Exploring Events of the Cold War
in Europe
Social Studies Skill Builder
Overview
In this Social Studies Skill Builder students create a map and annotated timeline to analyze
escalating events during the Cold War in Europe. Working in pairs, students receive
12 cards that contain brief descriptions of Cold War events. Students create a symbol to
represent each event, draw it on the corresponding countries on a map of Europe, and
summarize each event on an a timeline. Afterward, students work in groups of four to
analyze key events of the Cold War, using their maps and timelines as resources. Finally, the
teacher holds a class disbussion to evaluate the significance of Cold War events.
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Procedures at a GIance
Before class, divide your students into mixed-ability pairs. Tell students they will learn
about and map 72 major Cold War events in Europe. Pass out Student Handout 3.2A to
each student, and give each pair one event card from Student Handout 3.28. Have pairs
read the event card, create a visual symbol to represent the event, draw it on the
coresponding countries on the map, and summarize each event in 10 words or less to
annotate the timeline. Continue this until all pairs have completed labeling the map and the
timeline. Then, combine pairs into groups of four. Read aloud the Follow-up Questions.
Tell groups to use their maps and timelines to determine the answer. Reveal the correct
answer, and award points to groups with correct answers. Finally, hold a class discussion to
evaluate the significance of Cold War events in Europe. Project Transparency 3.ZAand
discuss the Cold War's effects on conflicts around the world.
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Procedures in Detail
t. Before class, divide your students into mixed-ability pairs. Prepare an overhead
transparency that shows students who their pafiners are and how to alrange their desks.
Project the transparency, and ask students to move into their correct places.
2.
Tell students that this activity will help them understand many of the escalating events of
the Cold War. Review with students the meaning of the term Cold War.
In 1948, Journalist Walter Lippman first used the term Cold War, borrowing from a
French phrase, to refer to a " constant war of nerves" between the Soviet Union and the
United States. The phrase caught on and came to describe an epoch of enduring hostility
between the two nations-ahe two superpowers of the world-with weapons of mass
destruction serving as a frightening backdrop.
of the term ColdWar, tell them they are ready
to learn about and map 12 major Cold War events. Pass out Student Handout 3.242
Map of the Cold War in Europe to each student. Have each pair tape together the two
pages of their map. Then give each pair one event card from Student Handout 3.282
Event Cards.
3. Once students have reviewed the meaning
4. Have pairs read the event card, create a visual symbol to represent the essence of the
event, and draw it on the coffesponding countries on the map. Have students use they
key to the left of the map to show country groupings. For example, they may want to use
colors-blue for NATO members and red for Warsaw Pact members-to show which
countries belonged to each military alliance. Next, have students annotate their timeline
by summarizing the event in 10 words or less. (Option: You may want to have students
write their summaries in their notebooks.) Tell students that these summaries need not
include proper grammar, but they must define the event accurately. For example, a
student might write the following summary for NAIO: military alliance linked United
States,Western Europe--feared Soviet attack. Emphasize that the notes and illustrations
students write on their map willbe the only resource they will be allowed to use to
answer a set of questions in the second part of the activity. After pairs have labeled their
map and timelines, have one student bring the map to you. Check the answers for
thoroughness and accuracy, optionally award points, and give them a new event card.
Before students begin working, you may want to model these steps with the class.
finished labeling all 12 event cards on the map and timeline, collect the
event cards. Combine the pairs into groups of four. Tell students they will use their maps
and timelines to compete with other groups to answer a set of follow-up questions about
the Cold War in Europe.
5. When pairs have
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Read aloud the first follow-up question. Have each group discuss the question and use
their maps and timelines to determine the correct answer. Have students record the
question and the answer on the back of their maps.
7. Once all groups have finished with the first question, reveal the correct answer and award
points to groups who gave the comect response. Address any questions students have
about the topic. Continue this process for each of the remaining follow-up questions.
Follow-up Questions
. Which four countries occupied Germany following World War II?
Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
. Which Soviet-controlled countries make up the Iron Curtain border?
East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungarlt, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria.
. Which Cold War events involved
economic aid to European nations?
The Marshall Plan and the Molotov Plan.
. Why did President Truman give economic and military aid to Greece and Ttrrkey?
They were resisting communist takeovers.
. What did the Warsaw Pact and NATO
have in common?
Both were military pacts.
. Which countries accepted
economic aid from the Marshall Plan but refused
to be members of NATO by 1955?
