Edexcel International GCSE (9-1) History - Germany: Development of Dictatorship, 1918-45

Comprehensive practice flashcards defining core vocabulary, concepts, political terms, organisations, and legislation from the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (9-1) History textbook on Germany: Development of Dictatorship, 1918-45.

Abdicate

When a monarch gives up the throne.

Armistice

An agreement that stops the fighting in a war.

Parliamentary democracy

A system of government in which people elect representatives to a parliament to make laws and govern the country.

Proportional representation

An electoral system under which seats in the Reichstag were awarded strictly according to the percentage of votes gained by each political party.

Coalition

A government made up of different political parties.

War Guilt

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which stated that Germany had to accept the blame for starting the war.

Reparations

Financial compensation payments made to the Allies to pay for the damage caused by Germany during the war, set at 136,000 million marks (£6,600 million).

Demobilised

Troops who were sent back to Germany from the battlefield at the end of the war.

Freikorps

An estimated 250,000 ex-soldiers who refused to give up their weapons after the First World War and used violence on the streets of Germany to further their political aims.

Nationalist

A person who wants a strong country that puts its national interests before others.

Putsch

An armed uprising or revolt against the government.

Passive resistance

The use of peaceful means to resist power or authority, such as strikes by German workers during the 1923 French occupation of the Ruhr.

Hyperinflation

Extreme inflation, occurring when prices rise very quickly and currency rapidly loses its purchasing value.

Rentenmark

The temporary currency introduced by Gustav Stresemann in November 1923 to stabilise German currency following the hyperinflation crisis.

Reichsbank

The independent German national bank set up in 1924 to oversee the currency and help build confidence in Germany's financial system.

Reichsmark

The permanent German currency issued in 1924 to replace the temporary Rentenmark.

Diplomacy

The use of negotiations and agreements to reach decisions and resolve differences between countries.

Dawes Plan (1924)

An international agreement in which the USA loaned Germany 800 million gold marks, reparations payments were temporarily lowered to 1,000 million marks per year, and France agreed to withdraw troops from the Ruhr.

Young Plan (1929)

A financial agreement that reduced Germany's total reparations bill to around $8 billion payable over 59 years and arranged for French troops to evacuate the Rhineland by June 1930.

Locarno Pact (1925)

A collection of seven treaties signed in London in which Germany accepted its western borders, recognised Alsace-Lorraine as French, and agreed to resolve eastern border disputes through the League of Nations.

Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)

An agreement signed by 62 nations, including Germany, the USA, and France, in which countries pledged not to use military force to resolve disagreements.

Propaganda

Information, sometimes misleading, used to persuade people to hold or believe in specific values, policies, and ideas.

Paramilitary force

A private group run and organised like a military force.

Sturmabteilung (SA)

The Nazi paramilitary wing formed in 1921, also known as the stormtroopers or 'Brownshirts', led by Ernst Röhm to disrupt rival political meetings and protect Nazi rallies.

Stosstrupp

Hitler's personal bodyguard ('Shock Troop'), formed from the most-trusted members of the SA.

Lebensraum

'Living room'; the territory that the Nazis claimed they needed to acquire in Eastern Europe to provide space for a growing Aryan population.

Aryans

The people whom Adolf Hitler claimed constituted the superior human master race, typically described as blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall, and athletic.

Article 48

A clause in the Weimar Constitution that granted the president the power to issue emergency decrees and pass laws without the approval of the Reichstag.

Scapegoats

Individuals or groups who are blamed for problems or failures caused by others, such as Jews and Communists targeted by Nazi propaganda.

Decree

An official order issued by an individual or authority that carries the force of law.

Conspiracy

A secret plan made with others to carry out a wrongful, bad, or illegal act.

Enabling Act (1933)

A law passed on 24 March 1933 that changed the German constitution to give Adolf Hitler the power to enact laws and sign treaties without the consent of the Reichstag.

Night of the Long Knives

The purge carried out on 30 June 1934 in which Hitler ordered the SS to execute SA leader Ernst Röhm, dozens of SA commanders, and various political rivals.

