25. The United States and the Second World War, 1939

Quiz for Beyond America’s Borders: Nazi Anti-Semitism and the Atomic Bomb

Select the best answer for each question. Click the “submit” button for each question to turn in your work.

Question 25.1

1. This essay supports which of the following historical arguments?

The inclusion of foreign scientists on a government project as secret and as important as the Manhattan Project team was unprecedented in American history.

The main reason Hitler’s scientists were unable to make their own atomic bomb was because Hitler failed to allocate sufficient funding to scientific research.

Physics research in the United States had stagnated in the 1920s, and it was only because of the arrival of the Jewish refugees that it accelerated again.

The United States' development of an atomic bomb was both in response to and thanks to Hitler essentially exiling Jewish scientists from Germany.

Question 25.2

2. Why did hundreds of German Jewish intellectuals immigrate to the United States in the years leading up to World War II?

Many of the important academic journals in Germany were run by anti-Semites, and it became increasingly difficult for intellectuals to get their work published.

A half dozen prominent Jewish intellectuals were targeted with attempted assassinations, causing hundreds of others to flee for safer territory.

Hitler forbade all Jewish people from working for the state, including at universities, which left hundreds of Jewish intellectuals unable to make a living.

American universities were looking to hire far more professors than average in the late 1930s, which attracted German Jewish intellectuals to the United States.

Question 25.3

3. What did refugee scientists in the United States worry would happen if a scientist who was loyal to Nazi Germany discovered how to take advantage of nuclear energy?

He would accidentally blow himself up due to his poor training.

Hitler would create a nuclear bomb that could destroy the entire world.

World War II would be frozen in mutually-assured destruction for decades.

He would ignore or ridicule the information as useless “Jewish nonsense.”

Question 25.4

4. The government program tasked with developing an atomic bomb was known as

the Manhattan Project.

Operation Dixie.

the Works Progress Administration.

Operation Pedro Pan.

Question 25.5

5. Why didn’t the United States drop its atomic bomb on Germany during World War II?

German scientists on the Manhattan Project convinced them not to.

The public outcry against the bombs dropped on Japan was too extreme.

By 1945, Japan was considered a bigger threat than Germany.