Case Study: The Summer of 1940
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the Nazi propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, ordered that no newspaper use the term "war" to describe what was happening. In a few days this rhetorical effort at avoidance of a new reality was abandoned. Great Britain and France were once again Germany's military foes. The term "war" would henceforth dominate not only Germany's but also the world's news until 1945.
The Second World War was in reality the first world war, with battle fronts on several continents. First, there was the European military scene in which the Nazi Wehrmacht initially met with spectacular success. After the defeat of Poland in September, the Germans invaded Norway and Denmark in March of 1940, and then only did they turn their attention to the West. There, after nine months of inactivity often described as the "phony war," the German forces moved suddenly and quickly. The attack began on May 10, 1940, with Belgium and Holland overrun and a deeply invaded France suing for peace on June 16, 1940. In six weeks Hitler had mastered the Continent. Only Great Britain still stood apart. Although Hitler spoke of peace terms, the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, echoed his countrymen's sentiments when he stated that the war would go on. And so it did, but now away from Western Europe.
Excerpt from Another World War (Europe in Retrospect) by Raymond F. Betts
The Second World War was in reality the first world war, with battle fronts on several continents. First, there was the European military scene in which the Nazi Wehrmacht initially met with spectacular success. After the defeat of Poland in September, the Germans invaded Norway and Denmark in March of 1940, and then only did they turn their attention to the West. There, after nine months of inactivity often described as the "phony war," the German forces moved suddenly and quickly. The attack began on May 10, 1940, with Belgium and Holland overrun and a deeply invaded France suing for peace on June 16, 1940. In six weeks Hitler had mastered the Continent. Only Great Britain still stood apart. Although Hitler spoke of peace terms, the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, echoed his countrymen's sentiments when he stated that the war would go on. And so it did, but now away from Western Europe.
Excerpt from Another World War (Europe in Retrospect) by Raymond F. Betts
Guiding Question:
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Topics for Discussion:
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Reading:
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For this case study you are to analyze Chapter 29 The Global War, 1942 - 1945 (Pgs. 909 - 923) and review the sources provided below. You are expected to be able to answer the guiding question in full depth with specific historical evidence and supporting details.
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Sources
Source 1: Communication from the German Government to the British, handed by Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Sir Neville Henderson at 11:20 A.M. Sept. 3, 1939
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The German Government have received the British Government's ultimatum of the 3rd September, 1939. They have the honour to reply as follows: -
1. The German Government and the German people refuse to receive, accept, let alone to fulfill, demands in the nature of ultimata made by the British Government. 2. On our eastern frontier there has for many months already reigned a condition of war. Since the time when the Versailles Treaty first tore Germany to pieces, all and every peaceful settlement was refused to all German Governments. The National Socialist Government also has since the year 1933 tried again and again to remove by peaceful negotiations the worst rapes and breaches of justice of this treaty. The British Government have been among those who, by their intransigent attitude, took the chief part in frustrating every practical revision. Without the intervention of the British Government - of this the German Government and German people are fully conscious - a reasonable solution doing justice to both sides would certainly have been found between Germany and Poland... |
Source 2: Radio Address by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Sept. 3, 1939
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I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street.
This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 0'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland. But Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened, and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement. The proposals were never shown to the Poles, nor to us, and, though they were announced in a German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier. His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force. We and France are today, in fulfillment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack upon her people. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace, but a situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel themselves safe had become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage. As such a moment as this the assurances of support that we have received from the Empire are a source of profound encouragement to us. ...Now may God bless you all and may He defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting against, brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution. And against them I am certain that the right will prevail. |
Source 3: Radio Address by Premier Edouard Daldier, Sept. 3, 1939
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Men and Women of France.
Since daybreak on September 1, Poland has been the victim of the most brutal and most cynical of aggression. Her frontiers have been violated. Her cities are being bombed. Her army is heroically resisting the invader. The responsibility for the blood that is being shed falls entirely upon the Hitler Government. The fate of peace is in Hitler's hands. He chose war. France and England have made countless efforts to safeguard peace. This very morning they made a further urgent intervention in Berlin in order to address to the German Government a last appeal to reason and request it to stop hostilities and to open peaceful negotiations. Germany met us with a refusal. She had already refused to reply to all the men of goodwill who recently raised their voices in favor of the peace of the world. She therefore desires the destruction of Poland, so as to be able to dominate Europe quickly and to enslave France. In rising against the most frightful of tyrannies, in honoring our word, we fight to defend our soil, our homes, our liberties. I am conscious of having worked unremittingly against the war until the last minute. I greet with emotion and affection our young soldiers, who now go forth to perform the sacred task which we ourselves did perform before them. They can have full confidence in their chiefs, who are worthy of those who have previously led France to victory. The cause of France is identical with that of Righteousness. It is the cause of all peaceful and free nations. It will be victorious. Men and Women of France! We are waging war because it has been thrust on us. Every one of us is at his post, on the soil of France, on that land of liberty where respect of human dignity finds one of its last refuges. You will all co-operate, with a profound feeling of union and brotherhood, for the salvation of the country. Vive la France! |
Source 5: Franco - German Armistice, June 25, 1940
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ARTICLE III.
