The End of European Colonies

• WWI created nationalist movements that were against colonial rule and all WWII did was reinforce and speed up that process. The Japanese had already overrun the colonial empires and the colonies that fought on the Allied side were aware that the Allied forces were under the principle of self-determination.
• Countries also had no more resources to rule the colonial empires, especially Great Britain. Between 1947 and 1962 most colonies were freed from their countries that ruled them.

Africa Struggle for Independence

• Europeans realized that they had to let go of their colonies but the colonies obviously were in no condition for self-rule. Political parties were also created in Africa that had goals of independence. Kwame Nkrumah formed the Convention People’s Party which was the first African political party and Jomo Kenyatta formed the Kenya African National Union which was primarily for economic issues but also covered self rule.
• Most political activities were none violent and led by smart Western educated Africans but the Mau Mau Movement used terrorism to demand uhuru or freedom and British were finally willing to promise independence.
• Egypt’s political party, Wafd, was formed to promote Egyptian independence. They got independence in 1922 but were still controlled by the British. Egyptian monarchy was overthrown due to British and Egyptian dissatisfaction and King Farouk was overthrown giving way to an independent republic.
• North Africa just gained independence because the French were too weak to do anything. Morocco and Tunisia were independent but Algeria was home to 2 million French settlers and was still under French control. Algerian nationalists organized the National Liberation Front (FLN) and started guerilla warfare. The French became divided over this issue and therefore Charles de Gaulle, French leader, granted American independence in 1962.
• South Africa was more complicated as there was more European influence. African National Congress was at first a group of intellectuals that wanted econ. and political reforms and full equality for educated Africans. ANC had little success and South African whites were strengthening control and segregation. The whites repressed any protests and arrested Nelson Mandela the leader of the ANC for armed resistance to the government.
• Late 1950s-60s was when most African nations gained independence. The Gold Coast was renamed Ghana and under control of Kwame Nkrumah. Other nations soon followed and by late 1960s, all nations but the south African ones were independent.

Middle East

• Fall of Ottoman and Persian empires began new formation in the Middle East. Turkey and Iran formed and fiercely independent gov’t was established in Saudi Arabia in 1932. Iraq also gained independence from Britain. The British and French still had control over Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine.
• Jordan Syria, Lebanon and Palestine became independent after the war. The Arab League created to unite but soon was disbanded because of difference in opinion.
• Jews and Arabs could not get along, British slowed down immigration of the Jews and denied them a state in Palestine but the Zionists were not to be denied and the holocaust allowed many to give them more sympathy. The Zionists looked to the US for support and March 1948, Truman admin. approved est. of Jewish state and an Arab state, proclaiming the state of Israel. The new state was seen as betrayal to the Palestinians . Outraged that the Western countries did not support the Muslim cause, the Arabs invaded the Jewish state which failed but the both sides hated each other from then on.
• Palestinian Liberation Organization was formed to represent Palestinian interests. Guerilla movement called al-Fatah led by Yasir Arafat launched terrorist attacks on the Israeli territory. Israel gov’t invaded the PLO bases in Jordan.
• Israel adopted a policy of immediate retaliation against the PLO if any hostile act occurred. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, ruler of Egypt, imposed a blockade against Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba. June 5, 1967, Israel launched air strikes bombing 17 Egyptian airfields and wiped out the Egyptian Air Force. The blockade was broken and Israeli armies settled in the Sinai peninsula. Jordan territory also seized, occupation of Jerusalem, attacked Syrian military position. Six-Day War devastated Nasser’s forces, tripling size of territory. Israel still has the territories but Arab and Israel still cannot get their act together to this day.

Asia Nationalism

• British Indian Muslims and Hindus did not want to create a single Indian state. British created Pakistan for the Muslims and India for the Hindus. Only one Indian National Congress member opposed,  Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was correct when Aug. 15, 1947 arrived and violence erupted as Muslims and Hindus scurried across the new borders.
• A Hindu militant assassinated Gandhi.

