P7 | APUSH | Wiley | World War II Note Guide & Sources, D___ Name:

America in the Interwar Years (1919-1941):

Post-World War I:

  • 1919 reminder: The U.S. ______rejected the League of Nations, and thus, the Treaty of Versailles, twice, mostly due to their opposition to involvement in European affairs and fear over the ______; there were fears it would prevent the U.S. from pursuing an independent foreign policy: “Is the nation willing to have the youth of America ordered to war by an international body!?” – Senator Henry Cabot ______
  • WWI (______) left a legacy of strong isolationist sentiment in the U.S.; as late as 1937, 70% of Americans responding to a Gallup poll stated that U.S. involvement in World War I had been a ______
  • Throughout the 1920s and ‘30s, isolationism spanned the political spectrum: Socialists, Communists, conservatives

The 1920s:

  • Several disarmament conferences were held; such as the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921, which succeeded in reducing the navies of the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy
  • In 1928, the U.S. was part of an international agreement, the Kellogg-Braind Pact, in which many states promised not to use war to resolve disputes of conflicts; was sponsored by France and the U.S.; ______war but lacked any power of enforcement

The 1930s:

  • In 1934, a committee of Congress charged weapons manufacturers with driving the U.S. into WWI in hopes of windfall profits, which, in fact, many realized; further highlights disdain for war in the U.S.
  • In 1935, Congress passed the first of five ______to deter future entanglements, requiring the president to declare an embargo on the sale and shipment of munitions to all belligerent nations; in ’36, banned loans to belligerents
  • Though FDR was preoccupied with restoring the domestic ______and did not want war, he understood the serious implications to the U.S. posed by the war; as such, he cautiously edged America closer to involvement and framed the war as a noble defense of democratic societies, as ______did before him
  • “The peace-loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality. Those who cherish their freedom and recognize and respect the equal right of their neighbors to be free and live in peace, must work together for the triumph of law and moral principles in order that peace, justice and confidence may prevail in the world. There must be a return to a belief in the pledged word, in the value of a signed treaty. There must be recognition of the fact that national morality is as vital as private morality.” (1937)
  • The war on Jews began in Germany in the mid-30s; the U.S. took no position; ______was very strong in the U.S. at this time
  • Hundreds of anti-Semitic organizations had been established by this time; gangs vandalized Jewish cemeteries and synagogues; immigration quotes restricted Jewish immigration from Europe; Jews were excluded from many social clubs, professions, and schools; the KKK targeted Jews
  • Opinion polls in America from the ‘30s and early ‘40s show that most Americans viewed Jews ______, often ascribing the words “greedy” and “dishonest” to members of the group
  • In ’37 Congress imposed a “______” requirement: if a warring country wanted to purchase military goods from the U.S., it had to pay cash and carry them in its own ships, keeping the U.S. out of potentially dangerous naval warfare
  • In ’39, a Neutrality Act allowed the sale of arms to Britain, France, and China, highlighting a ______in U.S. policy
  • Reminder: WWII began in ______, with the German invasion of Poland; they then took Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg
  1. What is the message of the cartoon (top right)? What argument is Seuss making?

The 1940s:

  • In 1940, Gallup asked, “If it appears that Germany is defeating England and France, should the U.S. declare war on Germany and send our army and navy to Europe to fight?”  77% said “no”
  • In 1940, the arch-conservative Committee to Defend America First was formed to oppose U.S. intervention; some American Firsters championed the Nazis while others simply advocated American neutrality (this is why some were upset by President Trump’s emphasis on “America First” in his inaugural); close to a million Americans joined the group
  • In 1940, the U.S. secured the first peacetime draft in U.S. history, which sent 1.4 million men to army training camps by 1941
  • In 1940, FDR directed a transfer of the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor
  • In 1941, the U.S. froze all Japanese assets (bank accounts, investments, property) as a result of their occupation of Indochina—previously occupied by France
  • In 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act which allowed the president to sell, exchange, or lease arms to any country whose defense appeared vital to U.S. security
  • FDR met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941 and wrote the Atlantic Charter; the document mapped out common goals for the postwar world, such as the right of all peoples to live in freedom from fear, want, and tyranny, free trade among all nations, disarmament, and an end to territorial seizures (comparable to Wilson’s ______)
  • Reminder: France fell to the Nazis in 1940; Britain was left alone to fight; Hitler attacked the USSR in 1941
  1. How did America’s interwar years evolve over time?
  2. Evaluate America’s interwar years. Were there any mistakes made? What alternatives were there?

