The Second World War

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The Second World War
Era 7 Global War

• Day Three
• Session 4B
• Craig Benjamin

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This Lecture to Include

• Part One Prelude to War
• Part Two Phase One
• German-Soviet Alliance (1939 June 41)
• Part Three Phase Two Nazi Supremacy in Europe
  (June 1941- July 1943)
• Part Four Phase Three Triumph of the Grand
  Alliance (July 1943-May 1945)

academic.brooklyn.cuny
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PART ONE PRELUDE TO WARGlobal War

• 1939 - the year the world went to war?
  Eurocentric perspective because war had been on
  the march for previous eight years
• Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931 at war with
  China since 1937
• From August 1938 Japanese also in conflict with
  the Soviet Red Army in Manchuria
• Japan then joined Germany and Italy as one of the
  Axis powers
• 1939 simply the addition of Europe to the
  existing theaters of war - a regional war became
  a global one

Japanese reserves prepare to assault the Red
Army in Manchuria, Sept 1938
classifieds.aol.com
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Rearmament!
www.regiamarina.it

• Inaccurate to describe new global conflict as
  Hitlers War - all the steadily rearming
• In 1937 Britain expanded and re-equipped the RAF
  France created new Ministry of Defense and
  nationalized its great arms manufacturers
• European preparing for a protracted conflict in
  which industrial strength would be just as vital
  as trained men
• Totalitarian states of Nazi Germany and Stalinist
  Russia had suffered less from the Depression than
  the Western Democracies had, so were better
  prepared

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Military Expenditure Statistics

• Germany by itself able to spend as much on
  military expenditure as all of the Western Powers
  put together
• Military Expenditure (1933-38) in Millions of
  Pounds
• USA 1,175
• UK 1,201
• France 1,088
• Germany 3,540
• USSR 2,808
• (Source N. Davies, Europe p. 991)

www.insightmag.com
Nazi military parade, 1939
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Russia and Germany United?

• Stalin and Hitler possessed war machines far
  superior to anything else in Europe
• If the USA kept out of a war, Western Powers
  would be hard pressed to contain them
• If Stalin and Hitler joined forces, West would be
  powerless to stop them
• All eyes therefore on Germany and the Soviet
  Union, and the unlucky countries trapped between
  them
• Stalin not ready for full-scale war - purges had
  decimated the Red Army, and Soviet troops were
  already engaged against the Japanese
• Preferred to lure Germany into a war with the
  Western Powers, while the USSR gathered its
  strength
• Hitler had no such considerations he was in
  absolute command of a vast war machine, and pored
  over maps of Europe for possibilities for German
  expansion

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Europe on the Eve of the War
history.acusd.edu/gen
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Hitlers Ambitions in Poland

• Early in 1939 Hitler attempted a deal with
  Poland
• Poles should cede their rights in Danzig and
  permit building of an autobahn across Polish
  territory in return they could join Germany in a
  political and economic alliance
• If Poland did not accept the deal, Germany would
  take Danzig and form an alliance with the Soviets
  against Poland
• Proud Polish generals would not accede to the
  demands of an ex-Austrian corporal - preferred go
  down fighting
• After weeks of delay from the Poles, Nazi
  propagandists complained about oppression of
  German nationals in Danzig
• On March 31 Great Britain sent Poland an
  unsolicited Guarantee of Independence
• On April 3rd Hitler had war plans drawn up for an
  invasion of Poland

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Czechoslovakia
Germany gains large sections of Czechoslovakia
without firing a shot!
users.erols.com

• Meantime, prize after prize fell into Hitlers
  lap
• In March he demanded the break-up of
  Czechoslovakia, and then drove in triumph into
  Prague without a shot being fired
• Hungarians seized Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia without
  anyones permission
• On Good Friday (April 2nd) the Italian army
  invaded Albania Europe was already at war!

10
German-Soviet Alliance

• In the first week of May, Germany and USSR began
  to talk
• Realized scale of their opportunities for mutual
  territorial gain, with Poland the only obstacle
  to dividing up Eastern Europe between them
• Hitler believed he could take care of France and
  Britain single-handedly Stalin felt the same way
  about the Eastern Europe
• Both realized that the USA (with military
  expenditure less than Britains) would be
  powerless to intervene if they acted quickly
• On June 14 Hitler told his generals to be ready
  for war in 8 weeks on 22 August he told another
  conference that War is better now
• His notes read No pity brutal attitude
  might is right greatest severity

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Hitler and Stalin
www.historie-nu.dk
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The Outbreak of the War

• Aug 23 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a Pact
  of Non-Aggression
• License for war for Hitler and Stalin each now
  free to assault its neighbors without
  interference from the other
• At 1.00 pm on August 31st Hitler issued Directive
  No. 1 for the conduct of war against Poland
• War opened in true Nazi style (criminals used
  criminals) German convicts rounded up by the SS
  and marched into a radio station near the
  German-Polish border
• Convicts then stormed the radio station
• (stage-managed by the SS) Polish
• nationalist songs played over the air
• convicts taken outside and shot
• Nazi news service then announced that
• the Polish Army had launched an
• unprovoked attack on the Third Reich

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PART TWO PHASE ONE OF THE WAR1939- June
1941
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World War!