China Communism

• Nationalist Government under Chiang Kai-Shek was supported by the Americans while Mao Zedong (Communist party) built a strong base in North China. People’s Liberation Army had over 1 mil. troops. Coalition government failed so therefore civil war broke out.
• Millions of peasants were supportive of the People’s Liberation Army under Mao Zedong. This army then surrounded Beijing, crossed the Yangtze, and occupied Shanghai. Chiang and his government plus 2 million followers fled to Taiwan during this time. Mao mounted the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing declaring victory.
• Great Leap Forward – the plan Mao had to create a socialist regime involving collectivization of farming and nationalizing industry and creating communal villages of more than 30 thousand people. This plan ended in disaster.
• 1966- Mao unleashed his Red Guards that were to purify the nation of capitalism and scrutinized just about everything including schools, universities, factories, and some government ministries.
• The forced step toward communism was called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that lasted for about 10 years. Mao believed that a constant revolutionary fervor would achieve communism by overcoming the past. Red Guards were sent out to eliminate 4 oldies: old culture, old ideas, old customs, and old habits.
• Temples books written by foreigners and jazz records were destroyed. Street signs were replaced with revolutionary names. Property was destroyed and people that deviated from Mao’s ideals were attacked. Many party members did not agree with Mao’s approach of permanent revolution.. When Mao died, more practical approach was implemented.

Aftermath of the War: Emergence of the Cold War

• Yep WWII wasn’t succeeded by total peace and everything was far from hunky dory. The Cold War started and lasted through much of the 1980s.

