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CLEP Western Civilization II study materials
CLEP Western Civilization II study resources

CLEP Western Civilization II: The Second World War and the Postwar World, c. 1939–1991

CLEP Western Civilization II · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

The Second World War and the Postwar World, c. 1939–1991

This domain covers the Second World War, the Holocaust, the postwar settlement, and the Cold War in Europe to 1991.

The war and the Holocaust

  • German Blitzkrieg overran much of Europe. Operation Barbarossa (June 1941) and Pearl Harbor (December 1941) globalized the war. Turning points included Stalingrad (1942–1943), El Alamein, and D-Day (1944).
  • The Holocaust developed through ghettos, mass shootings, and camps; the Wannsee Conference (January 1942) coordinated the genocide. Resistance and rescue occurred, but bystanders and collaboration enabled it.
  • Teheran (1943), Yalta (February 1945), and Potsdam (July–August 1945) shaped the postwar order. The United Nations was founded in 1945, and the Nuremberg trials addressed Nazi crimes.

Cold War Europe

  • The Truman Doctrine (1947), Marshall Plan (1948), Berlin blockade (1948–1949), NATO (1949), and Warsaw Pact (1955) institutionalized the division of Europe.
  • The Berlin Wall (1961) symbolized the split. The Cuban missile crisis (1962) brought superpower confrontation. Détente produced the Helsinki Accords (1975), which included human-rights provisions later used by dissidents.
  • In Eastern Europe, the Hungarian uprising (1956) and Prague Spring (1968) were crushed. Solidarity in Poland (1980) challenged communist rule. Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika after 1985 undermined Soviet control; revolutions swept Eastern Europe in 1989, and the USSR dissolved in 1991.

Worked example

Question: How did the wartime alliance become the Cold War? Reasoning: the common enemy disappeared; the USSR and the West disagreed over Germany and Eastern Europe; Stalin imposed friendly governments; the United States maintained economic and military power in Western Europe; atomic monopoly and ideology deepened suspicion. Institutions such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact locked in the division. No single event caused it.

Traps that cost marks

  • The Cold War was not caused solely by Stalin or by Truman; security dilemmas and ideology both mattered.
  • The Holocaust was not a single decision at one moment; it evolved through stages.
  • 1989 in Eastern Europe and the 1991 Soviet collapse are related but distinct processes.