• Invasion of Poland
• transformed series of
• regional conflicts into a
• world-wide conflict
• By involving the USSR (already at war with Japan)
  it linked European and Asian theaters of
  operation
• Japan, the USSR, Poland, Germany and the Western
  Powers all enmeshed in a web of conflict the
  Second World War had begun!
• German-Soviet pact also transformed Europe by
  destroying Poland they re-established a common
  frontier
• Gave Hitler a chance to attack the West with
  Stalins support
• Stalin may have hoped that Germany would be
  defeated in the West or that Germany and the
  West would fight themselves to bloody stalemate,
  allowing the USSR to emerge as the supreme power
  in Europe

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Three Phases of War

• First phase (1939-June 41) while the
  German-Soviet pact lasted, Germans achieved a
  series of stunning victories in Western Europe
• When the pact broke down, the war entered a
  second phase (June 1941- July 1943) - Germany
  attacked the USSR and that conflict became the
  contest whereby Europes fate would be decided
• Western Powers were reduced to control only of
  Britain could exert only peripheral influence
• In the final phase
• (July 1943-45) Soviet
• Army in the East combined
• with British and American
• forces in the West to
• crush Germany

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Invasion of Poland

• German and Polish armies each had 60 divisions,
• but after occupation of Czechoslovakia Poland
  was
• surrounded on three sides
• German superiority of tanks and air power and as
  a result of the pact could drive deep into Poland
  without the Red Army intervening
• Despite guaranteeing Polish independence,
  Western Powers declared war on Germany, but did
  not intervene in the fighting
• At dawn on 1 Sept German columns stormed into
  Poland from north, west and south by the 9th
  Warsaw was surrounded and the civilian population
  mercilessly bombarded Stuka bombers destroyed
  factories, roads and railways Warsaw dug in for
  a siege that lasted two weeks
• Then Red Army poured into eastern Poland and
  drove straight to the agreed demarcation line
  along the River Bug
• Germans and Soviets held a joint victory parade
  before dividing Poland up between them the USSR
  gained all of Poland east of the River Bug

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(No Transcript)
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Occupied Poland
On German maps "Poland" disappeared as a
geopolitical entity. Annexed territories (shaded
dark brown) Danzig and northwestern lands were
incorporated into the German provinces of Danzig,
West Prussia, and East Prussia, and southwestern
lands, including Auschwitz, into Upper Silesia.
Western Poland, including Lodz, became a new
German province, the "Wartheland." The Bialystok
district (shaded light brown) became a
quasi-incorporated area. The rest of eastern
Poland under German administration (shaded light
red) was merged with the German occupied Baltic
states and Soviet Union into a "Reichskommissariat
Ostland" (in the north) and a "Reichskommis-saria
t Ukraine" (in the south).
users.erols.com
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Polish Terror!

• Polish Government escaped into exile Poland west
  of the Bug now occupied by the Germans, who
  instituted a policy of racial screening
• Himmler ordered all the aged and mentally
  handicapped seized from the hospitals orphanages
  raided for boys and girls suitable for breeding
  experiments concentration camps constructed at
  Auschwitz and Majdanek
• 15,000 Polish intellectuals, officials,
  politicians and clergy were shot or sent to
  concentration camps
• Polands large Jewish community ordered into
  ghetto districts which were gradually locked and
  segregated
• In the Soviet zone 2 million individuals
• transported to terror camps 26,000 Polish
• prisoners of war were taken from their camps
• and shot in a series of massacres

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Campaigns of 1939 and Early 1940

• Western Powers remained impotent in the 20
  months following the fall of Poland, 13 European
  countries were overrun by Germany and the USSR
• Soviets attempted to invade Finland, but Fins
  held them off for 5 months, revealing serious
  deficiencies in the Red Armys equipment and
  tactics
• Finland and the USSR signed a treaty which ceded
  some parts of Finland to the Soviets, but
  guaranteed Finnish neutrality
• Hitler invaded Denmark in April 1940, followed by
  Norway
• Denmark allowed to keep its King and Queen
  Norway placed under the control of Norwegian
  collaborator Quisling Sweden remained
  independent (so long as its iron ore continued to
  flow into Germany)
• German policy in the West was far more lenient
  than in the East!

