P18 Case Studies

Question 1

HOLOCAUST

List the key authorities (10)

Answer 1

1. Browning - Police Battalion 101 - non-ideologically motivated Germans were able to be mobilised into viscerally executing the will of SS.
2. Synder - Prisoner populations reduced to calorie deficits through Hunger Plan - adapted by Russians.
3. Stone - Archetype of evil around Holocaust inhibited proper analysis.
4. Evans - Task Force C executed 33,771 Jews in Oct 41, Babi Yar, point blank.
5. Bloxham and Kushner - Ukrainian, Lativian and Lithuanian collaborators were essential to the extermination agenda.
6. Gerwarth - Personal impetus of Heydrich
7. Wildt - Generation of Naziss with similar educational backgrounds in Weimar in the Reich Main Security Office.
8. Bauman - Holocaust as axiom expression of modernity.
9. Mommsen - Nazi civil service was conservative. Opposed radical anti-Jewish lines - actuating in moderation in Nuremberg laws.
10. Kershaw - Working towards the Fuhrer concept.

Question 2

HOLOCAUST

Key Facts

Answer 2

• Aktion T4 - Mercy killing - Gnadentod - 1939-41 -> 70,273 deaths. Gas vans used in early Holocaust from here.
• Operation Reinhardt - Zyklon B Jewish mass-extermination
• Generalplan Ost - conduct ethnic cleansing and colonization of Central and Eastern Europe.
• Operation Cottbus 1943 - Towns burned north of Minsk.
• Nuremberg, 1935 - Racial policy on Jews - exclusion from marriage and citizenship restrictions.
• Trawlinki Men - Soviet Ukranian collaborators - operated in Belzec - would drive developments.

Question 3

WWI

List the key historians and their arguments (9)

Answer 3

• McMeekin - Looking @ Russian archive, Russia more aggressive than realised. Motivated by fear of Western border (Napoleon). Wanted to destroy OE and AH. Could’ve intervened in 1908 to help Serbs, suggests 1914 had ulterior motive. ‘Great powers do not usually mobilise armies of millions to protect… minor client states”
• Schroeder - AH - fear of encirclement, isolation, death by 1000 cuts. ‘Negative austrophilia’ conspired against.
• Schulz - Decline of the Concert of Great Powers due to polarisation and German Sonderweg.
• Baumgart - Social Darwinist thought drove national actors.
• Verhey - Spirit of 1914 - Sonderweg/ Volksgemeinschaft as conservative fabrication. Demonstrations in Berlin (30,000) = 1% of Berlin pop. SDP anti-war -> 750,000
• Van der Oye - Russian and British conflict in Asia -> Russia made dramatic conquests threatening GB hegemony.
• Hall - Balkan wars - Chataldzha foreshadowing mechanised war. Serbia doubles land mass & pop.
• Clark - Assassination of Obrenovic + rise of Karađorđević allowed radicalism to thrive in Serbia. Alliances polarised.
• Afflerbach - War still not inevitable in 1914.

Question 4

WWI - Alliance System

Detail Clark’s alliance 1887-1907 model.

Answer 4

Britain ↓ France (Africa disputes), Britain ↓ Russia (Asia & Persia disputes), France ↓Germany (1870 War), Russia ↓ AH (over Balkans), Italy ↓ Austria (over the Adriatic), Italy ↓ France (Africa) -> Triple Alliance (GER/ITA/AH) – To prevent AH-ITA War.

Britain ↑ Russia - Early 1890s good for Anglo-German relations – Russia feared that HeligolandZanzibar Treaty, 1890 signalled Britain’s entry to the Triple Alliance. French empathised with this.

Britain ↑ France - to counteract

Britain ↑ Japan – Restrain Russia – power-sharing imperial arrangement.

Entente Cordiale (GBR/FRA/RUS) – Following British rapprochement with Russia

Question 5

WWI - Key Moments

Lis the 5 key moments in the coming of the war

Answer 5

• Bosnia Crisis - 1908 - AH annexes BH
• Agadir Crisis - 1911 - Germany stations Panthers in Morocco - violating 1906 Conference
• Limon Affair - 1912 - Limon Von Sanders stationed to defend the Turkish Straits against Russian opportunism – read as a ‘thunderclap’ in St. Petersburg.
• Balkan Wars - 1912-3 (OE vs Balkan League)
• July Crisis - 1914 - AH issued ultimatum to Serbia, listing a series of demands upon Serbia responsive to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Most demands were accepted, but would not allow AH into conduct judicial review – seen to compromise sovereignty.

Question 6

1968 - Events

• Key events in 1968.

Answer 6

• GERMANY - 1966 - first recession, wirtschaftwunder anxieties, empowers Marxists. Students lobby for open discussion of history, democracy, and reject of Notstandsgesetze. German Student League (SDS) leads charge: sit-ins in 1966. Kommune 1 - Burn Warehouse Burn RE: Brussels fire - too radical. Extra-Parliamentary Organisation (APO) - outlet for disillusionment. Also Berlin Republican Club - Campaign 218 for abortion.
• CZECH - Strahov Events - ‘more light!’ - violently suppressed. Free press, unleashed by Dubcek, drove 68. But down by invasion.
• FRANCE - Resistance to Fouchet reforms from likes of Nanterre. Anti De Gaulle - arguably precipitated resignation.
• N. IRE - Civil Rights protest sparks Troubles.