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Lesson Plans
The Western Heritage ©2000
by Kagan, Ozment, and Turner
Focus Lesson 21
Chapter 29: "World War II"
AP* Course Description
- Intellectual and Cultural History
- Scientific and technological developments and their consequences
- Major trends in literature and the arts
- Impact of global expansion on European culture
- Political and Diplomatic History
- Relations between Europe and other parts of the world: colonialism, imperialism, decolonization, and global interdependence
- The extension and limitation of rights and liberties (personal, civic, economic, and political); majority and minority; political persecutions
- The growth and changing forms of nationalism
- Forms of political protest, reform, and revolution
- Relationship between domestic and foreign policies
- Efforts to restrain conflict: treaties, balance of power diplomacy, and international organizations
- War and civil conflict: origins, developments, technology, and their consequences
- Social and Economic History
- The development of commercial practices and their economic and social impact
- The origins, development, and consequences of industrialization
- Gender roles and their influence on work, social structure, family structure, and interest group formation
- Private and state roles in economic activity
Key Components
- Instructor's Manual: pp. 53–55
- Study Guide and Workbook, Vol. II: pp. 165–175
- Test Item File: pp. 158–163
Key Web Sites
Given the changing nature of the Internet, you may wish to preview these sites. Always check for updated links.
- The Birth of Southeastern Europe
- The Nazi-Soviet Pact
- Stalin as Warlord
- Hitler's Invasion and Defeat
- The Avalon Project
Key Words and Terms
- Nazi-Soviet Pact
- Committee of National Liberation
- Lebensraum
- collective security
- Lytton Report
- Rome-Berlin Axis
- Locarno Agreements
- appeasement
- Maginot Line
- Spanish Civil War
- Falangists
- denazification
- Declaration on Liberated Europe
- Potsdam Agreement
- Council of Foreign Ministers
- Free French
- blitzkrieg
- Luftwafte
- RAF
- Operation Barbarossa
- Stresa Front
- new order
- Third Reich
- Untermenschen
- Judenrein
- "final solution"
- Anti-Comintern Pact
- anschluss
- D-Day
- Munich Agreement
- island hopping
- puppet republics
- Battle of Britain
- State Committee for Defense
- The Great Patriotic War
- Atlantic Charter
- Big Three (Tehran and Yalta)
- Teheran Agreement
- spheres of influence
- government-in-exile
- second front
- plebiscite
- Yalta Agreement
- Big Three (Potsdam)
- Vichy
- Third World
Suggested Pacing
Chapter 29 should be combined with Chapter 27 (political experimentation in the 1920s) and Chapter 28 (Europe and the Great Depression of the 1930s) to create a unit on post-World War I Europe, the buildup to World War II, and World War II itself. This unit could be completed in three-and-a-half weeks.
Test Strategy
If an essay prompt begins with "discuss," the students must be careful not to think of the prompt as calling for a generic open-ended discussion of the topic. This is one of the hardest prompts to deal with, because it gives students very little or no help in how to frame their thesis. Students frequently mistake these questions for easy ones and fail to create and prove a solid thesis. To deal with a "discuss" prompt, students should look at the topic from all sides and then come to some conclusion about the importance of the topic. They must make sure that they have a solid, provable thesis with a solid, logical organization so that they do not end up rambling.
Key Concepts
- Hitler's moves toward World War II
As Hitler's desire for Lebensraum grew, he rearmed Germany in direct opposition to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The failure of the League of Nations to stop Hitler emboldened him. His first step was to take Austria in the creation of Anschluss, moving on to the German area of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, and eventually, after the Munich Conference, to the whole of Czechoslovakia. With the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939, Hitler saw his opportunity to move westward into Europe. - German racism
With Hitler's belief in the German people as Ubermenschen, came the parallel belief in others as the Untermenschen. Hitler and his supporters developed policies aimed at a variety of Untermenschen, including Slavs, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, homosexuals, and the mentally and physically disabled, yet the main focus of Nazi persecution was the Jews. This persecution, called the Holocaust, was the Nazis' "final solution" in their attempt to annihilate the Jewish people. The roots of this hatred and the psychology of scapegoatism should be analyzed as students deal with this very difficult period of Western history.
Summing Up Student Understanding
It is important for students, as historians, to understand what led to World War II. To help them see the chain of actions and reactions (or lack of) that led a multitude of nations to become involved in the war, have students make a concept map similar to the one below, creating as many ovals as necessary to move from Japan's occupation of Manchuria in 1931 to the declaration of war by Germany and Italy against the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Before students create their concept maps, they should brainstorm a list of important actions they would want to have on their maps. These events are not presented in chronological order in the chapter, as the sections in the textbook deal with individual nations and their actions. Therefore, having the students research a list first will help them create a thorough map of the steps to World War II.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
You might also find these additional readings useful to develop students' background knowledge or for DBQ activities:
- Aspects of Western Civilization, Vol. II, edited by Rogers—Chapters 9 and 10
- Sources of the West, Vol. II, edited by Kishlausky—Part VI, "The Second World War"
- The Global Experience, Vol. II, edited by Schwartz, Wimmer, and Wolfe—Chapter 25