Tuesday, May 11, 2010

WH II Honors: 12 May 2010

Prayer
Current Events (none today because of the Quiz):
The Chapter 17 Section 3 Quiz is today. Be sure to put your name on the Quiz. You may write on the Quiz.

World War II


Chapter 19: World War II, 1939–1945

Section 1 Paths to War

Section 2 The Course of World War II

Section 3 The New Order and the Holocaust

Section 4 The Home Front and the Aftermath of the War

The German Path to War

Hitler on the History of the Aryan Race (Mein Kampf in English), 3:10


Throughout the 1930s, challenges to peace followed a pattern. Dictators took aggressive action but met only verbal protests and pleas for peace from the democracies. Mussolini, Hitler, and the leaders of Japan viewed that desire for peace as weakness and responded with new acts of aggression. With hindsight, we can see the shortcomings of the democracies’ policies. These policies, however, were the product of long and careful deliberation. At the time, some people believed they would work.

The First Steps

Hitler, too, had tested the will of the Western democracies and found it weak. First, he built up the German military in defiance of the treaty that had ended World War I. Then, in 1936, he sent troops into the “demilitarized” Rhineland bordering France—another treaty violation.

Hitler Remilitarizes Germany
Hitler rebuilt the German military during the 1930s in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. The government’s investment in armaments also helped pull Germany out of the Great Depression. Here, German police march in goose step as Hitler salutes in the background. How did Germany’s rearmament affect the rest of Germany?
March 1936 Rhineland remilitarized, 3:50




Germans hated the Versailles treaty, and Hitler’s successful challenge made him more popular at home. The Western democracies denounced his moves but took no real action. Instead, they adopted a policy of appeasement, or giving in to the demands of an aggressor in order to to keep the peace.

The World At War - Appeasement, 6:54



The Western policy of appeasement developed for a number of reasons. France was demoralized, suffering from political divisions at home. It could not take on Hitler without British support. The British, however, had no desire to confront the German dictator. Some even thought that Hitler’s actions constituted a justifiable response to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which they believed had been too harsh on Germany.

In both Britain and France, many saw Hitler and fascism as a defense against a worse evil—the spread of Soviet communism. Additionally, the Great Depression sapped the energies of the Western democracies. Finally, widespread pacifism, or opposition to all war, and disgust with the destruction from the previous war pushed many governments to seek peace at any price.

As war clouds gathered in Europe in the mid-1930s, the United States Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts. One law forbade the sale of arms to any nation at war. Others outlawed loans to warring nations and prohibited Americans from traveling on ships of warring powers. The fundamental goal of American policy, however, was to avoid involvement in a European war, not to prevent such a conflict.

The Mood Of The USA 1939 to Pearl Harbor, 2:16



New Alliances

In the face of the apparent weakness of Britain, France, and the United States, Germany, Italy, and Japan formed what became known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. Known as the Axis powers, the three nations agreed to fight Soviet communism. They also agreed not to interfere with one another’s plans for territorial expansion. The agreement cleared the way for these anti-democratic, aggressor powers to take even bolder steps.

Berlin-Rome-Tokyo 1937, 2:36



In Italy, Mussolini decided to act on his own imperialist ambitions. Italy’s defeat by the Ethiopians at the battle of Adowa in 1896 still rankled. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, located in northeastern Africa. Although the Ethiopians resisted bravely, their outdated weapons were no match for Mussolini’s tanks, machine guns, poison gas, and airplanes. The Ethiopian king Haile Selassie (hy luh suh lah see) appealed to the League of Nations for help. The League voted sanctions against Italy for violating international law. But the League had no power to enforce the sanctions, and by early 1936, Italy had conquered Ethiopia.

Union with Austria

From the beginning, Nazi propaganda had found fertile ground in Austria. By 1938, Hitler was ready to engineer the Anschluss (ahn shloos), or union of Austria and Germany. Early that year, he forced the Austrian chancellor to appoint Nazis to key cabinet posts. When the Austrian leader balked at other demands in March, Hitler sent in the German army to “preserve order.” To indicate his new role as ruler of Austria, Hitler made a speech from the Hofburg Palace, the former residence of the Hapsburg emperors.

The Anschluss violated the Versailles treaty and created a brief war scare. Some Austrians favored annexation. Hitler quickly silenced any Austrians who opposed it. And since the Western democracies took no action, Hitler easily had his way.

