WWII Vocabulary Appeasement The making of concessions to

WWII Vocabulary

Appeasement • The making of concessions to an aggressor to in order to avoid war

Axis Powers • In WWII, the nations of Germany, Italy, and Japan, which had formed an alliance in 1936

Isolationism • The belief that political ties to other countries should be avoided. Remaining neutral

Third Reich • New German Empire created by Hitler

Munich Conference • Meeting between Germany, France, Britain, and Italy. British PM Chamberlain gave in to Hitler’s demands believing it would prevent war and establish a lasting peace

non-aggression pact • An agreement not to attack each other

Polish corridor • Small portion of Northern Poland that separated Germany from its territory East Prussia. Includes the valuable port city of Danzig

Blitzkrieg • “lightning war” using fast moving airplanes and tanks, followed by massive infantry forces, to take an enemy by surprise

phony war • Seven month time period when French and British troops were fortified at the Maginot line on the French-German border waiting for the Germans to attack

Sitzkrieg • “sitting war” nickname used by the Germans to describe the phony war.

Maginot line • A system of fortifications along France’s border with Germany controlled by the allies at the start of the war.

Siegfried line • A system of fortifications along Germany’s border with France controlled by the axis at the start of the war.

Dunkirk • A French port city on the English channel. Between May 26 -June 4, 1940 British Royal Navy ships and civilian craft carried 338, 000 soldiers to safety in Britain.

Free French • French forces who continued to fight against the Axis powers after the Franco. German Armistice in 1940

Luftwaffe • Germany’s air force

Lend-Lease Act • 1941 Act passed by Congress that would allow President Roosevelt to lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country vital to the United States.

Atlantic Charter • Declaration between Great Britain and America that upheld free trade among nations and self determination. Later served as the allies peace plan at the end of the war

“island hopping” • General Mac. Arthur’s plan to bypass the Japanese fortified islands and instead seize islands that were not well defended but were closer to Japan.

Aryans • To the Nazis, the Germanic peoples who formed a “master race”

Holocaust • The mass slaughter of civilians, especially Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals

Kristallnacht • “Night of Broken Glass” Violent attacks by Nazi storm troopers against the Jewish community on the night of November 9, 1938

Refugee • someone who has been forced to leave their country, especially during a war, or for political or religious reasons

anti-Semitism • Prejudice against Jews

Ghettos • A segregated area of a city where Jews were forced to live usually sealed off with barbed wire or stone fences.

final solution • Hitler’s plan to protect racial purity by eliminating other races, nationalities or groups he view as inferior or “subhuman” They included gypsies, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, the disabled, the incurably ill, and especially Jews.

Genocide • The systematic killing of an entire people

the SS • Hitler’s elite security force that along with thousands of collaborators captured and executed millions during the war.

Auschwitz • the largest and most famous Nazi concentration camp in World War II, which was in Poland. Over a million people, mostly Jews, died in this camp.

Internment • the practice of keeping people in prison during a war or for political reasons, without charging them with a crime. The US interred over 30, 000 Japanese-Americans from 1941 -1946

Kamikaze • Japanese suicide pilots who would sink Allied ships by crashing into them in their bomb filled planes.

Nuremberg Trials • Military Tribunal put the Nazi war criminal on trial for waging a war of aggression, violating the laws of war and committing “crimes against humanity” through the murder of 11 million people.

Demilitarization • Disbanding armed forces at the end of the war

Diet (Japanese Parliament) • Established in 1947 with the adoption of the Japanese constitution. Bicameral legislature, led by a Prime Minister