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The West Between
the Wars
1919–1939
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS • What can cause economic instability?
• How might political change impact society?
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between the wars.
CHAPTER
15
Lesson 1
Instability After World War I
Lesson 2
The Rise of Dictatorial
Regimes
Lesson 3
Hitler and Nazi Germany
The Story
Matters…
Bitterness over the Treaty of
Versailles and severe economic
problems helped the rise of Adolf
Hitler’s Nazi movement in Germany.
The Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend)
organization was created in 1926 to
win young people over to the Nazi
cause. When Hitler took power in
1933, the Hitler Youth had about
100,000 members. Boys and girls in
the Hitler Youth were indoctrinated
to be race-conscious, obedient, and
put the needs of the nation above
their own. By the early years of
World War II, about 90 percent of the
country’s young people belonged to
the Hitler Youth.
Boys in the Hitler Youth participated in
Nazi rallies and activities where they
spent time with other children with
minimal parental guidance. This
photograph was taken circa 1939.
PHOTO: Heinrich Hoffmann/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
291
CHAPTER 15
Place and Time: Europe 1919–1939
At the end of the First World War, world leaders attempted to craft a lasting peace. However, the
1920s and 1930s witnessed severe economic crises that led to political instability. Authoritarian
political leaders used widespread fear of disorder to gain power. Once in power, they violently
suppressed all opposition.
Step Into the Place
Read the quotes and look at the information presented on the map.
Analyzing Historical Documents Discuss the differences between Adolf
Hitler’s and Joseph Stalin’s ideas about the goal of government. Look at the
map and draw conclusions about the success of both leaders’ policies.
PRIMARY SOURCE
“
[T]he Soviet power is a new form of state organization, different in principle from the old
bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary form, a new type of state, adapted not to the task of
exploiting and oppressing the labouring masses, but to the task of completely emancipating them
from all oppression and exploitation, to the task facing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
”
—Stalin, from Foundations of Leninism, 1939
PRIMARY SOURCE
PHOTO: (l)©SuperStock/SuperStock, (r)©RIA Novosti/TopFoto/The Image Works
The state is a means to an end. Its end lies in the preservation and advancement
“
of a community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures. This
preservation itself comprises first of all existence as a race and thereby permits the
free development of all the forces dormant in this race. Of them a part will always
primarily serve the preservation of physical life, and only the remaining part the
promotion of a further spiritual development.
”
Step Into the Time
Determining Cause and Effect
Research an event on the time EUROPE
line, and explain how it was a
direct or an indirect result of the THE WORLD
Treaty of Versailles.
292
1922 Vladimir Lenin and the
Communists create the USSR
1919 Treaty of Versailles
—Hitler, from Mein Kampf
1924 Joseph Stalin leads Soviet Union after Lenin’s death
1923 French and
1926 Benito Mussolini
Belgian troops occupy
establishes a Fascist
the Ruhr Valley
dictatorship in Italy
1919
1920 First
meeting of the
League of Nations
1925
1922 League of Nations confirms
British Mandate for Palestine
1923 Mustafa Kemal, Atatürk,
proclaims Republic of Turkey
1923 Nationalists and
Communists are allies in China
1926 Fidel Castro, future
president of Cuba, is born
MAP Explore the
interactive version of this
map on Networks.
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TIME LINE Explore the
interactive version of the
time line on Networks.
FINLAND
20°W
1938
NORWAY
SWEDEN
North
Sea
E
DENMARK
Copenhagen
IRELAND
S
Dublin
UNITED
KINGDOM
London
Amsterdam
LATVIA
Riga
Ger.
POLAND
Prague
Munich
FRANCE
Bern
AUSTRIA
ITALY
ANDORRA
HOSLO
VAKIA
Vienna
SWITZ.
N
Budapest
HUNGARY
Corsica
SPAIN
Rome
ROMANIA
Bucharest
Belgrade
YUGOSLAVIA
Madrid
USSR
Warsaw
C ZEC
400 km
0
Lambert Azimuthal
Equal-Area projection
PORTUGAL
Lisbon
EAST PRUSSIA
Berlin
LUX.
Paris
400 miles
Moscow
Free City
of Danzig LITHUANIA
Kaunas
GERMANY
Brussels
BELGIUM
40°
Tallinn
ESTONIA
NETH.
ATL ANTIC
O CE AN
0
Leningrad
Stockholm
Bal
N
W
60 ° N
Helsinki
Oslo
tic Se
a
Rise of Dictatorships in Europe
Black Sea
BULGARIA
Sofia
Tiranë
ALBANIA
20°E
1933 Paul von Hindenburg
appoints Adolf Hitler as Chancellor
1930
1929 U.S. stock market
crashes; Great Depression
begins
1935 Nuremberg laws in Germany
strip Jews of their citizenship
1935
1930 Gandhi’s civil
disobedience movement
begins in India
1932 Ibn Sa’ūd establishes
the kingdom of Saudi
Arabia
Se a
Dictatorships by 1938
Remaining democracies
in 1938
Athens
an
Sicily
0°
TURKEY
ge
GREECE
Mediterranean Sea
Angora
(Ankara)
Ae
Sardinia
Cyprus
Crete
U.K.
April 1, 1939 Francisco Franco
overthrows the Spanish Republic
1939
1934 Beginning of the
Long March by Chinese
Communists
1938 Japan passes
military draft law
The West Between the Wars 293
netw rks
Ruhr
Valley
Ruhr R.
There’s More Online!
Rh
in e
CHART/GRAPH Unemployment,
R.
BIOGRAPHY Albert Einstein
GERMANY
FRANCE
19281938
IMAGE Hyperinflation in Germany
IMAGE The Persistence of Memory
INTERACTIVE SELFCHECK QUIZ
MAP The Ruhr Valley
LESSON 1
Instability After World War I
PRIMARY SOURCE Locarno Gives
Hope of an Era of Peace
SLIDE SHOW Photomontage,
Dadaism, and Surrealism
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS • What can cause economic instability?
• How might political change impact society?
VIDEO Instability After World
War I
It Matters Because
Academic Vocabulary
• annual
• appropriate
Content Vocabulary
• depression
• collective bargaining
• deficit spending
• surrealism
• uncertainty principle
TAKING NOTES:
Key Ideas and Details
Organizing As you read, use a table
like the one below to compare France’s
Popular Front with the New Deal in the
United States.
Popular Front
New Deal
Tennessee Social Studies
World History and Geographyy
State Performance Indicators
W.30 Describe the effects of the war and
resulting peace treaties on population
movement, environmental changes
resulting from trench warfare, the
international economy, and shifts in
the geographic and political borders of
Europe and the Middle East. (E, G, H, P)
continued on page 295
294
The peace settlement of World War I left many nations
unhappy. The brief period of prosperity that began in
Europe during the early 1920s ended in 1929 with the
beginning of the Great Depression. This economic collapse
shook people’s confidence in political democracy. The arts
and sciences also reflected the insecurity of the age.
Uneasy Peace, Uncertain Security
GUIDING QUESTION
What led to new problems in the years after World War I?
