World War II Questions of the Day Part 3 Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High.

World War IIQuestions of the Day Part 3

Daniel W. Blackmon

IB HL History

Coral Gables Sr. High

Essay of the Day

How comprehensively are the characteristics of "total war" illustrated by the Second World War? (1990) (HL)

Define “Total War”

War conducted with the purpose of the complete destruction of the enemies’ ability to resist.

The mobilization of the entire resources of a nation-state

Define “Total War”

We will examine the Second World War in Europe

Political

Economic

Social

Intellectual

Military

Political

“No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country. . . . . War does not always give over democratic communities to military government,

Political

“but it must invariably and immeasurably increase the powers of civil government; it must almost compulsorily concentrate the direction of all men and the management of all things in the hands of the administration.

Political

“If it does not lead to despotism by sudden violence, it prepares men for it more gently by their habits.

Political

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it.”

Alexis de Tocqueville (qtd in Wright, 236)

Political

Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union were already on a war footing.

The totalitarian regimes in each had already converted the nation into a garrison state.

Political: Great Britain

Winston Churchill as Prime Minister combined that post with Minister of Defense, which gave him direct oversight over all three branches.


The Emergency Powers Act gave the British government “practically unlimited authority over British citizens and their property.”


Churchill operated through a small War Cabinet and a four man Chiefs of Staff Committee (C.O.S.)

Churchill and C.O.S. increasingly directed the war.

Political: The United States

As President of the United States, FDR was already Commander-in-Chief.


In the U.S., FDR created the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) along the model of C.O.S.

Anglo-American cooperation was achieved through the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee (the C.O.S. and the J.C.S.)


This very close cooperation plus the firm personal relationship between Churchill and FDR cemented the Anglo-American coalition.

A reminder, coalition warfare is always difficult.

Political: The Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union, Stalin created a five man State Defense Committee chaired by himself.

Stalin also named himself Commissar for Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.


Stalin created a supreme military headquarters, called Stavka, which exercised close control over operations.


Stalin involved himself deeply, directly, and frequently disastrously in military decisions.

Stalin continued to distrust the military, even after the purges, and many officers became scapegoats.


Stalin remained completely informed during the war. He required briefings 3 times a day.

He worked very long hours, and Stavka worked 18 hour days.


Stalin punished mistakes ruthlessly.

However, he expected to told the true situation.


Gradually, Stavka gained more credence, and Stalin began to accept the advice of his professional soldiers more often.

Administering the War

Churchill, FDR, and Stalin all understood that the war had to be managed.The managers were professionals.Promotion was by merit, and effectiveness rather than loyalty was rewarded.


Britain: Chief the Imperial Staff Sir Alan Brooke

USA: Army Chief of Staff George Catlett Marshall

USSR: Chief of Staff Alexei Antonov


Brooke, Marshall, and Antonov were all powerful personalities and enormously talented men.

They were also thoroughly professional.


Hitler, by contrast, provided catastrophic leadership.

Politics: Germany

Following his purge of Blomberg and Fritsch in 1938, Hitler made himself Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, a task he took literally.

Politics: Germany

He created an armed forces high command, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW)The chief of OKW was Wilhelm Keitel

OKW was a secretariat rather than a staff, and Keitel nothing more than a slavish assistant.

Politics: Germany

Chief of Staff for OKW was Alfred Jodl

Jodl was the closest thing to a military adviser Hitler had.

He, like Keitel, thought Hitler a genius.

Both were hanged at Nuremberg

Politics: Germany

Hitler dealt directly with his service chiefs:

In 1939, Brauchitsch and Halder for the Army

Raeder and later Doenitz for the navy

Goering for the Luftwaffe

Politics: Germany

Only Hitler had complete access to all information.

There were no staffs to coordinate decisions on strategy, logistics, manpower, weapons development or economic mobilization.

Politics: Germany

Hitler further separated the command structure by using OKH to control all activities against the Soviet Union, while using OKW for all other theaters.

Politics: Germany

Neither OKW nor OKH knew the plans or problems of the other.

Both competed for scarce resources

Politics: Germany

This approach was duplicated in all other areas of the German war effort: what has been called

“administrative anarchy.”

Axis Coordination

Nor did Hitler coordinate strategy with Mussolini or Japan.

Mussolini did not tell Hitler he was invading Greece.Hitler did not tell the Japanese he was invading Russia.The Japanese did not tell Hitler they were attacking Pearl Harbor.

Axis Coordination

In many ways, Hitler and Stalin are parallel figures.