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German Conquests by the Spring of 1940
users.erols.com
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Conquest of France

• By early summer Nazis ready to
• assault Western Powers, before
• British rearmament was complete
• Campaign based on three strategies
• operation in Belgium and the
• Netherlands to clear the way major
• land operation against France and an air
  operation against Britain to subdue the Royal
  Navy
• Campaign was stunningly successful Belgium
  surrendered Holland was invaded in 18 days and
  France defeated in less than 5 weeks!
• German Panzers drove a steel column between the
  British in the north and the main French forces
  in the center
• British Expeditionary Force totally beaten and
  forced to evacuate from Dunkirk fleeing French
  forces were simply overrun by the faster German
  Panzer divisions
• Images - DUNKIRK

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German Panzer Spearhead of the Campaigns
www.panzertole.de
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French Defeat!

• Following French capitulation, country was
  disarmed 2 million French soldiers sent to work
  in Germany
• French Vichy government allowed some autonomy in
  the south, but northern France occupied by the
  Nazis
• When Hitler staged his victory parade down the
  Champs-Elysees, he was master of Europe from
  Poland to the Pyrenees
• A few British, Polish and Free French forces had
  scrambled back across the Channel to Britain
  British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared
  A nation that produces three hundred types of
  cheese will never be lost!
• Leader of the Free French and Post-War Prime
  Minister of France Charles de Gaulle declared
  France has lost the battle, but not the war!

www.ushmm.org
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The Battle of Britain

• Battle for air supremacy over Britain one of the
  Nazis costliest blunders
• Campaign led by Goring, based on a plan of
  nightly bombings against ports and factories, and
  of air battles to defeat the RAF prelude to the
  invasion of Britain
• Germans used a large force of 1,330 Heinkel and
  Junkers bombers (operating from bases in northern
  France) supported by packs of Messerschmitt and
  Focke-Wolf fighters
• Opposed by RAF squadrons of Hurricanes and
  Spitfires (10 manned by Polish, Czech and French
  pilots)
• Battle of Britain, fought over 4 months,
  culminated on 15 September when Goring decided
  that Luftwaffe losses could no longer be
  sustained - air offensive was indefinitely
  postponed
• Churchill said in Parliament Never in the field
  of human conflict has so much been owed by so
  many to so few

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Battle of Britain
www.hobbytyme.com
www.brooksart.com
www.nzedge.com
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Significance of British Victory in the Air

• Victory in the Battle of Britain gave Allied
  cause an impregnable base
• Turned Britain into an unsinkable aircraft
  carrier, allowing for massive growth in Allied
  air power, a decisive element in ultimate success
• Gained a breathing space for the Allies, in which
  Prime Minister Churchill was able to begin
  diplomatic efforts to bring the Americans into
  the war as soon as possible
• American assistance kept Great Britain
  financially and psychologically afloat during the
  dark days of the war through the Lend-Lease Bill

www.jeanstephengalleries.com
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• War at sea longer
• and more difficult
• than the war in the
• air
• Germany challenged
• British naval
• supremacy with very
• modern pocket
• battleships and a fleet
• of U-Boats
• Germans sunk the British battleship Royal Oak in
  Scapa Flow the Germans lost the Graf Spee off
  the coast of Argentina then Germany lost the
• massive Bismarck

The War at Sea
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The North African Theater
www.worldwar2database.com

• In the Mediterranean, Allies determined to keep
  control of North Africa and the Suez Canal
• May 1940 Mussolini of Italy declared war and
  invaded the French Alps
• Allies then surrounded the Italian base in
  Tripoli in North Africa German Afrika Korps
  dispatched to assist their Italian allies
• Britains hold on Egypt made difficult by the
  arrival of the Germans, but their eventual
  victory at El Alamein in October 1942 secured
  North Africa for the Allies

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The Soviets and Eastern Europe
Red Army enters Latvia

• In June 1940 Stalin sent
• Red Army into the Baltic states of Estonia,
  Latvia and Lithuania, and the Stalinist Terror
  machine then set to work
• So ferocious were the massacres and deportations
  that the Baltic States welcomed the possibility
  of a Nazi advance into their countries
• In Romania, whose fragile independence was based
  on the continued export of oil to Germany, Stalin
  seized several provinces, amidst fanfares of
  reunion with the Soviet fatherland

www.aviapress.com
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Cracks in the Soviet-German Alliance

• Nazi-Soviet partnership became increasingly
  tenuous it was obvious that Hitler was gaining
  more than Stalin
• Hitlers victories also looked menacing to
  Stalin, because after their success in the West,
  there were only two destinations left for German
  expansion the Balkans or the Soviet Union
  itself!

www.joric.com/ Hitler
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The Balkans Crisis