The Conferences at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam

• Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, leaders of the Big 3, met at Tehran to decided the future course of the war during November 1943. They were concerned about how to deliver a final blow to Germany. Churchill wanted to take a difficult route through the Balkans giving the Western allies a better position. Roosevelt and Stalin disagreed and wanted an American-British invasion through France during Spring of 1944.
• This plan obviously meant that Soviet forces would end up liberating the eastern portion of Germany. They also agreed to partition Germany as a post-war agreement. However, Poland’s fate was left undecided. Although Roosevelt was pleased with his agreements with Stalin, Churchill was still a bit wary. Churchill met with Stalin again in Moscow in October 1944 in order to create more specific agreements written on a scrap piece of paper that would draw out the lines of where each Allied countries would have influence over. USSR got 90 percent influence on Romania, 75 in Bulgaria and Britain would influence 90 percent of Greece. Yugoslavia and Hungary were fifty-fifty.
• Churchill then thought this was an invasion on the sovereignty of the countries. He asked if Stalin wanted to burn the paper. Stalin told Churchill to keep it.
• The conference of Yalta in Ukraine in Feb. 1945 was held when Germany obviously was going to be defeated. The Western powers once thought the Soviet forces were weak but now concluded that 11 million Red Army soldiers were taking much of eastern and central Europe. Stalin had hoped to spread his Communist influence using the ideal of the “spheres of influence” because he did not trust the Western forces. He wanted a buffer to protect his regime from Western aggression. He also wanted important resources and strategic military positions
• However Roosevelt was moving away from the spheres of influence and self determination.
• Grand Alliance approved the “Declaration on Liberated Europe” as a pledge to assist liberated countries in creation of their own democratic nations. Liberated countries were to hold free elections to determine political systems.
• At Yalta, Roosevelt also wanted Stalin’s help in the Pacific. They were not sure about the A-bomb yet and Americans feared that the offensive in Japan would involve losing one million men. Roosevelt made the deal with Stalin that he would take Sakhalin and Kurile Islands and warm water ports in and railroad rights in Manchuria.
• The United Nations was also created at Yalta. Roosevelt wanted to make sure that the Big Three would be inducted into this international organization for peacekeeping before they were all afflicted by political differences.
• After compromises, Churchill and Stalin agreed to create a United Nations and scheduled the first meeting in San Fran in April 1945.
• Germany must unconditionally surrender and 4 occupation areas were already set up. Churchill insisted on giving France an occupational area despite protests from Stalin and Roosevelt. German reparations were set at $20 million. A provisional government was to be set up in Poland with both Lubin (Communists in exile) and London (non-Communists in exile) Poles.
• Stalin even agreed to allow free elections to choose the form of government in Poland. But down the road free elections would be an issue between Soviets and Americans.
• Eastern governments were to be democratic but also had to be pro-Soviet. Democratic and soviet just never will mix.
• Before conference at Potsdam, Western and Soviet relationship were quickly down the crapper. The Grand Alliance was no longer truly in effect after the German defeat and therefore political differences once again rose to the surface.
• United States terminated the Lend-Lease aid to the Soviets prior to the end of the war and refused to provide a $6 million loan to Soviets for reconstruction and this revealed that the Western countries wanted to keep the Soviet Union weak.
• On the other hand, the Soviet Union refused to fulfill the Yalta pledge on the “Declaration on Liberated Europe” made the Eastern world look quite dangerous. Stalin came into Romania and installed his own Communist coup government under Communist Petra Groza aka “Little Stalin”
• Soviet Union then arrested the London Poles and sympathizer and put the Lubin Poles into power. Soviets seemed to want to control eastern Europe with communist puppet states.
• Potsdam Conference of July 1945 was filled with distrust and Roosevelt had died with Truman as his successor. Truman received word that the A-bomb had been tested and it was ready. This may have contributed to Truman stiffening his resolve against the Soviets. Tensions were rising and relationships were already getting cold.
• Truman DEMANDED that free elections be set up in Eastern Europe while Stalin claimed governments like that would be anti-Soviet and therefore he will not allow. Stalin wanted absolute military security only gained by the presence of Communist states in Eastern Europe.
• Middle of 1945, only invasion by Western forces would undo what Stalin did and few people wanted to start World War III.
• Soviets believed that their actions were just legitimate security measures. It was the west that attacked the east and Stalin simply wanted to defend himself but nobody had any sympathy for poor Stalin.
• American Secretary of State, James Byrnes, proposed 25 year disarmament of Germany, the Soviets rejected it. Western states thought Stalin’s motive was to create a Eastern Germany Communist state.
• Byrnes said it would be necessary for American troops for an indefinite time and this led to the creation of an independent western Germany.
• Soviets were seen as trying to create a worldwide communism policy while Americans were seen by Soviets as trying to create global capitalism. Winston Churchill declared that an Iron Curtain had descended upon the world dividing up two hostile camps. Soviets considered his speech as a “call for war against the Soviet Union”

Development of the Cold War

• Prior to the end of the war, there were already disagreements between USSR and US about postwar agreements and they were only united by the desire to defeat the Axis powers.

