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