Ch 27

Niels Bohr

(1885-1962) - Danish physicist who is generally regarded as one of the foremost physicists of the 20th century. He was the first to apply the quantum concept, which restricts the energy of a system to certain discrete values, to the problem of atomic and molecular structure. For that work he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922. His manifold roles in the origins and development of quantum physics may be his most-important contribution, but through his long career his involvements were substantially broader, both inside and outside the world of physics.

Dietrich Bonheoffer

(1906-1945); was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian. He was also a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the confessing church. He attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1943 and was hung in 1945.

Victor Emmanuel III

(r. 1900-1946) The King who was threatened to make Mussolini prime minister of Italy during the March on Rome. He himself had no love for the liberal regime - asked Mussolini to take over the government and form a new cabinet.

Annexation of Austria

1934; chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was murdered by the Nazis and started a conspiracy between Austrian & German Nazis. From 1934-1938, chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg was under threats & pressure & subversion by Hitler and in 1938 he resigned under Nazi pressure. March 12th 1938 - "Anschluss" - annexation of Austria - became part of Germany. Plebiscite Austrians voted for unification w/ Germany (98%). Seyss Inquart (Austrian Nazi) became puppet chancellor of Austria and the persecution of Austrian Jews began by fellow Austrians.

Nuremberg Laws

1935; classified Jews as people with 3 or more Jewish grandparents and outlawed marriage & relations between Jews & defined Germans. They stripped Jews of all rights & of citizenship. 850,000 demonized German-Jews in a total population of 62,000,000.

Enrico Fermi - (1901

1954) a physicist, who won the Nobel Prize in 1938 for his work in radioactivity, allowing him to escape fascist Italy and settle in the United States. He then built the first nuclear reactor called the Chicago Pile-1 and worked on the Manhattan Project. He also improved the quantum theory.

The Lateran Agreement

A 1929 agreement that recognized the Vatican as an independent state, with Mussolini agreeing to give the church heavy financial support in return for public support from the pope. Because he was forced to compromise with these conservative elites, Mussolini never established a complete totalitarian control.

Wannsee Conference

A January 1942 conference during which Nazi officials decided to implement the "final solution" to the "Jewish question"—a euphemism for the extermination of European Jews and other minorities at concentration camps in eastern Europe.

Fascism

A movement characterized by extreme, often expansionist nationalism, antisocialism, a dynamic and violent leader, and glorification of war and the military.

Eugenics

A pseudo scientific doctrine that maintains that the selective breeding of human beings can improve the general characteristics of a national population, which helped inspire Nazi ideas about "race and space" and ultimately contributed to the Holocaust. It was popular throughout the Western world in the 1920s and 1930s and was viewed by many as a legitimate social policy. But Fascists pushed these ideas to the extreme.

Totalitarianism

A radical dictatorship that exercises "total claims" over the beliefs and behavior of its citizens by taking control on the economic, social, intellectual, and cultural aspects of society. This model emphasizes the characteristics that Fascist and Communist dictatorships had in common. Some totalitarian leaders include, Stalin in the Soviet Union, Mussolini in Italy, and Hitler in Germany.

The Munich Agreement

British and French prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier signed the Munich Pact with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The agreement averted the outbreak of war but gave Czechoslovakia away to German conquest. In the spring of 1938, Hitler began openly to support the demands of German-speakers living in the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia for closer ties with Germany. Hitler had recently annexed Austria into Germany, and the conquest of Czechoslovakia was the next step in his plan of creating a "greater Germany." The Czechoslovak government hoped that Britain and France would come to its assistance in the event of German invasion, but British Prime Minister Chamberlain was intent on averting war.

The Normandy Invasion (D

Day) - June 6, 1944 - led by Eisenhower, and allied forces over a million troops (the largest invasion in history) stormed the beaches at Normandy and began the process of re-taking France. This was the turning point of WWII.

Gulags

Gulag System A system of prison camps that stretched from Moscow to Siberia. The system held millions of prisoners under lethal conditions. Prisoners aided the economy by doing every kind of work from digging canals to building apartment buildings. Some one million died annually as a result of the harsh conditions, which included insufficient food, inadequate housing, and twelve-to sixteen-hour days of crushing physical labor. Regular beating and murders were a part of this system and it became another aspect of totalitarian violence.