General Causes of World War II:

  • The worldwide ______undermined the political order of many countries, allowing tyrants to play on nationalist hatreds
  • Production dropped by nearly 40%, international trade dropped by about two-thirds, and unemployment rose  political unrest in Europe and Asia
  • Demagogues played on nationalist hatreds and offered solutions in the form of territorial expansion by military conquest
  • Rise of fascism/militarydictatorship in Italy, Germany, and Japan, all with ______ambitions
  • Treaty of Versailles (war guilt clause, reparations, etc.)
  • Failure of ______policy and League of Nations to combat fascist aggression

Alliances of WWII:

  • ______Powers—Germany, Italy, Japan
  • Allied Powers—United States, Britain, France, Soviet Union

Japan:

  • Japan seized the province of Manchuria (1931) and then China (1937)
  • Reminder: The U.S. forced Japan to open up to the rest of the world in the ______(1854); Japan then quickly industrialized and became an imperial power, to avoid becoming a victim of imperialism themselves
  • Throughout the first few decades of the 20th century, Japan continued to set its sight on imperialist ambitions but was reliant on other nations for natural resources such as oil; they turned their sights on China to end that dependency on others
  • After seizing Manchuria, Japan was scolded by the League of Nations, so they withdrew from the League; committed atrocities like the “rape of Nanking,” where the Japanese army murdered as many as 300,000 Chinese men, women and children and destroyed much of the city

Italy & Germany (General):

  • The rise of authoritarian nationalism in Italy and Germany cast a dark shadow over Europe; economic hardships and, in Germany, resentment over the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, fueled the rise of demagogic mass movements who glorified war
  • Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini seized power in 1922; invaded Ethiopia in 1935
  • Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933; quickly destroyed his opposition and turned Germany into the strongest nation in Europe
  • Germany ______(in violation of Treaty of Versailles (TOV), 1935), occupied Rhineland (in violation of TOV, 1936); annexed Austria (in violation of TOV 1938); took ______(1938) via appeasement at the Munich Conference—in return, Hitler promised he was done, but took Czechoslovakia a few months later (in violation of TOV and Munich Agreement)
  • Germany and Soviet Union signednon-aggression pact (1939) and agreed to ______Poland

Germany:

Post-WWI:

  • The German government after WWI was the ______Republic; this government had signed the Treaty of Versailles, a national humiliation, but only under the threat of an Allied invasion; the republic was nevertheless permanently associated with the national disgrace and burdens of the treaty
  • Throughout the 1920s, the government was required to fulfill the economic and military provisions imposed by the Paris settlement (restrictions on military size and production capabilities, war guilt clause, reparations, etc.)
  • It became all too easy for German nationalists and military figures, whose policies had brought on the tragedy and defeat in World War I, to blame the young republic for all of Germany’s problems; many political groups emerged, each proposing different revisions to the Treaty of Versailles and some going as far as suggesting it be completely disregarded
  • The Weimar Republicdid not command the sympathy or loyalty of many Germans; add to that problems associated with the worldwide Depression, …. enter, the Nazis 

The Nazi Party:

  • The Nazi Party was an anti-Semitic political party that paraded under a red-and-white banner with a black swastika; their platform consisted of/called for a denial of the Treaty of Versailles, ______of Austria and Germany, and the exclusion of Jews from German citizenship
  • Originally, the Nazis called for a broad program of nationalization of industry (socialism) in an attempt to compete directly with the Marxist political parties for the vote of the workers; while they would employ socialist tactics to manage the economy and turn Germany into the strongest country in Europe, they also ______killed Socialist opponents
  • Over time, the Nazis redefined the meaning of the word socialist to suggest a nationalistic outlook: in 1922, Hitler said, “Whoever is prepared to make the national cause his own to such an extent that he knows no higher ideal than the welfare of his nation; whoever has understood our great national anthem, “Germany, Germany, over All,” to mean that nothing in the wide world surpasses in his eyes this Germany, people and land, land and people – that man is a Socialist.

