HIST 102 #36 - World War II 1939 - 1942

Hello, welcome back to our lecture series for Western Civilization 102. We have been discussing events that are occurring between the world wars, between World War One and World War II. Recently, you've learned about totalitarianism and the fascist states. Of course, the main focus would be on Italy and Germany, but as you learned, there were other states as well that had very prominent fascist groups, even in the United States. And you also, of course, learned about totalitarianism in the Soviet Union, because communism and fascism were not the same thing, one far left, one far right, learned that in a previous lecture. So today, we are going to move forward and discuss World War II and the beginnings of World War II from the years 1939 until the year 1942.

Uh, so you know, of course, that Adolf Hitler has legally taken power in Germany. Of course, once he, he had tried at one time to take power illegally, and that wasn't very successful. He was actually, uh, arrested. When he was in prison, that's when he wrote his autobiography, that's called Mein Kampf, or My Struggle. But he does manage to get power, and he will do it legally. But once, as you've learned in previous lectures as well, once Adolf Hitler gets power in Germany, then he starts using illegal means to acquire more power, which is exactly what happens in Germany. We, of course, know that, you know, the Nazis are now in power in Germany in the, uh, mid to late 1930s. We start to see the Nazis and Adolf Hitler gaining more and more power. Jewish doctors are prohibited by law from practicing practicing medicine. So we're starting to see this crackdown on people of of Jewish, the Jewish faith. Uh, we see, of course, even in 1938, that Nazis destroy, uh, there's a synagogue in Nuremberg that is destroyed. Nazis will also require Jewish women to add Sarah, or men to add Israel, to their names and on all illegal documents, including passports. That way, they know. And, uh, we also see that's called The Night of the Broken Glass, and all over Germany, or or any Nazi-controlled area, Jewish shops and department stores had their windows smashed and their contents destroyed. Synagogues again are targeted for vandalism and, uh, burned, while local fire departments simply stood by and watched, maybe trying to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings, but they did nothing to stop the fire from consuming these synagogues. Um, we'll also start to see Jewish men rounded up and later sent to concentration camps, where they were often brutalized by SS guards, uh, and in some cases, randomly chosen to be beaten to death. So even before, this is around 1938. So even before the start, the official beginning of World War II in 1939, we see what's going to occur in Germany. Hitler is not hiding this at all. Of course, we know the Holocaust, where six million Jews are killed, and that's, of course, and was mentioned in a previous lecture. But other people were targeted as well. There were millions of other people, like gypsies, or homosexuals, people that weren't classified in that, uh, that very, um, superior group, the Aryan race, as Adolf Hitler talks about in his biography, autobiography, Mein Kampf. And all this is spelled out. Hitler again is not making a secret of this.

Now, uh, you know, we also will see with World War II, Hitler starts to aggressively expand on the European continent. And remember that there had been a League of Nations created at the Treaty of Versailles, with the Treaty of Versailles, the Paris Peace Conference, that Woodrow Wilson, a United States president, had, uh, one of his, uh, babies, that's what he wanted to get happening the most, that permanent peacekeeping organization. And so we do, the League of Nations is in existence at the beginning of World War II. The United States is not a member because we never ratified the Treaty of Versailles, so we are officially not a member. But when Hitler starts to expand aggressively expand on the European continent, we're going to notice the League of Nations will do basically nothing. There is a policy out there called appeasement. World War I is still fresh in the memories of of Europe, Britain and France, and, uh, they felt that if we just make Hitler happy, then he'll be content and he'll stop, and then we won't go to war, and everything will be great. Only this policy of appeasing, or appeasement, will not work, quite obviously, because Hitler will continue to violate. He prom, he makes a promise, and he, of course, doesn't follow it. He had invaded the Rhineland, which you already know was a no-no. It, you weren't supposed, the Germans were not supposed to have a military presence in the Rhineland. It had been created as a buffer for for future German aggression after World War One, because France had continually been invaded by Germany. And so, basically, what we're seeing here is France just wants to keep Germany at bay. Hitler marches his army into the Rhineland, actually in 1936. Treaty of Versailles had violated this. League of Nations does nothing to stop it. A policy of appeasement. We see Spain in the mid-1930s fall to a fascist dictatorship under the leadership of Francisco Franco, which you've heard about in a previous lecture as well. We also know that Hitler will take over or annex Austria as well, which was also a violation of the Treaty of Versailles. But again, Britain and France do nothing. Hitler is quite obviously and and correctly thinking, well, I can do what I want because no one's going to stop me. Hitler eventually goes into the Sudetenland. I know that was briefly mentioned in a previous lecture. The Sudetenland existed in Czechoslovakia, and it was basically an area along the tip that most Germans lived in. Remember, Czechoslovakia wasn't just made up of Czechs or Slovaks. It was made up of a lot of different ethnicities lived in Czechoslovakia, and the Sudetenland happened to be the German area. And so Hitler said, since Germans lived there, then it should belong to Germany. There is an actual conference called the Munich Conference, and what happens is Hitler is given the Sudetenland, and Czechoslovakia is betrayed. So all of this, of course, is leading up to the very famous beginning of World War II, when, um, Hitler eventually invades the rest of Czechoslovakia, which he had said, you know, it was not even remotely German, but he does it anyway. And again, appeasement's not working. Then Hitler goes and invades Poland, and when the German tanks enter Poland in September of 1939, Britain and France told Hitler to stop his aggression. He didn't, and Britain and France will declare war on Germany in 1939, in September. So the war begins in 1939.

