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The impact of War 1939-45 Flashcards

1
Q

Introduction of rationing

A

-September 1939 for meats, fats etc

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2
Q

When was rationing worsened

A

After German invaded the USSR in 1941 - meat rations fell by 80%

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3
Q

Propaganda response to success

A
  • Between 1939 and 1941 the tone of German propaganda was triumphannt- emphasise German victories in Eastern Europe
  • The Nazis argued that a ‘Jewish conspiracy’ was controlling the Allies
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3
Q

1945 Propoganda message

A
  • to fight to the bitter end
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3
Q

Propaganda response to failure

A

1942- Goebells attention turned to persuading Germans to accept the lower standards of living and reduced consumption
Goebells tried to downplay problems facing the German forces

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4
Q

The Battle of Stalingrad

A

1943

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5
Q

Impact of war on women

A
  • From 1939 women had to do compulsory service in the RAD but was gradual
    -Heavy German losses in the USSR led to men being taken from war-related industries for the armed forces, so women made up their numbers
    By the end of 1943, approximately 1.5 million women were doing war work- 50% of work force by 1944
    3,700 women served in concentration camps
  • 1941- class resentment
    Goerings decree only affected W.C women
    1945- 470,000 female auxillaries
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6
Q

Impact of war on Elites

A
  • Hitler courted the elites in 1930s because he needed their funding and support for rearmament programme and war ambition but went against them in 1943
    -Loss of property
    REMAINED INFLUETNIAL
    1942- turn against regime due to defeats
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7
Q

Decree concering internationally connected men

A

May 1943- banned princes from holding positions in the armed forces, Nazi party or government

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8
Q

Prince Phillipp von Hesse

A
  • Joined the NSDAP and was complicit in the t4 programme- Hitler turned against him
    -He was arrested in 1943 on suspicion his family helped overthrow Mussolini- him and his wife were both sent to concentration camps
    -He was a relatative of the abdicated Kaiser
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9
Q

Impact of war on Youth

A

Hitler Youth camps trained them for combat. By 1942, the SS was running 42 camps and by mid 1943 thre were 7 run by the Waffen SS
- In 1944- boys as young as 15 were sent to the Russian Front- exposure to total war
- By 1945 5,000 HJ held 3 strategic bridges in Berlin. After 5 days only 500 remained
-Worked on harvests
-Collected money for Winter aid
- Conscription age constantly changing, as young as 16 in 1945
-Varied commitment and increasing boredom
-MILITARISATION OF THE YOUTH
1939- compulsary youth groups- lack of freedom/family life/education

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10
Q

Role of BDM in the war

A

League of German maidens- worked in hospitals or helped in kindergartens and in large households- they served refreshments to army troop departing for the front

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11
Q

Evacuation of children

A
  • 1940-1945- National Socialist Peoples Welfare organised evacuation of 2.8 million children from cities to hst families or KLV camps- there was resistance to evacyation- was found that in 1943 only 2 % of children had been evacuated
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12
Q

Impact of war on workers

A
  • Living standards fell- bad physical and mental health
    -Education camps
    -Labour shortages- women drafted into war-related work
    -Increased hours-60hrs
    -Conscription and fines as punishment
    -Ban on holidays
    -Ban on overtime-1944
    -Respect as a vital part of the war effort and an attempt to reach total war capacity
    -Commitment through grudging and absenteeism(link to morale)
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13
Q

War Economy Decree

A

1939- made labour service compulsory and limited workers freedom of movement

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14
Q

Operation Barbarossa

A
  • invasion of the Soviet Uniion 1941
    -High casulaties led to more men being drafted and loss of equipment
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15
Q

Who was appointed to run the war economy in Feb 1942

A

Albert Speer appointed Minister of Armaments

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16
Q

What did Albert Speer do and his reforms

A

Industrial Self-responsibility:(empowers managers of industry)
-Controls and Constraints reduced
-Increased employment of women
-General Planning board and committees
-Protection of skilled workers from conscription
- Increased standardisation of ammunition
-rationalised transport production
-coordinated the supply of resources
-Changed shift rotations to 3 per day
-increased use of concentration camp prisoners and foreign labour

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17
Q

Problems facing Speer and failure of reforms

A

-Production was disrupted by the conscription of skilled labour
- allied bombing campaigns targeting German productive capacity(blanket bombing}
-Gaulieters remained powerful and sometimes resisted central authority
-SS forces failed to reap the benefit of conquered lands
-Conquered terrioty was plundered but not effectively exploited

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18
Q

Evaluation of Speer

A

1943- increased ammunition output by 97%
-arms overall increased by 60%
- tanks by 25%- doubled 1942-43 but cant compete with USA + USSR production- 60k
-aircraft production- get up to Britians level but still cant compete with USA + USSR
By 1944 ammunition and tank output were 6x greater

