Monday - Went over movies
Tuesday - Continued wih the Germany PowerPoint
What drove Hitler to do what he did in Europe?
- Desire to get revenge from the Great War and undo the Treaty of Versailles
- Re-unite German speaking peoples
- Make Germany respectable and strong again
- More of a short term goal for Hitler
- Racism
- The desire to make sure that pure blood Germans stayed that way
- Limit or not allow the “Germanization” of other ethnic groups
- Everything usually related back to race in some way with Hitler
- Destruction of the Jewish Bolsheviks
- Taking down the Communist Soviet Union
What drove Hitler to do what he did in Europe?
- Lebensraum
- Means “living space” for the German people
- Hitler wanted to take over eastern Europe(Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, etc.)
- As the German people multiply, they will need more living space to live
- Germany also needed more food and this allowed for that
- Lebensraum and racism were linked together
What about Western Europe?
- He generally respected the races of Western Europe much more
- He did want revenge from the Treaty of Versailles
- Hitler in 1939
- “If those in the West are too stupid or too blind to understand this(that Germany was focused on destroying Communist Russia), then I shall be forced to come to an understanding with the Russians to beat the West, and then, after its defeat, turn with all my concerted force against the Soviet Union."
German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
- Both agreed to stay neutral if the other entered the war
- Secretly agreed to invade and split Poland and other areas that were lost after WWI
- Germany would get the western half and USSR the eastern half of Poland
- Russia would get Finland, Estonia and Latvia and Germany would get Lithuania
- Russia gave raw materials to Germany in exchange for money and weapons(actually done in another pact)
How Did the World React to this Pact?
- Shock and concern
- Hitler had a non-aggression pact with Poland at the time
- Poland was now stuck “between a rock and a hard place”
- Hitler thought it would force Great Britain and France to back out of their promise to help Poland if attacked that they agreed to after Hitler took Czechoslovakia
Blitzkrieg-Lightning War
- German air force attacks enemy front-line and rear positions, main roads, airfields and communication centers
- At the same time, infantry attacks the entire frontline and engages enemy
- Tank(panzer) units breakthrough main lines of defense and advance deeper into enemy territory
- Mechanized trucks go deeper into the enemy territory outflanking the enemy positions and preventing withdrawing enemy troops and defenders from establishing defensive positions
- Main force links up with other units encircling and cutting off the enemy
- Goal was to achieve victory as quickly as possible
Comments