Notes WWII

Tensions between the United States and Germany had been tense since the end of World War I. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler saw the United States as a weak yet overbearing nation that consistently meddled in the affairs of other nations. Hitler saw the USA as an ideological enemy, racially mixed and therefore inferior. Hitler rationalized his motives for carrying out WWII with the repercussions of WWI. The Nazi Party believed that the Treaty of Versailles was the destruction of German pride and success at the hands of the Allied nations. Under the agreement, Germany was allowed to possess no submarines, no military aircraft, and only a few naval vessels. The nation was also forbidden to once again unite with Austria, or create any more secret treaties. And to top it off, Germany had to make reparation payments to the nations that it had attacked. In 1933, Hitler and the Nazi Party were able to take control of the German government and immediately set about undoing the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler immediately set about rebuilding Germany’s military forces, to levels that far exceeded the maximum set forth in the Treaty of Versailles. The nation also began to rebuild prohibited military equipment such as military aircraft, tanks, naval vessels, and artillery.
When the war began, the United States had entered a period of isolationism. Americans viewed the conflict as Europe’s problem and wished to keep it that way. However, as the situation in Europe grew increasingly dire, the United States began to slowly edge toward war. The breaking point, of course, was the sudden attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. However, in retrospect, the attack may not have been such a sudden and unforeseen event. Tensions between the United States and Japan had been consistently escalating for several years before the attack. While the United States was suffering through the economic meltdown of the Great Depression, Japan was fervently digging its way out of a financial crisis of its own.