Deck 15: The Second World War and the Origins of the Cold War, 1939–1949

Question 1

The German military tactic,blitzkrieg,contrasted with the ____ of World War I.

A)trench warfare
B)air power
C)gas attacks
D)cavalry charges
E)use of massive artillery barrages

Answer 1

trench warfare

Question 2

England and France declared war on Germany when it attacked and invaded

A)Denmark.
B)Poland.
C)Sweden.
D)Norway.
E)the Soviet Union.

Answer 2

Poland.

Question 3

Wake's determination to wage a personal war against the Germans was the result of

A)the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
B)witnessing an emotional, frenzied German youth responding to a speech by Hitler.
C)her personal observations of the public humiliation of Jews by the Germans in Vienna.
D)the invasion of her homeland, Australia, by the Japanese.
E)her personal involvement in the Spanish Civil War.

Answer 3

her personal observations of the public humiliation of Jews by the Germans in Vienna.

Question 4

What was the real turning point for the success of the Soviets in 1942?

A)British victory at the Battle of El Alamein
B)Italy's loss in Ethiopia
C)New underground movement support for the Soviets
D)German defeat at Stalingrad
E)United States entry into the war

Question 5

As a result of World War II,which nations would emerge as the dominant world powers?

A)Soviet Union and France
B)United States and Great Britain
C)Great Britain and China
D)France and China
E)United States and Soviet Union

Question 6

The wave of Axis victories before and early in the war included the

A)complete collapse of the Chinese military.
B)German invasion of the Netherlands.
C)Japanese seizure of British India.
D)Battle at El Alamein.
E)capture of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Question 7

In Europe,World War II began with the invasion of Poland in

A)1935.
B)1939.
C)1940.
D)1941.
E)1944.

Question 8

The history of Nancy Wake involved

A)being brought up as a Jew in Germany.
B)being referred to as "the White Mouse" by the Gestapo.
C)traveling around the world as an American government official.
D)serving in the British nurse corps during the war.
E)the life of an Australian prisoner of war in Germany.

Question 9

Which development occurred in Asia in the years before Pearl Harbor?

A)Japan promised to free Asia from Western imperialists.
B)Vichy France refused to give Japan airfields in French Indochina.
C)Japan was threatened by India.
D)Russia and Japan signed a secret treaty agreeing to divide and share Manchuria.
E)The United States and Japan experienced a brief improvement in relations.

Question 10

The first major reversal for the Axis occurred in

A)Germany.
B)Egypt.
C)Ethiopia.
D)England.
E)Italy.

Question 11

One German military technique used during World War II was known as

A)phony warfare.
B)trench warfare.
C)the Royal Air Force.
D)fire bombing.
E)lightning warfare.

Question 12

Which geographical area was spared from the fighting in World War II?

A)The Americas
B)Asia
C)The Pacific
D)Europe
E)Africa

Question 13

The maquis were

A)an underground youth movement against the fascists in Germany.
B)a foreign corps working to overthrow Franco in Spain.
C)a secret Jewish society helping Jews escape German capture.
D)a group of French underground antifascist fighters in France.
E)a French collaborationist group seeking out resistance members.

Question 14

The phrase,"This was their finest hour," is associated with

A)the Battle of Britain.
B)the Battle of Stalingrad.
C)Normandy.
D)Dunkirk.
E)El Alamein.

Question 15

Expecting a situation similar to World War I,France resorted to the ____ to protect it from German invasion.

A)sea blockade of Germany
B)French tank corps
C)Maginot Line
D)use of gas
E)massive propaganda techniques against the German population

Question 16

During the first year of the war,which area came under German military control?

A)Spain
B)Sweden
C)Denmark
D)Ireland
E)Switzerland

Question 17

The Germans found numerous collaborators in many areas,including

A)the United States.
B)Norway.
C)Canada.
D)French Equatorial Africa.
E)India.

Question 18

Because of a secret pact made before the war,Poland was occupied by both Germany and

A)Austria.
B)Bulgaria.
C)the Soviet Union.
D)Finland.
E)Lithuania.

