5 Steps to a 5TM AP European History

(^190) › STEP 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
The American Entry and Its Impact (1942)
Churchill and the American president, Franklin Roosevelt, met in August 1941 on a battle-
ship off the Newfoundland coast. They composed the Atlantic Charter, a document setting
forth Anglo-American war aims. It rejected any territorial aggrandizement for either Great
Britain or the United States, and it affirmed the right of all peoples to choose their own
form of government.
By 1939, a modernized and militarized Japan had conquered the coastal area of China,
and its expansionist aims led it to join Germany and Italy as part of what came to be known
as the Axis. When war broke out, Japan occupied the part of Indochina that had been under
French control and began to threaten the Dutch East Indies. The United States responded
with an economic embargo on all exports to Japan. On December 7, 1941, Japanese air
forces launched a surprise attack in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, hoping to cripple U.S. naval
forces in the Pacific Ocean. The United States immediately declared war on Japan, and
within a few days, Germany and Italy had declared war on the United States.
Initially, America’s impact on the war was through resources rather than soldiers, but
its entry provided the third and final turning point (along with the Battle of Britain and
Germany’s decision to invade the Soviet Union) in the war. Throughout 1942, American
productive capacities were being built up, and the American military force kept grow-
ing. In the autumn of 1942, American marines landed on the island of Guadalcanal; it
was to be the first of many islands to be recaptured from the Japanese at great cost of
human lives.
The Holocaust
In 1941, the embattled Hitler regime embarked on the “Final Solution,” the deliberate
and methodical extermination of Jewish people in Europe. It began when Schutzstaffel
(SS) troops under Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler began executing Jewish and
Slavic prisoners, who had been gathered from around Europe and forced into concentration
camps. At first, firing squads were used. Next, the process was speeded up through the use
of mobile vans of poison gas. Eventually, large gas chambers were constructed at the camps
so that thousands could be murdered at one time. In the end, an estimated six million Jews
were murdered, along with an additional seven million people, among whom were Gypsies,
homosexuals, socialists and political dissidents generally, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other tar-
geted groups.
Outside the Nazi inner circle, people and governments were slow to believe and to
comprehend what was happening, and even slower to respond:
• Neighbors turned a blind eye when Jews were rounded up and put on trains.
• Collaborating governments from Vichy France to Croatia assisted in various ways with
the rounding up and extermination of the Jews.
• British and American commanders refused to divert bombing missions from other tar-
gets in order to put the camps out of commission.
The Axis in Retreat (1942–1943)
In June and August 1943, the tide turned against the Axis forces in the Soviet Union, the
Mediterranean, and the Pacific. In June 1942, the Germans resumed their offensive in the
Soviet Union. By August, they were on the outskirts of Stalingrad on the Volga River. The
mammoth Battle of Stalingrad lasted six months; by the time it ended in February 1943,
the greater part of a German army had died or surrendered to the Russians, and the remain-
der was retreating westward.
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