Rise of Totalitarianism, WWII, The Holocaust

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

A non-aggression agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union with a secret protocol that partitioned Central and Eastern Europe between them

Blitzkrieg

Meaning “lightning war”, an intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory

Einstazgruppen

Meaning “mobile killing unit”

Katyn Massacre

A series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union

Phoney war

The term historians gave to the eight-month period at the start of WWII during which there was very limited land military operations on the Western front

Maginot Line

A series of fortification along the French border with Germany designed to prevent any land invasion by the Germans into French territory

Operation Dynamo

The evacuation of more then 338,000 British and other allied soldiers during the second WW from the breach’s of Dunkirk in northern France

America First Committee

The foremost US isolationist pressure group against American entry into WWII surpassing 800,000 members and 450 chapter across the country

Operation Barbarossa

The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union during the summer of 1941; the largest land offensive in human history

Generalplan ost

Nazi Germanys starvation plan for large-scale ethnic cleansing, enter action and genocide of Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other ethnic groups

Rape of Nanking

An attack on Nanking civilians by the Japanese military that included looting, arson, rape, and mass murder

Pearl Harbor

The home base for the US Pacific fleet, this naval station was hit by the surprise Japanese attack in the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, prime reason the US got involved with the war

T4 Program

A Nazi operation that executed in secret roughly 300,000 German and Austrian citizens with a mental/physical disability or form of mental illness

Vladimir Lenin

A revolutionary who will lead the Russian Revolution and the eventual transformation of Russia into a communist state

Leon Trotsky

Leader of the Red Army but later labeled as the enemy of the state and forced unto exile, will die in Mexico in 1940

Joseph Stalin

Leader of the Soviet Union from 1924-1953

Gulag

Soviet network of forced labor camps established by the Communist Party for political opponents and perceived enemies of the state

Collectivization

A policy of forced abandonment of individual and family farms in favor of large-scale, communal agriculture

Kulak

Wealthier Russian peasants during the late Russian Empire and early years of the Soviet Union

Holodomor

A term meaning ‘death by starvation’ Ukrainians utilized this word to describe the famine orchestrated by the Communist Party from 1932-1934

Gareth Jones

A British reported who at the risk of his won life snuck into Ukraine to report on the forced-famine occurring there

Weimar Republic

German government established post WW1

Reparations

The making of amends for a wrong one had done by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged

Hyperinflation

Rapid and unrestrained price increases in an economy typically at rates exceeding 50% each month over time

Brownshirts

The early Nazi militia founded by Hitler in 1921 known by the color of their uniforms

Beer Hall Putsch

A failed coup d’état by Hitler and the Nazis in 1923

Reichstage

The lower house of the German parliament

Fascism

Mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single powerful leader over the individual citizens

Totalitarianism

A form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individuals and group oppositions to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regulation over public and private life

Eugenics

The study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable

Appeasement

A diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power to avoid conflict

Anschluss

A term meaning union with Austria

Sudetenland

A region of Czechoslovakia that Germany annexed in 1938

Lebensraum

A German term for living space; Nazi concept of expansionism and nationalism to established a sustainable empire to last 1000 years

Deicide

The act of killing God

Ghetto

A designated area of a city or town where a religious or ethnic minority is forced to live

Nuremberg Laws

Legislation passed in 1935 that formerly established shed who was considered as Jewish and stripped them of German citizenship and other rights

Kristallnacht

“Night of broken glass” a pogrom that killed hundreds of Jews, destroyed many more synagogues and Jewish businesses within the Third Reich

Operation Torch

An allied invasion of French North Africa during the second World War in 1942 to 1943

The Battle of Midway

A pivotal naval battle in the Pacific that resulted in a crushing defeat for Japan just six months after Pearl Harbor

GI Bill

A law that provided a range of benefits for many of the returning World War II veterans, including free college tuition and low interest mortgages

Dorothea Lange

One of America’s most celebrated photographers, she is best known for chronicling American workers during the Great Depression and Japanese American interned at camps

Operation Overload

The British and American invasion of continental Europe to liberate France and other countries under Nazi occupation

Manhattan Project

a joint, British and American program of research and development undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons

Historiography

The analysis of how often interpretations of past events, people, themes, and values can change overtime