The Home Front and Aftermath
Jordan Barbo, Colin Mathews, and Michael Nehme
United States Homefront
Racial Tensions in The United States
Japanese Americans faced several more serious difficulties. On the West Coast, 110,000 Japanese Americans, with 65% of them being born in the U.s., were soon removed to camps surrounded by barbed wire and required to take loyalty oaths. Public Officials deemed this to be necessary for security reasons.
Russia- Homefront
Russia- Aftermath
Germany
Hitler ordered a massive increase of armaments and the size of the army in 1942. He put his architect, Albert Speer, in charge of the minister for armaments and munitions. Speer tripled the production of armaments between 1942-43 despite the Allied Forces air raids.
Total Mobilization of the economy was put into effect in July 1944. Schools, theaters, and cafes were all closed.
Women gained more credit during the war and gain a slight increase in the amount of women in the working industry.
Japan
The bombing of civilians reached a new level with the use of the first atomic bomb. The crowded cities were built flimsy and very vulnerable to flames. The new US B-29 Superfortresses had begun attacks on Japan in 1944. By the summer of 1945 many of Japan's industries had been destroyed. The Japanese government decreed the mobilization of all people between the ages of 13 and 60 into a People's Volunteer Corps. Fearing high US casualties, President Truman decided to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Great Britain
Peace and a New War
Tehran Conference
Yalta Conference
- The Big Three again met in the Yalta Conference in 1945 to discuss the repossession of Eastern and much of Central Europe by the Russians. Stalin was suspicious of the Western Powers and wanted to protect the Soviet Union, so he created Pro-Soviet Governments along the border of the Soviet Union.
- Roosevelt, favored the idea of self determination for Europe. It involved a pledge to help liberate Europe in the Creation of "democratic institution of their own choices." Liberated countries would hold free elections to determine their political systems. The United Nations was also created here.
- They decided Germany would be divided into 4 zones, which would be occupied and governed by the military forces of the U.s, Great Britain, France, and Soviet Union.
- The issue of free elections in Eastern Europe caused a serious split between the Soviets and Americans. The thought Stalin may not honor this provision, which became evident at the Potsdam Conference.
Potsdam Conference
- Harry Truman, succeeded Roosevelt after his death, demanded free elections throughout Eastern Europe. Stalin said that a freely elected government would be anti-soviet and that we cannot allow.
- The Soviets lost more people than anyone else in the war and Stalin wanted absolute military security. he thought the only security could be the presence of Communist states in Eastern Europe.
A New Struggle
Churchill described this conflict by saying "an iron curtain has decided across the continent" dividing Europe.