War & Holocaust Midterm

Paris Peace Conference

• What/When/Where: International conference held in Paris in 1919–1920 after World War I to negotiate peace settlements between the Allied powers and defeated Central Powers.

• Who: Dominated by the “Big Four”: Woodrow Wilson (U.S.), Georges Clemenceau (France), David Lloyd George (Britain), and Vittorio Orlando (Italy).

• Significance: Produced the Treaty of Versailles and helped establish the League of Nations. The settlement created resentment in Germany and disagreements among the Allies over how harsh the peace should be.

Treaty of Versailles

• What/When/Where: Peace treaty signed June 28, 1919, at Versailles, France, formally ending the war between Germany and the Allies.

• Who: Germany and the Allied powers.

• Significance: Germany lost territory and military capabilities, accepted responsibility for the war through Article 231, and was required to pay reparations. German resentment toward Versailles became an important political issue exploited by Hitler.

Article 231 - War Guilt

• What/When: Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles (1919).

• Who: Applied to Germany and its allies.

• Significance: Assigned responsibility for the damage caused by the war to Germany and its allies. Although often called the “War Guilt Clause,” it primarily provided the legal basis for reparations. Germans viewed it as a national humiliation.

Article 232 - Reparations

• What/When: Article 232 of the Treaty of Versailles (1919).

• What: Required Germany to compensate the Allies for civilian damages resulting from the war.

• Significance: Contributed to German economic and political resentment. The eventual reparations burden became closely associated with Germany's postwar economic crises.

Weimar Republic

• What/When/Where: Germany's democratic government from 1919–1933, named after Weimar, where its constitution was drafted.

• Who: Led by elected governments under a parliamentary system; Friedrich Ebert was its first president.

• Significance: Germany's first major democratic republic. It faced political extremism, economic crises, Versailles resentment, and weak political coalitions, ultimately allowing Hitler to legally enter and destroy the democratic system.

Freidrich Ebert

• Who/When: Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader and first president of the Weimar Republic, 1919–1925.

• Where: Germany.

• Significance: Helped establish and defend the new German republic. He relied on conservative military forces and the Freikorps to suppress communist uprisings, creating tensions within the left.

Karl Liebknecht

• Who/When: German socialist and revolutionary; co-founded the German Communist Party (KPD) in 1918–1919.

• Where: Berlin, Germany.

• Significance: Opposed World War I and capitalism and advocated revolutionary socialism. His failed attempt to overthrow the government during the Spartacist uprising contributed to his assassination in 1919.

Rosa Luxemburg

• Who/When: German Marxist revolutionary and co-founder of the KPD; active during the German Revolution of 1918–1919.

• Where: Berlin.

• Significance: Supported workers' revolution but criticized aspects of the Bolshevik Revolution. She and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by members of the Freikorps after the Spartacist uprising.

Freikorps

• What/When: Right-wing paramilitary groups made up largely of former soldiers, particularly active 1918–1920s.

• Where: Germany.

• Who: Veterans and nationalist anti-communists.

• Significance: Used by the Weimar government to suppress communist uprisings, including the Spartacist revolt. Their existence demonstrated the violence and political instability of early Weimar Germany and helped normalize paramilitary politics.

“Strange Bedfellows”

• What: Description of the unlikely cooperation between groups with different political goals.

• When: Particularly relevant to the early Weimar Republic.

• Who: The Social Democratic government, military leadership, and Freikorps cooperated against revolutionary communists despite having very different political beliefs.

• Significance: Shows how fear of communism encouraged temporary alliances among political enemies and weakened the democratic left.

Article 48

• What/When: Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution (1919).

• What: Allowed the president to take emergency measures and suspend certain constitutional rights during a crisis.

• Significance: Intended as an emergency safeguard but became a major weakness of Weimar democracy. Hindenburg increasingly governed through Article 48, creating the precedent that Hitler later exploited.

