LAST AP euro

Kristallnacht

"Night of the Broken Glass"; well-organized wave of violence against Jews; 150,000 more Jews emigrated; many Germans simply looked the other way, displaying the popularity of Hitler's government

shock therapy

"breakneck liberalization"; employed by Yeltsin to try to privatize Russia's economy; failed in Russia → corruption becomes associated with democracy; but it worked in Poland because it wasn't as extreme and their economy was better

blitzkrieg

"lightning war"; new tactic employed by Hitler when he attacked Poland; was not expected by the French and British

glasnost

"openness"; more dynamism, freer press, democratization, televised meetings

perestroika

"restructuring"; restructuring economy, more free enterprise, decentralization

Enabling Act

1933; Weimar Republic breaking down, Hitler gaining support from people who thought he could be controlled; gave Hitler dictatorial powers for 4 years

Treaty of Rome

1957; created a common market (free trade zone, elimination of tariffs); included Italy, West Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg

D-Day

American and British forces landed on beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944; pushed inland and broke through German lines; decisive defeat of the Germans

Grand Alliance

Britain, the US, and Russia; brought together by chance, not choice; decided on three main policies: dealing with Hitler before Japan, putting military needs first, and unconditional surrender

Neville Chamberlain

British prime minister whose name became associated with the policy of appeasement; after the Munich Crisis was resolved, he returned to England proclaiming, "I believe we have achieved peace in our time."

appeasement

British/French policy of succumbing to Hitler's wants to prevent all-out war

Revolutions of 1989

Eastern Europeans trying to establish greater independence; began in Poland w/ Solidarity, Communists names crossed off ballots, Gorbachev unable to interfere because he had already rejected the Brezhnev Doctrine → Hungary (Kadar), border to Austria taken down, people able to move from East to West Berlin; revolutions also in Czechoslovakia and Romania

Battle of El Alamein

German and Italian armies trying to take the Suez Canal defeated by the British

Hitler

German dictator; ultimate social Darwinist; believed Aryan race to be the most superior; strongly anti-Semitist, but also wanted to get rid of gypsies and Jehovah's witnesses...

Battle of Stalingrad

Germans attacked Russia again, but the Russian armies surrounded the Germans, who were systematically destroyed, and then began pushing forward

Anglo-German Naval Treaty

Germany negotiated with Britain and Germany given right to have a navy as long as it was smaller than Britain's; according to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany wasn't supposed to have a navy at all, so it implied that the entire treaty was open for negotiation

Battle of Britain

Germany trying to gain control of the air; British basically won because they survived; radar helped them a lot in their victory; British then dropped bombs on Berlin and an outraged Hitler decided to bomb British civilians into submission, which actually had the opposite effect

Munich Crisis

Hitler demanded that the ethnically German Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia be handed over to him; Czechoslovaks determined to defend themselves, France and Russia pledged to fight, but there was a conference held in Munich (the Munich Conference) where representatives from France, Britain, Italy, and Germany (not Czechoslovakia or Russia) decided that the Sudetenland should be handed over to Hitler under the condition that he make no more territorial demands

remilitarization of the Rhine

Hitler marched armies into the Rhineland; his generals were opposed to it because they felt certain that the French were stronger militarily, but Hitler was convinced that the French would not resist military; Hitler was right; if the French had attacked, the generals would have turned around and overthrown him, but this was the last chance of defeating Hitler

Operation Barbossa

Hitler really wanted to attack Russia because of his racial prejudices; caught the Russians by surprise (Stalin was somewhat in denial because he had signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler); but a severe winter stopped the invaders

Anschluss

Hitler sought to incorporate Austria into Germany; hindered by Mussolini but was successful in 1938

Munich Beer Hall Putsch

Hitler's attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic; it failed, but he was treated leniently because he was a nationalist and the ensuing trial gave him a chance to spread his ideas

SS

Hitler's elite personal guard; lead the Night of the Long Knives; Hitler was trying to get the army under his power because it was the only independent group by 1934

Pearl Harbor

Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in response to the US cutting off sales in response to the Japanese invasion of French Indochina; Hitler then declared war on the US, thereby forcing it to enter the war; the US put 85% of its resources into defeating Germany

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Japanese cities where the US dropped atomic bombs; ended WWII

Night of the Long Knives

June 30, 1934; SS arrested and shot without trial 1,000 SA leaders and political enemies; remaining SA members put into the army and forced to swear oath of obedience to Hitler

Lateran Agreement of 1929

Mussolini tried to gain support of the Catholic Church; recognized the Vatican as an independent state and agreed to give the church heavy financial support

Black Shirts

Mussolini's private army; violence caused by them ultimately harmed the existing government because it couldn't keep order

SA

Nazi storm troopers that expected top positions in the army (which would put the army out of Hitler's control); Hitler decided that SA leaders needed to be eliminated

Big Three

Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill

Mussolini

Socialist party leader who was kicked out for supporting WWI; in 1922 seized power legally; leadership was between totalitarian and conservative authoritarian; was never completely totalitarian because he was willing to make compromises because his main objective was personal power

