History Chapter 29: WWII conquest of europe – Flashcards

- 1930s - Western democracies desperately tried to keep the peace - dictators took aggressive action but Western democracies just verbally protested and begged for peace - Mussolini, Hitler, and the leaders of Japan saw this as weakness and responded sith more aggression - despite efforts of Neville Chamberlain and others WWII still came

- Mussolini wanted his own empire - Italians still remembered the 1896 Battle of Adowa where the Ethiopians beat the Italians - 1935 - Italy invaded Ethiopia again in northwestern Africa - the Ethiopians resisted fiercely but they were no match for Western technology - Ethiopian king Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations for help - League voted sanctions against Italy for violating international law but had no power to enforce - 1936 - Italy had conquered Ethiopia

- Hitler found the Western democracies were weak - first- built up the German army in defiance of the Versailles treaty - 1936 - sent troops into the "demilitarized" Rhineland - another violation of the Versailles treaty - Germans hated the Versailles treaty and defying it made Hitler more popular - Western democracies denounced his moves but did nothing

- Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese leaders all started expansionist campaigns - Western powers denounced them but didn't take real action - instead they used the policy appeasement - (giving into the demands of an aggressor in order to keep the peace) - chose appeasement because France suffered from political divisions at home so couldn't take on Germany without Britain - but Britain didn't want to confront Hitler - some British even thought Hilter's actions were okay because they thought the Versailles treaty was too harsh on Germany

- in Britain and France - fascism was seen as a defense to the worst evil - the spread of Soviet communism - the Great Depression also sapped the energy of the Western democracies - widespread pacifism - (opposition to all war) and disgust of the previous war pushed many government to seek peace at any price - but this failed because WWII still broke out

- mid 1930s - as war tensions increased in Europe - Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts - one law forbade sale of arms to any warring nation - other laws outlawed loans to warring nations and prohibited Americans from traveling on ships of warring powers - goal was to avoid involvement of US in any European war, not prevent war

- US, Britain, and France seemed weak - Germany, Italy, and Japan formed what became known as the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis - known as the Axis powers - three nations agreed to fight Soviet communism - also agreed not to interfere in each others plans for territorial expansion

- 1931 - trouble in Spain started when popular unrest forced the king to leave Spain - republic set up was more liberal - government passed controversial reforms like taking land and privileges away from the Church and old ruling classes - but leftists demanded more radical change - conservatives and the military rejected change - 1936 - Franco led a revolt that turned into a bloody civil war - Fascists and right-wing supporters called Nationalists rallied behind Franco - Communists, Socialists, and supporters of the republic were the Loyalists - people from other countries stepped in to help either side - April 1937 - worst atrocity was the German air raid of the Spanish market town Guernica - planes dropped bombs and then swooped down and machine gunned anyone who survived the bombing - almost 1,000 killed - 500,000+ lives taken altogether - by 1939 - Franco triumphed

- 1936 - conservative general Francisco Franco led a revolt that turned into a bloody civil war - Fascists and other right-wings rallied behind Franco - Franco also got help from Hitler and Mussolini - by 1939 - Franco triumphed - once in power, he created a dictatorship similar to HItler's and Mussolini's - he rolled back earlier reforms, killed or jailed enemies, and used terror to promote order

- Nazi proby paganda in Austria fueled Hitler support - by 1938 - Hitler was ready for Anschluss - (union of Austria and Germany - earlier in the year - he forced the Austrian chancellor to appoint Nazis to key cabinet posts - March - Austrain leader rejected other demands - Hitler sent the German army to Austria - to indicate his role as new leader of Austria - Hitler made a speech from the Hofburg Palace (former residence of the Hapsburg empire) - Anschluss violated the Versailles treaty - some Austrians favored annexation and Hitler silenced opposition - Western democracies didn't do anything so Hitler got what he wanted easily

- Hitler turned to Czechoslovakia - at first, he wanted 3 million Germans in the Sudetenland - (region in western Czechoslovakia) to be given autonomy - Czechoslovakia was one of the only remaining democracies in Eastern Europe - but Britain and France weren't willing to start a war to save it - then Hitler increased his demands - wanted the Sudetenland to be annexed to Germany

- September 1938 - Munich Conference - British and French leaders chose appeasement again - caved into Hitler's demands and persuaded the Czechs to surrender the Sudetenland without a fight - in exchange, Hitler promised Britain and France he wouldn't expand any more

