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Hi I’m John Green and this is Crash Course European History.

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So, On August 23, 1939 the USSR and Germany concluded a non-aggression pact.
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The pact caused shocks across Europe for a couple reasons.
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First, the USSR, while it did conduct extensive trade with Hitler’s Germany, also, like,
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roundly denounced Nazism’s fascism and capitalism.
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And secondly, Hitler had come to power by railing against so-called “Judeo-Bolshevism,”
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a concept that merged anti-Semitism with his attacks on Communism.
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They say that politics makes strange bedfellows.
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But war makes really, really strange bedfellows.
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[Intro] The pact between the USSR and Germany stipulated

Blitzkrieg
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that if one party became involved in a war, the other would remain neutral.
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Secretly, it also divided up Poland and the Baltic states, and also bought Stalin some
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time to repair the USSR’s military leadership, which as you’ll recall had been decimated
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by Stalin’s own purges.
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Another example of tyranny solving the problems that tyranny has created.
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Then, on September 1, 1939, a mere nine days after the pact was signed, German forces launched
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a huge attack on Poland, beginning World War II in Europe.
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Airplanes bombed cities, while tanks and motorized infantry rolled in rapidly as part of an overall
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strategy called Blitzkrieg, or lightning war.
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The idea of Blitzkrieg is that it would do away with the stationary trench warfare, of
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World War I, along with that war’s massive casualties and unending need for material.
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This was supposed to result in lower costs and less suffering for Germans, and by gaining
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lots of new land--living space, or Lebensraum on which to farm and build German industry--Hitler
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would end the German Depression and the humiliation of World War I.
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Of course, it didn’t work out that way.
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One reminder among literal thousands that the promises made before wars are rarely kept.
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As for Poland, Polish armies fought valiantly but were utterly ill-equipped--both because
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the nation was new and because it had far less sophisticated military equipment.
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Britain and France declared war on Germany just two days after the invasion.
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And seventeen days later, as Poland collapsed, the USSR invaded Poland from the east, picking
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up the territory their pact with Germany allowed them.
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By the spring of 1940 after a quiet period called the “phony war,” the Germans proceeded
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to use Blitzkrieg to defeat Norway and Denmark, and then in May and June the Netherlands,
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Belgium, and France.
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These defeats happened so quickly that hundreds of thousands of French and British soldiers
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were trapped in the French port city of Dunkirk; and as the French government surrendered,
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most of those soldiers were rescued by fishing boats and other small craft that came over
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from the British side of the English channel.
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And so of course Hitler’s next target was Britain.
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He ordered an air attack, convinced overwhelming airpower would lay the groundwork for Germany
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to cross the English channel and conquer it.
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And in this moment, I just want to pause to note that , you know, like, we know how World
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War II ends--Philip Roth described history as a field “where everything unexpected
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in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable.”
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And the defeat of Nazism does feel inevitable to us, but imagine how it felt in Europe when
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the Nazi bombing of Britain began in July of 1940.
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I mean, in ten months, Germany had captured all this land.
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And I don’t want to minimize how uncertain the war felt in the minds of those who were
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fighting in it, or living amidst it.
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so during the three month Battle of Britain, the German air force pounded cities and towns,
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industrial sites, and monuments, and over 10,000 British civilians were killed.
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But the British eventually outsmarted the Nazis--partly because of a code-breaking group
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called Ultra that was able to decrypt Nazi attack plans, partly because of the development
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of radar, and partly because the British maintained far higher industrial productivity than Germany
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could achieve.
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But also, contrary to the (always fallible) theory that bombing breaks civilian resolve,
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the British public refused to give in.
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They were fortified by a stalwart royal family and the stirring oratory of Prime Minister
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Winston Churchill, who summoned them to “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” in the cause of
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defending liberty.
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By the fall of 1940, Hitler had quit the failed Battle of Britain.
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But, despite that defeat, he began to plan an even bigger undertaking: the invasion and
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conquest of his erstwhile frenemy the Soviet Union.
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As his generals planned, the seeming invincibility of the German army brought Hungary, Romania,
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and Bulgaria into what was known as the Axis—an alliance centered on the agreement among three
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authoritarian regimes: Germany, Italy, and Japan.
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Britain and its empire had as an ally only the remnants of the French army, which was
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in exile--in fact, many of them were in Britain.
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So Hitler considered himself a military genius,and to him, invading the USSR was a no-brainer.
