The Holocaust and the end of WWII

The Holocaust, 1941-45: “The Final Solution”

  • Until 1941, Hitler and Nazis did not agree on what to do with Jews
    • Emigration
    • Madagascar
  • TURNING POINT: June 1941, Operation Barbarossa
  • Einsatzgruppen: “Mobile Killing Groups” or “Single-task groups”
    • Jews
    • Communists
    • Gypsies
    • Poles
  • The ghettos were already sealed (1940)
  • Poison gas vans tested the use of gas
  • Auschwitz-Birkenau
    • Systematic annihilation of Jews and Gypsies
    • 1942–1944: one million killed
  • Anonymous slaughter
  • People were tortured, beaten, and executed publicly

Who did this?

  • Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg
    • Ordinary Germans obeying orders
    • July 1942-Nov. 1943: killed more than 38,000 Jews
    • deported 45,000 others

 

Who knew?

  • Extermination involved the knowledge and cooperation of many not directly involved in killing
  • Most who suspected the worst were terrified and powerless
  • Many Europeans believed “the Jews” were a problem that needed “solving”
  • Nazis tried to conceal the death camps
  • What of other governments?
    • Vichy France required Jews to wear special identification
    • Italians participated less actively
    • Hungarian government dragged its feet

Resistance?

  • Little resistance seemed to be possible
  • Rebellions at Auschwitz and Treblinka
  • Warsaw ghetto uprising (1943)
    • 80 percent of the residents had been deported
    • Small Jewish underground movement
    • 56,000 Jews were killed

Overall human costs

  • 5.1-6.0 million Jews
    • 800,000 in Ghettos
    • 1,400,000 in open-air shootings
    • 2,900,000 in camps
  • 1.8 -1.9 million Poles
  • 200,000-800,000 Roma & Sinti
  • 200,000-300,000 people with disabilities
  • 10,000-25,000 gay men
  • 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses
  • Near obliteration of Jewish culture
    • Beliec’s absence

US intervention and end of WWII

  • US enters the war
  • December 7, 1941: Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor
  • 2.5 hours later, Japanese officially declared war on the United States and Britain
  • Dec. 8: Britain declared war
  • Dec. 8: US Congress declared that a state of war had existed since December 7
  • Dec. 9: China declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy
  • Dec. 11: Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and the US Congress voted declarations in return

The Grand Alliance

  • BIG THREE:
    • Great Britain: Winston Churchill
    • USA: F.D. Roosevelt
    • USSR: Josef Stalin
  • Keys to victory: Agreed to:
    • Europe first (Hitler - greatest evil)
    • Postpone politics (capitalism vs. communism)
    • Unconditional surrender (no 1918!)

But war in the east was decisive

Battle of Stalingrad: summer 1942-February 2, 1943

  • Hitler wanted to take the city. Why?
    • Named after Stalin
    • Important port on Volga river
  • But distraction from oil reserves
  • Battle of Stalingrad: summer 1942-February 2, 1943
  • Axis powers advanced (General F. Paulus)
  • Soviets held on
  • Axis supplies started running out
  • Winter came
  • Panzers useless in street fighting
  • Soviets counterattacked
  • Surrounded Axis forces
  • Paulus surrendered (ignored Hitler)
  • Total Axis losses (Germans, Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians): 800,000 dead
  • 1,100,000 Soviet soldiers lost their lives in the campaign to defend the city
  • But turned the tide of the war
  • June 6, 1944: D-Day: Battle of Normandy
  • Long period of preparation and planning
  • Largest amphibious landing in history
  • Five beaches:
    • Utah
    • Gold
    • Juno
    • Sword
    • “Bloody” Omaha
  • Significance: opened up a large second front

Yalta Conference, Feb. 1945

  • Big Three
  • Key issue: Poland
    • London Poles (pre-WWII govt.)
    • Lublin Poles (communists)
  • Sovietization
  • Big Three agreed on “interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population . . . and the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people.”

ENDGAME

  • April 25, 1945: Soviet Army first to reach Berlin
  • April 30: Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide
  • May 8, 1945: Victory in Europe!!
  • War in Europe ended

Potsdam Conference, summer 1945

  • USA: Harry S Truman
  • USSR: J. Stalin
  • Great Britain: W. Churchill, then Clement Atlee
  • Solved nothing
  • Showed sides in emerging Cold War
  • Truman told Stalin about the bomb

End of War with Japan

  • August 6, 1945: Hiroshima
    • Killed 70,000-90,000 people, injuring another 70,000
  • August 9: Nagasaki
    • Killed 60,000-75,000 and injured about the same number
  • August 14, 1945:  Japan surrendered
  • Total deaths: approximately 50 million
  • See Table, click here