So let's find out what's happening here in the beginning of World War II. November the 11th, 1921, in in Washington D.C., Don, does a fairly gray, overcast day, which fit the mood of a gathering that was taking place at Arlington National Cemetery. And it was there at the cemetery, the the president, Warren G. Harding, and a host of other dignitaries and government officials had gathered to dedicate the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. An American soldier who had died in World War I, who had not been identified, had been brought to Arlington Cemetery to be interred there, really as a representative for all the American soldiers who had died in that war, who had never been identified, in many cases, had never been brought home. Again, and we can somewhat imagine the attitude of not just the president, but the entire country at that point, because the United States lost in World War I a little over a hundred and ten thousand American soldiers who had died. But in comparison to European nations, that was really just a tiny number. And a few numbers to give you an example, Great Britain lost over 880,000 soldiers in World War I, and that was a little over two percent of their population. France lost nearly a million and a half soldiers in the war, and that was over four percent of their population. We think about what, what those numbers mean, four percent of the French population in that period, if we draw an equivalent number for today in America's population, that would mean over 12 and a half million American soldiers dead in a given war. For, for, uh, the other combatants in, in World War I, Russia lost 1.8 million, Germany lost 2 million, uh, men in World War I. And these figures don't include the the soldiers of all these nations who had been wounded, who had lost a leg, or lost an arm, or heard, who had been disfigured because of, of wounds, or who had suffered internal damage to their lungs because of poison gas. And it doesn't include the the thousands upon thousands of civilian casualties as well. So the mood there in Arlington Cemetery in 1921, at the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown, we can certainly understand when we look at these huge casualty numbers that come out of World War I.

Now, if we're talking about World War II today, why bring up World War I? Well, a number of historians say that really the two World Wars weren't two wars at all. That was really sort of a continuation of the same war with a lull in between, of a quiet period in between. We could argue that point whether they're two separate wars or whether they're one war. But if we look at World War II, we can easily see the origins of that war going back to World War I itself. Now, three years prior to the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, President Woodrow Wilson had traveled to to Paris, and France, to help negotiate the conclusion of World War I. And when he arrived there in Paris, he brought with him his now famous 14 points. The 14 points that he believed would help the world achieve, as he described it, peace without victory. In other words, a peace settlement to that first World War that would bring the nations together, that would set aside previous differences and grievances among the world powers, and create a new world order, a world, as he described it, that would be safe for democracy. Well, unfortunately for Woodrow Wilson, he had a lot of opposition to his ideas, in part coming from within the United States. The United States Senate, that had to confirm all, and still does, has to confirm all foreign treaties, disagreed with some significant elements of Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points, especially Wilson's idea for a League of Nations, a world body that would help resolve disputes among the various world powers. Congress and the Senate wanted nothing to do with the League of Nations. They believed that would just pull the United States once again into a European War. So the U.S. Senate rejected Wilson's ideas. And the opposition to Wilson and his 14 points not only came within the United States, but it came from European powers as well, from the two major victors in World War I, France and Great Britain. Both of those nations, uh, had struggled and battled with Germany previously. They believed Germany bore full responsibility for World War I, and they were not at all in a forgiving mood. So Wilson's ideas of, let's bring the world together and settle our disputes peacefully from here on out, France and Britain very much wanted to take retribution against Germany. And so the final treaty settlement for World War I, known as the Treaty of Versailles, set up some very difficult elements that Germany was going to have to fulfill. Number one, Germany was going to have to pay reparations, or pay for the cost of the war, to both Germany and to France. In other words, pay those two countries back for the cost, the money that they spent to fight World War I. Additionally, Germany had to sign an agreement in which they said that they acknowledged full responsibility for World War I, that they were the sole instigators of the war, which just simply wasn't true at all. There were numerous countries that that could share the blame for World War I. But here at the end, the victors, France and England, wrote those terms, and Germany had to sign them. And we can see in that treaty settlement, the Treaty of Versailles, some of those seeds that are being planted there in 1918 that are going to eventually lead us to World War II.

