The Cold War M.A.D. or Gandhi?

The Cold War is the name of the time period where there was great tension between the USA and the USSR after World War Two. The Cold War’s objective was to dominate international affairs by force, and through this many crisis’ occured like the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Hungary, and the Berlin wall. The increasing numbers of weapons of mass destruction were the main issue during this time.

Before WWII, America had made the Soviet Union look like some evil country, filled with devils. The Soviet Union had depicted America likewise, and during the war the “friendship” they had was only because they shared a mutual enemy- Nazi Germany.

The distrust between the two contries existed before, during, and after the war. The tension grew as the Soviet’s hhad the greatest army, while America had the deadliest weapons the A-Bomb. This would begin the cold war. Each side never fought eachother directly, but they used other  countries to figh for them.

There were two beliefs going around at this time for peace. One was Mutually Assured Destruction, the other was Gandhi’s method of pure peace and passiveness. Mutually ssured destruction was were both countries keep from killing eachother because they know they will both die. It is basically a, “If you attack me, I’ll attack you and it will be 100 times worse.” Neither side wanted to start a full out nuclear war. So though there was tension, there was also peace and no actually “war”

Gandhi’s method was pure peace and passive thinking. He believed you should never fight back, and if someone is hurting you or someone you love, you are supposed to stand by and do nothing. In this way, he believed the other party would look absolutely guilty, and reprocussions would happen. However, if you retaliated, you would look just as bad.

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Auschwitz- The Most Deadly Nazi Concentration Camp

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the most deadly Nazi concentration camp. It was a killing center where the largest number of European Jews were killed during the Holocause. The first deaths by gas chamber occurred on September 1941 where 850 prisoners were killed. From that day one, mass murders became a daily routine with competitions being done daily, trying to kill more people than had died the previous day.  By 1942, mass killings were routine, mostly using Zyklon-B gas. One estimate is that over three million people were killed at this camp through gassings, starvation, disease, shootings, and burnings.

Nine out of ten of these deaths were Jews. The rest were Gypsies, Soviet POWs, and other POWs from other nationalities. Between May 14 and July 8 in 1944: an estimated 437,402 Hungarian Jews were sent to Auschwitz, the largest single mass deportation during the Holocaust.

Aushwitz was the largest Nazi Germany concentration camp to be built, with the largest extermination facilities. It was located near the Polish town Oshwiecim in Glacia. Private diaries unearthed from the Soviet archives revealed that Adolf Hitler himself ordered the mass murders of Jews at this camp, and personally monitered their “progress”.

Often, children and the elderly or “fragile looking” were often killed upon arrival. Any children killed while in the camps were killed on site, and mothers would often stuff their children in small places trying to hide them, but the attempt would be futile. The children would always be found, and would face a slow death along with the mother and anyone else who helped hide the child. During the end of the war when Germany was going broke, Auschwitz enabled the cost-accountant considerations which would save and cut expenses on gas. This “law” allowed living children to be placed directly into ovens or thrown into open burning pits.

Lucie Adelsberger, a survivor from Auschwitz watched many children die and describes their lives as:

“Like the adults, the kids were only a mere bad of bones, without muscles or fat, and the thin skin like pergament scrubbed through and through beyond the hard bones of the skeleton and ignited itself to ulcerated wounds. Abscesses covered the underfed body from the top to the bottom and thus deprived it from the last rest of energy. The mouth was deeply gnawed by noma-abscesses, hollowed out the jaw and perforate the cheecks like cancer. Many decaying bodies were full of water because of the burning hunger, they swelled to shapeless bulks which could not move anymore. Diarrhea, lasting for weeks, dissolved their irresistant bodies until nothing remained…” 

Doctors at the camp were evil and no help to the suffering prisoners. Camp doctors, like the infamous Josef Mengele, would tortue and expirement and inflict incredible pain on Jewish, Gypsie, and mentally disabled children. These “patients” would be put into pressure chambers until their bodies exploded, tested with drugs that would decay them from the inside out, castrated without any anesthetic, frozen to death, and many other cruel expirements.