However, as the war progressed, Stalin used the talents of his professionals more and more; Hitler increasingly ignored the advice of his professionals.

Axis Coordination

The Axis powers did not so much fight the war as a coalition as they each fought parallel wars.

Economics: Germany

Hitler’s Four Year Plan of 1936 aimed at increasing autarky.

Synthetic rubber and oil programs were instituted.

Strategic materials were stockpiled.3 year stockpile of ferroalloys

Economics: Germany

Hitler chose to arm “in breadth” for a short war rather than “in depth” for a war of attrition.

Arming in depth would have pushed war back to 1943

Economics: Germany

Arming in breadth meant a short war fought out of existing stocks of arms.

German industry would not have to be totally mobilized for war.

Economics: Germany

In fact, Germany continued to produce steady amounts of consumer goods until 1942.

Germany did not adopt complete mobilization until 1942

Germany: Exploitation of Occupied Empire

The Polish Corridor, Silesia, Western Prussia, Luxemburg, Alsace, and part of Lorraine were annexed.


The rest of Poland was organized as the General Government under the brutal Gauleiter Hans Frank

Two other territories were created: Ostmark (Baltic states and Belarus) and Ukraine.


Indirect control was used in western and southern Europe.

Bohemia-Moravia was a “protectorate” with Reinhard Heydrich the protector.

Slovakia was a satellite ally under Father Tiso.


Norway became a satellite under Vidkun Quisling.

Vichy France became a satellite under Marshall Petain.

Croatia became a satellite under Ante Pavelic.

Germanization

Hitler created a Reichs Commissariat for the Strengthening of Germandom, or RKFVK and gave it to Himmler.

Originally a million Poles and Jews were evacuated to the General Government and their property confiscated.

Goering on Exploitation

“There must be removed from the territory of the Government General all raw materials, scrap, machines, etc. which are of any use for the German war economy.

Goering on Exploitation

“Enterprises which are not absolutely necessary for the meagre maintenance of the bare existence of the population must be transferred to Germany.” (qtd in Yahil 157)

Germanization

“Our duty in the East, is not Germanization in the former sense of the term, that is, imposing German language and laws upon the population, but to ensure that only people of pure German blood inhabit the East.” Himmler, 1942

Germanization

Himmler wanted to resettle German peasants in the east.

He had to compete with Alfred Rosenberg’s Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories.

Germanization

Himmler’s plan was to push the border to the Urals.

Some Slavs would be permitted to remain as cheap labor, but they would not be allowed over a 4th grade education, nor to own land or capital.

Germanization

Most Russians would be forcibly removed beyond the Urals.

Goering on Economic Exploitation

“In old days, the rule was plunder. Now, outward forms have become more humane. Nevertheless, I intend to plunder, and plunder copiously.”

Himmler on Economic Exploitation.

“How the Russians or the Czechs fare is absolutely immaterial to me. . . . Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise it is of no interest to me.”

Hitler on Economic Exploitation

“The real profiteers of this war are ourselves, and out of it we shall come bursting with fat! We will give back nothing and will take everything we can make use of. And if the others protest, I don’t give a damn.”

German Economic Exploitation

Hence, Goering, the director of the Four Year Plan, ordered “Enterprises which are not absolutely essential for the maintenance at a low level of the bare existence of the inhabitants must be transferred to Germany.”


Such methods were, from an economic point of view, inefficient and counterproductive.

Ideologically, they were entirely consistent.


In the West, slightly more sophisticated means were used.

France, Belgium, Netherlands, Greece, Norway, and Yugoslavia had to bear the cost of occupation—at extraordinarily inflated rates.


Monetary exchange rates were fixed grossly to Germany’s advantage.

Clearing accounts in Berlin allowed businesses to purchase goods on credit without ever having to pay.


Dutch, French, and Belgian holdings in Southeastern Europe were bought at prices fixed by the Germans.

Major corporations were acquired by German firms.


Since Hitler strongly resisted the use of German women in industry, Germany soon began to ship workers from occupied countries.


By 1941, that was 4,000,000

By 1944, the figure had risen to 7,000,000 or 20 % of the total labor force.


Some of these came from Soviet prisoners of war.

5,000,000 Soviets POWs were taken by the Germans.

Only 2,000,000 returned.

Economics: GermanyTotaler Krieg

Fritz Todt was given authority over much of the economy (after a bitter struggle with the army) in 1942

Killed in a plane crash, he was succeeded by Albert Speer, the most talented and intelligent of the Nazis.


Speer performed miracles of production.

