World War II: Crash Course European History #38

Hi I’m John Green and this is Crash Course

European History. So, On August 23, 1939 the USSR and Germany

concluded a non-aggression pact. The pact caused shocks across Europe for a

couple reasons. First, the USSR, while it did conduct extensive

trade with Hitler’s Germany, also, like, roundly denounced Nazism’s fascism and capitalism. And secondly, Hitler had come to power by

railing against so-called “Judeo-Bolshevism,” a concept that merged anti-Semitism with his

attacks on Communism. They say that politics makes strange bedfellows. But war makes really, really strange bedfellows. [Intro]

The pact between the USSR and Germany stipulated that if one party became involved in a war,

the other would remain neutral. Secretly, it also divided up Poland and the

Baltic states, and also bought Stalin some time to repair the USSR’s military leadership,

which as you’ll recall had been decimated by Stalin’s own purges. Another example of tyranny solving the problems

that tyranny has created. Then, on September 1, 1939, a mere nine days

after the pact was signed, German forces launched a huge attack on Poland, beginning World War

II in Europe. Airplanes bombed cities, while tanks and motorized

infantry rolled in rapidly as part of an overall strategy called Blitzkrieg, or lightning war. The idea of Blitzkrieg is that it would do

away with the stationary trench warfare, of World War I, along with that war’s massive

casualties and unending need for material. This was supposed to result in lower costs

and less suffering for Germans, and by gaining lots of new land--living space, or Lebensraum

on which to farm and build German industry--Hitler would end the German Depression and the humiliation

of World War I. Of course, it didn’t work out that way. One reminder among literal thousands that

the promises made before wars are rarely kept. As for Poland, Polish armies fought valiantly

but were utterly ill-equipped--both because the nation was new and because it had far

less sophisticated military equipment. Britain and France declared war on Germany

just two days after the invasion. And seventeen days later, as Poland collapsed,

the USSR invaded Poland from the east, picking up the territory their pact with Germany allowed

them. By the spring of 1940 after a quiet period

called the “phony war,” the Germans proceeded to use Blitzkrieg to defeat Norway and Denmark,

and then in May and June the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. These defeats happened so quickly that hundreds

of thousands of French and British soldiers were trapped in the French port city of Dunkirk;

and as the French government surrendered, most of those soldiers were rescued by fishing

boats and other small craft that came over from the British side of the English channel. And so of course Hitler’s next target was

Britain. He ordered an air attack, convinced overwhelming

airpower would lay the groundwork for Germany to cross the English channel and conquer it. And in this moment, I just want to pause to

note that , you know, like, we know how World War II ends--Philip Roth described history

as a field “where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page

as inevitable.” And the defeat of Nazism does feel inevitable

to us, but imagine how it felt in Europe when the Nazi bombing of Britain began in July

of 1940. I mean, in ten months, Germany had captured

all this land. And I don’t want to minimize how uncertain

the war felt in the minds of those who were fighting in it, or living amidst it. so during the three month Battle of Britain,

the German air force pounded cities and towns, industrial sites, and monuments, and over

10,000 British civilians were killed. But the British eventually outsmarted the

Nazis--partly because of a code-breaking group called Ultra that was able to decrypt Nazi

attack plans, partly because of the development of radar, and partly because the British maintained

far higher industrial productivity than Germany could achieve. But also, contrary to the (always fallible)

theory that bombing breaks civilian resolve, the British public refused to give in. They were fortified by a stalwart royal family

and the stirring oratory of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who summoned them to “blood,

toil, tears, and sweat” in the cause of defending liberty. By the fall of 1940, Hitler had quit the failed

Battle of Britain. But, despite that defeat, he began to plan

an even bigger undertaking: the invasion and conquest of his erstwhile frenemy the Soviet

Union. As his generals planned, the seeming invincibility

of the German army brought Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria into what was known as the Axis—an

alliance centered on the agreement among three authoritarian regimes: Germany, Italy, and

