C2 - Fragile democracies and totalitarianism

Great Depression

A severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, triggered by the U.S. stock market crash.

Kulak

A Russian word meaning "fist" that referred to wealthy peasants.

Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)

Raids against synagogues, Jewish businesses, and dwellings that occurred on November 9-10, 1938. Also known as the November Pogrom.

Nuremberg Laws (1935)

Antisemitic laws that stripped Jews of citizenship and banned intermarriage in Nazi Germany.

Social Death

The concept of being excluded from society, stripped of rights, recognition, and belonging, used to gradually degrade people's lives.

Positive Integration

A technique for building community that foster diversity through inclusion, cooperation, and shared identity.

Negative Integration

A technique for building community that enforces conformity and exclusion, suppressing differences or defining the community against outsiders (like in Nazi Germany).

Challenge to Gender Roles in 1930s Europe

The economic crisis meant men lost their role as primary breadwinners while women often kept lower-paying jobs, leading to male resentment.

1929

The year the U.S. stock market crash occurred, leading to the Great Depression.

1931

The year Japan invaded Manchuria.

1933

The year approximately 6 million Germans were unemployed. Also the year President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor.

11.9.1938 - 11.10.1938

Dates of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass).

1931 or 1937 (Non-Eurocentric View)

Years suggested by the video for the actual start of World War II, based on Japanese actions in Asia

Groups opposed by Nazism

Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Slavs, homosexuals, and Communists.

Hitler's Economic Justification

Claimed that future military conquests would pay for Germany's deficit spending on infrastructure projects.

Stalin's Agricultural Policies Failure

Persecution and violence decreased agricultural productivity

German Annexations/Occupations (1935-1939)

The Saar region, Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland (German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia), and then the whole of Czechoslovakia.

Invasion of Poland (1939)

The event that marked the beginning of World War II in Europe.

Spanish Civil War Significance

European powers used the conflict to practice tactics later used in World War II.

Pogrom

Massacre of Jewish people

Cult of personality

Idealization of figure through mass media, propaganda; virtues exaggerated; demands unquestioning flattery and loyalty

Goulag

Soviet forced labor camps

Treaty of Munich

30 September 1938 - appeasement

Hitler maintained power through

Secret police, terror, oppression, indoctrination, propaganda, public support

Stalin maintained power through

Terror, propaganda, economic centralization, murder

5-year plan

Stalin’s intensive economic plan to transform Russia into an industrial state

Collectivization

Merging private property into one shared, state-controlled unit

Impacts of Stalin’s policies

Russia industrialised; major human casualties; famine

Scapegoating

Blaming those who do not merit so

Consequence of appeasement

Emboldened Hitler, ultimately led to war