But he always had to struggle against Goering’s control of the Luftwaffe and Himmler’s growing SS empire.


Under Speer, the output of weapons, ammunition, and aircraft increased 300 %

Tank production increased 600 %


German manpower problems:

Fritz Sauckel, Speer’s rival, was placed in charge of labor.

Sauckel imported slave labor on a massive scale.

German businesses were able to profit from the use of slave labor, both because they did not have to pay salaries, but also because they were paid an allowance for food per slave, and rarely did they provide that much food (a pitiful amount to begin with)

By the end of the war, Germany industry had been destroyed.

Transportation had been destroyed.

There was no fuel.

Strategic materials were down to zero.

Manpower was hopelessly short.

Economics: Great Britain

Great Britain, beginning its rearmament late, planned for war in depth from the start.

The big question was, could she survive the initial onslaught?

The Fall of France shocked everyone into action.

The British moved to all-out mobilization using a mixture of compulsion and popular consent.

The public was, in fact, often ahead of the government in demands for mobilization.

The Lord President’s Committee was formed to coordinate the economy.


Britain’s most pressing problem was manpower.

The National Service Act subjected men from 18-50 and women from 20-30 [later 50] to military or essential civilian war service.


Labor was ruthlessly diverted from civilian employment to war related employment.

2.8 workers were added to the labor force; 2.2 million were women.


By 1944, 33 % of Britain’s labor force was in war related service.


John Maynard Keynes introduced scientific national budgeting.

Taxes increased.

Pay was deferred (compulsory savings)

Bond drives held

Rationing was general.

Economics: The Soviet Union

The Third Five Year Plan of 1938 specifically aimed at improving defense capability.The defense budget was doubled.Crash programs were installed to develop the Urals and Western Siberia: industrial areas far from Germany


Iron, coal, and nonferrous mines were opened, railroads and power plants built.


After Barbarossa began, the Soviets began an extraordinary transfer of factories from endangered areas in Leningrad, Moscow, and the Donbas east beyond the Urals.


1360 factories were disassembled and shipped (with the workers) east.

They were rebuilt under appalling conditions and put into production as soon as possible.


The Soviets concentrated production on a few simple, rugged, effective weapons, and made a lot of them.

US Lend Lease was typically in the form of food, trucks, rolling stock, clothing, and special equipment (radios, fuel additives)


Manpower was also a severe problem for the Soviet Union

Millions were lost early in the war.

Large areas of the country fell under Nazi rule.

Casualties were hideous


All men from 16-55 and all women from 16-45 were mobilized.

As a proportion of the labor force, women rose from 38% to 53% by 1942


Women were used in the military in both support and combat roles.

They were nurses, tank drivers, fighter pilots, anti-aircraft gunners, snipers


Despite extremely harsh conditions and military discipline, labor productivity rose each year—a testament to the courage and patriotism of the Soviet peoples.


The same pattern occurs in agriculture.

“Women to the tractors!”

By 1943, 71% of the agricultural labor force were women.


The loss of the Ukraine meant severe food shortages in the Soviet Union.

US Lend Lease aid provided much of the food needed.

Social: Germany

The Germans kept consumer production high and rations high until very late in the war.

In fact, German rations were the highest of all until the last year of the war.

Social: Germany

Germany was also reluctant to mobilize women into the labor force.

In fact, payments to dependents of soldiers led many women to withdraw from the labor market.

This did not begin to change until 1943

Social: Germany

Hitler began the T-4 euthanasia program early in the war.

About 200,000 elderly, very sick, or handicapped persons were killed by German doctors, nurses, and administrators.

Social: Germany

Rumors about these killings eventually led to an outcry, and the program was stopped in 1942By that time, there was no one left to euthanize.The personnel was transferred east to work in the Death Camps.

Social: Germany

Gestapo files demonstrate that most Germans were aware of the massacre of the Jews.

Social: Germany

One German reporter wrote in 1943: “We heard entirely clear and explicit announcements about the Jewish question. Among the 16 million inhabitants of the area controlled by the civilian administration I nthe Ukraine,

Social: Germany

“there used to be 1.1 million Jews. They have all been liquidated . . . . One of the higher officials of the administration explained the executions with the words, ‘the Jews are exterminated like roaches.’”

(Weinberg, 474)

Social: Germany

The government took steps to prevent the marriage of Germans to inferior races.

Aryan looking children from occupied countries were kidnapped and taken to Germany to be raised.

Social: Germany

Slave laborers were present in most towns and attached to most factories.

