THE HOLOCAUST
Chapter 30.4
New Order in Europe
• To Hitler, cleansing Europe of
inferior peoples as important as
winning the war
• Heinrich Himmler: leader of the SS;
responsible for removing Slavic
peoples from conquered territory
and repopulating with Germans
• Final Solution: German plan that
detailed genocide of the Jewish
people
The Holocaust
• SS officials created special strike force whose sole
objective it was to eliminate Jews: Einsatzgruppen
– As German army advanced, Einsatzgruppen followed to
round up and eliminate Jewish populations
– Killed >1 million Jews; still too slow for Nazis
• Death camps were built to eliminate European Jews
quickly
– Jews and undesirables packed into freight trains like
cattle to be shipped off to death camps
• Auschwitz: largest, most efficient Nazi death camp
– 1/3 of inmates starved/worked to death
– 2/3 exterminated in gas chambers
– Some subject to “medical” experiments
Death Toll • 2 out of every 3 European Jews
was killed in the Holocaust
– 6 million Jews dead
– 9-10 million non-Jews dead
WORLD WAR II ENDS
Chapter 30.5
European Theater
• D-Day: Allied invasion of Normandy
– Largest amphibious attack in history
– Allied victory, but suffered heavy losses
• Following D-Day, Allies invade and liberate France
• Battle of the Bulge: Germans push back but suffer irreplaceable losses
End of the War
• Jan. 1945 - Hitler retreated into underground bunker in Berlin
– Commits suicide as Soviets reach Berlin
• Benito Mussolini arrested and shot by Italian resistance
• Germany surrenders May 7, 1945
– War in Europe officially over
• Nuremberg Trials: Axis officers put on trial for war crimes
– Establishes precedent that soldiers are responsible for their own actions during war