The Postwar World HS725 Activity Introduction Hey there I m (name) and today I want to show you how things were going just after World War Two. I ve always found it interesting how a tragic event like war is always followed by a huge effort to ensure peace. It s almost like people fighting so that they can be friends. It may seem odd, but that is pretty much what was going on after World war Two. Video 1 - Introduction So World War Two is finally over!!! Yay!!! Hmmmm...but what do the Allies do now? That s the question! Well it turns out the U.S. had been preparing for this throughout the war. You see, conferences between the Allied powers were held all over the world in an attempt to ensure a lasting peace after World War Two. Check out this video to find out more about these conferences. Video 1 The Southwest and Central prongs of the U.S. advances across the Pacific met after the Invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa. The next step was the main Japanese Islands, but it would be no easy task. After losing most of the Pacific, Japan could not provide adequate air defenses against U.S. bombing. Huge areas of its main cities
were destroyed in massive fires set off by incendiary bombs. Great areas of Tokyo residential areas were burnt. The military, which dominated the Japanese government, chose to die with honor, rather than surrender. Since the U.S. was able to shift its entire efforts towards the defeat of Japan after the surrender of Germany in May of 1945, these military leaders were expecting the U.S. to invade the Islands of Japan. However, the Japanese still refused to contemplate surrender, turning down repeated proposals to end the war. They even began training an army, civilians sometimes with sharpened sticks to repel the invaders. Just as the Japanese had suspected, the United States was planning an assault on their homelands. The operation would ve been more than twice as big as the D Day Landing, placing more than 600,000 men on shore. It is impossible to estimate how many soldiers and civilians would ve been killed in the invasion. American planners estimated that an assault of Japan s southern main island could ve resulted in losses of 250,000 men or more. However, the United States developed the atomic bomb in 1945 and after the successful test of it, President Truman ordered it used on Japan. The United States had only two A bombs available in 1945. It may have taken more than a year to manufacture another bomb, so these attempts had to work. The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because they had been left undisturbed during previous bombardments. Their destruction only by the A bomb would allow scientists to better understand the damage the bombs were capable of. The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945 by a B29 named the Enola Gay. The bomb was named Little Boy. The second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9th by a plane called Boxcar. The bomb was named Fat Man.
Thousands of people were immediately vaporized by the bombs, meaning they just simply disappeared. Thousands more died later of burns and radiation poisoning. The Japanese high command refused to surrender even after the first atomic bomb was dropped, hoping to continue the war. Emperor Hirohito stepped in to bring the war to a close. He told the Japanese people that they must bear the unbearable-that is, occupation by the United States. Japanese leaders asked for an end to hostilities two days after the second bomb was dropped. Japan officially surrendered aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on September 2nd, 1945. However, August 15th, 1945 is traditionally considered V-J, victory over Japan Day. The terms of the U.S. occupation of Japan were as follows. Japan was allowed to keep its Emperor and occupation forces under the command of Douglas MacArthur instituted democratic reforms, including the writing of a new Constitution. World War Two was finally, completely over, but what was the world to do now? Some estimates say that around 60 million people died between the soldiers on the battlefield, civilians from starvation and disease and of course, all those who were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. There were only two countries left that had any power, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. And although they had been allies, they had very different opinions about government. Would they continue to work together? World War Two left most of Europe and much of Asia devastated. European cities were flattened, farmland was untilled and millions were homeless. How would the allies deal with these massive problems? Let s examine conditions in Europe after the war. Areas of Europe that had been occupied by the Germans, as well as Germany itself, were especially hard hit. The Nazis had stripped food stuffs and materials from occupied countries to feed Germany.
After the war, large portions of land were unfit for agriculture, which led to food scarcity and unfortunately, even if food were available, the transportation infrastructure had been destroyed. More than eight million people were homeless in Europe in 1945. The only relatively healthy power was the U.S.S.R. because even though the country had suffered greatly during the war, its industry and agriculture remained productive. On the other hand, Western Europe was reeling, Great Britain was bankrupted by the war and could not feed its people without assistance, France was destitute and beaten, Italy was striving to rebuild and every country from Norway to Greece seemed ripe to follow under the Soviets sway. Conditions in Asia were a little different in that Japan quickly began to recover under American occupation. China, however, seriously suffered from the effects of the war and from the revival of the Civil War between the Nationalists government and the Communists under Mao Zedong. In addition, attempts to reestablish French and Dutch colonial rule in Asia, set off a storm of civil wars. To provide assistance to nations in Europe and Asia, President Harry Truman announced the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State, George C. Marshall. Its primary aim was to combat the advance of communism and allow countries to determine their own form of government. From 1947 to 1951, the Marshall Plan provided millions of people with food, shelter and money for rebuilding. The United States donated more than 13 billion in direct aid to 18 countries and demonstrated that the U.S. was not abandoning Europe. By easing civilian hardships, the Marshall Plan allowed strong democratic governments to develop. The U.S.S.R. dubbed the Marshall Plan dull or imperialism. So in response, the U.S.S.R. created Comecon, also known as the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance for Eastern European countries and other communists nations to join. So it s clear to see that cooperation among the allies of World War Two disintegrated as each side tried to increase its own influence. The
Soviets dominated parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, aligned against were the United States, Great Britain and France. Occupied Germany became an epicenter of the struggle and particularly, Berlin. Unaligned nations attempted to remain neutral. And this was the beginning of the Cold War. It s important to know that a Cold War is one which there is not active combat, a hot war, and the United States and the Soviet Union were the primary opponents in the Cold War. Now, it was during the Cold War that the Soviets worked to extend their communist influence and foster revolutions in Europe and Asia. The United States, on the other hand, attempted to contain the spread of communism and help foster democracies throughout the world. The Soviets wanted to dominate Europe and forced the United States out of Germany. In 1948, they tried to make the Western allies abandon West Berlin. The Soviets blocked all ground access to the city. They believed the Western democracies would abandon West Berlin rather than face armed conflict. The United States decided to supply Berlin by air, almost all the material needs of West Berlin were delivered by air. This is famously known as the Berlin Air Lift. And this was just the beginning. The greatest war in human history was over, but one of its main outcomes was to set the stage for the Cold War, a conflict that would last another 45 years. Video 1 Recap One thing the Allied powers could definitely agree on was that no one wanted another world war. However tensions between the USSR and the other Allied powers were plain to see throughout the peace-making process.
