chapter 4

Question 1

were the 1930’s a fun time in europe

Answer 1

-By the end of 1929, a decade after the end of World War I, Europe had been affected by a flawed peace treaty (Versailles) and the Great Depression, the most severe economic crisis to affect the modern world.
-These two factors caused frustrations among the masses and this led to the rise of dangerous radical political parties who offered rituals, symbols and charismatic leaders who seemed to have all the answers. Hence, the 1930’s was not a good decade for democracy in Europe.
According to Matthew White (2000):

Question 2

how did old vs young democracies fair vs the great depression

Answer 2

“When the global economy collapsed in 1929, the older, established democracies rode out the crisis by instituting subsidies and unemployment relief programs, but in nations with shallower democratic roots, the global slump kicked out the underpinnings of liberal democracy and destroyed its credibility. As the voters turned toward parties with more radical agendas, the number of democracies in the world plummeted as quickly as the economic indicators.”

Question 3

is dictatorship a new phenomena

Answer 3

• Dictatorships were not an invention of the 1930’s. Different forms of authoritarian rulers can be traced back as far as the beginning of Antiquity. Egyptian Pharaohs, Roman Emperors and Absolute monarchs of the 17th Century were dictators.
• But unlike the authoritarian rulers of the past, the totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century had access to new means of communication such as the radio, photography and cinema for propaganda (the Nazis made sure that buying a radio would become more affordable for German families to make sure to reach every German family once they took control of all the German radio stations

Question 4

what was new about this generation of dictators

Answer 4

• In these totalitarian regimes of Fascist Italy, the USSR, Nazi Germany and Fascist Spain the citizens had to get fully involved in the collective projects imposed by their government.
• For example, Marla Stone (2013) argues that in the case of Italy: ‘‘the individual would achieve fulfillment and renewal through submission to the Fascist project…With allegiance to the Fascist state, the participant becomes part of the resurgent national community.’’ (p. 3)
• all that was important for the previous gen was that they vpaid their taxes and showed up to war did not care about being liked or passion

Question 5

goal of totalitarien govs

Answer 5

• The totalitarian governments aimed at having total control over politics, the economy, the media, culture, science, education, history, sports and religion.
• The citizens had to follow the “General Will” that was imposed on everyone.
• This will of the masses was embodied by their political leader. The fate of the nation was linked to the fate of the leader.
• The totalitarian dictators sought to control the hearts and minds of their countrymen and countrywomen.

Question 6

fascism

Answer 6

-Fascism was the ideology of most totalitarian dictators such as Benito Mussolini (Italy), Adolf Hitler (Germany) and Francisco Franco (Spain). Fascism is a concept that is often misunderstood and used excessively. Here is a clear and concise definition: “Fascism refers to a totalitarian-like right-wing state combined with hyper-nationalism, racism, and rule of a feared dictator” (Duiker & Momani, 2007, p. 90).

Question 7

hwo did italy end up at the end of WW!

Answer 7

-The Italians were disappointed by the outcome of World War I. They felt like they were insufficiently rewarded for betraying, Germany and Austria-Hungary, their traditional allies of the Triple Alliance. There was a widespread feeling that over 650,000 Italians died for nothing during World War I (Stone, 2013).

Question 8

was WW1 the only problem for italians

Answer 8

-Moreover, Italy had other problems such as inflation, rampant criminality and infighting between the government, the monarchy and the Catholic Church.

Question 9

how is italy simmialr to russia

Answer 9

-The Italian socialists aspired to take advantage of these chaotic conditions by making a revolution (just like the Russian socialists back in 1917).

Question 10

who was agaisnt this socialist movement

Answer 10

• The Catholic Church and the bourgeoisie (i.e., the business elite) were strong forces who abhorred the “godless” socialists (the Italian socialists were atheists like Karl Marx, their role model).
• The bourgeoisie, the King and the Catholic Church all longed for a strong leader who could reestablish order and efficient leadership in Italy.

-This allowed the rise of Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party.

Question 11

Benito mussolini party

Answer 11

• This party was formed in 1919. It was originally named the League of Combat.
• The fascists became renowned for standing up to the socialists by breaking up strikes and protests and attacking socialist newspapers in Italian cities: “Between 1919 and 1922 approximately 3,000 Italians died in the political violence unleashed by the Fascists.’’ (Stone, 2013, p. 12).
• The Fascists of Italy offered extreme nationalism instead of the class warfare offered by their socialist rivals. This brought them many voters and new members.