• Germans invaded the Balkans in April 1941, but it
  was a fragmented, hostile and unstable region in
  which underground armies proliferated
• Croatian Ustasi began cleansing of the Serbian
  minority, with concentration camps and mass
  executions
• Yugoslav underground (led by the future leader of
  Post-War Yugoslavia Tito) determined to kill the
  German invaders and each other
• In Greece, Athens occupied by the Germans
• British resistance on Crete was overwhelmed
• Stalin showed no solidarity with Hitler he had
• signed a treaty with Yugoslavia before the
• Germans invaded
• He then signed a neutrality pact with
• Japan, and cleared the decks for major
• action against the Germans

Tito, 1943
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End of the Alliance

• German battle divisions were quickly transported
  from Yugoslavia to the Reichs eastern borders
• By early June, East Prussia and Romania were full
  of German soldiers and tanks most of the worlds
  superpowers knew Hitler was about to attack
  Stalin
• Soviets had not been idle, and had also built up
  huge military concentrations in forward areas
• Suggests that Stalin had himself been preparing
  to attack Hitler, but was beaten to the draw the
  Wehrmacht struck at dawn on June 22 1941

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PART THREE PHASE TWO OF THE WAR NAZI SUPREMACY
IN EUROPE (June 1941-July 1943)
War with Germany is announced in Moscow
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Operation Barbarosa

• Operation Barbarosa took the Germans deep into
  the Soviet Union - the decisive military
  operation of the Second World War in Europe!
• Despite initial successes, the front ultimately
  accounted for 75 of all German war casualties -
  the main reason for Hitlers ultimate defeat
• Initial attack in June 1941 had spectacular
  results German army of 3 million men destroyed
  Soviet air force on the ground in a few days, and
  then surrounded whole Soviet armies, taking
  millions of prisoners (photo above)
• By December forward German units had laid siege
  to Leningrad and had Moscow in their binocular
  sites, before fresh Soviet troops began to arrive
  to hold them at bay

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Operation Barbarosa Map
www.besaettelsestiden.dk
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Into the Ukraine

• In 1942 German priority was an advance along the
  southern steppes, to seize the Ukraine and
  oilfields of Baku
• Retreating Soviets practiced scorched-earth
  policy, stripping the land bare and dismantling
  the factories, moving them further east
• When the second winter set in, Germans were
  approaching the Volga at Stalingrad
• Nazis treated as liberators at first in the
  Ukraine, but their arrogance spurned the
  Ukrainian nationalist movement - lost the chance
  to win the population to their side
• Nazis massacred whole villages at will and
  treated the Slavs almost as savagely as they did
  the Jews
• Ultimately Nazis responsible for the deaths of 9
  million Ukrainians!

38
Nazi Terror in the Ukraine
Nazi execution techniques
Farmers being led to execution
www.infoukes.com
39
Holocaust (Shoah)

• In conjunction with their occupation of the
  Ukraine the Nazis launched their largest and most
  systematic campaign of racial genocide
• What they termed the Final Solution of the
  Jewish Question has since been called the
  Holocaust (Shoah in Hebrew)
• Attempt to use modern technology to kill every
  Jewish man, woman and child in Europe, simply for
  being Jews
• No direct order form the Fuhrer has ever been
  unearthed, probably because he took precautions
  to conceal his involvement (but in a broadcast in
  January 1939 he had made a prophesy that a war
  would mean the destruction of all the Jews)
• Nothing done until July 1941, when
• Goring must have received an order
• from Hitler to begin the
• Final Solution

Germans cut the beard of a Jew in Poland
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The Policy of Execution

• Hesitation now cast aside - Resettlement became
  official euphemism for genocide!
• As the Germans advanced into Russia, notorious
  Einsatzgruppen appeared, rounding up Jews and
  shooting them by the
• thousands
• In the chasm of
• Babi Yar near
• Kiev 70,000
• victims were
• shot and buried
• in mass graves

Mass executions at Babi Yar
shamash.org/ holocaust
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The Policy of Annihilation

• Policy decisions then made by SS chief Adolph
  Eichmann to use Zyklon-B gas, build new death
  camps and expand those already in existence in
  Poland, and to draw up railway timetables to
  transport Jews to the camps
• 7-8 million units were designated for
  processing the problem was to collect, transport
  and dispose of them as quietly and efficiently as
  possible

One of the cremation pits used to burn the
victims of Zyklon-B in Auschwitz
shamash.org/ holocaust
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Jewish Response

• From January 1942 the Final Solution proceeded
  uninterrupted for 3 years town by town, ghetto
  by ghetto, district by district, country by
  country
• In 1942-3 it concentrated on the 3 million Jews
  of Poland in 1943-5 it spread to the Balkans,
  Hungary and Western Europe
• Achieved 65 of its target, and was only stopped
  when allied soldiers overran the camps
• Many Jews had no idea where they were going when
  they boarded the trains, and went quietly to
  their deaths

