Saturday, March 14, 2009

FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

Dr. Schmoll/History 102/Final Exam Study Guide

I. Book Essay: (20%) 1 question
How drastically has Europe changed from 1750 to 1945? Consider the great books and other documents of this course in your answer.


II. Identifications—3 of 5 (30%)
Study the following Key Terms:

SA
SS
Kristallnacht
Goebbels
Mein Kampf
Lebensraum
Anshcluss
Neville Chamberlin
Winston Churchill
Battle of Britain
Operation Sealion
Guernica
NSDAP (National Socialism)
D-Day
Nuremburg Laws
Reinhard Heydrich
Lend-Lease Act
Marshall Plan
De-Nazification
Berlin Airlift
“Be young and Shut Up”
Vaclav Havel



III. Cumulative Essay: 1 of 2 (50%)
The two questions will come from the following areas:

1. Defining “Great” Leaders: Louis XIV, Napoleon, Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin, Churchill, Hitler;

2. Absolutism versus Totalitarianism: Define the two systems and discuss how they are historically situated

3. History and War: Is history mostly about war? Why does war figure so prominently in the study of the past?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

WW Two Outline

The Rise of Fascism and World War II in Europe

I. World Fascism
Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, Vargas
II. Fall of Weimar/Rise of HitlerIII. Hitler as Chancellor
--Nazi Goals--
A. Economic RecoveryB. RearmamentC. Lebensraum
IV. Hitler’s Foreign Policy
A. Anschluss
B. Czechoslovakia, Chamberlin, and Appeasement
C. Poland
V. War
A. Fall of France
B. Battle of Britain
C. Invasion of Soviet Union
D. U.S. Enters War--D-Day
VI. Holocaust
A. Hitler’s View of Race
B. Phases in Evolution of Nazi Policy
1933-1935:
Ø Boycotts
Ø Work Discrimination
Ø Individual Action
1935-1938:
Ø Nuremburg Laws
Ø "German blood and honor"
Ø Reich Citizenship Laws
1938-1941: Escalation
Ø Kristallnacht
Ø Ghettoization
Ø "Final Solution" (Lebensunwertes Leben)
C. Reinhard Heydrich: The Wansee Conference
D. Lessons?

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Purges

Modern History Sourcebook: Stalin's Purges, 1935 History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course (Moscow,1948),pp.324-327,329
In 1936, Stalin began to attack his political opponents in a series of" purges" aimed at destroying the vestiges of political opposition to him. What follows is the official explanation from textbooks published before Stalin's excesses were repudiated by his successors.
The achievements of Socialism in our country were a cause of rejoicing not only to the Party, and not only to the workers and collective farmers, but also to our Soviet intelligentsia, and to all honest citizens of the Soviet Union.
But they were no cause of rejoicing to the remnants of the defeated exploiting classes; on the contrary, they only enraged them the more as time went on.
They infuriated the lickspittles of the defeated classes - the puny remnants of the following of Bukharin and Trotsky.
These gentry were guided in their evaluation of the achievements of the workers and collective farmers not by the interests of the people, who applauded every such achievement, but by the interests of their own wretched and putrid faction, which had lost all contact with the realities of life. Since the achievements of Socialism in our country meant the victory of the policy of the Party and the utter bankruptcy of their own policy, these gentry, instead of admitting the obvious facts and joining the common cause, began to revenge themselves on the Party and the people for their own failure, for their own bankruptcy; they began to resort to foul play and sabotage against the cause of the workers and collective farmers, to blow up pits, set fire to factories, and commit acts of wrecking in collective and state farms, with the object of undoing the achievements of the workers and collective farmers and evoking popular discontent against the Soviet Government. And in order, while doing so, to shield their puny group from exposure and destruction, they simulated loyalty to the Party, fawned upon it, eulogized it, cringed before it more and more, while in reality continuing their underhand. subversive activities against the workers and peasants.
At the Seventeenth Party Congress, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky made repentant speeches, praising the Party and extolling its achievements to the skies. But the congress detected a ring of insincerity and duplicity in their speeches; for what the Party expects from its members is not eulogies and rhapsodies over its achievements, but conscientious work on the Socialist front. And this was what the Bukharinites had showed no signs of for a long time. The Party saw that the hollow speeches of these gentry were in reality meant for their supporters outside the congress, to serve as a lesson to them in duplicity, and a call to them not to lay down their arms.
Speeches were also made at the Seventeenth Congress by the Trotskyites, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who lashed themselves extravagantly for their mistakes, and eulogized the Party no less extravagantly for its achievements. But the congress could not help seeing that both their nauseating self-castigation and their fulsome praise of the party were only meant to hide an uneasy and unclean conscience. However, the Party did not yet know or suspect that while these gentry were making their cloying speeches at the congress they were hatching a villainous plot against the life of S. M. Kirov.
On December 1, 1934, S. M. Kirov was foully murdered in the Smolny, in Leningrad, by a shot from a revolver.
The assassin was caught red-handed and turned out to be a member of a secret counter-revolutionary group made up of members of an anti-Soviet group of Zinovievites in Leningrad.
S. M. Kirov was loved by the Party and the working class, and his murder stirred the people profoundly, sending a wave of wrath and deep sorrow through the country.
The investigation established that in 1933 and 1934 an underground counter-revolutionary terrorist group had been formed in Leningrad consisting of former members of the Zinoviev opposition and headed by a so-called "Leningrad Centre." The purpose of this group was to murder leaders of the Communist Party. S. M. Kirov was chosen as the first victim. The testimony of the members of this counter-revolutionary group showed that they were connected with representatives of foreign capitalist states and were receiving funds from them.
The exposed members of this organization were sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. to the supreme penalty - to be shot.
Soon afterwards the existence of an underground counter-revolutionary organization called the "Moscow Centre" was discovered. The preliminary investigation and the trial revealed the villainous part played by Zinoviev, Kamenev, Yevdokimo and other leaders of this organization in cultivating the terrorist mentality among their followers, and in plotting the murder of members of the Party Central Committee and of the Soviet Government.
To such depths of duplicity and villainy had these people sunk that Zinoviev, who was one of the organizers and instigators of the assassination of S. M. Kirov, and who had urged the murderer to hasten the crime, wrote an obituary of Kirov speaking of him in terms of eulogy, and demanded that it be published.
The Zinovievites simulated remorse in court; but they persisted in their duplicity even in the dock. They concealed their connection with Trotsky. They concealed the fact that together with the Trotskyites they had sold themselves to fascist espionage services. They concealed their spying and wrecking activities. They concealed from the court their connections with the Bukharinites, and the existence of a united Trotsky-Bukharin gang of fascist hirelings.
As it later transpired, the murder of Comrade Kirov was the work of this united Trotsky-Bukharin gang....
The chief instigator and ringleader of this gang of assassins and spies was Judas Trotsky. Trotsky's assistants and agents in carrying out his counter-revolutionary instructions were Zinoviev, Kamenev and their Trotskyite underlings. They were preparing to bring about the defeat of the U.S.S.R. in the event of attack by imperialist countries; they had become defeatists with regard to the workers' and peasants' state; they had become despicable tools and agents of the German and Japanese fascists.
The main lesson which the Party organizations had to draw from the trials of the persons implicated in the foul murder of S. M. Kirov was that they must put an end to their own political blindness and political heedlessness, and must increase their vigilance and the vigilance of all Party members....
Purging and consolidating its ranks, destroying the enemies of the Party and relentlessly combating distortions of the Party line, the Bolshevik Party rallied closer than ever around its Central Committee, under whose leadership the Party and the Soviet land now passed to a new stage - the completion of the construction of a classless, Socialist society.

