WW2, Elementary level

1. What caused World War 2?
1939-1945

2. Remember the Treaty of Versailles signed
here at this building in Paris, France that
ended World War 1 in 1919?

3. Well…it did all of this to Germany
to punish them for World War 1.
-Germany was not allowed to have a military!
– German ships used for trading were given to
the Allies!
– Germany was forced to give up all territories
in Africa, Pacific, and Europe!
– Germany was ordered to pay $33 billion in
war damages!!!

4. How do you think the German people felt
about this treaty and how the Allies treated
them after World War 1?

5. Germany couldn’t possibly pay all that money back and trying to helped
to send their country into a terrible, awful, horrible depression in the
1920s and 1930s…(yes, worse than ours). Starvation wasn’t unusual
in Germany. These German babies are starving here.

6. Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany with his
new Nazi party He promised the German
people that he would make life better for them!

7. Hitler’s political party was called Nazis and they
believed in FACISM which is TOTAL government
control over people in a country. No freedoms!!!
THIS WAS THE NAZI PARTY FLAG WHEN HITLER WAS IN CONTROL

9. This is Adolf Hitler giving the German
‘Nazi’ party salute to his followers in
Germany in 1937.

10. Hitler was a DICTATOR – leader gains complete control of
a country.
He put hundreds of thousands of German citizens to
DEATH for speaking out against him in the 1930s!!!!!
These murdered German citizens spoke out against Hitler in 1935. WOW…..

11. Hitler told the German people what they wanted to hear! “I
will make Germany the greatest nation on Earth!” Many
Germans believed in him and followed his leadership.

12. He promised the people of Germany the
following things if they would follow him:
1. That he would make Germany better and
richer than all other countries in the
world.
2. To make Jews leave Germany.
3. To expand the German borders and take
‘lost’ lands back from neighboring
countries.
4. To rebuild the German army and navy
into the best fighting force in the world.

13. Hitler hated Jews because of their different religion and he
was jealous of their business successes in his country. He
convinced many Germans that the Jews was destroying
their ‘perfect’ German country.
Hitler tells the German people: “Jews are people of robbers!” (1929 speech)

14. The Jews had moved to Germany from
other countries and had prospered while
many other Germans had not. Many
Germans were very jealous of their
successes during hard times. They were
accused of “taking German people’s jobs”
THIS JEWISH HOUSE OF WORSHIP WAS DESTROYED BY THE NAZIS IN 1938.

15. These Nazi soldiers guard a Jewish business in
Berlin, Germany in 1936. They have written on the
window-You Jewish pigs! May your hands rot off!

16. In Italy, a country near Germany another
dictator rose to power in the 1930s-Benito
Mussolini shown here in his military uniform.

17. Mussolini was not as ‘evil’ as Hitler and valued human life
much more but he wanted lands and riches for his country
of Italy and agreed with the Nazi principles of government.

18. In Asia, yet another government controlled by a
king would join Hitler and Mussolini’s quest for
power and riches-The empire of JAPAN. This was
Emperor Hirohito.

19. Together, Italy, Japan and Germany hoped
to control wealth and power in their parts of
the world. Together, they were known as
the AXIS powers.

20. In 1939, Hitler began to prepare the German army
to invade and take over their neighbor- Poland.
Germany claimed part of Poland’s land was theirs!

21. Britain and France were long-time allies (friends)
of Poland and promised to help them if Hitler
invaded them. The two countries also feared how
powerful Hitler was becoming.

22. Britain and France warned Hitler but he
invaded Poland anyway. Here the Nazi
army marches into Poland.

23. German tanks move into terrified
Polish towns.

24. German Nazi soldiers dismantle a
Polish border crossing

25. Knowing they were outnumbered badly, the Polish
army retreated into France and Romania. Any
Polish citizens who did fight were captured and
executed by gun. Notice the dead Polish citizens
in the ditch.

26. Hitler (in front) leads his troops into the capital city
of Poland to celebrate a very easy victory and to
declare that Poland was now part of Germany!!!

27. British prime minister (president) Neville Chamberlain was
VERY angry at Hitler for invading Poland and Britain
declared war on Germany in 1939!

28. Hitler laughed at the declaration of war by Britain and France and
began rolling his tanks and marching his army through many small
countries in Western Europe taking them into his Nazi German empire
as he defeated them!
HITLER’S ARMY BOMBS AND CAPTURES THE COUNTRY OF NORWAY IN APRIL 1940.

29. Seeing what had happened in Norway, the small
country of Denmark gave up to Nazi Germany later
that month without much fight.

30. These Belgium soldiers would fall
to Nazi Germany as well in 1940.

31. No country in Europe or Asia could stand up to the
Axis armies it seemed…one by won they were
being conquered by Hitler and Mussolini and
Hirohito’s armies…
• Netherlands-FELL to Germany 1940
• Luxembourg –FELL to Germany 1940
• Greece – Fell to Italy 1941
• Yugoslavia –fell to Germany -1940
• Belgium –fell to Germany -1940
• China (parts of it) fell to Japan -1939
• Albania –fell to Italy 1939
• Libya –fell to Italy 1939
• Holland –fell to Germany 1940
• Hong Kong –fell to Japan -1940

32. WHO IS NEXT ON THE AXIS ‘HIT
LIST’? Could 3 nations really
control the world?
The small countries were no match for
Hitler’s powerful army…he wanted the BIG
BOYS to come out and play…So…

33. After defeating his neighbor to the east-Poland, he
turned his attention to his neighbor to the west that
had just declared war on his country-France! He
attacks them in 1940!
German Nazi soldiers march into a bombed city in France!!

34. German tanks roll across the countryside in
France destroying land and buildings as
they go.

35. In the six weeks of fighting in France,
92,000 French soldiers died at the hands of
Germany.
DEAD FRENCH SOLDIER ON THE STREETS OF PARIS.

36. Here, German Nazi soldiers avoid
French bombs.

37. Here a German Nazi soldier arrests
a French soldier.

38. Hitler (in center) stands in front of the Eiffel
Tower in Paris, France as he celebrates
taking that country into the German empire!

39. In each country he conquered, Hitler ordered ‘evil’
Jews rounded up and arrested and taken to
prisons…

40. Ahh…now Hitler smelled blood! There was one
country he wanted above all…the most powerful
country in the world in the early 1900s and now
with most of Europe conquered, it was within his
reach…
WHAT COUNTRY WAS IT???

41. GREAT BRITAIN of
course!

42. Does he get Great Britain under his
control? What about the United
States? What is our role in all of
this?
• Playing tomorrow on another episode of
‘As the World Turns…’