Question 19

Charles de Gaulle was associated with the underground of

A)Yugoslavia.
B)Greece.
C)Norway.
D)France.
E)Poland.

Question 20

Roosevelt committed the United States to "lend lease" because

A)he was against becoming involved in the war.
B)the American people would not commit to sending troops to Europe.
C)he believed Britain could defeat the Axis in Europe with American supply of arms.
D)Americans feared Japan would declare war on the United States.
E)the United States saw that both the Allies and Axis powers were to blame for the war.

Question 21

The Japanese were on the defensive by

A)1945.
B)1943.
C)1944.
D)1942.
E)1946.

Question 22

Which of these terms describes American naval strategy in the Pacific?

A)Blitzkrieg
B)Fire bombing
C)Island hopping
D)Kamikaze
E)Unrestricted submarine warfare

Question 23

The tide began turning against the Japanese with the Battle of

A)Guam.
B)Iwo Jima.
C)Bataan.
D)the Philippines.
E)Midway.

Question 24

During the war in the Pacific,the United States and its allies won a major victory when they retook _____ in late 1944.

A)Guadalcanal
B)the Kiska Islands
C)the Philippines
D)the Dutch East Indies
E)Midway Island

Question 25

In which nation was the civilian population spared the brutalities of warfare on its own soil until it was nearly over?

A)Australia
B)Japan
C)Italy
D)Spain
E)Egypt

Question 26

As a symbol of defiance and endurance,whose music was performed in Leningrad during its long siege?

A)Beethoven
B)John Philip Sousa
C)Mozart
D)Wagner
E)Shostakovich

Question 27

Of the major combatants,which nation´s home front suffered the least from the ravages of war?

A)Great Britain
B)Japan
C)India
D)The United States
E)Russia

Question 28

Before the attack on Pearl Harbor

A)the Japanese threatened the United States with outright war if America did not increase its exports to Japan of rubber and steel.
B)Italy and Germany had declared war on the United States.
C)the American Pacific fleet was warned and able to prepare.
D)the United States froze Japanese assets in the United States and cut off exports of steel and oil to Japan.
E)Japan had already caught the United States off-guard by attacking the Philippines.

Question 29

Which groups in the United States especially benefited from new job opportunities in war industries?

A)Women and children
B)Women and African Americans
C)Native Americans
D)African Americans and Japanese immigrants
E)Japanese and German Americans

Question 30

Chiang Kai-shek became an ally of the Allied forces by fighting Japan in

A)the Philippines.
B)Vietnam.
C)China.
D)Burma.
E)India.

Question 31

What led most directly to the final defeat of Japan in 1945?

A)The flooding of Tokyo
B)The assassination of Emperor Hirohito
C)The use of nuclear devices
D)The liberation of Manchuria by Chiang Kai-shek's forces
E)The American troop landings on Japanese islands

Question 32

Retaking the Burma Road from the Japanese was important to the Allies because

A)it linked Indian and Chinese forces.
B)Japanese oil supplies from Indonesia were cut off.
C)it served as the main supply line to Chiang Kai-shek.
D)it opened an area for major American-British troop landings.
E)Japan was now open to attack.

Question 33

Which development was instrumental in bringing the end of the war in Europe?

A)The liberation of Paris in 1944
B)The strategy of island hopping
C)The Battle of Warsaw
D)The Red Army's liberation of Leningrad
E)The bombing of Guernica

Question 34

Which factor helped bring about the eventual failure of Germany's attack on the Soviet Union?

A)England's provision of air reinforcements
B)Inferior German technology
C)American landings in Leningrad
D)Russian winter
E)The threat of atomic bombing by the Russians

Question 35

Japanese brutality against American prisoners was seen after Pearl Harbor in

A)the Bataan peninsula.
B)China.
C)Hong Kong.
D)Australia.
E)the Dutch East Indies.

Question 36

The final German offensive was fought at the Battle of the Bulge in

A)France.
B)Belgium.
C)the Netherlands.
D)Germany.
E)Italy.

Question 37

Why did the Soviet Union and its people suffer severely?