From the beginning, the peace settlement at the end of World War I
left nations unhappy. President Woodrow Wilson had realized that
the peace settlement included provisions that could serve as new
causes for conflict. He had placed many of his hopes for the future
in the League of Nations. This organization, however, was not very
effective in maintaining the peace.
One problem was the failure of the United States to join the
League. Most Americans wanted to avoid involvement in European
affairs. The U.S. Senate, in spite of President Wilson’s wishes,
refused to ratify, or approve, the Treaty of Versailles. That meant the
United States could not join the League of Nations. Without the
United States, the League of Nations’ effectiveness was weakened.
Between 1919 and 1924, desire for security led the French
government to demand strict enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles. This tough policy began with the issue of reparations (payments) that the Germans were supposed to make for the damage
they had done in the war. In April 1921, the Allied Reparations
Commission determined that Germany owed 132 billion German
marks (33 billion U.S. dollars) for reparations, payable in annual
installments of 2.5 billion marks.
The new German republic made its first payment in 1921. One
year later, the German government faced a financial crisis and
announced that it could not pay any more reparations. Outraged,
PHOTO: (l to r)©Bettmann/CORBIS, Walter Ballhause/akg-images, The Granger Collection, NYC, All rights reserved, The Granger Collection, NYC, All rights reserved.
Reading HELP DESK
France sent troops to occupy the Ruhr Valley, Germany’s chief industrial
and mining center. France planned to collect reparations by using the Ruhr
mines and factories.
North
Sea
Ruhr
Valley
Inflation in Germany
GERMANY
R.
With prosperity came a new European diplomacy. The foreign ministers of
Germany and France, Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand, fostered a
spirit of cooperation. In 1925, they signed the Treaty of Locarno, which
guaranteed Germany’s new western borders with France and Belgium. Many
viewed the Locarno pact as the beginning of a new era of European peace.
Three years later, the Kellogg-Briand Pact brought even more hope.
Sixty-five nations signed this accord and pledged to “renounce [war] as an
instrument of national policy.” Nothing was said, however, about what
would be done if anyone violated the pact.
in e
The Treaty of Locarno
Ruhr R.
Rh
The German government adopted a policy of passive resistance to this
French occupation. German workers went on strike. The German government mainly paid their salaries by printing more paper money. This only
added to the inflation (rise in prices) that had already begun in Germany by
the end of the war. The German mark soon became worthless. In 1914, 4.2
marks equaled 1 U.S. dollar. By the end of November 1923, the ratio had
reached an incredible 4.2 trillion marks to equal 1 dollar.
Both France and Germany began to seek a way out of the disaster. In
August 1924, an international commission adopted a new plan for reparations. The Dawes Plan, named after the American banker who chaired the
commission, first reduced reparations. It then coordinated Germany’s
annual payments with its ability to pay.
The Dawes Plan also granted an initial $200 million loan for German
recovery. This loan soon opened the door to heavy American investment in
Europe. A brief period of European prosperity followed.
FRANCE
▶ CRITICAL THINKING
Analyzing Why was the Ruhr Valley
important to Germany?
annual yearly
Tennessee Social Studies
World History and Geographyy
State Performance Indicators
continued from page 294
W.31 Analyze the aims and negotiating
roles of world leaders, including
Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and
the causes and effects of the United
States’ rejection of the League of Nations
on world politics. (H, P)
continued on page 296
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Explaining What contributed to the German mark becoming worthless?
The Great Depression
PHOTO: © Bettmann/CORBIS
GUIDING QUESTION
What triggered the Great Depression?
The brief period of prosperity that began in Europe in 1924 ended in an
economic collapse that came to be known as the Great Depression.
A depression is a period of low economic activity and
rising unemployment.
Two factors played a major role in the start of the Great Depression.
First was a series of downturns in the economies of individual nations in
the second half of the 1920s. For example, prices for farm products, especially wheat, fell rapidly due to overproduction. An increase in the use of
oil and hydroelectricity led to a slump in the coal industry.
The second trigger was an international financial crisis involving the
U.S. stock market. Much of the European prosperity between 1924 and
1929 was built on U.S. bank loans to Germany. During the 1920s, the U.S.
stock market boomed. By 1928, American investors pulled money out of
Germany to invest it in stocks. Then, in October 1929, the U.S. stock market
crashed. Stock prices plunged.
This woman uses German marks to
light her stove during the Great
Depression.
▶ CRITICAL THINKING
Explaining Why would this woman
burn money during the Great
Depression?
depression a period of low
economic activity and rising
unemployment
The West Between the Wars 295
UNEMPLOYMENT 19281938
PERCENTAGE OF WORKFORCE
UNEMPLOYED
CHARTS/GRAPHS
35
U.K.
Germany
U.S.
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19
YEAR
Sources: European Historical Statistics, 1750–1970;
Historical Statistics of the United States.
▶ CRITICAL THINKING
1 Drawing Conclusions When was the
2 Transferring Which country experienced
the largest rise in unemployment?
Long lines of unemployed workers sought
food and jobs.
height of the Great Depression?
World History and Geographyy
State Performance Indicators
continued from page 295
W.32 Compare the conflicting aims and
aspirations of the conferees at Versailles
and the Treaty of Versailles’ economic and
moral effects on Germany. (C, E, G, H, P)
W.35 Integrate multiple sources of
information presented in diverse media
explaining the influence of World War I
on literature, art, and intellectual life,
including Pablo Picasso, the “Lost
Generation,” and the rise of Jazz music.
(C, H)
W.36 Compare the impact of restrictive
monetary and trade policies. (E)
W.37 Describe the collapse of international
economies in 1929 that led to the Great
Depression, including the relationships
that had been forged between the
United States and European economies
after World War I. (E, H)
W.38 Gather information from multiple
sources describing issues of
overproduction, unemployment, and
inflation. (E, P)
In a panic, U.S. investors withdrew more funds from Germany and
other European markets. By 1931 trade was slowing, industrial production
was declining, and unemployment was rising.
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Applying Why were farmers hit hard at the onset of the Great Depression?
Responses to the Depression
GUIDING QUESTION
How did the Great Depression affect people’s confidence in democracy?
Economic depression was not new to Europe. However, the extent of the
economic downturn after 1929 truly made this the Great Depression.
During 1932, the worst year of the Depression, nearly 1 in every 4 British
workers was unemployed. About 5.5 million Germans, or roughly 30
percent of the German labor force, had no jobs. The unemployed and
homeless filled the streets.
Governments were unsure of how to deal with the crisis. They raised
tariffs to exclude foreign goods from home markets. This worsened the
crisis and had serious political effects.
One effect of the economic crisis was increased government activity in
the economy. The Great Depression also led masses of people to follow
political leaders who offered simple solutions in return for dictatorial
power. Everywhere, democracy seemed on the defensive.
In 1919, most European states, both major and minor, had democratic
governments. In a number of states, women could now vote. Male political
leaders had rewarded women for their contributions to the war effort by
granting them voting rights. (However, women could not vote until 1944 in
France, 1945 in Italy, and 1971 in Switzerland.) In the 1920s, maintaining
these democratic governments was not easy.
Germany
Imperial Germany ended in 1918 with Germany’s defeat in the war. A German
democratic state known as the Weimar (VY • mahr) Republic was then created.