Well, with the signing of that treaty agreement, the world moved into the 1920s and then the 1930s. And at first, through the 1920s, uh, the population of the world seemed to be getting along all right. Germany was struggling along with its new system of government, trying to pay back those reparations to England and France. But then came the 1930s and the Great Depression that hit not just the United States, but the entire world. And while we, we often are familiar with the struggles that the United States had during the Great Depression, Europe itself was undergoing an even more severe depression. For example, Germany was suffering an inflation rate of over 9,000 percent during the Great Depression. And so we can imagine what that meant for the German economy and their ability to pay back those reparations to England and France. The German economy was just in such horrible shape, there was no chance that it could do it. The German government that had been put in place was struggling to first establish its authority and then carry out its responsibilities, both to its own people and to England and France, and paying back those reparations. And so this very difficult situation in Germany, uh, that this, this depression that was just, just destroying their economy, opened the door to a new power that was going to come into place, promising to restore Germany to its rightful place among the world nations.

Now, the, the, the ideas that we're talking about here with this new power coming into play, the ideas of fascism. And simply put, really, fascism is an authority, authoritarian government that is characterized by ultra-nationalism, being supernationalistic and militaristic. So combining extreme, extreme patriotism with the military, that sort of an is the essence of fascism. And the one final element to a fascist system of government is a single individual, a single dictator, to which everyone is loyal, and into which everyone responds. So the, the great disruption in Europe is what sort of creates the environment for a fascist power, a fascist dictator to gain power. Now, when we think of fascism, our first thought usually immediately is to Adolf Hitler. But the truth is, Hitler was not the first fascist dictator to come along in Europe. Here in the 1920s and the 1930s, the first fascist dictator actually appears in Italy, and that man's name was Benito Mussolini. He came into power in the 1920s when Adolf Hitler was an unknown figure, uh, uh, in, in Germany. Mussolini gains power in Italy in part through intimidation, in part through violence, and in part through legal means. And initially, as Mussolini was gaining power and beginning to run the government of Italy, most people in Italy, and in fact around the world, thought Mussolini was a good thing because he was bringing order out of the economic chaos that existed in Italy. He was bringing Italy's economy back up, functioning, people were starting to work again. And so initially, it seemed as if Mussolini was being a successful leader for the Italian people. But then towards the late 1920s and into the very early 1930s, Mussolini's real colors began to show themselves. He began to to seek power outside of Italy. He looked to re-establish, he thought he was going to re-establish the Roman Empire of ancient times. And this really became apparent when in 1935, he directed that Italian forces invade the country of Ethiopia in Africa. And at that point, the world knew that this was really a fascist dictator bent on expanding beyond the borders of Italy.

Well, as Mussolini was gaining power and beginning to exert his power in Germany, Adolf Hitler was making similar moves. And so as we start out, this relationship between Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, Hitler is really the junior partner. He's the one who's trying to catch up with Mussolini, who was looking at Mussolini as really an example of how to restore Germany to to a power within Europe. Now, Hitler was born in 1889. He served in World War I, uh, in as a junior ranking officer, as a corporal. He was wounded, he suffered from a gas attack, uh, but he survives the war. And after the war, in the 1920s, Hitler starts to gather some like-minded followers around him, and he attempts to overthrow the German government. Again, this is in the 1920s. Uh, his, his, uh, attempted revolution is turned down, it's turned back. He's arrested, and he's imprisoned on charges of treason. But while Hitler is in prison, it gives him time to sort of think out his ideas, to think out his ideologies, and lay it out as crystal clear as he possibly could in a book in which he, that, that he entitled Mein Kampf, which translates to be my struggle. And in that book, Hitler again lays out his ideology of the proper roles he sought for Germany in the world, and how Germany should regain power to reassert itself on the, the, the European stage.

Well, when Hitler emerged from prison, he recognized that simply through illegal means, he could not gain power. And so he sought, following the path laid out by Mussolini, to follow legal means through elections to gain power. But he gains those electoral victories again by intimidation and by violence. And so while on the surface it appeared as if he was following the laws, the truth was he was using illegal means to gain power. As he started to gain power, his message went out to the German people, and it resonated with them. What Hitler told the German people was that the economic problems they were suffering was not their fault, that it was because of the, the reparations that they were having to pay to France and Germany. France and Germany bore the, the fault for the economic problems that Germany itself was suffering. Hitler also pointed to the Jewish population, blaming them for all the ills that were going on in Germany, that it was their fault, that they were the ones who were trying to destroy Germany and create a Jewish system of government around the world. So anti-Semitism, in other words. Hitler also tells the German people that they are the superior race, they're superior to all of the races in the world, and their rightful place is to dominate the world and to run the world. So to a people that were really downtrodden, who had lost World War I, who had suffered through now going on over 10 years of economic turmoil, of unemployment, of no wages, this was a message that resonated with them. Here was a man who was telling them they could regain their position in the world, they, they could reassert their rightful power and authority, and it resonated, it appealed to them. And so Hitler began to gain more and more followers.

