Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, inquired of Attorney General Eric Holder last Thursday about his investigation into (D-PA) allegations that the White House attempted to bribe Rep. Joe Sestak into withdrawing from Pennsylvania’s Democratic Primary for the U.S. Senate in exchange for a high ranking federal job.
1. Title 18, U.S.C. Section 211 says, “Whoever solicits or receives, either as a political contribution or for personal emolument, any money or thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year or both.”
2. Title 18, U.S.C. Section 595, which says, “Whoever, being a person employed in any administrative position by the United States … uses his official authority for the purposes of interfering with, or affecting the nomination of, or the election of any candidate for office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representative…shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
3. Finally, Issa referred to Title 18 U.S.C. Section 600, which says, “Whoever directly or indirectly promises any employment position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, in favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
The
Chapter 17 Section 4 Quiz is Wednesday; be sure to consider the Quiz Study Page.
The Chapter 18 Test is Friday (there are no Quizzes for Ch. 18, only the one Test).
Those students who need to take the Make-Up Chapter 17 Section 3 Quiz may do so today. Be sure to put your name on the Quiz. You may write on the Quiz. Other students who need to make up the earlier Quizzes should have done so already; they are available.
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
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.
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 ultra-nationalists 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, 5:34
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
BETTE MIDLER with The Harlettes - Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - This was from the Johnny Carson Show on September 12, 1973. The show was actually taped the day before, 2:20
BETTE MIDLER with The Harlettes - Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV91lFBA8As
SONGS OF WORLD WAR TWO: MEDLEY 2, 9:52
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
The Chapter 17 Section 4 Quiz is Wednesday; the Chapter 18 Test is Friday.
Email to gmsmith@shanahan.org
Monday: (from last Thursday, if not done already with no school, not due until next week) p. 581, Preview Questions, #1-2
p. 582, Geography Skills, #1-2
p. 585, Reading Check
Comparing
How did the United States's method of investing in Latin American differ from that of Britain?
Friday (no school so not due until Monday): p. 584, Chart Skills, #1-2
p. 585, Reading Check
Examining
How was the Mexican government democratic in form but not in practice?
p. 585, Reading Check
Examining
How did Diego Rivera use his artistic talent as a political tool?
p. 590, History and You
Finish the sentences:
Last week, what I liked least about the class was . . .
Last week, what I liked most about the class was . . .