Mein Kampf

Hitler's used his brief prison term to dictate his book where he laid out his basic ideas on "racial purification" and territorial expansion that would define National Socialism. In his book, Hitler claimed that Germans were a "master race" that needed to defend its "pure blood" from groups he labeled "racial degenerates" including Jews, Slavs, and others. The German race was destined to triumph and grow, and, according to Hitler, it needed Lebensraum (living space). This space could be found to Germany's east, which Hitler claimed was inhabited by the "subhuman" Slavs and Jews. The future dictator outlined a sweeping vision of war and conquest in which the German master race would colonize east and central Europe and ultimately replace the "sub humans" living there. He championed the idea of the leader-dictator, or Fuhrer, whose unlimited power would embody the people's will and lead the German nation to victory.

Collectivization

In 1929 Stalin ordered the collectivization of agriculture, the forced consolidation of individual peasant farms into large, state controlled enterprises that served as agricultural factories. Peasants across the Soviet Union were compelled to move off their small plots into large state-run farms, where their tools, livestock, and produce would be held in common and central planners could control all work. The increasingly repressive measures instituted by the state first focused on the kulaks, in which Stalin called for their "liquidation" and seizure of their land. Stripped of land and livestock, many starved or were deported to forced- labor camps for "re-education". Forced collectivization led to disaster. Large numbers of peasants opposed to the change slaughtered their animals and burned their crops rather than turn them over to the state commissars. Between 1929 and 1933 the number of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats in the Soviet Union fell by at least half. Nor were the state-controlled collective farms more productive. The output of grain barely increased over the first five-year plan, and collectivized agriculture was unable to make any substantial financial contribution to the Soviet and industrial development in the first five-year plan. Collectivization in the fertile farmlands of the Ukraine was more rapid and violent than in other Soviet territories. The drive against peasants snowballed into an assault on Ukrainians in general, who had sought independence from Soviet rule after the First World War; Stalin and his associates viewed peasant resistance as an expression of unacceptable anti-Soviet nationalism. Collectivization was a cruel but real victory for Stalinist ideologues. Though millions died, by the end of 1938 government representatives had moved 93% of peasant households onto collective farms, neutralizing them as a political threat. Nonetheless, peasant resistance had forced the supposedly all-powerful state to make modest concessions.

New Economic Policy

In March 1921 Lenin replaced War Communism with this policy, which re-established limited economic freedom in an attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry. During the civil war, the Bolsheviks had simply seized grain without payment. Now peasant producers were permitted to sell their surpluses in free markets, and private traders and small handicraft manufacturers were allowed to reappear. The NEP was a political and economic success. Politically it was necessary but temporary compromise with the Soviet Union's overwhelming peasant majority. The NEP brought economic recovery, and by 1926 industrial output surpassed, and agricultural production almost equaled, prewar levels.

The March on Rome

In October 1922 a band of armed Fascists marched on Rome to threaten the king and force him to appoint Mussolini prime minister of Italy. This threat worked. Thus, after widespread violence and a threat of armed uprisings, Mussolini seized power using the legal framework of the Italian constitution.

Kristallnacht

In late 1938 the assault on the Jews accelerated. During a well-organized wave of violence known as Kristallnacht (or the Night of Broken Glass), Nazi gangs smashed windows and looted over 7,000 Jewish-owned shops, destroyed many homes, burned down over 200 synagogues, and killed dozens of Jews. German Jews were then rounded up and made to pay for the damage. By 1939 some 300,000 of Germany's 500,000 Jews had emigrated, sacrificing almost all their property in order to escape this persecution.

Vichy Regime

In the southeast of France, the aging First World War general Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain formed a new French government - the Vichy regime - that adopted many aspects of National Socialist ideology and willingly placed French Jews in the hands of the Nazi's.

Remilitarization of the Rhineland

It was ordered by Hitler marched 22,000 of his troops onto demilitarized land breaking not only the Treaty of Versailles but also the Locarno Pact. The treaty of Versailles after WWI had forbidden Germany from having military forces in the Rhineland - this provided a buffer zone between Germany and the countries which it invaded in 1914 - France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. However, in 1936 Hitler made a unilateral decision to re-occupy the Rhineland with very strong military forces. In another vain attempt to prevent another war, other European countries complained about it, but did nothing else.

The Battle of Britain

July - October 1940 - The Battle of Britain was an air campaign waged between the Luftwaffe and the United Kingdom. Following the Battle of France, Hitler attempted to invade Britain. Significantly, Britain fought off the German attack and was considered the first major allied victory and was a crucial turning point in the war. There were massive German losses and it stopped German invasion, but the British lost 1500 aircrafts, lost 106 pilots, and 208 fighters. They showed susceptibility to attack and industry was heavily hit by bombing.