Third Reich

The name given to Germany's third empire under Nazi rule, succeeding the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806) and the German Empire (1871-1918).

Plebiscite

A direct public vote on a single specific issue or policy decision, rather than an election for political representatives.

Police state

A totalitarian state controlled by a police force that monitors citizens to ensure no opposition to the governing regime exists.

Gestapo

Geheime Staatspolizei; the secret police force in Nazi Germany responsible for investigating and eliminating opponents of the state.

Schutzstaffel (SS)

The elite Nazi organisation that originated as Hitler's personal bodyguard, wore black uniforms with silver badges, and expanded under Heinrich Himmler to oversee state security and run concentration camps.

Censorship

The official suppression, restriction, or banning of information, literature, newspapers, radio, theatrical plays, or artwork deemed contrary to state ideology.

Indoctrination

The practice of forcing people to accept particular ideas, doctrines, and beliefs without permitting alternative perspectives.

Reich Church

The unified national Protestant body set up by the Nazis in 1933 under Ludwig Müller to incorporate Nazi symbols and ideology into Christian worship.

Confessional Church

The rival Protestant movement formed in 1934 by pastors Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to oppose Nazi political interference in church affairs.

Untermenschen

The German word meaning 'sub-humans' or inferior humans, used in Nazi racial theory to describe Jews, Gypsies, and other non-Aryans.

Intermarriage

Marriage between members of different racial or ethnic groups, banned by Nazi racial laws.

Boycott

A form of protest where customers refuse to purchase goods or services from targeted individuals or businesses, such as the April 1933 Nazi action against Jewish shops.

Nuremberg Laws (1935)

Two anti-Semitic statutes passed in September 1935: the Reich Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour (prohibiting marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Aryans) and the Reich Law on Citizenship (stripping Jews of citizenship rights).

Kristallnacht

The 'Night of Broken Glass' on 9-10 November 1938, a Nazi-organised pogrom in which 91 Jews were killed, 30,000 were arrested, over 800 Jewish shops were destroyed, and 191 synagogues were attacked.

Autarky

A policy of economic self-sufficiency aiming to produce all essential raw materials and finished goods domestically without relying on foreign trade.

German Labour Front (DAF)

The compulsory Nazi organisation led by Dr Robert Ley that replaced independent trade unions to regulate wages, working hours, and industrial output.

Strength Through Joy (KDF)

A programme operated by the DAF to organise workers' leisure time, offering subsidised holidays, excursions, sports events, and the Volkswagen car project to boost industrial productivity.

Beauty of Labour (SDA)

A branch of the DAF aimed at improving physical factory working environments by promoting canteens, clean facilities, and leisure amenities.

National Labour Service (RAD)

A state programme requiring unemployed single men to carry out six months of manual labour on public work projects, including autobahn construction.

Ghettoisation

The policy of forcibly concentrating Jewish populations into designated, enclosed urban quarters surrounded by walls and checkpoints, such as the Warsaw ghetto.

Einsatzgruppen

Special mobile execution units of the SS that followed the German army into the Soviet Union in 1941 to murder Jews, Gypsies, and communist leaders.

Holocaust

The systematic, state-sponsored extermination of approximately 6 million Jewish people and 5 million other victims by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945.

Kinderlandverschickung (KLV)

The wartime evacuation programme under which approximately 2.5 million German children were moved from bombing targets in major cities to supervised rural camps.

Scorched earth policy

A military tactic of destroying or burning all crops, infrastructure, and resources during a military retreat to deny their use to invading enemy forces.

Total war

A state of national conflict declared by Joseph Goebbels in 1943 requiring the total mobilization of all civilian, industrial, and economic resources toward the war effort.

Volkssturm

The German Home Guard established late in the Second World War to defend towns and cities from Allied invasion, conscripting men and boys as young as 12.

Edelweiss Pirates

A loose movement of working-class youth groups that originated in the Rhineland, opposed Hitler Youth discipline and military conscription, and engaged in anti-Nazi graffiti and sabotage.

White Rose Group

A student resistance circle based at Munich University, led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, that produced and distributed anti-Nazi leaflets condemning the murder of Jews and calling for an end to the war.