Confrontation of the Superpowers

• There really wasn’t a clear country responsible for the Cold War. US and USSR both made some pretty dumb decisions. Different historical and political ambitions created the tensions. It was long established that competition for political and military supremacy was the way to go in the Western world. Both countries wanted more influence.
• Neither side was going to budge when Soviet Union wished to have eastern territory to defend herself. Stalin feared that the creation of democracies in East Europe would end up creating an anti-Soviet collection of states and therefore wanted to take over the territory as a buffer zone from the Western Europe.
• Civil war in Greece increased tensions. The Communist People’s Liberation Army were against anti-Communist forces backed by Britain. Truman feared that Britain would lose and therefore issued his Truman Doctrine stating that the US would provide money to any country that felt threatened by communism. If the Soviets were not stopped, then the whole world would be “infected by Communism”.
• June 1947, European Recovery Program aka the Marshall Plan, named after General George C. Marshall, intended to rebuild prosperity and stability in economy of Europe believing communist aggression was because of econ. turmoil.
• Marshall Plan was not meant to exclude the Soviet Union or the Eastern countries but neither ended up being a part of it. Soviets believed the plan to be “construction of bloc states bound by obligations to the USA and to guarantee the Am. loans in return for the relinquishing of economic and later political independence”.
• The United States initially wanted to end all commitments with Europe but the Soviets ended up keeping the US in the European affairs.
• In the article Foreign Affairs by George Keenan advocated containment to prevent further Soviet aggression. Soviets blockaded Berlin prompting this policy to go into effect.
• Fate of Germany was also a source of disagreement. There was no further agreement other than the occupational policies.
• Soviets took reparations from Germany as booty and dismantled factories moving them inward into the USSR.
• British, French, and Americans merged their zones into what they wanted …. unification of the three zones in western Germany. Soviets blockaded west Berlin allowing neither truck nor trains to enter West Berlin. Soviet wanted to stop the creation of the western German state.
• Nobody wanted a WWIII and at attempt to break the blockade was out of question. Berlin Air Lift was the solution where supplies, 13000 tons, were flown into Berlin. The Soviets did not interfere and lifted the blockade in May 1949.
• West German Federal Republic formally created in September 1949. Same year that the Cold War spread to the rest of the world. Victory of the Chinese Communists increased the fears of the United States. Soviet Union also announced they had created the first A-bomb.
• Nobody wanted nuclear war for if one side nuked the other, then the other side would still have nukes left and then nuke back.
• NATO was formed, basically an alliance of nations that would defend each other in the case of an attack. The eastern countries formed the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) for economic assistance and then the Warsaw Pact was the counter organization to NATO.

New Sources of Contention

• Soon the United States put themselves into the Korean War. North Korea was called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea supported by Soviet Union.
• South Korea aka. Republic of Korea was defended by the US. Don’t ask me why North Korea was called “democratic” and South Korea wasn’t.
• Soviets invaded into South Korea, Douglas MacArthur marched American troops across the 38th parallel to push back and unify Korea under a democratic government. China, under Mao Zedong, came back and pushed US troops all the way back. Two years of fighting did not produce a victory and the armistice was signed in 1953 declaring the 38th parallel as the official divide.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower realized the fear of Soviet influence and established a policy that would nuke Soviet Union if they tried anything, even a ground attack. The CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) was intended to prevent the USSR from expanding southward into the Middle East.
• Then to protect the Eastern Asian countries, SEATO or Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was created.
• Death of Stalin in 1953 allowed for new hope but that was soon diminished. Conference between Eisenhower and NIkolai Bulganin, leader of Soviets, lead to no optimism. Soviets had the first intercontinental missile and their first satellite up and were able to play on the fears of the American people.
• Then another new leader, Khrushchev, came to power and demanded West Germany or he would take access routes. His ultimatum was ignored and he eventually backed down and the Berlin Wall was constructed.
• JFK came to office and Khrushchev tried his plan again but one again renounced it.

Cuban Missile Crisis

• American supported Cuban attempt to overthrow Castro and that failed. Since this totalitarian rule was backed by Soviets, they decided to station nuclear missiles in Cuba. JFK feared this despite the fact he had nuclear missiles pointing toward Russia in Turkey.
• JFK chose to blockade and prevent the missile shipment. Khrushchev agreed to stop as long as the USA would not invade Cuba. Hotline comm. system from Washington DC to Moscow was established to increase communications between the two superpowers and the two also agreed not to do any nuclear testing in the atmosphere.

Vietnam

• Vietnam was divided with strong Nationalists in the north under Ho Chi Minh with Soviet aid. American sponsors worked for a proWestern country in South Vietnam. JFK continued Eisenhower’s policy of aiding economically Ngo Dinh Diem, autocratic ruler of South Vietnam. Unfortunately the south government was corrupted and did not have much support for Kennedy’s policies. There was no aid against the Vietcong or southern communist guerillas.
• 1963, USA supported military coup to overthrow Diem but the new coup was even less capable of governing.
• Lyndon B Johnson sent US troops into the region to overthrow Vietcong but strong nationalist feelings and the south Vietnamese hating their government and supporting the Vietcong led to disaster followed by Anti-War feelings. Richard Nixon withdrew troops and Vietnam was reunited by the Communists. New era of US soviet relations, called the detente.

