1. The World War II Era

2. Aggression Leads to War

3. The Rise of Dictators
 1920s-1930s
 Several nations views democratic gov’ts as too weak
 Turned to dictators

4. Soviet Communism
 1929
 Josef Stalin dictator of Soviet
Union
 Made it a totalitarian state (a
nation in which a single party
controls the gov’t and every aspect
of people’s lives)
 Took brutal measures to control &
modernize industry & agriculture
 Peasant had to live crops, animals,
& land to gov’t run farms
 Those who resisted were
executed or sent to labor camps
 4 million other Soviets were killed
or imprisoned on false charges of
disloyalty

5. Fascism in Italy
 Economic & social problems after WWI
 Led to unrest
 Benito Mussolini
 Promised to restore prosperity & order
 1922 Mussolini & followers threatened to
overthrow elected gov’t
 King appointed Mussolini prime minister
 Turned Italy into world’s 1st fascist state
(political system based on militarism,
extreme nationalism, & blind loyalty to the
state & its leaders)
 Spoke of restoring Italy to time of Roman
Empire when Italy controlled Europe
 Ended freedom of the press & banned all
political parties, but his
 Critics were jailed or murdered
 Children in school recited the motto “Mussolini
is always right”

6. Nazi Germany
 Adolf Hitler
 Was one of many Germans mad at
WWI defeat & reparation payments
 1921 Hitler became leader of National
Socialist, Nazi, Party
 Nazism was a form of fascism
 Racism was at core of Nazi beliefs
 Hitler told Germans they were master
race
 Cornerstone of racial theories was hatred of
Jews
 Claimed Jews betrayed Germany in WWI
(that is why they lost); Jews & other groups
became the scapegoat

7.  1933
 Hitler named chancellor of Germany (leader of parliament)
 Created a totalitarian state
 All other parties outlawed
 Secret police enforced strict loyalty
 Anti-Semitic laws passed
 Jews banned from public schools & from certain professions
(medicine & law)
 Jews communities were attacked
 1938
 Troops began sending Jews to slave labor camps (the worse
was yet to come)

8. Militarism in Japan
 Great Depression undermined faith in democratic
gov’t
 Military leaders pressured gov’t to take control of nearby
countries
 Island nation need more space & raw materials for industries
 1936
 militarists completely controlled gov’t
 Preached racism
 Japanese were superior to other Asians & non-Asians

9. Military Aggression
 Japan attacks China
 1931 w/o gov’t approval Japanese army seized Manchuria
(in Northern China)
 League of Nations (founded to stop aggression) protested, but
did nothing
 1937 Japanese aggression increased in China
 Chinese treated brutally
 For 6 weeks Japanese forces pillaged Nanjing
 Quarter of a million civilians & prisoners of war were
massacred

10. Italy Invades Ethiopia
 1935
 Mussolini’s armies invade Ethiopia
 Ethiopians battled bravely but modern technology
prevailed
 Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie appealed to League of
Nations for aid
 Response was week

11. German Aggression
 Hitler vowed to create empire to unite all German speaking
people
 Began rebuilding German army (defined Treaty of Versailles)
 Moved troops to Rhineland region of western Germany
 1938 German armies occupy Austria
 European democracies did nothing to stop him
 France & Britain protest when Hitler threatened to invade
Czechoslovakia
 Met w/ Hitler in Germany(Munich) to appease him
 Munich Pact
 Agreed to let Germany invade Sudetenland (portion of Czech. Populated
by people who spoke German)
 In return Hitler promised not to seek further territory
 Neville Chamberlain (British Prime Minister) claimed he had won
peace
 A few month later Hitler occupied all of Czech.

12. Neutrality Act
 Passed by Congress in 1935
 1st of several laws designed to keep U.S. at peace
 Forbade President from selling arms, making loans, or giving
assistance to any nation involved in war

13. Good Neighbor Policy
 U.S. wanted to strengthen ties to Latin America
 Pres. Herbert Hover rejected Roosevelt Corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine
 U.S. no longer claimed right to intervene in Latin
American affairs
 Franklin Roosevelt created Good Neighbor Policy
 American troops withdrew from Nicaragua & Haiti
 Also cancelled Platt Amendment (had limited independence
of Cuba)

14. War Begins in Europe
 Poland was next target of Hitler
 France & Britain realize appeasement failed
 Would aid if invaded
 Invasion of Poland
 August 1939
 Hitler & Stalin sign nonaggression agreement (were enemies)
 Nazi-Soviet Pact
 Promised not to attach each other
 Secretly agreed to divide up Poland
 September 1, 1939
 Nazi troops invade Poland
 16 days later Soviet troops seize eastern Poland & invaded Finland & later annexed
Estonia, Lithuania, & Latvia
 Britain & France declared war on Germany
 WWII had begun
 At 1st Germany army was unstoppable
 1940 Germany army seized Denmark & Norway & later the Netherlands,
Luxembourg, Belgium, & moved into France

15. Fall of France
 Britain sent troops to help France
 Overpowered
 Retreated to Dunkirk a port on the English Channel
 Every British ship available was sent to rescue trapped soldiers
 Germans marched on to Paris
 June 22, 1940 Hitler accepted surrender of France

16. Battle of Britain
 Britain stood alone against Nazi war machine
 Winston Churchill was confident Britain could win
 Hitler ordered air assault on Britain
 Day after day assaults continued (thousands died, but
spirits never broke)
 They slept in subway stations at night & cleared wreckage,
buried the dead, & tried to carry on during the day
 British air force fought invading planes overhead
 Battle continued for many months
 Hitler abandoned plans to invade Britain

17. Invasion of the Soviet Union
 June 22, 1941
 Hitler broke pact w/ Stalin
 German forces invade Soviet Union
 Soviet Union now joined Britain in fighting Germans
 Churchill & Stalin mistrusted each other, but were forced to
work together