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19
Q

Allied bombings

A
  • Reduced civilian morale
    -targeted large industrial cities and communication links, without differentiating targets= dislocation of industry
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20
Q

Response to allied bombings

A
  • Speer set up a task force to repair bombed factories
  • Allied bombing was focused more on economic targets- German economic output continued to rise
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21
Q

Impact of the allied bombings

A

-July 1944-Jan 1945- average of 13,500 people were killed every month
- march 1944 Berlin had 1,5 million people without homes
-Dresden bombing in 1945 killed approx 25k
-Dislocation of production by constituent parts to avoid total destruction BUT created a focus on train depots and networks

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22
Q

Prisoners of war

A
  • Germany used prisoners of war and forced labour from the occupied territories. By 1943, 6.5 mill jews, poles, soviet prisoners provided the Nazis with forced labour
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23
Workers from occupied territories
Nazi drafted in French, Belgian and Dutch workers. In 1944 there were about 7.8 million foreign workers in Germany. 20% of farm labour were foreign
24
How were forgein workers treated
Badly, and also according to where they came from. Jews, Poles and Russians fared worse than western Europeans
25
Living conditions
- Malnutrition, disease -Thousands died- yet output in German factories rose
26
Policy towards Jews before the Final Solution
- No uniform policy
27
Wannsee Conference
January 1942- more systematic approach to exterminating Europes Jews was planned as opposed to mass shootings
28
The final solution
- Death camps created in occupied Europe where Untermenschen would be gassed eg- Auschwotz-birkenau -Upon arrival, Jews were divided into those who would be gassed and those who would work until they dropped or until they were of no more use and then gassed
29
Impact of the Final Solution
- Majority of Jews killed after 1942 -60%- gassings 40%- mass shootings/burnings -Over 6mil Jews and other Nazi victims
30
Untermenschen
subhuman- anyone who threatened the purity of the German Volk on racial, asocial or medical grounds
31
Treatment of Untermnschen
- They were seperated out and marked for persecution and either slave labour or in extermination camps
32
Slovenia
46,000 ethnic Slovenes were taken and used as slave labour for the German war effort
33
Serbia
-School shut -orthodoc christian serbs forced to convert to Roman catholicism -Massacres of Serbs were carried out by Croatians
34
Poland
- The nazis first killed 60,000 Poles who were leaders - aimed to get rid of any Polish leadership 1939- All Slavic Poles over 14 and Jews over 12 could be used as forced labour
35
How many slavic poles were killed as Untermenschen and who else
Up to 2.9 million , as were gypsies, mentally ill, disabled and asocials
35
Student resistance
Edelweiss Pirates- Active, Disruptive, Non-compliant, increasingly a problem. active in the Rhineland and the Ruhr areas, Visibly distinct, ant-Hitler youth and tried to avoid conscription. 739 youths were arrested, many were sent to labour camps and leaders were publicly hanged in Nov 1944
36
Swing movement
Passive, non compliant, frustrating rather than disruptive. Middle class youths listening to American Jazz music and wore English-style clothes- was considered subversive by the Nazi regime as it undermined Nazi morale -Members were arrested, leaders of the movement sent to concentration camps
37
White rose
Munich University-6 pamphlets distributed between June 1942-Feb 1943 and they were anti-Nazi(active group but encouraged passive resistance) and its main target audience was the educated middle class. In Feb 1943 the group became more daring when they painted anti-Nazi slogans, such as 'Hitler Mass Murderer' , influenced by Catholic theologies, on buildings the 2 leaders ( Hans and Sophie Scholl) were caught by the Gestapo and executed
38
Protestant Confessional Church
- split from the Reich church -Bonhoffer was banned from preaching and publishing in 1940 -He had contacts with the British and was arrested in 1943 and executed in 1945 -Protested publicly about the treatment of Jews
39
Catholic Church
-Supported Germanys war aims in 1939 -Selective opposition Galens 1941 sermons criticising euthanasia were circulated widely- he was too popular to be punished or made a martyr -3 catholic priests were executed in 1943 for criticising the Nazi regime
40
Plots against Hitler from 1939
Military elites- young army high commands officers formed action group Zossen against Hitler
41
Military opposition
Moltke was arrested in Jan 1944- tried by a Peoples court in 1945 and executed0 he opposed assassinating Hitler in case it made him a martyr
42
Communist opposition/left wing-KPD
- The USSR encouraged German communists to form resistance cells after hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union- 89 cells in Berlin, 22 destroyed in 1942-3 -The Gestapo dubbed 2 cells the 'Red Orchestra' -One was of Communist spies, encouraged civil disobedience distributed anti-Nazi propaganda through leaflets attacking the regime -Urban workers -Ideological