Others took part in armed uprisings, particularly
in Warsaw in opposition to the final clearance in
April 1943, when all but 80 of the fighters were
killed by the Nazis, and the survivors committed
suicide in their hideout in Mila Street
Bunker at Mila 18 before the suicide
www.scrapbookpages.com
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Gentile Response

• In Poland many Gentiles sold fugitive Jews to the
  Gestapo, but others risked their lives to protect
  the fugitives
• Polish Resistance saved about 150,000 Jews by
  hiding them in barns, cellars and woods
• In Denmark the King rode out into the streets in
  sympathy with the Jews wearing a Star of David
  armband - most of Denmarks 300 Jews escaped
• In Romania police killed hundreds of thousands of
  Jews on their own, but the government did not
  cooperate with the Nazis in handing over Romanian
  Jews
• In France the Vichy government operated its own
  concentration camp and made a distinction between
  native French Jews (only 8 of whom lost their
  lives) and alien refugee Jews, who were
  willingly handed over but the Resistance
  disrupted the deportation trains
• In Holland most Jews were lost in Hungary a
  Swedish diplomat organized many Jewish escapes
• In the Vatican, Pope Pius XII appeared
  indifferent, but he argued he was torn by fears
  of reprisals against German Catholics

44
Death Toll!

• The exact death toll will never be known,
  although the estimate made for the Nuremberg
  Tribunal of 5.85 million is fairly accurate
• In round figures, this included c.3 million from
  Poland, c.2 million from the USSR and c.1 million
  from other countries
• These figures can be compared with estimates of
  c.8.7 million Soviet and c.3.5 million German
  military losses, and civilian losses of several
  millions

Burnt Jewish corpses in the concentration camp at
Maidenek
shamash.org/ holocaust
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Disbelief in the Outside World

• During the war the outside world could
• not or would not grasp what was
• happening
• In September 1940 a Polish
• Underground officer infiltrated Auschwitz for
  two years before escaping with news of what was
  happening, but the British government though the
  information was not credible
• When a Polish courier visited Washington to give
  an eye-witness account, Chief Justice Frankfurter
  said We dont say you are lying, but even
  American Jews made no effort to help
• When the proposal was eventually made to bomb the
  approaches to Auschwitz, the Allied Powers found
  reasons to refuse
• Just as Stalin had done in the 1930s, Hitler was
  able to kill millions of Europeans without
  significant world reaction, until outsiders saw
  what was happening with their own eyes

Children at Auschwitz
46
Anglo-Soviet Alliance

• German attack on the USSR transformed the worlds
  diplomatic alliances - Germany and the Soviet
  Union had moved from being partners to mortal
  enemies
• Opened the way for West to combine with the USSR,
  although for Churchill (a lifelong
  anti-communist) this meant speaking well of the
  Devil himself
• The German-Soviet pact was annulled and an
  Anglo-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance signed
  in Moscow on 12 July 1941

www.heretical.com
Churchill and Stalin at the Kremlin, August 1942
47
The BIG Three

• 11 Aug 1941 Churchill and Roosevelt signed
  Atlantic Charter 8 common principles included
  right of all peoples to choose the government
  under which they will live and that all
  nations of the world must come to the
  abandonment of the use of force
• US Congress remained reluctant to enter the war
  until Japanese gave them a reason with the
  bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec 1941
• Japanese had unwittingly unlocked the doors of
  the Grand Alliance, and put the Big Three
  Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt into business
• Ultimate outcome of the Red Army could avoid
  collapse, Britain could preserve its island
  fortress, and on the Americans could muster
  their substantial resources for simultaneous wars
  in Europe and the Pacific

Churchill and Roosevelt meet to sign the
Atlantic Charter, 1941
48

• Battle of the Atlantic secured sea lanes which
  guaranteed Britains lifeline to the USA
• 21 million tons of Allied shipping, 77,000
  British sailors and 70 of all German U-Boats
  were lost keeping the lanes open
• Allied losses peaked in March 1943 before 41
  U-Boats were sunk by a single convoy, forcing
  Admiral Donitz to withdraw his submarines from
  the Atlantic for good
• Royal Navy had the arduous task of keeping the
  USSR supplied by arctic convoys to Murmansk, at
  the cost of many ships and sailors

49
Battle of the Atlantic
home.wanadoo.nl/cclinks/ abtf/convoy
www.civilization.ca
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• From the first 1,000-bomber raid on Cologne on 31
  May 1942, Allied bombing offensive rose to a
  mighty crescendo
• Campaign has been strongly criticized on
  practical and moral grounds - wholesale
  destruction of German cities by fire-bombing and
  the attempt to terrorize the civilian populations
  did not achieve the expected results
• Despite 1.35 million tons of high explosive
  dropped on Germany, Nazi war industries were
  never halted, and German civilians, like their
  British counterparts, rallied to the national
  cause
• One raid on Hamburg in May 1943 killed 43,000
  civilians
• Another on Dresden may have killed over 100,000

Allied Bombing Raids
51
Bombing of DresdenFebruary 1945
mars.wnec.edu
52
A Second Front?