Spain, Austria, and Sweden.
. After the Hungarian uprising failed, which
free country would the uprising
sympathizers try to escape to by land?
Austria.
. Why was a wall built in Berlin?
To prevent citizens
from Eastern Germany (East Berlin) from escaping to the west.
. Why did the Soviet Union
invade its own ally, Czechoslovakia?
Because the Czech leader, Alexander Dubcek, tried to loosen his country from strict
Soviet control.
. According to your timeline, in which decade-the forties, fifties, or sixties-were
there more Cold War conflicts in Europe?
The forties: Churchill's lron Curtain Speech, Marshall Plan, Molotov Plan, Truman
Doctrine, Berlin Blockade, Berlin Airlift, NATO , and the Soviet development of the
atomic bomb.
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3.2
Wrap Up
1. After you have completed the class competition on Follow-up Questions, lead the class
in a discussion about the Cold War, centering on the questions below. Have students refer
to their completed maps and timelines during the discussion.
.
.
.
.
What were the major fears of the superpowers? Motivations?
Which Cold War event do you think brought the two superpowers closest to the
brink of World War III?
How could the superpowers have prevented the Cold War from escalating?
How might the Cold War have affected the rest of the world outside Europe?
a map of Cold War conflicts around the world. Ask students
to carefully examine the transparency and answer the following questions: What do you
see here? In which regions of the world were there ColdWar conflicts? Why might the
ColdWar have spread to all these countries throughout the world? What does this map
2. ProjectTransparency 3.2A,
tell you about the effects of the ColdWar? Use the following information to summarize
what the map reveals about the influence of the Cold War throughout the world.
From the 1940s through the 1980s, ColdWar tensions were felt throughout the world.
The conflict that began in Europe soon spilled over to many countries, from newly
independent African nations to developing nations in Asia and Latin America. The two
superpowers sometimes used their military power to intervene directly in the affairs of
other nations, as the United States did inVietnam and the USSR did in Afghanistan.
More often, however, Cold War battles were fought indirectly, with both sides using
economic, political, diplomatic, and covert means to gain influence in or control of a
region. For example, the United States refused to trade with Cuba in an attempt to
destabilize its Soviet-backed economy.
Most of the superpower battles were fought as proxy wars in which political groups
or nations----aligned with either the Soviet Union or the United States--fought to achieve
the superpower's foreign policy. Therefore, any tensions between communist and
non-communist nations were considered Cold War conflicts because they reflected the
ideological battle between the two superpowers. Even tensions within a country were
considered part of the ColdWar if they represented a struggle between communist and
non- c ommunist .factions.
Idea for Student Response: Pass out a new copy of Student Handout
3.1A to each student, which shows Uncle Sam and the Russian Bear
playing poker. Have students integrate the European Cold War events they just studied
with the metaphor "the Cold War was a poker game." For example, students might
show a pile of money near Uncle Sam-labeled Marshall Plan-with a note attached
that reads, "For friends joining the game." Or students might have the Russian Bear
concealing an ace labeled "Soviet nuclear weapons."
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Map of the
Directions: For each event card you
receive, carefully read about the event,
create a visual symbol to represent it, and
place the symbol on the corresponding
countries on the map. Use the key to
show country groupings. Finally,
summarize the event-using 10 words or
less-to annotate the timeline below.
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Event Cards
Iron Curtain Speech
Winston Churchill, prime minister of England during World War II, visited the United
States in the spring of 1946 and delivered his famous Iron Curtain speech. "From Stettin
in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent."
This "iron curtain" of Soviet-controlled countries in Eastern Europe ran along the western border of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Albania, and
along the southern border of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.
Truman Doctrine
In 1947 President Truman
asked for and received from the U.S. Congress $400 million
to provide assistance "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation
[enslavement] by armed minorities [communists] or by outside pressures." Providing
military and economic assistance to nations resisting communist takeovers became
known as the Truman Doctrine. The first nations to receive aid under the Truman
Doctrine were Greece and Turkey, both of which then successfully defeated attempted
communist takeovers.
Marshall Plan
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U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall created a plan to rebuild a Europe
devastated by World War IL All European nations, including the Soviet Union, could
receive U.S. dollars to rebuild their devastated economies as long as the money was
spent on products made in the United States. In 1948 the U.S. Congress approved
$17 billion in aid. Nations receiving Marshall Plan aid were Great Britain, France,
Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany, Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria,ltaly, Greece, and Turkey.
