World War 2 info please help me Thank you?

Question

Will you please explain to me what an expansionist is? What does it mean for Germany to be expansionists? Why was WWII so significant for the U.S. today? What did it mean politically, economically, etc...?

Answer 1

your school's library probably has all the information you're looking for

Answer 2

An expansionist is a person involving or guiding in expansionism. Expansionism is a nation's practice of territorial or economical expansion. Germany wanted to expand it's boundaries and have all races be the same. They believed that their ideas were supreme and that it should be expanded. If the US had not entered the war, the atrocities committed towards the people would have just increased. Europe would not be where it was today. Politically... they're just asking you how it affected you politically.. I'm not sure I'm too keen on that part.. and i don't want to mislead you.. sorry:(

Answer 3

Expansionist is basically: I want more land, so I'll take it.
Germany (lead by Hitler) wanted more land (a.k.a. "Living space"), so they spread out and took more land using military force.
WWII is significant for the U.S. because due to the WW, several things happened such as: -The UN was established -The relations for the USSR and the US were set up for the Cold War -It led to the 50's era, which came with it many modern ideas and inventions. -Economically, it set the US as the top economy -The US stayed the world power (it was mainly established as a world super-power after WWI)

Answer 4

I can't answer the first part but the second. WWll gave America a great influence in Western Europe, being the most powerful of the western allies. Yet, it also brought the cold war with the USSR. due to the devasted state of Germany and France and other countries America's economy greatly grew by supplying these other countries.

Answer 5

well traditionally germans have always had a fear of encirclement. with aggressive neighbors to the east and west - germany was the battlefield for many many conflicts.

germany was invaded many times by france for instance and was the doormat upon which other monumental conflicts, such as the 30 years war, was fought upon.

hitler's gift was to be able to coin phrases that were catchy, stuck to the mind well and were easy to remember.

phrases like 'liebenstraum' (or liebensraum) meant 'elbow room.' and hard nosed fiscal conservatives like gustav krupp would go about repeating such rubbish as 'where there is planing, filings fall' with regards to the 3rd reich's wreckless spending prior to the war.

the nazis played very effectively with the language, coining clever and repeatable phrases which at the same shaped public opinion about critical issues.

hitler would make a big deal out of yearly rallies held in nuremburg, a city that was notably teutonic. germans thrilled to hearing their brave leader who had given them back their pride - railing on about the wrongs of the world and speaking of how germans and germany would right them all.

this was training for the population.

so was keeping an enemy always close. one that needed some sort of special treatment - because 'this' situation was different and this enemy had to be dealt with in the most severe of measures.

so hitler (softened by previous rulers) eroded the rights of german citizens - while they cheered their leader for being strong and showing the bad guys who was boss.

so, when hitler declared himself dictator, germans cheered even louder.

when hitler conquered austria without a shot being fired, he was considered a genius.

but when the general mobilization occured and hitler started first a one front and then two front (really three if you include africa, which you should) germans found themselves neatly stripped of their rights, and powerless to do anything while this madman proceded to start the war that would result in the deaths of 55 million people.

there are some parallels between the nazis and some aspects of what is happening in the usa, but if bush were going to have declared himself dictator, he should have already done it.

bush like hitler does like loyalty oaths.

the neocons like the nazis, like propaganda - particularly the part where they form public opinion by making certain words (like liberal) dirty words.

but in the end, any real comparison will be invalid.

nazis were brutally efficient, and walked with the same lockstep in 1945 that they did in 1936. when they set out to do something, generally, they did it - for good or bad.

it took the armies of the usa, britain, france and the ussr to finally wrest control europe from the nazis at a terrible cost.

the neocons couldn't even evacuate the sick and old from new orleans five days after a hurricane...

Answer 6

Expansionist would be taking over a country and annexii\ng or colonizing it..Ex: Iraq attacking Kuwait

Answer 7

You may add that in the course of the war the nuclear weapons were developed as well as jet and rocket technology, which definitely would make its consequences last till today and well into the future

Answer 8

Expansionism is expanding the territorial base or economic influence of a country, usually by means of military aggression. another term is "empire building".

Germany's reason for their action was to "reclaim" lost territories after WW1 . After the first war the Allies enacted the Versailles Treaty. This treaty was meant to punish Germany for it's aggression. Germany's territories were then "liberated" and divided and Germany was made to pay war reparation to England & France.

After the first war not even one of any of the allied force has either entered or set foot in Germany. This peace proposal was meant to make Germany smaller, weaker and bitter. But still very much capable of bouncing back right on it's feet to regain it's lost glory, as evidenced by the second world war.

After WW1 the U.S. industries and banks invested heavily in the build up of Europe, especially in Germany. But as the Great Depression descended a lot of these U.S. industries & banks withdrew from heavy investments or if not lost their investments in Europe.
You will be surprised as to who were the big businesses who invested heavily in Germany. To name some there was Standard Oil in partnership with Interssen Gemeinschaft Farben or I.G. Farben. Opel & General Motors with Ford Motor Co. & International Telegraph & Telephone or I.T.T. to name a few.

