Chapter 11 Section 4 notes

The Mobilization of the Peoples: Four examples

The Soviet Union, the United States, Germany, and Japan all mobilized for the war with an emphasis on personal sacrifice.

Bombing of civilians and economic mobilization were the major two differences making World War II more dangerous than World War I.

  1. The Soviet Union
  2. Defeats at the start of the war led to the Soviets making emergency measures directed towards the civilian population.
  3. In Leningrad, which was under siege for 900 days, civilians ate dogs, cats, and mice and most likely 1.5 million died from starvation.
  4. Soviet factories in the western part of the country were dismantled and shipped into the interior (Urals, western Siberia, and the Volga regions)
  5. Stalin called the widespread military and industrial mobilization a “battle of machines”
  6. Soviet produced 78k tanks, 98k artillery pieces
  7. 1940, 15% of the national income went for war materials
  8. 1943, 55% of the national income went for war materials
  9. With this emphasis on military goods, civilians experienced a severe shortages of both food and housing.
  10. Women and girls worked in the factories, mines, and railroads.
  11. Number of women increased by 60%
  12. Women also worked with the military as antitank ditch diggers, air-raid wardens, snipers, and aircrew of bomber squadrons.
  13. The Unites States
  14. Since no actual fighting was taking place on US soil, the home front was quite different than another other nation.
  15. The US became the arsenal of the Allied powers!
  16. Produced much of the military equipment
  17. At the height of production in Nov 1943, US produced 6 ships a day and 96k planes a year.
  18. Mobilization of the economy led to social turmoil.
  19. Construction of factories created boomtowns attracted thousands
  20. These boomtowns however were not planned and faced shortages of houses and schools.
  21. Major widespread migration was evident within America.
  22. 16 million men/women in the military moved to join up.
  23. 16 million were moving often consisting of mostly wives and girlfriends of servicemen or of workers looking for jobs.
  24. Over a million African American moved from the rural south to the cities of the north and West.
  25. Industries needed workers desperately and did not segregate.
  26. Since African Americans were living in places formally dominated by whites, racial tension increased.
  27. 1943, riots in Detroit where white mobs roamed the streets attacking African Americans.
  28. 1 million African Americans joined the military.
  29. Once enlisted, they were segregated in their own battle units
  30. Japanese Americans faced the most serious discrimination in the US.
  31. On the West Coast, 110k Japanese Americans (65% born in the US), were removed from their homes and sent to camps surrounded by barbed wire and take loyalty oaths.
  32. Officials claimed this policy was necessary for security reasons.
  33. Germany
  34. Hitler believed that the Germans lost the first War because of a “stab in the back” (a collapse of the will to win by those on the home front)
  35. Hitler adopted certain economic policies that may have cost Germany the war.
  36. To maintain moral, Hitler refused to cut the production of consumer goods or increase the production of armaments.
  37. Once Germany began losing on the eastern front and the US entrance into the war, the economic situation in Germany changed.
  38. 1942, Hitler ordered a increase in armaments production and in the size of the army.
  39. Albert Speer was made minister for armaments and munitions and was able to triple production despite air raids.
  40. July 1944, the economy was totally mobilized in which schools, theaters, and cafes were closed.
  41. Nazi policy towards women changed over the course of the war.
  42. Before the war, women were not permitted to work in the job market.
  43. During, more and more women were called into military service.
  44. “we see the women as the eternal mother of our people, but also the working and fighting comrade of the man.”
  45. Despite this change, the number of women working in industry, agriculture, commerce, and domestic service only slightly increased.
  46. May 1939 – 14.6 million women working
  47. Sept 1944 – 14.9 million women working
  48. Women in Germany, especially middle class, did not want jobs!
  49. Japan
  50. Wartime Japan was highly mobilized society.
  51. Government created a planning board to control prices, wages, labor, and resources.
  52. Traditional habits of obedience and hierarchy were used to encourage their policies.
  53. During the final years, young Japanese men were encouraged to volunteer to serve as pilots in suicide mission against US ships.
  54. These pilots were known as kamikaze or “divine wind.”
  55. Prime Minister, General Hideki Tojo, opposed female employment and did not want to weaken the Japanese family system.
  56. However, during the war, women working in textile industries and farming increased which is where women already worked.
  57. In labor shortages, Japanese brought in Korean and Chinese laborers as an alternative to women.

Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities

The bombing of cities in Britain, Germany, and Japan destroyed building and killed thousands of civilians.