Japan. Britain and its empire had as an ally only

the remnants of the French army, which was in exile--in fact, many of them were in Britain. So Hitler considered himself a military genius,and

to him, invading the USSR was a no-brainer. Now, his generals wanted a concentrated, targeted

attack--an operation called Barbarossa--that would take the military directly to Moscow. But Hitler demanded a showy two-thousand mile

war front entailing attacks across the USSR. That turned out to be a mistake. Beginning in June 1941, three million German

soldiers and others from conquered territories rolled toward the USSR, with the enigmatic

Stalin disappearing from view for the first days of the attack. He seemed ill or maybe in denial, even though

his agents had provided detailed information about German preparations. Soon, however, Stalin reappeared, and roused

Soviet citizens to an amazing resistance. The USSR and Britain became allies, united

despite radically different governments by their shared existential threat. Again, in war, you make weird friends. Hitler’s ultimate imperial goal was to colonize

Eurasia, from central Europe to the Pacific. And the so-called “inferior” inhabitants

of this region would be ruled military-style, with ideas of rights and citizenship completely

discarded. And this gets at something really important,

which is that racism pervaded every aspect of Nazism-- in two episodes’ time we’ll be discussing

the horrors of the Holocaust in detail, but racism also pervaded Nazi military planning

and concepts of proper governance. And so as the German army swept through central

and eastern Europe, Hitler ordered tests of citizens, promising those who could read good

jobs. But then literate captives were routinely

shot on the spot so they couldn’t provide leadership in future resistance, paving the

way for military dictatorship. The illiterate were more likely to survive,

with the idea they would serve as slave workers on vast agricultural estates directed by the

German elite to provide the German master race a better standard of living and plentiful

food. For a time, the German advance eastward was

monumentally successful, especially as anti-Semites in captured regions joined in the killing

of Jewish neighbors and the theft of their property. The German army captured, killed, or wounded

some 2.25 million Soviet soldiers. In total, as many as 47 million Soviet citizens

died as a result of World War II. For context, around 418,000 Americans died

in the war. And with such widespread devastation within

the Soviet army, leading German military officials declared the war virtually won. Hitler ordered military production to switch

from making winter gear, and tanks, and artillery to fight in the Soviet Union, and instead

to focus on battleships and planes so they could capture territory beyond Europe. But the Soviet Union wasn’t defeated, and

Soviet officials drove citizen resistance mercilessly, including the transport of the

USSR’s massive industrial infrastructure eastward to escape German attacks. Also, the Soviets knew something that the

Germans seemed not to: Winter was coming. And as the weather grew colder, the German

offensive bogged down. We’ve said it before and we’ll probably

have to say it again: Don’t invade Russia in winter. Unless you’re the Mongols. That same winter, in December 1941, the Japanese,

with imperialist designs similar to those of Germany, bombed the U.S. naval base at

Pearl Harbor and U.S. air bases in the Philippines. Japan then proceeded to scoop up islands in

the Pacific and territory in Southeast Asia while also continuing its attack on China. “The era of democracy is finished,” Japan’s

foreign minister announced along with promises that Japan would free Asians and other world

citizens from Western tyranny. And replace it with...a new kind of tyranny! In response, the United States declared war

on Japan and joined what came to be called the Grand Alliance of the USSR, Britain, the

Free French, and several dozen other nations against the Axis powers. And that meant the balance was extremely lopsided,

because Britain and the USSR individually produced more weaponry, tanks, and other material

than Germany in every year of the war. And the United States was also a huge industrial

power. Japan, meanwhile, had relied on U.S. copper

and oil in the years before the war, which obviously the U.S. became reluctant to share

after war was declared. So, the Allies decided on a Europe first strategy,

after which they would turn to take on the Japanese. Stalin pushed for the Allies to open a European

western front to divide Axis resources that up to now were targeting the USSR almost exclusively. But Churchill, aiming to protect the British

empire, demanded that priority go elsewhere, specifically to the southern Mediterranean

and the Middle East, which was flush with oil. In the Middle East and North Africa, German

general Erwin Rommel’s motorized armies moved rapidly and successfully against the

Allies--arguably too successfully, as their supply lines couldn’t keep up with them. Also, critically , the code-breaking skills

of the Allies tipped them off to German movements. By the fall of 1942, Algeria and Morocco were

under Allied control. But still, Churchill insisted on not opening

a western front, and under his influence the Allies instead launched a costly invasion

of Italy in 1943 that lasted until April 1945. Amid these developments, in 1942-1943, the

