7.6 Causes of World War II

Question 1

What was the Weimar Republic?

Answer 1

The government democratically elected by Germans to replace the monarchial rule of the kaiser.

Question 2

What was the name of the anti-semitic book Adolf Hilter wrote that was allegedly semi-autobiographical?

Answer 2

Mein Kampf

Question 3

Members of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party were known as what?

Answer 3

Nazis

Question 4

When the Nazis burnt the Reichstag, or German Parliament building, who got the blame?

Answer 4

Radical Extremists

Question 5

What is scientific racism?

Answer 5

A psuedo-scientific theory (bullshit) that certain races of humans are genetically superior to others

Question 6

Who did Hitler say were the most superior people?

Answer 6

Aryans

Question 7

Hitler wanted German purged of people who considered unpure. Who were some of the groups of humans that made Hitler’s long list of unpure humans

Answer 7

Jews
Gays
Slavs
Communists
Roma

Question 8

What did the Nuremberg Laws do?

Answer 8

Prohibited marriage between gentiles and Jews
Took away German citizenship from Jews
pushed Jews to the margins of German society

Question 9

What was the name of the military pact Hitler made with Italy?

Answer 9

The Rome-Berlin Axis

Question 10

What was the Anti-Comintern Pact?

Answer 10

An agreement made between Germany, italy and Japan based on a shared distrust of communism that sought to promote their military interests.

Question 11

Kristallnacht, in 1938, was a night of outrage against Jews where nearly every synagogue in Germany was destroyed. 7000 Jewish shops were destroyed, 90 Jews were killed, and more th an 30,000 Jews were dragged from their home and arrested to be sent to concentration camps. The night was engineered by the Nazi party. What did they try to blame it on?

Answer 11

The assisination of a German diplomat by a Jewish teenager.

Question 12

How did Hitler first openly breach the Treaty of Versailles?

Answer 12

Marched trouples into the Rhineland - a buffer zone between Germany and France.

Question 13

What were two reasons Britain adopted a policy of appeasement with Germany before World War II commenced?

Answer 13

1. They didn’t want to return to war.
2. They thought Central Europe needed a strong anti-communist leader.

Question 14

What did Hitler call his new, German Empire?

Answer 14

The Third Reich

Question 15

What was the Anschluss?

Answer 15

The official annexation of Austria to Germany

Question 16

Did the Ancschluss involve violence?

Answer 16

Not especially. Hitler pressured the Austrian chancellor to give Nazis more control in Austrian parliament. With more Nazis in parliiament, Autria allowed German troops to move in and occupy Austria.

Question 17

Where was the Sudetenland?

Answer 17

Czechoslovakia

Question 18

Why did Hitler argue that Sudetenland was a natural extension of the German Empire?

Answer 18

The locals spoke German

Question 19

Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of Britain, was a proponent of what policy when dealing with Nazi Germany?

Answer 19

Appeasement

Question 20

What was the Munich Agreement?

Answer 20

An agreement between Britain and Germany that Germany could annex Sudentenland in return for a promise that Germany would not annex any more of Czechoslovakia

Question 21

Did the Munich Agreement appease Hitler?

Answer 21

No. It showed Hitler that Germany could take European land and Britain wouldn’t do anything.

Question 22

What was the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact?

Answer 22

An agreement between the Soviet Union and Germany to not attach one another.

Question 23

What was the secret deal between Stalin and Hitler regarding Poland?

Answer 23

If Stalin stood by while Germany invaded Western Poland, the Soviet Union could have control of eastern Poland and the Baltic States.

Question 24

Why did Britain and France declare war on Germany?

Answer 24

Germany invaded Poland.

Question 25

What was Lebensraum?

Answer 25

The Lebensraum or “living space” policy of Nazi Germany that involved expanding German territories to the east to provide land and material resources for the German people, while driving out Jewish and Slavic peoples.

Question 26

What was Danzig?

Answer 26

Following World War I, the Treaty of Versailles (1918) declared Danzig to be a free city administered by Poland and the League of Nations. Germany resented the loss of this largely German city. Hitler was determined to overturn the military and territorial provisions of the Versailles treaty. After invading Poland in September 1939, Nazi Germany annexed Danzig.