World War II (1939-1945)
The deadliest war in human history - and how it reached all the way to South Africa and the rest of Africa.
Speaker notes
Open by asking what learners already know about World War II - films, family stories, memorials. Set up the two big ideas of this lesson: (1) it was a truly global war with clear causes and turning points, and (2) it was not only 'over there' in Europe - South Africans and other Africans fought, died and changed history because of it. Remind learners that a world war means fighting on several continents at once.
The causes of World War II
The Second World War grew out of unfinished business from the First World War.
After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles (1919) punished Germany with huge payments and lost land. When the Great Depression brought mass unemployment in the 1930s, angry, desperate people turned to dictators who promised to make their nations strong again.
- Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in Germany in 1933, preaching racism and revenge.
- Dictators in Italy (Mussolini) and militarists in Japan wanted to build empires by force.
- The League of Nations was too weak to stop aggression, and other countries tried to avoid war by giving in (appeasement).
Speaker notes
Draw the line of cause and effect: a harsh peace + economic collapse + weak international response = the rise of aggressive dictatorships. Explain 'appeasement' simply - Britain and France let Hitler break the rules, hoping he would stop. He did not. Link back to the Grade 8 topic on World War I so learners see the connection between the two wars.
The outbreak of war
On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and the world was at war again.
After taking Austria and Czechoslovakia, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Germany's fast tank-and-aircraft attacks were nicknamed Blitzkrieg ('lightning war').
- By mid-1940 Germany had conquered France and much of Western Europe.
- The two sides became known as the Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan) and the Allies (Britain, France, later the USSR and USA).
- Britain and its empire - including South Africa - now stood against Nazi Germany.
Speaker notes
Fix the start date firmly: 1 September 1939. Explain Blitzkrieg with a picture - tanks and dive-bombers moving so fast that defenders could not organise. Make clear why South Africa was involved at all: as part of the British Empire and Commonwealth, the question of joining the war landed straight in the South African parliament, which is the next slide.
The major theatres of war
Fighting spread across three great regions, or 'theatres', of the world.
Europe
Germany fought Britain in the west and, from 1941, the Soviet Union in the east - the largest land war in history.
North Africa
Allied and Axis armies battled across the desert for control of the Suez Canal and oil. South Africans fought here.
Asia and the Pacific
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the USA joined the war and fought Japan across the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker notes
Use the three cards to give learners a mental map. Stress that these theatres were connected: a defeat in one place affected the others. Point to North Africa specifically, because that is where most South African soldiers served. Note the key moment when the USA entered after Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941), which shifted the balance towards the Allies.
Turning points of the war
- 1939 Germany invades Poland; war begins
- 1940 Fall of France; Battle of Britain
- 1941 Germany invades the USSR; Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, USA joins
- 1942 Battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein turn the tide
- 1944 D-Day: Allies land in France on 6 June
- 1945 Germany surrenders (May); atomic bombs, Japan surrenders (August)
Speaker notes
A 'turning point' is a moment that changes the direction of the war. Highlight 1942 as the year the tide turned: Stalingrad stopped Germany in the east, and El Alamein (where South Africans fought) stopped Germany in North Africa. Ask learners to notice how the war spread outwards from 1939 and then closed back in on Germany and Japan by 1945.
The Holocaust
The Nazis carried out the deliberate mass murder of six million Jewish people.
The Nazis believed some 'races' were superior to others. They stripped Jewish people of their rights, forced them into ghettos, and then murdered around six million Jews in concentration and death camps such as Auschwitz. This genocide is called the Holocaust (in Hebrew, the Shoah).
- The Nazis also murdered Roma people, disabled people, political opponents and others.
- The Holocaust shows where racism and hatred can lead when a state has total power.
- After the war, the world promised 'never again' and began writing new human-rights laws.
Speaker notes
Handle this slide with care and seriousness. Keep the reading level simple but do not soften the truth: this was the planned, industrial murder of millions of innocent people. Connect it to what learners will study about racism in South Africa - the danger of teaching that one group of humans is worth less than another. This is also a good moment to link forward to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
South Africa decides to fight
In September 1939 South Africa's parliament had to choose: neutral, or join the Allies?
Prime Minister J.B.M. Hertzog wanted South Africa to stay neutral, but his deputy Jan Smuts wanted to fight alongside Britain. On 4 September 1939 parliament voted for war. Hertzog resigned, and Smuts became Prime Minister and a senior Allied leader.
- The vote split white politics deeply between pro-war and anti-war Afrikaners.
- South Africa's army was small in 1939 but grew quickly through volunteers.
- No one in South Africa was forced (conscripted) to fight overseas - soldiers volunteered.
Speaker notes
This is the pivotal South African moment. Explain that the decision was not obvious: many Afrikaners remembered the South African War against Britain and did not want to fight for the British Empire. The narrow parliamentary vote (about 80 to 67) split the country. Introduce Smuts as a world figure who will reappear at the end of the lesson at the founding of the United Nations. [SME] Verify the exact vote margin (commonly cited as 80-67) before publishing.
Africans in the fighting
More than 300,000 South Africans volunteered - and race shaped how they were allowed to serve.
South African troops helped drive the Italians out of East Africa (Abyssinia/Ethiopia) in 1941 and fought hard in the North African desert. Across the continent, hundreds of thousands of African soldiers and carriers served the Allied war effort.
