Deck 33: World War Ii and the Holocaust, 1933-1945

Question 1

Which of these remained neutral in World War II?

A) Spain
B) Bulgaria
C) Austria
D) Vichy France

Answer 1

Spain

Question 2

Chamberlain boasted of finally achieving "peace in our time" after

A) the signing of the Versailles Treaty.
B) the Paris peace conference.
C) the Munich Conference.
D) the D-Day invasion.

Answer 2

the Munich Conference.

Question 3

Who replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister of Britain in early 1940?

A) Clement Attlee
B) Robert Peel
C) Benjamin Disraeli
D) Winston Churchill

Answer 3

Winston Churchill

Question 4

The leader of the Free French during WW II was

A) Ferdinand Foch.
B) Marshal Pétain.
C) Edouard Deladier.
D) Charles de Gaulle.

Question 5

In arguing for self-determination in the Sudetenland, Hitler was appealing to

A) nationalist sentiment.
B) Italian solidarity.
C) the United Nations.
D) anti-Semitism.

Question 6

In the 1930s it became clear to everyone that the League of Nations

A) would enforce international law.
B) was corrupt.
C) had no power.
D) was the main threat to world peace.

Question 7

The Sudetenland was the westernmost area of

A) Poland.
B) Germany.
C) Czechoslovakia.
D) France.

Question 8

The policy of appeasement in the 1930s was influenced most heavily by

A) the Cold War.
B) animosity towards Communism.
C) the experience of World War I.
D) support for military options.

Question 9

In 1935, Mussolini announced that he was creating a "New Roman Empire" after his invasion of

A) Morocco.
B) Greece.
C) Yugoslavia.
D) Ethiopia.

Question 10

On the eve of WWII, which European country was plagued by civil war?

A) France
B) Spain
C) Italy
D) Denmark

Question 11

The relationship between Hitler and Mussolini improved because, after Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, Italy needed, and German could provide

A) munitions.
B) oil.
C) coal.
D) food.

Question 12

Which of these was the question raised by the Spanish Civil War?

A) Was Spain about to become a Communist nation?
B) Was Russia willing to aid other nations that might adopt Communism?
C) Was Germany was willing to defy international opinion?
D) Would the Western democracies oppose dictators?

Question 13

The Anschluss was Germany's

A) union with Austria.
B) alliance with Italy.
C) union with Japan.
D) invasion of Poland.

Question 14

Hitler relied on bombing in the Battle of Britain because

A) most of British industry was close to continental Europe.
B) Britain had no way of detecting approaching aircraft.
C) the Royal Navy blocked an assault by sea.
D) Britain had virtually no air force.

Question 15

What made the fall of France so shocking?

A) France had signed a non-aggression pact with Germany.
B) The French army had been considered a bastion of democracy against fascist aggression.
C) England made no effort to support France militarily.
D) France had not been invaded for four hundred years.

Question 16

What limited the effectiveness of League of Nations' sanctions against Italy?

A) The League never had any intention of forcing the sanctions.
B) The sanctions were not enforceable against non-members.
C) The sanctions were ignored by the League's members.
D) Britain and France overruled the sanctions.

Question 17

The assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss led to

A) the Rome-Berlin Axis.
B) the formation of the Axis powers.
C) Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland.
D) tension between Hitler and Mussolini.

Question 18

The goal of the Anschluss was to

A) punish Austria for its part in World War I.
B) unific German peoples.
C) isolate Italy.
D) give Germans lebensraum in lands of inferior Slavs.

Question 19

Hitler invade Poland because he believed that

A) England and France, having sold out on Czechoslovakia, would not fight to defend Poland.
B) the Soviet Union was too weak to interfere.
C) the League of Nations would support his actions.
D) the Poles themselves wanted Anschluss with Germany.

Question 20

Which countries supported Franco in the Spanish Civil War?

A) Britain and France
B) Portugal and Holland
C) Belgium and Portugal
D) Germany and Italy

Question 21

When the Nazis initially invaded the Soviet Union

A) the Soviets were well prepared.
B) Stalin launched a counter-attack.
C) they were welcomed by many as liberators.
D) Hitler focused his attack on a single objective, Moscow.

Question 22

Who led the Allies to victory in Africa?