One incident reports a mother who did not want to be separated from her thirteen-year-old daughter, and fought the SS mean who was forcing the two apart. “Mengele drew his gun and shot both the women and the child. As a blanket punishment, he sent to the gas chamber all people from the transport who had previously been selected for work, with the comment: Away with this shit!”

Mengele would step out and decide who lived and who died. Thousands would be before him, just getting off of the train ride where they had been starved and forced into cramped spaces. If waved to the left, those people were sentenced to immediate death. If waved to the right, those people would be forced to work, starved, and beated, but they would be allowed to live for as long as they could hold on. Mengele casually sent babies, small children, young girls, young boys, mothers, fathers, and grandparents to their death with a simple flick of his cane.

However, not all children would be sent to death right away, Mengele kept all the twins, especially identicle twins, for expirementation. At Auschwitz Josef Mengele did a hundreds of twin studies, where he would seperate the twins, one would be subjected to the painful tests which would usually result in his/her death, and the other would just be observed, to see if they felt any of their twins pain or experianced any changes. The twin who was unfortunate to get pick for Mengele’s expirimintation would have limbs cut off withouth any anesthetic, hand dipped in water and left out in the snow until his/her hand fell off, they would have dye injected into their eye to change its color, they would have their vocal cords cut, and more while the other twin would be observed to see if their showed any of these changes. After one twin died, usually the other would be killed and they would both be dissected to compare their anatomy. Mengele drew extensive sketches for each twin comparing them, and was fanatical about twins. Only a few twins would survive these expirimentations.

The few surviving children talk about their experiance at Aushwitz: “…they were visited by a smiling Ungle Mengele who brought them candy and clothes. Then he had them delivered to his miedical laboratory either in trucks painted with the Red Cross emblem or in his own personal car to undergo his experiments.”

One twin, who recalls the death of his brother says:

” Dr. Mengele had always been more interested in Tibi. I am not sure why – perhaps because he was the older twin. Mengele made several operations on Tibi. One surgery on his spine left my brother paralyzed. He could not walk anymore. Then they took out his sexual organs. After the fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore. I cannot tell you how I felt. It is impossible to put into words how I felt. They had taken away my father, my mother, my two older brothers – and now, my twin…”

In December 1942, a new doctor entered Auschwitz, Professor Carl Clauberg, and he began his own experiments. He was facinaed by pregnant women and would inject chemicals into the womb. Thousands of women were subjected to this torturous treatment. These injections caused them to become sterile, producing horrible pain, inflaming the ovaries, bursting spasms in the stomach, and uncontrolably bleeding. The ovaries would be seriously damaged, and would later be removed and sent to Berlin for studies.

Clauberg’s colleague, Dr. Herta Oberhauser, killed children with oil and evipan injections, would remove their limbs, and would rub ground up glass and sawdust in wounds, all seemingly without scientific cause, and just for pure torture.

Aushwitz killed over a million people by the end of WW2, and was one of the worst camps to be sent to during the war. The pure evilness of that went into these killings was shocking, and children were often subjected to the worse of these tortures because they could not defend themselves.

Israel scholar Yehuda Bauer gives these statistics, considered some of the most  reliable: (Deaths at Auschwitz)

polish-Soviet area	approx.  4,565,000
Germany	125,000
Austria	65,000
Czechoslovakia	277,000
Hungary	402,000
France	83,000
Belgium/Luxembourg	24,700
Netherlands	106,000
Italy	7,500
Norway	760
Romania excluding Bessarabia, N. Bukovina and northern Transylvania	271,000 – 287,000
Yugoslavia	60,000 – 67,000
Greece	60,000 – 67,000
Totals number of Jewish victims	5,700,000 – 5,860,000
Source: Yehuda Bauer.  A History of the Holocaust. New York, Frankin Watts Revised edition 2001.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum: “approximately six million.”

http://www.auschwitz.dk/auschwitz.htm

Impact of the 1920’s

The 1920’s was a period of prosperity, new technology, and a new role for women in America. As World War I ended, society was prospering. People partied more than they worked and dreamed more than they thought of reality. Athletes were heroes, and authors created stories where people could escape their life and go into an alternate reality, and women were known as flappers and started to even vote. The “Roaring Twenties” was a time of partying, which included the Harlem Renaissance, the model T, prohibition, sports heroes, the role of women, and new technologies which influenced all the changes that took place.