- Black and Coloured South Africans served in the Native Military Corps and Cape Corps, but the government mostly refused to arm black soldiers, using them as drivers, guards and labourers.
- Job Maseko, a black South African soldier, famously sank a German ship in Tobruk harbour and was awarded the Military Medal.
- At Tobruk (June 1942) thousands of South African troops were captured when the town fell to German forces.
Speaker notes
This slide carries the CAPS focus on South Africa and Africa. Stress the injustice: black South Africans risked their lives but were denied weapons and equal pay because of racist policy, and returned home to no reward. Use Job Maseko as a concrete, memorable example of courage. Point out that experience of the war, and the hypocrisy of fighting Nazi racism abroad while facing racism at home, fed the growth of black political movements. [SME] Confirm the volunteer total (~334,000) and Tobruk POW figure with a source before publishing.
Opposition to the war at home
Not everyone in South Africa supported the Allies - some openly admired Nazi Germany.
The Ossewabrandwag (OB) was a large Afrikaner movement that opposed the war and sympathised with Nazi Germany. Some members carried out sabotage, and the government interned (jailed without trial) hundreds of them during the war.
- Robey Leibbrandt, a former Olympic boxer, was caught trying to organise armed resistance for Germany.
- These divisions deepened Afrikaner nationalism and fed into politics after the war.
- At the same time, many other South Africans - of all races - firmly opposed fascism and racism.
Speaker notes
Explain that a country at war is rarely united. Some Afrikaners saw the war as Britain's war, not theirs, and a smaller number actively supported Nazi Germany. Do not overstate this - most South Africans backed the Allies - but it matters because these movements shaped politics afterwards, feeding the National Party's rise in 1948 (the next unit). Balance the picture by naming the many South Africans who opposed fascism.
The home front
War changed daily life and the economy for people who never left South Africa.
With men away fighting, women moved into factory and office jobs in greater numbers. Factories switched to making war supplies, which boosted South African industry and drew many black workers into the cities.
- Goods such as petrol and food were rationed and prices rose.
- Rapid industrial growth increased African urbanisation and overcrowding in the townships.
- These wartime changes helped set the stage for the political struggles of the 1940s and 1950s.
Speaker notes
Connect the war to social and economic change learners can relate to. The key idea is that war at the front caused change at home: women's work, industrial growth, and above all a wave of African workers moving to the cities. This urbanisation - and the poor conditions that came with it - is directly linked to the resistance politics of the next CAPS unit on 1948 and the 1950s.
How the war ended - and its cost
By 1945 the Axis powers were defeated, but at a staggering human cost.
Germany surrendered in May 1945. To end the war against Japan, the USA dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and Japan surrendered. It was the first time nuclear weapons were used in war.
- An estimated 60 million or more people died - most of them civilians.
- Much of Europe and Asia lay in ruins, and millions became refugees.
- The war left two new superpowers, the USA and the USSR, whose rivalry became the Cold War.
Speaker notes
Two ideas to land here: the scale of death (mostly ordinary civilians, not just soldiers) and the arrival of the nuclear age. The atomic bombs are a bridge to the next Grade 9 topic, the Nuclear Age and the Cold War. Note the death-toll figure is an estimate - historians give a range. Emphasise that the war did not simply end problems; it created a new dangerous rivalry between the USA and USSR. [SME] Death-toll estimates range from about 60 to 85 million; confirm the figure the school text uses.
Building a new world: the United Nations
Out of the ruins of war, nations tried to build a system to keep the peace.
We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war... Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, 1945
In June 1945, 50 nations met in San Francisco and signed the Charter of the United Nations (UN), an organisation to settle disputes peacefully. South Africa's Prime Minister Jan Smuts helped write the Charter's famous preamble.
- The UN replaced the failed League of Nations of the 1920s and 1930s.
- In 1948 the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Ironically, the UN would later become a leading voice against apartheid in South Africa.
Speaker notes
End the lesson on consequences and hope. Explain the deep irony that CAPS wants learners to notice: Smuts helped write noble words about human dignity for the UN, yet the government he led still denied rights to most South Africans at home - and the same UN later condemned apartheid. This tension is a powerful bridge into the South African turning-points units. Explain 'preamble' as the opening statement of aims.
What we learned
World War II was a global war that reshaped the whole world - including South Africa.
We traced the war from its causes (a harsh peace, the Depression and the rise of dictators), through its turning points, the horror of the Holocaust, South Africa's decision to fight and the role of African soldiers, life on the home front, and finally the consequences and the founding of the United Nations.
Q. Explain two causes of World War II. (4 marks)
Q. Why is 1942 (El Alamein and Stalingrad) described as a turning point of the war? (4 marks)
Q. Describe how race affected the way black South Africans were allowed to take part in the war. (6 marks)
Speaker notes
Use the three questions as a written task or class discussion; the mark allocations follow CAPS source-based and extended-writing styles. Encourage learners to use specific evidence (dates, names such as Smuts and Job Maseko, places such as Tobruk). Close by linking forward: the war's consequences - urbanisation, Afrikaner nationalism, the Cold War and the UN - all feed directly into the next Grade 9 units on the Nuclear Age and South Africa's turning points after 1948.
- Grade
- Grade 9
- Subject
- History
- CAPS topic
- World War II (1939-1945)
- Resource type
- Presentation