A) Erwin Rommel
B) George Patton
C) Bernard Montgomery
D) Dwight Eisenhower

Question 23

Japan's primary goal in invading Manchuria was the region's

A) rich natural resources.
B) proximity to Russia.
C) modern port facilities.
D) historical ties to Japan.

Question 24

Which battle's remains are visible from outer space even today?

A) Stalingrad
B) Kursk
C) Midway
D) El Alamein

Question 25

Who was the leader of Hitler's forces in Africa?

A) Hermann Göring
B) Joseph Goebbels
C) Erwin Rommel
D) Bernard Montgomery

Question 26

Japan's strategy failed at Midway because

A) Nimitz had intercepted Japanese intelligence.
B) several American battleships were on routine training missions.
C) assistance from the Luftwaffe never arrived.
D) they ran out of supplies.

Question 27

The Soviet troops famously fought house-by-house at the battle of

A) Stalingrad.
B) Kursk.
C) Leningrad.
D) Moscow.

Question 28

Hitler diverted his attention from the drive for Moscow, instead turning his forces southeast, because

A) he did not believe that Moscow could be taken.
B) the capital had been moved to Stalingrad.
C) he wanted to reach the oil in the Caucasus.
D) of the weather.

Question 29

Who was the president of the United States when Pearl Harbor was bombed?

A) Woodrow Wilson
B) Herbert Hoover
C) Harry Truman
D) Franklin Roosevelt

Question 30

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was

A) poorly planned and executed.
B) a desperate gamble that paid off for Japan.
C) a tactical success but a strategic failure.
D) a strongly opposed by Hitler.

Question 31

Midway Island was important to the United States in 1942 because

A) it was the last United States possession in the Pacific.
B) it was the only island between Japanese forces and Hawaii.
C) it was America's last fueling station in the Pacific.
D) President Roosevelt was visiting the island.

Question 32

Rommel was sent by Hitler to Africa

A) because of the failure of the Italians.
B) to search for oil.
C) because there were so many German colonies in Africa.
D) because the British were trying to unify the Africans to fight.

Question 33

Kursk, like Midway, marked which of these?

A) the inferiority of Axis weaponry
B) the limits of Axis expansion
C) the weaknesses of Allied military leaders
D) the problems of supplies faced by the Allies

Question 34

Which battle was considered to be the turning point of the war in the Pacific?

A) Iwo Jima
B) Midway
C) Coral Sea
D) Okinawa

Question 35

The Rape of Nanjing caused global condemnation against

A) China.
B) Japan.
C) Germany.
D) France.

Question 36

The Japanese, during World War II, claimed to be acting to

A) spread democracy.
B) combat Communism.
C) rid Asia of Western imperialists.
D) bring peace to Asia.

Question 37

What was the effect of Japanese invasion on China's civil war?

A) The Japanese found the internal conflict made their invasion easy.
B) The Communists improved their reputation by successfully opposing the Japanese.
C) The Nationalists gained in power.
D) The country descended into anarchy, split by a dozen factions.

Question 38

Which of these switched sides from the First to the Second World War?

A) Germany
B) Austria
C) China
D) Japan

Question 39

The British won the battle of Britain largely due to

A) Germany's lack of fuel.
B) U.S. intervention.
C) the British invention of radar.
D) Hitler turning his attention to an invasion of Greece.

Question 40

Rommel's defeat in Africa was largely due to

A) Hitler's failure to send reinforcements requested by Rommel.
B) superior British and American resources.
C) lack of military planning.
D) incompetent strategy.

Question 41

What did Benito Mussolini and Hungary's Nicholas Horthy have in common?

A) Both survived the war as rulers of their countries.
B) Both protected their countries' Jews from Nazi extermination.
C) Both assisted Hitler's campaign against Europe's Jews.
D) Both were Fascist dictators.

Question 42

Which country safely evacuated its Jewish population to Sweden?

A) Denmark
B) Belgium
C) Switzerland
D) Poland

Question 43

Iwo Jima and Okinawa were significant American victories in the East Asian theater because

A) both islands had huge populations
B) of their proximity to mainland Japan
C) both islands had abundant natural resources
D) the Japanese surrendered each island without a fight

Question 44

The Germans were surprised by D-day because

A) they did not expect an amphibious assault.
B) they believed that the United States would defeat Japan before arriving in Europe.
C) they believed the attack would come at Calais.
D) they expected a bombing raid instead.

