Patton is second from the left on the front row, Eisenhower is in the center of the same row; Omar Bradley is second from the right, seated.

Hitler and Rommel pose in front of the Eiffel Tower.


Note the remarkable size of Germany's gains (and then its losses) on the steppes of Russia.



American troops were particularly vulnerable on the Omaha and Utah beaches as they had to make their way to the "shelf" beyond the beaches and the hills beyond.

The message over the gate at Auschwitz reads, "Work will make you free."

Study Terms--WW II & Chapter 31 (cont'd).

The Second World War:

The European Theatre
Invasion of Poland
The Fall of France
blitzkrieg
Vichy
Marshal Philippe Petain
Fascism
The Allies
Charles de Gaulle (Free French)
Winston Churchill (Battle of Britain)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Pearl Harbor)
The Second Front
North Africa
Erwin Rommel
George S. Patton
Stalingrad/Moscow/Leningrad
Nazi Defeat in Russia
D-Day
6 June 1944/Normandy
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau & The Holocaust

The Pacific Theatre
Japan
Asian and Pacific Empire
Pearl Harbor
7 December 1941
Battle of Midway
Guadalcanal
Douglas MacArthur
“Island Hopping”
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
The (Planned) Invasion of Japan
The Firebombing of Tokyo
Robert McNamara
Hiroshima/Nagasaki

The Descent of the Iron Curtain and the Rise of the Cold War
Yalta Conference (The United Nations)
The Bi-Polar World
Cold War Disaffections
Potsdam Conference, Failure, and the “Iron Curtain”
Winston Churchill
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
Harry S. Truman vs. Joseph Stalin

World War II Documentaries--Invasion of Poland and the Fall of France

The March to War

Jubilant Austrians celebrate the "Anschluss" with the German Third Reich
The leaders of Europe at the Munich Conference
Neville Chamberlain proclaims he has secured "peace in our time."
Winston Churchill

Russian Revolution

Nicholas II and the Romanov family in more peaceful times.



One of several street demonstrations that racked Russia in the lead up to the Revolution.




A younger and older Leon Trotsky

Note how Leon Trotsky (to Lenin's left on the lower step) has been "cut and pasted" out of Russian history in the lower photograph.

A younger and older Joseph Stalin



Note the fate of the majority of these good "party members!"

Benito Mussolini & Italian Fascism

Though this last video clip lacks subtitles, it is very apparent just how "mass" a mass movement Italian Fascism was. Mussolini's oratorical skills are certainly on display. You can also get a hint of the notion of the "Cult of Personality" that grew up aroung "il Duce."

German Fascism

The video clip reveals the "mass" part of the mass movement that was German fascism. Note also Hitler's oratorical flourishes and how he plays on the emotions of his "youthful" listeners.
The second video clip is Charlie Chaplin's incredible satire of Nazism, "The Great Dictator."








The severe economic straits in which Germany found itself in the 1920s and early '30s provided fertile grounds for the rise of extreme parties. The National Socialist German Workers' Party would be one of them. Through the organizational and oratorical skills of its leader Adolf Hitler (and also intimidation and street violence), the Nazi Party would come to dominate the political landscape of Germany

The Jewish Question and the Final Solution

The Nuremberg Laws (named after the German city where the Nazi Party held its massive rallies) were anti-semitic laws enacted in 1935 to identify and marginalize Jews on a racial basis.


The Nazi began the process of "ghettoizing" Jews by segregating them from the larger population by force. The most famous of these was in Warsaw, where diseases like typhus and outright starvation killed thousands.



As the Third Reich expanded special paramilitary groups were sent out with the express orders to annihilate Jews, Gypsies, and Russian political prisoners. Tragically, it was soon determined that Jews were "not worth the price of a bullet."



In January of 1942 a meeting was held in Wansee, a suburb of Berlin, where the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem" was formulated--the systematic murder of 6 million Jews in death camps throughout the Reich.

