Europe and Japan in Ruins

1. Europe and Japan in Ruins Chapter 32-5

2. Setting the Stage • Visualize the fighting that took place in Europe and Asia in order to defeat the Axis powers. What do you think happened to the countryside where these battles were fought. • Over 60 million people were killed, 50 million were uprooted from their homes, and damages would cost billions of dollars to repair.

3. Devastation in Europe • Very few great European cities escaped destruction. • Warsaw, Poland’s capital, for example, had a pre-war population of 1.3 million. • By 1945, its population was 153,000 people. • Berlin was 95% destroyed.

4. Devastation in Europe • After the bombing and fighting has passed, some civilians attempted to stay in the ruins of their homes, while others took to the road as displaced persons. • Displaced persons included survivors of concentration camps, returning prisoners of war, and refugees from cities that often found themselves stuck in the wrong country with no way home. • For holocaust survivors, returning home and finding lost family members was an obsession that all too often proved fruitless.

5. Devastation in Europe • Europe continued to be devastated well after the war as economies had been disrupted. • Factories were destroyed, women had taken jobs in them while men fought in the war, and there was often no one left to plant fields to stave off hunger.

6. Postwar Governments and Politics • Governmental change was common across Europe for a number of reasons. • Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, now beaten, clearly needed different leadership. • Other countries that the Nazis had taken over, such as France, had significant amounts of Communists in them that had helped to beat the Nazis. • Communism still offered its followers equality, jobs, food, and a “classless society” and many in postwar Europe were attracted to this idea because their entire lives had been destroyed. • A series of violent strikes in line with the Communist idea of revolution turned many people away from Communism.

7. The Nuremberg Trials • While Europe rebuilt itself, the surviving 22 members of the Nazi leadership was put on trial by an international military tribunal for “crimes against humanity.” • Hitler, Heinrich Himmler (architect of the Holocaust), and several others had already committed suicide and cheated the hangman.

8. The Nuremberg War Trials:Crimes Against Humanity

9. Postwar Japan • Much like Europe, Japan was in shambles as well, having been firebombedrepeatedly, let alone the results of the two atomic bombs.

10. Occupied Japan • Hoping to avoid planting the seeds of a future war, American General Douglas MacArthur of Island Hopping fame tried to ensure peace. • He did however preside over a total demilitarizationof Japan that still lasts to a great extent today. • 25 War criminals were tried, and six total were hanged for war crimes. • Just as in Germany, however, many that were “important” were protected and employed by the Allies in such industries and biological and chemical warfare, rocket science, and other military pursuits. • The Emperor was also protected by American leadership in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials.

11. Japanese War Crimes Trials General Hideki Tojo Bio-Chemical Experiments

12. Occupied Japan • MacArthur also focused on the democratization of Japan, and the traditional monarchy system was replaced with a constitutional monarchy like Great Britain. • MacArthur also encouraged the sale of land held by nobles to the Japanese peasants to equalize the Japanese economy and promote individual growth.

13. Occupation Brings Deep Changes • The greatest change to impact Japan was in regards to the Emperor himself. During WWII, he was God on earth, and over one million Japanese sacrificed their lives for his sake, as an honorable death for the emperor was a direct pass to heaven. • Despite this fact, after WWII, Emperor Hirohito was no longer a divine (God-sent) ruler and his power was reduced sharply.

14. Occupation Brings Deep Changes • The new Japanese government gave the people the true ruling power, including women (largely because of the input of a woman on MacArthur’s staff). • A Bill of Rights protected Japan’s freedoms. • Legislators were elected, and they in turn chose the Prime Minister that would serve as Japan’s version of a president. • Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution forbade Japan to ever make war unless attacked first.

15. Occupation Brings Deep Changes • In 1951, Japan was given back its independence, ending the occupation of American forces, and beginning a long military, economic, and social partnership with the US. Interestingly enough, Allies also became enemies soon after WWII as the competing ideologies of democracy and communism began to square off over who would dominate the postwar world.