Stalin Final Flashcards
League of Nations
Established after WWI, the first worldwide intergovernmental organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace, was largely weak and ended up being a failure
Comintern
International organization that advocated world communism, led by the Soviet Union, exerted Soviet control over world communism
Adolph Hitler
Was the Austrian born dictator of Germany, advocated German territorial expansion and racial supremacy
The Popular Front
Movements led by liberal minded members of the intelligentsia to defend perestroika
Munich Crisis
To prevent further German aggression, Neville Chamberlain adopted a policy of appeasement towards Hitler
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Treaty of Nonaggression between Germany and the Soviet Union that partitioned Central and Eastern Europe between them
Operation Barbarossa
The German invasion of the Soviet Union, largest land offensive in human history, ultimate goal was the extermination of the Slavs
Battle of Moscow
Battle between Soviet Union and Germany, at the height of Operation Barbarossa, ended the German’s intention to capture Moscow
Leningrad Blockade
German siege of Leningrad, Leningrad’s entire able-bodied population was mobilized to build antitank fortifications along the city’s perimeter, many died from starvation, exposure and disease
“Blockade Bread”
During siege of Leningrad, people only had bread available to eat, contained sawdust and other inedible things
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)
a Ukrainian nationalist organization, pursued a strategy of violence, terrorism, and assassinations with the goal of creating an ethnically homogenous and totalitarian Ukrainian state
Einsatzgruppen
Expected to act as an ideological group, militarized murder squad, exterminate the Polish educated class, Nazi death squads
Babi Yar
a ravine in Kyiv, a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany’s forces
Katyn
a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the NKVD
Penal Battalions
Military units composed of sentenced soldiers, political prisoners, and others deemed to be expendable