Years of Crisis: The Interwar Period

1. Years of Crisis: The Interwar Period 1920s-1930s

2. Journal #15 • The Russian Revolution is an example of a violent, political revolution. However, is this the only type of revolution? What are some other kinds of “revolutions”?

3. The Interwar Years • A time of contradictions… • Tensions between old and new • Mood of optimism and anxiety • How do we get from WWI to WWII?

4. Today’s Essential Questions • How did new scientific ideas challenge old beliefs? • Why did philosophers begin to question old thinking? • What were the new styles in art, music, and literature?

5. Group Presentation Questions • Based on your documents, what inferences can you make about the attitude and ideas of this time period? If the document is from the 1920s or 1930s, how might World War I have influenced its message? • How do your documents demonstrate “revolutionary” ideas or changes?

6. Important Terms to Know: • Existentialism • Surrealism • Suffrage

7. Journal #16 List one revolutionary change in art, science, literature, or society from yesterday’s class. How might these radical and revolutionary changes be threatening to those who want to go back to the way the world used to be? Predict what you think might happen in some European countries in the 1930s in response to these changes.

8. Germany in the 1920s • Weimar Republic blamed • Hyperinflation • Dawes Plan helps • US sends money to Germany, decides on a more reasonable plan for reparations • Bad economy makes people want strong leaders • Threatens democratic governments

9. Great Depression • Begins in the United States • Long term problems: • Most Americans could not afford goods • Farmers in debt • 1929: Stock Market Crash • Depression spreads around the world

10. Stock Market • Terms to know: stocks, shares, on margin, dividends, stockholders, brokers

11. Journal #17 • What would life be like if you lived in a country where you did not have the freedom to choose what you buy, where you work, what you eat, or what you say. What would you miss the most?

12. Competing ideologies of the 20th century • Ideology: • A system of ideas and ideals, esp. one that forms the basis of economic or political policy • Ideologies are isms • What are –isms, anyways? • Some you may know: atheism, capitalism, humanism, optimism, racism, idealism, imperialism

13. Isms • Definition: The name of a system of theory or practice (religious, philosophical, political, social, etc). • Important Vocab.: • Communism • Totalitarianism • Fascism • Democracy

14. Totalitarianism • Includes both Fascism (Nazi Germany, Italy) and Communism (USSR) • Government takes control over every aspect of public and private life • Charismatic leader (demagogue for the masses) • Police terror • Indoctrination and propaganda

15. Fascism • Fascis, ancient Rome: • Began in Italy • October 1922: March on Rome, Mussolini takes power • Il Duce: “The Leader”

16. Nazism • National Socialist German Worker’s Party • Leader of the Nazi Party: Hitler (der Fuhrer) • Great Depression grows party • 1933: Hindenburg names Hitler chancellor • Reichstag fire leads to Hitler taking more and more power • Anti-semitism

17. As you watch each video… • List: • Verbal messages (what are they saying?) • Actions (what are people doing?) • Symbols/images you notice

18. Fascism • “Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a massed-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external explansion.”  (Paxton, op. cit., p. 218)

19. Journal #18 • List one aspect of either fascism or totalitarianism, without looking at notes!

20. Review! • For each picture, write down what characteristic of fascism and/or totalitarianism it represents.

21. Mussolini, Italy

22. Nazi Propaganda: “Long Live Germany!”

23. Hitler Youth: “Youth serves the Leader”

24. White Rose Resistance, all executed

25. Specific Characteristics of Nazism • Anti-semitism • Volk • Lebensraum • Aryan • Other racial attitudes • Poles, gypsies • Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, mentally disabled

26. “Aryan Family”

27. Anti-semitism: “The eternal Jew”

28. Why anti-semitism? • Connected with: • Communism • Money lending/banking • Christian anti-Jewish history • “New” ideas • Sexual freedom • Einstein • Modern art

29. Timeline • 1933: Sterilization Laws • 1935: Nuremberg Laws • German Jews no longer citizens, cannot marry “Aryans” • 1937: Jewish businesses taken • 1938: Kristallnacht, “Night of Broken Glass” • 1939: Deportation to concentration camps begins; euthanasia of “unfit”

30. Other Dictatorships • Peron in Argentina • Franco in Spain • Eastern European dictatorships

31. Journal #19 • Communism and fascism are both totalitarian forms of government. What is one similarity and one difference? • Remember: • Communism (USSR, Stalin) • Fascism (Mussolini’s Italy, Nazi Germany)

32. Comparing Fascism and Communism

33. Journal # 20 • Give your opinion… • Do you think fascism could happen here in the United States?

34. Review