IB History Unit 2: Fascist Expansion, Consolidation, and Maintenance of Nazi Power

Practice vocabulary flashcards covering the rise, domestic policies, and aggressive expansion of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy from 1933 to 1939, designed for IB World History Unit 2.

Heinrich Himmler and the SS

An elite civilian police network run on military lines that originated in 1924 as Hitler's personal bodyguard. Commanded by Heinrich Himmler starting in 1929, it operated outside the ordinary legal framework, managed the concentration camp system with its Death's Head Division, absorbed all German police forces by 1936, and enforced strict biological and racial selection standards.

Gestapo

The secret state police branch of the SS dedicated to identifying and eliminating political and racial 'enemies of the state.' Operating entirely outside ordinary court rules and without legal limits on arrest or interrogation methods, it relied heavily on denunciations supplied by ordinary citizens.

Joseph Goebbels and the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda

The Nazi ministry established in March 1933 under Dr. Joseph Goebbels to control public opinion and culture. It directed the press, radio, film, theater, music, and art through strict censorship, centralized news distribution, and the relentless promotion of the 'cult of Hitler.'

Volksempfänger

The inexpensive, state-subsidized 'People's Receiver' radio produced with a deliberately limited reception range to prevent German citizens from hearing foreign broadcasts, increasing household radio ownership from under 25% in 1932 to over 70% by 1939.

Nuremberg Party Rallies

Massive, week-long annual Nazi Party spectacles—such as the 1934 rally featuring a 'cathedral of ice' made from over 100 searchlights and 30,000 swastika standards—choreographed by Hitler and Goebbels to project total national unity and discipline to domestic and global audiences.

Nazi Marriage Loans

Interest-free state loans of up to 1,000 Reichsmarks introduced in June 1933 under the Law on the Reduction of Unemployment for young Aryan couples. The prospective wife was required to leave the labor market, and the repayment sum was reduced by 25% for each child born, effectively cancelling the debt upon having four children.

Hilfswerk Mutter und Kind

A Nazi welfare organization providing food parcels, infant clothing, and maternity recuperation homes to mothers deemed of sound health and pure blood, reinforcing the regime's pro-natalist racial and domestic policies.

Lebensborn

An SS agency founded by Heinrich Himmler in December 1935 that operated under strict secrecy to provide maternity care and financial support to married and unmarried women capable of proving the biological and racial excellence of their children fathered by SS men.

National Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst or RAD)

A state organization established by Hitler to lower unemployment by drafting men into uniformed, camp-based labor for public works projects such as forestation, ditch digging, and motorway construction in exchange for pocket money and food.

German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront or DAF)

The compulsory state organization directed by Dr. Robert Ley that replaced all abolished independent trade unions in 1933. It prohibited strikes, eliminated collective wage bargaining, and controlled job changes and working hours.

Strength through Joy (Kraft durch Freude)

A leisure agency established under the DAF to organize and regiment the free time of German workers through subsidized cruises, sporting events, concerts, and savings schemes for the Volkswagen ('people's car') to boost industrial productivity and national loyalty.

Fritz Todt and the Autobahn Network

The massive motorway project led by General Inspector Fritz Todt from June 1933. Although publicized as a work-creation triumph, its primary purpose was strategic rearmament, designed to transport up to 300,000 troops between Germany's borders in two nights of driving.

Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend)

The compulsory Nazi youth movement overseen by Baldur von Schirach, divided into progressive age sections (such as Pimpfen, Jungvolk, and Bund Deutscher Mädel) with the dual objective of preparing boys for military service and girls for motherhood while circumventing parental and religious influence.

Luftwaffe and Rearmament

The expansion of the German military under Adolf Hitler, marked by Hermann Göring's March 1935 revelation of the previously secret air force and Hitler's decree reintroducing universal military conscription for a peacetime army of 36 divisions (roughly 500,000 men), openly defying the Treaty of Versailles.

Stresa Front

A coalition established in April 1935 by Britain, France, and Italy at Stresa to formally protest Hitler's violations of the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and protect Austrian independence; it disintegrated shortly after due to British unilateral naval pacts and the Italian invasion of Abyssinia.

Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935

A bilateral treaty allowing Germany to build a surface fleet up to 35% of the total tonnage of the British Royal Navy and a submarine fleet up to 45% (with parity options), effectively condoning German rearmament without consulting France and destroying the Stresa Front.

Nuremberg Laws

Anti-Semitic statutes enacted on 15 September 1935, notably the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which stripped Jews of German citizenship, classified them as subjects, and outlawed marriage and sexual relations between Jews and citizens of German or related blood.

Italo-Abyssinian War

The October 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia utilizing poison gas and bombers. It destroyed the authority and credibility of the League of Nations, alienated Italy from Britain and France, and drove Benito Mussolini into an alliance with Adolf Hitler.

Remilitarization of the Rhineland

The 7 March 1936 deployment of German military forces into the demilitarized strip along the Rhine River in violation of the Versailles and Locarno treaties, which faced no military counteraction from France or Britain and greatly enhanced Hitler's domestic and international standing.

Hermann Göring and the Four-Year Plan

An economic program initiated in August 1936 under Hermann Göring's leadership aimed at achieving economic autarky (self-sufficiency), accelerating synthetic ersatz materials production (oil and rubber), controlling private industry, and preparing the German economy for war within four years.

Rome-Berlin Axis

The diplomatic coalition proclaimed by Benito Mussolini on 1 November 1936 linking Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany following Italy's diplomatic isolation during the Ethiopian War and Germany's supportive neutrality.

Aryanization

The process of transferring Jewish-owned property, businesses, and commercial assets to non-Jewish Germans between 1933 and 1945, initially executed via economic pressure and boycotts, and culminating after Kristallnacht in mandatory liquidation, appointed trustees, and heavy collective fines.

Anschluss

The political union and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12–13 March 1938, achieved by coercing Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg into capitulation and marching German troops across the border without armed opposition.

Munich Conference

The 28 September 1938 conference where Britain, France, and Italy conceded the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany without Czech representation, based on Hitler's assurance that it was his last European territorial demand.

Appeasement

The diplomatic strategy pursued by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and France during the 1930s of negotiating concessions to satisfy Adolf Hitler's grievances over the Treaty of Versailles in an effort to avert a general European war.

Oster Conspiracy

A 1938 military and civilian plot organized by figures including Hans Oster, Ludwig Beck, and Franz Halder to arrest or overthrow Adolf Hitler if he triggered a European war by attacking Czechoslovakia; it collapsed when the Munich Agreement peacefully delivered the Sudetenland.

Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass")

The violent nationwide pogrom carried out on 9–10 November 1938, organized by Reinhard Heydrich and Joseph Goebbels following the assassination of Ernst vom Rath; resulting in the destruction of over 7,500 Jewish businesses, burning of synagogues, extensive arrests, and a collective one billion Reichsmark fine on Jews.

Italian Invasion of Albania

The 7 April 1939 military occupation of Albania by 100,000 Italian troops supported by 400 aircraft, which drove King Zog I into exile, awarded the Albanian crown to Victor Emmanuel III, and led Britain and France to issue security guarantees to Greece and Romania.

The Pact of Steel

The offensive military alliance signed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano on 22 May 1939 in Berlin, obligating each nation to provide immediate military assistance if the other entered into a state of war.

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact concluded on 24 August 1939 in Moscow, in which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union publicly pledged mutual non-aggression and secretly partitioned Poland, the Baltic States, and parts of Romania into respective spheres of influence.

T4 Program

The secret Nazi child and adult 'euthanasia' program directed by Phillip Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt from Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin, which murdered over 70,000 institutionalized, disabled individuals in six gassing facilities disguised as showers before public religious protests prompted an official halt in August 1941.

Hossbach Memorandum

The confidential record taken by army adjutant Fritz Hossbach of a 5 November 1937 meeting in the Reich Chancellery, where Hitler outlined his long-term expansionist strategy to seize European living space (Lebensraum) by force, specifically targeting Austria and Czechoslovakia.

Invasion of Poland

The 1 September 1939 German blitzkrieg assault across the Polish border following a staged provocation by the SS at Gleiwitz, prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany on 3 September 1939, officially beginning World War II in Europe.