296
PHOTO: Walter Ballhause/ akg-images.
Tennessee Social Studies
The Weimar Republic was plagued by serious economic problems.
Germany experienced runaway inflation in 1922 and 1923. With it came
serious social problems. Families on fixed incomes watched their life
savings disappear.
To make matters worse, after a period of relative prosperity from 1924 to
1929, Germany was struck by the Great Depression. In 1930, unemployment
had grown to 3 million people by March and to 4.38 million by December.
The Depression paved the way for fear and the rise of extremist parties.
France
France, too, suffered from financial problems after the war. Because it had
a more balanced economy, France did not begin to feel the full effects of
the Great Depression until 1932. The economic instability it then suffered
soon had political effects. During a 19-month period in 1932 and 1933, six
different cabinets were formed as France faced political chaos. Finally, in
June 1936, a coalition of leftist parties—Communists, Socialists, and
Radicals—formed the Popular Front government.
The Popular Front started a program for workers that some have called
the French New Deal. This program was named after the New Deal in the
United States. The French New Deal gave workers the right to collective
bargaining, a 40-hour workweek in industry, and a minimum wage.
Depression vs. Recession
When the United States
experienced a recession in
2008, people worried
unemployment would reach
Great Depression levels. But
in studying unemployment
numbers, economists
discovered that, while the
economic downturn was the
worst since World War II, it
was nowhere near as bad as
the Great Depression. In
1933, unemployment had
reached 29.4 percent. In
December 2010, 9.4 percent
of the U.S. population was
unemployed.
Great Britain
Although Britain experienced limited prosperity from 1925 to 1929, by 1929
it too faced the growing effects of the Great Depression. The Labour Party
failed to solve the nation’s economic problems and fell from power in 1931.
A new government, led by the Conservatives, claimed credit for bringing
Britain out of the worst stages of the Depression by using the traditional
policies of balanced budgets and protective tariffs.
Political leaders in Britain largely ignored the new ideas of a British
economist, John Maynard Keynes. Keynes argued that unemployment
came from a decline in demand, not from overproduction. He believed
governments could increase demand by creating jobs through deficit
spending, or going into debt if necessary. Keynes’s ideas differed from
those who believed that depressions should be left to resolve themselves
without government interference.
collective bargaining
the right of unions to negotiate
with employers over wages
and hours
deficit spending when a
government pays out more money
than it takes in through taxation
and other revenues, thus going
into debt
The United States
After Germany, no Western nation was more affected by the Great
Depression than the United States. All segments of society suffered.
By 1932, U.S. industrial production fell by almost 50 percent from its 1929
level. By 1933, there were more than 12 million unemployed. Under these
conditions, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election in
1932 by a landslide. Believing in free enterprise, Roosevelt felt that capitalism must be reformed to save it. He pursued a policy of active governmental economic intervention known as the New Deal.
The New Deal included an increased program of public works. The
Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in 1935, was a government organization employing about 3 million people at its peak. Workers
built bridges, roads, post offices, and airports.
The Roosevelt administration instituted new social legislation that
began the U.S. welfare system. In 1935, the Social Security Act created a
system of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
These reforms may have prevented a social revolution in the United
States, but they did not solve the unemployment problems. In 1938, U.S.
The West Between the Wars 297
surrealism an artistic
movement that seeks to depict the
world of the unconscious
uncertainty principle
the idea put forth by Werner
Heisenberg in 1927 that the
behavior of subatomic particles is
uncertain, suggesting that all of
the physical laws governing the
universe are based on uncertainty
The Persistence of Memory (1931), a
surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí
unemployment was more than 10 million. Only World War II and the
growth of weapons industries brought U.S. workers back to full employment.
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Defining How might collective bargaining have helped French workers?
Arts and Sciences
GUIDING QUESTION
How were the arts and sciences influenced by World War I?
With political, economic, and social uncertainties came intellectual uncertainties. These were evident in the artistic and scientific achievements of the
years following World War I. After 1918, the prewar fascination with the
absurd and the unconscious content of the mind seemed even more appropriate in light of the nightmare landscapes of the World War I battlefronts.
“The world does not make sense, so why should art?” was a common remark. This sentiment gave rise to Dadaism and surrealism.
The dadaists were artists who were obsessed with the idea that
life has no purpose. They tried to express the insanity of life in their
art. A more important artistic movement than Dadaism was
surrealism. By portraying the unconscious—fantasies, dreams, and
even nightmares—the surrealists sought to show the greater reality
that exists beyond the world of physical appearances. One of the
world’s foremost surrealist painters, the Spaniard Salvador Dalí,
placed recognizable objects in unrecognizable relationships, thus
making the irrational visible.
The prewar physics revolution begun by Albert Einstein
continued in the 1920s and 1930s. In fact, some have called the
1920s the “heroic age of physics.” Newtonian physics had made people
believe that all phenomena could be completely defined and predicted. In
1927, German physicist Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle shook
this belief. Physicists knew that atoms were made of smaller parts (subatomic particles). The uncertainty principle is based on the unpredictable
behavior of these subatomic particles. Heisenberg’s theory essentially
suggests that all physical laws are based on uncertainty. This theory challenged Newtonian physics and represented a new worldview. The principle
of uncertainty fit in well with the other uncertainties of the interwar years.
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Assessing Why was non-realistic art popular after World War I?
LESSON 1 REVIEW
Reviewing Vocabulary
4. Discussing What triggered the Great Depression?
1. Applying Explain why John Maynard Keynes argued for the
concept of deficit spending.
5. Evaluating How did the Great Depression affect people’s
confidence in democracy?
Using Your Notes
6. Identifying How were the arts and sciences influenced by World
War I?
2. Identifying Use your notes to write a summary of the key points
of the Popular Front and the New Deal.
Answering the Guiding Questions
3. Exploring Issues What led to new problems in the years after
World War I?
298
Writing Activity
7. INFORMATIVE/EXPLANATORY Write an essay that explains how
President Roosevelt’s New Deal had immediate and far-reaching
effects on the U.S. economy.
PHOTO: The Granger Collection, NYC — All rights reserved
appropriate suitable or
compatible; fitting
BELG.
Paris
ltic
Ba
YUGOSLAVIA
ria
CHART/GRAPH Soviet Industry,
Belgrade
Ad
BIOGRAPHY Joseph Stalin
Corsica
tic
Murmansk
40°E
60°E
Odessa
Bl
HUNGARY
ITALY
ND
a
Stalingrad
SOVIE
a
ANDORRA
POL
Prague
C ZEC
HOSLO
VAKIA
Munich Vienna
Bern
Budap
AUSTRIA
Se
SWITZ.
Wa
LUX.
ck
FRANCE
Berlin
GERMANY
20°E
A
ea
NL
B a l ti c S
FI
LAT. EST.
LITH. Leningrad
POLAND
Minsk
Kiev Moscow
L
ea
Brussels
BIOGRAPHY Benito Mussolini
BIOGRAPHY Francisco Franco
NETH.
Amsterdam
Rig
ian S
ondon
DENMARK
Copenhagen
Aral
Sea
asp
There’s More Online!