Question 12

gain of popularity for the league of combat

Answer 12

• Mussolini and 34 other fascists were elected to the Italian parliament in the 1921 legislative elections.
• This allowed Mussolini’s Party to have more visibility and it increased its membership to 700,000 Italians by 1922 (Italy had approximately 40 million inhabitants during the early 1920s).
• The Fascist Black-Shirts, Mussolini’s powerful militia, gained the respect of the bourgeoisie of Italy by helping the police officers repress strikes and events held by the socialists.

Question 13

shift in italian governement system to facism

Answer 13

-In 1922, Mussolini and more than 30,000 Black-Shirts were emboldened by their growing popularity and they marched on Rome, the capital of Italy, to show their strength. This show of force brought them to power (Cuoq-Petit, 2011).
-The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, allowed the Fascists to form a new government instead of provoking a civil war by ordering the police to disperse the Black-shirts.
-Mussolini became Prime Minister and the fascists swept the country during the following election in 1924. Dishonest tactics were used to ensure their triumph: ‘‘Widespread fraud, as well as violence and intimidation against political opponents, accompanied the election, ensuring a fascists victory.’’ (Stone, 2013, p. 15)
-Mussolini quickly used his control of the Italian government to turn Italy into a totalitarian state:
Although no social or economic revolution occurred, the new regime was radical in its destruction of human rights and democratic government (Brower & Sanders, 2014, p. 49).

Question 14

were people who were ins diagreement with musolini able to live laugh love in these conditions

Answer 14

• In 1926, all the other Italian political parties were outlawed. The Fascists also restricted the freedom of the press.
• Giacomo Matteotti, a leader of the socialists who openly criticized Mussolini’s abuses, was kidnapped and assassinated by the Fascists.
• Mussolini ordered that publications could not criticize the government, the Catholic Church or the King of Italy.

Question 15

Musolini power trip ?

Answer 15

-He also abandoned his title of prime minister to name himself Il Duce (i.e., the leader).

Question 16

Musolini + catholic church yay or nay

Answer 16

• He also abandoned his title of prime minister to name himself Il Duce (i.e., the leader).
• Mussolini did this to get the support of the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XI in 1929. It was now possible for Italians to feel that they could be good fascists and good Catholics at the same time.

Question 17

Musolini and the italin vision

Answer 17

-Under Mussolini, Italians had to unite behind him. They would all have a role to play to restore the glory of Italy.
-Dissidence would not be tolerated: “The Fascist conception of the state is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.” Benito Mussolini, 1932.
“Fascism not only invited Italians to participate in a grand national project; it also expected adherents to fulfill themselves through commitment to it.” (Stone, 2013, p. 3).

Question 18

itali’s expanding glory

Answer 18

• During the mid-1930s, Mussolini had a few opportunities to increase national pride in Italy.
• Mussolini proudly watched Italy host and win the World Cup of Soccer in 1934 (the Italians defeated Czechoslovakia in the final game).
• In 1936, the Fascists conquered Abyssinia (i.e., Ethiopia) to increase the prestige of Italy and possibly recreate the Roman Empire. In fact, Mussolini constantly celebrated Italy’s link with the Ancient empire of the Romans (the League of Nations failed to stop this conquest despite the efforts of Haile Selassie, the ruler of Abyssinia. Selassie remains respected due to his effort to convince the world to stand up to Fascism. Sadly, nobody wanted to defend Abyssinia against Italy in 1936).

Question 19

how did Hitler and musolini bocome bff’s

Answer 19

• Italian troops used poison gas during the conquest of Abyssinia. This made Mussolini a pariah in the international community and it forced him to strengthen his relation with the new German leader, Adolf Hitler who shared Mussolini’s fascist views.
• did not really trust each other and did not make a very functional team

Question 20

Spain, Mussolini and Hitler

Answer 20

-Mussolini and Hitler even helped Francisco Franco, their fellow fascist, to obtain power by winning the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) against the troops of the elected Premier, Juan Negrin (Franco did not join his fellow fascists in World War II. He managed to maintain his dictatorship over Spain for 39 years. This was the longest reign by a dictator in 20th Century Europe).

Question 21

spain and anti facist art

Answer 21

• Picacco’s painting of the bombing of the Spanish city of Guernica by the fascist illustrates the madness of modern war that causes massive death of innocent civilians. It’s one of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th Century:
• Salvador Dali, another great Spanish artist of the 20th Century, also produced a masterpiece based on the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. It’s called The Face of War:

Question 22

musolinin total control ?

