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Texas

Before and In to the War

Before the start of World War II, the Texas economy was still mainly rural and agrarian. Only about 40% of residents had completed high school, 10% had access to a telephone, and only 16% had access to a radio. The state was particularly hard hit by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. While it was sympathetic to events in Europe, an isolationist attitude predominated.

Yet, when war was declared Texans answered. Texas Senator Thomas T. Connally introduced both Congressional joint resolutions to declare war on Japan, Germany, and Italy. Texas men joined the military by the thousands, while those farm families and small-town residents on the home front moved to larger cities to work in war industry plants.

Several Texas military sites played roles in training soldiers and Army Air Forces pilots. During the war an estimated 1.5 million military personnel rotated through Texas as part of their training at 175 installations built or enlarged for the war.

As with the rest of the country, supporting the war was the responsibility of every Texan–whether working in a field, in a factory, or on the battlefield. The effort was particularly hard, especially for any family whose son or husband left the comforts of home for the unknowns they would find a world away.

Watching A Troubled World

As the nation tried to recover from the Great Depression, families with a radio might listen to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his “fireside chats,” Roosevelt sought to calm the nation and restore the public confidence in the economy and the government.

While Americans were comforted to some degree by Roosevelt’s words, the newspapers and radio reported on the increasingly unsettling news from Europe. Accounts of militant ultranationalism in Germany and Italy toward their neighbors raised some concerns, as did the expansionist activities of Japan in Asia.

But these developments were literally a world away–and with pressing economic and social concerns at home–most Americans were not prepared to risk their lives and livelihoods to support or enforce a peace abroad. Even after the start of hostilities in 1939 and the signing of the Tripartite Pact by Germany, Italy, and Japan the following year, many Americans preferred isolationism and non-involvement, even as Roosevelt sought other ways to hep U.S.allies at war. This attitude began to shift as warfare continued, but it did not fundamentally change until after Japan’s surprise attack on the American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941–the “day that will live in infamy.”

The call to arms

The nation expected that it might be forced to enter World War II even before the formal declarations of war in 1941. Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 amidst widespread popular support. This law required all men between the ages of 21 and 45 to register for the draft. Men who were drafted were required to serve at least one year in the military. When the bill took effect in 1941 the size of U.S. military forces increased from under 350,000 to almost 2,000,000 servicemen, with the largest increase in members of the Army. The forces increased further with the influx of volunteers enlisting after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

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1941

The American Man Becomes G.I. Joe

The United States was still recovering from the devastating effects of the Great Depression when it entered World War II. During the 1930s food was hard to come by, and many families were forced to seek help from various charitable organizations. Men took jobs in the Works Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservations Corps, or other work projects to help support and feed their families.

With the institution of the draft, the term “G.I. Joe”--which had originated during World War I--became more common as the draftee went through training and became “Government Issued.” G.I. Joes were mainly thought of as Army soldiers or Army Air Forces pilots, but was equally applied to all members of the military.

The World War II, G.I. Joe was a much smaller mancompared to today’s standards. He averaged only 5’7” in height and weighed only 155 pounds. Despite his compact size, he was expected to carry a basic uniform and equipment weighing over 50 pounds, plus his weapon and any tools related to his specialized training.

The Rise of Nazism

After the Great War (World War I, 1914-1918) Germany suffered periods of political turmoil and economic hardship, which many people blamed on the Treaty of Versailles that marked the end of the war. The largest blow was the treaty’s “war guilt clause” that required Germany to make enormous reparation payments to the Allied countries. It accomplished this only by printing more money, which contributed to extreme hyperinflation of the German economy.

As early as 1923 Adolf Hitler took advantage of the frustration and unrest by attempting to overthrow the government. Even though it failed, the attempt left a lasting impact on his Nazy Party. The Nazi’s polpularity grew slowing until 1932, when the party gained control of the German Reichstag (parliament). German President Paul von Hindenburg, seeking to gain popular support for the government, named Hitler Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.

In the following months the German government suspended all rights of assembly, free speech, and freedom of the press while allowing unrestrained police powers. The constitution was modified to permit the Nazi Party to enact any law without the approval of the German Reichstag or the President.

With those broad powers, Hitler enacted the racist and antisemetic policies that he first professed in his 1925 manifesto Mein Kampf. Jews, political opponents, and others were forced out of many professions, and members of some targeted groups were forcibly sterilized without their consent.

With the death of President von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler was able not only to continue his role as chancellor (head of government) and Fuhrer (head of the Nazi Party) but also take on the role of head of state, giving him complete control over all of Germany. Hitler now led a fascist state, and the Gestapo and SS terrorized those whom they suspected of opposing the regime.

Anti Semitism

By 1880 the European preoccupation with defining and studying groups deemed to be races brought to the forefront a call to exile Jews. This effort was apparent in many places, including Germany, where the term antisemitism emerged to name a new, organized political movement against Jews. The concept of the “survival of the fittest” likewise led to scientific ideas later perverted by the Nazis as a way to attack Jews and other groups through eugenics. Despite these threats, most German Jews were able to assimilate and took pride in contributing to the nation.