Hitler’s Mein Kampf(1925):

  • After becoming leader of the Nazis, Hitler attempted to seize power in 1923, as Mussolini had in Italy; the plan failed, and Hitler was arrested and sentenced to a five-year prison term (serving only nine months), during which he wrote Mein Kampf(My Struggle)
  • The book outlined political views from which Hitler never swerved, including a fierce racial anti-Semitism, a powerful opposition to ______, which he associated with the Jews, and a conviction that Germany must expand eastward beyond the borders established at Versailles to achieve greater “living space”, or______by conquering eastern Europe and Russia
  • Hitler asserted that the Germans, especially those who were blonde and blue-eyed—whom he called “Aryans”—were a ______race (a race that considers itself superior to all others and fitted to rule the others)
  • Aryans are original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day, who constitute a distinctive race or subrace of the larger Caucasian race
  • He declared that non-Aryan “races”—such as Jews and Gypsies—were inferior or subhuman and the root of all of Germany’s problems; discussed the importance of racial purity and laid out his plan for creating a racially pure Germany that would dominate the world
  • He urged Germany to seek revenge for the country’s defeat in WWI by calling the Treaty of Versailles an outrage and vowing to regain the lands taken from Germany
  • Around 5.2 million copies of the book were sold by 1939; it was the most common wedding present for newly married couples in Germany during this time

Hitler  Chancellor:

  • Hitler’s mass rallies and hard economic times made him more appealing to many Germans, as it offered hope for security and firm leadership; thousands of unemployed joined the party; the government thought they could control Hitler and use him for their purposes, so he was named chancellor
  • As chancellor, Hitler moved with lightning speed to consolidate control via______methods; all other parties were banned, opponents arrested or killed; the economy was turned into a command economy; press was heavily censored and controlled; propaganda and youth indoctrination became the norm; and war production began  the German economy was revitalized and Hitler ruled in a cult of ______
  • Reminder: fascism entails the following characteristics: loyalty to state (ultra-nationalism); ______to leader; militant expansionist goals; anti-Marxist and anti-democratic; totalitarian leadership and methods of control (control of press, “education,” propaganda, etc.); goals are typically to revive the economy, restore national pride, and ______those responsible for hard times

Nazi Eugenics:

  • Eugenics is the set of beliefs and practices that aim at ______the genetic quality of a human population
  • Despite Nazi interest in expanding Germany, they were less interested in expanding the population as a whole than in producing a population of racially pure Germans; in their role as mothers, German women had the special task of preserving racial purity and giving birth to purer Germans who were healthy in mind and body; according to this view, women were to breed strong sons and daughters for the German nation; Nazis often compared the role of women in childbirth to that of men in battle
  • Nazi policy favored motherhood only for those whom its adherents regarded as racially fit for motherhood
  • The government sought to sterilize (deprive a person of the ability to produce offspring) undesirables, a policy that led to both the sterilization and death of many women, often because of an alleged “degeneracy”
  • Hitler is on record many times praising the American “pioneers” of eugenics, which had become popular during the Progressive Era and into the ‘20s as a result of new immigrants deemed “lesser” (______Europeans, Catholics, Jews); Hitler said, “I have studied with interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny (offspring) would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.”
  • American eugenics examples:
  • Indiana was the first state to enact sterilization legislation (1907); 30 others followed
  • Was first challenged in 1927; the Supreme Court ruled that forced sterilizations of the mentally disabled were legitimate
  • States that had sterilizations policies usually sterilized certain kinds of ______and those with low IQs
  • A 1937 Fortune poll found that 2/3 of respondents supported eugenic sterilization of “mental defective,” 63% supported sterilization of criminals, and only 15% opposed both
  • Physicians were found to be performing coerced sterilizations of specific ethnic groups; several cases, for example, showed how Latina and black women—without their permission—were sterilized postpartum following cesarean sections
  • A Senate report in 1972 found widespread threatening of black women in the South to be sterilized or lose welfare benefits

War on the Jews:

  • The people who most consistently experienced the terror of the Nazi police state were the German Jews, the ______for all of Germany’s problems
  • Nazis excluded Jews from the civil service (government administration); encouraged boycotts of Jewish shops and businesses; robbed German Jews of their citizenship; professions and major occupations were closed to those defined as Jews; marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews were prohibited; legal exclusion and humiliation of Jews became the order of the day; thousands of Jewish stores and synagogues were burned or otherwise destroyed on what became known as ______(Night of the Broken Glass), due to the vast quantity of shattered plate glass from the broken windows of Jewish-owned businesses

