Professor Brophy
History 102

World War II

Appeasement and its Failure
    -the Czechoslovakian crises
    -Hitler-Stalin Pact (August 1939)

Invasion of Poland
    -Hitler’s economic needs
    -Hitler’s assumptions about West
    -new warfares: Blitzkrieg and Weltanschauungskrieg

Hitler’s Miscalculations
-the two-front war
-revised strategies
-repetition of Blitzkrieg; no plans for war of attrition or defensive operations
-Axis powers: how coordinated?
    Tripartite Pact  (Nov. 1940)

War in the West
-war declarations; the “phony war”
-attack on Scandinavia (April 1940)
-appointment of Winston Churchill
-attack on France, Belgium, Netherlands (May ’40)
-France capitulates; creation of Vichy France
-Battle of Britain (Sept. 1940)
-Struggle for Mediterranean (Dec. ’40-Feb. ’41)
-Italy defeated in Egypt; Afrikakorps sent to Africa

War in the East
-Operation Barbarossa
-Balkan interlude (April 1941)
-Invasion of Soviet Union: 175 divisions (June 1941)
-Barbarossa bogged down: Winter 1941-42;
    Spring-summer offensive 1942; Stalingrad: Nov. 42-Feb 43
-Genocide in Poland and Soviet Union: 1941-45
-Eastern failure; Wehrmacht broken by Red Army

Final Phases  
-Allied declaration of unconditional surrender (Jan. 43)
-Allied victory in North Africa (May ’43); invasion of Italy, 1943
-Allied invasion of Europe: D-day, 6 June 1944
-Battle of the Bulge, 1944-45
-collapsed eastern front
-May 7-8: surrender of Nazi Germany

Conclusions
-Industrial supremacy of Allied Powers
-Hitler’s failings as war strategist
-bombing of civilians: new meaning of total war (Dresden, Coventry, London, Hamburg)
-demographic, material, moral catastrophe
        40 million fatalities
-the rise of new world order and the cold war