Answer 22

• Mussolini also managed to temporarily weaken the power of criminal organizations in Italy.
• However, Mussolini did not manage to completely destroy the pre-establish power structure in his country unlike Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
• Mussolini was never truly able to fully control other forces in Italy such as the Catholic Church, the bourgeoisie, the military officers and the king.

Question 23

hitler vs musolini controle

Answer 23

-Unlike Hitler, Mussolini owed his power to the elite and he never obtained the full support of the masses.
-On the other hand, Hitler exploited the outrage of the Germans masses to eventually impose his will on the German elite:
“After all there are only three great statesmen in the world, Stalin, I and Mussolini. Mussolini is the weakest, for he has been able to break the power neither of the crown nor of the Church” Adolf Hitler, 1939.

Question 24

nazis fun loving type ?

Answer 24

The Nazi empire was created by violence, lived by violence and was destroyed by violence” (Burleigh, 2001, p. 481).

Question 25

Weimar Republic

Answer 25

• After World War I, Germany became the Weimar Republic. Germany was no longer ruled by an Emperor. It became a democracy and its new constitution was written in Weimar, a city near Berlin.
• Germany experienced a cultural and scientific golden age during this period thanks to famous artists and scientists such as Albert Einstein, Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, Otto Dix and Max Ernst.
• But the Weimar Republic still did not hit the ground running.

Question 26

Spartacists

Answer 26

-It was led by social democrats. They had to govern a country that was demoralized and that had experienced the Spartacist uprising of 1919 (the Spartacists were communists who tried to make a coup d’état in Berlin, the German capital, shortly after the end of World War I).

Question 27

German reparations to France

Answer 27

• Moreover, the economy of Germany was not going well. The burden of paying war reparation to France put a lot of financial pressure on the German government.
• In 1923, the French began to seize coal from Germany due to the inability of the German government to pay war indemnities to France.
• The German population was freezing because of the shortage of coal caused by the French. The French troops were still in the Rhineland and they bullied the Germans living there (French troops left Germany in 1925).

Question 28

solution to coal shortage

Answer 28

• The German government responded to the emergency by printing more money to resume payments to France and to keep German coal for German citizens.
• This ill-advised remedy worsened Germany’s economic problems.
• The German currency was devalued to the point that it was literally not worth the paper it was printed on.
• This caused hyperinflation. It forced the Germans to pay fortunes for basic goods: “Berlin in a crisis with France over reparations, printed money without limit, bringing an hyperinflation so insane that by 1923 it took a wheel barrowful of marks to buy a loaf of bread” (Roskin, 2013, p. 132).
• The crisis reached its apogee in 1923. It took 4.2 Million papiermarks (German currency) to get 1 US Dollar! It used to take only 4 papiermarks to get 1 US Dollar before World War I (Yapp & Hopkinson, 2006, p. 443).

Question 29

solution hyper inflation

Answer 29

• The Dawes Plan of 1924 gave economic relief from the United States and more reasonable peace terms to Germany (Dawes was an American banker).
• The worthless papiermarks were replaced by a new currency, the Reichmarks.
• But the Germans were not out of the woods yet. The Dawes Plan tied their economic fate to the United States.

Question 30

did the Dawes plan work

Answer 30

• The state of the German economy went from bad to awful when the Great Depression started in the United States in 1929 (because American banks who faced bankruptcy wanted the Germans to repay their loans).
• Unemployment was sky high in Germany (40 percent). There were 6.2 million unemployed Germans in 1932 and the United States was no longer able to provide assistance to the Germans.

Question 31

what happens when men don’t have jobs

Answer 31

-The German cities were full of young unemployed men that had radical political ideas: “By the 1930s, antigovernment sentiment was high -the only question was, who would emerge to replace the Weimar regime?” (Hallcock, 2013, p.77)

Question 32

city where them cray cray poor homies flared up

Answer 32

• One city that was a hotbed of radicalism was Munich, Bavaria (in southeastern Germany).
• This was the home an Austrian-born war veteran named Adolf Hitler (his parents were cousins and his paternal grandfather his unknown so he would not have been able to prove that he was not a Jew according laws that the Nazis passed in the mid-1930s).

in German history cray politicians always come from Munich or Bavaria

Question 33

Hitler arrival in Germany

Answer 33

• Hitler had moved to Munich in 1913 after a disappointing decade in Vienna during which he wasted his inheritance and he was reduced to live in shelters for the homeless (he sold postcards to tourists after failing to enter Vienna’s prestigious Academy of Fine Arts).
• After moving to Munich, Hitler became decorated soldier and he overcame temporary blindness during World War I (Hitler left Austria before World War I to enlist in the more modern army of Germany. He hated the fact that the Austrian army had soldiers of ethnic groups that he considered to be inferior).