The Nazi New Order

• Hitler believed only the Germans could dominate and organize Europe.

The Nazi Empire

• Nazi empire stretched from English Channel to the outskirts of Moscow. It wasn’t anything close to an organized empire with an efficient government.
• There were some neutral states and there were some states that felt increasingly restricted by the Germans as the war progressed.
• Some areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and became a province of Germany while occupied Europe was controlled by German military or civilian officials. However, the existing authorities did not want German control and some were competing against German rule, resulting in inefficiency.
• Civil admins were established in Norway, Denmark, and Netherlands because the peoples were Aryan and related to the Germans therefore giving them leniency while the rest were “inferior” latin peoples such as those of France controlled by military administrations.
• Territories were exploited for resources because Germany could not keep up with the war effort.
• Nazi’s mistreated nations that were not occupied by Aryans and began to implement that racial program.
• Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, was put in charge of the Nazi racial ideals and was to evacuate the Slavic peoples and replace them with Germans. This policy was applied to the lands of west Poland and the new German provinces. Poles were uprooted and dumped in southern Poland. People were given designated areas in Poland. Hitler’s plan was to Germanize the lands to the east having Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians, and Soviets. SS officers commented that it was necessary to destruct 30 million Slavs in order to clear the way for German plans.
• Nazi New Order also meant the economic domination of conquered Europe to take resources. Germans seized everything from raw materials to food leaving only just enough to keep the inhabitants alive.
• Labor shortages led to German exploit of the human resources of the conquered nations. POWs were used in heavy labor but soon were wasted by maltreatment leading to death of 3 million.
• 1942- special office created to recruit labor for German farms and summer 1944, Germans had seven million foreign workers, 20 percent of the labor force.
• Another seven million were forced to work on their own lands. However, the labor created economic chaos in the countries and disrupted industrialization that could have possibly helped the Germans. The brutal treatment by the recruitment policies led to more  resistance against the Nazi occupants.

Resistance Movements

• The east especially had resistance to the brutality. Ukraine and the Baltic region once thought the Germans were liberators from the Communist regime but the maltreatment and brutality led them to fuel the guerilla warfare in the East.
• Active resistance involved the assassination of German officials, sabotage, anti-German newspapers, and spying on German military positions.
• Some countries created government in exile in Britain. In Yugoslavia, Josip Broz aka Tito, led a band of guerilla forces of 250000 and 100000 were women.
• Communist governments also led underground resistance movements.
• Women even joined in carrying messages, planting bombs in Nazi headquarters, smuggling Jews out into Neutral Sweden and dressing their husbands as women to protect them from the Nazi slaughters of males as a punishment for resistance.
• The White Rose Movement was a resistance movement within Germany where a small group of students and one professor at the University of Munich distributed pamphlets denouncing the Nazi regime as lawless criminals. Members were executed.
• Only one plan to overthrow the Nazis came close to success. Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg believed that elimination of Hitler would stop the Nazis. July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg plants a bomb in Hitler’s East Prussian headquarters and it goes off. It failed to kill Hitler and the plan was discovered. Hitler executed 5000 people.

