World War II Vocabulary Practice

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering World War II, the rise of the Nazi party, and Canada's domestic and international involvement in the conflict.

Treaty of Versailles (Nazi view)

Regarded as a "diktat" (dictated peace) that humiliated Germany through land loss and heavy reparations.

Stab in the Back Theory

The false belief that the German army didn't lose WWI on the battlefield but was betrayed by Jews and politicians at home.

Weimar Republic

The fragile democratic government of Germany ($1919$–$1933$) that faced hyperinflation and political unrest before the Nazi takeover.

Brown Shirts (SA)

The paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party used to intimidate political opponents.

Mein Kampf

Hitler’s manifesto, written in prison, outlining his ideology of racial purity and "Lebensraum" (living space).

Beer Hall Putsch

Hitler’s failed $1923$ coup attempt in Munich to overthrow the Weimar government.

Social Darwinism

The pseudo-scientific theory that human groups/races are subject to "survival of the fittest," used by Nazis to justify genocide.

Nuremberg Laws

$1935$ laws that stripped German Jews of their citizenship and forbade marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

Kristallnacht

The "Night of Broken Glass" ($1938$); state-sponsored pogroms against Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues.

Himmler

Leader of the SS and a primary architect of the Holocaust.

Goebbels

The Nazi Minister of Propaganda who controlled German media and public messaging.

Goering

Commander of the Luftwaffe (Air Force) and a high-ranking Nazi official.

Ribbentrop

The German Foreign Minister who negotiated the pact with the Soviet Union.

Gestapo

The secret state police of Nazi Germany, responsible for crushing internal dissent.

League of Nations

An international body created after WWI meant to maintain peace; it failed to stop Japanese and German aggression.

Manchuria

Region of China invaded by Japan in $1931$, signaling the League of Nations' inability to enforce peace.

Nanking

Site of a brutal $1937$ massacre where Japanese forces killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians.

Maginot Line

A massive string of French fortifications along the German border that the Nazis simply bypassed in $1940$.

Sudetenland

A region of Czechoslovakia with many ethnic Germans that Hitler demanded and received via appeasement.

Munich Conference

$1938$ meeting where Britain and France allowed Hitler to take the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of no further expansion.

Germany-USSR Non-aggression Treaty

A $1939$ "Molotov-Ribbentrop" pact where the two enemies agreed not to fight and secretly split Poland.

Winston Churchill

British Prime Minister who led the UK through its "darkest hour" and vowed never to surrender.

Josef Stalin

Dictator of the Soviet Union who joined the Allies after Germany invaded the USSR in $1941$.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

US President who led America into the war after Pearl Harbor and collaborated on the "Big Three" strategy.

Mackenzie King

Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister who led the country through the war while trying to avoid a conscription crisis.

Phoney War

The period from Sept $1939$ to May $1940$ where there was a declaration of war but little actual fighting on land.

Dunkirk

The $1940$ evacuation of over $330,000$ Allied troops from French beaches after the British and French armies were cornered.

Battle of Britain

An aerial campaign in $1940$ where the RAF (including Canadians) successfully defended the UK against the Luftwaffe.

Invasion of Hong Kong

Canada's first land battle of WWII ($1941$); resulted in heavy losses and the capture of nearly $2,000$ Canadians by Japan.

Battle of the Atlantic

The longest continuous battle of the war; a struggle to keep shipping lanes open between North America and Europe.

Battle of the St. Lawrence

Conflict where German U-boats entered Canadian waters to sink merchant and naval ships.

Dieppe Raid

A disastrous $1942$ "test" raid on the French coast; resulted in high Canadian casualties but provided lessons for D-Day.

The Italian Campaign

The Allied effort to knock Italy out of the war, beginning with the invasion of Sicily in $1943$.

Battle of Cassino

A series of brutal assaults on a German-held mountain monastery blocking the route to Rome.

Battle of Ortona

Known as "Little Stalingrad"; fierce street-by-street fighting where Canadians used "mouse-holing" to clear buildings.

D-Day

June $6$, $1944$; the Allied invasion of Normandy where Canadians successfully captured Juno Beach.

Battle of the Scheldt

A grueling $1944$ campaign led by the $1^{st}$ Canadian Army to open the port of Antwerp for Allied supplies.

Liberation of the Netherlands

Canadians pushed German forces out of the Netherlands in $1945$, ending the "hunger winter" for the Dutch.

Harris’s Bomber Command

The Allied strategic bombing campaign against German cities intended to destroy industry and morale.

Dambusters Raid

A specialized $1943$ mission using "bouncing bombs" to destroy German dams in the Ruhr valley.

Japanese Fire Balloons

High-altitude balloons launched by Japan to carry incendiary bombs to the North American mainland.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The two Japanese cities destroyed by American atomic bombs in August $1945$, leading to Japan's surrender.

Holocaust

The state-sponsored systematic murder of $6$ million Jews and millions of others by the Nazi regime.

Treblinka

An extermination camp in Poland where approximately $800,000$ people were murdered, mostly in gas chambers.

Auschwitz

The largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

Conscription Crisis

The political struggle over forced overseas military service; King eventually sent conscripts in late $1944$.

War Measures Act

Federal law giving the government sweeping powers to censor, arrest, and control the economy during wartime.

Enemy Aliens

Residents of Canada with heritage from countries at war with Canada (Germans, Italians) who were forced to register or were interned.

Japanese Internment

The forced relocation and stripping of rights of $22,000$ Japanese Canadians to the B.C. interior and beyond.

Ontario Racial Discrimination Act of 1944

The first of its kind in Canada; it prohibited the publication/display of symbols or signs expressing racial discrimination.

Elsie MacGill

The "Queen of the Hurricanes"; the world’s first female aircraft designer who headed Canadian production of Hawker Hurricane fighters.

Canadian Military Segregation

The barriers to enlistment and restrictions to non-combat or segregated units faced by Black and minority Canadians.

Tommy Prince

An Indigenous soldier and Canada's most decorated war hero; member of the elite First Special Service Force (Devil's Brigade).

Cree Code Talkers

Indigenous soldiers who used their native language to transmit secret Allied messages that the enemy could not decode.

Dr. Norman Bethune

A Canadian surgeon who pioneered mobile blood transfusions in the Spanish Civil War and later became a hero in China.

British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP)

A massive program that trained over $130,000$ aircrew from around the world on Canadian soil.

Camp X

A secret spy training school located between Whitby and Oshawa, Ontario.

POWs in Canada

Tens of thousands of German prisoners of war held in camps across Canada, often working on farms or in logging.