In the 1920’s African Americans were creating their own culture. African American music, literature, dance, and art all became alive in Harlem, New York.  This movement was known as “The New NEgro Movement” and would later be called the Harlem Renaissance. It showed the differenct cultures of African American’s and it influenced American culture it many ways.

One of the main factors that lead to the rise of the Harlem Renaissance was the urban migration. There were many different people with different artistic skills, like Nora Thurston Zeale who was an anthropology, Countee Cullen who was a romantic poet, and Langston Hughes who wrote poetry and also was a playwright. Many more people would emerge from this time period who would have a huge influene across America, from music to novels, from plays to poems, and even spread to across the world. 

The automobile also changed and influenced the 1920’s. The automobile became the main support for the American economy. It altered the landscape of America and altered its society. The automobile changed the way people lived their lives, the way cities were ran, and how the economy was dealt with. Rural families could now travel to the city anytime they wanted, and people began to take jobs much farther away from their houses. Families were also able to take vacations to places very far away, something that was never even heard of. Automobiles also gave women and young teenagers more independence   and more opportunities. People were abble to live farther away and travel to work, and cities and towns became bigger. The automobile also changed the way the city was run. Paved roads sprawled up everywhere which were able to be driven on in any weather. Houses wer being built with garages and driveways and shopping malls were being built with parking lots. Smaller lawns were being made to accomadate the automobile, and gas stations, mechanic shops, motels, and traffic signals.

The economy also changed when the automobile began taking over the lives of Americans. The industry boomed, with the demand for automobiles grew and oil-producing states like California and Texas boomed. The automobile also helped promote the free enterprise system, and in the 1920’s one in every five Americans owned a vehicle.

On January 16, 1920 the 18th amendment went into affect which would ban all consumption, distribution, and creation of any type of alcoholic beferage. Its purpose was to reduce how much people drank and at first it worked. People were very outraged though, but could not afford to get alcohol illegally because the price went up. Many bootleggers began to control cities, and created Speakeasies, where alcohol could be sold and given out illegally. The mafia and bootleggers saw this amendment as an easy way to make money, and could easily make about 60 million dollars a year. In 1933 however, prohibition ended.

 There were also many sport heroes in the 1920’s like Gearge Herman Ruth. George Herman Ruth would later be dubbed with the name Babe Ruth from his fans and set the record for most home runs in a season, 60, in 1927. This record would stand until 1961. He is declared as one of the best baseball players who ever played Baseball. He led the Yankees to seven World Series and made over two million dollars during his career.

On August 26, 1920 President Wilson ratified the Nineteenth Amendent which was for women suffrage. During the 1920’s the traditional women roles began to change. Women got the right to vote, their style of dress changed, they began doing jobs like being doctors, bankers, lawyers, and other jobs that were thought of as “men only jobs.” Women’s style also changed, from wearing clothes that went all the way down to their ankles and with the hair pulled back in a bun to short bob cuts and short skirts. These womens were called flappers. In the 1920’s women stopped their houshold “duties” and started doing the jobs that men usually did.

