isolating
Jews from civil society; this
included boycotting Jewish
businesses in April 1933 and enacting the Nuremberg Laws in September
1935. On 9–10 November 1938, eight months after Germany annexed
Austria, Jewish businesses and other buildings were ransacked or set on fire
throughout Germany and Austria on what became known as Kristallnacht (the
"Night of Broken Glass"). After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939,
triggering World War II, the regime set up ghettos to segregate Jews.
Eventually, thousands of camps and other detention sites were established
across German-occupied Europe.

The segregation of Jews in ghettos culminated in the policy of

extermination the Nazis called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question,
discussed by senior government officials at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin
in January 1942. As German forces captured territories in the East, all anti-
Jewish measures were radicalized. Under the coordination of the SS, with
directions from the highest leadership of the Nazi Party, killings were
committed within Germany itself, throughout occupied Europe, and within
territories controlled by Germany's allies. Paramilitary death
squads called Einsatzgruppen, in cooperation with the German Army and
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 320

local collaborators, murdered around 1.3 million Jews in mass shootings and
pogroms from the summer of 1941. By mid-1942, victims were being deported
from ghettos across Europe in sealed freight trains to extermination camps
where, if they survived the journey, they were gassed, worked or beaten to
death, or killed by disease, medical experiments, or during death marches.
The killing continued until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945.

The European Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger

event during the Holocaust era (1933–1945), in which Germany and its
collaborators persecuted and murdered millions of others, including ethnic
Poles, Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, the Roma, the disabled, political
and religious dissidents, and gay men.

Terminology

The first recorded use of the term holocaust in its modern sense was in
1895 by The New York Times to describe the massacre of Armenian
Christians by Ottoman Muslims. The term comes from
the Greek: ὁλόκαυστος, romanized: holókaustos; ὅλος hólos, "whole"
+ καυστός kaustós, "burnt offering". The biblical term shoah , meaning
"destruction", became the standard Hebrew term for the murder of the
European Jews. According to Haaretz, the writer Yehuda Erez may have
been the first to describe events in Germany as the shoah. Davar and
later Haaretz both used the term in September 1939. Yom
HaShoah became Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day in 1951.

On 3 October 1941 the American Hebrew used the phrase "before the
Holocaust", apparently to refer to the situation in France, and in May 1943
the New York Times, discussing the Bermuda Conference, referred to the
"hundreds of thousands of European Jews still surviving the Nazi
Holocaust". In 1968 the Library of Congress created a new category,
"Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)". The term was popularised in the United
States by the NBC mini-series Holocaust (1978) about a fictional family
of German Jews, and in November that year the President's Commission on
the Holocaust was established. As non-Jewish groups began to include
themselves as Holocaust victims, many Jews chose to use the Hebrew
terms Shoah or Churban. The Nazis used the phrase "Final Solution to the
Jewish Question".

Definition

Holocaust historians commonly define the Holocaust as the genocide

of the European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1941
and 1945. Donald Niewyk and Francis Nicosia, in The Columbia Guide to the
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 321

Holocaust (2000), favor a definition that includes the Jews, Roma, and the
disabled: "the systematic, state-sponsored murder of entire groups
determined by heredity."

Other groups targeted after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in

January 1933 include those whom the Nazis viewed as inherently inferior
(some Slavic people, particularly Poles and Russians, the Roma, and
the disabled), and those targeted because of their beliefs or behavior (such
as Jehovah's Witnesses, communists, and homosexuals). Peter Hayes writes
that the persecution of these groups was less uniform than that of the Jews.
For example, the Nazis' treatment of the Slavs consisted of "enslavement and
gradual attrition", while some Slavs were favored; Hayes lists Bulgarians,
Croats, Slovaks, and some Ukrainians. In contrast, Hitler regarded the Jews
as what Dan Stone calls "a Gegenrasse: a 'counter-race' ... not really human
at all."

Germany After World War I, Hitler's World View

After World War I (1914–1918), many Germans did not accept that
their country had been defeated. A stab-in-the-back myth developed,
insinuating that disloyal politicians, chiefly Jews and
communists, had orchestrated Germany's surrender.
Inflaming the anti-Jewish sentiment was the apparent
over-representation of Jews in the leadership of
communist revolutionary governments in Europe,
such as Ernst Toller, head of a short-lived
revolutionary government in Bavaria. This perception
contributed to the canard of Jewish Bolshevism.

