14.5 The End of World War II

Read the section and answer the questions that follow. The End of World War II
Terms, People, and Places
Nuremberg
United Nations (UN)
Cold War
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)
Warsaw Pact

Even as the Allies celebrated victory, the appalling costs of the war began to emerge. The war had killed as many as 50 million people around the world. In Europe alone, over 30 million people had lost their lives, more than half of them civilians. The Soviet Union suffered the worst casualties, with over 20 million dead. As they had after World War I, the Allies faced difficult decisions about the
future.

The War’s Aftermath

“Give me ten years and you will not be able to recognize Germany,” said Hitler in 1933. Indeed, Germany in 1945 was an unrecognizable ruin. Parts of Poland, the Soviet Union, Japan, China, and
other countries also lay in ruins. Total war had gutted cities, factories, harbors, bridges, railroads, farms, and homes. Over twenty million refugees wandered Europe. Amid the devastation, hunger,
disease, and mental illness took their toll for years after the fighting ended. As they had after World War I, the Allies faced difficult decisions about the future.

Horrors of the Holocaust 
Numbers alone did not tell the story of the Nazi nightmare in Europe or the Japanese brutality in Asia. During the war, the Allies were aware of the existence of Nazi concentration camps and death camps. But only at war’s end did they learn the full extent of the inhumanity of the Holocaust. American General Dwight Eisenhower, who visited the camps, was stunned to come “face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every sense of decency.”

War Crimes Trials 
At wartime meetings, the Allies had agreed that Axis leaders should be tried for “crimes against
humanity.” In Germany, the Allies held war crimes trials in Nuremberg, where Hitler had staged mass rallies in the 1930s. A total of 177 Germans and Austrians were tried, and 142 were found guilty. A handful of top Nazis received death sentences. Others were imprisoned. Similar war crimes trials
were held in Japan and Italy. Many of those accused of war crimes were never captured or brought to trial. However, the trials showed that political and military leaders could be held
accountable for actions in wartime.
Occupying Allies 
The war crimes trials further discredited the totalitarian ideologies that had led to the war. Yet disturbing questions remained. Why had ordinary people in Germany, Poland, France, and elsewhere accepted—and even collaborated in—Hitler’s “final solution”? 
The United States felt that strengthening democracy would ensure tolerance and peace. The Western Allies built new governments in occupied Germany and Japan with democratic constitutions to protect the rights of all citizens. In Japan, the occupying forces under General MacArthur helped Japanese politicians to create a new constitution that gave power to the Japanese people, rather than the emperor.

Establishing the United Nations

In April 1945, delegates from 50 nations convened in San Francisco to draft a charter for the United Nations (UN). The UN would play a greater role in world affairs than did its predecessor, the League of Nations.
Under the UN Charter, each of the member nations has one vote in the General Assembly. A much smaller body called the Security Council has greater power. Each of its five permanent
members—the United States, the Soviet Union (today Russia), Britain, France, and China—has the right to veto any council decision. The goal was to give these great powers the authority to ensure the peace. The Security Council has the power to apply economic sanctions or send a peace-keeping military force to try to resolve disputes. Differences among the nations on the Security Council, most notably the United States and the Soviet Union, have often kept the UN from taking action. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, more peacekeeping delegations have been approved.
The UN’s work would go far beyond peacekeeping. The organization would take on many world problems—from preventing the outbreak of disease and improving education to protecting refugees and helping nations to develop economically. UN agencies like the World Health
Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization have provided aid for millions of people around the world.

The Alliance Breaks Apart

Amid the rubble of war, a new power structure emerged. In Europe, Ger- many was defeated. France and Britain were exhausted. Two other powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, emerged as the new world leaders. The United States abandoned its traditional policy of isolationism to counter what President Truman saw as the communist threat.

Differences Grow Between the Allies 
During the war, the Soviet Union and the nations of the West had cooperated to defeat Nazi Ger-
many. After the war’s end, the Allies set up councils made up of foreign ministers from Britain, France, China, the United States, and the Soviet Union to iron out the peace agreements discussed at various conferences during the war. The councils concluded peace agreements with several Axis nations in 1947. However, reparations in Germany and the nature of the governments of Eastern Europe caused divisions to deepen between the former Allies. Conflicting ideologies and mutual distrust soon led to the conflict known as the Cold War. The Cold War was a state of tension and hostility between nations aligned with the United States on one side and the Soviet Union on the other, without armed conflict between the major rivals.
The Cold War Begins Stalin had two goals in Eastern Europe. First, he wanted to spread communism in the area. Second, he wanted to create a buffer zone of friendly governments as a defense against Germany, which had invaded Russia during World War I
and again in 1941. As the Red Army had pushed German forces out of Eastern
Europe, it had left behind occupying forces. At wartime conferences, Stalin tried to persuade the West to accept Soviet influence in Eastern

Europe. The Soviet dictator pointed out that the United States was not consulting the Soviet Union about peace terms for Italy or Japan, both of which were defeated and occupied by American and British troops. In the same way, the Soviet Union would determine the fate of the Eastern
European lands that it occupied.
Roosevelt and Churchill rejected Stalin’s view, making him promise “free elections” in Eastern Europe. Stalin ignored that pledge. Most Eastern European countries had existing Communist parties, many of which had actively resisted the Nazis during the war. Backed by the Red Army,
these local Communists in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere destroyed rival political parties and even assassinated democratic leaders. By 1948, pro-Soviet communist governments were in place through- out Eastern Europe.

