7.7 Conducting World War II

Path to War: Aggression and Appeasement

Totalitarian states pursued expansion in the 1930s: Japan invaded Manchuria (1931) and China; Italy invaded Ethiopia (1935); Germany annexed Austria and the Sudetenland. Western democracies practiced appeasement, hoping to avoid conflict, exemplified by the Munich Agreement (1938). Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939 finally triggered declarations of war from Britain and France, starting WWII in Europe.

A Truly Global War

WWII was fought across multiple theaters: the European theater (Germany vs. Allies), North Africa, the Eastern Front (Germany vs. USSR, the deadliest theater), and the Pacific theater, where Japan expanded until the U.S. entered after Pearl Harbor (1941). Major turning points include Stalingrad, El Alamein, Midway, and the Normandy invasion (D-Day, 1944). Nations mobilized entire economies and populations for total war.

Atrocities, Technology, and the End of the War

The war produced unprecedented atrocities, including the Holocaust, Japanese war crimes like the Rape of Nanjing, and mass civilian bombing (e.g., Dresden, Tokyo). New military technologies—tanks, radar, code-breaking, and atomic weapons—changed warfare. The war ended in Europe with Germany's surrender (V-E Day, 1945) and in the Pacific after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japan's surrender.

Key terms

Appeasement

Policy of conceding to an aggressor's demands to avoid conflict; exemplified by the 1938 Munich Agreement with Hitler.

Pearl Harbor

December 1941 surprise Japanese attack on a U.S. naval base in Hawaii that brought the U.S. into WWII.

Eastern Front

WWII theater between Germany and the USSR; the deadliest front, including the pivotal Battle of Stalingrad.

The Holocaust

Nazi Germany's systematic genocide of six million Jews and millions of other targeted groups during WWII.

Atomic bombings

U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, leading to Japan's surrender and the end of WWII.

Try an AP-style question

Germany's blitzkrieg strategy relied on…

1. naval blockades only
2. defensive fortifications
3. long trench warfare
4. fast, combined air and tank attacks