A)Germans captured Stalin, leaving Soviets without a strong leader.
B)German troops made captured Soviet factories produce goods for them.
C)Soviet farmers were forced to provide foodstuffs for the German occupation army.
D)Soviet women and children were sent to labor camps in Germany and Poland.
E)Soviet citizens suffered long sieges and lack of food, and the winter killed millions.

Question 38

Which leader used the term "Great Patriotic Homeland War" to rally his people?

A)Churchill
B)Gandhi
C)Stalin
D)Mussolini
E)Mao

Question 39

What decision was made by Roosevelt,Churchill,and Stalin at Teheran in 1943?

A)To drop the atomic bomb on Japan
B)To launch an Allied invasion of Eastern Europe
C)To open a second Allied front in France
D)To defeat the Japanese first
E)To assassinate Hitler

Question 40

V-J Day symbolizes

A)the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
B)the suicide of Hitler.
C)victory in Europe.
D)American troop landings at Normandy.
E)victory in Japan.

Question 41

One of Stalin's key goals after the defeat of Germany and Japan was to

A)maintain friendly relations with the United States and Great Britain despite any conflicts of interest.
B)expand Russian lands as far and wide as possible.
C)support all national communist groups that were vying for postwar control of their countries.
D)establish the Soviet Union as the world's most dominant naval power.
E)establish a buffer zone to protect the Russian core of the Soviet Union from yet another invasion.

Question 42

The Berlin Airlift was the result of

A)Russian occupation of all of Berlin.
B)disagreements between the Americans, British, and French over the control of Berlin.
C)the Soviet blockade of the West's access to Berlin.
D)German rebellions inside the former capital.
E)major famines and disease inside West Berlin.

Question 43

What was the goal of the Wannsee Conference?

A)Deciding how to deal with underground movements in German-occupied areas
B)Determining the effective use of captive civilians in the support of the war
C)Establishing a "final solution"
D)Creating a youth corps to fight the Allies as the war neared the German homeland
E)Assassinating Adolf Hitler

Question 44

With the Marshall Plan,American leaders hoped to

A)extract the maximum amount of German reparations.
B)keep up with the Soviet Union's generosity in offering economic aid to war-torn nations.
C)ensure a minimal role for the United States in future European conflicts.
D)re-arm European democracies as a quickly as possible.
E)ensure international and American economic progress in the postwar world.

Question 45

What was one of important result of African involvement in World War II?

A)The war polarized black Africans over whether to support the Allies or Axis powers.
B)Militarization and the spread of weaponry led to wartime rebellions against colonial overseers.
C)African colonies were unified in their resentment at being thrust into a war for the empire.
D)The promise of self-determination made in the Atlantic Charter was immediately granted to the Allies' African colonies in gratitude for their military contributions.
E)Africans who fought overseas came home with an expanded view and ideas of the outside world.

Question 46

The original source for the doctrine of containment was the

A)Marshall Plan.
B)Roosevelt Memo.
C)Long Telegram.
D)Churchill Doctrine.
E)Berlin Airlift.

Question 47

Which statement best describes how Americans viewed the postwar world and the United States' role in it?

A)Americans retained their optimism and hoped to spread their ideals of democracy and market-driven economic efficiency.
B)Americans wanted to take advantage of the chaos in Europe and impose their political and military agenda unilaterally.
C)Although the strongest nation in the world after the war, the United States suffered a collective crisis of confidence.
D)As in World War I, the United States reverted back into its historical isolationist posture.
E)With the developed world mostly destroyed by the war, Americans became interested only in the economic and political affairs of Latin America, Africa, and South Asia.

Question 48

The most militant Jewish resistance against Nazi terror and genocide occurred in

A)Treblinka.
B)Auschwitz.
C)the Warsaw Ghetto.
D)Wannsee.
E)the Jewish quarter of Paris.

Question 49

The Truman Doctrine was an immediate reaction to the communist rebellion in ____ after the war.

A)Austria
B)France
C)Greece
D)Poland
E)Czechoslovakia

Question 50

What happened at the same time that Adolf Hitler committed suicide?