Question 34

hitler intro to politics

Answer 34

• After the war, Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party in 1919.
• He was a put in charge of recruiting new members because of his excellent oratory skills.
• Hitler filled this marginal this new party with unemployed former soldiers and with Anti-Semitic Germans.
• Hitler was a full-time political agitator and he quickly became the leader of this marginal political formation in 1921.
• He renamed his party the Nazi Party (Nazi is the acronym for National Socialist German Workers’ Party).

Question 35

hitler and protection 3 elements

Answer 35

• Once at the top of his small party, Hitler worked tirelessly to increase the number of members.
• He used a newspaper, badges, flags, and the SA to intimidate other political formations. Hitler even encouraged the SA to be violent and visible to get attention (the SA were led by Ernst Rohm. They were liquidated in 1934 during the Night of Long Knifes. They outgrew their usefulness once the Nazis took control of the German government and the army).

Question 36

Hitler coup

Answer 36

• In 1923, Hitler’s party tried to seize power by force in Bavaria just like Mussolini had done in Italy.
• They took 3,000 hostages when members of the government met in a large Pub for a social event.
• Hitler and 600 Nazis tried to intimidate Bavarian authorities into giving them power.
• Hitler fired a pistol to get the attention of his hostages and screamed “either the German revolution begins tonight, or we shall all be dead by tomorrow morning”.

Question 37

-The Nazi Beer Hall Putsch consequences

Answer 37

• The Nazis eventually failed because Hitler overestimated his popular support. The police of Munich remained loyal the Bavarian government.
• The Nazi Beer Hall Putsch caused the death of 16 Nazis.
• Hitler was arrested and sent to jail after a lengthy show trial. Moreover, the Nazi Party was temporarily banned.
• Hitler was judged guilty of treason and he was sent to Landsberg prison for a 5 years sentence.
• He only stayed for 8 months. Hitler was released because he was not considered a public danger by a German judge who reviewed his case.

Question 38

Hitler book context and content

Answer 38

• During his short sentence he used his mild condition to write his main ideas in his hate-filled autobiography, Mein Kampf.
• In this book he exposed his unbound hatred for the Jews. He considered that they were responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I and for its economic woes.
• He also discussed his abhorrence for the Slavs, the Gypsies, the homosexuals, the mentally ill, the communists, the Jehovah Witnesses…
• Hitler also wrote that the Germans had the right to take over the land of these “inferior” people to obtain a sufficient “living space” or Lebensraum: “Throughout his career, Hitler based his actions on the belief that all the ethnic Germans should be united in Europe’s strongest nation. Hitler never lost sight of this goal” (Hallock, 2013, p. 82).
• Hitler’s desire to avenge Germany’s defeat in World War I was also exposed in his book. His resentment towards France was especially strong.

Question 39

Mein Kampf significance and reception

Answer 39

• Mein Kampf would become the ideological foundation of the Nazi Party (the sad reality is that Hitler did not expose any new ideas. His hateful autobiography is a cocktail of ideas that had been present before by other authors. He was not the first German nationalist who loathed the Jews and the Communists).
• The book was a success because it intertwined his struggle and Germany’s difficulties.
• Many German readers empathize with Hitler’s life experience.
• The rampant anti-Semitism in Europe and the widespread distrust of France amongst Germans explain the popularity of Hitler’s autobiography.

Question 40

hitlers views on democracy

Answer 40

• Hitler’s failure had shown him that using force was not the ideal way to obtain political power even if he considered that democracy was a cancer that was ravaging Germany and the rest of Europe.
• He needed to find ways to make the Nazi Party more popular with the German masses. The economic woes of Germany would lead the German voters to pay more attention to political extremists who had radical ideas.

Question 41

the nazi party political gains

Answer 41

• In the elections of 1930, the Nazis made significant progress thanks to the Great Depression: The lure of fascism in the 1930s arose largely from the profound crisis caused by the Depression…political leadership in the Western democracies did not respond vigorously and effectively to the crisis, and democracy suffered terribly as a result. (Brower and Sanders, 2014, p. 77).
• It brought the Nazis more votes from the increasingly frustrated German “moderate” voters.
• They went from 2.6 percent of votes in 1928 to 18.3 percent in 1930. It gave the Nazis 107 of the 577 seats in the Reichstag (Hallcock, 2013, p. 79).