The last element that Hitler used to gain popularity was to explain how Germany lost World War I. Hitler told the German people that the Army didn't lose World War I, that in fact, when World War I ends, the German Army was still there, they were still fighting, they would have kept pressing on, but it was the civilian leadership of Germany that sold out the Army and sold out the nation. As Hitler put it, the, the civilian leadership of Germany stabbed the German Army in the back. They, they agreed to the this harsh treaty settlement with France and Britain when the Army was still prepared to fight. And for evidence, Hitler pointed out, when World War I ends, where's the German army? It's not in France, it's not in Germany, it's not even on the borders of Germany. The German Army was still in France, on French soil, fighting. And so Hitler uses that to say to the German people, we were wronged by our own politicians. Put me into power, and I'll make all of this right. Well, the German people listened, and by 1933, Adolf Hitler has gained full power in Germany. He is both the, the president of Germany and the chancellor of Germany, two separate positions that Hitler had combined into one, that really gave him absolute power and authority.

When he gains that power, one of the first things that, that he did was to renounce paying those reparations to France and, and, uh, back to England. He told them, we're no longer paying us. They were unjust, we refuse to pay them anymore. He also committed publicly that Germany was going on a path to regain world power. Now, the, the, refusing to pay reparations, that was in violation of the treaty that ended World War I. England and France, what do they do in response? They protest. They send diplomatic messages, telling Hitler that this is unjust, this is unright, you signed the treaty agreement, you must pay these. Hitler simply refused to agree. That action is again going to increase Hitler's, uh, authority and popularity in Germany because he was now standing up to those former enemies and telling them, you now have to reckon with Germany. Hitler really encapsulated his popularity with the German people in a campaign poster that was pretty popular in this era, that had an image of Hitler on it in his military uniform with the armband and the swastika, as we would, we would all recognize today. And the caption to this poster read, Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer, which translated to, One People, One Nation, One Leader, encapsulating again the ideas of fascism, that, that the nation and the people were really one man, Adolf Hitler, and they swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Well, when Hitler refused to repay the reparations to England and to France, that just encouraged him to challenge them even more. And so in 1935, two years after gaining full power in Germany, Hitler took additional steps to return Germany to become a world power. Number one, he re-established the draft for the German army, and Hitler created the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe. Both measures were prohibited again by the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. Both measures would return Germany to a military power once again. England and France respond with protests, but nothing else. And so Hitler is encouraged by their lack of response. So that the following year, in 1936, Hitler will send German forces to the border of France and Germany. Now, this is not an invasion. The troops don't cross the border, the troops don't even threaten to cross the border, but Hitler sends army forces to the border of France. Again, this was in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. The French didn't want German forces anywhere near the border, so they set up something of a buffer zone in, in the treaty that said German forces can't enter this territory close to the border. Hitler's reasoning, and what he told the public, was that's German territory, right up to the border is German territory, and we, as a sovereign nation, have the right and have the authority to send our troops in our own nation wherever we please. Once again, France protests, England protests, but they undertake no other action. Hitler is further encouraged.

Now, that same year, in 1936, our two fascist dictators, Mussolini in Italy and now Hitler in Germany, recognized that there's something of a like mind between the two of them. And that year, in 1936, they create an alliance that became known as the Axis. And the term Axis came from the idea that if you drew a line from the capital of Germany in Berlin down to the capital of Italy and Rome, that line would create an axis around which not just Europe, but the rest of the world would eventually turn. The center of the world would focus on that alliance between Germany and Italy. So the two fascist dictators have now joined hands in an alliance, moving towards domination of Europe, if not even further beyond that.

Now, so far, everything that we've talked about with, with Hitler and the actions he's taking to return Germany to a world power have occurred internal to Germany, recreating the draft, creating the air force, moving German forces around within Germany. All that has been contained within Germany. But because he has had such success with those measures and drawn such minimal response from, from England and France, Hitler decides at this point it's now time to begin expanding and looking beyond German borders. And so in March of 1938, Hitler orders German military forces to move into the neighboring country of Austria. Now, Hitler's forces move into Austria. There is no fight, there is no, no, uh, confrontation with Austrian military forces. It's a very simple movement of troops across the border. Hitler presents this to the world as an invitation by the Austrians to occupy the country, which indeed wasn't true at all, but that's how Hitler presents it. And by presenting it that way, Hitler makes the further argument that all he's doing by sending forces into Austria is bringing the German peoples together. Hitler says, if you look at Austria, they speak the German language, they have German cultures, they have German traditions, they have German heritage. Everything about the Austrians are German. And so all Hitler says he's doing is trying to bring the German people back together under one nation, once again. The response from England and France: protests, more protests, and really nothing else. Well, we can imagine Hitler is again encouraged by this. And so just a few months later, in September of 1938, Hitler orders German forces now to move from Germany into the western end of the neighboring country of Czechoslovakia. Again, with the same arguments that the German forces have been invited in, again with the same arguments, these are German-speaking people and German traditions and cultures and all those things, and all that he's trying to do is bring the German people together. Well, this time, France and England protest a little bit louder, to the point that the English prime minister, a man named Neville Chamberlain, decides he needs to meet with Adolf Hitler to resolve the disputes that are now starting to expand in Europe. And we already know that France and England are concerned. Here goes Germany again, they're seeking control. And in fact, the French and the British were right about this, they just simply didn't want to believe it. So Neville Chamberlain travels to Germany to meet with Adolf Hitler about these steps that Hitler has been taking. And the fact that Chamberlain goes to see Hitler in itself says something. If you're called to the principal's office, you go to the principal's office. The principal doesn't come to see you. And so there's a very clear power relationship that that's being expressed here, that Chamberlain goes to see Hitler rather than the other way around.