• As soon as the Grand Alliance came together,
  Stalin pressed Anglo-Americans to open a second
  front - almost the entire German war machine (150
  divisions) was concentrated in the East, with
  only 4 divisions in Africa
• But despite using their air raids to draw the
  Luftwaffe away from the Volga, and capturing
  large numbers of Axis prisoners in Africa, the
  Anglo-Americans found it difficult to oblige
• Every European port was controlled by the enemy
  a vast Atlantic wall of defenses had been erected
  along the coast in France
• Only possibility for a second front was on the
  southern periphery of Europe,
• in Italy

German Panzer Divisions in Russia
53
The Italian Campaign

• Germans forced to withdraw from North Africa in
  May 1943 Allies quickly followed them across the
  Mediterranean to Sicily
• Invasion of Sicily began on 10 July 1943 after a
  rapid conquest the Allies jumped across to
  mainland and began the arduous task of pushing
  northwards up the mountainous peninsula, which in
  the end took them two years
• Establishment of a major base at Brindisi allowed
  the projection of Allied air power deep into
  Central and Eastern Europe also forced the
  Germans to commit ill-spared divisions to the
  occupation of southern France
• Invasion also led to the collapse of Mussolinis
  regime he was dismissed by the king on 25 July
  1943

freepages.military.rootsweb.com
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The Eastern Front

• On the Eastern Front the gigantic German-Soviet
  war was reaching its climax
• Red Army used millions of soldiers as expendable
  manpower which amazed and demoralized the
  Germans waves of infantry used to assault fixed
  positions with no artillery support
• Through fields of corpses the hordes of
  ill-equipped Soviets kept coming until German
  machine-guns overheated and gunners lost stomach
  for the slaughter
• Accepted that the Soviet side could take losses
  of 41 and still carry the day they were also
  helped by the wilderness terrain and weather
• In 1942 the Germans were drawn on and on,
  stretching their communication lines
• By autumn, with the weather deteriorating and
  neither the Volga nor Caspian reached, a tactical
  withdrawal was needed, but Hitler refused and
  gave the fateful order to defend their ground at
  all costs

55
Stalingrad!

• Eventually Germans reached the suburbs of
  Stalins City, but had only put their heads
  into a noose
• Day after day Soviets under Marshall Zhukov
  inched forward around the German flanks until
  they were surrounded
• Three months of deadly hand-to-hand fighting in
  the icy, deserted ruins led to the surrender of
  the Germans on 2 February1943
• Red Army then went on the offensive for the first
  time in two years tide of war had turned
• Battle of Stalingrad cost over one million
  soldiers lives, and was the largest single battle
  in world history
• News flashed around the world and gave heart to
  resistance movements the Nazi war machine was
  shown to be fallible and people began to dream of
  liberation

56
S T A L I N G R A D
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PART FOUR Phase Three- Triumph of the Grand
Alliance (July 1943-May 1945)
58
Grand Alliance on the Offensive

• From mid-May 1943 Grand Alliance held the upper
  hand in almost every sphere - Reich was under
  siege!
• Combined resources of American industrial
  strength, Russian manpower and the British Empire
  could not be matched by Hitlers shrinking realm
• Allies biggest problem was in political and
  strategic coordination, and three personal
  meetings of the Big Three were organized
  Tehran (Dec 1943), Yalta (Feb 1945) and Potsdam
  (June 1945)
• Three items on the agenda war aims, priorities
  of the Pacific and European wars, and the plans
  for post-war Europe
• War aims were simple the unconditional
  surrender of Germany
• War in the Pacific was being shouldered by the
  Americans and member states of the British
  Empire, particularly Australia and New Zealand
  Stalin maintained strict neutrality towards Japan

59
Plans for Post-War Europe

• Plans for the future of Europe never reached full
  agreement
• Anglo-Americans excluded Stalin from any
  decisions about Western Europe Stalin had his
  own plans for Eastern Europe
• Sole exception was Greece, where Churchill
  insisted on continuing western influence in
  effect the Anglo-Americans handed Eastern
  Europe over to Stalin as part of the Soviet
  sphere of influence
• Post-war fate of Poland could not be agreed upon
  by the two sides - its plight is often seen as
  the source of the Cold War
• Soviets demanded that large part of eastern
  Poland should remain as part of the USSR, and
  because Churchill and Roosevelt needed Stalins
  Red Army to continue its effort against the
  Germans, they urged the Polish government in
  exile to agree to the Soviets demands

