Becoming a World Power

Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, leading to counter-declarations of war from France and Great Britain. Poland quickly fell, and in April 1940 Hitler launched an invasion of France that led to the swift capitulation of that country in June. Great Britain stayed in the war, partly through aid from the United States, and partly because of its own navy. With Britain stalemated, Hitler turned his attention to the Soviet Union, which he attacked on June 22, 1941. While he inflicted terrible casualties on the Russians, he was unable to defeat them. Germany, Japan, and Italy also formed an alliance known as the Axis Pact.

The United States made large aid commitments through Lend-Lease to countries fighting Germany. Roosevelt also tried to stop Japan’s expansion by halting sales of rubber and oil, which led Japan to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Hitler declared war on the United States three days later, bringing the United States into the war. In many senses, this represented the beginning of the end of the war because the sheer economic power and population Russia, Britain, and the United States together was able to overwhelm Germany and Japan.

Both Japan and Nazi Germany were determined to continue the fight, even as the tide turned against them, and the war lasted until 1945. Approximately 60 million people died as a result of the fighting, including millions of civilians and noncombatants. Hitler was responsible for millions of these casualties because he targeted Jews, Roma, homosexuals, communists, and other groups he deemed to be inferior. Death squads, concentration camps, and extermination camps ultimately took the lives of at least six million Jews and smaller numbers of other groups in what is known as the Holocaust.

World War II left the United States and the Soviet Union as the two largest and strongest powers in the world. It ended Europe’s status as the center of the world and set the stage for a new conflict between the two new powers.

COMPARE . . .
How similar were the United States’ reasons for going to war in 1917 and in 1941? Were they the same reasons? If not, what made them different?