Europe and Japan in Ruins

Europe and Japan in Ruins Topics: Notes: Postwar Europe: 1. Note three ways war affected the land and people of Europe. Devastation in Europe: ● During this time nearly 40 million Europeans had died with ⅔ of the dead being civilians ● Continuous bombings and shellings destroyed cities to rubble causing a lot of people to be left homeless with much of the ground wars destroying the countryside. ○ The Battle of Britain left big areas of London as blackened ruins ○ The capital of Poland (Warsaw) to be nearly destroyed completely with their population ending up from 1.3 million in 1939 -> only 153,000 people in January 1945 ● Thousands of Allied bombs destroyed 95% of the central area of Berlin ● Civilians died by the millions bc of military operations, concentration camps, bombs dropped into towns and cities, and starvations + disease. ● Some people decided to stay where they were and decided to live in destroyed homes or apartments while others huddled in cellars or caves created by rubble. ○ People did not have access to water, no electricity, very little food to eat and no one had a workplace in order to provide income or farm foods. ● Other people decided to move away which included people who were trapped in the concentration camps, the prisoners of war, and refugees, who found out that they were in the wrong country, went to look for their families or tried to find safe places to stay. ● Fighting ruined Europe’s countryside as most able-bodied men served in the military while women worked in war productions leave low amounts of people farming in the fields ○ Transportation systems were destroyed causing thousands to die as there was famine + disease spread in the cities while many people didn’t have any shoes nor coats in the winter. 2. Note three political problems postwar governments faced. Postwar Governments and Poltiics ● Many Europeans blamed the leaders for the war and aftermath and returning to old leadership was not desired. ● Hitler’s Nazi government brough Germany to ruins, Mussolini led Italy to defeat, and just overall, the old leadership was a disgrace to the people. ○ Resistance fighters were Communists and they had promised changed with millions ready to listen causing their memberships to increase leading to huge gains in the first postwar elections, ○ When some were scared to speed up the takeovers, other Communists straged violent strikes causing the French and Italians to vote for antiCommunist parties leading to the memberships to decline. 3. Note one way the Allies dealt with the Holocaust. ● During the time from 1945 - 1946, an International Military Tribunal represented 23 nations of putting the Nazi war criminations on trial in Nurenberg, Germany. ○ 22 Nazi leaders were charged and accused of murdering 11 million people also phrased as “crimes against humanity” ● Adolf Hitler (SS chief) and Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda committed suicide before trials began and left other leaders to face charges. ○ Rudolf Hess (Hitler’s former deputy) was left to have a life sentence in prison with Hermann Göring (commander of Luftwaffe) who received a death sentence but committed suicide first. ○ The bodies of the executed were cremated at the concentration camp of Dachau and were burned in the same ovens that had also burned so many of their victims. Postwar Japan: ● 2 million lives were lost with major cities largely destroyed by bombing raids and 4. Note two effects of Allied bombing raids on Japan. 5. Note three ways U.S. occupation changed Japan. 6. Note three provisions in Japan’s new constitution. the atomic bomb turned Hiroshima and Nagasaki into blackened wastelands. ● General Douglas MacArthur accepted the Japanese’s surrender and was determined to be fair and not cause a future war. ● He began to disband the Japanese armed forces (demilitarization) by simply leaving the Japanese with a small police force and brought Japan’s major war criminals to trial. ● Tokyo Trials started from 1946 to 1948 by prosecuting the same war crimes and all of the 25 surviving defendants were found guilty. ○ All of 25 defendants were guilty and Former Premier Hideki Tojo + 6 others were hung and the first international criminal tribunals prosecuted high-level political + military leaders for war crimes. ● MacArthur had his attention creating a government elected by people (democratization) even if he was told not to do so ○ By February 1946, he + political advisors drew up a new constitution changing the empire into a monarchy like Great Britain which the Japanese accepted and went into effect on May 3rd, 1947. ● He instructed to broaden land ownership + increase the participation of workers and farmers and to end it, he put forward a plan that required landlords to sell land to the government. ● The new constitution took away a lot of power from the emperor and was an absolute ruler whose will was law. ● The emperor declared that he wasn’t divine as people thought he was and like Great Britain, the emperor became a symbol of Japan. ● The new constitution guaranteed real political power and people elected a twohouse parliament called “the Diet” ○ Allowed women and citizens over the age of 20 to vote ● There was a constitutional bill of rights that protected basic freedoms like Article 9 that stated that the Japenese couldn’t make war and they could fight if they were attacked. ● In September 1951, the U.S and 47 other nations signed a peace treaty with Japan ending the war.