Well, Chamberlain, with some French representatives, meet with Hitler for a few days in, in Munich, Germany. After this conference is over, Chamberlain travels back to England. And when he, when he lines, when he lands at the airport in London, he, he comes down the steps off the airplane, as we see world officials still do today. And he walks up to a set of microphones. And as he comes up to the microphones, he tells the people that are listening, and he holds up a sheet of paper in which he says, I have an agreement signed by Herr Hitler, which says that Germany has no further territorial aspirations in Europe, that Hitler has reunited the German people, uh, fully, and there is no other land claims that he wants. Chamberlain finishes by saying, we have peace in our time. Well, of course, Hitler was being completely deceitful in this agreement. Hitler had every intention of continuing to expand, but he was able to convince Chamberlain, if you just let me have Czechoslovakia, I'll be finished. And so when, in agreement, Chamberlain and the French sign away Czechoslovakia for peace, the Czechoslovaks, and their role in this, they had none. They weren't invited to the discussion. So it's really England and France signing away that nation to Germany, trying to gain peace in Europe. What happened there in this meeting between Chamberlain and Hitler has become known as appeasement. And the lesson here for world leaders is that if you try to appease a dictator, the dictator will not be appeased. That the dictator will simply take it as confirmation he can do whatever he wants. And most recently, and and most explicitly in 1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait, President George Bush, the first of the two President Bushes, in his decision to work with the U.N. to eject the Iraqis out of Kuwait, said he would not be remembered as another Neville Chamberlain appeasing a dictator. So the lessons from this, this point in this agreement between Germany and England, really resonate through to today.

Well, hoping, believing that they had once again established peace in Europe, the French and the British just sort of held their breath, waiting to see, was what was going to happen next. Now, as all this European politics was playing out, one factor that the French and the British believed was on their side, and that would work in favor of controlling Hitler, was Hitler's neighboring country, far to the East, and that neighboring country being the Soviet Union. Now, the Soviet Union and Hitler's Nazi Germany were adamant, adamant enemies, more so than Hitler and France and Germany personally. They did not like each other, and philosophically, their systems of government, communism on one hand, Nazi socialism on the other, were at the opposite ends of the political aspect of the spectrum. They not only wanted to defeat, but they wanted to absolutely destroy each other. And so for France and Germany, that was a balance out there in the East that Hitler always had to be watching their back. So there was some comfort in that for, for the French and the English, that is, there was comfort until August of 1939. And in a surprise announcement that it is not overstating it to say that shocked the world, Germany and the Soviet Union announced a non-aggression agreement. Now, non-aggression, very different from a treaty or an alliance. This was simply an agreement between the two nations that they would not go to war with each other, they would not attack each other. Nothing that they were going to come to each other's aid or help each other out. This was just simply a statement, we won't attack each other. And for the French and the British, the red, red flags went up, the sirens went off, because that meant Hitler didn't have to worry about his back anymore. He could focus his full attention to the rest of Western Europe. So France and England, both very much in a panic state, when this announcement came out in August of 1939. And in fact, they had good reason to be concerned. For just a few weeks later, on September the 1st, 1939, Hitler invaded his next country, and that was the country of Poland, immediately to Germany's East, in between Germany and the Soviet Union.

Now, a quick word before we, we talk about Germany's invasion of Poland. A question that's certainly legitimate to ask is, why were the French and the British so hesitant to stand up to Germany? When, when the French and the British were the victors of World War I, they were the world powers, they were the ones who had dictated the terms to Germany. So why didn't they stand up to, to the, the Germans earlier than this point? Well, part of the explanation is poor leadership, political leadership on the part of both those countries. But also, I think we have to take a look at the experience of those two countries in World War I. I described earlier the, the significant losses that those countries endured. Remember the French suffering over four percent of their population. Today, again, our equivalent, 12 and a half million soldiers dead. That's what we would suffer if we suffered those kind of losses. So both of those nations were significantly traumatized, not just psychologically, but but practically by World War I. And the last thing that they ever wanted to consider was the possibility in their own lifetime of another kind of war like that. So in one sense, they were hoping for the best, they had blinders on, not wanting to see what was happening, and just looking for every way possible to try to avoid going to war with Germany again. So in part, that we can understand a little bit better why they didn't stand up to the Germans earlier, not that they shouldn't have, but we can understand why.