A lot of new technology also came around in the 1920’s. In around 1927 Philo Farnsworth created the dissector tube which would help invent the television. In 1922 the first movie with sound came out called “The Jazz Singer.” In 1926, the first movie with sound and color came out.

http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/impact-1920s

Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies during World War Two. It was fought during the winter months of 1944-1945. The battle was Hitler’s attempt to split the Allies into two, to destroy their ability to supply themselves. This battle started on December 16, 1944 and was done because Hitler believed the Alliance between Britain, France, and America in western Eurpoe was not strong enough to sustain a major attack and if they defeated them here it would break up the alliance. He ordered a massive attack against the American forces, and this attack was know as the Ardennes Offensive but would later be renamed to Battle of the Bulge. The Germans created a giant bulge in the Allied front line, which is why this was called the Battle of the Bulge.

Battle of the Bulge board game

Hitler’s plan was to launch a massive attack using three armies against the Allied forces and take the port of Antwerp which supplies the Allied forces.

The plan was:

– The Sixth PAnzer Army was to attack and capture Antwerp.

– The Fifth Panzer Army would attack the center of the American forces and capture strategic road and railways in St. Vith and then go to Brussels.

– The Seventh Army would attack the southern end and create a buffer zone so that American reinforcements couldn’t attack the Fifth Panzer Army.

– The Fifteenth Arny was to hold their positions and counter any Allied attack.

Hitler believed he would be able to take out Canada’s, America’s, and Britain’s army in these areas. It was a foolish plan, since the German forces has been retreating since D-Day and the German military had no supplies. Even at these odd, Hitler ordered the attack to continue.

When the battle started there was a two hour bombardment of the Allied lines followed by a huge armoured attack and it looked as if the Germans would succeed in their plans. They experienced great success because the Allies were surprised by the attack, they didn’t know it would take place. Before the attack even started, German soldiers who could speak English dressed up in American uniforms and went behind enemy lines and caused havoc, cutting phone lines and giving false information. There was also low clouds and a lot of fog, meaning that the air force of the Allies, which was far superior, could not be used. After two days however, Germany’s success started to turn souh. The Germans could not maintain their attack, and quickly ran out of fuel.

On December 22 the weather cleared and allowed the Allies to bring in their air power. This counter attack from the air decimated the German forces. On Christmas Eve, sixteen German Me-262’s attacked rail yards to disrupt the ability for the Allies to gain supplies. However, Germany was lacking in resources and could not sustain an air raid long enough to make any difference. The German and Allied forces were at a stalemate.

On New Year’s there was intensive fighting as German forces attempted to start a second front in Holland. There was a period of intense rain the was bitter cold and the soldiers faced horrible conditions. Trench foot was a common problem for these troops. By mid-January lack of fuel was becoming a major problem for the Germans and they had to abandon their vehicles.  

The Battle of the Bulge was the largest battle fought in World War Two by Americans. OVer 600,000 American troops were involved and they lost 81,000 men while the Germans lost over 100,000 and many more were either captured or wounded.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_the_bulge.htm

Adolf Hitler

Hitler

 

Childhood: Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on April 20th 1889. His parents were Alois Hitler and Klara Poelzl. He was a hostile child growing up, who hated his father with a passion. He was a bully as a child, usually always in trouble. Alois died in 1903 leaving money to take care of th family. Hitler was extremely close to his mother, who always doted and pampered Hitler. When she died in 1908, he fell into a deep depression, leaving school at the age of 16 and tried to become a painter.

Adolf Hitler Painting

 

Adolf Hitler attempted to go to college to become an artist, but was unable to get into the school that he wanted. He was homeless for some time in the year 1906, sleeping on the streets. I remember listening to a teacher once, saying that all of Adolf Hitler’s own paintings are devoid of all human life, and that it may have been that first clue to his “true self” that he would become.

 

 

 

 

Rise To Power

 

 

Hitler started to create a name for himself. He entered the government as a chancellor in 1933. He rallied “German Pride” and when the president, Hindenburg, died in 1934, Adolf Hitler was the next successor. Slowly, the German economy began to improve, and Adolf Hitler took credit for this, boosting his popularity. This would cement his position as dictator, and most Germans looked up to him as a father figure. Not many, though, knew about the true atrocities that he commited. He was very charismatic, his speeches would captivate millions, and he was widely accepted. Slowly, using the media as propaganda, he began to turn his campaign towards “ethnic cleansing.” He created many laws against Jews, and kept increasing the economy, providing jobs for millions who had previously been unemployed.