- after returning from Munich, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told cheering crowds he had achieved "peace for our time" - told Parliament the Munich Pact "saved Czechoslovakia from destruction and Europe from Armageddon." - but French leader Edouard Daladier didn't think the same - British politician Winston Churchill knew war was imminent

- August 1939 - Hitler stunned everyone by announcing the Nazi-Soviet Pact - a nonaggression pact with Hitler's biggest enemy Joseph Stalin - publicly - Hitler and Stalin were bound to peaceful relations - privately - they agreed not to fight if the other went to war and divide up Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between them - pact wasn't based on friendship but mutual need - Hitler feared communism and Stalin feared fascism - but Hitler wanted a clear shot at Poland and didn't want to fight the Western democracies and the Soviet Union at the same time - Stalin sought allies among Western democracies against the Nazis - but there was still mutual suspicision

- March 1939 - Hitler broke his promise and annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia - democracies finally realized appeasement had failed - promised to protect Poland, which would probably be Hitler's next target - Sept. 1 1939 - a week after the Naz-Soviet Pact - Germany invaded Poland - two days later, Britain and France declared war on Poland - the start of WWII

- Sept. 1 1939 - Nazi forces invaded Poland using Hitler's blitzkrieg - ("lightning war") - enormously powerful - blitzkrieg had improved tank and airpower technology to hit enemy hard - 1st - the Luftwaffe - (German air force) bombed airfields, factories, towns, and cities - dive bombers fired on troops and civilians - 2nd - fast moving tanks and troop transports pushed their way into the Polish army - encircled the troops and forced them to surrender

- within a month, Poland ceased to exist from German and Soviet attacks - because of Poland's location and the speed of the attacks, Britain and France couldn't do anything besides declare war on Germany - winter 1939 - Stalin also forced Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to agree to hold bases for the Soviet military - Soviet forces also seized part of Finland - during the first winter - French and British troops waited behind the Maginot Line - some reporters referred to this time as the "phony war"

- April 1940 - Hitler launched a blitzkrieg against Norway and Denmark - both soon fell - Hitler's forces also overran the Netherlands and Belgium

- May 1940 - German forces surprised French and British by attacking through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium - area was considered to be invasion proof - passed the Maginot Line - German troops invaded France - British forces retreated - got stuck between the Nazi army and the English Channel - in desperate gamble - British sent all available naval vessels, merchant ships, even fishing and pleasure boats across the channel to take the stranded troops off the beach of Dunkirk - Despite German air attacks - more than 300,000 out of 350,000 troops were ferried to safety in Britain - called the miracle of Dunkirk - raised British morale

- while British troops got rescued at Dunkirk, German forces moved toward Paris - Italy declared war on France and attacked from the south - France was overwhelmed - surrendered - June 22, 1940 - Hitler forced the French to sign the surrender papers in the same railroad car where Germany signed the armistice ending WWI - after the surrender, Germany occupied northern France - in the south - Germans set up a "puppet state" with its capital at Vichy - some French officers escaped to England and set up a government-in-exile led by Charles de Gaulle - "free French" worked to liberate their homeland - in France - resistance fighters used guerilla tactics against the Germans

- after France fell, Britain stood alone in Western Europe - Hitler was sure Britain would surrender for peace - but Winston Churchill - (replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister) had other plans - Hitler faced with defiance - made plans to invade Britain

- faced with Churchill's defiance, Hitler made plans for Operation Sea Lion - (invasion of Britain) - to prepare for the invasion - Hitler launched massive air strikes at Britain - after battling the Royal Air Force (RAF) for 1 month, they start bombing the cities instead - Sept. 7, 1940 - German bombers first appeared over London - continued 57 nights in a row and sporadically until May 1941 - bombings known as "the blitz" - much of London destroyed - thousands of civilians died - but London didn't break under the blitz - Parliament continued to meet and citizens carried on with their daily lives - British king and queen even supported Londoners by joining them in the bomb shelters instead of fleeing to the countryside - although bombing continued, Luftwaffe couldn't gain air superiority over Britain - Operation Sea Lion was a failure

- August 1940 - German bombers began a daily bombing of England's southern coast - for 1 month - Britain's Royal Air Force valiantly battled the Luftwaffe - then the Germans changed their tactics - started bombing London and other cities