Well, when Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland in September of 1939, finally, finally, the French and the British step up, declare war on Germany. Both those countries had an alliance with Poland, that if Poland was attacked, they would come. France and England would come to the aid of Poland. So they do declare war. Unfortunately for the, the, the, the Poles, neither France nor England was prepared to immediately get involved militarily. They declared war, and that was it. They really had no military force that they could immediately throw into the conflict. Because of that, Germany was able to defeat Poland and force a surrender in a month. In four weeks, Germany had defeated Poland. Now, part of the reason that Germany was so successful in defeating Poland was that they had some assistance in defeating Poland coming from none other than the Soviets on the other side of Poland. As German forces were rolling into Poland on one side, the Soviets were rolling into Poland from the other side. And this was actually a secret element of that non-aggression treaty the two countries had signed just a little over a month earlier, that they would divide Poland between the two of them. The end result, however, is Poland was defeated, and just again, a matter of four weeks.

Now, at this point, Europe is at war. The French and the British have declared war, they're at war with Germany. And so both sides began to prepare. But after this defeat of Poland, by the end of September 1939, October came and went with no further fighting. Then November with no further fighting, December, January, February, March, no additional fighting. And, and people in France, and especially in England, began to refer to this period as the phony war. And we've declared war, but there's really no fighting. And so people began to have a hope that maybe we're going to get this thing resolved, that maybe Hitler will be content with just Poland and having taken that part of Poland, and now he's not going to have any further aspirations. But again, that was unfounded hopes. For in April of 1940, seven months after the invasion of Poland, Hitler again struck outside the bounds of Germany by invading the country of Denmark, just to the north of Germany. And Denmark fell very rapidly. Had they had no military forces really to stand up to the Germans, and very quickly they were overrun. Even before Denmark had had surrendered, German forces then moved farther north into Norway, and there the Norwegians put up a good fight. They battled the Germans quite heavily with some help from the British, but not long after, Germany had control of Norway as well. So it was clear to everyone, Hitler's aspirations for gaining control of more territory in Europe was not finished. The question was not so much where he's going to go next, but when he's going to go. And everyone anticipated France would likely be next on the list for Hitler and Germany. And they didn't have to wait long.

On May the 10th of 1940, German forces began their offensive against the country of France. Now, during the period in between the two wars, the French had built a defensive line along their border with Germany, became known as the Maginot Line, named after the French engineer who designed these fortifications. You were very elaborate fortifications. The Germans, however, decided not to attack through those fortifications and instead moved into, as they had done in World War I, neutral Belgium. The Belgians, of course, could not put up much of a fight, nor were the French prepared to put up much of a fight. The British gave some assistance, but nothing could really slow down the German military at this point because they were carrying out a type of warfare that the world had never seen before, became known as Blitzkrieg, using those new technologies that at first appeared just shortly in World War I, but had developed significantly in the 1920s and 1930s, things like trucks and tanks and aircraft. Germany's military was functioning like none that had ever been seen before. And so very rapidly, the German military forces, the French to surrender, in this case, a matter of six weeks. Now, even more than than the Poles being defeated in just four weeks, France was was considered to be again, one of the world powers, one of the largest armies in the world. It was considered one of the best armies in the world prior to this, but in just a matter of six weeks, the Germans have forced the French to surrender. Nothing, it seemed, could slow down Hitler and his military from taking over Europe.

Well, with the surrender of France in June of 1940, the only major country left in Europe that stood between Hitler and complete domination was England itself. And everyone anticipated that as soon as France had surrendered, the Germans would undertake an invasion of England by crossing the English Channel. At this point, England's world, England's national leader that will lead the country through the war comes to power, and that is, of course, Winston Churchill. And he immediately set the tone for how England was going to deal with this war. He made it clear in a number of radio speeches in which he, he made it obvious there was going to be no surrender as long as he was prime minister. And part of a speech to the British people, he said this: "We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. And even if this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle." In other words, there would be no surrender from the British people to Nazi Germany.

Well, Hitler was eyeing England and looking to invade, but Hitler, having some understanding of military operations, knew that before he and his military could undertake a successful invasion of England, he had to gain control of the air over the English Channel. His Air Force had to destroy the British Air Force. And so beginning in June of 1940, the two Air Forces, the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, engaged in what became known as the Battle of Britain, a fight in the skies over the English Channel and England. And people would come out in England on the southern coast and watch the, the, the show that went on up in the skies, watching the aircraft flying around in dogfights, leaving their contrails, their, their steam vapor trails behind them, just crisscrossing the, uh, the country as these two Air Forces battled. And everyone knew that the outcome of this battle may well determine the survival of England, because if Hitler controlled the skies, he could then launch his invasion of England itself. Well, over the summer of 1940 and into the early fall, the two Air Forces battled, but by September of 1940, Hitler made a decision that he was not in a position to invade England, and so he called off the planning for the cross-channel attack against the British. Now, the British didn't know this at the time, of course. They were fearing for months ahead the imminent attack by German forces, but they had survived, even though they didn't know it, by September of 1940. Churchill rightly so gave the great majority of the credit for England surviving at this point of the war to the Royal Air Force. And, and his famous comment about this was that, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." And though so few being the Royal Air Force pilots and their ground crews that kept those men in the air and fighting against the British Air Force.

