Chapter 27—Europe and the Great Depression of the 1930s
Reading and Study Guide
(Divide and Conquer) Taking the time to do a study guide well reduces the time to study well for
the exam. As you invest, so shall you prosper…
BIG QUESTIONS: (as you work through the chapter, keep these questions in mind
1. What caused the financial collapse and depression in Europe?
2. How did the emergence of the National Government in Great Britain and the Popular
Front in France respond to the political pressures cause by the depression?
3. How did the Nazis seize power, establish a police state, and impose racial laws in
Germany?
4. What were Stalin’s planned industrialization, agricultural collectivization, and purges
in the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet Army?
Background: In Europe, the decade of the 1920s had been anything but “roaring.” This was a
decade of insecurity, both financially and politically. Marxists truly believed that the end of
capitalism was at hand and the stage was set for official socialism and its cousin, communism.
Introduction through Confronting the Great Depression in the Democracies Pages 906-915
1. What were some of the “casualties” of the Great Depression of the 19302?
2. Why did most governments (including the U.S. under President Hoover) refuse to deficit
spend after the onset of the depression?
3. Why were the French and the Americans the “bad guys” in the contorted relationships of war
debt and reparations repayments?
4. Briefly describe the relationships of American loans at home and abroad, and the collapse of
the Wall Street stock market.
5. What did the Lausanne Conference mandate?
6. What basic “problem” afflicted agriculture in the 1920s, and to what other economic woes did
this lead?
7. What governmental economic practice did John Maynard Keynes advocate? What was the
common practice before Keynesian theory?
8. What was the National Government and what led to its formation?
9. What was the most dramatic move of the National Government?
10. For what movement is Sir Oswald Moseley known?
11. What French groups emerged in the 1930s that mimicked the ideology of the Fascists and
Nazis?
12. What did these and other right-wing groups do as a result of the Stavisky Affair?
13. What was the Popular Front, who was its leader, andwhat version of socialism did it
champion?
Germany: the Nazi Seizure of Power through Italy: Fascist Economics Pages 915-926
1. What was identified as the “most remarkable political event caused by the uncertainty and
turmoil of the Great Depression?”
2. What two means did the Nazis prominently employ to gain more power following the onset of
economic turmoil in 1932?
3. What various groups supported Hitler in his legal rise to power?
4. Through what three means did Hitler consolidate his power once he had been elevated to the
position of Chancellor?
5. What was critical about the February Emergency Decree and the March Enabling Act?
6. The period of June 30-July 2 is referred to as the “night of the long knives”—what happened
during this period that might have earned it this title?
7. What critical transformation in German politics occurred on August 2, 1934?
8. Identify
a.
b.
c.
d.
Schutzstaffel
Heinrich Himmler
The Nuremberg Laws
Kristallnacht
9. As far as the worldwide economic crisis of the 1930was concerned, who became the “most
effective political leader in Europe?”
10. What elements of German life were sacrificed to make this success possible, and upon what
goal was all this achieved?
11. What aspect(s) of Hitler’ economic program were similar to efforts taking place in the United
States under the New Deal?
12. Insofar as gender was concerned, what were some chief causes of “cultural weakness” and
“decline?”
13. What roles were reserved for women through the Nazi system, and why were such roles
important?
14. Why did so many women throw their political support to the Nazis and what arguments were
advanced by German feminists against this new order?
15. What is defined as Italy’s attempt to marry a planned economy to the private ownership of
capital?
16. Were Mussolini’s corporations like those of the free market? If not, what did they resemble?
The Soviet Union: Central Economic Planning and Party Purges Pages 926-933
1. How does the text characterize the industrial advance of the Soviet Union between 1928 and
WWII?
2. In what way(s) did the above have its limitations, and what were the “peripheral” costs?
3. What “mechanisms” were used by Stalin to accomplish the task of rapid industrialization?
4. What “momentous decision” did Stalin reach by the late 1920s, and what led him to this?
5. Who were the kulaks? What happened to them?
6. What important shift in communist foreign policy was made in the mid-1930s?
7. What was “one of the most mysterious and horrendous political events of the 20th Century?”
Describe it as well as its immediate cause.
8. How do historians now explain Stalin’s justification for the Great Purges? What was most
peculiar about the Purges?
9. What was the key difference between the political party structures found in right vs. left
totalitarian regimes?
10. What differentiated the ruthlessness of earlier absolute rulers and that of the dictators of the
20th Century?
Chapter 28—World War II
Reading and Study Guide
BIG QUESTIONS: (as you work through the chapter, keep these questions in mind)
1. What were the long-term and immediate causes of World War II?
2. What were the courses of battles and how was the economy managed during the war?
3. How did racism affect the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews?
4. How did the war impact the people of Europe?
5. What defined wartime diplomatic relations and what were the plans for the postwar
world sponsored by the victorious United Nations?
Background: The roots of World War I were embedded in the nineteenth century and earlier;
those of World War II lie there as well, and in the events surrounding the 1914–1918 war. It is
clear that conditions in Europe between the wars coupled with aggressive, totalitarian
nationalism were major factors. Real and perceived injustices, the collapse of the concept of
collective security, as well as uncertain, and often indecisive national policies represent
additional factors.
Introduction and Again the Road to War Pages 938-948
1. What did the Nazi’s rail against in the 1920s and 1930s as the source of all of Germany’s
problems? (Who was to blame?)