Friday, February 20, 2009

PRIMO LEVI ASSIGNMENT

Dr. Schmoll Primo Levi Essay Assignment
Reading Due: Monday 3/2 Essay Due: Monday 3/9
WARNING!!! This is not intended to be a re-telling of the book. I have read it many times, so instead of describing “what” happened, analyze the meaning of what happened.

In a well crafted 3 page essay (typed, double-spaced) you must answer one of the following questions. For each question, you may want to consult some sources other than Levi and class notes. You should feel free to read scholarly journals, other books, magazines, or even movie interpretations of this time period.
1. Look at other experiences of the Holocaust. Considering these other experience, is Levi’s account typical?
http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/survivors.php
http://www.adl.org/children_holocaust/children_main1.asp
http://www.tellingstories.org/

2. Is Survival in Auschwitz an optimistic or pessimistic book?

3. Look at other experiences of genocide in the 20th century. What are the common elements that define genocide?
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/index.html http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/genocide_massacre.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/rwanda/reports/dsetexhe.html
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/64283/first-genocide-of-the-20th-century-herero-and-nama-genocide.html

4. Watch at least three films on the Holocaust and discuss which issues have been most important in the film interpretation of this time period. After reading Levi, how do you feel that Levi would respond to such film depictions of something like the Holocaust? (Europa, Europa, Life is Beautiful, Schindler’s List, The Pianist)

5. Why study the holocaust? Use Levi as a central source for this question.
(beware, warning, take cover, ahhh)

6. Holocaust survivor and renowned psychologist Victor Frankl said, "We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's way."
Considering the experiences of Primo Levi, evaluate the validity of Frankl's statement. Would Levi agree or disagree that certain shreds of human dignity might remain even in something like the Holocaust?

7. CREATIVE OUTLET: Choose one of the non-Jewish Germans in Survival in Auschwitz and imagine a post-war conversation between that person and Levi. Your entire essay for this option will be the text of that conversation.
TURNITIN.COM
ü A paper copy of your paper is due at the beginning of class.
ü An electronic copy of your essay is due at turnitin by midnight on the due date.
ü You do not need to print out anything at all from turnitin.
ü Remember, whatever outside sources you use MUST BE CORRECTLY
ATTRIBUTED in your essay. You may use any citation format.
ü Also, remember, there are many Levi essays on the web and floating around campus. Don’t be lured in by such stupidity. If nothing else, be original.BEWARE!!!!! This option is dangerous!!!

Russian Revolution

Post War World Chaos

Russian Revolution:

I. Tsarist Failure
II. February Revolution
III. October Revolution
IV. Rise of Stalin



O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth.
Thou who fructifies the earth,
Thou who restorest to centuries,
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords...
Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou,
Sun reflected by millions of hearts.
(A. O. Avdienko)











Friday, February 13, 2009

READING GUIDE FOR STORM OF STEEL

What is your favorite time that Junger is injured?

What weapons are used in this book?

Find somewhere in the book when Junger describes nature.

What is the most compelling description of combat? Is this surprising?

Where do you see Junger drinking?

Is this book sad?

Does the author take a stance for or against war?

Does this book have a political perspective?

How does the book end?

World War One Outline

The Great War

I. Origins of War:
A. Nationalist Conflict
B. The Alliance System
C. Assassination
D. Mobilization
E. Romantic Nationalism
II. Outbreak of War
A. Western Front
B. Eastern Front
C. World War
1. Gallipoli
2. Genocide
3. Total war
III. Ending the War:
A. The War at Sea (and how it backfired)
B. Enter the U.S.
C. Germany’s 1918 Offensive
D. Treaty of Versailles