Global Studies: First Quarter

The Shoah

• Hitler’s Third Reich called to expand territory for Germans (Aryan Race)

• Leader of the Nazi special police

• Removed Slavs, Poles, and Roma (Gypsies) from their land

Nuremberg Laws

• In 1942 The SS initiated their plan to exterminate the Jewish people

• Shooting Jews and burying them in mass graves => Labor Camps => Death Camps

• 6 million Jews

• 5 million others of various ethnic groups

Three Men Decide the Future of Europe

• February 1945

• Stalin reveals his does not trust his allies

• Germany’s defeat is inevitable

• Differing views of what the fate of Europe (and the World Should be)

• Demanded influence over countries in Eastern Europe to create a buffer

• Eastern European countries should rule independently and through a democratic process

• Urged Russia to support American in fight against Japan

• Vague terms of agreement

• All three agreed there should be an international organization to settle international disputes peacefully

​

• Four Allies rose to power after World War 2

• USA, UK, France and Soviet Union divided Germany into four occupation zones

• Berlin (the capital) was also divided into four zones. It was completely surrounded by Soviet Germany

• France, UK, and USA proposed a new West Germany be formed

• Russia felt threatened and blocked Berlin from the rest of German

• United States effort to feed and clothe isolated Berliners

• 321 day blockade was ended

• 12 Western Nations feared Soviet aggression

• USA, Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Iceland, and Portugal

• Greece, Turkey, West Germany, and Spain would later join

• Established in April 1949

• Headquartered in Brussels

• Soviet response to NATO

• Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland Romania

• Southeast Asia Treat Organization

• Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and USA

• Central Treaty Organization

• Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey

• Vast majority of countries in the world were neutral

• Warsaw Pact was dissolved in 1991

• NATO still exists and continues to expand

MAD, Space Race, and Espionage

• From 1945-1958, the United States dominated in the use of the atomic bomb

• 1959, USSR tested the first ICBM

• The Amount of nuclear bombs became overwhelming

• No matter who attacked first both sides (and maybe even the world) would be destroyed

• The United States and the Soviet Union used MAD to maintain a balance of power