Well, with Hitler deciding not to go after England, that didn't mean he was satisfied and he was just going to sit at home. He begins to look elsewhere. And over the next year, from mid-1940, moving towards, uh, the, the middle of 1941, Hitler begins to expand and send his forces elsewhere. Elsewhere, first he goes to North Africa, into countries like Libya and Tunisia and Egypt, working with his Italian allies. Then he looks to, then he looks to the Balkan countries of places like Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Then he sends forces into Greece, in the island of Crete, in the middle of the Mediterranean. So Hitler is continuing his expansion across Europe. And one way to think about this is imagine a drop of oil falling onto a paper towel, how that drop of oil slowly over time starts to expand and spread out. And that's exactly, exactly what Hitler and his Nazi forces were doing across Europe, and even down into Northern Africa.

Okay, well, in the middle of 1941, Hitler made a decision that would prove to be the beginning of his downfall. He decided to break the treaty, or the alliance, I'm sorry, to break the, the pact that he had with the Soviet Union and make a surprise attack against Joseph Stalin and the Communists. Now, this was a significant risk on Hitler's part, but again, he didn't want to look at England anymore for reasons we're not sure about. So he decides he's going to move against Stalin. In some ways, this makes sense. As I described earlier, they saw each other as bitter enemies, and everyone expected, even including Hitler and Stalin, that these two powers were going to have to battle at some point. Hitler is simply going to be the one to pick the time and the place for this to happen. And so in June of 1941, German forces crossed the border into the Soviet Union and begin an invasion of that country. Now, because of the way these two nations looked at each other, this was going to be a different kind of war than what Hitler had fought in the western part of Europe. As Hitler invaded countries like Denmark and Norway, and even countries like France, Hitler looked to gain cooperation of the native people. Now, that wasn't always going to be the case, of course, but he looked to cooperate with them, thinking that, you know, we can at least work together. For the Soviets, the Communists, that was never the idea for Hitler. What he looked for was complete and absolute subjugation of those people. So the war with the Soviets was going to take on a brutal nature, not seen at all in the western part of Europe. And this is going to be expressed in huge numbers, not just of military, uh, deaths, but civilian deaths as well.

Hitler's objective with this invasion that began in June of 1941 was to move forward and capture Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, by the time the end of the year came. By the end of 1941, he wanted the capital captured. And initially, German forces make great progress moving through the Soviet Union, 100 miles, 200 miles, 300 miles. But one thing about the Soviet Union that its opponents have often underestimated is the sheer size of that country. The Soviet Union, or today Russia, covers 11 time zones. We think about the United States covers four time zones, the Soviet Union, 11 time zones. And so the Soviets were able to give up a lot of territory without really giving up a lot. And so while the Germans make initial good progress, they don't get as far as they need to. And so come early December, the Germans are approaching the city of Moscow. They have fought their way, in fact, to the very gates of Moscow. That the, the lead elements of the German Army, the commanders with their binoculars, can look down and see the taller buildings within Moscow itself. They're that close. But December in the Soviet Union means winter, and harsh, severe winter temperatures in the, in the neighborhood at times of 50 and 60 degrees below zero, where motor oil itself freezes solid. And the German military wasn't prepared for this. Many of them still in summer uniforms, many of them not having vehicles that could operate in those kind of winter conditions. And so this point becomes the turning point. As the Germans are about to capture Moscow, on December the 6th, 1941, the Soviets begin a counter-offensive. They attacked the German forces instead of continuing to fall back. So right there at the gates of Moscow, the Soviets counter-attack and start to push the Germans away. Now, again, at that point, nobody knew whether the Germans might regain some momentum and move in and capture Moscow. We now know they don't. So really, December 6th of 1941 begins a turning point here as the Soviets begin that counter-attack.

Of course, very closely related to this, and we'll discuss this a little later, is the very next day, on December the 7th, 1941. Elements of the Japanese military attack the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Now, one issue that we're going to talk about at this point, as we're discussing World War II, is a, a somewhat side consequence or a sub-element of World War II that doesn't relate directly to the military aspects of it. And the United States, when, when the United States gets involved in the war later, and we'll, we'll talk about this, is the United States forces begin to make their way into Germany itself in the later stages of the war. They'll begin to encounter something that they were not at all prepared for, and that was the concentration.