The video clip is a fascinating history of the building where the Wansee Conference took place. Pay particular attention to the roles of Eichmann and Heydrich.

Study Terms: Russian Revolution, European Fascism & the Final Solution

Revolution in Russia
(Chapters 28 pgs. 881-891)
Czar Nicholas II/The Romanovs/Absolute Power and Abject Poverty
The February-March Revolution
Provisional Government & Alexander Kerensky
The Soviets
V.I. Lenin & the Bolsheviks
“All power to the soviets!”
“Peace, land, and bread!”
The October-November Revolution
The Politburo (The Vanguard and the Proletariat)
Josef Stalin
Leon Trotsky
Kulaks
Collectivization
Five-Year Plans
The Gulag

European Fascism
(Chapter 28 pgs. 867-880)
Fascism and Totalitarianism
Organic State—No Individualism
Charismatic Leader—is the will of the people, and the Cult of Personality
Energy, Force, Anti-rationalism, (Struggle, Action), Manhood
Mass Movement/Race, Citizenship and the “Other” (Unification thru Hatred)
(Extreme Nationalism)
Anti-Communism
Anti-Church
Anti-Democracy—Leader “is” the will of the people/No Parliament

Fascism in Italy:
Benito Mussolini—“Il Duce”
King Victor Emmanuel III

German Fascism:
The Demise of the Weimar Republic
Reparations, Inflation and Middle Class Ruin
Adolf Hitler
National Socialist German Workers’ Party
Nazism
Mein Kampf
Joseph Goebbels/Heinrich Himmler
The Reichstag
The Enabling Act
Extreme, Primitive Nationalism

The Jewish Question and the Final Solution
Nuremberg Laws
Ghettos
Wannsee Conference

Spanish-American War/War of 1898/Philippine "Insurrection"

View these brief clips (from a very good History Channel documentary on the war's centennial) in order from top to bottom after reading the essay in the "American Imperialism" Blog.

Study Terms--Empire

Empire in Africa and Elsewhere
(Chapter 24--pgs. 738-752)
The Scramble for Africa
Berlin Conference of 1884
Great Britain
“From Cairo to Capetown”
South Africa
France
French West Africa
Germany
South West Africa (Namibia)/Herero Extermination
Belgium
King Leopold
Henry Stanley (David Livingston-Missionary)
Belgian Congo (latex)/Joseph Conrad/Heart of Darkness
Imperialism in Asia: India, the Philippines, China, and Japan(Chapter 25)
India East India Company
Sepoy Rebellion
United States
William McKinley
Spanish-American War/Philippine Insurrection/War of 1898
Cuba/Puerto Rico/Guam/The Philippines—Spanish Colonies
China Qing Dynasty/Manzhou
Xenophobia
The Myth of the China Market /New Markets for New Products
Opium Wars/“Spheres of Influence” (leases)/Hong Kong
Taiping Rebellion
Cixi (Tu-shi)
Sino-Japanese War
Boxer Rebellion
New China Movement
Sun Yat-sen/Chiang Kai-shek /Nationalists
Chinese Communism/Mao Zedong
Japan Tokugawa/Shogun/Samurai
Matthew Perry
Meiji Restoration:
Military
Constitutional
Industrial (Zaibatsu)
Imperialism
Nationalism
Sino-Japanese War & Russo-Japanese War
Manchuria (1931)/“The Rape of Nanjing”
Social Darwinism—Race and the “Struggle” for Survival among Nations
Racism & Empire—Rudyard Kipling: “The White Man’s Burden”
U.S. and the Japanese Pacific Empires

US Imperialism in the Victorian Age

The link below has an interesting discussion regarding the "philosophical underpinnings" of US imperialism. Keep in mind that many of these "rationalizations" for empire were voiced and embraced not only in Washington, D.C. and New York City, but also in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, and even Brussels.
US Expansion