World War II: Consequences and Aftermath

• World War II had lasting global consequences and claimed 55 to 62 million lives, leaving millions homeless.
• The European economy collapsed after World War II, with 70% of its industrial infrastructure destroyed.
• Unlike World War I, no formal peace treaty ratified Germany's defeat in World War II, and the Allies didn't demand compensation
• The Marshall Plan was created by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, it aimed to rebuild Europe by allocating billions of dollars from the U.S. Congress.
• The war triggered major changes, including redrawing European borders, the communist takeover of China and Eastern Europe, the creation of Israel, and the division of Germany and Korea.
• Geopolitical power shifted away from Western and Central Europe, leading to a bipolar world dominated by the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
• Independence movements in African, Asian, and American colonies gained strength
• The League of Nations failed to prevent the war, leading to the creation of the United Nations in 1945.

Global Organizations

• The World Bank, World Trade Organization (WTO), and International Monetary Fund (IMF) came into being.
• Democratic governments formed in Western Allied-occupied areas, while communist governments formed in Soviet-occupied areas.
• Germany was divided into American, British, French (West Germany), and Soviet (East Germany) zones.
• The Cold War began, leading to the formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
• Allied conferences in Casablanca, Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam focused on wartime alliances and defeating the Axis powers from January 1943 to July 1945.
• Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta in February 1945 to discuss plans to end the war and the future of Eastern Europe.
• The Yalta Conference resulted in the decision to divide Germany into American, British, French, and Russian military zones.
• Allied powers met at Potsdam in July 1945 and agreed on a peace settlement with Germany, as well as plans for Japan's surrender and occupation.
• In April 1945, 50 nations signed the charter to establish the United Nations (UN).

War Crime Trials

• War crime trials address acts of genocide or mass killings of civilian populations in territories occupied by major powers, including Germany, Japan, the U.S., and the Soviet Union.
• Nazi concentration camps were sites of massacres, with camps specializing in forced labor, starvation, and extermination. Auschwitz was the largest and most infamous.
• Approximately 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
• War Crimes Trials prosecute individuals for criminal violations of the laws and customs of war, and international law.
• The first war crimes trials in modern times were held after World War II to prosecute German and Japanese war criminals, most notably in Nuremberg and Tokyo.
• The Nuremberg Trial in 1946 was the most well known war crimes trial, it was held in Nuremberg, the former site of Nazi propaganda triumphs.
• The London Agreement of 1945 categorized crimes into crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
• On October 18, 1945, chief prosecutors lodged an indictment with the tribunal, charging 24 individuals with crimes, including aggressive wars, extermination, murder, mistreatment, and deportation to slave labor.
• The sentence was announced on October 1, 1946, with three defendants freed, seven receiving terms from ten years to life, and twelve sentenced to death.
• Goring committed suicide before his scheduled execution. Those condemned to death were executed in October 1946.
• The Tokyo trial was held under international authority to try leaders of the Empire of Japan for the same three types of crimes.
• The Tokyo trial opened on May 3, 1946, and concluded on November 12, 1948. 25 Japanese military and political leaders and over 300,000 Japanese nationals faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The United Nations

• The UN is an international organization based on the sovereign equality of its member states, forbidden from intervening in their internal affairs.
• The UN's goals are maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, and achieving international cooperation on economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian issues.
• UN member states pledge to settle international disputes peacefully and refrain from the threat or use of force.
• The U.S. Congress invited the UN to establish its headquarters in New York with the General Assembly meeting annually.
• The six principal organs of the UN are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat.
• The General Assembly represents all member states but has less power than the Security Council. The General Assembly appoints standing and temporary committees, like the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and UNICEF.
• The Security Council maintains international peace and security and has fifteen members, including five permanent members (the U.S., Russia, Great Britain, France, and China), each with veto power.
• The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) focuses on the problems of developing nations and coordinates the UN's economic and social activities through specialized agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO), UNESCO, FAO, and ILO.
• The Trusteeship Council supervised territories under the international trusteeship system, including former colonies of Germany, Italy, Japan, and League of Nation mandates until 1945.
• The International Court of Justice, situated in The Hague, is the judicial body of the UN, hearing cases referred by UN members with fifteen judges elected for nine-year terms.
• The Secretariat, led by a secretary general appointed for a five-year term, serves as the administrative organ of the UN.
• Post-war Europe divided into the "West" (influenced by the USA) and the "Eastern Bloc" (dominated by the Soviet Union).
• Western Europe included countries liberated by the Western Allies, Italy, and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), almost all of whom received assistance from the United States through the Marshall Plan.
• The U.S. was initially hesitant to participate in European affairs but entered into active participation due to the risk of the Soviet Union dominating Europe.
• This policy shifted power into a bipolar format, leading to rivalry with the Soviet Union.

Economic Recovery and Division

• The U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed aid to speed European recovery, known as European Recovery Program (ERP) or the Marshall Plan, however the Soviet bloc rejected.
• The Marshall Plan made possible a miraculous economic recovery in the West for a number of reasons:
  • Europe had been a great market for American goods
  • Without a prosperous Europe, the United States might have suffered a severe economic depression
  • Western Europe would be open to influence by the Soviet Union
  • Germany should be integrated into a larger Europe and it should be used as a buffer against Soviet expansion
• On April 3, 1948, President Truman approved the law for the European Recovery Program (ERP, Marshall Plan), of which participants established the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) based in Paris.
• The largest amounts of money went to Britain, France, Italy, and West Germany.
• US Congress granted over $13 billion in aid. Funds shifted into military expenditures rather than industrial rebuilding as Cold War tensions rose in 1949.
• The Marshall Plan greatly assisted in European economic recovery after the war and promoted economic co-operation.
• As the aid ended in 1952: Communist control of Western Europe had been averted, the region's industrial production stood 35 percent above pre-war levels, and West Germany was independent, rearming, and economically booming.
• The Marshall Plan increased co-operation of European states among themselves.
• Eastern European countries fell under Nazi occupation or allied with the Nazi regime, with Soviet troops occupying all but Yugoslavia and Albania towards the end of the war.
• After the war, Stalin imposed communist governments in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.
• The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, said in 1946, “an iron curtain has descended across the continent," separating Eastern and Western Europe, describing a policy of isolation that prevented travel and communication between the two regions.
• The Soviet Union created the Molotov Plan in 1947 (named after Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov) to aid in rebuilding countries in Eastern Europe that were politically and economically aligned with the Soviet Union.
• The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON or CMEA) was formed in January 1949 to create an economic alliance of socialist countries: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union.
• Later, Albania, East Germany, Republic of Mongolia, Cuba, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Angola, and Ethiopia also joined. In 1973, Finland signed a cooperation agreement with COMECON.

Classifications

• Countries were classified as Third World, North, and South in addition to to the postwar East and West divisions.
• The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact.
• The “First World” was the USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Western European nations and their allies
• The Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and their allies consituted the "Second World"
• The Third World is normally seen to include many countries with colonial pasts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, and is being replaced with terms such as developing countries, least developed countries, or the Global South