7.6: Causes of World War II

Essential Question: What were the causes and consequences of World War II?

The Path to War

• Adolf Hitler- Nazi leader, held extreme views on the Aryan Race which led him to conduct the persecution of Jewish people and other minorities

  • Promoted ultranationalism and scientific racism

  • advanced extreme Anti-Semitism

• Rise of Nazism

  • Weimar Republic- new German gov. that rose to power after WWI defeat in 1918. Became unpopular with the people b/c it appeared weak with no army

  • Lots of unemployment after the war ended

  • Nazis- National Socialist German Worker’s Party

  • Nazis came to power legally in 1932

  • Paul von Hindenburg, Nazi president, elected Hitler chancellor, and Hitler rose to power in 1934 after Hindenburg’s death

• Nuremberg Laws

  • forbade marriage between Jewish people and gentiles (non Jewish people)

  • stripped Jews of citizenship

• Axis Powers

  • composed of Facist Italy, Rome-Berlin Axis, and Japan

• Treaty of Versailles was broken by Hitler by creating an army for Germany

Causes of WWII: Summary

• Diplomatic

  • The imbalance of the Treaty of Versailles

  • failure of appeasement (Germans did not pay)

  • Failure of the League of Nations

• Economic

  • Global Depression

  • The Treaty of Versailles

• Political

  • Japan’s militarism

  • Germany’s militarism and the rise of Hitler

7.7: Conducting WWII

Essential Question: What similarities and differences were there in the methods governments used to conduct war?

Key Terms:

• Vichy

• Lend-Lease Act

• Battle of Britain

• Siege of Leningrad

• Pearl Harbor

• Battle of El Alamein

• Battle of Stalingrad

• Battle of the Coral Sea

• Battle of Midway Island

• Guadalcanal island hopping

• D-Day

• Battle of the Bulge

• Battle of Kursk

• V-E Day

• Hiroshima

• Nagasaki

• V-J Day

• Treaties

• Nonaggression Pact

• Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement

• Atlantic Charter

• Winston Churchill

• Erwin Rommel

• Douglas MacArthur

• blitzkrieg

• Luftwaffe

• aircraft carriers