60
Tehran Conference
Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill At the Tehran
Conference

• Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had their first
  wartime meeting in Tehran from 28 November to 1
  December 1943
• Agreed on the urgency of a second front in
  France, and also on the post-war independence of
  Iran, but disagreed violently over Poland
• The meeting was hardly auspicious, but there was
  confidence in the prospect of a continuing Allied
  assault on the Nazis

61
Red Army Offensives, 1943-45

• Red Army offensives kept the Wehrmacht constantly
  reeling in a series of huge forward leaps
• Colossal concentrations of men and equipment
  unleashed on the Germans over-stretched lines
  like an irresistible flood
• Tactic was to cut off and isolate points of
  resistance, leaving them for destruction at a
  later stage
• Many German fortresses (like Breslau) and a
  number of German armies were simply isolated and
  bypassed -still intact when Berlin fell
• Red Army had a reputation for terror, replacing
  Nazi totalitarianism with Stalinist terrorism -
  violence, rape and pillage
• First German villages they liberated were
  massacred German women were raped then crucified
  on barn doors
• Red Armys drive into central Europe one of the
  grandest and most terrible military operations in
  history it has been described as the
  Juggernaut of the Comintern, crushing all
  beneath its wheels

62
Red Army Juggernaut
Dead German soldiers, Russia
www.marxists.o
63
D-Day, 6 June 1944

• Second Front finally opened on 6 June 1944,
  D-Day
• British, American, Canadian and Polish troops
  landed
• on the beaches of Normandy
• Operation Overlord required safe disembarkation
  of hundreds of thousands of men and their
  equipment on a heavily fortified coast - most
  difficult technical problem of the whole war
• Succeeded because of good planning, air
  supremacy, effective use of deception (convincing
  Hitler that the real attack would be at Calais)
  and good luck
• Weather played a part the biggest storm in the
  English Channel for 25 years meant that German
  commander Rommel went home for the weekend!
• US General Dwight D Eisenhower, postponed the
  start twice, then gave the order to send 156,000
  men, 2,000 warships, 4,000 landing craft and
  10,000 warplanes underway, while the gale
  continued to rage

64
Defensive obstacles on Juno Beach,Aerial photo
one week before D-Day
www.303rdbga.com
65
The Landings at Normandy

• One throw of the dice paid off - storm began to
  subside in the middle of the night
• American paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st
  Airborne jumped into the middle of the German
  lines, and with their British colleagues captured
  vital bridges and canals
• At dawn the main force waded ashore on five
  beaches 73,000 of the US 1st Army hit Utah and
  Omaha 83,000 of the 2nd British and 1st Canadian
  Armies stormed Gold, Juno and Sword
• Apart from fierce resistance at Omaha, shocked
  German defenders were quickly defeated - Allies
  won their
• finger hold in France
• After delays in capturing the
• ports of Caen and
• Cherbourg, by 9 July the
• road was clear for the race
• to Paris, and the
• Rhine beyond

66
www.max3d.pl/forum
67
US Cemetery at St. Laurent, Normandy Above Omaha
Beach Photo C. Benjamin, July 2008
68
Omaha Beach Today Photo C. Benjamin, July 2008
69
Liberation of Paris

• By July 20 (when Hitler narrowly survived an
  attempt to assassinate him by a number of German
  officers) Americans were in the suburbs of Paris
• On 19 August (in coordination with the Americans)
  French Resistance led an uprising in Paris -
  Germans began to pull back
• General Leclercs French armored division given
  the honor of spearheading the advance into the
  city
• On 25 August, with Nazi snipers still active,
  General de Gaulle walked magnificently erect down
  the Champs-Elysees and into the great cathedral
  of Notre Dame Paris was free, and France
  liberated

hsgm.free.fr
70
Setbacks for the Western Allies
hsgm.free.fr
V1 Rocket in flight

• Despite the success of D-Day, Western Allies
  encountered many setbacks
• In Italy Rome was eventually liberated, but only
  after the Allied armies had been bottled up for
  months at Monte Cassino
• One week after D-Day the London Blitz was
  resumed, with V1 and V2 flying bombs dropping on
  the city
• In eastern Belgium in December the American army
  under Patton had to absorb fierce German
  counterattacks in the last major stand of the
  Wehrmacht - Battle of the Bulge
• In Greece the British army arrived only to find
  itself in the middle of a civil war

71

• Terminal conquest of Germany between Jan and May
  1945 took place amidst extraordinary scenes
• In the West Allied bombers reduced German cities
  to piles of rubble full of corpses
• In the East millions of desperate German
  refugees trekked westwards ahead of the Red Army
  through the winter snows
• Hitler drafted all German males aged 14 and
  older - most of these schoolboys, invalids and
  veterans died from the Soviet policy of killing
  anyone in German uniform

• Soviets marched through Poland and raced for
  Berlin
• Americans had a lucky break when the Germans
  failed to destroy the last bridge over the Rhine
  at Remagen, allowing Patton to cross the river
  and join the race for Berlin
• From his bunker beneath the debris of Berlin,
  Hitler watched the Reichs defenses crumble!