And even though the Allies efforts enabled them to avoid another world war in the traditional sense, they were unable to prevent a new kind of global conflict. Reading Passage Introduction Throughout the later years of the war, FDR was becoming increasingly ill. But little did he know that Yalta would be the last conference he would attend. The only president that the country had known for the past twelve years was now gone. Harry Truman took over the role of president at a crucial point in our country s history. Read this passage to learn more on the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and what it meant for the future of the United States. Video 2 - Introduction After World War Two, Europe was in bad shape. The beating that it took from all that fighting left it in need of some serious help. Here, watch this video to get a sense of how bad things really were, and what the U.S. was prepared to do to aid postwar Europe. Video 2 Most people believe that the rise of Fascism in Germany had been a direct result of the failure of the allies to plan adequately for the post World War One Era. So to prevent such a thing from happening again, the leaders of the victorious powers in World War Two worked hard to create a post war world that would reduce the chances for further conflict and it was the Atlantic Charter that established a vision for this goal. The allies knew that the world would be disrupted at the end of the war and that they would need to provide structure for it.
One of the first decisions made was that Japan and Germany would have to surrender unconditionally. There would be no negotiated peace. In mid 1941, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt laid out the ground work for the post war world with the Atlantic Charter. This agreement was signed before the United States was even in the war. Some of the main points of the Atlantic Charter were, neither the United States, nor England would seek territorial gains after the war, the nations of the world should cooperated for mutual success, the seas should be free and trade barriers lowered, the aggressors in the war should be disarmed and Germany and its allies had to be utterly defeated. The Atlantic Charter became the road map for later discussions among the allies. Okay, let s take a look at the war conferences. The leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and sometimes China met in a series of conferences to plan and defeat Fascism and secure peace after the war. These conferences allowed the allies to present a united front to the Axis powers. Allied leaders met in Casablanca in French Morocco, Cairo in Egypt and Tehran in Iran in 1943. These early conferences were mostly concerned with the prosecution of the war and each conference repeated the demand for unconditional surrender. The powers met again in Yalta in Crimea, an area of the Soviet Union, in February, 1945. Topics included, the status of post war Germany, the continuing fight against Japan, the Soviets agreed to enter the war against Japan when Germany was defeated, and the creation of the United Nations. Yalta was President Roosevelt s last conference. He was in ill health throughout the meeting. He would die in April, 1945. So what were the results? Well, the Soviets and the Western allies were able to maintain a coalition, although their post war plans were at odds. After the defeat of Germany, the allies met in Potsdam, outside Berlin in August, 1945, to finalize arrangements for post war Europe.
President Harry Truman represented the United States and the new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, represented Britain. It was at this meeting that Stalin demanded that the U.S.S.R. have a dominate position in Eastern Europe. It was also at Potsdam that Truman informed Stalin that the United States had developed the atom bomb. In turn, Stalin urged Truman to use it against Japan and agreed that the U.S.S.R would enter the war against Japan as soon as feasible. The results were that the final occupation plan for Germany was fixed. The allies would divide Germany in to four occupied areas, Soviet, British, American and French. Germany s punishment, much less than post World War One, was that former Nazis were barred from working in the new German government, Germany s borders were reduced, Austria was reestablished and Germany s war making potential would be destroyed. Another major development for the post world war was the creation of the United Nations. Representatives from 50 nations met in San Francisco from April to June, 1945 to negotiate the United Nations Charter, based on the principles of the Atlantic Charter. Then the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, China, the United States, the U.S.S.R., Great Britain and France officially created the United Nations in October, 1945. This resulted in the U.N. providing a stable arena in which to settle many post war disputes and to this day remains a force for diplomacy. Over all, it s important to understand that the allies in World War Two tried to avoid the mistakes made after the end of World War One, though their efforts failed to eliminate war altogether, they have prevented the outbreak of another worldwide conflict. Video 2 - Recap
I told you Europe was really hurting after World War Two! All that bombing and fighting destroyed a lot of land, buildings, and transportation systems, along with killing millions upon millions of people. The U.S. did try to help by offering the Marshall Plan to the war-torn nations. However, this attempt at aid only caused tensions between the Soviets and the U.S. to grow, since the Soviets had their own plan to reshape Europe and Asia. And it was becoming clear that the end of World War Two was quickly ushering a new kind of conflict, the cold war. Reading Passage Introduction The cold war was a result of postwar tensions between the western allies and the USSR. You see, both sides had very different visions of the postwar world. And this dispute would lead the USSR to develop an nuclear program in order to catch up with the United States nuclear capabilities. Not surprisingly, many people in the U.S. began to fear the possibility of a nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR. So read this passage to find out more about the beginnings of the cold war and the atomic age.