USSR fought the expensive and agonizing battle of Stalingrad, important because of its industry

and its role as a shipping hub. Hitler decreed that on victory all men in

the city would be executed and all women deported. In house-to-house fighting, massive German

bombing, and horrific ground warfare, some two million people were killed and wounded

including tens of thousands of civilians.The USSR eventually emerged from this nightmare

victorious and it was a huge turning point in the war. The Soviets proceeded to move westward across

the continent toward Germany. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. 1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then president

of the United States, 2. finally insisted on the cross-Channel invasion

of France in Normandy, which began in June 1944. 3. Allied forces disembarked from landing craft

to confront German firepower from the well-fortified shores. 4. But because of Allied disinformation campaigns, 5. the Germans had not sufficiently massed their

forces on those specific beaches. 6. Paratroopers dropped from the sky behind the

German lines 7. and together with troops moving from the

beaches 8. began the eastward march toward Paris and

Berlin. 9. then in July 1944 a group of elite German

military men made an attempt on Hitler’s life, 10. an attempt that failed to kill Hitler

but did increase his erratic and paranoid behavior. 11. A bloodbath followed, leading to the torture

and murder of hundreds of the plotters, their families, and completely unaffiliated Germans. 12. Some downplay the importance of this plot— 13. there were several plots against Hitler during

his rise and reign-- 14. but other historians point out that had the

plot succeeded, 15. it might have saved the lives of the five

million Germans who died in the last nine months of the war 16. along with millions more Allied soldiers

and other civilians who also perished. 17. Regardless, as Allied forces advanced from

east and west, 18. Hitler came to see the Germans as a nation

unfit for the superior destiny he was forging for them. 19. But he refused to talk peace. 20. Moreover, the Germans themselves were experiencing

the deprivation and losses of their loved ones 21. that Hitler had promised would never happen. 22. Greatness was not materializing. Thanks Thought Bubble. As the Allies descended on Berlin, in the

spring of 1945, Hitler and his wife Eva Braun killed themselves, as did other high-ranking

officials. At about the same time, resistance fighters

captured Italian leader Benito Mussolini along with his mistress Clara Petacci, shot them,

and hung their bodies upside down on the roof of a gas station for public display. On May 7th, 1945, Germany surrendered. The next day was celebrated as “Victory

Europe” Day or VE Day. But World War II was not over, because the

Allies were confronting the Japanese in the Pacific, moving to reclaim islands and their

people from Japanese rule. Their first significant move was to destroy

elements of Japan’s navy at the battles of Midway Island and Guadalcanal. These significant advances allowed the Allies

to control the movement of supplies and troops in the Pacific. And then, there was the atom bomb. Almost since the beginning of the war, an

international team of scientists had been working on creating the atom bomb. The code name for the secret venture was the

Manhattan Project. Once developed and tested, actual use of the

bomb was hotly debated--not least because people did not yet know--and in fact still

do not fully know--the long-term environmental and human consequences of atomic bombs. But also, the short term consequences were

known to be horrendous. Ultimately, it was decided to drop an atom

bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. On August 9th, a second bomb was dropped on

the city of Nagasaki. By August 15th, Japan had surrendered. Around 20,000 Japanese soldiers died in the

bombing of Hiroshima; only 150 died in Nagasaki. Over 100,000 civilians died in the bombings. So, the course of World War II unfolded among

heads of state and diplomats, among soldiers suffering cruel deprivation and death on the

frozen battlefields of the USSR and the roasting deserts of Northern Africa, in the labor,

death, and refugee camps of Eurasia, and in the lives of often terrified civilians. Among all of these, new research speculates

that the global death toll may have reached as high as 100 million people, nearly five

percent of all humans on Earth at the time. War is hell. Don’t forget it. And yet how else could the world respond to

totalitarian aggression? When we consider the big question--which wars

are “worth it” and why--let’s not forget to shift perspectives. I mean, the value of a war changes if you’re

an arms manufacturer, or if you’re a schoolteacher murdered for being literate. We’ll try to examine some of those perspectives

in detail next time. Thanks for watching. I’ll see you then.