Questions
1. What three trends does one find during and immediately after World War I?
2. What myths were created about Jews during World War I and its immediate aftermath.
3. What were the two sides fighting in World War I called? After you answer the previous question, make a list of the countries belonging to each side.
4. What conditions did the stalemate between the two sides in World War I create?
5. when did the USA enter the war and what caused the country to enter the war?
6. Why was American intervention so decisive for the outcome of the war?
7. What was the impact of the Russian Revolution on the war and on Russia?
8. What happened after the initial successes of the Axis powers in late winter 1918?
9. What does the word "armistice" mean? (Feel free to look the word up in a dictionary, but put the definition in your own words.)
10. What domestic developments in Germany contributed to the country's need for an armistice?
11. What did the armistice provoke in Germany?
12. Why do historians consider World War I one of the most destructive wars in human history? Why were casualties so high?
13. How did the Treaty of Versailles affect Germany?
14. What did the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye result in?
15. Which country lost territory in the Treaty of Trianon and which countries gained territory at the expense of the first country?
16. How did the Treaty of Sèvres and the Treaty of Lausaunne change the geography of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East?
17. What was the scope of the Holocaust? In other words, how many Jews were murdered? Who did the murders? How many years did the murderous phase of the Holocaust last?
18. How did modern Germans view Jews in a fundamentally different manner from earlier forms of antisemitism that we have studied so far?
19. How did the Nazi Party rise to power?
20. In what country was Hitler born and educated?
21. How does the Yad Vashem website define the Nazi ideology and what were its main ideas?
22. Why was Nazi state-sponsored antisemitism so much more dangerous to German Jews than earlier forms of antisemitism?
23. Where was the party most active in its early years and where is this German state located in Germany?
24. What was the Beer Hall Putsch and what were the consequences for Hitler and the Nazi Party?
25. What happened to the Nazi Party after Hitler became active in politics again in 1925?
26. Who began to support the Nazi Party during the Great Depression and for what reasons?
27. Why was Paul von Hindenburg so popular in postwar Germany?
28. What reasons can you infer from the biographical sketch of von Hindenburg for his decision to appoint Hitler as chancellor?
29. Once in power, what were Hitler's main goals? And, how did he accomplish them?
30. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem diverge on how they interpret the Nazi Anti-Jewish Boycott of 1 April 1933. How does each interpret the boycott?
31. Who were the SA? Who was the organization's leader? Who eventually felt threatened by the SA and what happened to the organization in 1934?
32. Who were the SS and who was the organization's leader? Into what did the leader of the SS transform the original organization?
33. What role did the Einsatzgruppen play in the Final Solution? What were the origins of the Einsatzgruppen?