NY State Curriculum Notes   

World War II—causes and impact

1. Human and physical geography

2. The Nazi and Japanese states

3. Key individuals—Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt

4. Key events—Dunkirk, the Blitz, D-Day, Hitler’s second front, the war in the Pacific

5. The Nazi Holocaust: the extermination of Jews, Poles, other Slavs, Gypsies, disabled,  and others

6. Resistance

7. Japan’s role—Nanjing, Bataan, Pearl Harbor

8 . War in China—Long March

9. Impacts of technology on total war

10.Hiroshima and Nagasaki

11.War crime trials

12.Global spatial arrangements—post- World War II world

• What roles did Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini play in the outcome of World War II?

• As nations moved toward war, what roles did individual citizens play in the Third Reich and in Western democracies?

• To what extent did science and technology redefine the latter half of the 20th century?

• How did geography affect the conduct of World War II?

• In what ways did the Germans, Soviets, British, French, and Americans view the causes of World War II differently?

Suggested Documents: Maps, World War II photographs, Teaching About the Holocaust and Genocide : The Human Rights Series Volumes I-III (New York State Education Department); Benito Mussolini, Fascist Doctrines; Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Thomas Mann, An Appeal to Reason, Rudolf Hess, Commandant of Auschwitz; Elie Wiesel, Reflections of a Survivor; Winston Churchill, “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat ” speech; John Hersey, Hiroshima