Sea
UNITED
NGDOM
N
netw rks
S
19271938
LESSON 2
IMAGE Guernica
The Rise of Dictatorial Regimes
INTERACTIVE SELFCHECK QUIZ
MAP Politics in Europe, 1930s
MAP Soviet Union, 1939
VIDEO The Rise of Dictatorial
Regimes
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS • What can cause economic instability?
• How might political change impact society?
It Matters Because
Reading HELP DESK
Academic Vocabulary
• media • attitudes
Content Vocabulary
• totalitarian state
• fascism
• collectivization
PHOTO: (l to r)© Bettmann/CORBIS, ©Jean, Baptiste, Greuz/Age Fotostock America, ©RIA Novosti/TopFoto/The Image Works.
TAKING NOTES:
Key Ideas and Details
Sequencing As you read, use a
sequence chain like the one below to
record the events leading up to Franco’s
authoritarian rule of Spain.
Tennessee Social Studies
World History and Geographyy
State Performance Indicators
W.35 Integrate multiple sources of
information presented in diverse
media explaining the influence of
World War I on literature, art, and
intellectual life, including Pablo
Picasso, the “Lost Generation,” and the
rise of Jazz music. (C, H)
continued on page 301
After World War I, European democracy was under threat.
A new kind of dictatorship emerged with Mussolini’s fascist
state in Italy and Stalin’s totalitarian rule in the Soviet
Union. Other Western states such as Spain maintained
authoritarian regimes.
The Rise of Dictators
GUIDING QUESTION
How did Mussolini create a dictatorial state in Italy?
By 1939, only two major European states—France and Great
Britain—remained democratic. Italy, the Soviet Union, Germany,
and many other European states adopted dictatorial regimes. These
regimes took both old and new forms.
A new form of dictatorship was the modern totalitarian state. In
a totalitarian state, the government aims to control the political,
economic, social, intellectual, and cultural lives of its citizens.
Totalitarian regimes pushed the central state’s power far beyond
what it had been in the past. These regimes wanted more than
passive obedience; they wanted to conquer the minds and hearts of
their subjects. They achieved this goal through mass propaganda
techniques and modern communications.
The totalitarian states were led by a single leader and a single
party. They rejected the ideal of limited government power and the
guarantee of individual freedoms. Instead, individual freedom was
subordinated to the collective will of the masses as determined by
the leader. The masses were expected to be actively involved in
achieving the state’s goals.
Fascism in Italy
In the 1920s, Benito Mussolini (MOO • suh • LEE • nee) set up the first
European fascist movement in Italy. Mussolini began his political
career as a Socialist. In 1919, he created a new political group, the
Fascio di Combattimento, or League of Combat. Fascism comes from
that name.
The West Between the Wars 299
Politics in Europe
NO
Oslo
N
E
S
50
°N
DENMARK
Copenhagen
IRELAND
Dublin
UNITED
KINGDOM
NETH.
Amsterdam
London
Brussels
ATL ANTIC
O CE AN
BELG.
Paris
SWITZ.
ANDORRA
N
SPAIN
LATVIA
Warsaw
Corsica
HUNGARY
ITALY
ROMANIA
Bucharest
Belgrade
Black Sea
YUGOSLAVIA
tic
Se
BULGARIA
Sofia
a
Tiranë
ALBANIA
ge
Athens
TURKEY
an
Se a
Sicily
Angora
(Ankara)
Ae
GREECE
500 km
0
Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area projection
Stalingrad
POLAND
Prague
C ZEC
HOSLO
VAKIA
Munich Vienna
Bern
Budapest
AUSTRIA
Rome
500 miles
USSR
Ger.
GERMANY
Sardinia
0
Moscow
EAST PRUSSIA
Berlin
ria
Lisbon
Madrid
Riga
LITHUANIA
Kaunas
Ad
PORTUGAL
Authoritarian
Communist
Fascist
Democratic
Democratic, became
Authoritarian
Democratic, became
Nazi
Tallinn Leningrad
ESTONIA
LUX.
FRANCE
40°
Stockholm
North
Sea
40°E
Helsinki
Ba
W
30°E
FINLAND
ltic S
ea
10°W
20°E
DE N
10°E
SWE
20°W
1930s
0°
N
RW
AY
60 °
Crete
Cyprus
U.K.
Mediterranean Sea
GEOGRAPHY CONNECTION
1 THE WORLD IN SPATIAL
TERMS Where were
authoritarian governments
located?
2 HUMAN SYSTEMS Which
countries transitioned from
democratic to nondemocratic in
the 1930s?
totalitarian state
a government that aims to control
the political, economic, social,
intellectual, and cultural lives of
its citizens
fascism a political philosophy
that glorifies the state above the
individual by emphasizing the need
for a strong central government led
by a dictatorial ruler
As a political philosophy, fascism (FA • SHIH • zuhm) glorifies the state
above the individual by emphasizing the need for a strong central government led by a dictatorial ruler. In a fascist state, the government controls the
people and stifles any opposition.
By 1922, Mussolini’s movement was growing quickly. The middleclass fear of socialism, communism, and disorder made the Fascists
increasingly attractive to many people. Mussolini knew that many Italians
were still angry over the failure to receive more land from the peace
treaty. He knew nationalism was a powerful force and demanded more
land for Italy. Mussolini converted thousands to the Fascist Party with his
nationalistic appeals.
In 1922, Mussolini and the Fascists threatened to march on Rome if they
were not given power. Victor Emmanuel III, the king of Italy, gave in and
made Mussolini prime minister. Mussolini used his position as prime
minister to create a Fascist dictatorship. He was made head of the government with the power to make laws by decree. The police were given unrestricted authority to arrest and jail anyone for either political or nonpolitical
crimes. In 1926, the Fascists outlawed all other political parties in Italy and
set up a secret police, known as the OVRA. By the end of the year, Mussolini ruled Italy as Il Duce (eel DOO • chay), “The Leader.”
The Fascist State
Believing that the Fascist state should be totalitarian, Mussolini used
various means to establish complete control over the Italian people. The
OVRA watched citizens’ political activities and enforced government
300
policies. The Italian Fascists also tried to exercise control over the
mass media, including newspapers, radio, and film. The media was
used to spread propaganda. Simple slogans like “Mussolini Is Always
Right” were used to mold Italians into a single-minded
Fascist community.
The Fascists also used organizations to promote the ideals of fascism. For example, by 1939, about 66 percent of the population between
the ages of 8 and 18 were members of Fascist youth groups. These youth
groups particularly focused on military activities and values.
With these organizations, the Fascists hoped to create a nation of new
Italians who were fit, disciplined, and war-loving. In practice, however, the
Fascists largely maintained traditional social attitudes. This was especially
evident in their policies on women. The Fascists portrayed the family as the
pillar of the state. Seen as the foundation of the family, women were to be
homemakers and mothers. According to Mussolini, these roles were “their
natural and fundamental mission in life.”
