A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Hitlers Europe 1073

that Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans were preparing to carry out
acts of sabotage in the United States, the U.S. government interned in
“relocation centers” about 40,000 Japanese citizens residing in the United
States and 70,000 Japanese Americans, most living on the West Coast.
American citizens of German descent, in contrast, were not interned.
The first of several meetings between the British and American military
chiefs of staff took place in Washington, D.C., in January 1942. The Allied
commanders decided to give the European theater of war the highest pri­
ority. An immediate concentration of attacks against Japanese forces seemed
less urgent. In any case, it would take considerable time to dislodge the
Japanese from the Southeast Asian countries and Pacific islands they had
conquered.

Hitler's Europe

Whether or not each conquered state retained some autonomy, German

policies were first directed at extracting useful raw materials needed to

wage an extended war. The exact nature of the relationship between Ger­

many and each occupied state varied from country to country. Yet in all of

these states the Nazis carried out Hitler s policy of genocide against Jews

and others belonging to what he considered to be inferior races, often

aided by local collaborators.

In every country overrun by German troops, people could be found who

were eager or willing to collaborate with the Nazis. These ranged from lead­

ers willing to serve German interests to ordinary people whose political

biases or hope for gain or even just survival led them to help the Nazis. Yet,

in many countries, resistance movements bravely opposed the rule of the

Nazis or their allies. The largest and most successful resistance was in

mountainous Yugoslavia, where resisters were able to take on entire Ger­

man divisions, and, to a lesser extent, in France, where groups of guerrilla

fighters undertook hit-and-run attacks against the Germans and the col­

laborationist government. In Germany, resistance to Hitler and the Nazis

barely existed, notwithstanding a courageous attempt by disenchanted army

officers to assassinate Hitler in July 1944. To the end, most Germans

remained loyal to the Fiihrer, or at least could not or did not resist.

The Nazi “New European Order ’

Hitler sought to exploit the economic resources of the countries his armies

had conquered and to assure that no effective opposition could emerge

in any of them. Germany annexed the disputed Polish territories it had

claimed, including Poznan, Upper Silesia, and the Polish Corridor; Hitler

considered them German in the first place. Direct German administra­

tion was extended to Ukraine and Belarus. Germans who lived in Poland,