Question 42

1932 election

Answer 42

• In the following elections (1932), the Nazis obtained a majority of seats by getting 232 representatives in the Reichstag (with 37.4 percent of the votes).
• Hitler finished second in the presidential election despite the fact the was a tireless campaigner.

Question 43

1932 election winner

Answer 43

-He was defeated by Paul von Hindenburg, the aging incumbent president, who had been elected in 1925 (Hindenburg was an independent candidate with no party affiliation).

Question 44

hindenburg and hilter

Answer 44

-In January 1933, Hindenburg created the position of chancellor to accommodate Hitler. Hindenburg knew he had to work with the Nazis who controlled the Reichstag. He also wanted to give a position to Hitler to show the people of Germany that Hitler did not really have all the answers to the serious problems of their country. Hence, creating a new vice-presidential type of position made sense to him.

Question 45

political instability in Germany

Answer 45

• Unfortunately, Hindenburg underestimated Hitler. A month after Hitler’s nomination, the building of the Reichstag was burned.
• This building represented German democracy. It’s destruction by the flames quickly led to the end of democracy in Germany.

Question 46

who was the fire blamed upon

Answer 46

• Hitler and other prominent Nazis such as Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels, convinced President Hindenburg and the German public that it was the Socialists who started the fire.
• It allowed the Nazis to prove that the Socialists were a danger for Germany and that extreme measures had to be taken to prevent them from doing more damage.
• The Reichstag represented democracy in Germany. Hitler made sure that the destruction of this building would put Germany on a path to the destruction of the democratic Weimar Republic.
• During an interview with the London Daily Express, Hitler said that: “If this fire, as I believe, turns out to be the handiwork of Communists, then there is nothing that shall stop us now crushing out this murder pest with an iron fist”.

Question 47

what was the consequences of the fire

Answer 47

-Civil liberties were lifted when Hindenburg approved the Enabling Act (German legislators met in the Berlin Opera house where 94 socialists dared to vote against the Nazi’s Enabling Act).

Question 48

Enabling act

Answer 48

• This new law allowed Nazis to ignore the constitution of the Weimar Republic for 4 years (Marinus van der Lubbe, an unemployed communist, was arrested and executed for starting the fire. Approximately 4,000 German communists were arrested in the following weeks).
• Basic rights such as freedom of the press and freedom to assemble were suspended by this emergency decree.
• The Nazi government also gave itself the rights to confiscate property, search homes, seize letters and listen to phone conversations without a warrant with the Enabling Act.
• All other political parties were banned, unions were also banned and the Jewish civil servants, soldiers, teachers, actors, lawyers and journalists could no longer work in Germany. Jewish doctors could no longer have non-Jewish patients.
• The Nazis also took control of schools, universities and churches (this is when Albert Einstein left for the USA where he was hired at Princeton University).
• All the Germans who wanted to keep their position of authority had to take an oath of loyalty to the Nazis.
• The Nazis also created groups to indoctrinate the German teenagers, women and professionals.

Question 49

rip Weimar Republic

Answer 49

• In Germany there could no longer be anybody would ignore the Nazi Party and its ideology:
• Hindenburg died in 1934. He was unable to finish his 7-year term.
• Hitler was now the most powerful and popular politician in Germany. He abolished the presidency and he named himself the Fuhrer (the guide).
• The Weimar Republic, Germany’s first democracy, was officially dead after 14 unstable years and Hitler was more popular than ever: “Hitler dismantled the democratic scaffolding on which he had climbed to power” (Howard, 2002, p. 110).

Question 50

international reaction to the fall of democracy in Germany

Answer 50

• People from around the world were concerned about Hitler’s growing power.
• For example, Omer Heroux (1934) of Le Devoir wrote these prophetic words in an alarmist front page editorial on the consequences of Hindenburg’s death: “Hitler est roi, plus que roi. Aucun souverain d’un pays civilisé ne possède…de pouvoirs comparables…L’Univers se demande ce qu’Hitler va faire de sa toute-puissance…Un frisson d’inquiétude et d’angoisse passe sur le monde.”

