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?

WWII

The following questions require a great deal of time, reading, and research. PLEASE take your time to plan your answers. This planning will help your answers be stronger. Remember to turn your paper in to turnitin.com! This blog is due Sunday, January 5th at 9:00 p.m.

1. How and why was Hitler able to become dictator of Germany?
2. “The First and Second World Wars were European civil wars that required outside intervention to settle.” How far do you agree with this quotation?
3. In what ways did the causes of the Second World War differ from the causes of the First World War?
4. Evaluate the importance of ideology in the policies of Adolf Hitler.
5. Assess the impact of Hitler, and the Second World War on one Scandinavian country.
6. How and why did the Second World War bring about the social and economic changes in one European country excluding Scandinavia?
7. Evaluate Hitler’s social, economic, and religious policies between 1933 and 1939.
8. Compare and contrast the foreign policies up to the outbreak of the Second World War of Mussolini and Hitler.
9. Analyze the reasons for the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of a Nazi dictatorship in the period 1929 to 1934.
10. In what ways did Facism in Italy and Nazism in Germany differ ideologically?

The Second World War, 1939-1945

A handout for this reading will be distributed in class tomorrow. Please read and answer the following questions:

1. Explain why Germany was successful in the Second World War up to the end of 1941, but suffered ultimate defeat in 1945.
2. "Retreats and defeats marked the first two years of the war for Britain." How far would you agree with this opinion?
3. Explain why you agree or disagree with the view that the Allied victory in the Second World War was secured mainly because of the contribution of the USSR.
4. To what extent was Hitler responsible for and driven by ideological beliefs of Nazism?
5. In what ways, and to what extent, was the Second World War "total war"?

Germany's Last Reparation and Psychoanalysis of Hitler

Per my instructions in class today - please write a 75 word essay on Germany's Last Reparation reading. 75 words only...no more, no less...YOU CAN DO IT! Read the excerpts from the Psychoanalysis of Hitler - fascinating read. It states for you to work in groups to discuss, ignore that since this is a blog, we are not working on this in class. Below you will find question three that was truncated during the photocopying stage - my apologies.

Remember - I am giving you the gift of an extension since you are working on your essays...therefore your blogs are due Monday night at 9:00 p.m. Have fun with these readings - I think they are DYNAMITE!!!!! I always look for QUALITY not quantity...

3) Adolf's sense of good and bad was confused at a young age. No matter what rule he broke, he rarely had to deal with consequences - not from his mother because she didn't punish him since he was her favorite, and not from his father because he was beaten even if he had not broken any rule. Do you agree or disagree with this psychoanalysis and why?