Kapp Putsch

• What/When: Failed right-wing coup attempt in March 1920.

• Who: Wolfgang Kapp and Freikorps/right-wing military forces.

• Where: Berlin, Germany.

• Significance: Demonstrated the threat posed by the extreme right to Weimar democracy. The government fled Berlin, but a general strike by workers defeated the coup.

Walter Rathenau

• Who/When: German Jewish industrialist and foreign minister, assassinated in 1922.

• Where: Germany.

• Significance: Helped negotiate Germany's postwar economic and diplomatic recovery, including the Treaty of Rapallowith Soviet Russia. His assassination by right-wing nationalists demonstrated the antisemitism and political violence of the Weimar era.

League of Nations

• What/When: International organization created in 1920 as part of the post-WWI settlement.

• Where: Geneva, Switzerland.

• Who: Proposed by Woodrow Wilson and joined by many countries, but not the United States.

• Significance: Intended to prevent future wars through collective security and diplomacy. Its inability to effectively stop Japanese, Italian, and German aggression later demonstrated weaknesses in the postwar international system.

Ruhr Crisis

• What/When: 1923 crisis caused by the French and Belgian occupation of Germany's Ruhr industrial region.

• Why: Germany had fallen behind on reparations payments.

• Significance: The German government encouraged passive resistance, contributing to economic collapse and hyperinflation.

Hyperinflation

• What/When: Extreme inflation in Germany, especially 1923.

• Where: Weimar Germany.

• Why: The government printed enormous amounts of money to support passive resistance and meet financial obligations.

• Significance: The German mark became virtually worthless, destroying savings and undermining confidence in the Weimar government.

Dawes Plan

• What/When: 1924 agreement to restructure German reparations.

• Who: Proposed by American banker Charles Dawes.

• Significance: Reduced and reorganized Germany's payments and brought substantial American loans into Germany. Helped stabilize the German economy during the mid-1920s.

Gustav Stresemann

• Who/When: German statesman and foreign minister, especially influential 1923–1929.

• Where: Weimar Germany.

• Significance: Helped stabilize Germany after hyperinflation and pursued diplomatic reconciliation with the Western powers. He played an important role in the Dawes Plan and Treaty of Locarno.

Treaty of Locarno

• What/When/Where: Series of agreements signed in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1925.

• Who: Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and others.

• Significance: Germany accepted its western borders and improved relations with Britain and France. It represented the diplomatic stabilization of Europe during the 1920s.

Paul von Hinderburg

• Who/When: German military leader and president of Germany, 1925–1934.

• Where: Weimar Germany.

• Significance: A conservative former field marshal who was skeptical of parliamentary democracy. In January 1933, he appointed Hitler chancellor, a crucial step in Hitler's rise to power.

Beer Hall Putsch

• What/When/Where: Failed Nazi coup attempt in Munich, November 1923.

• Who: Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

• Significance: Hitler attempted to seize control of Bavaria and eventually Germany. The coup failed and Hitler was imprisoned, but his trial gave him national publicity and convinced him to pursue power through the political system.

Mein Kampf

• What/When: Hitler's political autobiography and ideological work, written partly while imprisoned after the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and published beginning in 1925.

• Significance: Outlined Hitler's beliefs about nationalism, antisemitism, racial hierarchy, communism, and Lebensraum. It provides evidence of ideological goals Hitler articulated before gaining power.

NSDAP

• What/When: National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly called the Nazi Party; Hitler led it from the 1920s until 1945.

• Where: Germany.

• Significance: Far-right nationalist political party that used propaganda, antisemitism, anti-communism, and promises of national restoration to gain support. Hitler became chancellor in 1933 and transformed Germany into a dictatorship.

Sturmabteilungen (S.A.)

• What/When: Nazi “Storm Troopers”, created in the 1920s.

• Who: Led by figures including Ernst Röhm.

