World War II, the Holocaust, and the Postwar World

I. The ideological war--World War II in the Nazi world view.

II. The steps of war.

A. Diplomatic advances 1936-39.
B. Nazi-Soviet Pact August 1939.
C. Invasion of Poland September 1, 1939.
D. "Phony War" winter 1939-40.
E. Escalation of war spring 1940--Low Countries, Scandinavia, France.
F. Battle of Britain summer 1940.
G. Nazi domination of Europe from the Atlantic to the border with the Soviet Union.
H. Escalation again spring 1941 with the drive into the Balkans.
I. June 22, 1941 the massive invasion of the Soviet Union.

III. In the context of war, anti-Jewish policy escalates from discrimination to ethnic cleansing to genocide.

A. Occupation policies 1939-41.

1. Intertwining of in-migration of ethnic Germans and deportations and ghettoization of Jews.
2. Establishment of General Government in Poland as the dumping ground for Jews.
3. Various plans for ethnic cleansing.

B. Invasion of Soviet Union and massacres by Einsatzgruppen.
C. Intensification of massacres summer 1941.
D. First experiments with gas against Jews and Soviet POWs autumn 1941.
E. Confluence of events from late summer 1941 to winter 1941-42:

1. U.S. and British declaration of mutual aims to destroy Nazi tyranny.
2. Slowdown of the war against the Soviet Union.
3. Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and German declaration of war against the United States.

F. Wannsee conference January 1942--the systematization of the extermination of Jews. Now Jews from all over Europe rounded up and sent to the six extermination camps: Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmo, Belzec, Auschwitz.

IV. The burdens of the past: attempting to construct a peaceful postwar world in the wake of total war and the Holocaust.