Chapter 9 Key Terms and Assessments
Key Terms
Atlantic Charter a statement of British and U.S. goals and objectives for the world after World War II; negotiated by British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) the first programmable electronic digital computer, built by the United States during World War II
Executive Order 9066 a presidential order that led to relocation and internment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans during the war
Final Solution the Nazi plan to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe; developed by senior bureaucrats at the Wannsee Conference
Holocaust the Nazi genocide that resulted in the murder of more than six million Jewish people and at least three million members of other, non-Jewish minority groups
Lebensraum a German term meaning “living room” and referring to lands seized from countries in eastern Europe in which Adolf Hitler envisioned settling German families to supplant the native Slavic populations
Lend-Lease Act U.S. legislation enacted to provide military assistance to nations important to its defense
Manhattan Project the U.S. project to build an atomic bomb
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact a 1939 agreement between Germany and the USSR in which the two nations agreed not to attack one another or to assist other nations in attacking the other and to divide portions of eastern Europe between them
Munich Agreement an agreement reached in 1938 in which Czechoslovakia granted territorial concessions to Germany, Poland, and Hungary in the hopes that Adolf Hitler would cease his aggressions
Nuremberg Laws a series of laws promulgated in Germany in 1935, institutionalizing Nazi racial theories and discrimination against Jewish people
Nuremberg Trials the formal postwar prosecution of German war crimes
Percentages Agreement the agreement between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin about how to divide political influence in Eastern Europe after the war
Trinity Test the first successful U.S. test of an atomic bomb
Assessments
Review Questions
1. Which of the following is not true concerning the Atlantic Charter?
a. insisted on the unconditional surrender of the Axis nations
b. affirmed the right the self-determination
c. renounced any territorial expansions
d. created an alliance of European nations that agreed to defend any member nation attacked
2. What was the territory Hitler wanted from Czechoslovakia?
a. Austrian province
b. Polish Corridor
c. Reichland
d. Sudetenland
3. From which port were British and French forces evacuated from France to England?
a. Marseilles
b. Brest
c. Calais
d. Dunkirk
4. What was the German invasion of the Soviet Union called?
a. Operation Eastern Blitz
b. Operation Barbarossa
c. Operation Lebensraum
d. Operation Siegfried
5. Where did the first summit meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill take place?
a. Washington, DC
c. London
d. Newfoundland
c. Bermuda
6. Which of the following was the first and longest surviving concentration camp?
a. Dachau
b. Auschwitz
c. Bergen-Belsen
d. Buchenwald
7. The first U.S. action against Axis forces in the European theater
a. took place in North Africa.
b. was the invasion of Sardinia.
c. liberated Norway.
d. was the invasion of Spain.
8. What was Japan’s name for its empire?
a. Liberated Asia
b. The New Asia
c. The Unification of the Eight Corners
d. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
9. What was the German military unit that followed advancing armies into eastern Europe and began eliminating enemies and Jewish people?
a. Sturmabteilung
b. Einsatzgruppen
c. Gnadegruppen
d. Grausamkeitzug
10. What was the turning point of the war in the Pacific?
a. the attack on Pearl Harbor
b. the Battle of Midway
c. the Battle of Guadalcanal
d. the fighting in the Philippines
11. What was significant about the Battle of Stalingrad?
a. It stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and was the turning point of the war in Europe.
b. It constituted a major victory for the United States and encouraged the public to support the war.
c. It resulted in the loss of most of Britain’s Mediterranean fleet.
d. It convinced Britain and the United States to invade Europe and relieve pressure on the Soviet Union.
12. British and American women were enlisted for agricultural work during the war as part of each nation’s
a. Women’s Vegetable Corps.
b. Women’s Land Army.
c. Feminine Farmers.
d. Ladies Land Workers.
13. Hitler issued orders to deal severely with partisan resistance in his
a. Night and Fog Decree.
b. Strike Hard Directive.
c. Merciless Message.
d. Kill All Command.