Road to War:

  • Germany remilitarized (in violation of Treaty of Versailles, 1935), occupied Rhineland (in violation of TOV, 1936); annexed Austria (in violation of TOV 1938); took Sudetenland (1938) via appeasement at the Munich Conference—in return, Hitler promised he was done, but took Czechoslovakia a few months later (in violation of TOV and Munich Agreement)
  • Germany and Soviet Union signed non-aggression pact (1939) and agreed to split Poland

  1. Had you been in FDR’s shoes during the 1930s, as Hitler rose to power and built a strong fascist state, what would you have done? Remember, FDR became president in 1933, with 25% unemployment.
  2. The cartoon pictured here words on the backs of the “spineless leaders of democracy”: rearmament, Rhineland & Reunification, Danzig (land in Poland that Hitler wanted), followed by ? marks to indicate the unknown places Hitler wants, and finally, Boss of the Universe. Is the cartoonist’s perspective correct? Why or why not?

Why Appeasement:
In light of the rise of aggressive fascists like Hitler, you might wonder why appeasement was chosen by the “Great Powers,” like Britain and France, or America, who sat back and did nothing. Though students of history tend to be very critical of this “spineless” behavior, there were many reasons to support this policy at the time. The vast majority of people in America, Britain, and France, who were opposed to fascist aggression, agreed with the policy of appeasement at the time. Let’s see why:

  1. Many viewed Hitler’s expansion as justifiable, as the areas he seized (pre-Poland, 1939), were largely made up of German people—he could, and did, defend these grabs with President Wilson’s own self-determination rhetoric. Many thought Germany would be satisfied once it “got its own garden back.” When the people of Austria, for example, celebrated their unification with Germany by parades hailing Hitler, it was “proof” that any war to prevent such unification would be futile.
  2. By the early 1930s (after a decade away from WWI), many people came to realize that Germany had been punished too heavily by the terms of the Versailles treaty; thus, remilitarizing and trying to take neighboring territories with Germanic people in them, seemed acceptable.
  3. Many people outside of Germany (**get ready to cringe**) actually admired Hitler. After the ruinous end of WWI and the worldwide Great Depression, Hitler managed to rebuild Germany into a powerful country. It was impressive. Remember, his racial ideology, espoused in Mein Kampfand glorified by the Nazi Party, wasn’t horrifying to outsiders until its genocidal intent became clear (approximately 1942). Thus, while Hitler was expanding in the 1930s, it must be understood against the backdrop of other contexts, like the “Age of Segregation,” which was still going strong in America; just as Aryans were deemed a superior race in Germany, Caucasians in America (particularly those from Northern/Western Europe) were deemed a superior race; in both cases, such racial thinking justified legally mandated discrimination (including laws against “cross-breeding”), hatred, and violence against “lessers.” Another example is anti-Semitism, which was very prevalent across Europe and America as well. In America of the 1930s, Jewish immigration was tightly restricted, Jews faced discrimination, and the majority of Americans held negative views towards Jews. In short, Hitler didn’t become a true tyrant to most people until the war broke out. In that context, appeasement seems more rational.
  4. After the horrors experienced by Britain and France in WWI, there was widespread revulsion at the thought of war. Since then, new advances in weaponry, such as long distance bombers, meant towns and cities could be targeted and the civilian death toll could be huge in a future war. Peace movements were expanding.
  5. There was concern about weaknesses in the armed forces; there had been widespread disarmament throughout the 1920s; thus, no troops were immediately available to mount a challenge. Heads of Britain’s armed forces consistently warned Prime Minister Chamberlain that Britain was too weak to fight.
  6. Many believed that Communism was a far greater threat to world peace than Hitler: “better Hitlerism than Communism.” Some felt that Hitler’s Germany could be a strong check against possible Soviet plans to invade Europe.
  7. Many believed that Hitler was making extreme statements only to gain publicity and that he was essentially a reasonable man who would not go too far.
  1. What are your thoughts/reactions to A-G? Is it more understandable now why appeasement or even apathy was chosen/felt with regards to Germany?

Events in the Pacific U.S. Entry: