From World War to Cold War

By: Allison Sheets

Adapted from a presentation by Alli Sheets 2012

Aftermath of War

• WWII killed as many as 75 million people around the world– In Europe about 38 million people lost their lives,

many of them civilians– More than 22 million people from the Soviet

Union died• Investigation brought new atrocities to light– The Nazi nightmare in Europe – The Japanese brutality in Asia

Horrors of the Holocaust

• Not until after war did the Allies fully understand the inhumanity and misery of the Holocaust

• United States General, Dwight Eisenhower, visited the camps – Was stunned to come “face to face with indisputable

evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every sense of decency.”

• Rudolf Hoess, Nazi commander at Auschwitz– admitted supervising the killing of some two and a half

million people, not counting those who died of disease or starvation

War Crimes Trials

• At wartime meetings, Allies agreed the Axis leaders should be tried for “crimes against humanity” – 177 Germans and Austrians were tried, and 142 found

guilty – Some top Nazis received death sentences, others

imprisoned – Similar war crimes trials were held in japan and Italy

• The trials showed that political and military leaders could be held accountable for actions in wartime

Allied Occupation • The trials also discredited the Nazi, fascist, and militarist

ideologies that had led to the war• People still had disturbing questions

– What made the Nazi horrors possible?– Why had ordinary people in Germany, Poland, France, and elsewhere accepted and even

collaborated in Hitler’s final solution”? – How could the world prevent the rise of future dictators?

• The U.S. felt strengthening democracy would ensure tolerance and peace

• Western Allies built new government with democratic constitutions to protect the rights of all citizens

• In German School, Nazi textbooks and courses were replaced with a new curriculum teaching democratic principles

The United Nations • WWII Allies set up an international organization to ensure

peace– In April 1945, delegates from 50 nations met in san Francisco to draft

a charter for the United Nations• The UN’s work would go far beyond peacekeeping

– Preventing outbreak of disease – Improving education – Protecting refugees– Aiding nations to develop economically

• UN agencies have provided help for millions of people around the world – World health Organization, Food and Agricultural organization

Growing differences

• By 1945 the wartime alliance was crumbling• Confliction ideologies and mutual distrust

soon led to the conflict known as the cold War– The Cold War was a state of tension and hostility

among nations, without armed conflict between the major rivals

Origins of the Cold War • Stalin had two goals in Eastern Europe

– Wanted to spread communism into the areas– Wanted to create a buffer zone of friendly governments as a defense against Germany

• At wartime conferences, Stalin tried to persuade the West to accept soviet influence in Eastern Europe – Bluntly stated “Whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system.

Everyone imposes his own system as far as his armies can reach. It cannot be otherwise.”• The U.S. was not consulting the soviet Union about peace terms of Italy or Japan, defeated

and occupied by American and British troops• Russia would determine the fate of the Eastern European lands overrun by the Red Army on

its way to Berlin • Roosevelt and Churchill rejected Stalin’s view, made him promise “free elections”

– Stalin ignored pledge, and destroyed rival political parties and even assassinated democratic leaders

– By 1948, Stalin had installed pro-soviet communist governments throughout Eastern Europe

A Divided Europe

• In the West , the “iron curtain” became a symbol of the Cold War– Expressed the growing fear of communism – Described the division of Europe into “eastern” and

“western” blocs • In the East were the soviet-dominated,

communist countries of Eastern Europe• In the West were the western democracies, led

by the U.S.

New Conflicts Develop

• To deal with the treat of communism, the U.S. abandoned its traditional isolationism– Became the leading role on the world stage

• Stalin showed his aggressive intentions– In Greece, Stalin backed communist rebels who were

fighting to overturn a right-wing monarchy supported by Britain

– By 1947, Britain could no longer afford to defend Greece– Stalin was also menacing Turkey in the Dardanelles, the

strait linking the Russian Black Sea coasts and the Mediterranean

Truman Doctrine • On March 12, 1947, Truman outlined a new policy to

Congress• The Truman doctrine, would guide the U. S for decades

– The Americans would resist soviet expansion in Europe or elsewhere in the world • Truman sent military and economic aid and advisers to Greece and

Turkey so that they could withstand the communist threat – Rooted in the idea of containment, limiting communism to the

areas already under Soviet control • George Kennan, believed communism would eventually destroy itself• Stalin, saw containment as “encirclement” by the capitalist world

that wanted to isolate the soviet Union

The Marshall Plan • Postwar hunger and poverty made western European lands fertile

ground for communist ideas• To Strengthen democratic governments, the U.S. offered an aid

package, called the Marshall Plan – Funneled food and economic assistance to Europe to help countries

rebuild– Helped war shattered Europe recover rapidly

• President Truman also offered aid to the Soviet Union and its satellites, dependent states, in Eastern Europe – Stalin saw it as a trick to win Eastern Europe over to capitalism and

democracy – Forbade Eastern European countries to accept American aid, promising

help form the Soviet Union in its place

Divisions in Germany

• The soviet Union dismantled factories and other resources in Germany’s occupation zone and used them to help rebuild Russia – France, Britain, and the U.S. encouraged Germany to

rebuild businesses and industries • German became a divided nation – West Germany, allowed the people to write their own

constitution and regain self-government– East Germany, The Soviet Union installed a communist

government tied to moscow

Berlin Airlift • Stalin’s resentment towards Western moves to rebuild Germany

as a democracy trigged a crisis over Berlin• Berlin was occupied by 4 Allied Nations even though it was

completely inside East Germany• Stalin attempted in 1948 to force the other Allied Nations out of

Berlin by sealing off every railroad and highway into the western sectors of Berlin

• Western Nations responded by round-the-clock air drops into West Berlin, including food and fuel. This continued for more than a year.

• The Soviets eventually dropped the blockade, but the crisis deepened hostilities between the West and East.

Military Alliances• With tensions high between the East and West 2 Military

Alliances formed• 1949-The United States, Canada, Great Britain, and 8

other European countries formed NATO- North Atlantic Treaty Organization, members said they would help if any were attacked

• 1955-The Soviet Union along with 7 satellite countries [Eastern Block countries controlled by the USSR] formed the Warsaw Pact, this was to oppose NATO but moreover a way to control the countries by the USSR [Soviet Union]

The Arms Race

• Each side in the Cold War armed itself to withstand an attack

• By 1949 both sides had Nuclear weapons and spent the next 40 years trying to get a leg up on the other, costing each side billions of dollars

• Churchill warned of this “Balance of Terror” but it did nothing to stop it from happening

The Propaganda War

• Both the West and East participated in a propaganda war

• The United States spoke of defending capitalism and democracy against communism and totalitarianism

• The Soviet Union claimed the moral high ground in the struggle against western imperialism

• Both sides, though, sought World Power