The Holocaust

• The deliberate attempt to exterminate Jews was the most terrifying part of Nazism. Hitler believed the Jews to be the parasites that were hindrance to the Aryan race. At first he just wanted the Jews to leave with emigration policies. The Madagascar Plan was a plan by the Nazis to ship Jews to the island of Madagascar. The plan was impractical and a more drastic plan was implemented, called the Final Solution to the “Jew Problem” — total annihilation.
• After defeating Poland, Himmler created a special strike force Einsatzgruppen which was to round up all Jews and put them into ghettos. They were ordered to kill Jews in June 1941. They ordered Jews to dig pits and then would shoot them as the were finished digging and bury them there.
• Executioners had morale problems but their conscience was not impaired as they were to carry out commands unconditionally. Still this execution plan was too slow. Therefore a systematic approach was initiated using death camps, rounding up Jews on trains like cattle and shipped to Poland where the extermination centers were built with the most famous being Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• Medical technicians chose Zyklon B (Hydrogen Cyanide [HCN]) as the gas used to effectively kill people.
• Jan. 20, 1942, was when a conference was held to discuss the plan for the Final Solution. Reinhard Wannsee outlined the steps. He said it was more practical to sweep from west to east and bring them in group by group into transit ghettos, then further east. Death camps began operation in 1942 Spring. Jews were also being shipped from France, Belgium and Netherlands. The final solution took priority over the use of railroad for supplies and war necessities.
• Jews that arrived at camp were examined by doctors and those fit were sent into the camp to work while those that were not were sent to the extermination centers. 30 percent at Auschwitz were sent to labor while the rest were gassed. The goods and even the bodies of the Jews were sold. Some inmates received painful “medical” experiments. 5-6 million Jews were killed. 2/3 Jews in Europe died and 90 percent of Jews in Poland, Baltic, and Germany were killed.
• Nazis also killed another 9 million by shooting, starvation, and overworking. Gypsies of Europe were also an alien race and exterminated. Slavics were also deliberately killed and an addition of four million Poles, Ukrainians, and Belorussians lost their lives as slave laborers. Germans also killed homosexuals.

The Home Front

• WWII was total war on steroids. Economic mobilization and mobilization of women escalated as also the civilian deaths rose exponentially from bombings, extermination and attacks.

Mobilization of Peoples: Four Examples

GREAT BRITIAN

• Summer 1944, 50 percent of the British people were armed forces or civilian “war workers”. British were determined to utilize women and most under 40 years of age were called to do war work of some kind. Women took almost 50 percent of the civil service positions and women in agriculture doubled as “land girls”.
• Government encouraged “Dig for Victory” campaign to increase food production. Fields were dug up and used for “Grow Your Own Food” campaigns.
• There was still a food shortage in Britain due to German submarines sinking merchant ships.
• Food rationing became prominent while the diet became bread and potatoes.
• Hours after work were spent on the “Dig for Victory”, the Civil Defense, and the Home Guard. Even elderly were expected to manufacture airplane parts.
• British emph. on planned economy creating ministry for fuel and power to control the coal indust. and ministry for production to oversee supplies for armed forces.
• Most people seemed to accept that total war required government intervention.
• Tank production did manage to quadruple and aircraft grew three times as much.

THE SOVIET UNION

• Soviets treated the war as the Great Patriotic War because the greatest land battles were between Soviets and Germans. 2/5 people killed in the war were the Soviets. Joseph Stalin used supercentralization as his policy, conducting all military and political affairs. All organizations, civil and military, fell under Communist control.
• In the beginning, the defeats of the Soviets led to drastic emergency mobilization. Leningrad experienced nine hundred days of siege where the civilians ate dogs, cats, and mice. Factories in the exterior of Russia were packed up and moved inward. Machines were set in the ground and walls built around them. Kharkov Tank Factory created 25 T-34 tanks only then weeks after rebuilding.
• Widespread mobilizations created another Industrial Revolution. Stalin called it the “battle of machines” which the Soviets won. 78000 tanks and 98000 artillery were created and 55 percent of national income went for war materials.
• Soviet citizens experienced food shortages and housing scarcity. Workers lived in dugouts or dilapidated barracks.
• Women and girls also worked in the industries, mines, an railroads; holding 26-35 percent of the laborers in mines and 48 percent in oil industry. Soviet women were also to dig anti-tank ditches and be wardens for air-raids.They were also used as snipers and female pilots were known as “Night Witches”.
• Peasants bore the most burdens furnishing 60 percent of military forces but were also expected to feed the Red Army, Soviet people.
• German occupation reduced the farmland by 47 percent. Shortage of labor and equipment also hindered agricultural production as tractors were being used to carry military supplies.
• Overall the victory was won by total mobilization. Stalin quickly realized that people were not going to fight for communism but rather for “Mother Russia”. He use this propaganda to arouse the soviets and even gave speeches about past heroes including past Tsars.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