German ultranationalists depicted the Great War as being the result of a plot by Jews supposedly set on destroying Germany. The Jewish community, which comprised less that 1% of the German population, was falsely accused of seeking to devastate Germany economically, socially, and politically.

Having fallen into very tough economic times and deeply influenced by lingering medieval anti-Jewish prejudices, many people blamed resident and immigrating Jews from Eastern Europe. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis–promoting a pseudo-science that focused on the alleged superiority of Germanic, or “Aryan,” blood–took advantage of this resentment and gained widespread public approval. This created a nation-state with a specific enemy–the Jews.

The Nuremberg Laws (1935) revoked the citizenship of every Jew and Roma (pejoratively referred to as “gypsy”), prohibited intermarriage, and crafted a definition of Jews as a blood group that included individuals who never practiced Judaism. Jewish-owned businesses were boycotted, seized, and taken over by non-Jews.

Eventually thousands of laws singled out the Jews, whom the government actively helped portray as subhuman in popular culture and propaganda. Throughout most of the 1930s, the Reich encouraged Jews to leave the country, though they had to pay to do so.

Path to war

With the rise of Nazism and the wounds of World War I fresh on their minds–from hyperinflation to famine, with great social and cultural turmoil–world leaders in the mid-to late 1930s wanted to avoid another major conflict. British Prime Minister Nevelle Chamberlain quickly became the face of the policy of appeasement when dealing with Germany. He granted seemingly minor concessions to satisfy Hitler’s demands while denying Hitler opportunities to start a new war.

Hitler took advantage of the appeasement policy to avenge Germany of what he saw as the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. In defiance of the treaty Hitler introduced military conscription and quickly enlarged his army so that in 1936 it marched unopposed into the Rhineland. In March 1938Germany annexed Austria. Following a series of threats and negotiations, Hitler secured the Munich Agreement, in which Britain, France, and Italy agreed to permit the division of Czechoslovakia between Germany and others.

Utilizing a military strategy called the Blitzkrieg(“lightning war”), Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The attack was so swift that Poland was unable to mobilize any meaningful military response. Having guaranteed the sovereignty of Poland, Great Britain and France were finally forced to take action. On September 3, 1939, the two countries declared war on Germany–marking the beginning of World War II. Two weeks later, under the terms of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact signed in August, the Soviet Union moved to occupy the esatern half of Poland.

Early Concentration Camps and Ghettos

At the same time as it built and expanded its military power, the Nazi regime designated or built a series of detention facilities to imprison “enemies of the state.” Most early prisoners were German communists, socialists, Social Democrats, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals. These facilities were termed “concentration camps” because those imprisoned were centralized in one location.

After Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938, a concerted effor to round up German and Austrian Jews began.The November 1938 KristallnachtProgramagainst the Jews included government-sanctioned destruction of property, public beatings, mass arrests, and murders. Many adult male Jews were incarcerated in concentration camps. This marked a turning point in Naziantisemitic practice, which rapidly increased and concentrated into the hands of the Nazi SS.

The Nazis reintroduced an old European policy of requiring Jews to live as a separate population in ghettos, but now with the purpose of completely isolating, overcrowding, starving, and ultimately killing the residents. The invasion of Poland brought a larger number of Jews under German control, so by late 1939 the Nazis were concentrating urban and some regional Jewish populations into designated ghettos, especially in large Polish cities. In Warsaw over 400,000 Jews were crowded into and walled behind an area of 1.3 square mile

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Germany planned for a short war. Following the invasion of Poland, Germany opened a western front in May 1940 by invading the Low Countries–the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg–which had hoped to avoid conflict by declaring neutrality. Within six weeks, France had signed an armistice allowing the Nazis to occupy the northern half of that country. This was followed by the air war against England, the 16-week Battle of Britain, when the German Luftwaffebombed London.

By Fall 1940 Britain was effectively the only European nation still fighting against the Germans. Through its alliance with Italy and the Nonaggression Pact with the Soviet Union, Germany had effectively accomplished in a few short months what years of fighting during World War I failed to do.

The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact had always been a tactical decision to avoid fighting a war on two fronts. Lebensraum, or “living space,” was a key component to the military and racial strategies of the Nazis. While the Nonaggression Pact delayed action to the east, the desire for the autocratic self-sufficiency of both land and food resources remained at the forefront of Hitler’s plans. The dual missions of Lebensraumand “blood purity”–both of which were tied inextricably to the Jews–informed all the decisions of the Nazi regime.

With the western front largely secure, Germany decided in June 1941 it was time to invade the Soviet Union. The Nazis attempted to take control of key strategic points, but the German forces stalled during the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad and were subsequently pushed back by Soviet offensives. The fighting would drag on in many of these areas for three more years.

U.S. Enters the War

Unlike much of Europe, America enjoyed an economic boom, the “Roaring Twenties,” after World War I. But by October 1929, the country succumbed to the economic crush that devastated Europe. Within three years about 25% of the U.S. population–up to 15 million people–became unemployed and the country’s industrial factories had to cut production in half.

