Allied Powers

In World War II, the Allied powers were those countries, including Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and France (before its defeat in 1940), that opposed the Axis powers.

Axis Powers, Axis

In World War II, the alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan formed the Axis powers.

Concentration Camp

A prison within which people who allegedly pose some sort of threat to the state—political, intellectual, religious, economic, or military—are detained so that they can be monitored and prevented from communicating with others outside the camp. Since the Nazi Holocaust, the term has been associated with a specific type of place in which people are deprived of food, forced to work, tortured, and killed.

Dishonorable Discharge

The release of a military serviceman from all duties—usually for a crime—without recognition of his or her accomplishments or sacrifices.

Double V

Black leaders during the Second World War adopted this phrase to describe the specific type of battle African Americans would have to fight, a battle on two fronts—for "victory over our enemies at home and victory over our enemies on the battlefields abroad."

Internment

The confinement or imprisonment of people without trial, especially during a war. Often those detained in internment camps pose some sort of threat to the state—political, intellectual, religious, economic, or military—and are confined in one place so that they can be monitored and prevented from communicating with others outside the camp.

Lend-lease, Lend-Lease Act Of 1941

The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 permitted the United States to lend or lease weapons, military vessels, and other supplies to the Allies. The act seemed to contradict President Franklin Roosevelt's promise of American neutrality and hinted at the likelihood of U.S. involvement in World War II.

Munitions

This is another term for ammunition, but in the case of war mobilization it refers not to bullets and gunpowder but to bombs, missiles, and mines.

New Deal

A set of experimental government programs and reforms instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. The New Deal, through federal spending, price regulations, job placement, the expansion of unions, greater access to home loans, and social security for the elderly and disabled, was meant to bring relief to a population reeling from the Great Depression. It did transform the nation in some significant ways but did not succeed in ending the Great Depression.

Third Reich

Germany from 1933 to 1945 was governed by the National Socialist German Workers Party, or the Nazi Party, and is referred to as the Third Reich.