It was Charles Dawes, an American banker who facilitated the first $800 million dollar loan to I.G. Farben in 1924 to consolidate huge chemical & steel companies into one huge cartel. Dillon, Read & Co.; Harris, Forbes & Co.; and National City all Wall Street brokers handled three-quarters of the loans used to create these cartels. To note, it was one of I.G. Farben's subsidiaries, who was responsible for the manufacture of "Zyklon B" the gas used in the mass exterminations in Aushwitz, Hoescht & the rest. I.G. Farben was into chemicals before WW1 and was also the manufacturer of chlorine gas used extensively in WW1. Henry Ford had even merged his German assets with that of I.G. Farben

Germany had no local source for gasoline, since it has no known oilfields to exploit. Hence germany's loss in WW1. Germany had to import gasoline from foreign sources heavily draining it's coffers thus adversely affecting it's war efforts.

But in 1909 a process to produce gasoline from coal, called "hydrogenation" was discovered. Coal being in abundance in Germany made it an attractive venture for one American company, STANDARD OIL, the same company owned by John D. Rockefeller.

Here are some of the names of other companies formerly under the Standard Oil name (note that these are all existing companies today)
a) Exxon/Mobil - known as Standard of New Jersey & Standard of New York respectively
b) ConocoPhilips - this Conoco represents Standard's oil companies in the Rocky Mountain States
c) Amoco & Sohio - formerly known as Standard of Indiana & Standard of Ohio BUT is now called BP of North America
d) Chevron - formerly Standard of Califonia. Also known now as ChevronTexaco in most Southern states and Texas.
e) Atlantic Richfield - also part of what is now BP of North America
f) Marathon - umbrella company for other Standard companies in Western Ohio and those not under Sohio.

It was in 1927 when Standard Oil agreed to finance this project by embarking into a cooperative program in research & development in order to refine & produce oil for Germany to use in preparation for another war. Finally in 1929 Standard & I.G. Farben signed a cartel agreement wherein the following were the conditions:
1) "the cartel agreement granted Standard Oil one-half of all rights to the hydrogenation process in all countries of the world except Germany."
2) "never to compete with each other in the fields of chemistry and petroleum products. In the future, if Standard Oil wished to enter the broad field of industrial chemicals or drugs, it would do so only as a partner of Farben."
3) "Farben, in turn, agreed never to enter the field of petroleum except as a joint venture with Standard."

Standard Oil went into the refining business as well by building a large refinery located in the Hamburg Harbor. Standard also invested 10,000,000 German marks in oil exploration using Vacuum Oil Company.

By the end of WW2, Germany was already producing 75% of it's gasoline requirements. During the war I.G. Farben's plants were spared from the bombing attacks by the Allies, leaving only 15% of their refineries damaged.

Mind boggling isn't it. But wait there's more.

In 1932 the presidential elections were heating up. Hoover tagged as "anti big business" was gunning for re-election. He was approached by Henry Harriman, then president of the American Chamber of Commerce, asking Hoover to support the National Industry Recovery Act & National Recovery Administration. Hoover's reply was that the plan was just like Mussolini's fascism style of governance and Hoover outrightly was against it. This proposals were meant to have government control over the business world.

Roosevelt was for the "little guy", the ordinary man in the street, what with underemployment or for the lack of it during the Great Depression, this strategy by Roosevelt won him that election.

Did you know that there was a plot to seize the White House during Roosevelt's term?

Between 1932 & 1933 Major General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps was approached by rich & influential businessmen namely Grayson Mallet-Provost Murphy, a director of Guaranty Trust, a J.P. Morgan Bank, Robert S. Clark, a banker who had inherited a large fortune from a founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company & John W. Davis, the 1924 Democratic candidate for President and the chief attorney for J.P. Morgan and Company.

The plan was to move the United States into the area of government control over factors of production. One method in achieving such was to engage in a war, that war is what we now call WW2.

Other U.S. owned companies doing big business in Germany during the 1930's were:
1) The DuPonts of Dupont U.S.A. - they engaged in the manufacture of armaments with I.G. Farben.
2) International Harvester Company - also into manufacturing of arms
3) General Motors & Ford Motors - partnered with Opel, Germany's main manufacturer of army tanks.
4) Several aircraft companies in coo[eration with the German Company Krupps.
5) I.T.T - in tandem with German Focke-Wolfe meant that I.T.T. was manufacturing airplanes or it's components which were also used by the Germans to kill our very own soldiers.

Vice versa the same I.G. Farben had interests in investments in U.S. bsaed companies like I.T.T. & International General Electric. Meaning that part of Germany's funding for WW2 directly came from the U.S.

Such is the significance of politics & most specially economics in relation to war, any kind of war big or small for that matter. I hope that we as citizens will wake up and tell this government of ours to stop sending our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters friends and families to war, just to serve the whims of a selected few. We cannot blame our BRAVE MEN & WOMEN serving their tours in Iraq or Afghanistan since it is their sworn duty to follow the commander-in-chief for whatever self serving reasons our president and his advisers may have.

But we can do something NOW and that is to CLAMOR FOR THE END of this so called justice by war.

PEACE!