With the outbreak of hostilities, President Roosevelt chose to informally assist Britain and France by increasing defense manufacturing and building military infrastructure. This gave some relief to the unemployment crisis while sending material to the war effort. Yet most Americans felt safely isolated from World War II and did not wish to get involved.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1941 changed this. The United States immediately declared war on Japan, followed a few days later by a similar proclamation against Germany and Italy after those countries–declared allies of Japan–had declared war against the United States.

German Labor Camps

With the opening of concentration camps, Germany saw many imprisoned people as an economic resource–one that could be leased to German companies or used by the government to fill needs caused by desperate labor shortages. Forced labor–often pointless, humiliating and imposed without suitable equipment, clothing, nourishment, rest or safety standards–formed a core part of the concentration camp regimen. At its peak, forced labor made up approximately 20% of the total German workforce.

Forced labor projects varied, but most involved hard labor and construction. Much of the German Autobahn network was built using forced labor. After the German invasion of the western Soviet Union in mid-1941, more laborers–including captured Slavic peoples and captured Soviet prisoners of war–were sent to factories and forced to work towards the war effort. Many German corporations exploited these prisoners as a cheap source of labor. The Nazis often set up a makeshift camp adjacent to key factories or facilities.

According to Nazi philosophy, most prisoners came from inferior blood groups, and thus deserverd to serve their Aryan masters. Although their work often held economic value, the vast majority of prisoners were likely to suffer beatings and other forms of torture, sometimes in the form of cruel, deadly games at the hands of the SS and their helper. For Jews, the forced labor experience was a temporary state in their planned murder known as the “Final Solution.

The final Solution

Ghettos and concentration camps began after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 as a short-term measure to control and segregate populations until the implementation of the “Final Solution”–a euphemism referring to the Nazi plan to annihilate all European Jews. Paramilitary Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) began slaughtering Jews, Roma, and political opponents in the Baltic States. This was initially accomplished by mass shooting, which was soon supplemented by vehicles in which victims were gassed.

The SS soon found a more efficient method for mass murder: Jews and other “undesirables” were packed into trains and deported to any of the six death camps (or killing centers) whose sole purpose was murder. Among Jewish arrivals to the camps,the elderly, the young, and the infirm were almost always the first to be sent to the gas chambers, but there were also instances of entire boxcars full of people, even the comparatively healthy, being immediately murdered. Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest death camp, was capable of gassing thousands per day. Not all death camps had gas chambers, but all shared a goal of killing as many victims as possible.

The Nazis and their accomplices were experts at mental, spiritual, and physical torture, and worked to quell victims’ abilities to resist. Even so, several well-documented revolts occurred at some of the ghettos and camps. However, most prisoners were in no physical condition to fight back, and any signs of resistance led to harsh punishments against other inmates.

A small minority of Jews was held back to become forced laborers at many of the camps, though the plan remained for them to be eventually murdered. Others, often Jewish or Romani children, suffered torture in the form of “medical” experimentation. Some inmates were forced by the SS to remove gold fillings and burn bodies; in turn, these same inmates would eventually meet the same fate. Cremated bodies filled the air with greasy ash and a foul stench.

Liberation

As the Allies advanced towards and into Germany in late 1944, the Nazis desperately diverted resources away from their own defenses to accelerate the killing of Jews. During the retreat, SS members destroyed some of the evidence of their killing centers. They burned down crematories and other buildings and forced starving prisoners to trudge long distances in freezing weather. Those who lagged behind on these death marches were shot beside the roads, to be left with the thousands of bodies of those who had already collapsed and died.

By April 1945 Allied troops of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union had nearly established control over Germany and German-occupied Poland. After personally witnessing the horrors discovered at the Ohrdruf concentration camp, General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered every nearby unit not fighting on the front lines to also visit the camp. “We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for,” Eisenhower reportedly said, “Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting against.

As Allied troops encountered the former camps, they were horrified to discover the remaining evidence of the Holocaust–including mounds of corpses that had been left behind to rot. The liberating soldiers were shocked beyond imagination by what they now witnessed. Depending on the extent of malnutrition, many camp survivors would attempt to thank or embrace the soldiers. The memories of those moments would stay with the liberators forever.

Explore Project

Texas

Before and In to the War

Watching A Troubled World

The call to arms

The American Man Becomes G.I. Joe

The Rise of Nazism

Anti Semitism

Path to war

Early Concentration Camps and Ghettos

Warineurope

U.S. Enters the War

German Labor Camps

The final Solution

Liberation

Meet the Liberators

Wilson Canafax

William Womack

George Wessel

Raymond Stewart Watson

Melvin Waters

John Valls

Herb Stern

Chester “Chet” Rohn

Jack John Reynolds

Jerry Morgan

Gerd Miller

Robert Anderson

Lee Berg

Ray Buchanan

William E Danner Sr.

William Dippo

Ted Hartman

Chick Havey

Hank Josephs

Sigmund Liberman

Ben Love

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