Social: Germany

Heavy bombing damage made Germans increasingly dependent upon the National Socialist Welfare Organization (NSV) for relief.

Social: Germany

Resistance to the Nazis within Germany was rare.

There was the White Rose group, as well as the group which tried to assassinate Hitler in July 1944

Social: Germany

The fact is that the great majority of the population supported Hitler.

The military fought bitterly to the end.

Social: Great Britain

Britain mobilized 5,000,000 men from a workforce of 22,000,000

Britain suffered 800,000 casualties (military and merchant marine) and 33,000 civilians were killed in bombing.

Social: The United States

The war quickly ended the unemployment of the Great Depression.

Inactive industrial plant was geared up.

Massive government investment expanded our industrial plant.


Many new plants were placed in California, the Northwest, and the South.

This led to a demographic revolution.


The aircraft industry in California and Washington burgeoned.

Shipyards on the Gulf Coast sprang up.


Japanese-Americans were rounded up and herded into “relocation camps” and interned.These people lost their property and were denied their rights.Despite this, many Nisei served with distinction during the war.


African-Americans moved in large numbers to the jobs.

Under pressure, FDR issued an Executive Order banning discrimination in federal war contracts.


Hundreds of thousands of African-Americans served in armed forces in segregated units.

Eleanor Roosevelt worked with civil rights groups to push for full civil rights for African-Americans.


The GI Bill of Rights provided educational opportunities for veterans after the war (including women and African-Americans), as well as home loan entitlements.

Here are the origins of suburbia.

Social: The Soviet Union

The Germans pursued a “race war of extermination”

Current estimates of Soviet losses are around 48,000,000

Every Soviet family was effected.

Social: The Soviet Union

The Soviet name for the Second World War is “The Great Patriotic War”

The Great Patriotic War consolidated the Stalinist regime and provided a validation of its rule

Science

What Churchill called the Wizard War was extremely important.

Prof. F. A. Lindemann of Oxford was Churchill’s scientific adviser.

Science

The Allies established a close and far more effective relationship between the military, the policy makers, and the scientists.

Radar

First developed by Robert Watson-Watt, radar is the most important scientific device of the war.

Radar

An electromagnetic war developed.

The Germans developed a radio directional beam to assist bombing during the Battle of Britain.

The British jammed it.

Radar

The German X-Geraet used many frequencies, and resulted in the devastation of Coventry.

The British put radar in night fighters.

Radar

The British developed Gee as a radio directional beam.The Germans learned to jam it.The British developed Oboe for blind bombing.The British developed H2S look down radar.

Weapons Development

Radar was systematically applied to anti-aircraft gun fire.

The Germans developed magnetic mines.

The British learned to demagnetize or “degauss” their ships.

Weapons Development

Rocket artilleryThe Russians developed the Katyusha rocket

The Germans developed the Nebelwerfer.

The US introduced the bazooka

The Germans produced a superior version, the Panzerschreck.

Weapons Development

The US applied radar to artillery shells to produce the proximity fuse.

Weapons Development: Jets

The Germans developed the Me 262 turbojet fighter / bomber (but too late to influence the outcome.)

The British were close behind in jet development.

Weapons Development: Rockets

The Germans also developed the V-1 buzz bomb and

The V-2 rocket—the origin of ballistic missiles and space flight.

Science: Medicine

The US and Britain produced a synthetic substitute for quinine with which to fight malaria.

Without atebrin, the war in the Pacific could not have been fought.

Science: Medicine

(US soldiers didn’t like to take it. My father told me that it turned the skin yellow, colored the urine, and there was a rumor that it reduced potency.)

Science: Medicine

DDT was developed also to fight disease by fighting mosquitos.

Science: Medicine

Sulfa drugs were developed and used extensively, reducing combat deaths from wounds.

Science: Medicine

The US took over production of penicillin, a British development, and mass produced it.

The era of antibiotics had appeared.

Science: The Atomic Age

The work of Neils Bohr, Enrico Fermi Otto Hahn, and Otto Frisch led to the conclusion that a uranium bomb was theoretically possible.


The Germans assigned Werner Heisenberg the task of developing such a bomb.


FDR directed the creation of the Manhattan Project, a massive, enormously expensive secret development plan for the uranium bomb.


The project was coordinated by an Army general, Leslie Groves. The scientific team led by J. Robert Oppenheimer.


Germany had surrendered when the bomb was tested.

Japan was still fighting.

The degree of US and British strategic bombing against both Germany and Japan suggests that the bomb would have been used on Germany if necessary.

Propaganda: Germany

Joseph Goebbels was head of propaganda.