Question 45

What was the approximate death toll from the Second World War?

A) 10 million
B) 20 million
C) 60 million
D) 120 million

Question 46

Which of the following was not developed during WW II?

A) antibiotics
B) jet aircraft
C) the Internet
D) ballistic missiles.

Question 47

Douglas MacArthur was widely criticized for his

A) poor military strategy.
B) refusal to protect the Philippines.
C) arrogance.
D) refusal to share command with Nimitz.

Question 48

The United Nations differed from the League of Nations in what way?

A) Germany was a founding member.
B) Itsoon expanded to include most of the losers of the war.
C) The Soviet Union was not a member.
D) The United States refused to join.

Question 49

Which of these worked with the D-day invasion to defeat Hitler?

A) the Swedish bombing assault from the north
B) the defection of masses of German soldiers
C) the Soviet assault from the east
D) the withdrawal of Italy from the war just before the invasion

Question 50

Harry Truman refused to accept Japan's conditional surrender because

A) he distrusted the gesture.
B) the atomic bomb made invasion of Japan unnecessary.
C) he was misinformed of the terms of the surrender.
D) he wanted Japan to be humiliated first.

Question 51

What North African town changed hands five times during WW II?

A) Cairo.
B) Tunis.
C) Benghazi.
D) Casablanca.

Question 52

Which of these had Japan erroneously assumed when creating its Asian empire?

A) Britain and France would not support an attack on Japan.
B) The United States would never confront Japan in force.
C) British would attempt to balance Japanese and Russian imperialism.
D) China would not defend itself against a Japanese invasion.

Question 53

During WW II, the destruction of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo showed the destructive power of

A) ground warfare
B) chemical weapons
C) the atomic bomb
D) aerial bombing

Question 54

At which conference did the Allies agree to divide postwar Germany?

A) Tehran
B) Yalta
C) Potsdam
D) Munich

Question 55

What was Eichmann's role in the planning of the Final Solution?

A) He was an expert on chemical and biological weapons.
B) He was an expert in train scheduling.
C) He was an expert in cremation.
D) He was a munitions expert.

Question 56

Resistance to the Nazis in Europe can be said to have been

A) limited to small regions in France.
B) widespread but doing little to weaken Nazi control.
C) limited to Eastern Europe.
D) rare, but highly successful in those cases.

Question 57

Compared to the Great War, WW II's impact on civilians was

A) about the same.
B) much less destructive.
C) exaggerated by both sides for political advantage.
D) far more deadly and destructive.

Question 58

Adolf Eichmann was the head of Hitler's SS.

Question 59

Prior to the dropping of nuclear weapons, Japan

A) refused to surrender.
B) wanted to surrender if they could keep their emperor.
C) was planning another bombing of the United States.
D) had broken away from the Axis powers.

Question 60

The bombing of Pearl Harbor would have been even more devastating if several American aircraft carriers had not been on routine training missions.

Question 61

What does Lebensraum mean?

Question 62

How did Japan justify the annexation of territories in East Asia?

Question 63

Who did Winston Churchill refer to as a "bloodthirsty guttersnipe"?

Question 64

What was the Luftwaffe?

Question 65

Rommel encouraged Hitler to pull out of Africa and attack Russia.

Question 66

Discuss the major campaigns in the East Asian theater during WWII.

Question 67

Who led the conservatives in the attack on liberals in Spain?

Question 68

Czechoslovakia agreed to allow Hitler to annex the Sudetenland in order to avoid war.

Question 69

The Tripartite Pact was an alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Question 70

How did World War I influence the decisions concerning international affairs in the 1930s?

Question 71

The Nazis viewed Slavs such as the Russians as "subhuman."

Question 72

Pope Pius XII did NOT know of the Nazi atrocities being perpetrated on the Jews.

Question 73

Why did the Nazis expect an Allied landing at Calais?

Question 74

How did Hitler justify the annexation of the Sudetenland?

Question 75

Discuss Hitler's "Final Solution."

Question 76

Who was the commander of the Afrika Korps?

Question 77

How long did it take for Germany to defeat France in WWII?

Question 78

Germany's use of Blitzkrieg was successful in Poland and France.

Question 79

After WW II, the League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations.

Question 80

Where was the formal surrender for WWII signed?