In spite of his attempts, Mussolini never achieved the degree of
totalitarian control seen in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union. The
Italian Fascist Party did not completely destroy the country’s old power
structure. Mussolini’s compromise with the traditional institutions of Italy
was evident in his dealings with the Catholic Church. In the Lateran
Accords of February 1929, Mussolini’s regime recognized the sovereign
independence of a small area of 109 acres (about 44 hectares) within Rome
known as Vatican City. The Church had claimed this area since Italian
unification in 1870. Mussolini’s regime also recognized Catholicism as the
“sole religion of the State.” In return, the Catholic Church urged Italians
to support the Fascist regime.
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Analyzing Why did many Italian people find fascism acceptable?
From Russia to the USSR
GUIDING QUESTION
How did Stalin gain and maintain power in the USSR?
PHOTO: ©Jean, Baptiste, Greuz/Age Fotostock America
During the civil war in Russia, Lenin had followed a policy of war communism. The government controlled most industries and seized grain from
peasants to ensure supplies for the army. When the war was over, peasants
began to sabotage the Communist program by hoarding food. Moreover,
drought caused a terrible famine between 1920 and 1922. As many as
5 million died. With agricultural disaster came industrial collapse. By 1921,
industrial output was only 20 percent of its 1913 level. Russia was
exhausted. A peasant banner proclaimed, “Down with Lenin and horseflesh. Bring back the czar and pork.” As Leon Trotsky said, “The country,
and the government with it, were at the very edge of the abyss.”
Lenin’s New Economic Policy
In March 1921, Lenin pulled Russia back from the abyss. He abandoned
war communism in favor of his New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP was
a modified version of the old capitalist system. Peasants were allowed to
sell their produce openly. Retail stores, as well as small industries that
employed fewer than 20 workers, could be privately owned and operated.
Heavy industry, banking, and mines, however, remained in the hands of
the government.
Mussolini addressing a crowd of over
500,000 people
media channels or systems of
communication
attitude a mental position
regarding a fact or state
Tennessee Social Studies
World History and Geographyy
State Performance Indicators
continued from page 299
W.36 Compare the impact of restrictive
monetary and trade policies. (E)
W.39 Use technology to produce, publish,
and update individual or shared writing
projects describing how economic
instability led to political instability in
many parts of the world and helped to
give rise to dictatorial regimes such as
Adolf Hitler’s in Germany and the
military’s in Japan. (E, H, P)
W.40 Explain the widespread
disillusionment with prewar institutions,
authorities, and values that resulted in a
void that was later filled by totalitarians.
(C, H, P)
W.42 Compare the connection between
economic and political policies, the
absence of a free press, and systematic
violations of human rights during Stalin’s
rise to power in the Soviet Union. (E, H, P)
W.44 Trace Mussolini’s rise to power in Italy
and his creation of a fascist state through
the use of state terror and propaganda.
(H, P)
The West Between the Wars 301
Soviet Union
60 °
SWEDEN
N
20°E
40
ea
N
B a l ti c S
FI
LAT. EST.
LITH. Leningrad
POLAND
Minsk
Kiev Moscow
LA
1939
ARC TIC O CE AN
ND
40°E
100°E
120°E
140°E
160°E
60°E
0
°N
A R C T I C CI R C
ck
Se
Stalingrad
Sea of
Okhotsk
LE
a N
r i
e
b
S i
W
a
SOVIET UNION
S
MANCHUKUO
(MANCHURIA)
a
an Se
Sakhalin
E
Lake
Baikal
a
Aral
Sea
MONGOLIA
M NG
MO
GOL
LIA
A
Ca
spi
PACI FI C
O CE AN
1,000 miles
1,000 km
0
Two-Point Equidistant projection
Odessa
Bl
80°E
Murmansk
IRAN
CHINA
Main area of collective
farms
Labor camp
Forced labor region
JAPAN
Vladivostok
Iron and steel production
Iron mining
Coal
Oil
GEOGRAPHY CONNECTION
By 1939, the Soviet Union was
increasingly industrialized and
collectivized.
1 THE WORLD IN
SPATIAL TERMS What
resource was plentiful near
the Caspian Sea?
2 HUMAN
SYSTEMS Why do you
think the forced labor region
was located in the far east of
Russia?
The Soviet Union
In 1922, Lenin and the Communists formally created a new state called the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The state was also known as the USSR
(its initials) or as the Soviet Union (its shortened form). By that time, a
revived market and a good harvest had ended the famine. Soviet
agricultural production climbed to 75 percent of its prewar level.
Overall, the NEP saved the Soviet Union from complete economic
disaster. Lenin, however, intended the NEP to be only a temporary retreat
from the goals of communism.
Lenin died in 1924. A struggle for power began at once among the
seven members of the Politburo (PAH • luht • BYUR • OH)—the Communist
Party’s main policy-making body. The Politburo was severely divided over
the future direction of the Soviet Union.
One group, led by Leon Trotsky, wanted to end the NEP and to launch
Russia on a path of rapid industrialization, chiefly at the expense of the
peasants. This group also wanted to spread communism abroad. It
believed that the revolution in Russia would survive only with new
communist states.
Another group in the Politburo rejected the idea of worldwide communist revolution. Instead, it wanted to focus on building a socialist state in
Russia and to continue Lenin’s NEP. This group believed that rapid industrialization would harm the living standards of the peasants.
Stalin and His Five-Year Plans
These divisions were further strained by an intense personal rivalry
between Leon Trotsky and another Politburo member, Joseph Stalin. In
1924, Trotsky held the post of commissar of war. Stalin held the bureaucratic job of party general secretary. Stalin used his post as general secretary
to gain complete control of the Communist Party. By 1926, Stalin had
removed the Bolsheviks of the revolutionary era from the Politburo and
had established a powerful dictatorship. Trotsky, pushed out of the party in
1927, eventually made his way to Mexico. There he was murdered in 1940,
probably on Stalin’s orders.
302
Stalin made a significant shift in economic policy in 1928 when he
ended the NEP. That year he launched his First Five-Year Plan. The
Five-Year Plans set economic goals for five-year periods. Their purpose was
to transform Russia virtually overnight from an agricultural into an
industrial country.
The First Five-Year Plan focused on production of military and capital
goods (goods devoted to the production of other goods such as heavy
machines). The plan quadrupled the production of heavy machinery and
doubled oil production. Between 1928 and 1937, during the first two
Five-Year Plans, steel production in Russia increased from 4 million to 18
million tons (3.6 to 16.3 million t) per year.
Costs of Stalin’s Programs
The social and political costs of industrialization were enormous. The
number of workers increased by millions between 1932 and 1940, but
investment in housing actually declined after 1929. The result was that
millions of workers and their families lived in miserable conditions. Real
wages of industrial workers declined by 43 percent between 1928 and 1940.
With rapid industrialization came an equally rapid collectivization of
agriculture—a system in which private farms were eliminated. Instead, the
government owned all the land, and the peasants worked it. The peasants
resisted by hoarding crops and killing livestock. In response, Stalin stepped
up the program. By 1934, 26 million family farms had been collectivized
into 250,000 units.
Collectivization was done at tremendous cost. Hoarding food and
slaughtering livestock led to widespread famine. Stalin is supposed to have
said that 10 million died in the famine of 1932 to 1933. Stalin gave the
peasants only one concession. Each collective farm worker could have one
tiny, privately owned garden plot.