• Significance: Paramilitary organization that protected Nazi meetings, intimidated political opponents, and helped the Nazis project strength. Its growing independence later made Hitler view it as a threat.

Ernst Röhm

• Who/When: Leader of the S.A. and important early Nazi figure.

• Where: Germany.

• Significance: Wanted the S.A. to become a powerful revolutionary force. Hitler considered Röhm and the S.A. a threat to his authority and to his relationship with the German military.

Reichstag Fire

• What/When/Where: Burning of the German parliament building in Berlin, February 27, 1933.

• Who: Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested and convicted; Nazis used the event to blame communists.

• Significance: Hitler used the fire to justify emergency repression. Hindenburg issued the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending important civil liberties and enabling the Nazis to arrest political opponents.

Enabling Act

• What/When: Law passed by the German parliament on March 23, 1933.

• What: Allowed Hitler's government to make laws without parliamentary approval.

• Significance: Effectively destroyed parliamentary democracy and gave Hitler the legal authority to establish dictatorship.

“Night of Long Knives”

• What/When: Nazi purge of June 30–July 2, 1934.

• Who: Hitler, the S.S., and other Nazi forces targeted Röhm, S.A. leaders, and political enemies.

• Significance: Eliminated rivals within and outside the Nazi movement and strengthened Hitler's relationship with the German military.

Schutzstaffel (S.S.)

• What/When: Nazi “Protective Squadron,” originally Hitler's personal guard; became increasingly powerful during the 1930s.

• Who: Led by Heinrich Himmler.

• Significance: Became a central institution of Nazi repression, policing, racial persecution, concentration camps, and the Holocaust.

Gestapo

• What/When: Nazi secret state police, established in 1933.

• Where: Germany and occupied Europe.

• Significance: Investigated and arrested perceived enemies of the Nazi regime, using surveillance, interrogation, and imprisonment to enforce political conformity.

April Boycott

• What/When: Nazi-organized boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933.

• Where: Germany.

• Significance: One of the first nationwide Nazi actions targeting German Jews. It marked the beginning of the systematic legal and social exclusion of Jews from German society.

Nuremburg Laws

• What/When: Laws enacted in 1935 at the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg.

• What: Stripped German Jews of citizenship and prohibited marriage and s3xual relations between Jews and “German-blooded” people

• Significance: Institutionalized Nazi racial ideology and legally defined Jews as racially separate from the German national community.

Rhineland

• What/When/Where: Region of western Germany along the Rhine River.

• Significance: The Treaty of Versailles and later agreements restricted Germany's military presence there. In 1936 Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland, violating the postwar settlement. The move strengthened Hitler domestically and demonstrated the weakness of collective resistance to German rearmament.

Kristallnacht

• What/When/Where: Nationwide anti-Jewish pogrom on November 9–10, 1938, throughout Germany and Austria.

• What: Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed, Jews were attacked, and thousands were arrested.

• Significance: Marked a major escalation from discrimination and legal exclusion toward openly violent persecution and mass incarceration.

Lebensraum

• What: German for “living space.”

• When: Central Nazi ideological concept, especially during the 1920s–1940s.

• Where: Primarily envisioned expansion into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

• Significance: Hitler used the concept to justify territorial expansion, conquest, racial colonization, and the displacement and murder of populations in Eastern Europe.

Appeasement

• What: Diplomatic policy of making concessions to an aggressive state in hopes of avoiding war.

• When: Particularly associated with Britain and France in the 1930s.

• Significance: Britain and France allowed some German territorial expansion, most famously at Munich. Supporters hoped to preserve peace; critics argued it encouraged further German aggression.

Anschluss

• What/When: Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938.

• Where: Austria.

• Significance: Violated the post-WWI settlement and expanded Germany without significant military resistance from Britain or France. It also brought Austria's Jewish population under Nazi rule.

Sudetenland

• What/Where: German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia along its border with Germany.