- September 1940 - Mussolini ordered forces from Italy's North African colony Libya into Egypt - British army repulsed them - Hitler sent Rommel to North Africa - 1941 - German troops had to provide reinforcements again - Greece and Yugoslavia both added to the growing Axis empire

- when British army repulsed Italian invaders in Egypt, Hitler sent General Erwin Rommel - (one of his most brilliant commanders) to North Africa - nicknamed the "Desert Fox" - made many successes in 1941 and 1942 - pushed the British back across the desert toward Cairo

- June 1941 - Hitler nullified the Nazi-Soviet Pact by invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa - plan took its name after medieval Germanic leader Frederick Barbarossa - Hitler wanted the Soviet Union for its resources and Lebensraum - he also wanted to crush communism in Europe and defeat Stalin - Hitler unleashed new blitzkrieg in the Soviet Union - caught Stalin unprepared - army still suffering from purges that took many top officers - Soviets lost 2 1/2 million soldiers trying to fend off the Germans - Soviet troops destroyed factories and farm equipment and burned crops along the path of their retreat - By autumn - Nazis poised to take Moscow and Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg) - but Germans were stalled there - just like Napoleon's army in 1812 - Hitler's forces not prepared for the "General Winter" - early December - temperaturs plunged to -40 degrees F - thousands of German soldiers froze to death

- Sept. 1941 - 2 1/2 year siege of Leningrad began - food rationed to 2 pieces of bread a day - ate almost anything - for ex. - boiled wallpaper scraped off walls because paste said to have potato flour inside - 1,000,000+ Leningraders died during the siege - but the city didn't fall to the Germans - Stalin urged Britain to open a second front in Western Europe to relieve his people - Churchill couldn't offer much help but the two promised to work together

- Hitler pursued vicious program during WWII to kill all "racially inferior" people, esp. European Jews - also targeted Slavs, Romas (Gypsies), homosexuals, and the disabled - 1939 - Nazis started forcing Jews in Poland and other countries to live in ghettos - by 1941 - German leaders devised the "Final Solution to the Jewish problem" - genocide of all European Jews - to accomplish this goal - Hitler had 6 special "death camps" built in Poland - Nazis shipped "undesirables" from all over Europe to the camps - when prisoners reached camps they were stripped of their clothes and valuables and heads shaved - guards separated men from women and children from parents - young, elderly, and sick immediately killed - headed into "shower rooms" and gassed - Nazis worked others to the death or used them for perverse "medical experiments" - by 1945 - Nazis had massacred some 6 million Jews - known as the Holocaust - almost 6 million other people also killed - Jews resisted even though they knew their efforts were futile - in some cases, friends or strangers protected Jews - Denmark and Bulgaria saved almost all their Jewish populations - but many people pretended not to notice it - scale and savagery of the Holocaust are unmatched in history - Nazis only killed Jews because of their religious and ethnic heritage - shows the horrible results of racism and intolerance

- Japanese took control across Asia and the Pacific - self-proclaimed mission: to help Asians escape Western colonial rule - real goal: to create a Japanese empire in Asia - Japanese treated Chinese, Filipinos, Malaysians, and other conquered people with great brutality - killed and tortured civilians in East and Southeast Asia - occupiers seized food crops, destroyed cities and towns, and made local people slave laborers - Japanese soon hated in these places - in Philippines, Indochina, and other places - nationalist groups waged guerilla warfare against the Japanese invaders

- 1939 - war began and US declared their neutrality - Americans still felt isolationist feelings but felt sorry for those who battled the Axis powers - FDR sympathized with them - looked for ways around the Neutrality Acts to provide aid to Britain against Hitler - March 1941 - FDR convinced Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act - allowed him to sell or lend war materials to any country he wanted that seemed vital to US defense - FDR said the US wouldn't be drawn into the war - just supply arms to nations fighting for freedom

- August 1941 - to show furthur support for the Allies - FDR secretly met with Churchill on a warship in the Atlantic - two leaders issued the Atlantic Charter - (set goals for the war - to eliminate Nazi tyranny and for the postwar world) - pledged to support self-determination for all people - called for "permanent system of general security"

- when WWII in Europe started - Japanese saw a chance to take European possessions in Southeast Asia - region was rich in resources like oil, rubber, and tin - thought it would be useful against the Chinese - 1940 - Japan invaded French Indochina and Dutch East Indies - to stop Japanese aggression - US banned sale of war materials (iron, steel, and oil) to Japan - Japan saw this an as attempt to interfere with their sphere of influence - Japan and US held talks to ease growing tension - but extreme militarists like General Tojo Hideki wanted to expand Japan's empire and thought US was interfering with their plans