43
How many attempts were there to assassinate Hitler
20
44
July Bomb Plot
1944 assassination attempt by military leaders -Plan was to leave a bomb in a suitcase where Hitler would be sitting at a conference in his Eastern Front command centre However, the bomb was moved
45
Consequences of the July Bomb Plot
- Leaders executed and others were executed after trials in a Peoples Court -7,000 other suspects arrested,5,000 executed
46
March 19th 1945
-Hitler ordered all industry, transport and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed and the SS reported German public opinion to be at its lowest -In the final weeks of the war, thousands of ordinary Germans, government and military personnel commited suicide
47
Bombings
Feb 1945- 1,000 USAAF bombers attacked Berlin Feb 1945- Bombing of Dresden, 25,000 killed March 1945- 133,000 tons of bombs on Germany -Railway transport had been especially badly hit by Allied bombing, meaning supply lines were paralysed
48
Liberation of concentration camps
1944-1945 concentration camps became fuller and the death toll rose greatly] -Nazis put resources into evacuating camps and moving prisoners From jan 1945- concentration camps began to be liberated by the UK and America as they invaded
49
Hitlers broadcast
31st December 1944- Hitler broadcast to the nation that he believed Germany would win the war
50
Hitlers death
30 April - committed suicide by poison
51
What was the impact of early Nazi victories
-Hitlers approval ratings increased -Produced a sense of economy preparedness -Masked the reality that Germany had gave to war before it was ready -Forced Hitler into preparing for a large conflict
52
4 things that Hitler does for the economy
Dec 1939- War Economy Decrees issued 1939-41- German Military expenditure doubled -23-47% 1939-Food rationing Labour force mobilised- 55% by 1944 were engaged in war production
53
Problems that hindered the Nazi war economy
- War had come too soon ( Schachts reforms had been incomplete+ Georings partially successful) -Short and Long term plans crashed( lack clarity of leadership) -Multi agency responsibility ( poor communication- chaotic policy evolving and clash of interests)
54
An example of political infighting that hindered the Nazi economy
Gauleiters and central administration- inefficiency/clash of priorities- deadlock in decision making
55
Examples of multi agency responsibility
- Minister of Armaments -Minister of Finance -Minister of Economics -Minister of Labour
56
What were the armaments repsonsibility of and why did it hinder Nazi economy
-Office of the 4yr Plan -Wehrmacht- army -Luftwaffe -Navy This brought about an obsession with high specifications rather than quantity which slows down production and is too expensive to produce eg- Development of the 'tiger'
57
Rationalisation decree
dec 1941- eliminate wasted labour
58
What was Albert Speer like
- Capable -Had access to Hitler -Technical background(architect)
59
What is Speer called rather than a politician
a 'Technocrat'
60
Morale during Blitzkrieg(Sept 1939-June 1941)- a series of quick victories in Europe
Volatile mood, concern and celebration- propoganda led people to be optimistic and believe war would end soon
61
Morale in the spreading war- the invasion of the USSR and decleration of war on the USA (June - Dec 1941)
-Letters home from soldiers -Fear that war will drag on, hopes of a quick victory lost
62
Morale in the turning of the tide- severe defeats in the USSR and loss of North Africa( Jan 1942-Jan 1943)
-mood of dissoluisonment -Hitler myth began to lose some of its potency -Confidence in regime eroding -Shock and weariness kicked in -Patriotism and willingness to endure hardship established
63
Morale at total war and defeat- allied landings in Western Europe and the USSR push back into Germany ( Feb 1943- May 1945)
-Gradual acceptance of defeat and growing cynicism and propaganda -Goebells sportpalast speech -Hitler no longer portrayed as a military genius 'Hitler myth'
64
Goebells sportpalast speech 18th Februarary 1943
+Boost national morale -Too little too late so the boost was temporary
65
Impact of Allied bombings on industry
1944- steel production fell by 80% 1945- 35% fewer tanks 1945- 31% fewer aircraft 1945- 42% fewer lorries
66
Counter argument to the bombing
Bombing in fact/ in some places stiffened resistance- Blitz Spirit ( Rumpf- terrible blows of that terror from the skies the bonds grew closer and the spirit of solidarity stronger')
67
Jokes/humour in the third Reich
-recorded by the security services from surveillance of public places. -Satirical jokes about Nazi leaders and policies -Suggests conformity was not as strong as the authorities suggested -The fact that they're recorded tells us: 1. efficiency of the police state 2. must have been widespread 3. They were seen as a threat
68
Wartime opposition
-reasonably active in some areas -majority is the youth -opposition in order for survival -fragmented- differing ideals KPD- 22 shut down by Gestapo infiltration -Popularity of the regime was tested/decreased

Germany (6 decks)

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