Stalin’s programs had other costs as well. To achieve his goals, Stalin
strengthened his control over the party. Those who resisted were sent into
forced labor camps in Siberia. During the time known as the Great Purge,
Stalin expelled army officers, diplomats, union officials, intellectuals, and
ordinary citizens. About 8 million were arrested and sent to labor camps;
they never returned. Others were executed.
The Stalin era also overturned permissive social legislation enacted in
the early 1920s. To promote equal rights for women, the Communists had
made the divorce process easier. After Stalin came to power, the family was
praised as a small collective. Parents were responsible for teaching the
values of hard work, duty, and discipline to their children.
Stalin’s Purge
Poet Anna Andreyevna
Gorenko, who wrote under
the pseudonym Anna
Akhmatova, was silenced
during the Great Purge and
watched as loved ones and
fellow writers were
imprisoned and disappeared.
In 1942, her poem “Courage”
appeared:
know that our fate in
“We
the balance is cast
And we are the history
makers.
The hour for courage has
sounded at last
And courage has never
forsaken us.
We do not fear death where
the wild bullets screech,
Nor weep over homes that are
gutted,
For we shall preserve you our
own Russian speech,
The glorious language of
Russia!
Your free and pure utterance
we shall convey
To new generations,
unshackled you’ll stay
Forever!
”
—quoted in Anna Akhmatova and
Her Circle
DRAWING
CONCLUSIONS
According to this poem, what
may be lost in the Great Purge
that “we” must save?
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Stating Explain how Joseph Stalin used his position in the Communist Party and
other means to gain control over the USSR.
collectivization a system
in which private farms are
eliminated and peasants work land
owned by the government
Authoritarian States in the West
GUIDING QUESTION
What was the goal of authoritarian governments in the West?
A number of governments in the Western world were not totalitarian
but were authoritarian. These states adopted some of the features of totalitarian states, in particular, their use of police powers. However, these
authoritarian governments did not want to create a new kind of mass
society. Instead, they wanted to preserve the existing social order.
The West Between the Wars 303
Eastern Europe
At first, it seemed that political democracy would become well established
in eastern Europe after World War I. Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia (known as the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes until
1929), Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary all adopted parliamentary systems.
However, authoritarian regimes soon replaced most of these systems.
Parliamentary systems failed in most eastern European states for
several reasons. These states had little tradition of political democracy.
In addition, they were mostly rural and agrarian. Large landowners still
dominated most of the land. Powerful landowners, the churches, and even
some members of the small middle class feared land reform. They also
feared communist upheaval and ethnic conflict. These groups looked to
authoritarian governments to maintain the old system. Only
Czechoslovakia, which had a large middle class, a liberal tradition, and a
strong industrial base, maintained its political democracy.
In his mural Guernica Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso immortalized the
horrible destruction of the city of
Guernica in April 1937.
▶ CRITICAL THINKING
Analyzing Visuals What one word best
describes your response to Guernica? Use
details from the painting to explain how
the artist creates this feeling.
In Spain, too, political democracy failed to survive. Led by General
Francisco Franco, Spanish military forces revolted against the democratic
government in 1936. A brutal and bloody civil war began.
Foreign intervention complicated the Spanish Civil War. The fascist
regimes of Italy and Germany aided Franco’s forces with arms, money, and
soldiers. Hitler used the Spanish Civil War as an opportunity to test the
new weapons of his revived air force. German bombers destroyed the city
of Guernica in April 1937. The Spanish republican government was aided
by 40,000 foreign volunteers. The Soviet Union sent in trucks, planes, tanks,
and military advisers.
The Spanish Civil War came to an end when Franco’s forces captured
Madrid in 1939. Franco established a dictatorship that lasted until his
death in 1975. Because Franco’s dictatorship
favored traditional groups and did not try to
control every aspect of people’s lives, it is an
example of an authoritarian rather than a
totalitarian regime. Nevertheless, his rule was
harsh. He relied on special police forces, and
opponents to the regime who had not fled into
exile were imprisoned.
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Describing In what ways did Franco’s government
preserve the existing social order?
LESSON 2 REVIEW
Reviewing Vocabulary
1. Describing Describe the restriction of individual rights and the
use of mass terror in Italy and the Soviet Union.
Using Your Notes
2. Sequencing Use your notes and details from the text to explain
how Franco established an authoritarian government in Spain.
Answering the Guiding Questions
3. Organizing How did Mussolini create a dictatorial state in Italy?
304
4. Identifying Cause and Effect How did Stalin gain and maintain
power in the USSR?
5. Interpreting What was the goal of authoritarian governments in
the West?
Writing Activity
6. ARGUMENT Imagine you are a middle-class Italian in the 1920s.
Write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper supporting
Mussolini’s new government.
PHOTO: Art Archive/Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid
Spain
netw rks
There’s More Online!
IMAGE Filming of Triumph of the
Will
IMAGE Nazi Propaganda Poster
IMAGE SS Marching in Berlin
INTERACTIVE SELFCHECK QUIZ
LESSON 3
PRIMARY SOURCE Kristallnacht
Directive from Reinhard Heydrich
Hitler and Nazi Germany
SLIDE SHOW The Hitler Youth
VIDEO Hitler and Nazi Germany
ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS • What can cause economic instability?
• How might political change impact society?
It Matters Because
PHOTO: (l to r)Scherl/Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/The Image Works, CORBIS, Peter Newark Pictures/Bridgeman Art Library, ©Stapleton Collection/CORBIS, Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works.
Reading HELP DESK
Academic Vocabulary
• require
• prohibit
Content Vocabulary
• Nazi
• concentration camp
• Aryan
TAKING NOTES:
Key Ideas and Details
Categorizing As you read, use a
chart like the one below to list
anti-Semitic policies enforced by the
Nazi Party.
Anti-Semitic Policies
Tennessee Social Studies
World History and Geographyy
State Performance Indicators
W.38 Gather information from multiple
sources describing issues of
overproduction, unemployment, and
inflation. (E, P)
continued on page 306
Recovering from the loss of World War I and from the Great
Depression, Germans found extremist parties more
attractive. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party promised to build a new
Germany, and his party’s propaganda appealed to the
German sense of national honor.
Hitler and Nazism
GUIDING QUESTION
What was the basis of Adolf Hitler’s ideas?
Adolf Hitler was born in Austria in 1889. A failure in school, he
traveled to Vienna to become an artist but was rejected by the
academy. Here he developed his basic political ideas. At the core of
Hitler’s ideas was racism, especially anti-Semitism (hostility toward
Jews). Hitler was also an extreme nationalist who knew how
political parties could effectively use propaganda and terror.
After serving four years on the Western Front during World
War I, Hitler remained in Germany and entered politics. In 1919, he
joined the little-known German Workers’ Party, one of several
right-wing extreme nationalist parties in Munich.
By the summer of 1921, Hitler had taken total control of the
party. By then the party had been renamed the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party (NSDAP, an abbreviation of the German
name), or Nazi, for short. Within two years, party membership had
grown to 55,000 people, with 15,000 in the party militia. The militia
was variously known as the SA, the Storm Troops, or the
Brownshirts, after the color of their uniforms.