• When: Crisis in 1938.

• Significance: Hitler demanded the territory, claiming to defend ethnic Germans. Britain and France ultimately accepted its transfer to Germany through the Munich Agreement.

Munich Agreement

• What/When/Where: Agreement signed in Munich, September 1938.

• Who: Germany, Britain, France, and Italy; Czechoslovakia was excluded from the negotiations.

• Significance: Allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland. It is the most famous example of appeasement and demonstrated the willingness of Britain and France to make territorial concessions to avoid war.

Neville Chamberlain

• Who/When: British prime minister, 1937–1940.

• Significance: Associated with the policy of appeasement toward Hitler, particularly the Munich Agreement. He believed concessions could preserve peace but declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Hitler-Stalin Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)

• What/When: Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, signed August 1939.

• Who: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

• Significance: Publicly pledged non-aggression but secretly divided parts of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. It cleared the way for Germany to invade Poland without immediately fighting the Soviet Union.

Blitzkrieg

• What: German for “lightning war.”

• When: Particularly associated with German victories in 1939–1941.

• How: Combined rapid movement of tanks, aircraft, and infantry to break through enemy defenses.

• Significance: Helped Germany rapidly defeat Poland and France and initially overwhelm several European armies.

“Phony War”

• What/When: Period of relative military inactivity on the Western Front, September 1939–May 1940.

• Where: France and Germany's western border.

• Significance: Britain and France had declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland but did little major fighting in Western Europe until Germany launched its western offensive in May 1940.

Case Yellow

• What/When: German military plan for the invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940.

• German: Fall Gelb.

• Significance: Used a strategy designed to bypass the strongest Allied defenses and rapidly defeat France.

“Sickle Stroke”

• What/When: German armored thrust through the Ardennes in May 1940.

• What: German forces pushed through the supposedly difficult-to-cross Ardennes, reached the English Channel, and split Allied forces.

• Significance: Trapped large Allied armies and was central to the rapid German victory in France.

Maginot Line

• What/When/Where: French system of fortified defenses built along the German-French border before WWII.

• Significance: Designed to prevent another German invasion like WWI. Germany bypassed the main defenses by attacking through Belgium and the Ardennes.

Ardennes

• What/Where: Heavily forested region spanning Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.

• Significance: Germany unexpectedly sent major armored forces through the Ardennes in 1940, bypassing Allied defenses and contributing to the collapse of France.

Winston Churchill

• Who/When: British prime minister, 1940–1945 and later 1951–1955.

• Significance: Became Britain's central wartime leader after Chamberlain resigned. He rejected negotiations with Nazi Germany and led Britain during the Battle of Britain and early years of WWII.

Dunkirk

• What/When/Where: Allied evacuation from Dunkirk, France, May–June 1940.

• Who: British and Allied troops evacuated across the English Channel.

• Significance: More than 300,000 Allied troops were evacuated, preserving much of Britain's army after the collapse of France.

Vichy France

• What/When/Where: French government based in Vichy, France, 1940–1944, after France's defeat.

• Who: Led by Marshal Philippe Pétain.

• Significance: Collaborated with Nazi Germany and implemented authoritarian and antisemitic policies. It demonstrates that Nazi domination involved both direct occupation and cooperation from local governments.

Marshal Philippe Pétain

• Who/When: French military leader and head of Vichy France, 1940–1944.

• Significance: After France's defeat, he established the Vichy regime and collaborated with Nazi Germany.

Battle of Britain

• What/When: Major air campaign between Britain and Germany, primarily July–October 1940.

• Where: Britain and the English Channel.

• Who: German Luftwaffe vs. British Royal Air Force.

• Significance: Britain successfully resisted German air attacks, preventing Germany from gaining the air superiority necessary for an invasion and keeping Britain in the war.

Robert Watson-Watt

• Who: Scottish physicist and engineer who played a major role in developing British radar technology.