The Black Shirts

Mussolini's private militia that destroyed socialist newspapers, union halls, and Socialist Party headquarters, eventually pushing Socialists out of the city governments of northern Italy.

Secret Police (NKVD)

Once the Russian Civil War (1918-1921) ended and the threat of domestic and foreign opposition had receded, the Cheka was disbanded; its functions were transferred in 1922 to the State Political Directorate, or GPU, which was initially less powerful that its predecessor, and repression against the population lessened. However, under party leader Joseph Stalin, the secret police again acquired vast punitive powers and in 1934was renamed the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD. No longer subject to party control or restricted by law, the NKVD became a direct instrument of Stalin for use against the party and the country during the Great Terror of the 1930s.

Great Purges

Series of public show trials w/ false evidence gathered using torture, which incriminated party administrators & Red Army officers. In Aug 1935 the "old Bolsheviks" were executed. In 1937, the secret police arrested tons of lesser officials & new members. Also, officials, managers, intellectuals, normal citizens not in the party were killed and at least 8 million people arrested - executed or sent to prison or labor camps. Stalin used purges to remove anyone who would challenge his authority.

Nazi

Soviet non-aggression pact - This 1939 agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union pledged neutrality by either party if the other were attacked by a third party. The treaty included a secret protocol dividing Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, anticipating potential "territorial and political rearrangements" of these countries. Thereafter, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded their respective sides of Poland, dividing the country between them. It remained in effect until 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Five Year Plans

Stalin got rid of NEP at 1927 Party Congress and started five-year plans 1928 aimed at modernizing the Soviet Union and creating a new communist society with new attitudes, new loyalties, & a new socialist humanity. He planned the economy in 5-year intervals and termed it the "revolution from above". It lasted till 1991. The first plan goals were to increase steel production by 300%, increase agricultural production by 150% and increase agricultural production by collectivization. It would become the "second revolution".

Sergei Kirov

Stalin's number-two man who was mysteriously killed in late 1934. Stalin - who probably ordered Kirov's murder - blamed the assassination on "Fascist agents" within the party. He used the incident to launch a reign of terror that purged the Communist Party of supposed traitors and solidified his own control.

The Warsaw Uprising

The 1943 act of Jewish resistance that which opposed Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining Ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp. The most significant portion of the rebellion took place in April and ended when the poorly armed and supplied resistance was crushed by the Germans, who officially finished their operation to liquidate the Ghetto on 16 May. It was the largest single revolt by Jews.

Appeasement

The British policy toward German prior to World War II that aimed at granting Hitler whatever he wanted, including western Czechoslovakia, in order to avoid war.

Auschwitz and other death camps

The Germans set up an industrialized killing machine that remains unparalleled, with an extensive network of concentration camps, industrial complexes, and railroad transport lines to imprison and murder Jews and other so-called undesirables, in addition to exploiting their labor before they died. In the occupied east, the surviving residents of the ghettos were loaded onto trains and taken to camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, the best known of the Nazi killing centers, where over 1 million people (the vast majority being Jews) were murdered in gas champers. Some few were put to work as expendable laborers.

Kulaks

The better-off peasants who benefited the most from the NEP. They were stripped of land and livestock under Stalin and were generally not permitted to join collective farms; many of them starved or were deported to forced-labor camps for "re-education".

Gosplan

The rapid industrialization mandated by the five-year plans was more successful - indeed, quite spectacular. A huge State Planning Commission, the "Gosplan," was created to set production goals and control deliveries of raw and finished materials.

Italian invasion of Ethiopia

also referred to as the Second Italy-Abyssinian War, was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire. The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia. Politically, the war is best remembered for exposing the inherent weakness of the League of Nations. The Abyssinia Crisis in 1935 is often seen as a clear demonstration of the ineffectiveness of the League. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations and yet the League was unable to control Italy or to protect Ethiopia when Italy clearly violated the League's own Article X. The positive outcome of the war for the Italians coincided with the zenith of the international popularity of dictator Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, in a phase called "the age of consensus" during which foreign leaders praised him for his achievements, but he was forced to accept the Anschluss between Nazi Germany and Austria, and to begin a political tilt toward Germany that finally destroyed him and Fascist Italy in World War II. Indeed this Italian victory was short-lived as Abyssinia regained its freedom from five years of military occupation during World War II at the end of the East African Campaign. Ethiopia, under Haile Selassie eventually defeated the Italians with the help of Allied forces.