Early antisemites in the Nazi Party

included Dietrich Eckart, publisher of the Völkischer
Beobachter, the party's newspaper, and Alfred
Rosenberg, who wrote antisemitic articles for it in the 1920s. Rosenberg's
vision of a secretive Jewish conspiracy ruling the world would influence
Hitler's views of Jews by making them the driving force behind communism.
Central to Hitler's world view was the idea of expansion
and Lebensraum (living space) in Eastern Europe for German Aryans, a
policy of what Doris Bergen called "race and space". Open about his hatred of
Jews, he subscribed to common antisemitic stereotypes. From the early
1920s onwards, he compared the Jews to germs and said they should be
dealt with in the same way. He viewed Marxism as a Jewish doctrine, said he
was fighting against "Jewish Marxism", and believed that Jews had created
communism as part of a conspiracy to destroy Germany.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 322

Rise of Nazi Germany

Dictatorship and Repression (January 1933)

With the appointment in January 1933 of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of

Germany and the Nazi's seizure of power, German leaders proclaimed the
rebirth of the Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community"). Nazi policies divided
the population into two groups: the Volksgenossen ("national comrades") who
belonged to the Volksgemeinschaft, and
the Gemeinschaftsfremde ("community aliens") who did not. Enemies were
divided into three groups: the "racial" or "blood" enemies, such as the Jews
and Roma; political opponents of Nazism, such as Marxists, liberals,
Christians, and the "reactionaries" viewed as wayward "national comrades";
and moral opponents, such as gay men, the work-shy, and habitual criminals.
The latter two groups were to be sent to concentration camps for "re-
education", with the aim of eventual absorption into the Volksgemeinschaft.
"Racial" enemies could never belong to the Volksgemeinschaft; they were to
be removed from society.

Before and after the March 1933 Reichstag elections, the Nazis
intensified their campaign of violence against opponents, setting up
concentration camps for extrajudicial imprisonment. One of the first,
at Dachau, opened on 22 March 1933. Initially the camp contained mostly
Communists and Social Democrats. Other early prisons were consolidated by
mid-1934 into purpose-built camps outside the cities, run exclusively by the
SS. The camps served as a deterrent by terrorizing Germans who did not
support the regime.

Throughout the 1930s, the legal, economic, and social rights of Jews
were steadily restricted. On 1 April 1933, there was a boycott of Jewish
businesses. On 7 April 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional
Civil Service was passed, which excluded Jews and other "non-Aryans" from
the civil service. Jews were disbarred from practicing law, being editors or
proprietors of newspapers, joining the Journalists' Association, or owning
farms. In Silesia, in March 1933, a group of men entered the courthouse and
beat up Jewish lawyers; Friedländer writes that, in Dresden, Jewish lawyers
and judges were dragged out of courtrooms during trials. Jewish students
were restricted by quotas from attending schools and universities. Jewish
businesses were targeted for closure or "Aryanization", the forcible sale to
Germans; of the approximately 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses in Germany
in 1933, about 7,000 were still Jewish-owned in April 1939. Works by Jewish
composers, authors, and artists were excluded from publications,
performances, and exhibitions. Jewish doctors were dismissed or urged to
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 323

resign. The Deutsches Ärzteblatt (a medical journal) reported on 6 April 1933:

"Germans are to be treated by Germans only."

Sterilization Law, Aktion T4

The economic strain of the Great Depression led Protestant charities

and some members of the German medical establishment to advocate
compulsory sterilization of the "incurable" mentally and physically disabled,
people the Nazis called Lebensunwertes Leben (life unworthy of life). On 14
July 1933, the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased
Offspring (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses), the Sterilization
Law, was passed. The New York Times reported on 21 December that year:
"400,000 Germans to be sterilized". There were 84,525 applications from
doctors in the first year. The courts reached a decision in 64,499 of those
cases; 56,244 were in favor of sterilization. Estimates for the number of
involuntary sterilizations during the whole of the Third Reich range from
300,000 to 400,000.

In October 1939 Hitler signed a "euthanasia decree" backdated to 1

September 1939 that authorized Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, the chief
of Hitler's Chancellery, and Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician, to carry
out a program of involuntary euthanasia. After the war this program came to
be known as Aktion T4, named after Tiergartenstraße 4, the address of a villa
in the Berlin borough of Tiergarten, where the various organizations involved
were headquartered. T4 was mainly directed at adults, but the euthanasia of
children was also carried out Between 1939 and 1941, 80,000 to 100,000
mentally ill adults in institutions were killed, as were 5,000 children and 1,000
Jews, also in institutions. There were also dedicated killing centers, where the
deaths were estimated at 20,000, according to Georg Renno, deputy director
of Schloss Hartheim, one of the euthanasia centers, or 400,000, according to
Frank Zeireis, commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Overall,
the number of mentally and physically disabled people murdered was about
150,000.