• When: Especially important during the 1930s and Battle of Britain.

• Significance: Radar allowed Britain to detect incoming German aircraft and coordinate defenses, contributing to Britain's ability to resist the Luftwaffe.

“Wizard War”

• What: Informal term for the technological and scientific dimension of WWII.

• When: Particularly associated with the early years of WWII.

• Significance: Refers to the importance of radar, cryptography, communications, and other technological innovations in warfare. Britain used technological advantages such as radar during the Battle of Britain.

Chain Home

• What/When: British network of early-warning radar stations, developed before and used during WWII.

• Where: Along Britain's coastline.

• Significance: Detected incoming German aircraft before they reached Britain, giving the RAF time to organize its defenses.

“Eastern Springboard”

• What: Concept describing territories in Eastern Europe that Germany used as bases for further military expansion.

• When: Particularly relevant to Nazi expansion before and during WWII.

• Significance: Eastern European territory was strategically important for German military operations, particularly the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Nazi New Order

• What: Nazi vision for a German-dominated Europe based on racial hierarchy, economic exploitation, and political control.

• When: Developed and implemented during WWII.

• Where: Occupied Europe.

• Significance: The Nazi occupation system involved forced labor, economic exploitation, racial persecution, deportation, and mass murder.

Fritz Sauckel

• Who/When: Senior Nazi official and General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment, especially important from 1942–1945.

• Significance: Organized the forced recruitment and deportation of millions of foreign workers to Germany to support the German war economy.

Heinrich Himmler

• Who/When: One of the most powerful Nazi leaders and head of the S.S.

• Significance: Oversaw the S.S., police system, concentration camps, and major aspects of the Holocaust. He was one of the principal organizers of Nazi racial and genocidal policies.

Untermenschen

• What: German for “subhumans.”

• Who: Nazi racial ideology applied this label primarily to Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other groups.

• Significance: Provided ideological justification for treating entire populations as racially inferior and therefore subject to enslavement, displacement, and murder.

Operation Barbarossa

• What/When: Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union beginning June 22, 1941.

• Who: Nazi Germany and Axis forces against the Soviet Union.

• Significance: Opened the largest land front of WWII. The invasion was motivated by territorial expansion, anti-communism, and Nazi racial ideology and led to an extraordinarily brutal war in Eastern Europe.

Wehrmacht

• What/Who: Unified German armed forces under the Nazi regime: army, navy, and air force.

• When: 1935–1945.

• Significance: The Wehrmacht carried out Germany's military campaigns across Europe and participated in numerous war crimes, particularly on the Eastern Front.

Commissar Order

• What/When: Secret German military order issued before Operation Barbarossa in 1941.

• What: Ordered German forces to execute captured Soviet political commissars.

• Significance: Violated traditional rules of warfare and demonstrated the ideological nature of the war against the Soviet Union. It contributed to mass executions of Soviet prisoners and officials.

Siege of Leningrad

• What/When/Where: German-led siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), 1941–1944.

• Significance: Lasted roughly 872 days and caused enormous civilian suffering and deaths from starvation, bombardment, and disease. It exemplified the brutality of the Eastern Front.

Battle of Stalingrad

• What/When/Where: Major battle between Germany and the Soviet Union at Stalingrad, August 1942–February 1943.

• Significance: Ended in a major Soviet victory and the surrender of a large German army. It marked a major turning point on the Eastern Front and severely weakened Germany's offensive capacity.

Einsatzgruppen

• What/When/Who: Mobile Nazi killing units, primarily composed of S.S. and police personnel, operating behind German lines during the invasion of the Soviet Union beginning in 1941.

• Where: Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

• What: Carried out mass shootings of Jews, Soviet officials, Roma, and others.

• Significance: Played a major role in the Holocaust and the transition toward systematic mass murder. Their activities demonstrate that the Holocaust involved large-scale shootings before the extermination camps became the primary mechanism of mass killing.