An overconfident Hitler staged an armed uprising against the
government in Munich in November 1923. This uprising, called the
Beer Hall Putsch, was quickly crushed, and Hitler was sentenced to
prison, where he wrote Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, an account of
his movement and its basic ideas.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler links extreme German nationalism, strong
anti-Semitism, and anticommunism together by a Social Darwinian
theory of struggle. This theory emphasizes the right of “superior”
The West Between the Wars 305
Nazi shortened form of the
German Nazional, or the National
Socialist German Workers’ Party; a
member of such party
nations to Lebensraum (LAY • buhnz • ROWM)—“living space”—through
expansion. It also upholds the right of “superior” individuals to gain authoritarian leadership over the masses.
Rise of Nazism
concentration camp
a camp where prisoners of war,
political prisoners, or members of
minority groups are confined,
typically under harsh conditions
Aryan a term used to identify
people speaking Indo-European
languages; Nazis misused the term,
treating it as a racial designation
and identifying the Aryans with the
ancient Greeks and Romans and
twentieth-century Germans and
Scandinavians
Tennessee Social Studies
World History and Geographyy
State Performance Indicators
continued from page 305
W.39 Use technology to produce, publish,
and update individual or shared writing
projects describing how economic
instability led to political instability in
many parts of the world and helped to
give rise to dictatorial regimes such as
Adolf Hitler’s in Germany and the
military’s in Japan. (E, H, P)
W.40 Explain the widespread
disillusionment with prewar institutions,
authorities, and values that resulted in a
void that was later filled by totalitarians.
(C, H, P)
W.43 Analyze the assumption of power by
Adolf Hitler in Germany and the resulting
acts of oppression and aggression of the
Nazi regime. (C, H, P)
In prison, Hitler realized that the Nazis would have to attain power legally,
not by a violent overthrow of the Weimar Republic. This meant that the
Nazi Party would have to be a mass party that could compete for votes.
When out of prison, Hitler expanded the Nazi Party in Germany. By
1929, it had a national party organization. Three years later, it had 800,000
members and had become the largest party in the Reichstag—the
German parliament.
No doubt, Germany’s economic difficulties were a crucial factor in the
Nazi rise to power. Unemployment had risen dramatically, growing from
4.35 million in 1931 to about 5.5 million by the winter of 1932. Hitler also
promised a new Germany that appealed to nationalism and militarism.
The Nazis Take Control
After 1930, the German government ruled by decree with the support of
President Hindenburg. The Reichstag had little power. Increasingly, the
right-wing elites of Germany—the industrial leaders, landed aristocrats,
military officers, and higher bureaucrats—looked to Hitler for leadership.
Under pressure, Hindenburg agreed to allow Hitler to become chancellor in
1933 and to create a new government.
Within two months, Hitler had laid the foundation for the Nazi Party’s
complete control over Germany. Hitler’s “legal seizure” of power came on
March 23, 1933, when a two-thirds vote of the Reichstag passed the
Enabling Act. This law gave the government the power to ignore the
constitution for four years while it issued laws to deal with the country’s
problems. It also gave Hitler’s later actions a legal basis. He no longer
needed the Reichstag or President Hindenburg. In effect, Hitler became a
dictator appointed by the parliamentary body itself.
With their new power, the Nazis quickly brought all institutions under
their control. They purged the civil service of democratic elements and of
Jews—whom they blamed for Europe’s economic woes. They set up prison
camps called concentration camps for people who opposed them. All
political parties except the Nazis were abolished.
By the end of the summer of 1933, only seven months after being
appointed chancellor, Hitler had established the basis for a totalitarian
state. When Hindenburg died in 1934, the office of president was abolished.
Hitler became sole ruler of Germany. People took oaths of loyalty to their
Führer (FYUR • uhr), or “Leader.”
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Identifying Central Issues How did the Enabling Act contribute to Hitler’s rise
to power?
The Nazi State, 1933–1939
GUIDING QUESTION
How did Hitler build a Nazi state?
Hitler wanted to develop a totalitarian state. He had not simply sought
power for power’s sake. He had a larger goal—the development of an
Aryan racial state that would dominate Europe and possibly the world for
306
generations to come. (Aryan is a term used to identify people speaking
Indo-European languages. The Nazis misused the term by treating it as a
racial designation and identifying the Aryans with the ancient Greeks and
Romans and twentieth-century Germans and Scandinavians.) The Nazis
thought the Germans were the true descendants and leaders of the Aryans
and would create an empire.
To achieve his goal, Hitler needed the active involvement of the German people. Hitler stated:
PRIMARY SOURCE
We must develop organizations in which an individual’s entire life can take place. Then every activity
“
and every need of every individual will be regulated by the collectivity represented by the party. There is
no longer any arbitrary will, there are no longer any free realms in which the individual belongs to
himself. . . . The time of personal happiness is over.
”
—quoted in Hitler, 2002
The Nazis pursued the creation of the totalitarian state in several ways.
For one thing, they used mass demonstrations and spectacles to make the
German people an instrument of Hitler’s policies. These meetings,
especially the Nuremberg party rallies that were held every September,
usually evoked mass enthusiasm and excitement.
The State and Terror
PHOTO: ©Scherl/Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/The Image Works
As sole ruler of Nazi Germany, Hitler relied on instruments of terror to maintain control. The Schutzstaffeln
(“Guard Squadrons”), known as the SS, were an
important force for maintaining order. The SS was
originally created as Hitler’s personal bodyguard. Under the direction of Heinrich
Himmler, the SS came to control not only
the secret police forces that Himmler
had set up but also the regular
police forces.
The SS was based on two principles: terror and ideology. Terror
included the instruments of repression and murder—secret police,
criminal police, concentration camps,
and later, execution squads and
death camps (concentration camps in
which prisoners are killed). For
Himmler, the chief goal of the SS was
to further the “Aryan master race.”
Economics
In the economic sphere, Hitler used public works projects and grants to
private construction firms to put people back to work and end the depression. A massive rearmament program, however, was the key to solving the
unemployment problem. Unemployment, which had reached more than
5 million in 1932, dropped to less than 500,000 in 1937. The regime claimed
full credit for solving Germany’s economic woes. Its part in ending the
depression was an important factor in leading many Germans to accept
Hitler and the Nazis.
SS troops march through the
streets of Berlin on Hitler’s birthday
in 1939.
▶ CRITICAL THINKING
Analyzing How did marches such as
this one help create allegiance to the
Nazi state?
The West Between the Wars 307
Women and Nazism
Women played a crucial role in the Aryan state as bearers of the children
who, the Nazis believed, would bring about the triumph of the “Aryan race.”
The Nazis believed men were destined to be warriors and political leaders,
while women were meant to be wives and mothers. In this way, each could
best serve to maintain the entire community.
Nazi ideas determined employment opportunities for women. Jobs in
heavy industry, the Nazis thought, might hinder women from bearing
healthy children. Professions such as university teaching, medicine, and
law were also considered unsuitable for women, especially married
women. The Nazis instead encouraged women to pursue occupations such
as social work and nursing. The Nazi regime pushed its campaign against
working women with poster slogans such as “Get hold of pots and pans
and broom and you’ll sooner find a groom!”
