impact of world war ii

7/31/2019 Impact of World War II

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World War II

The Impact of Total War


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e pact o ota Wa

Economic Damage:Western Europe

Impact of StrategicBombing

75% of BerlinUninhabitable

20 million homeless inGermany

Dutch lose 219,000hectares of land

French lose 40% of pre-

war transportationsystems

Norway lost 14% pre-war capital

Dresden After Allied Bombing


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Economic Damage: Eastern Europe

USSR

70,000 villages & 1,700towns

32,000 factories

40,000 miles of RRtrack

Greece

1/3 of forest

2/3 merchant marine

Hyperinflation fromGerman extraction ofcost of occupation

Poland

3/4 RR track

1/6 farms

City of Warsaw leveled

Yugoslavia

25% of vineyards

50% livestock

60% of roads

75% of RR bridges

1/5 of all dwellings

1/3 of industry


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The Human Cost

36 million Europeans die!

Deadliest and Most Destructive

Conflict in Human History


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Military

Deaths

COUNTRY MILITARY

DEATHS

USSR 8.6 million

Germany 4 million

Italy 400,000

Rumania 300,000

United

States

405,399

China 2.2 million

Japan 1.7 millionD-Day Invasion


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CivilianDeaths

COUNTRY CIVILIAN

DEATHS

Japan 500,000China 15-20 million

USSR 16 million

Poland 5 million

Yugoslavia 1.4 million

Greece 430,000

France 350,000

Hungary 270,000

Netherlands 204,000

Rumania 200,000

ALL EUROPE 19 million


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Proportion of Pre-War

Population LostCOUNTRY PROPORTION

OF POP LOST

Poland 1/5Yugoslavia 1/8

USSR 1/11

Greece 1/14Germany 1/15

France 1/77

Britain 1/25


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Demographic Change

Gender Imbalance

USSR: 20 million more women

than men

Germany: 2/3 of men born in

1918 did not live to see 1945 Yugoslavia: All men in entire

villages wiped out

Orphans

Yugoslavia: 300,000

Poland: 200,000

Netherlands: 60,000

Czechoslovakia: 49,000

Belgian Refugees


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Ethnic Cleansing Germans exterminate

Jews, Gypsies, SlavsHomosexuals, Jehovah'sWitnesses, Communists

Red Army Rapes & Pillages

87,000 women in Viennaraped in 3 weeksfollowing occupation

150-200,000 Russianbabies born to Germanwomen 1945-1946

Displaced Persons

Refugees

Allies force migration of

ethnic minorities

The Red Army Seizes Berlin

(35,000 Soviets die in this battle alone!)


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The Impossible Peace

Three Big Questions

What will Eastern Europe look like?

What to do with Germany?

What form will post-war

international relations take?


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Allied Summits

Casablanca: January 1943

Allies Agree to Call for Germanys UnconditionalSurrender

Teheran: December 1943

Allies agree to divide Germany

Border between Poland & the USSR will move to the west

USSR to have access to Baltic Sea

Moscow: October 1944 (Stalin & Churchill only, no FDR)

Secret Deal Churchill & Stalin agree on percentages ofinfluence in Eastern Europe

Not too significant ratified the inevitable

Only Balkans were up for grabs both agreed to 50:50 split


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Eastern Europe

Soviet troops physically

occupied E. Europe at

end of WWII.

USSR viewed E. Europe

as essential to its

security It wanted a

sphere of influence.


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Yalta(February, 1945)

Declaration of Liberated

Europe Promise to

form representative gov.s,

facilitate elections, etc. U.S. & GB formally

accept Soviet domination

of Eastern Europe

Left out issue of Germany

b/c it was so divisive

Did FDR sell out?The Big Three at Yalta


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The Iron CurtainFrom Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste

in the Adriatic, an iron curtain hasdescended across the Continent.

Behind that line lie all the capitals of

the ancient states of Central and

Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin,

Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade,Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous

cities and the populations around

them lie in what I must call the Soviet

sphere, and all are subject in one

form or another, not only to Sovietinfluence but to a very high and, in

many cases, increasing measure of

control from Moscow.

-Winston Churchill, March 5, 1946


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Divided by Default US came to favor a unified

Germany w/ reconstructedeconomy.

USSR still saw a restored

Germany as a major threat.

Britain, France, USAmerged zones to form West

Germany (May, 1949).

USSR established EastGermany as a satellite state

(Oct. 1949).

Divided

Berlin

East Germany

West Germany


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Postwar International

Cooperation1. War Crimes Trials in

Germany, Japan, & Italy

2. The United Nations

3. The Bretton Woods Accords


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The Nuremburg Trials

Most suspects claimed the court had nojurisdiction Claimed it was victors justice

12 sentenced to death, 9 jailed, 3 acquitted

In all, about 1800 Germans tried after WWII

First known warcrimes trial.

Originally tried 24

Germans for crimes

against humanity.

No clear legal

precedent.


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The United

Nations

UN founded Oct. 1945

Security Council Five permanent members w/ vetoes:

United States, Great Britain, France, USSR & China

General Assembly

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

Truman Addresses the UN

Conference (1945)


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The Bretton Woods Accords(July 1944)

Defined structure of postwar international finance & trade.

Created-International Monetary Fund (IMF)

-World Bank

-General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (precursor to

World Trade Organization)

impact of world war ii

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