Question 51

hitler and the olympiques

Answer 51

• The next step for Hitler was to bring all the Germans to share his ideas and his goals. Speeches and spectacles were organized by the Nazis to indoctrinate all the Germans.
• The largest spectacle orchestrated by the Nazis was the 1936 Olympic Games of Berlin (the Germans also hosted the Winter Olympics of 1936 in Garmisch).
• Hitler loved architecture. He envisioned to completely remodeled Berlin, the capital of Germany. He wanted his capital to look like a modern version of Rome. His Olympic stadium would be the new Colosseum. The Olympic Stadium of Berlin is one of the few large building that of the German capital that was not bombed by the Americans and the British at the end of World War II (this stadium was renovated to host the final of the 2006 World Cup of Soccer).

Question 52

what was hitler’s goal for the Olympics

Answer 52

-German athletes won the most medals at the Berlin Olympics. Nazi leaders quickly use this to argue that Germans were a superior race. However, the most decorated athlete of the 1936 Olympics was Jesse Owens, a young African-American from The Ohio State University. Owens won 4 gold medals. He dominated the sprinting and jumping events with his African American teammates. In 2000, ESPN named Owens the 6th greatest athlete of the 20th Century behind Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Wayne Gretzky (Owens and his fellow African-American medalists unfortunately faced racial segregation when they returned to the USA).

Question 53

begining of propaganda

Answer 53

-The Nazis also used modern media (radio, cinema) for mass propaganda.

• In 1935, they released the documentary Triumph of the Will. The goal was to convince the Germans that Hitler was a great leader and that their country was powerful again. This epic propaganda documentary was produced by Leni Reifenstahl, an exceptionally gifted film director. Reifenstahl still gets praised for her innovative use of lighting, music and camera angles but she gets blamed for her involvement with the Nazi Party’s propaganda.
• They also produced Victims of the Past (1937) to promote euthanasia of the mentally ill Germans, Olympia (1938) to glorify German athletes as well as the strongly anti-Semitic documentary, The Eternal Jew (1940).

Question 54

how did hitler limit dissenters

Answer 54

• To eliminate the dissenters Hitler and his good friend Heinrich Himmler formed the SS (Schutzstaffel) and the Gestapo.
• The SS and the Gestapo had no legal restrictions concerning arrests and interrogations. German citizens that the Nazis identified as enemies were sent to concentration camps (the camps started in Dachau in 1933).

Question 55

Nuremberg Laws

Answer 55

• In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stated that: the German Jews lost German citizenship and they could not get married with Germans/Aryans: A Jew cannot be a citizen of the Reich. He cannot exercise the right to vote; he cannot hold public office.
• Germany had 500,000 Jewish citizens. The represented less than 1 percent of the total population (on a total population of about 66 million Germans).
• Most German Jews had not taken Hitler’s menace very seriously before the Nuremburg laws (Anne Frank’s family was an exception. They left Germany for The Netherlands as soon as the Nazis took power in 1933).

Question 56

-The most brutal event in the repression of the Jews before the Holocaust

Answer 56

• The most brutal event in the repression of the Jews before the Holocaust was the night of shattered crystal/Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), during which 7,500 Jewish stores and 400 synagogues were burnt and 100 Jews were murdered by Nazi-led gangs.
• The angry anti-Semitic German mobs still had not done enough to satisfy Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister. He deplored that: “They should have broken fewer Jewish windows and taken more Jewish lives.”
• The only people who were arrested were convicted for raping Jewish women

Question 57

night of shattered crystal/Kristallnacht or crystal night trigger

Answer 57

-This outrage was caused by the murder of a German diplomat by a Jewish student in Paris.
.

Question 58

did the crystal night end anti semetic measures

Answer 58

• Moreover, 20,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps after the night of shattered crystal.
• The Jews were also forced to wear the yellow or white Star of David and the books of Jewish authors were burned (the Nazis also hated communist, pacifist and French writers. They burned the books of authors such Karl Marx, Frederich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, John Reed, Albert Einstein, Victor Hugo, Erich M. Remarque and Sigmund Freud).

Question 59

did Hitler respect the Treaty of Versailles

Answer 59

-Hitler also disrespected the Treaty of Versailles by increasing the size of his army. His limit was 100,000 soldiers. Germany had well over 500,000 soldiers by 1936 when military service became mandatory. This is when Hitler sent troops to occupy the demilitarized Rhineland. This was another clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler got away with all these violations. It gave him confidence that France and Great Britain did not want to go to war and that he could get away with almost anything.

Question 60

how was democracy doing in 1939

Answer 60

• Nazi Germany was undoubtedly a totalitarian state that was quickly becoming a danger for European stability.
• In 1939, France and Great Britain were the only large European democracies. Authoritarian governments seemed to be the wave of future.
• Hitler and Mussolini agreed that Democracy was outdated.