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Now, his generals wanted a concentrated, targeted attack--an operation called Barbarossa--that
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would take the military directly to Moscow.
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But Hitler demanded a showy two-thousand mile war front entailing attacks across the USSR.
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That turned out to be a mistake.
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Beginning in June 1941, three million German soldiers and others from conquered territories
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rolled toward the USSR, with the enigmatic Stalin disappearing from view for the first
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days of the attack.
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He seemed ill or maybe in denial, even though his agents had provided detailed information
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about German preparations.
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Soon, however, Stalin reappeared, and roused Soviet citizens to an amazing resistance.
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The USSR and Britain became allies, united despite radically different governments by
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their shared existential threat.
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Again, in war, you make weird friends.
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Hitler’s ultimate imperial goal was to colonize Eurasia, from central Europe to the Pacific.
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And the so-called “inferior” inhabitants of this region would be ruled military-style,
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with ideas of rights and citizenship completely discarded.
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And this gets at something really important, which is that racism pervaded every aspect
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of Nazism--
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in two episodes’ time we’ll be discussing the horrors of the Holocaust in detail, but
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racism also pervaded Nazi military planning and concepts of proper governance.
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And so as the German army swept through central and eastern Europe, Hitler ordered tests of
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citizens, promising those who could read good jobs.
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But then literate captives were routinely shot on the spot so they couldn’t provide
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leadership in future resistance, paving the way for military dictatorship.
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The illiterate were more likely to survive, with the idea they would serve as slave workers
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on vast agricultural estates directed by the German elite to provide the German master
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race a better standard of living and plentiful food.
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For a time, the German advance eastward was monumentally successful, especially as anti-Semites
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in captured regions joined in the killing of Jewish neighbors and the theft of their
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property.
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The German army captured, killed, or wounded some 2.25 million Soviet soldiers.
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In total, as many as 47 million Soviet citizens died as a result of World War II.
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For context, around 418,000 Americans died in the war.
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And with such widespread devastation within the Soviet army, leading German military officials
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declared the war virtually won.
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Hitler ordered military production to switch from making winter gear, and tanks, and artillery
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to fight in the Soviet Union, and instead to focus on battleships and planes so they
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could capture territory beyond Europe.
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But the Soviet Union wasn’t defeated, and Soviet officials drove citizen resistance
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mercilessly, including the transport of the USSR’s massive industrial infrastructure
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eastward to escape German attacks.
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Also, the Soviets knew something that the Germans seemed not to: Winter was coming.
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And as the weather grew colder, the German offensive bogged down.
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We’ve said it before and we’ll probably have to say it again: Don’t invade Russia
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in winter.
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Unless you’re the Mongols.

Japan
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That same winter, in December 1941, the Japanese, with imperialist designs similar to those
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of Germany, bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor and U.S. air bases in the Philippines.
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Japan then proceeded to scoop up islands in the Pacific and territory in Southeast Asia
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while also continuing its attack on China.
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“The era of democracy is finished,” Japan’s foreign minister announced along with promises
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that Japan would free Asians and other world citizens from Western tyranny.
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And replace it with...a new kind of tyranny!
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In response, the United States declared war on Japan and joined what came to be called
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the Grand Alliance of the USSR, Britain, the Free French, and several dozen other nations
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against the Axis powers.
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And that meant the balance was extremely lopsided, because Britain and the USSR individually
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produced more weaponry, tanks, and other material than Germany in every year of the war.
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And the United States was also a huge industrial power.
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Japan, meanwhile, had relied on U.S. copper and oil in the years before the war, which
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obviously the U.S. became reluctant to share after war was declared.
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So, the Allies decided on a Europe first strategy, after which they would turn to take on the
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Japanese.
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Stalin pushed for the Allies to open a European western front to divide Axis resources that
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up to now were targeting the USSR almost exclusively.
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But Churchill, aiming to protect the British empire, demanded that priority go elsewhere,
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specifically to the southern Mediterranean and the Middle East, which was flush with
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oil.
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In the Middle East and North Africa, German general Erwin Rommel’s motorized armies
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moved rapidly and successfully against the Allies--arguably too successfully, as their
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supply lines couldn’t keep up with them.
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Also, critically , the code-breaking skills of the Allies tipped them off to German movements.
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By the fall of 1942, Algeria and Morocco were under Allied control.
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But still, Churchill insisted on not opening a western front, and under his influence the
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Allies instead launched a costly invasion of Italy in 1943 that lasted until April 1945.