- General Tojo Hideki ordered a surprise attack on the US - early Sunday Dec. 7 1941 - Japanese planes bombed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor - attack took lives of about 2,400 people and destroyed battleships and aircraft - Dec. 8 - FDR asked Congress to declare war on japan - they did - Dec. 11 - Germany and Italy (Japan's allies) declared war on the US - attack on Pearl Harbor looked like a good move at first but in the long run it was Japan's biggest mistake

- in months after Pearl Harbor attack - possessions in the Pacific fell to Japanese 1 by 1 - Japanese captured Philippines and other US-held islands - overran British-held islands Malaya, Burma, and Hong Kong - also advanced deeper into French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies - by 1942 - Japanese empire stretched from Southeast Asia to the western Pacific Ocean

- by 1942 - the Allies in trouble - to defeat the Axis powers - Allies had to commit themselves to total war - (nations devoting all their resources to the war effort) - to achieve this - democratic governments in US and Britain increased their political power - ordered factories to stop making cars or refrigerators and make airplanes or tanks instead - governments made programs to ration amount of food or other goods that consumers could buy - raised money by holding war bond drives - prices and wages also regulated - war brought some shortages and hardships but it brought the world out of the Great Depression - under pressure of war - even some democratic governments limited citizen's rights, censored press, and used propaganda to earn citizen support - in US and Canada - many Japanese descent citizens lost their jobs - many also sent to internment camps - Britain did similar things to German citizens

- May 1942 - first serious setback for the Japanese in the Pacific - battle lasted 5 days - first battle in naval history where enemy ships never saw each other - attacks carried out by planes launched from aircraft carriers - (ships that trasnport aircraft and accomodate take-off and landing of planes) - Japanese prevented from seizing several impt. islands - Americans also sank one Japanese aircraft carrier and several cruisers and destroyers

- June 1942 - another impressive Allied win in the Pacific - fought entirely in the air like the Battle of Coral Sea - US destroyed four Japanese carriers and 250+ planes - greatest sea battle in history - US payback for Pearl Harbor - devastating blow to Japanese - after battle - Japan unable to launch anymore offensive operations -

May 1943 - in North Africa - Britain led by General Bernard Montgomery fought Rommel - Nov. 1942 - Battle of El Almein - Allies finally halted the Desert Fox's advance - Allied tanks drove Axis back across Libya and Tunisia

- late 1942 - US general Dwight Eisenhower took command of joint British and US force in Morocco and Algeria - advanced on Tunisia from west - trapped Rommel's army - May 1943 - Rommel's army surrended

- July 1943 - combined British and American army landed in Sicily and then southern Italy - defeated Italian forces there in about 1 month - after defeat - Italians overthrew - but fighting didn't end - Hitler sent German troops to rescue Mussolini and stiffen will of northern Italians - cont..

- major turning point in WWII - after fast German advance in Soviet Union in 1941 - Germans stalled outside Moscow and Leningrad - 1942 - Hitler aimed for rich oil fields in the south - but only got as far as Stalingrad - Battle of Stalingrad one of the costliest battle of the war - began when Germans surrounded city - bitter street-by-street, house-by-house struggle during winter - German officer wrote soldiers fought for 2 weeks to get 1 building - corpses everywhere - Nov. 1942 - Soviets encircled the Germans - Germans trapped with no ammunition or hope for rescue - commander finally surrendered Jan. 1943 - after battle - Red Army drove Germans out of Soviet Union - by early 1944 - Soviet troops advancing into Eastern Europe

- 1944 - Allies finally ready to open a 2nd front in Europe by invading France - Allied leaders under Eisenhower had to plan the operation and assemble troops and supplies - to prepare for invasion - Allied bombers flew constantly over Germany - chose June 6, 1944 for the invasion of France - just before midnight on June 5 - Allied planes dropped troops behind enemy lines - then at dawn - ships ferried 156,000 troops across the English Channel - fought their way to shore amid underwater mines and machine-gun fire - many died - but Allied troops clawed their way inland to Normandy - early August - massive division under US general George S. Patton helped joint British and US forces break through the German defense and advance to Paris - other Allied forces sailed from Italy and landed in southern France - French resistance forces rise up against Germans - August 25 - Allies entered Paris - within a month all of France free

