8.6 World War II

Path to War and Blitzkrieg

Hitler's aggression — remilitarizing the Rhineland, annexing Austria (Anschluss), and seizing the Sudetenland after the failed appeasement at Munich (1938) — culminated in the invasion of Poland (Sept. 1939), starting WWII. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact let Germany and the USSR divide Poland. Germany's blitzkrieg ('lightning war') tactics quickly overran Western Europe, including France by 1940.

Total War and the Holocaust

WWII became a total war involving mass mobilization, aerial bombing of civilians, and genocide. Nazi Germany's Holocaust systematically murdered six million Jews and millions of others (Roma, disabled, Slavs) through ghettos, mobile killing units, and death camps like Auschwitz — the horrifying result of racial ideology and industrialized violence.

Turning Points and Allied Victory

Germany's invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa, 1941) and defeat at Stalingrad (1943) marked turning points on the Eastern Front. The U.S. entered after Pearl Harbor (1941). Allied landings at D-Day (1944) opened a Western front. Germany surrendered May 1945; the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war in the Pacific.

Key terms

Appeasement

Policy by Britain/France of conceding to Hitler's demands (e.g., Munich Agreement) to avoid war.

Blitzkrieg

'Lightning war' tactic using fast-moving tanks, planes, and infantry to quickly overwhelm enemies.

Holocaust

Nazi Germany's systematic genocide of six million Jews and millions of other victims.

Operation Barbarossa

Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the brutal Eastern Front.

D-Day

June 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy that opened a Western front against Nazi Germany.

Try an AP-style question

Britain and France's appeasement of Hitler culminated in…

1. the Nazi-Soviet Pact
2. the Munich Agreement of 1938
3. the Yalta Conference
4. the Treaty of Versailles