Demands and Appeasement

Germany turned next to Czechoslovakia. At first, Hitler insisted that the three million Germans in the Sudetenland (soo day tun land)—a region of western Czechoslovakia—be given autonomy. Czechoslovakia was one of only two remaining democracies in Eastern Europe. (Finland was the other.) Still, Britain and France were not willing to go to war to save it. As British and French leaders searched for a peaceful solution, Hitler increased his demands. The Sudetenland, he said, must be annexed to Germany.

Germany in Czechoslovakia: a Sudeten woman grieves while dutifully saluting Hitler’s troops.

At the Munich Conference in September 1938, British and French leaders again chose appeasement. They caved in to Hitler’s demands and then persuaded the Czechs to surrender the Sudetenland without a fight. In exchange, Hitler assured Britain and France that he had no further plans to expand his territory.

After the horrors of World War I, Western democracies desperately tried to preserve peace during the 1930s while ignoring signs that the rulers of Germany, Italy, and Japan were preparing to build new empires. Despite the best efforts of Neville Chamberlain and other Western leaders, the world was headed to war again.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain spoke to a jubilant crowd upon returning to London from a conference with Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, in September 1938:

“For the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time . . . Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

"Peace in our Time," Chamberlain, September 1938, 3:24



Great Britain and France React

Hitler and the Soviets

Just as Churchill predicted, Europe plunged rapidly toward war. In March 1939, Hitler broke his promises and gobbled up the rest of Czechoslovakia. The democracies finally accepted the fact that appeasement had failed. At last thoroughly alarmed, they promised to protect Poland, most likely the next target of Hitler’s expansion.

In August 1939, Hitler stunned the world by announcing a nonaggression pact with his great enemy—Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator. Publicly, the Nazi-Soviet Pact bound Hitler and Stalin to peaceful relations. Secretly, the two agreed not to fight if the other went to war and to divide up Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between them.

Stalin-Hitler pact commemorated, 3:58



The pact was based not on friendship or respect but on mutual need. Hitler feared communism as Stalin feared fascism. But Hitler wanted a free hand in Poland. Also, he did not want to fight a war with the Western democracies and the Soviet Union at the same time. For his part, Stalin had sought allies among the Western democracies against the Nazi menace. Mutual suspicions, however, kept them apart. By joining with Hitler, Stalin tried to protect the Soviet Union from the threat of war with Germany and grabbed a chance to gain land in Eastern Europe.


Reading Check

Identifying

Where did Hitler believe he could find more "living space" to expand Germany?

The Japanese Path to War

One of the earliest tests had been posed by Japan. Japanese military leaders and ultranationalists thought that Japan should have an empire equal to those of the Western powers. In pursuit of this goal, Japan seized Manchuria in 1931. When the League of Nations condemned the aggression, Japan simply withdrew from the organization. Japan’s easy success strengthened the militarist faction in Japan. In 1937, Japanese armies overran much of eastern China, starting the Second Sino-Japanese War. Once again, Western protests did not stop Japan.

Japanese Invasion of Manchuria, 2:06



When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the Japanese saw a chance to grab European possessions in Southeast Asia. The rich resources of the region, including oil, rubber, and tin, would be of immense value in fighting its war against the Chinese.

In 1940, Japan advanced into French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies. To stop Japanese aggression, the United States banned the sale of war materials, such as iron, steel, and oil to Japan. Japanese leaders saw this move as an attempt to interfere in Japan’s sphere of influence.

Asian Holocaust - Asia-Pacific theatre of war, World War II, 1:07

This short clip highlights the human scale of the tragedy in the Second World War Asia-Pacific theatre. Between 1931-1945, Japanese Imperial Forces invaded and occupied parts of China, Manchukuo, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), New Guinea, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), British Malaya, Singapore, Burma, Borneo, American-occupied Philippines. This clip is part of a project on www.asianholocaust.org to gather resources and information to commemorate the Asian and Allied victims of this epic conflict.



Japan and the United States held talks to ease the growing tension. But extreme militarists, such as General Tojo Hideki, hoped to expand Japan’s empire, and the United States was interfering with their plans.

War with China

The New Asian Order

Reading Check

Explaining

Why did Japan want to establish a New Order in East Asia?

