Interwar Years, Cold War, & Political Concepts

Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact (1939)

A shocking secret agreement between Hitler and Stalin not to fight each other, and to split Poland between them.

Anschluss

Hitler's peaceful, but forced, 1938 takeover of Austria, uniting German-speaking peoples in violation of the Versailles Treaty.

Munich Conference / Agreement

A 1938 meeting where Britain and France foolishly gave Hitler the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of peace (appeasement).

Remilitarization of Rhineland

1936; Hitler's first major defiance of the Versailles Treaty by moving troops to the French border.

Sudetenland

A German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia that Hitler demanded and was given at the Munich Conference.

Pact of Steel

The formal military and political alliance between fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

Vichy France

The puppet government set up in southern France that collaborated with the Nazis after France surrendered.

Enabling Act

A 1933 law passed through intimidation that gave Hitler absolute power to make laws without the parliament.

Gestapo

Hitler's brutal secret police force, used to spy on citizens and crush all opposition.

SS

Hitler's elite, fanatical paramilitary organization that ran the concentration camps and orchestrated the Holocaust.

Nuremberg Laws

1935 racist laws that stripped German Jews of their citizenship and basic rights.

Weimar Republic

Germany's weak, unpopular democratic government that existed between WWI and Hitler's takeover.

Occupation of the Ruhr

1923; France sent troops to take over Germany's industrial heartland because Germany couldn't pay WWI reparations.

Dawes Plan

A U.S. plan to loan money to Germany to stabilize their economy so they could pay reparations to Britain and France.

Rampant inflation

The 1923 crisis where the Weimar Republic printed so much money that it became totally worthless.

Brown Shirts (SA)

Hitler's original paramilitary thugs who used violence to intimidate political opponents during his rise to power.

Beer Hall Putsch of 1923

Hitler's early, failed attempt to violently overthrow the government, which landed him in prison.

Mein Kampf

"My Struggle"; the book Hitler wrote in prison outlining his intense racism, antisemitism, and desire for world domination.

Fascism

A far-right dictatorship that demands extreme nationalism, aggressive militarism, and total obedience to a single leader.

Black Shirts

Mussolini's violent thugs who terrorized political opponents and helped him seize power.

Lateran Accords

Mussolini's treaty with the Pope, which bought the support of the Catholic Church for his fascist government.

Russian Civil War

The bloody conflict between the Communists (Reds) and a mix of anti-communists (Whites) after the 1917 revolution.

Whites / Reds

The two sides of the Russian Civil War (Whites = anti-communists fighting the revolution; Reds = Lenin's communist forces).

War Communism

Lenin's desperate policy during the civil war of seizing grain from peasants and taking over factories to supply the Red Army.

NEP

New Economic Policy; Lenin's 1921 plan that allowed a little bit of capitalism (private profit) to save the starving Soviet economy.

Politburo

The small, powerful committee of top officials that actually ran the Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

Cheka

Lenin's ruthless early secret police force, created to arrest and execute enemies of the revolution.

Comintern

An organization created by the Soviets to fund and encourage communist revolutions in other countries.

Rapid industrialization

Stalin's massive, forced push to build factories so the USSR could catch up with Western militaries.

Collectivization of farms

Stalin's disastrous policy of forcing peasants off their own land and onto massive state-run farms, causing deadly famines.

5 Year Plan

Stalin's strict economic goals that set impossible quotas for coal, steel, and oil production.

Kulaks

Wealthier peasants who resisted collectivization; Stalin essentially declared war on them and wiped them out.

Great Purge

Stalin's paranoid 1930s campaign of terror where he executed anyone he suspected of being disloyal.

Show trials

Fake, highly public trials where Stalin's political enemies were tortured into confessing to crimes before being shot.