Anti-Semitic Policies
This Nazi propaganda poster
features a mother with her
children. It says, “Now we again
have a happy future. For that, we
thank the Führer on December 4.”
require to demand as being
necessary
prohibit to prevent or to
forbid
From its beginning, the Nazi Party reflected the strong anti-Semitic beliefs
of Adolf Hitler. When in power, the Nazis translated anti-Semitic ideas into
anti-Semitic policies.
In September 1935, the Nazis announced new anti-Semitic laws at the
annual party rally in Nuremberg. These Nuremberg laws defined who was
considered a Jew—anyone with even one Jewish grandparent. They also
stripped Jews of their German citizenship and civil rights, and forbade marriages between Jews and German citizens. Eventually, German
Jews were also required to wear yellow Stars of David and to carry identification cards saying they were Jewish.
A more violent phase of anti-Jewish activity began on the night of
November 9, 1938—Kristallnacht, or the “night of shattered glass.” In a
destructive rampage, Nazis burned synagogues and destroyed some 7,000
Jewish businesses. Thirty thousand Jewish males were arrested and sent to
concentration camps. Jews were now barred from all public transportation
and all public buildings, including schools and hospitals. They were
prohibited from owning, managing, or working in any retail store. Finally,
under the direction of the SS, Jews were encouraged to emigrate from
Germany. The fortunate Jews were the ones who managed to escape from
the country.
A series of inventions in the late 1800s had led the way for a revolution in
mass communications. Especially important was Marconi’s discovery of
wireless radio waves. By the end of the 1930s, there were 9 million radios in
Great Britain. Full-length motion pictures appeared shortly before World
War I. By 1939, about 40 percent of adults in the more developed countries
were attending a movie once a week.
Of course, radio and the movies could be used for political purposes.
Radio offered great opportunities for reaching the masses. The Nazi regime
encouraged radio listening by urging manufacturers to produce inexpensive radios that could be bought on an installment plan.
Film, too, had propaganda potential, a fact not lost on Joseph Goebbels
(GUHR • buhlz), the German propaganda minister. Believing that film was
one of the “most modern and scientific means of influencing the masses,”
Goebbels created a special film division in his Propaganda Ministry. The
film division supported the making of both feature films and documentaries—nonfiction films—that carried the Nazi message.
308
PHOTO: Peter Newark Pictures/Bridgeman Art Library
Culture and Leisure
The Nazis also made use of the new mass leisure activities that had
emerged by 1900. Mass leisure offered new ways for totalitarian states to
control the people. The Nazi regime adopted a program called Kraft durch
Freude (“Strength through Joy”). The program offered a variety of leisure
activities to amuse the working class. These activities included concerts,
operas, films, guided tours, and sporting events. Hitler used sporting
events like the Olympic Games, which were held in Berlin in 1936, to show
the world Germany’s physical strength and prestige.
READING PROGRESS CHECK
Predicting Consequences How do you think the Nazi control of media such as radio
and film helped keep the regime in power?
Detecting Bias
In 1934 Adolf Hitler
commissioned Leni
Riefenstahl to film the 1934
Nazi party rally in
Nuremberg. The resulting
film, Triumph of the Will, is
considered an important
documentary—and a chilling
piece of Nazi propaganda.
Ultimately, Riefenstahl was
cleared of complicity in Nazi
war crimes, but she was
blacklisted as a director.
Riefenstahl later said of the
film, “It reflects the truth
that was then, in 1934,
history. It is therefore a
documentary, not a propaganda film.” As a record of
an actual event that
happened at a specific time,
it is a documentary.
However, Riefenstahl’s
powerful and positive images
of Hitler as a kind of savior
attempt to influence the
audience’s attitude toward
the Nazis—which is the goal
of propaganda.
PHOTO: ©CORBIS
Director Leni Riefenstahl filming
Triumph of the Will at the
Luitpoldhain Arena in Nuremberg,
1934
LESSON 3 REVIEW
Reviewing Vocabulary
4. Drawing Conclusions How did Hitler build a Nazi state?
1. Identifying Central Issues What does the term Aryan mean and
how did the Nazis misuse the term?
Writing Activity
Using Your Notes
2. Categorizing Information Use your notes to identify the
anti-Semitic policies enforced by the Nazi Party.
5. INFORMATIVE/EXPLANATORY Write a paragraph discussing how
Hitler used the existing German political structure and the
economic situation in Germany to rise to power.
Answering the Guiding Questions
3. Analyzing Information What was the basis of Adolf Hitler’s
ideas?
The West Between the Wars 309
CHAPTER 15
Assessment
Directions: On a separate sheet of paper, answer the questions below. Make sure you read carefully and
answer all parts of the questions.
Lesson Review
Lesson 1
1
EXPLAINING What effects did the U.S. Senate’s refusal to
ratify the Treaty of Versailles have?
2
MAKING CONNECTIONS What outlook did the arts and
physics share in the 1920s? What was a root cause for
this outlook?
Lesson 2
3
4
IDENTIFYING CENTRAL ISSUES What were the main
characteristics of the totalitarian states? How did they
achieve their goals?
SPECULATING How do you think Americans would react
today to propaganda that said, “Our leader is always
right”? Why would people react that way?
Exploring the Essential Questions
9
GATHERING INFORMATION Work with a small group to
research first-person accounts of life in the 1920s and
1930s, with special attention to economic difficulties and
the effects of political change on individuals and families.
You may find accounts in books, online, or by interviewing
people directly. Take turns reading accounts to your class.
Analyzing Historical Documents
Use the cartoon to answer the following questions.
This political cartoon by John Baer was published in 1932, shortly
after Franklin Roosevelt first used the term New Deal.
PRIMARY SOURCE
Lesson 3
5
SPECIFYING What were the core beliefs on which Hitler’s
totalitarian state was based?
6
HYPOTHESIZING Hitler insisted that women should
concentrate on keeping house and raising children, yet he
chose a woman, Leni Riefenstahl, to direct the famous Nazi
propaganda film Triumph of the Will. Why do you think
Hitler chose to contradict his beliefs?
21st Century Skills
8
CREATE AND ANALYZE ARGUMENTS Examine the
responses of European states to the challenges they faced
after World War II. Pick one of the states and create an
argument about why its method of dealing with the
challenges was the most effective.
TIME, CHRONOLOGY, AND SEQUENCING In what order
did Hitler’s actions against Jews happen? What does this
chronology show about the effects of escalating hate
speech and behavior?
Tennessee Social Studies
World History and Geography
State Performance Indicators
W.73 Explain the historical factors that created a stable democratic government in India and the
role of Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi in its development. (C, H, P)
310
10
NAMING Who are the card players demanding a new
deal? Who is happy with the old deal?
11
MAKING INFERENCES What details in the cartoon
provide insight into Baer’s views on the distribution of
wealth in the United States?
Extended-Response Question
12
INFORMATIVE/EXPLANATORY Use the actions of
Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler to identify five things to avoid
in order to protect the United States from a dictator. Add a
sentence or two of explanation to each list item.
PHOTO: The Granger Collection, NYC, All Rights Reserved
7