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Amid these developments, in 1942-1943, the USSR fought the expensive and agonizing battle
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of Stalingrad, important because of its industry and its role as a shipping hub.
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Hitler decreed that on victory all men in the city would be executed and all women deported.
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In house-to-house fighting, massive German bombing, and horrific ground warfare, some
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two million people were killed and wounded including tens of thousands of civilians.The
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USSR eventually emerged from this nightmare victorious and it was a huge turning point
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in the war.
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The Soviets proceeded to move westward across the continent toward Germany.
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Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
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1.
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then president of the United States,
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2.
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finally insisted on the cross-Channel invasion of France in Normandy, which began in June
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1944.
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3.
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Allied forces disembarked from landing craft to confront German firepower from the well-fortified
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shores.
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4.
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But because of Allied disinformation campaigns,
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5.
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the Germans had not sufficiently massed their forces on those specific beaches.
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6.
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Paratroopers dropped from the sky behind the German lines
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7. and together with troops moving from the beaches
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8. began the eastward march toward Paris and Berlin.
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9. then in July 1944 a group of elite German military men made an attempt on Hitler’s
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life,
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10. an attempt that failed to kill Hitler but did increase his erratic and paranoid
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behavior.
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11.
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A bloodbath followed, leading to the torture and murder of hundreds of the plotters, their
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families, and completely unaffiliated Germans.
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12.
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Some downplay the importance of this plot—
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13.
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there were several plots against Hitler during his rise and reign--
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14.
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but other historians point out that had the plot succeeded,
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15.
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it might have saved the lives of the five million Germans who died in the last nine
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months of the war
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16. along with millions more Allied soldiers and other civilians who also perished.
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17.
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Regardless, as Allied forces advanced from east and west,
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18.
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Hitler came to see the Germans as a nation unfit for the superior destiny he was forging
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for them.
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19.
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But he refused to talk peace.
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20.
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Moreover, the Germans themselves were experiencing the deprivation and losses of their loved
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ones
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21.
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that Hitler had promised would never happen.
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22.
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Greatness was not materializing.

Thought Bubble
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Thanks Thought Bubble.
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As the Allies descended on Berlin, in the spring of 1945, Hitler and his wife Eva Braun
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killed themselves, as did other high-ranking officials.
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At about the same time, resistance fighters captured Italian leader Benito Mussolini along
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with his mistress Clara Petacci, shot them, and hung their bodies upside down on the roof
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of a gas station for public display.
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On May 7th, 1945, Germany surrendered.
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The next day was celebrated as “Victory Europe” Day or VE Day.
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But World War II was not over, because the Allies were confronting the Japanese in the
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Pacific, moving to reclaim islands and their people from Japanese rule.
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Their first significant move was to destroy elements of Japan’s navy at the battles
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of Midway Island and Guadalcanal.
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These significant advances allowed the Allies to control the movement of supplies and troops
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in the Pacific.
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And then, there was the atom bomb.
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Almost since the beginning of the war, an international team of scientists had been
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working on creating the atom bomb.
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The code name for the secret venture was the Manhattan Project.
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Once developed and tested, actual use of the bomb was hotly debated--not least because
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people did not yet know--and in fact still do not fully know--the long-term environmental
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and human consequences of atomic bombs.
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But also, the short term consequences were known to be horrendous.
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Ultimately, it was decided to drop an atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.
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On August 9th, a second bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki.
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By August 15th, Japan had surrendered.
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Around 20,000 Japanese soldiers died in the bombing of Hiroshima; only 150 died in Nagasaki.
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Over 100,000 civilians died in the bombings.
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So, the course of World War II unfolded among heads of state and diplomats, among soldiers
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suffering cruel deprivation and death on the frozen battlefields of the USSR and the roasting
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deserts of Northern Africa, in the labor, death, and refugee camps of Eurasia, and in
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the lives of often terrified civilians.
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Among all of these, new research speculates that the global death toll may have reached
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as high as 100 million people, nearly five percent of all humans on Earth at the time.
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War is hell.
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Don’t forget it.
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And yet how else could the world respond to totalitarian aggression?
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When we consider the big question--which wars are “worth it” and why--let’s not forget
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to shift perspectives.
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I mean, the value of a war changes if you’re an arms manufacturer, or if you’re a schoolteacher
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murdered for being literate.
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We’ll try to examine some of those perspectives in detail next time.
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Thanks for watching.
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I’ll see you then.