• It wasn’t as hard in the US because they were not really being attacked at home other than the surprise Pearl Harbor attack. Eventually the US ended up being the arsenal for the Allies as the economy and labor force mobilized slowly at first but later quickly.
• The economy was never fully mobilized because of the reluctance of the industries to switch over to full time war operations. Too much production could lead to another depression after the war.
• Unemployment did not decrease until 1943 and women were not necessarily needed in the workforce. Small factories were shut down eventually because of fear of overproduction, a factor in the Great Depression.
• Partial mobilization caused social problems. Construction of new factories led to creation of boomtowns where many moved to in order to find employment but there was not enough housing, health facilities, and schools. This rapid growth led to social breakdown including the rise of teenage prostitution.
• Widespread movement of people was seen. Sixteen million men and women were in the military and another 16 million, wives and sweethearts, were looking for jobs and relocated. Over 1 million Af. Americans migrated from south to north to look for jobs in industry. Racial tensions resulted and led to even attacks on Af. Americans.
• Japanese American were treated the worst and force to go into camps and forced to take an oath of loyalty.

GERMANY

• Hitler believed the cause of the first loss in Germany was because of the collapse of the Home Front.
• To maintain morale, he refused to cut the consumer good production in replacement for armament. Blitzkreig allowed for quick victories and easy plunder for the Germans. But German losses and the joining of the US in the war led to economic change.
• Hitler needed to increase his armaments and put Albert Speel under control of the armaments. Elimination of waste and rationalizing procedures led to triple the production of armaments. Total mobilization was not implemented until 1944 when schools, theaters, and cafes were closed and Speer used all the remaining resources. It was too little and too late and therefore Germans still got defeated.
• Nazis reversed the ideology of the traditional women and allowed them to be employed as more men went to military service. But this increase of women was not enough and middle class women resisted employment. Labor conscription for women also did little to help

The Frontline Civilians: The Bombing of Cities

• Bombing was the common way of getting rid of military targets, enemy troops, and civilians. It was believed that the bombing would coerce the governments into surrender but this was not the truth. The luffwafe bombings set the standards for other British as the civilians did not panic. German bombings were sections of the cities and did not affect the entire city. Morale problems were not present…but the British still went and bombed the Germans, not learning that they would not panic also. Arthur Harris was the wartime leader of the British Bomber Command rearmed with 4-engine heavy bombers. Cologne was the first German city to be bombed.
• New strategy as the U.S. entered. American planes flew to accurately bomb transportation and war industry facilities. Command continued bombing the German cities with more than 100000 citizens. These raids led to shortage of foods, clothing and fuel. Incendiary bombs were bombs that created fires sweeping across cities. Hamburg was destroyed with 1800 degrees F temperatures and 50000 civilians died. Allied leaders began to stop because they saw the bombing terror as unnecessary.
• Evacuation of people in Germany was a failure as the rural villagers did not like the urban newcomers. Bombing failed to destroy morale and industrial capacity. The loss of the war could be blamed on the destruction of transportation systems.
• Bombing reached a new height when the A-Bomb was dropped. Americans sabotaged the Germans so they could not create a superbomb from uranium and then went on working with British scientists to create an atomic bomb under the direction of J. Robert Oppenheimer with his secret laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The first A-bomb was created and tested. B-29 Superbombers were first used as the bombing strategy in 1944.  Japanese factories were destroyed but the Japanese were still mobilizing. Fearing it would mean loss of American troops, Truman ordered the dropped A-Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 76000 near the epicenter of the explosion were destroyed. 140k people died in the city by end of 1945 and 50k more died from radiation effects. That was Hiroshima alone.