WWII Issues Debates

Next week you will be debating with your partner on major WWII issues. Most of these topics have been hotly debated in the years since WWII and now it is your chance to get involved in the discussion.

Place your team's debate topic on this blog - there will be one pro comment and one con comment for each team. Further instruction will be given to you in class!

Ruhr, Locarno, Manchuria, and Abyssinia

Most of these questions appear in your packet. Remember to upload to turnitin.com!

1. How does Gustav Stresemann view the Locarno Treaty of 1925?
2. Refer to pages 64 and 65 in your handout (sources A-D) and answer the following question: What different attitudes towards the outcome of Locarno does Sources A-D demonstrate?
3. Why did Japan embark on this course of action (invasion of Manchuria)?
4. What response did the international community make to this flagrant act of aggression (Japan’s invasion of Manchuria)?
5. Discuss the impact their action or inaction had on international relations in subsequent years (Japan’s invasion of Manchuria)?
6. Economic sanctions depended on the willingness of nations to undertake a boycott or other economic action against the aggressor. It also meant that all nations would have to participate. Why wasn’t this a realistic option? Discuss in relation to the vested interests of the League and non-League members.
7. Did Manchuria encourage the aggressive action of neighboring states? Create pro’s and con’s to the resolution that “self-defence is the only justification for war.”
8. What was the purpose of the Hoare-Laval pact? Why is it referred to as an example of Realpolitik?
9. Discuss the pro’s and con’s to the following statement: sacrificing Abyssinia was less important than maintaining the Stresa Front.
10. Use Source C on page 75 along with your knowledge from this reading and analyze the following statement: the Abyssinian crisis was a task imposed upon the League of Nations that it was impossible to fulfill.

 
 

The Great Depression

Germany’s economy was incredibly weak – it depended immensely on loans from America and it was very dependent on foreign trade.  Using the reading distributed to you in class and your own independent research, please answer the questions below.

PLEASE REMEMBER to submit to TURNITIN.COM – you will also have a quiz on Monday regarding the Great Depression on this reading and your class notes.

1. How did Adolf Hitler rise to power as a result of the Great Depression?
2. Describe in detail the following statement: “Despondency got worse the longer people went without a job.”
3. How did unemployment become “socially degraded” during this time period? Provide examples.
4. Explain how Communists mobilized the unemployed for their own political ends.
5. How were Communists intimidating to the middle class?
6. Compare and contrast Communists to Social Democrats.
7. Explain a Marxist-Leninist theory? Who supported this theory?
8. How did Nazism come to have a “respectable face?”

The Five Stages of Fascism

1. Describe fascism.
2. How are fascist Italy and Nazi Germany different?
3. Describe the five stages of fascism.
4. Why do fascists like to call themselves revolutionaries?
5. Describe the fascist understanding of modernity.
6. Why is fascism the most original political novelty of the 20^th century?
7. How does “comparison” relate to fascism? How is “comparison” a way of thinking more than a method?
8. How is the KKK a fascist group?
9. How did fascism grow among farmers?
10. What leaders are considered to be fascists in this reading? Why?