The answer to the question of what is the Lend Lease Act is explored through the historical context: it is the legal document regulating the process of renting military equipment and machinery to allied countries during World War II. The purpose of the Act was to document assistance to other countries in the war against Hitler with the desire of the U.S. itself to remain neutral.
Explanation:
The Lend-Lease Act definition is closely connected with the events of World War II. Years of war were at times when the anti-Hitler coalition led by the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom was created and strengthened. Preparing armed aggression against the Soviet Union, Hitler and his strategists relied on the complete isolation of the Union’s territory, on the impossibility of uniting other countries in the fight against fascism. However, already in the first days of the attack by the armies of the fascist bloc, a powerful anti-Hitler coalition began to take shape. The U.S.-Anglo-Soviet Battle Alliance disrupted Hitler’s calculations and was an essential factor in achieving the defeat of the German fascist invaders.
The essence of the Lend-Lease Act seems quite simple at first glance. Under the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, the United States could supply equipment, ammunition, equipment, medicines, and food to those countries whose defense was vital to the United States. Under the provisions of the Lend-Lease Act facts, all equipment, facilities, and materials expended, spent, or destroyed during the war were exempt from payment. However, property left over from the end of the war and suitable for civilian purposes must be paid in full at the interest-free loan rate. The remaining war material remained with the recipient country, but the American administration had the right to claim it back. Customer countries could, after the end of the war, purchase equipment that had not yet been completed or stored in warehouses using long-term American loans. The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 was calculated to the delivery deadline was initially set to June 30, 1943, but was extended annually after that. Initially, the Lend-Lease Act was extended to Great Britain and China, then, six months later, the United States connected the USSR, and by the end of the war, the Act applied to more than thirty allied countries of the United States.
The significance of the Lend-Lease Act program is connected with the military events that led the allied countries to the conditions of almost an economic crisis. By the summer of 1940, France had fallen to the Nazis, and Britain practically alone, under an isolation blockade, fought with Germany on several fronts at once. The culmination was a personal request for help from the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to the U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, on May 15, 1940. The president gave his consent, but he faced a severe problem as to how to convey the idea of renting assistance to allied countries to the U.S. Congress and Americans. By order of Roosevelt, who signed the Lend-Lease Act, a working group was formed in the U.S. Treasury Department in the autumn of 1940 to prepare a relevant bill. Land-Lease, together with the growing assistance of Britain in its battle for the Atlantic, was a critical factor that led the U.S. into the war, especially on the European front. Hitler, declaring the U.S. war on December 11, 1941, mentioned both of these factors as key in deciding to go to war with America.
It is wrong to think that the primary motivation of Franklin Roosevelt was generosity or desire for help. Thanks to the Lend-Lease program, the U.S. was able to win a war deferral until it was ready to go into battle. Moreover, by becoming a kind of democracy and peace figure, Roosevelt provided the United States with a leading position in the international economic and political arena.