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Molotov Plan
The Soviet Union rejected participation in the Marshall Plan rn 1947 and decided to
create an economic union of Eastern European nations. This plan was called the
Molotov Plan after the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheshav Molotov. The nations of
Eastern Europe would rebuild their postwar economies according to a plan set forth by
the Communist parties of each participating nation. The nations involved in the
Molotov Plan were the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.
NATO
Fearful that western European nations could not resist a Soviet attack from eastern
Europe, President Truman signed a treaty that created a military alliance (a pact between
states in a common cause) known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
NAIO linked the United States and western Europe in such a way that, as Truman said,
"an armed attack against one or more of the [nations] in Europe or North America shall
be considered an attack against them a11." Members of NATO in 1949 were Canada, the
United States, Great Britain, France, Iceland, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and Italy. Greece and Turkey joined the
alliance tn 1952, and West Germany was admitted in 1954.
Warsaw Pact
The leaders of the Eastem European nations met in 1955 in Warsaw, Poland and signed
the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance (a pact between states in a common cause) with the
Soviet Union as the leading military power. Warsaw Pact member nations pledged to
defend one another in the event of an attack on any of the member states. The members
of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 were the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, and Bulgaria.
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Berlin Blockade
Following World War II, the Americans and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Germany
into four occupation zones to be controlled by the Americans, Soviets, British, and
French. Berlin, the capital city of Germany thatlay deep within the Soviet occupation
zone, would itself be divided into four occupation zones held by the same powers. In
1948, when the western nations agreed to create a cuffency for.their occupation zones as
the first step in creating the new nation of West Germany, the Soviet Union decided to
close off all road and rail access to the western occupation zones in Berlin. This action,
known as the Berlin Blockade, created a crisis for the West because it seemed as if they
would either have to fight their way into Berlin to supply the people living there or give
up their zones of occupation in the German capital.
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Blockade of 1948 left two million West Berliners without electricity, food,
and fuel needed for survival. Unwilling to give up West Berlin to the Soviet Union and
unwilling to fight the Soviet army and risk starting World War III, President Truman
decided to launch the Berlin Airlift. For 10 months, starting in August 1948, the United
States sent two million tons of supplies to West Berlin on cargo planes. The planes had
to land and take off 24 hours a day to keep from having to give up the West's occupation
zones in the German capital. The Soviet Union lifted the blockade in May 1949.
Berlin Wall
Because of strict laws preventing citizens of communist nations from leaving their
countries for the West, West Berlin was seen as an escape route out of otherwise tightly
sealed borders between communist and non-communist nations. After years of using
propaganda to discourage people in East Berlin from defecting (abandoning their
country) to West Berlin, a wall was constructed in 196l that sealed shut the entire border
between East and West Berlin. The Berlin Wall, 15 feet high and built of solid concrete
masonry, stretched across the city, blocking streets, traversing the river, and separating
buildings. It was manned by armed East German soldiers in watchtowers with shoot-tokill orders for anyone attempting to scale the wall and enter West Berlin.
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The Soviet Union Tests the Bomb
When the news became public that the Soviets had successfully completed their first test
of an atomic bomb tn 1949, Soviet citizens felt pride while the Americans and
Europeans felt fear and despair. The American monopoly (total control by one group) of
weapons of mass destruction, which had begun in August 1945, was over. Both sides
now competed in arace to build enough atomic power to defeat one another in the event
of a war. Soon each superpower was armed with enough destructive power to destroy an
entire continent, and, later, the world.
The Invasion of Hungary, 1956
Rioting broke out in Hungary in 1956 as Hungarians took to the streets demanding more
freedom from their communist govemment and threatening to return to a parliamentary
democracy if their demands were not met. The new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev,
quickly dispatched the Soviet Army with tanks into the streets of Budapest, the
Hungarian capital, rounding up the protesters and executing their leaders. Within a few
days, the uprising was brutally crushed, and Hungary was returned to a Soviet-style
communist nation.
The Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968
In 1968 Czechoslovakia attempted to loosen itself from strict Soviet control. A new
Czech leader, Alexander Dubcek, emerged and restored freedoms to his people lost since
the end of World War II. Czechoslovakians freely expressed themselves and distributed
and read previously banned literature. Alarmed that Czechoslovakia would be wrested
from their control, the Soviet Union quickly sent in Warsaw Pact troops and tanks and,
with little resistance, restored Czechoslovakia as a hard-line communist nation.
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