Purpose was to convince Germans to fight and to discourage the enemy.

Propaganda: Germany

The British fascist William Joyce (dubbed “Lord Haw-Haw”) made radio broadcasts aimed at England.

The Japanese had Tokyo Rose.

Joyce was hanged for treason after the war.

Propaganda: Germany

Goebbels’ premature triumph meant that, after Stalingrad, much of his propaganda was ridiculed by everyone except Germans.

Propaganda: Germany

Goebbels’ real task then was maintaining morale at home, esp. since Hitler increasingly withdrew.

Propaganda: Germany

With the invasion of Russia, Goebbels’ emphasized racial ideology.

After Stalingrad, he emphasized hatred, and above all, fear of what would happen if Germany were defeated.

Propaganda: Germany

A joke spread in Germany in 1944: “Better enjoy the war; the peace will be terrible.”

Propaganda: British

The BBC was the chief vehicle for propaganda.

Besides sending coded messages to the resistance in Western Europe, they decided that effectiveness would be in direct proportion to accuracy and truth.

Propaganda: The Soviet Union

The ideological themes traditional in Soviet propaganda gave way to a stress on Russian patriotism.

Heroes like Suvorov and Kutusov or Alexander Nevsky were resurrected.

Propaganda: The Soviet Union

German atrocities were emphasized, and the resulting hatred those atrocities created.

Military Dimension

I will briefly summarize some of the more obvious military elements.

Military Dimension

The Second World War was a life and death struggle.

Axis victory meant the destruction of the core values of Western culture.

Military Dimension

The Allies demanded “unconditional surrender”

The war did not end until the Axis was physically destroyed and occupied, and their governments liquidated.

Military Dimension

The war was fought on land, in the air, and on and under the sea.It was fought on the coasts, along rivers, in forests, mountains, jungles, steppe and swamp.At was fought in summer, spring, autumn, and deepest winter.

Military Dimension

The destruction of housing, industry, and transportation infrastructure was appalling.Millions were left without shelter.Tens of millions of civilians were killed.Tens of millions became refugees.

Military Dimension

There was little discrimination between civilian and military targets.The Germans terror bombed Warsaw, Rotterdam and London.The Allies killed 600,000 Germans while reducing Gemran cities to rubble.

Military Dimension

German soldiers committed atrocities against civilians where ever they went.

Lidice was merely the most famous such atrocity.

Military Dimension

The fighting in the East was the most brutal.

German soldiers stole food, clothing and shelter, leaving the populace destitute of the means of survival.

Military Dimension

Partisan resistance led to mass killings of civilians.

Mass murder of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen was disguised as anti-partisan activities.

Military Dimension

Jews were particularly targeted by the Germans for extermination.

Overall, between 5 and 6,000,000 Jews were killed.

Military Dimension

Ground battles frequently took place in populated centers:

Leningrad

Kharkov

Stalingrad

Caen

Berlin

Military Dimension

The major belligerents mobilized at least 10% of the population into uniform.

10 % is the benchmark level—more than that will damage the economy

Bibliography

Most of the information in this was stolen from

Weinberg, Gerhard. A World at Arms. Cambridge University Press. NY: 1994.

Wright, Gordon. The Ordeal of Total War, 1939-1945. Harper and Row. NY: 1968

Topics for Consideration

With reference to EITHER the two World Wars OR any two twentieth century wars of your choice, show how the use of aircraft has changed the nature and the practices of war. Reference should be made to (A) war on land; (B) war at sea; (C) war in the air; (D) psychological warfare; and (D) any other relevant aspect. (1988) (HL)


Compare the First and Second World Wars from the point of view of the impact of weaponry on (a) tactics and strategy (b) the role and involvement of civilians. (1987)


"War is the locomotive of history" (Leon Trotsky). With reference to any ONE war in the twentieth century, consider to what extent war has acted as an accelerator/catalyst of (A) technical; (B) economic; (C) social, and (D) political change. (Nov. 1990) (HL)


How has "total war" affected: (A) the role of women in society; (B) refugees and displaced persons; (C) the distinction between civilian and military targets and (D) control of national resources. (Nov. 1990) (HL)


“The Second World War had one victor, the United States, one loser, Germany, and one hero, Britain.” Assess the validity of this claim. (1996) (HL)


"Scientific and technological advance play an important part in the nature and outcome of wars." Compare the two World Wars with this claim in mind. (1989) (HL)

World War II Questions of the Day Part 3 Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High.

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Transcript of World War II Questions of the Day Part 3 Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High.