New Conflicts Develop
Stalin soon showed his aggressive intentions outside of Eastern Europe. In Greece, Stalin backed communist rebels who were fighting to overturn a right-wing monarchy supported by Britain. By 1947, however, Britain could no longer afford to defend Greece. Stalin was also menacing Turkey
in the Dardanelles.

The Truman Doctrine 
Truman took action. On March 12, 1947, Truman outlined a new policy to Congress: “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting
attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” This policy, known as the Truman Doctrine, was rooted in the idea of containment, limiting communism to the areas already under Soviet control.
The Truman Doctrine would guide the United States for decades. It made clear that Americans would resist Soviet expansion in Europe or elsewhere in the world. Truman soon sent military and economic aid and advisors to Greece and Turkey so that they could withstand the communist threat.

The Marshall Plan 
Postwar hunger and poverty made Western European lands fertile ground for communist ideas. To strengthen democratic governments, the United States offered a massive aid package, called the
Marshall Plan. Under it, the United States funneled food and economic assistance to Europe to help countries rebuild. Billions of dollars in American aid helped war-shattered Europe recover rapidly.
President Truman also offered aid to the Soviet Union and its satellites, or dependent states, in Eastern Europe. However, Stalin declined and forbade Eastern European countries to accept American aid. Instead, he promised help from the Soviet Union in its place. 

Germany Stays Divided 
Defeated Germany became another focus of the Cold War. The Soviet Union took reparations for its massive war losses by dismantling and moving factories and other resources in its occupation zone to help rebuild the Soviet Union. France, Britain, and the United States also took some reparations out of their portions of Germany. However, Western leaders wanted the German economy to recover in order to restore political stability to the region. The Western Allies decided to unite their zones of occupation. Then, they extended the Marshall Plan to western Germany. The Soviets were furious at Western moves to rebuild the German economy and deny them further reparations. They strengthened their hold on eastern Germany.
Germany thus became a divided nation. In West Germany, the democratic nations allowed the people to write their own constitution and regain self-government. In East Germany, the Soviet Union installed a socialist dictatorship under Stalin’s control.

The Berlin Airlift 
Stalin’s resentment at Western moves to rebuild Germany triggered a crisis over Berlin. Even though it lay deep within the Soviet zone, the former German capital was occupied by all four vic-
torious Allies. In June 1948, Stalin tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by sealing off every railroad and highway into the Western sectors of the city. The Western powers responded to the blockade by mounting a round-the-clock airlift. For more than a year, cargo planes supplied West
Berliners with food and fuel. Their success forced the Soviets to end the blockade. Although the West had won, the crisis deepened.

Opposing Alliances 
Tensions continued to grow. In 1949, the United States, Canada, and nine other countries formed a new military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Members pledged to help one another if any one of them were attacked.
In 1955, the Soviet Union responded by forming its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. It included the Soviet Union and seven satellites in Eastern Europe. Unlike NATO, however, the Warsaw Pact was often invoked by the Soviets to keep its satellites in order. The Warsaw Pact cemented the division of Europe into “eastern” and “western” blocs. In the East were the Soviet-dominated countries of Eastern Europe. These countries were in name, communist, but in practice, dictatorships
like the Soviet Union itself. In the West were the Western democracies,
led by the United States.

The Propaganda War 
Both sides participated in a propaganda war. The United States spoke of defending capitalism and democracy against communism and totalitarianism. The Soviet Union claimed the moral
high ground in the struggle against Western imperialism. Yet linked to those stands, both sides sought world power.

( vocab ) Nuremberg

( vocab ) United Nations (UN)

( vocab ) Cold War

( vocab ) Truman Doctrine

( vocab ) Marshall Plan

( vocab ) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

( vocab ) Warsaw Pact

( standards check ) Why did the Allies hold war crimes trials for Axis leaders?

( standards check ) What post-war issues caused the Western Allies and the Soviet Union to disagree?

( standards check ) What policy did the United States establish with the Truman Doctrine?

( assessment ) How did the peace made after World War II differ from that made after World War I?

( assessment ) What was the main purpose of the UN when it was founded?

( assessment ) List two causes of the Cold War.

( assessment ) Why is it important to remember the inhumanity of the Holocaust?

( objectives ) Understand the importance of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, which established the pattern for America’s postwar policy of supplying economic and military aid to prevent the spread of Communism and the resulting economic and political competition in arenas such
as Southeast Asia (i.e., the Korean War, Vietnam War), Cuba, and Africa.

( objectives ) Discuss the establishment and work of the United Nations and the purposes and functions of the Warsaw Pact, SEATO, and NATO, and the Organization of American States.

( focus question)  What issues arose in the aftermath of World War II and how did new tensions develop?