What are some good WWII speeches that High School students could work with?

by KudosGamer

Like speeches from the major power leaders (Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt etc.)

I want the students to compare them so that they can see how the different leaders addressed the public, and their type of rhetoric.

erissays

You can pick and choose as you like from these options; I've left several of my favorites out (Roosevelt's New Deal Fireside Chat and his 1944 State of the Union Address--aka, the "Second Bill of Rights" speech--are amazing) in order to focus on the most powerful or most famous wartime speeches given by the leaders you mentioned+Charles De Gaulle (the Leader of Free France, the head of the French Provisionary Government, and the first President of the Post-War French Republic) and Hirohito (Emperor of Japan). As far as I know, all are available online in transcript version and most of them have audio versions as well.

  • Roosevelt's 1941 Four Freedoms Speech is a must

  • Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" Pearl Harbor Speech from 1941

  • Several of Roosevelt's Fireside Chat speeches, but the 1941 "When You See a Rattlesnake Poised to Strike, You Do Not Wait Until He Has Struck Before You Crush Him" and 1943 "Arsenal of Democracy" speeches are good ones since they directly address the war effort rather than domestic issues

  • The three Parliament speeches by Winston Churchill in 1940 ("Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat"/"We Shall Fight on the Beaches"/"Finest Hour")

  • Churchill's speech to the US Congress, 1941

  • Churchill's 1946 "Sinews of Peace" speech (also known as the "Iron Curtain Speech")

  • Hitler's 1939 "Jewish Question" Speech

  • Hitler's 1939 Obersalzberg Speech (Invasion of Poland)

  • Hitler's 1941 Declaration of War on the United States

  • De Gaulle's 1940 'Appeal on the 18 June'/'Flame of the French Resistance' speech and the very similar speech he gave 4 days later on the BBC from London (largely considered to be the origin of the official French Resistance to the German occupation of Paris)

  • Charles De Gaulle's Bayeux Speeches (1944 and 1946)

  • Hirohito's 1945 "Jewel Voice Broadcast"/"Surrender of Japan" Speech after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

If you want to have some fun with your students, you can have them analyze Hitler's early speeches in the 30s, like his speech on the Treaty of Versailles in 1933, his speech on the Lebensraum and the Rhineland in 1936, or his speech to the Reichstag in February 1938.