2. How did the concept of the Volk and Lebensraum enter into Hitler’s goals for Germany?
3. Identify three acts perpetuated by the Japanese and Germans combined that served as omens
of future aggression.
4. What action had both Germany and Japan taken in the early 1930s with respect to the League
of Nations?
5. What actions by Britain and France seemingly justified Hitler’s actions in Germany in the
1930s?
6. What action did Mussolini take in 1935, and how did the League of Nations and the Western
powers respond?
7. What was formed in November 1936?
8. Explain what might have happened differently relative to Hitler’s reoccupation of the
Rhineland, and why this “might have been” did not happen.
9. What was France’s Maginot Line?
10. What sides squared-off in the Spanish Civil War?
11. Identify
Mini Dictionary ☺
Avaricious: greedy,
covetous, grasping,
rapacious
Affront: offensive,
insult, outrage
a. Falangists
b. Francisco Franco
c. Anti-Comintern Pact
12. What did Hitler accomplish in the Anschluss?
13. To where did Hitler extend his civil and avaricious grasp after
Austria, and why was this territory such an “affront” to Hitler?
14. What was the Munich Pact of September 1939, and what did
Germany do in the following months?
15. Where next did Hitler’s poisonous tendrils reach?
16. What position did the British and French take with regard to this territory?
17. What justifications did the Soviet Union have in entering into the Non-Aggression Pact of
1939?
18. What happened to Poland as a consequence of the above, and what is significant about
September 3, 1939?
World War II (1939-1945) through Racism and The Holocaust Pages 948-966
1. Identify Blitzkrieg. (more than just the meaning of the word)
2. What had the Soviet Russians gained by late 1940, and what, perhaps, did this prompt from
the Nazis?
3. What was the Sitzkrieg? (more than just the meaning of the word)
4. What happened at Dunkirk in May 1940, and what led to this event?
5. Why were the Belgians a key to the success of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg into France, and what had
Germany accomplished by June 1940?
6. How had the United States aided the British cause from 1940 to 1941?
7. What factors combined in leading to Hitler’s failure in the Battle of Britain?
8. What was Operation Barbarossa?
9. What was so critical about the actions of Mussolini with respect to the above?
10. Briefly, what factors combined to lead to the failure of Operation Barbarossa?
11. What plans did Hitler have for European Russia (Russia west of the Urals), as well as those
races most closely akin to the Germans?
12. Identify:
a. Untermenschen
b. Judenrein
c. Holocaust
13. What economic moves were taken in 1941 that forced the hand of the Japanese?
14. Following Pearl Harbor, what additional gains had the Japanese made by the spring of 1942?
15. From where did the first good news in the Allied cause come?
16. Where did the western Allies eventually open a “second front”? Identify three figures
important to this campaign.
17. What was significant about the Italian campaign with respect to eventual Allied success in
the rest of Europe?
18. Why was the Battle of Stalingrad so significant to the overall Allied war effort?
19. Militarily, what was accomplished by the Allies from June to September 1944?
20. What is described as the “last gasp for the Germans in the West”? Why is it known by this
name?
21. What is the significance of May 1 and May 8, 1945?
22. Name and describe the basic American strategy against the Japanese in the Pacific.
23. What debate exists over the use of the atomic bombs against the Japanese? What are the
arguments presented against the need for their use? What are the arguments presented in favor
for their use?
24. Explain the significance of the following dates:
a. April 12, 1945
b. September 2, 1945
The Domestic Fronts through Preparations for Peace Pages 966-975
1. What general trend occurred on the German home front from 1939 to 1944?
2. What roles did Albert Speer and Josef Goebbels play in the above?
3. What dual state of affairs existed in France from mid-1940 to mid-1944? Identify the
following:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Vichy France
Charles de Gaulle
Free French
Fourth Republic
4. What led many of the French to positions of active or passive
collaboration?
Passive: tending
to submit or
obey without
arguing or
resisting
5. Explain the manner in which British war mobilization actually
improved the quality of life for many Britons.
6. By what title did the Soviets refer to WWII?
7. IN what sense do the authors suggest that the Soviets were both initially ill-equipped to fight
the war, then later able to carry on an efficient war effort?
8. Who were the partisans, and how did the Soviets and Stalin benefit from their presence?
9. Ultimately, how did the war effort work toward the advantage of Stalin and the Communists?
10. When did the United States formally recognize the USSR?
11. What was the Atlantic Charter?
12. What decision was made at Tehran in 1943, and why would this decision become important
by the conclusion of the war and during the post-war era?
13. What centuries-old desires had the Soviets realized by 1944?
14. What Teheran agreement regarding Eastern Europe did Stalin eventually violate?
15. What military realities affected the decisions made at the Yalta Conference (particularly
with respect to the position of the Western Allies)?
16. What factors made the Potsdam Conference different from Yalta, and what key agreements
were reached?
17. What is suggested by referring to WWI and WWII as the “Second Thirty Years’ War”?
18. Why was the post-war trend toward de-colonization hastened by the emergence of the superpower structure following the war?
19. What was different about the treatment of the defeated powers of WWII as compared to
those of WWI, and what reality encouraged this different treatment?
20. What ironic state of affairs now exists with respect to two of the former enemy powers of
WWII?