  1. Britain
  2. Britain was the first city to have civilian bombing take place.
  3. The London blitz was the German nightly bombing of London resulting in thousands of civilians either killed or injured along with enormous damage.
  4. The ability to maintain their morale set the standard for the rest of the British population
  5. This proved the theory wrong that the bombing of civilian targets would force peace/surrender.
  6. Germany
  7. Churchill and his advisers believed that destroying German communities would break civilian morale and bring victory.
  8. May 31, 1942, Cologne became the first Germany city to be attacked by thousands Allied Bombers.
  9. Raids brought an element of terror to a worsening situation of growing shortages of food, clothing, and fuel.
  10. German especially feared the incendiary bombs which were created to create firestorms sweeping through cities.
  11. Feb 13-15 1945, bombing of Dresden killed as many as 100k inhabitants and refugees.
  12. Millions of buildings destroyed, 500k civilians died.
  13. Instead of sapping the morale of Germans, Germans fought on stubbornly driven by a desire to live.
  14. Bombing of the cities did not destroy Germany’s capacity.
  15. Production of war materials increased between 1942-1944.
  16. However, the destruction of transportation system and fuel supplies made it difficult for new materials to reach the military.
  1. Japan
  2. The use of the first atomic bomb reached a new level of civilian bombing.
  3. Japanese cities were open to air raids because its air force was destroyed.
  4. Most cities were overcrowded and built of flimsy materials vulnerable to fire.
  5. Bombing Japanese cities began with the US B-29 Superfortresses on Nov 24, 1944.
  6. By summer of 1945, many of Japan’s industries had been destroyed and 25% of its dwellings.
  7. Towards the end, the Japanese government decreed the mobilization of all people between 13 and 60 into a People’s Volunteer Corps to stop an mainland invasion.
  8. Fearing high US causalities, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Aug 1945.

Peace and a New War

Political tensions, suspicions, and a conflict of ideas led the US and the Soviet Union into the Cold War.

  1. The Tehran Conference
  2. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill “big three” met at Tehran in Nov 1943 to decide the future course of the war.
  3. They decided on a American-British invasion through France scheduled for the Spring 1944.
  4. This plan meant that Soviet and British/American forces would meet in the defeated Germany along a north-south dividing line.
  5. Eastern Europe would be liberated by Soviet forces and Germany would be partitioned in the aftermath.
  6. The Yalta Conference
  7. Big three met in Yalta, southern Russia, in Feb 1945.
  8. Western powers now faced with the reality of 11 million Soviet soldiers taking possession of Eastern and most of central Europe.
  9. Stalin wanted a buffer to protect the Soviet Union from possible future Western aggression.
  10. Establishing pro-Soviet government along the border of the Soviet Union.
  11. Roosevelt favored self-determination in Europe and pledged to help liberate Europe in the creation of democratic institution of their own choice.
  12. Roosevelt wanted Soviet help against Japan since they still did not drop the bomb. They made an agreement
  13. Soviet would attack Japan from Siberia
  14. Soviets would acquire possession of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands
  15. Acquire two warm-water ports
  16. Attain railroad rights in Manchuria
  17. The Yalta meeting also created the United Nations and each nation pledged to be part of the international organization before issues divided them.
  18. First meeting was set in San Francisco in April 1945.
  19. Germany would be divided into 4 zones, occupied and governed by military forces of the US, GB, France, and Soviet Union.
  20. Poland would have free election and determine a new government in that country.
  21. Decision of eastern Europe was not finalized and would be brought up in Potsdam.
  22. The Potsdam Conference
  23. Truman demanded free elections in Europe while Stalin said any “elected government…would be anti-Soviet, and that we cannot allow.”
  24. Since the Soviets had lost so many lives in the war, Stalin sought absolute military security and only the presence of Communist states in Eastern Europe could guarantee this.
  25. War Crimes Trials
  26. Summer 1945, Allied agree to hold a trial of war leaders for committing aggressive war and crimes against humanity.
  27. Nazi leaders were tried and condemned as war criminals at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in Germany in 1945 and 1946.
  28. War crimes trials were also held in Japan and Italy.
  29. A New Struggle
  30. Many in the west thought Soviet policy was part of a global Communist conspiracy.
  31. Soviets viewed Western policy as nothing less than global capitalist expansionism.
  32. March 1946, Churchill declared an “iron curtain” had “descended across the continent” dividing Europe into two camps.