Although not ordered to take part, psychiatrists and many psychiatric

institutions were involved in the planning and carrying out of Aktion T4. In
August 1941, after protests from Germany's Catholic and Protestant
churches, Hitler canceled the T4 program, although disabled people
continued to be killed until the end of the war. The medical community
regularly received bodies for research; for example, the University of
Tübingen received 1,077 bodies from executions between 1933 and 1945.
The German neuroscientist Julius Hallervorden received 697 brains from one
hospital between 1940 and 1944: "I accepted these brains of course. Where
they came from and how they came to me was really none of my business."
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 324

Assessment

Assessment 1

Kindly answer the items below.

1. Prepare a table of timeline of major events that led to the start of the
World War I.
2. Identify the terms and names below.
2.1 Militarism
2.2 Triple Alliance
2.3 Triple Entente
2.4 Imperialism
2.5 Ultimatum
2.6 Kaiser Welhelm II
2.7 Otto von Bismarck
2.8 League of Nations
3. What were the reasons for the hostility between Austria-Hungary and
Serbia?
4. What were the three (3) faces at work in Europe that helped set the
stage of war?
5. Who were the members of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente?
6. What single event set in motion the start of World War I?
7. Do you think World War I was avoidable? Elaborate.
8. Which of the forces at work in Europe played the greatest role in
helping the prompt the outbreak of the war?
9. Identify the terms and names below.
9.1 Central Powers
9.2 Allies
9.3 Western Front
9.4 Eastern Front
9.5 Trench Warfare
9.6 Schlieffen Plan
9.7 Casualty (in war)
10. Why was the battle of the Marne so significant?
11. Why was Russia‘s involvement in the war so important to the other
Allies?
12. What were the conditions that soldiers on the front lines had to face?
13. Which countries made up the Central Powers? Which countries
comprised the Allies?
World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 325

14. What were the characteristics of French warfare?

15. What factors contributed to Russia‘s war difficulties?
16. Why did the Schlieffen Plan ultimately collapse? Cite specific details
from the module.
17. In an explanatory essay, describe the effects of the new technology on
warfare.
18. What was a League of Nations?
19. What were the disputes which were settled by the League of Nations?

Assessment II

1. What was the cause of World War II?

2. What countries fought in World War II?
3. Who were the leaders during World War II?
4. What were the turning points of the war?
5. How did the war end?
6. What were Stalin‘s goals in Europe at the beginning of World War II?
7. Why was the outcome of the Battle of Britain important for the Allies?
8. Why were the early months of World War II referred to as the ―phony
war‖?
9. Identify the terms and names below.
9.1 Nonaggression pact
9.2 Blitzkrieg
9.3 Holocaust
9.4 Battle of Britain
9.5 Atlantic Charter
9.6 Allies
9.7 Adolf Hitler
9.8 Stalin
9.9 Winston Churchill
9.10 Charles de Gaulle
9.11 Erwin Rommel
9.12 Franklin Roosevelt
10. Why was Egypt of strategic importance in World War II?
11. Why did President Franklin Roosevelt want to offer help to the Allies?
12. What do you think is meant by the statement that Winston Churchill
possibly was Britain‘s most powerful weapon against Hitler‘s Germany?
13. What factors do you think a country‘s leaders consider when deciding
whether to surrender or fight?
14. How were Napoleon‘s invasion of Russia and Hitler‘s invasion of the
Soviet Union similar?
15. Discuss the Holocaust.
 World History 2 Modern and Contemporary Era 326

SUGGESTED READINGS AND VIDEOS

The Schindler‘s List

The Pianist

The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich

The Diary of Anne Frank]

The World War II

The Holocaust

The Anatomy of Disaster – The Bombing of Hiroshima

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Bentley, J. and Zeigler, H. (2003). Traditions and Encounters. New

York:McGraw-Hill.co.

Coffin J. (2002). Western Civilization, Their History and Their Culture. New
York, W.W. Norton and Co, Inc.

Coronado, M. Foe J., Parco C. (2001). Making Sense of World History. Makati
City. The Bookmark, Inc.

DK (2018). ―Timeliness of History: The Ultimate Visual Guide to the Events

that Shaped the World‖, 2nd Edition.

Memories of a world at war. Royal Television Society.

https://rts.org.uk//article/memories-world-war.

National Geographic (2018). National Geographic Almanac (2019) Hot New

Science – Incredible Photographs – Maps, Facts, Info graphics & More
Paperback.

Philip, P. (2017). World History from the Ancient World to Information Age.
Handcover.

Usborne Books (2018). Timelines of World History. From Stone Age to the
Millennium.

US History. Pre-Columbian to the New Millennium. The Impact of

Enlightenment in Europe. The Beginnings of revolutionary Thinking
https://www.ushistory.org/us/7a.asp