 

 

Hitler was also very odd. He never smoked or drinked, and never wore cologne, and was an avid vegetarian. However, he loathed exercise, and would only go for a brisk walk.  Eventhough he loathed Jewish people, his first love was actually a Jewish girl who rejected him. He also was an animal lover, and had his dog euthanized before he killed himself.

 

Death:

 

 

 

 Towards the end of the war Hitler became very uneasy. His arm would shake constintly from Parkison’s Disease. He couldn’t sleep, and his usual perfect posture became slumped, as he fell into a deep depression. Finally, he would commit suicide, taking his own life after having to face that Germany was defeated after six long years of war. His dead body was wrapped in a grey blanket, half buried, and burned while the generals all saluted over his corpse.

 

 

 

The Great Depression

How to Help the Economy During the Great Depression

 

The Great Depression was a period of time when the stock market crashed, thousands went broke, and many people lost their jobs. With the economy in the trash, it seemed like America was doomed. However, in order to help the economy, a program could be initiated to help the economy, which in return would dig America out of their predicament.

Government Jobs

     – During the Great Depression, the government could have created jobs to help its economy. They economy was so low because no one was buying anything, everyone was poor, and many people had no job. If the government created jobs, then they would be helping the economy. They could hire people to create murals, build clothing factories, and hire people to clean streets. Murals would help the overall look of the cities, to maybe brighten up people’s lives, as they all had no hope. Clothing factories would also help, because it would increase the number of jobs and if they created a lot of clothes, the price of necessary clothing items would go down, meaning people could afford to cloth their children. Street cleaners would also help the cities, it would create jobs and help with hygiene. The people lived in shanty towns, that were less than ideal. Trash littered the streets, and hiring people to clean these streets up could improve health and moral.

World Wonder

     – Another way for the economy to recover during the Great Depression was to build a world wonder. The U.S. could create a huge monument, that would require many people, creating thousands of jobs. This would help the economy because people would be getting paid, and in return, would be buying items again. It would also serve as a tourist attraction, in that people from around the world would come to view it. This would also help the economy in that people from different places would be buying products, tours, etc. and be helping the American economy.

Build Large Aqueducts

     – Building large aqueducts for farm land would help the U.S. economy during the Great Depression. This would create thousands of jobs, as they build aqueducts to divert water from miles away to farms spread out all over the U.S. The government would take over the land, hiring workers to farm it, and to bring new life to the land. As soon as it is prosperous, they could give it back to the farmers, a now thriving farm land capable of producing crops.

Government Owned Banks

     – Government owned banks could also help the economy during the Great Depression. The government would create banks, which would require people, in turn creating jobs and getting people to invest in the banks. Opening banks back up, would help the economy because people would begin investing in banks. With the banks being owned by the government, they would be prevented from closing.

Nation Wide Day Care

     – During the Great Depression, thousands of people were homeless, and children died of starvation. The government could make a nationwide day care, where kids could be taken to, cared for, and fed. This would require building hundreds of thousands of building across the nation, creating jobs. They will need people to create these building, construction workers, creating hundreds of jobs. Also, these daycare’s would be governmentally funded, so the children could go to these daycare’s for little cost. At these daycare’s, the children would also be taught, getting them an education that they would not have otherwise gotten. They would also be fed, so that children would not be dying of starvation.

 

 

 Click here for Part Two

World War 1

Trench Warfare

     Trench warfare was a new tactic in WWI that came about when Gernman Gernal Erich von Falkenhayn ordered his troops to dig deep ditches to stop the Allied forces from being able to advance any further. This caused the Allied forces to also dig ditches, which would later turn into trenches, to stop any German attacks. If the Allies had not copied the German plan, they would be quickly overwhelmed by German forces, and unable to attack or retreat.

