President Roosevelt wanted to come to the aid of our British allies, but public sentiment was not yet ready to send American soldiers to fight in another European war. Hitler’s armies quickly overran Poland and then France, leaving Britain alone against German armies and air force. France and England came to the aid of the Poles and declared war on Germany. Great Britain and France tried to negotiate an end to German expansion, but the Soviet Union on Germany’s eastern front signed a non-aggression treaty with Hitler that opened the door to Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. He also sought to unite all German-speaking peoples, a policy that put him at odds with several neighbors like Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

In Europe, Adolf Hitler led the rise of the Nazi Party, which claimed that Germany was treated unfairly in the peace treaty that ended WWI. However, the rise of military government in Germany, Italy and Japan and their invasions of neighboring countries became a major concern for United States leaders including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A strong isolationist sentiment developed that questioned the wisdom of our entry into The Great War as it was then known. How did the United States’ motivations for entering World War II impact our actions?įollowing World War I, the United States hoped to avoid further entanglement with European politics that had drawn us into war. National Register of Historic Places & Landmarks.Iowa Cultural & Entertainment DistrictsĪ A State Historical Society of Iowa - Secondary Navigation.

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