Camps that Hitler and the Nazis had established earlier in the war itself. Now, Hitler and his ideas about the Jewish population, we've mentioned before, and he outlined these ideas in his book *Mein Kampf*. Remember that he wrote in prison back in the 1920s. And part of his ideology was, again, blaming the Jewish population for everything that had gone wrong for Germany, and in calling for the eventual extermination of the Jewish population of Europe.

Well, early in the war, as German forces undertook that invasion of Poland, we see elements, now looking back, we see elements of Hitler's ideology starting to play out. As the German Army moved forward, elements of the German Army would stay behind and start to gather the Jewish population. And initially, they would herd them into communities or in neighborhoods of some of the major cities. Following that group would then come death squads, elements of the German Army whose specific responsibility was to begin massacring, uh, the Jewish people that had been collected. Initially, it was just simply done by lining people up, essentially firing squads, and killing them.

But as time went on and Germany came under control of a larger portion of Europe, which meant a larger number of Jewish peoples, Hitler sought a more efficient way, we can say, of eliminating the Jewish population. And this is really defined by the meeting that the Nazis held in January of 1942, in which they identified very explicitly in documents what they called the Final Solution. And this was going to be a way to, yes, eliminate the Jewish population of Germany. And so the killing of the Jews became much more systematic, became a very regimented process to the point that we would recognize today in those concentration camps where the populations would be put on board trains, shipped to these concentration camps, in many instances worked as slave laborers until they simply died while they were working. Other elements of the population that were deemed unfit for work were immediately shuffled off to the execution chambers. Some of those concentration camps, we recognize the names today, and they've become really synonymous with the Holocaust and synonymous with really the brutality that we as a human race can inflict on one another: Bergen-Belsen, or Dachau, or most notably, the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

And it wasn't just Jews who Hitler and the Nazis were targeting. It was anyone they deemed as undesirables. And so that this included people like, not surprisingly, Communists, gypsies, people with physical or mental infirmities, homosexuals, alcoholics, prostitutes, and members of the resistance, the French Resistance, for example, political opponents. All these people, in many instances, ended up at the concentration camps. When the war is finally over, over 6 million Jews suffered execution in the concentration camps, along with, not quite as widely known, over four million others met their death in the concentration camps.

Now, what was the response of the United States to these concentration camps? Well, early in the war, in 1942 or so, the United States began to get some idea of the existence of these camps. And as the war went on, increasing evidence came out of what really was happening in these camps. And there were some proposals of seeking to destroy the camps and send the U.S. Air Force, the British Air Force, to bomb these camps. Yes, it would kill the people that were there, but it would stop the killing. There were debates about this and what to do or not to do it within the U.S. military about the most efficient way. U.S. military leaders believed that the best way to stop the killings, to stop the Holocaust, was to win the war. And of course, the military was working with not unlimited, but in fact, very limited resources. They didn't have extra aircraft to undertake whatever missions were available. And so they made the decision, right or wrong, to work on ending the war as rapidly as possible rather than bombing the concentration camps themselves. One officer pointed out, if we destroy a concentration camp, they'll just build another one somewhere, or they'll just shift the victims to another camp that we're unfamiliar with. So there was an opportunity there, and what was the right decision, it's hard to say now. We just know the decision that was made.

The last word on the Holocaust in recent years, as in the last 10 to 15 years, there has been the idea proposed and promoted primarily, not surprisingly, on the internet, that the Holocaust never happened. That it was all a fabrication, typically attributed to Jewish people today, that it was all done for public relations purposes. The truth is, there is simply no validity in that argument. That the evidence is insurmountable of the existence and the degree and extent of the Holocaust. And one piece of evidence that I can give you for this comes from none other than Dwight Eisenhower himself, the Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces in Europe during the war. And as U.S. troops began to encounter these concentration camps, Eisenhower, of course, heard about this, and he made a trip to one of the concentration camps, the one at Buchenwald. And after making a trip to visit Buchenwald and seeing what happened there, he wrote a letter to his commanding officer, General George C. Marshall, back in Washington. And Eisenhower said this, in part: "The things I saw defied description. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty, and bestiality were overpowering. I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever in the future there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda." So, in some ways, Eisenhower could foresee that some in the future might try to say, oh, this didn't really happen, it was exaggerated. So that's why he says he went there himself to verify and give testimony to the Holocaust and what he had seen.

Well, with the Soviets counter-attacking against the Germans outside of Moscow, as I mentioned a minute ago, that was the moment, the day later, when Japan attacked the United States. And we come back next time, we're going to take a look at the United States' entry into the war, how it gets into the war, and then how the U.S., working with the British and French, fight back against Nazi Germany to take that oil stain that has spread across Europe and force it back to Germany itself and eventually eliminate it. So now that we have learned the fascinating details of World War II, when we come back for our next lecture, we will continue with the topic of World War II. And this time, we will start in the last half. We will begin focusing on the years between 1942 and the end of World War II in 1945, and what's taking place in Europe with Hitler and, of course, his Axis powers, because it's not just this is a World War, so we will see other states obviously a part of this as well. Until next time.