Week of March 7-11

[1Clara]

Monday:

• We finished Great Britain notes, We Shall Never Surrender speech extra credit, and went over Soviet Union presentation.

Tuesday:

• We did or turned in our second movie summary, and started the second WWII movie.

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

• No school

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WWII

-Great Britain

• UK lost its leading position in the world 
• UK lost many colonies
• New international peace organization 
• Home front: 
  • factories
  • "we shall never surrender"
  • kids pushed to the country side
  • draft propaganda 

- Soviet Union

• Goal:
  • destroy their most dangerous rival: Nazi Germany
  • expand their Soviet Communist system to control an many people and resources as possible 
• Battles:
  • Operation Barbarossa
    • between Germany and Soviet Union
    • plan to secretly attack 
    • Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad
  • Battle of Stalingrad
    • Germany was trying to push east
    • S.U.- over 1 million casualties
    • Germany- 920,000
    • Worst battle in history as far as casualties 
  • Battle of Moscow
    • good defense and winter's help lead to victory 
    • casualties again exceeded 1 million
    • The Russians were more prepared for the winter and Germans were not
  • Battle of Leningrad
    • Germany aimed to siege (surround, bomb, and starve) the city
    • lasted over 900 days
  • Battle of Berlin
    • April - May 1945
    • Soviet Union's attack on the West East (German infantry)
    • Hitler married and committed suicide 
• Help
  • Battle of Berlin: soviets attacked Berlin with full force
  • Soviet Union had ended on a "slaughter of Germans"
• Strategies
  • Trench Warfare
  • Roadblocks
  • Tank raids
  • Artillery 
• The Grand Alliance
  • U.S. and Great Britain
• Joseph Stalin 
  • brutal dictator 
  • killed a lot of his own people 
  • "destalinization" - undoing the terrible things he did
  • came to power after Lenin died 
• Total cost of war - $192 billion 
• Casualties 
  • around 8-11 million war deaths
  • 27 million 
• Propaganda
  • posters, radios, and newspapers
• Home-front
  • every packed and moved east because of invasion on west
  • children still attended school but with few supplies 
  • war production increased
  • peasants were forced to work on collective farms
    • farms were taken away from farmers due to lack of food in the country 
  • many women participated in the war
• People and Generals
  • Georgy Zhykov
    • most successful Russian General 
    • "The man who never lost a battle"
    • demoted by Stalin
  • Vyacheslav Molotov
    • foreign minister
    • helped with a lot of the pact between Germany and Russia
    • in charge of collective farms
      • millions died
    • "The enemy will be defeated. The victory will be ours."
  • Ivan Konev
    • one of most outstanding generals
    • commander of western front
      • responsibility of defending approaches to Moscow
      • failed within one month
  • Nikita Khrushchev
    • political commissioner of the war
    • huge Stalin supporter
    • after Stalin's death he took over his spot
• Impact
  • destroyed big cities
  • Set up communist governments in 
    • Poland
    • Hungary
    • Romania 
    • etc.
  • became a leading world power
• USSR Prior to WWII
  • Russia drops out of WWI to fight Bolshevik Revolution (War between communist and non communist in Russia)-Russia became communist and changed name to USSR-Purges and deportation to slave labor camps in Siberia
  • Strengthened the intelligence and secret service
  • Created a "Cult of Personality"
  • Nationalization and Collectivization of the Soviet economy
  • Industrialization of the soviet economy
  • Five Year Plans
  • Policies led to famine in Ukraine (5-10 million died- considered a genocide by some)
  • Banned religion 
• USSR in WWII
  • signed German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in 1939 leading to the invasion of Poland
  • also invaded Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland in 1939
  • signed Neutrality Pact with Japan in 1941
  • Invaded by Germany in June 1941
  • Stalin instituted his retreat and "scorched earth" policies
  • the Russian winter of 1941-42 changed the tide of the war

-France

• was invaded in May of 1940 by Germany (Blitz)
• within a month was taken over (surrendered)
• between WWI and WWII built a huge concrete fortification between Great Britain and Germany 
  • wall stopped at Belgium so Germany went around
• Two governments
  • Free French Underground
    • Charles De Gaulle
    • Based in London
  • Vichy Government
    • Marshall Petain
    • city in central France