A)The Axis lost the Battle of the Bulge.
B)The Allies landed in Normandy.
C)Soviet troops supported by aerial bombardment entered Berlin.
D)Italy surrendered.
E)Truman became president.

Question 51

Which African leader provided a crucial base of operations and support for the movement to free France from Nazi occupation?

A)Charles de Gaulle
B)Nelson Mandela
C)Haile Selassie
D)Félix Éboué
E)Bretton Woods

Question 52

While the Americans could use both economic and military power to gain allies,the Soviets had to rely on

A)the charisma-and-terror methods of Stalin.
B)the promises of a worldwide communist revolution to destroy capitalism.
C)characterizing the United States as an imperialist.
D)its military power.
E)the fear of an Allied threat in the future and the alliances needed to prevent it.

Question 53

The Cold War in Europe was symbolized by the

A)Berlin Airlift.
B)American and Soviet nuclear threat.
C)division of Germany.
D)Marshall Plan.
E)Holocaust.

Question 54

The partition of Germany occurred in

A)1945.
B)1946.
C)1947.
D)1948.
E)1949.

Question 55

The original members of the Security Council of the United Nations included

A)Poland.
B)Italy.
C)India.
D)China.
E)Australia.

Question 56

Along with the estimated six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust,the Nazis also targeted other groups they considered undesirable,including especially

A)Slavs.
B)Eastern Orthodox Christians.
C)the Roma.
D)Germans of Turkish descent.
E)Anabaptists.

Question 57

Which leader is associated with the fight for nationalism and against colonialism during and immediately after the war?

A)Gandhi
B)Churchill
C)Franco
D)Mussolini
E)Stalin

Question 58

The core goal of the Truman Doctrine was to

A)free Czechoslovakia from Soviet control.
B)halt Soviet expansionism.
C)threaten the Soviet Union with war if its troops did not withdraw from eastern Europe.
D)use the American military to protect European democracies.
E)destroy the emerging Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Question 59

What was the goal of the Yalta Conference?

A)Making plans for the end of the war
B)Coordinating the Allied assault into Germany
C)Deciding how to handle the "Jewish problem"
D)Choosing an Allied commander for the European theater
E)Establishing the foundation for the United Nations

Question 60

Churchill's "iron curtain" speech was in reaction to

A)the division of Germany.
B)the continued Soviet occupation of eastern Europe after the war.
C)the treatment of Germans involved in the execution of Jews.
D)the spread of communism into China.
E)the decision to allow the Soviet Union and China into the United Nations.

Question 61

Please define the following key terms
Nancy Wake (1912?2011)

Question 62

Please define the following key terms
Charles de Gaulle

Question 63

Please define the following key terms
Allied powers

Question 64

Please define the following key terms
Atlantic Charter

Question 65

Please define the following key terms
"lend lease"

Question 66

The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 led to the creation of the

A)Atlantic Charter.
B)United Nations.
C)World Bank.
D)New League of Nations.
E)Marshall Plan.

Question 67

Please define the following key terms
Siege of Leningrad

Question 68

Please define the following key terms
Battle of Stalingrad

Question 69

Please define the following key terms
Pearl Harbor

Question 70

One of the first covert actions of the new CIA was to influence elections in

A)Germany.
B)France.
C)Greece.
D)Turkey.
E)Italy.

Question 71

Please define the following key terms
quislings

Question 72

Please define the following key terms
Winston Churchill

Question 73

Please define the following key terms
Axis powers

Question 74

Please define the following key terms
Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere

Question 75

Please define the following key terms
Battle of Britain

Question 76

Please define the following key terms
Battle of El Alamein

Question 77

Please define the following key terms
Bataan march

Question 78

During the Cold War,several new communist states were established,including the

A)Democratic People's Republic of Nigeria.
B)Republic of South Korea.
C)Republic of Venezuela.
D)Democratic Republic of Thailand.
E)People's Republic of China.

Question 79

India finally became independent in

A)1945.
B)1947.
C)1950.
D)1955.
E)1960.

Question 80

Please define the following key terms
Blitzkrieg