The good times of the Roaring 20s came to an end in the Great Depression, when huge swaths of people lost their life savings, their jobs, and their homes. President Hoover tried to help, but insisted on not getting the government too involved in the economy. While he had good motives, the lack of government help meant that the depression continued. When FDR took office in 1933, he established his “New Deal”, a system of programs designed to help the United States get out of the depression. The crisis at home led to a policy of isolationism, as Americans were to busy trying to get out of the depression to bother with events happening around the world. And there were definitely events happening in the wider world. Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, propelled into power by promises of national power and a end to the hunger and unemployment caused by the end of World War One and the massive inflation that followed. Flaunting the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler rebuilt the military to a large size and then invaded Austria and areas of Czechoslovakia. France and Great Britain, still weak from World War One, practiced appeasement, saying the annexation of Czechoslovakia was fine as long as it was the last area he took. Germany accepted, conquered Poland, and started World War Two. World War Two was much larger than World War One. Over 6 times as many people died in the 6 years of fighting from 1939-1945. Of the 60 million that died in World War One, 40 million were civilians. This huge war affected many things during the war, but now we look back and ask ourselves: “In what way did WW2 change the world? How did it change the US? How are things different after the war and why does it matter?” Those are the questions I will be answering today.
World War Two, like World War One, was fought between two major sides, the Axis Powers and the Central Powers. The main Axis Powers were Germany (led by Adolf Hitler), Italy (led by Benito Mussolini), and Japan (led by Hideki Tojo). Opposing them were the central powers. The main central powers were Great Britain (led by Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill), United States (led by FDR and then Harry Truman), France (led by Charles De Gaulle), the Soviet Union (led by Joseph Stalin), and China. The initial years of the war were fought almost exclusively in Europe, as Germany’s blitzkrieg (lightning warfare) resulted in most of Europe quickly under German control. Only Great Britain remained free from occupation. Subjected to German air raids nicknamed “The Blitz”, strict laws were put in place regulating the amount of light showing in the evenings. The European focus of the war caused a decrease in the economy of Europe after the war due to the many buildings and factories destroyed by German bombing raids. In the US, on the other hand, the War Industries Board regulated factories, gearing up everyone to produce war materials such as planes and ships. The rapid increase in jobs led to the end of the Great Depression and an increase in industrialization that continued after the war, resulting in the emergence of the United States as a global economic superpower.
On the United State’s home front, the whole nation geared up for war. New government organizations regulated many facets of the war effort, from the Office of War Information regulating propaganda to the Office of Price Regulation helping with rationing. The government sold War Bonds to fund the war effort and pushed Victory Gardens, Meatless Mondays, and home canning to help conserve food for soldiers to use. One way they did this was by the use of propaganda, posters that pushed a message.
The first poster pushes home growing and equates the simple act of growing vegetables with winning the war, a common thread throughout the posters. The second one pushes for new volunteers for the war by pulling at feelings of nationalism. At the start of the war, six million soldiers volunteered for service. The draft that was instituted supplied another ten million soldiers for the war effort. This large volume of workers sent off to war left a large labor void. That void was filled by women. Spurred on by posters such as that of Rosie the Riveter, women took up many kinds of jobs, from manufacturing to telephone operators. The push also led to an increase in women working even after the war.
In Germany, before the war even started, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party passed the Nuremberg Laws, a group of laws limiting the rights of Jews. These laws also led to the Night of the Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht as it was called by the Germans, which was November 9, 1938, when mobs in Germany destroyed Jewish property and broke Jewish storefront windows, which was made easier by the requirement to post a Star of David on all Jewish businesses. Kristallnacht was only the first in a series of anti-semitic practices and events, which culmunated in the Holocaust, the consolidation and systematic killing of almost six million jews in concentration camps around Europe. The aftermath from this atrocity led to the formation of Israel as a separate entity and country, a change that is still around today.
Another difference in territory of nations was that of Russia, or the Soviet Union as it was called at that point. Led by Joseph Stalin, a paranoid man who took control of the Soviet Union following the death of Lenin in 1922. Before the start of WW2, Adolf Hitler had joined with Stalin and agreed to the Nazi Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, a secret agreement promising that neither the Soviet Union or Germany would attack each other. In addition, this pact split up Eastern European countries into German and Soviet control. Soon after Germany invaded Poland from the West, the Soviet Union invaded it from the East. A few years into the war, Germany broke the Non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union, pushing for Stalingrad, Moscow, and Leningrad. Responding to this new threat, the Soviet Union defeated the German army at the Battle of Stalingrad and then pushed into Germany from the east. Coupled with the other Allied powers attacking from the west following the successful invasion of Normandy, Germany was trapped between two large powers. When Hitler’s last attempt to break free (the Battle of the Bulge) failed, Germany surrendered soon after. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt to discuss dividing Post-war Europe. Stalin agreed to help fight Japan, occupy part of Germany, and join the United Nations. He also agreed to set up self-determination in the territories the Soviet Union had occupied in Eastern Europe, but instead installed a communist government that, while ostensibly separate from the Soviet Union, was no more than a marionette in the hands of Stalin. This spread of communism was seen by the US as a threat to democracy, and led into the Cold War.
Another thing that led into the Cold War was the development and use of nuclear weaponry. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret project headed by the United States and aided by Great Britain and Canada. The project’s goal was to develop nuclear weaponry faster than the Germans could. To aid this end, the project also supported a network of spies in Germany who sabotaged the German attempts to develop a nuclear bomb. The project was a success, and following the Trinity test (the first detonation of a nuclear bomb) the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day) and the end of World War Two. The Soviet’s attempts to make nuclear weapons was part of an Arms Race that was a large part of the Cold War.
During WW2, many names made headlines and set them up for a successful career later in life. Charles DeGaulle was a French General and leader of an anti-nazi movement who later became the French President. Bernard Montgomery (the British leader in Africa) and Douglas MacArthur (the American general in the Pacific) became household names, while in Japan Hirohito (the general) became a figurehead post-war. The most famous American was probably Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander and leader of the D-Day invasion, who later became president after the war.
Many students in today’s time wonder why they have to study this and why it is important to them. The answer lies in the world and culture around them. Our current culture and environment is based on history, from policies laid down by past presidents that still affect us today to the latest decision made in the UN, an organization formed after WW2 as a way of regulating international disputes. History has made us who and what we are today, and what we do will affect those in the future.
In today’s time, the events in the Middle East remind me of some of the atrocities committed during WW2. The bombing and senseless killing by the government of their own citizens reminds me of Stalin’s treatment of his citizens, killing almost 50 million people. Hopefully the atrocities will end, and maybe a more effective form of the UN will arise, just as the UN replaced the weak League of Nations.
