Unit 7- Reading Guide 1
Vocab: Define each of the following terms
Joseph Stalin
Totalitarian
Benito Mussolini
Fascism
Adolf Hitler
Nazism
Emperor Hirohito
Hideki Tojo
Francisco Franco
Good Neighbor Policy
Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act
Neutrality Acts
Anschluss
Name_________________________
Neville Chamberlain
Munich Agreement
Winston Churchill
Appeasement
Nonaggression Pact
Blitzkrieg
Charles de Gaulle
Kristallnacht
War Refugee Board
Final Solution
Ghettos
Concentration Camps
Guided Reading Questions: Provide comprehensive answers, in complete
sentences, to each of the following questions.
1. Did the Treaty of Versailles result in peace? Explain. Be sure to be on the
lookout for examples of how the Treaty of Versailles resulted in the events
leading up to WWII.
2. What actions did Joseph Stalin take to transform the Soviet Union, both
economically and politically?
3. Why did Italians look to Benito Mussolini following the period of high
unemployment and violent strikes? Did his fascist reforms help? What were
the negative outcomes of fascism in Italy?
4. What were the three parts of Hitler’s Nazi “plan of action?” What did Hitler
do once he gained political power?
5. For what reasons did Japan undertake a policy of expansion? Where was its
first target?
6. Describe Japan’s actions in relation to international treaties, such as the
Washington Naval Treaty and the League of Nations.
7. Describe the expansion of Germany and Italy in the mid-1930s. How did the
League of Nations respond?
8. In regards to the Spanish Civil War, who was the Abraham Lincoln brigade?
What was Hitler’s and Mussolini’s role in this conflict?
9. You’ve already got definitions for the Good Neighbor Policy and the
Reciprocal Trade Agreement. What did the Johnson Debt Default Act say?
What was the purpose of this bill?
10. How did FDR get around the neutrality acts, to send weapons to the Chinese,
following Japan’s invasion in 1937? Summarize the message of FDR’s
“Quarantine Speech.”
11. What is lebensraum? Begin a timeline, starting with March 12, 1938, and
ending at September 1, 1939, that shows Germany’s expansion.
12. How did the world respond to Hitler’s expansion into Austria and the
Sudetenland? How did Winston Churchill respond to the Munich Agreement?
13. So…did Hitler keep his promise made at Munich? Why did the Soviet Union
sign the nonaggression pact with Hitler? What country’s fate was sealed with
this agreement?
14. How did Britain and France react to Hitler’s invasion of Poland? What action
does Stalin take?
15. What do we call the period between the fall of 1939 and spring of 1940?
What does Hitler do during this sitzkrieg? What does Stalin do?
16. Describe Hitler’s success in his blitzkrieg on Western Europe. How were the
330,000 French, British, and Belgian troops saved from annihilation? When
does France fall?
17. Describe the Battle of Britain. How was the RAF able to repel bombing
attacks of the Luftwaffe? What did Churchill say of the RAF’s efforts?
18. For what reasons were Jews a target of Hitler? How did the Nuremberg Laws
affect German Jews?
19. Describe how Western European countries, and the United States, reacted to
the problem of Jewish refugees from Germany. What criticism was made of
FDR’s creation of the War Refugee Board?
20. How would the plight of the 927 Jews aboard the St. Louis support critics of
FDR’s War Refugee Board?
21. Aside from Jews, what other people were targets of Hitler’s racial purification
in Germany?
22. Describe life in the ghettos in Poland.
23. While the ghettos were horrible, the concentration camps were horrific.
Make a list of horrors that you were not already aware of.
24. What decision was made at a meeting in Wannsee, near Berlin, in 1942?
What were the reasons for this new approach?
25. Describe the “selection” process. What happened to those who were deemed
incapable of working? How many Jews were killed during the Holocaust?