Defeat of Germany
72
The Big Three Meet at Yalta

• When Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met
• for a second time at Yalta in Crimea from
• 4 to 11 February 1945, the end was already close
• Agreed on
• - establishment of four separate Allied zones of
  occupation in Germany
• - destruction of the Reichs military-industrial
  capacity
• - prosecution of war criminals
• - need to give Germans no more than minimal
  subsistence
• Agreed that Poland should have free elections,
  and that the provisional government should draw
  its members form both pro-Soviet and pro-Western
  Poles
• Also agreed that the Soviets would enter the war
  against Japan two or three months after the end
  of hostilities in Europe

73
teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer
Conference of the Big Three at Yalta
74
The Fall of Berlin

• Siege of Berlin (planned in Yalta)
• left to the Red Army lasted for three
• weeks from 20 April
• Zhukov poured in reserves without counting the
  cost - probably lost more men in this one
  operation than the US army lost in the course of
  the war Berlin sold itself dearly
• As the noose tightened, Nazis slipped out,
  including Hitlers deputy Martin Boormann and a
  plane load of secret Nazi documents, neither of
  which were ever seen again
• On April 29 Hitler married Eva Braun next day
  the newly-weds died in a poison and pistol-shot
  suicide pact
• Russians were only 200 yards away when the
  Hitlers died their last remains were buried by
  the KGB in East Germany two fragments of
  Hitlers skull were later produced from ex-Soviet
  archives in 1993

www.buehler-hd.de/ medien/bild/berlin1
75
VE Day, 9 May 1945 New York City
Victory in Europe Day followed in the second week
of May It meant annihilation for the Nazis and
total defeat for the German nation The moment of
Germanys unconditional surrender was fixed at
midnight on May 8th, 1945
www.zer0.org/ve
76
The Conference at Potsdam

• From 17 July to 2 August 1945 Allied leaders met
  for the last time in Potsdam of the wartime
  leaders, only Stalin survived
• Churchill defeated in the General Election and
  replaced in the middle of the conference by the
  new British socialist PM Clement Atlee
• Roosevelt had died before the fall of Germany -
  succeeded by his no-nonsense Vice-President Harry
  Truman
• Because of major ideological differences between
  the three leaders, they stuck to practical maters
• Germany to be administered by an Interallied
  Council Austria restored to independence France
  given back Alsace-Lorraine and Czechoslovakia the
  Sudentland
• Poland given a new border, and all Germans living
  east of it were expelled all Nazi leaders who
  had been captured were to stand trial before an
  International War Crimes Tribunal

77
The New Big Three at Potsdam
Atlee, Truman and Stalin
aerostories.free.fr
78
Nuremburg War Crimes Trials

• Tribunal met in Nuremburg from 20 November 1945,
  and ran through 403 open sessions until the final
  sentences were handed down ten months later on 1
  October 1946
• 21 defendants, who all pleaded not guilty, were
  tried with great decorum by the four allied
  judges for war crimes and crimes against humanity
• In final sentencing, some Nazis acquitted on all
  counts, and others received prison sentences from
  10 years to life
• Ten sentenced to death, including Goring, Jodl,
  Ribbentrop and Hess
• Goring committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide
  capsule hidden in a hollow tooth the others were
  executed on 16 October, with defiant Nazi words
  on their lips Streichers last words were
• Heil Hitler!
• The Bolsheviks
• will hang you all

79
Nazi Defendants at Nuremburg
paulvictor.org
80
Conclusion

• With executions of the leading Nazis, Second
  World War had ended, history of the next three
  decades in Europe would be dominated by just the
  sort of tensions between the democratic West and
  communist East that Streichers last prophetic
  words had envisaged
• However one interprets the causes and conclusion
  of the war, the consequences were soon to become
  evident.
• European hegemony over the world was at an end
  and two new superpowers on the fringes of Western
  civilization had emerged to take its place

Even before the last battles of the war had been
fought, the USA and USSR had arrived at two very
different visions for the post-war world
81
The Future?

• No sooner had the war ended than their
  differences gave rise to a new and potentially
  even more devastating conflict the Cold War
• Though Europeans seemed mere pawns in the
  struggle between the new superpowers, they
  managed to stage a remarkable recovery of their
  own civilization as we will begin to see next
  lecture!