In the occupied parts of France the German Reich exercises all rights of an occupying power The French Government obligates itself to support with every means the regulations resulting from the exercise of these rights and to carry them out with the aid of French administration. All French authorities and officials of the occupied territory, therefore, are to be promptly informed by the French Government to comply with the regulations of the German military commanders and to cooperate with them in a correct manner. It is the intention of the German Government to limit the occupation of the west coast after ending hostilities with England to the extent absolutely necessary. The French Government is permitted to select the seat of its government in unoccupied territory, or, if it wishes, to move to Paris. In this case, the German Government guarantees the French Government and its central authorities every necessary alleviation so that they will be in a position to conduct the administration of unoccupied territory from Paris. ARTICLE XIII. The French Government obligates itself to turn over to German troops in the occupied region all facilities and properties of the French armed forces in undamaged condition. It [the French Government] also will see to it that harbors, industrial facilities, and docks are preserved in their present condition and damaged in no way. The same stipulations apply to transportation routes and equipment, especially railways, roads, and canals, and to the whole communications network and equipment, waterways and coastal transportation services. Additionally, the French Government is required on demand of the German High Command to perform all necessary restoration labor on these facilities. The French Government will see to it that in the occupied region necessary technical personnel and rolling stock of the railways and other transportation equipment, to a degree normal in peacetime, be retained in service. ARTICLE XIX. All German war and civil prisoners in French custody, including those under arrest and convicted who were seized and sentenced because of acts in favor of the German Reich, shall be surrendered immediately to German troops. |
Source 6: The Evacuation at Dunkirk
Arthur D. Divine was one of those who manned the boats that made the rescue. Then aircraft started dropping parachute flares. We saw them hanging all about us in the night, like young moons. The sound of the firing and the bombing was with us always, growing steadily louder as we got nearer and nearer. The flames grew, too. From a glow they rose up to enormous plumes of fire that roared high into the everlasting pall of smoke. As we approached Dunkirk there was an air attack on the destroyers and for a little the night was brilliant with bursting bombs and the fountain sprays of tracer bullets. The beach, black with men, illumined by the fires, seemed a perfect target, but no doubt the thick clouds of smoke were a useful screen. |
The picture will always remain sharp-etched in my memory - the lines of men wearily and sleepily staggering across the beach from the dunes to the shallows, falling into little boats, great columns of men thrust out into the water among bomb and shell splashes. The foremost ranks were shoulder deep, moving forward under the command of young subalterns, themselves with their heads just above the little waves that rode in to the sand. As the front ranks were dragged aboard the boats, the rear ranks moved up, from ankle deep to knee deep, from knee deep to waist deep, until they, too, came to shoulder depth and their turn.
The little boats that ferried from the beach to the big ships in deep water listed drunkenly with the weight of men. The big ships slowly took on lists of their own with the enormous numbers crowded aboard. And always down the dunes and across the beach came new hordes of men, new columns, new lines.
The little boats that ferried from the beach to the big ships in deep water listed drunkenly with the weight of men. The big ships slowly took on lists of their own with the enormous numbers crowded aboard. And always down the dunes and across the beach came new hordes of men, new columns, new lines.
Source 7: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's Radio Address, 1940
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I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government - every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. |
Source 8: The Atlantic Charter, Signed by Roosevelt and Churchill, August 14, 1941
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The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.
First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other; Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them; Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity; Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security; Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want; Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance; Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments |
Source 9:Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement between the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - May 26, 1942
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HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND AND BRITISH DOMINIONS BEYOND THE SEAS, EMPEROR OF INDIA, AND THE PRESIDIUM OF THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS:
Desiring to confirm the stipulations of the agreement between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for joint action in the war against Germany signed at Moscow, July 12, 1941, and to replace them by formal treaty; Desiring to contribute after the war to the maintenance of peace and to the prevention of further aggression by Germany or the States associated with her in acts of aggression in Europe; Desiring, moreover, to give expression to their intention to collaborate closely with one another as well as with the other United Nations at the peace settlement and during the ensuing period of reconstruction on a basis of the principles enunciated in the <declaration made Aug. 14, 1941, by the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to which the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has adhered; |
The Fallen of World War II
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