ECON BY THE NUMBERS

Overview

The American economy

went to war starting

21 MILLION
died in WWII, including

400,000
Americans.
It cost the equivalent of

36%
of Americas GDP alone
in its peak year.

which was

In Europe, though
American involvement
did not start until

1942.
The spark that
launched Americas war
declaration was a

DECEMBER

7, 1941

surprise attack by
Japan on Pearl Harbor.
It killed more than

2,400
Americans.

1941,

capacity utilization had

reached

18 MONTHS
before Pearl Harbor.

The
economic
origins of
WWII

100%
in the production of
iron and steel and
durable goods of all
types.

THE EUROPEAN THEATER

The war in Europe
began in

SEPTEMBER

In

FEBRUARY

The war began in

1939

JUNE

JUNE

1940

Over

As early as

fully

1941,
1%

of the American labor

force was building
training camps for

14 MILLION

1939,

with the German

invasion of Poland,
although the U.S.
would not be involved
until early

1942
when the first American
forces arrived in Great
Britain.

new draftees.
Employment in
shipbuilding and LendLease aid to the British
accounted for another

1%,

of the labor force in

1941.

by Michelle Zhang, text by Academic Decathlon Economics Resource Guide, acadecnotes.weebly.com

England and Germany

declared war against
Germany on

SEPTEMBER

only

3, 1939,
2 DAYS

after the German

invasion of Poland.

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES:

THE FIRSTWORLD WAR
PLANTS THE SEEDS OF THE
SECOND.
The Germans formed a
political alliance with
Imperial Japan and Italy
on

SEPTEMBER

27, 1940

in the Tripartite (Axis)

Pact.
On

DECEMBER

8, 1941,

the day after the Pearl

Harbor attacks, the U.S.
and Britain declared
war on Japan.
As per the Tripartite
Pact, Germany issued a
declaration of war
against America on

DECEMBER

11, 1939.
The roots of WWII can
be found in WWI,
which devastated
Europe from

1914
until

1918.

The armistice went into

effect on

John Maynard Keynes

11, 1918,

called the treaty a

Carthaginian Peace,
resigning as adviser to
the British delegation
at Versailles

NOVEMBER

and the official treaty

was signed in Versailles,
France on

JUNE

(1883-1946)

MAY

28, 1919.
Germanys reparations
payments totaled

$33 BILLION
to be paid at a rate of
$375 MILLION
per year until

1925
and
$900 MILLION
in interest alone after

1925.
It represented

26, 1919.
In a speech on

APRIL

17, 1923,

Hitler claimed that the

treaty humiliated
Germany, bringing

20 MILLION
Germans to their
deaths and ruin the
German nation.
Hitler was announced
the last Weimar
chancellor in

1933.

3 TIMES
Germanys pre war GDP.
France took control of
Alsace and Lorraine
and the German coal
mines in the
industrialized Saar
region for

15 YEARS.

by Michelle Zhang, text by Academic Decathlon Economics Resource Guide, acadecnotes.weebly.com

THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

The Weimar Republics
hyperinflation crippled
its economy between

1919
and

1923.

Before WWI began in

1914,
it took
4.2

This, in part, was due to

an American named
Charles Dawes, Director
of the Bureau of the
Budget

1923,

and later vice president

under President
Coolidge

German marks to
purchase a dollar. By
the end of
it took

4.2 TRILLION.
The Nazi Party under
Hitler organized a
failed coup in

1923
called the Beer Hall
Putscsh.
Despite political
agitation in the early

1920S,
Hitler would not
actually seize power for
about another decade.
This was in part
because the German
economy stabilized
between

1923
and

1929.

(CREATED 1921)

(1925-29),

creating the Dawes

plan of

1924.
The most significant
effort at political
stabilization from the
treaty of Versailles was
the League of Nations,
founded in early

1920.