Section 2 The Course of World War II

German forces swept through northern Europe early in the war and set up the Vichy government in France. German air attacks on Great Britain resulted in fierce British retaliation. In the east, harsh weather and a resolute Soviet Union defeated an invading German army. The Japanese conquered the Pacific but miscalculated when they attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The United States surprised Japan by abandoning its neutrality and entering the war to retake the Pacific. By the end of 1943, the tide had turned against Germany, Italy, and Japan. After the invasion of Normandy, the Allies liberated Paris and defeated Germany. U.S. President Harry Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin met at Potsdam, Germany, to plan the post-war world. The war in Asia continued until the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing massive casualties and bringing Japan's surrender.

World War Two : Europe and North Africa 1939 - 1945 Map


Europe At War

Hitler's Early Victories

The Battle of Britain

Attack on the Soviet Union

p. 594

Reading Check

Identifying

Where did Hitler believe he could find more "living space" to expand Germany?

Japan At War

p. 599, Geography Skills, #1-2

p. 600, Reading Check

Describing

By the spring of 1942, which territories did Japan control?

The Allies Advance

The European Theater

The Asian Theater

p. 603, Reading Check

Summarizing

Why was the German assault on Stalingrad a crushing defeat for the Germans?

Last Years of the War

The European Theater

People in History

Winston Churchill

The Asian Theater

p. 604, Reading Check

Identifying

What was the "second front" that the Allies opened in Western Europe?

Section 3 The New Order and the Holocaust
To further their war effort and Hitler's plans for Aryan expansion, the Nazis forced millions of people to resettle as forced laborers. No aspect of the Nazi New Order was more terrifying than the deliberate attempt to exterminate the Jews. As part of the Nazis' Final Solution, Jews were locked into cramped, unsanitary ghettos or forced to dig their own mass graves before being killed. When this proved too slow for the Nazis, they transported Europe's Jews to death camps where they were worked to death or sent to die in gas chambers. The Nazis killed between five and six million Jews and nine to ten million non-Jews. In Asia, Japan showed little respect for the conquered peoples in its effort to secure industrial markets and raw materials. Japanese treatment of prisoners of war was equally harsh. Japan professed a commitment to ending Western colonialism, but the brutality of the Japanese convinced many Asians to resist Japanese occupation.

Ch. 19 Resources

See the war through the eyes of soldiers, secret agents, pilots and evacuees.

Life for children during the war.

Listen to an air raid warning.

The blitz and the home front in the UK.

Churchill and the bombing of Dresden


London, England during World War II



Cologne, 1944




SONGS OF WORLD WAR TWO : MEDLEY 1, 9:56


Andrews Sisters - Song & Dance - Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, 2:21

A Favorite Song & Dance Number With The Andrews Sisters, doing... 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' From The 1941 Movie, 'Buck Privates.'

Cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wiVkdVPGoY&feature=fvw

Donald Duck - Der Fuehrers Face, 7:54

The song was written by Oliver Wallace for Disney's "Der Fuehrer's Face" [pre-release title: "Donald Duck In Nutzi Land"], featuring Donald Duck; Spike and his City Slickers {Carl Grayson, vocal} recorded it on July 28, 1942, a few months before its release. The popularity of the record made the film even more popular, earning it an Academy Award.


How To Take Effective Notes
Email to gmsmith@shanahan.org

Wednesday: p. 579, #4-6, 8

AP Economics: 12 April 2010

Prayer
Current Events (none because of the Diagnostic Test):

The last class Test, a short (20 Question, multiple choice), Diagnostic Test, is scheduled for today to determine which macroeconomic topics you need to review most. You will hand in only the Scantron for grading; you may keep the Diagnostic Test as a study tool.

You may also try your hand at the non-Graded, Section II free-response question administered at the same time as the Diagnostic Test. You can check your answer with a hand-out at the end of class.

AP Macroeconomics Diagnostic Test Correlation Chart

Use the following table to determine which macroeconomics topics you need to review most. After scoring your test (you will hand in the Scantron; you can keep the Diagnostic Test for study purposes), check to find out the areas of study covered by the questions you answered incorrectly.

Area of Study

1. Basic Economic Concepts

Questions

6,8

2. Measurement of Economic Performance

Questions

7, 16, 19

3. National Income and Price Determination

Questions

3, 4, 9

4. Financial Sector

Questions

11, 12, 17, 20

5. Inflation, Unemployment, and Stabilization Policies

Questions

1, 5, 10, 14

6. Economic Growth and Productivity

Questions

2, 15

7. Open Economy: International Trade and Finance

Questions

13, 18









Email HW to gmsmith@shanahan.org

No more HW and not accepted after the Test.