- after freeing France - Allies worked their way to Germany - advanced into Belgium - Germany launched massive counterattack - bloody battle of the Bulge - lasted more than a month - both sides had terrible losses - delayed Allied advance from the west but only for 6 weeks - Soviet army battled through Germany toward Berlin from the east - Hitler's support in Germany declining - he already survived 1 assassination attempt - early 1945 - German defeat seemed inevitable

- Feb. 1945 - FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met again at Yalta (city in southern Soviet Union) - called the Big Three - planned strategy but also distrusted each other - at Yalta Conference - 3 leaders agreed Soviet Union would enter war against Japan within 3 months of Germany's surrender - in return - Churchill and FDR promised Stalin that Soviets would take possession of southern Sakhalin Island, Kurul Islands, and occupation zone in Korea - also agreed to temporarily divide Germany into 4 zones governed by US, French, British, and Soviet forces - Stalin agreed to hold free elections in Eastern Europe - but growing mistrust would lead to a split in the Allies

- by March 1945 - Allies crossed Rhine river into Germany - Soviet troops closed in on Berlin - late April - US and Soviet troops met at the Elbe river - Italy - guerillas captured and executed Mussolini - Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker - May 7 - Germany surrendered - war in Europe officially ended the next day - May 8, 1945 - proclaimed V-E Day (Victory in Europe)

- Allies able to defeat Axis powers for many reasons 1. Location of Germany and its allies forced them to fight on several fronts at once 2. Hitler made some poor military decisions - underestimated the S.U.'s ability to fight his armies 3. US had huge productive capacity - by 1944 - producing twice as much as all Axis powers combined - oil became so scarce in Germany that the Luftwaffe was almost grounded by the D-Day invasion

- summer 1942 - US Marines landed at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands - victorious - victory at Guadalcanal marked beginning of an "island-hopping" campaign in the Pacific - goal was recapture some Japanese-held islands while bypassing others - captured islands were stepping stones to the next objective - in this way - American forces slowly moved toward Japan

- American forces led by General Douglas MacArthur slowly moved toward Japan through the island-hopping campaign - by 1944 - US Navy commanded by Admiral Chester Nimitz was blockading Japan - US bombers pounded Japanese cities and industries - Oct. 1944 - MacArthur began to fight to retake the Philippines

- beginning in 1944 - some young Japanese men chose to become kamikaze pilots - (pilots who undertook suicide missions - crashed planes full of explosives into US warships)

- Allies poured resources into defeating Japan - by mid-1945 - most of Japanese navy and air forces destroyed - but Japanese still had army of 2 million men - two bloody battles - island Iwo Jima - battle fought from Feb. to March 1945 - island Okinawa - battle fought from April to July 1945 - in Japan

- scientists offered a way to end war - understood that by splitting an atom they could create an explosion more powerful than anything known before - Allied scientists conducted research (code-named the Manhattan Project) and raced to harness the atom - July 1945 - successfully tested the 1st atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico - Truman determined bomb would save American lives - decided to use against Japan - Truman met with other Allied leaders in Postdam, Germany - issued warning to Japan to surrender or face "complete destruction" - Japanese ignored warning - August 6, 1945 - US plane dropped atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima - bomb flattened 4 sq. miles and instantly killed 70,000+ people - many more would later die from radiation sickness - deadly aftermath of radioactive exposure - August 8 - Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria - Japan still didn't respond - August 9 - US dropped 2nd atomic bomb on Nagasaki - 40,000+ killed

- after bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japanese gov. still did nothing - finally August 10 - Emperor Hirohito intervened - unheard of for a Japanese emperor - he forced the gov. to surrender - Sept. 2, 1945 - formal peace treaty signed on board of US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay

- during wartime meetings - Allies agreed Axis leaders should be tried for "crimes against humanity" - war crime trials held at Nuremberg, Germany - almost 200 Germans and Austrians tried - almost all guilty - few top Nazis received death sentences; other imprisoned - similar war crime trials held in Tokyo, Japan - many accused of war crimes never captured or brought to trial - but trials showed that political and military leaders could be held accountable for wartime actions

