The Second World War
(1939-1945)

The Road to War…
By the 1930s people were suffering unemployment and
poverty gripped the country, and radical political
governments in Europe meant that war loomed once again.
The Treaty of Versailles
The Great Depression
The Rise of Fascism
Ethnical problems

Appeasement and
Betrayal
 The British PM, Neville Chamberlain,
joined by the French and Italian heads
of government met Hitler and signed
the Munich Peace Treaty.
They agreed that Hitler could take
some territories, and in return, he
promised not to invade any others
countries.

A Broken
Promise
 Chamberlain had been
tricked. Hitler’s tank swarmed
into the rest of Czechoslovakia,
and invaded Poland.
Chamberlain made a radio
speech telling the British people
that they were at war with
Germany.

Blitzkrieg or Lightning War
 How the tactic worked:
Bombers attacked enemy air bases, military
headquarters, ammunition depots and train
stations.
Stuka dive bombers swooped in machine-gunning
and bombing enemy front line troops.
Tanks broke through, calling in dive bombers to help
clear any obstacles.
Enemy groups were then surrounded and crushed,
while the main attack force advanced.

Allies vs. Axis
• Allies:
Britain, France, and Poland, were
joined in December 1941, by the
United States.
Axis Powers:
Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Neutral Countries:
The soviet Union announced its
neutrality before the war and agreed
not to attack Germany in return for a
share of land in Poland. Later, Hitler
attacked the Soviets, who then
joined the Allies.

Preparing for War…

The Phoney War
The Nation waited anxiously, wondering when
the first air raids would strike, but nothing
happened.
People began talking about a “phoney” war and
some British politicians thought it might still be
possible to arrange a peace.

Winston Churchill
• Chamberlain was forced to resign,
opening the way for the old soldier
and statesman, Winston Churchill, to
become Prime Minister on May, 1940.

Dunkirk
On May, 1940, the British army and
thousand of their French and
Belgian allies were trapped at
Dunkirk. Hitler sent the German air
force to destroy the crowded port.
In response, Chruchill orderer and
emergency evacuation. He expected
the Royal Navy to bring back only
one tenth of his army. But, against
all odds, the Dunkirk rescue turned
into a breathtaking triumph.

The Battle of Britain
Three weeks after Dunkirk, France
surrended and Hitler’s conquering
army began drawing up plans to
invade England.
On July, 1940, the Battle of Britain
started, with German bombers
attacking ships and airbases along
the southern coast of England.
Their plan was simple: to lure
Britain’s RAF fighter planes into the
sky and shoot them down.

A first victory
When the Battle of Britain began,
the RAF had just over 600 fighter
planes to defend the country against
the Luftwaffe’s 2,000.
The British pilots, who became
known as The Few, were often young
fresh out of school, and many had
never flown into battle before. But
they had good reasons to fight.
By September, the German Air Force
accepted that their mission to crush
the RAF had failed. It was Britain’s
first victory in the war.

Hell came to London
• Having failed to crush the
RAF, the German air force
had changed tactics. They
began pounding the British
capital with high explosive
bombs, trying to force
Churchill and his
government to beg for
peace.

Life during the Blitz
Despite all the dangers and disruption, most Londoners
managed to get on with their lives.
The fighting spirit of London was never broken.

The Stronger Sex
As men were drafted into the army,
millions of women took up new
Jobs to keep the country fighting.
At the height of the war, a third of
all factory workers were female.
Every woman aged 18 to 50 was
called up for some kind of war
service.
Even in the countryside, life was
changing. By 1944, tens of
thousands of women toiled in the
fields as part of Women’s Land
Army, helping farmers plant and
harvest their crops.

The secret War
Churchill assambled a secret army
of spies, scientists and elite soldiers.
The war’s most amazing spying
success took place far from any
battlefield. A grups of British and
allied scientists had gathered at
Bletchley Park, to make sense of the
German military’s radio messages.
They built a machine that could
quickly run through millions of
calculations and by 1940 they were
decoding the German messages.

Cracking the Code
The most important brain behind
Enigma was a man called Alan
Turing. His machine saved
thousands of lives and helped the
Allies win the war.

Nazi Propaganda
 The propaganda used by the Nazis was a crucial
instrument for acquaring and maintaining power, and for
the implementation of Nazi policies.
Moreover, was a strategy used to target some minrity
groups as enemies in the public mind.
The Ministry of Propaganda produced differents
elements of culture such as textbooks, radio,
newspapers, pamphlets, posters, and films.

The Holocaust
The Nazi Regimen wasn’t only about
war in itself and conquest
territories, it was also about target
and exterminate those minority
groups Hitler had blamed for the
economic and social crisis of
Germany.
For accomplish this aim, the Nazis
set up hundreds of concentration
camps across occupied Europe.

People in the camps were forced to
do slave work and lived in awfully
conditions, suffering from hunger
and diseases, and in constant fear
of their lives.

Jews, and anyone who didn’t
conform to the Nazi’s insane visión
of the world died in the camps,
victms of the Nazi’s racial prejudice.
They were shot, gassed or worked
to death by guards who had been
taught that camps inmates were no
better tan wild animals.