WAR - The World Reacts to World War II (Lesson)

The World Reacts to World War II

How the world (and especially its strongest nations) reacted to World War II set the course for our modern world today. Therefore, it is important to understand the effects of World War II to better understand our world today. To do so, we are going to dive into the political, cultural and humanitarian transformations brought about at the end of the war.

Beginning of the Cold War

As the defeat of Germany seemed imminent, leaders of the "Big Three" met in February 1945 to discuss the possibilities for the postwar world. Each had deeply different visions of what the world should look like following an Allied victory:

 

Winston Churchill	Franklin Delano Roosevelt	Joseph Stalin
Prime Minister, United Kingdom	President, United States	Premier, Soviet Union
Envisioned the continuance of the British Empire around the globe by retaining its colonial lands.	Pictured an international body that protected independent nation-states without empires.	Visualized a world with a stronger Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and Asia and a weakened Germany that would never attack the USSR again.

At the Yalta Conference, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin pushed their own agendas but agreed upon certain concepts that included—

• Germany divided into occupation zones,
• the USSR join the United States in the Pacific Theater,
• democratic elections held in Eastern Europe,
• war criminals tried,
• the USSR join the United Nations.

After the surrender of Germany, the leaders of the "Big Three" met again at the Potsdam Conference—this time, President Harry S. Truman attended on behalf of the United States as President Roosevelt died before the war ended and recently-elected Prime Minister Clement Atlee attended on behalf of the United Kingdom. But the earlier visions of each nation were the same.

The "Big Three" divided Germany into four occupation zones (one for each, plus one for France.) It would be the responsibility of each to oversee the rebuilding and compliance of Germany in each of their sectors. The capital city—Berlin—was located within the Soviet zone. However, the "Big Three" carved the city into four occupational zones as well.

For the most part, the zones occupied by Great Britain, the United States and France worked together to rebuild Germany. Under the Marshall Plan, the United States provided $13 billion to rebuild Western Europe—both structurally and economically. For the United States and Western Europe, the Marshall Plan was a mutually beneficial investment that allowed Europe to regain confidence in its economic future and the United States to have a strong market with which to trade. But it became apparent very quickly that the Soviet Union had no interest in working with the other three and was focused on its own vision of enhancing its influence in Eastern Europe that did not include American involvement. The Soviet Union was in a good position to do this.

As the Soviet Union pushed the German troops back towards Germany during the war, they left Soviet troops along their trail. Therefore, when Germany surrendered, the U.S.S.R. occupied the lands between Germany and the Soviet Union. After the war, the Soviets remained in those nations creating the Eastern Bloc of nations that ultimately converted to communism under Soviet influence.

[Side Note: An interesting dichotomy in history is that while one set of Europeans fled Germany under Hitler, there was another set of Europeans that fled into Germany in order to stay ahead of the Soviet troops. Many Eastern Europeans that did not fall within the religions, ethnicities, political parties or sexual orientations listed for extermination under Hitler were more afraid of living in a nation ruled by the Soviet Union and actually fled to Germany during World War II to avoid being absorbed into what became the Eastern Bloc.]

The emigration from Soviet-occupied lands caused a problem for a nation that wanted to grow in power and influence. Therefore, the Soviet Union extended emigration restrictions to their satellite nations making it illegal to leave the nations without permission. Effectively, this put up an "Iron Curtain" that separated the democratic West from the communist East. However, one avenue of escape still existed for those who wanted to live outside Stalin's grip. Although the city of Berlin was deep within the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, it had three occupation zones within itself that belonged to the West. If Germans moved into those Western zones, they could then escape out of Soviet-controlled Germany.

In 1948, the Soviet Union cut off Germany's access to the Western zones within Berlin. These zones became an isolated part within Germany that no one could go into or out of. In response, the United States, Great Britain and France launched the Berlin Airlift. From 1948 to when restrictions were lifted in 1949, the Berlin Airlift included the shuttling of food and resources into Berlin via plane.

Also in 1948, the Soviet Union established communist dictators within Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In 1949, the Western zones of Germany combined to create the democratic Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany.) In response, the Soviet zone of Germany became the communist German Democratic Republic (East Germany.)

Also in 1949, Western European and North American nations entered into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) creating a military alliance for defense. In reaction to the formation of NATO, the USSR led the formation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

Despite the rigid emigration restrictions in the Eastern Bloc, Europeans continued to defect to Western European nations via Berlin. Therefore, East Germany (with Soviet funding) constructed a concrete wall around the western portion of Berlin in 1961.

 And, thus began the Cold War—a period of time between 1945 and 1991 when the nations of the USSR and its satellite nations (the Eastern Bloc) faced off with the nations of the Western Bloc (the US and NATO) in a series of tense events that never escalated into outright war between the two factions (hence the "cold" part.) However, no one would call the Cold War a peaceful one and wars were fought in hotspots around the world with American and Soviet support. One of the first examples of this happened on the Korean Peninsula. Prior to World War II, Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula. Following World War II, the Soviet Union occupied the northern half of the Korean Peninsula while the United States occupied the southern half. The Soviet Union and the United States were at such opposite ends of the government and economic spectrums that they could not agree on how to reunite the two halves of the Korean Peninsula. Eventually the two halves formed their own independent governments- one communist with the help of the Soviet Union and one a democratic republic with the help of the United States. However, in 1950 North Korean armies invaded South Korea in the hopes of reuniting the peninsula into one communist nation. North Korea had the support of the Soviet Union to back their war efforts while South Korea relied on American and United Nations support. The war resulted in a heavy loss of Korean lives (on both sides) and a heavy destruction of the Korean environment (again, on both sides). But when the end of the Korean War came in 1953, the political line that divided North and South Korea had not noticeably moved- the border remained the same (located along the 38^th Parallel) as it had been three years earlier.

 

We will discuss more on the examples of "hot wars" supported by the "Cold War" nations in the next module; but you should know, in the meantime, that one of the tensions from the Cold War resulted from the United States' use of the atomic bomb during World War II.

 

Nuclear Warfare

When the United States dropped the two Atomic Bombs on Japan, it was the first and last time a nation employed nuclear warfare against another nation. These bombs were the result of a secret project started in the United States following its entry into World War II. Code-named "The Manhattan Project," the program built on discoveries made by German scientists in the 1930s regarding the splitting of nuclear atoms. The program's first successful test run occurred just weeks before U.S. President Harry S. Truman authorized their use against Japan.

On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 plane released its cargo—the atomic bomb—on Hiroshima. When Japan did not immediately surrender, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later.

 

Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were centers of civilian populations—not military targets—and the nation that dropped the bombs was an Allied nation (traditionally not seen as an aggressor nation during this war.) Everything about the use of the atomic bombs—targeted civilian locations, little advanced warning, physical destruction, human casualties, later illnesses, and much more—morally and politically rocked the world.

There were no exact numbers published as to how many died during the initial explosions. But the United States Department of Energy estimated that within five years of dropping "Little Boy" (the very misleading nickname given to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,) more than 200,000 people died either directly or indirectly (burns, radiation sickness, cancer) from the first bomb's effects.

Although this type of weapon has not been used again, it was a large part of the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb. In 1952, the United States tested its Hydrogen Bomb. The Cold War arms race took off from there.

 

 

 

 

Recap Section

Watch the videos below to review what you've learned.

 

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