     Trenches destroyed any hope of having a quick war, and actually caused a stalemate on the front, which would last the entire war. Trench Warfare claimed nearly 200,000 lives, and while most died while in battle, a great number of people died from disease and infection, caused by the unsanitary conditions.

     Death was a constant companion in the trenches, with artilery shells constantly being thrown over no mans land, the land between the two trenches, and the constant threat of snipers. No one could peer over the edge of the trench because they would quickly be shot down by a sniper and killed instantly.

     Rats, lice, and infection were a major killer in the trenches. Rats in the millions infested the trenches. There were two main types of rats, the brown and the black rat. Both were a real pest, but only the brown rat was actually feared. The brown rat would feast on the corpses of humans, growing to the size of house cats. One fun activity would be to stand on their beds, let the rats scamper out, and see who could kill the most rats by clubbing them.

     Lice was also an annoying, painful norm for army men of the trenches. The lice would cause trench fever, which would cause severe pain throughout the body and a dangerously high fever. Someone inflicted with trench fever would often take over twelve weeks to fully recover.

     Infection was also a common threat in the trenches. The main infection that the men worried about was trench foot. It was a fungal infection, that would often turn gangrenous and often result in the amputation of the foot. It was caused by cold, wet, and unsanitary conditions, which was common in the trenches.

Though trench warfare resulted in a stalemate for most of the war and led to many deaths, could it still be considered a good tactic to use in today’s society with the new technology we have that could prevent lice, mice, and infection which was the main setback of this type of battle tactic?

 

World War I

Chemical Warfare

Used by soldiers in trenches for chemical warfare.

“Considered uncivilised prior to World War One, the development and use of poison gas was necessitated by the requirement of wartime to find new ways of overcoming the stalemate of unexpected trench warfare.” (Weapons of War) 

     Chemical warfare was first used by the French. In the first months of World War I (WWI), in August 1914, the French fired tear-gas grenades against the Germans. The German army, however, was the first to give serious thought and development of chemical weapons, and the first nation to use it on a larger scale.

 

German soldiers running through the gas.

     Poison gas, however, was not used until April 22, 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres. The Germans unleashed chlorine gas, which the French mistook for an advancing German attack. They prepared for German forces, but were met with a deadly gas. This would be the first time a deadly chemical was used. As soon as it was inhaled, the vapors destroyed the lungs, practically burning the respiratory organs from the inside out. The people who would breathe in these vapors would cough and choke, dying in five minutes, a slow, agonizing, painful death. 

 

Army troop attempting to make their way through unleashed mustard gas.

     The Allies began mass producing Chlorine Gas to stay ahead of the Germans in chemical warfare. Not to be outdone, however, Germany created an even more deadly toxin, mustard gas. They would fill artillery shells with this gas, shoot it over the trenches, and not only would the artillery shells kill people, but the mustard gas would be released. Mustard gas in an almost odourless chemical and cause blisters, both internally and externally, and the effects would be almost immediate, with full effects taking several hours to show. Protection against mustard gas proved to be very difficult, but unforseen consequences arose when the Germans used mustard gas. The gas would stay in the soil for weeks, and when the German troops would advance to take over the Allies trenches, they would themselves be poisoned.  

Casualties From Gas – The Numbers

Country	Total Casualties	Deaths
Austria-Hungary	100,000	3,000
British Empire	188,706	8,109
France	190,000	8,000
Germany	200,000	9,000
Italy	60,000	4,627
Russia	419,340	56,000
USA	72,807	1,462
Others	10,000	1,000

 http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/gas.htm

     Chemical Warfare would open up a new style of fighting. It was quick and would keep the attackers safe. They could attack their enemy from a distance without putting themselves at risk of getting shot at. With both sides using chemical warfare, the deaths rose into the thousands.

     Was chemical warfare a necessary evil, or should it have never been used?