- April 1945 - delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco to draft a charter for the United Nations (UN) - under UN Charter - each member nations has 1 vote in the General Assembly - much smaller body called the Security Council has greater power - each of the 5 permanent members (US, France, Britain, Soviet Union, and China) has the right to veto any Security Council decision - goal was to give these powers authority to ensure peace - Security Council has the power to apply economic sanctions or send a peace-keeping military force to try resolve dispute - difference among members of the Security Council esp. US and Soviet Union often kept the UN from taking action - after the fall of the S.U. in 1991 - more peacekeeping passed - UN didn't only do peacekeeping - also took on preventing outbreak of disease, improving, education, protecting refugees, helping nations economically develop - UN agencies like World Health Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization provided aid for millions of people around the world

war time allies: - during war - Soviet Union and Western nations cooperated to defeat Nazi Germany post-war rivals: - after war's end - Allies set up councils made of foreign ministers from Britain, France, China, US, and the S.U. to make peace agreements discussed at various conferences during the war - 1947 - councils concluded peace agreements with several Axis nations - tensions led to Cold War - US on one side and Soviet Union on the other reasons for split in alliances: - reparations in Germay - nature of governments of Eastern Europe - conflicting ideologies - mutual mistrust - all these cause the split between the Allies

- conflict that lasted almost 50 years - state of tension and hostility between nations allied with either the US or the S.U.; no armed conflict

- Stalin had 2 goals in Eastern Europe 1. to spread communism in the area 2. to create a buffer zone of friendly governments as a defense against Germany - who invaded Russia during WWI and again in 1941

- at Yalta Conferences and others - Stalin tried to persuade FDR and Churchill to accept Soviet influence in Eastern Europe - they made him promise free elections in Eastern Europe - Stalin ignored the promise - most Eastern European countries had Communist parties - many resisted Nazis during the war - backed by Red Army - local Communists in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere destroyed rival political parties and even assassinated democratic leaders - by 1948 - pro-Soviet communist governments in place throughout Eastern Europe

- Stalin showing aggressive intentions in Eastern Europe - Stalin supported communist rebels in Greece; also menaced Turkey and the Dardanelles - Truman took action - March 12, 1947 - Truman outlined new policy called the Truman Doctrine - (rooted in the idea of containment, or limiting communism to the areas already under Soviet control) - Truman said, "I believed that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisiting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." - Truman Doctrine would guide the US for decades - made it clear Americans would resist Soviet expansion in Europe and around the world - Truman sent military and economic aid and advisors to Greece and Turkey so they could withstand communist threat

- postwar hunger and poverty in Western Europe led to communist thoughts - US offered Marshall Plan - (massive aid package) to strengthen democratic governments - under Marshall Plan - US gave food and ecnomic assisstance to Europe to held countries rebuild - billions of US dollars in American aid helped war-shattered Europe rapidly recover - Truman also offered aid to the Soviet Union and its satellites (dependent states) in Eastern Europe - but Stalin declined and forbade Eastern European countries to accept US aid - instead, he promised help from S.U.

- Stalin resented Western moves to rebuild Germany - triggered criss over Berlin - Berlin lay deep within East Germany - but occupied by all 4 victorious Allies - June 1948 - Stalin tried to force Western ALlies out of Berlin by sealing off every railroad and highway into the Western sectors of the city - Western powers responded by mounting a round-the-clock airlift - for 1+ year - cargo planes supplied West Berliners with food and fuel - success forced Soviets to end the blockade - the West won - but the crisis deepened

- Germany dismantled after WWII - S.U. took reparations for war losses by dismantling and movies factories and other resources in its occupation zone in Germany to help rebuild the S.U. - France, Britain, and US also took reparations out of Germany - but Western leaders wanted the German economy to recover so it would be politically stable - Western Allies united their zones of occupation and extended the Marshall Plan to western Germany - Soviets furious - strengthened hold on eastern Germany - so Germany became divided - West Germany - democratic nations allowed the people to write their own constitution and regain self-government - East Germany - S.U. installed socialist dictatorship under Stalin

- tensions continued to grow between West and East - 1949 - US, Canada, and 10 other countries formed a new military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - members pledged to help each other if attacked - 1955 - Soviet Union responded by forming its own military alliance called the Warsaw Pact - included S.U. and seven satellites in Eastern Europe - unlike NATO - Warsaw Pact often invoked by Soviets to keep satellites in order - Warsaw Pact cemented the division of Europe between east and west