14. Who was the scientist mainly responsible for building the Enigma decoding machine?
a. Charles Drew
b. Albert Einstein
c. Robert J. Oppenheimer
d. Alan Turing
15. Who was the Japanese American internee who fought the constitutionality of internment during the war and had his conviction overturned thirty years later?
a. Ishita Edwards
b. Fred Korematsu
c. Ishii Shiro
d. Hayashi Tadao
16. What was the Manhattan Project focused on?
a. anti-submarine weapons
b. the occupation of postwar Germany
c. the building of an atomic weapon
d. the inclusion of radar in all airplanes
17. The Germans made one final attempt to defeat the Western Allies in Europe in what battle?
a. Battle of the Bulge
b. The December Duel
c. The Forest Fight
d. Battle of Verdun
18. What did the Yalta Agreement reaffirm Stalin’s commitment to do?
a. peacefully disarm the Red Army after the war
b. cooperate in the joint occupation of eastern European countries
c. return to Finland the land it had seized
d. enter the war against Japan three months after the defeat of Germany
19. What did the Japanese strategy of shukketsu seek to do?
a. outmaneuver Allied forces in quick movements
b. bleed the U.S. forces to dishearten them through casualties
c. punch holes in U.S. defenses and surround U.S. units
d. let U.S. forces pass through Japanese lines and then attack them from the rear
20. What was the forced repatriation of Soviet citizens liberated from German captivity by Allied forces called?
a. Operation Giveback
b. Operation Boomerang
c. Operation Keelhaul
d. Operation Homeward Bound
21. What were the three goals of the U.S. occupation of Japan?
a. pacification, liberalization, modernization
b. decentralization, deindustrialization, depopulation
c. demilitarization, democratization, recognition of human rights
d. republicanism, restitution, retribution
Check Your Understanding Questions
- What were the first steps Hitler took to break the Treaty of Versailles?
- What happened between Germany and the Soviet Union that may have made the invasion of Poland inevitable?
- What steps did the Nazis take to eliminate Europe’s Jewish population?
- Why was Mussolini removed from office in 1943?
- What were some of the ways both Allied and Axis nations increased their birth rates during the war?
- How extensive were resistance movements during the war, and how did the Nazis deal with them?
- Do you think President Roosevelt was satisfied with the results of the Yalta Conference? Why or why not?
- How did the political structure of Japan change as a result of the postwar occupation by the United States?
Application and Reflection Questions
- List the actions Japan took to carve out an empire for itself in Asia. How likely is it that the intervention of other nations could have stopped Japan’s aggression? Would European nations and the United States have had the right to use military action to do so? Why or why not?
- Why did no country come to the aid of Czechoslovakia when it was threatened by Germany? Explain how and why the western powers were unable to effectively enforce the Treaty of Versailles and prevent German aggression under Hitler.
- How believable were Japan’s claims that it was seeking to liberate the nations of Asia from Western colonialists? Explain your answer.
- Should Hitler have been allowed to violate the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and remilitarize the Rhineland? If he had stopped at this point and not invaded other countries or persecuted German Jews, do you think France and Britain would have declared war?
- Did the U.S. policy of neutrality invite the attack on Pearl Harbor? Why or why not? If the United States had been more active in its support for Britain, France, and China, would this have changed the way events progressed?
- Analyze the factors that led to Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union.
- Why did the Japanese military risk confrontation and possible war with the United States at the beginning of the 1940s?
- Why would Churchill have preferred a Europe First strategy? Which of the Allied nations had the most to lose in the Pacific, and why?
- How did popular culture like music and movies contribute to the war effort of different countries? Does popular culture still affect people’s feelings of patriotism today? If so, how?
- In what ways did women contribute to the war effort in their countries? In what ways did the war affect women’s lives in the short term and the long term, both for the better and for the worse?
- Which invention of the World War II period do you think was most important at the time? Which one is most significant today?
- What was President Truman’s attitude toward the dropping of the atomic bomb? Had Germany not surrendered before the bomb’s development was completed, do you think the United States would have dropped it on German targets? Why or why not?
- What, in your opinion, was the most significant agreement reached at Yalta and at Potsdam? Which likely caused the greatest disagreement about the Big Three? Explain your answer.
- What political, economic, and social changes were imposed upon Japan by the U.S. occupation? Did these changes benefit the average Japanese person? Why or why not? In your opinion, did victory give the United States the right to remake Japanese society? Why or why not?
- Were the terms imposed upon Japan after the war more severe than those imposed upon Germany? Explain your answer.