Tuesday , March 10th Notes

Hitler, encouraged by American neutrality and British appeasement, remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 and provided aid to Franco in Spain while the U.S. refused to aid the duly elected Spanish government.
-In 1937 Japan invaded CHina capturing Beijing, Shanghi, Nanjing, and Shandong. Japanese planes sunk the U.S. gunboat Panay as it evacuated American officials from nanking.
-In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the axis powers. THey were soon joined by Japan. Italy withdrew from the League of Nations.
-In March 1938, Hitler invaded and annexed Austria. He then announced his intentions to seize part of Czechoslovakia known as the sudentenland.
-Roosevelt had been tilting toward a policy of intervention.
In May 1938, he announded a program of naval rearmament.
-French and British leaders met with Hitler in Munich, Germany in September 1938. At Munich they caved in to Hitler and told Czechoslovakia to go along with giving up the Sudentenland in exchange for Hitler's promise to seek no more territory. This is known as appeasement.
-In March 1939, Germany marched into Praque and soon annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia. Hitler secured Germany's eastern flank by signing a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
-On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France had pledged to defend Poland; declared war on Germany.
The American Response
-Americans sat by as Hitler completed his conquest of Poland and in his Blitzkeig overran Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
-Britain barely managed to evacuate its troops from the French town of Dunkirk.
-President Roosevelt declared U.S. neutrality on the day Britain and France declared war.
-From 1939-1941 Roosevelt tried to mobilize American public opinion against the neutrality acts.
-late in 1939, Congress lifted the ban on selling arms to Belligerents and sustituted a cash and carry policy. Britain and France benefitted.
-Congress enacted the 1st peacetime draft in U.S. history in 1940.
Britain was subjected to daily German air raids in the Battle of Britain in late 1940. At first the German concentrated on Military bases, but soon shifted to bombing London and other cities.
-In September 1940, Roosevelt transferred 50 WWI vintage naval destroyers to Britain in exchange for the right to build U.S. naval bases on eight British sites in the Western Hemisphere; Newfoundland, Bermuda, Bahamas, Trinidad, Jamaica...destroyers for bases trade.
-Some Americans were strongly opposed to Roosevelt's pro-allied policies. Among them were the America First Committee organized by general Robert E. Wood of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Charles Lindbergh.
-Strong anti-semitism in the U.S. led to the Congress defeating a bill to boost immigration quotas in order to allow for the entry of 20,000 Jewish children otherwise headed for Hitler's concentration camps.
-The U.S. went further and adopted a restrictive refugee policy that did not permit even the legal quota of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe during WWII.
-Other Americans rallied in support of helping the allies when Britain was narly out of money, the U.S. revised the neutrality Act so that it would loan, or lend-lease, rahter than sell to the allies. The Lend-Lease act passed Congress in March 1941.
-Hitler suprised his ally Joseph Stalin by attacking the Soviet Union.
-Roosevelt- maintaining non-belligerancy- took steps to coordinate military strategy with Britain.
-Roosevelt agreed to a Europe-first strategy and sent U.S. troops to Greenland and Iceland to relieve British troops stationed there.
-In August 1941, Roosevelt met with Churchill on a naval ship off the coast of Newfoundland to work toward a formal alliance. They issued the 8-point atlantic charter It:
-Discovered territorial expansion
-endorsed free trade and self-determination
-pledged the post war creation of a new world organization to ensure general security.
-Roosevelt agreed to have the U.S. Navy convoy American goods as far as Iceland.
-Soon, in an undeclared naval war, German submarines were attacking U.S. ships.
-When Germany sunk the U.S.S. Reuben James, Congress repealed the neutrality act.
-The U.S. formally entered teh war when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941. Congress declared war on 8 December 1941. On 11 December 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S.
-Turning points in teh war:
-Stalingrad in the East
-Normandy in the West
-Midway in the Pacific
-Hitler committed suicide in April 1945 and Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.
-Nuremburg War Crimes Trials
-German officials put on trial for "Crimes against humanity"
-Court did not accept the excuse that troops/people were just doing what they were ordered/told to do.
-individuals were responsible for their own actions
-Windtalkers
-the U.S. used Navajo Indians to provide secure radio communications that the Japanese could not translate.