General Francisco Franco

Spanish conservative authoritarian leader; led Spanish civil war, which was important in bringing Hitler and Mussolini together

Trotsky

Stalin's opponent for power; lost because Stalin was better at appealing to people's interests

Five-Year Plans

Stalin's programs to rebuild Russia's economy; replaced the NEP; collectivized farms, invested money back into the economy, planned production so that there was much more capital and much less consumer goods produced; failed in agriculture but were quite successful in industry

"socialism in one country"

Stalin's theory that it was possible to have Communism in one country instead of a full-scale worldwide Marxian revolution

Détente

a different approach to the two separate camps present (US vs. USSR); instead of containment, an effort to ease tensions; high point was Helsinki Conference

Single European Act

a legal framework for a common market; more inclusive than the one from the Treaty of Rome; provided for moving labor and capital as well as goods; French/Germans took lead in securing it (Mitterrand and Kohl)

Havel

a playwright; became leader of the new Czechoslovakian government; remained president of the Czech Republic after the Velvet Divorce with Slovakia

Solidarity

a union in Poland for the whole country; Polish government was incompetent; was self-limiting—had to avoid Soviet interference because of the Brezhnev Doctrine; was outlawed after the Communist leadership improved, but simple went underground

Henri-Philippe Pétain

after Germany invaded and took over France, became president of the puppet government established, the Vichy government

Paris Accord

agreed on the borders of the countries; was the only formal agreement ending WWII

Marshall Plan

an effort to rebuild Western Europe after the war; implemented by the US; wanted to make areas resistant to Soviet insurgence and also needed markets to trade in

Lech Walesa

an electrician by profession; became the leader of Solidarity

Mikhail Gorbachev

becomes head of Soviet Union in 1985; was key in the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union; two basic policies were glasnost and perestroika

Great Purges

began in 1934 with murder of Sergei Kirov; implemented by Stalin to create an atmosphere of terror; struck at Communist party and military officers; involved big show trials where people confessed to impossible crimes

Brezhnev

came to power after Khrushchev; re-Stalinizes, but with corporate rule instead of with just one person; closed the military gap between Soviet Union and US, but at great cost to the economy

Nuremberg laws

classified "Jewish" as anyone having 1 or more Jewish grandparent(s); initially allowed Jews to leave; 150,000 Jews emigrated out of Germany

Helsinki Conference

conference held in Helsinki, Finland; countries present stated that they would respect national borders, renounce force, a respect human rights and freedoms; said that individual citizens could form monitoring groups; turned out to be a disappointment

Putin

elected in 2000 and then in 2004; more authoritarian, not popular in the US; but he got the economy rolling again, showing that Russia probably needs a more authoritarian government rather than a free-market economy in order to succeed economically

Yeltsin

emerged as an opponent to Gorbachev; nationalism was causing countries to break away from the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev didn't use the army to put down moves to cessation; Yeltsin became spokesperson for more democracy and breaking Russia away from the Soviet Union; eventually took power, but his shock therapy wasn't that effective

globalization

emergence of a freer global economy; making the world a smaller place

New Economic Policy (NEP)

established by Lenin; established limited economic freedom in an attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry; successful politically and economically

Willy Brandt

had been mayor of West Berlin; took the lead in détente; West Germany had the most to gain; negotiated peace with several countries and opened up dialogue with East Germany

Charles de Gaul

had of Free France movement during the war, a move back towards nationalism; when elected as head of the Fourth French Republic, felt like it didn't have a strong enough executive branch; later established and became head of the Fifth French Republic, which had a stronger executive branch; angered the US by taking France out of NATO (he wanted nuclear weapons in his own control)

Prague Spring

in response to Dubchek's efforts to democratize Czechoslovakia, Soviets invade, take him out of power, and re-Stalinize; up until this point, people believed that the earlier violence in Hungary was because it had left the Warsaw Pact, but now they saw that the Soviets could still be violent against countries still in the Warsaw Pact

Tito

lead Yugoslavian liberation; Yugoslavia was the only country to free itself from Soviet control (still remained Communist); after his death, the country started falling apart

Kadar

leader after Hungarian revolution; gave Hungary the closest to a free market economy out of all the Communist countries; was the reason why Hungary made the smoothest transition to a free market economy when it was trying to join the European Union

Ceausescu

leader of the Romanian revolution; only place where the revolution turned violent

Heinrich Himmler

led the SS in joining with the Gestapo to expand their network of special courts and concentration camps

Gdansk Agreement

made when workers at Lenin Shipyards went on strike; wanted not only better working conditions but also free speech, release of prisoners, free unions; workers form Solidarity and Walesa becomes the leader

Battle of Midway Island

major naval battle that established American supremacy in the Pacific Ocean; Americans and Australians then began island-hopping towards Japan

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

military alliance system to deter invasion by the Soviet Union; Soviets countered by forming the Warsaw Pact

Big Science

new model for scientific research; on a larger scale, funding by governments and large corporations, scientists working in teams instead of independently, many more scientists

collectivization

part of the Five-Year Plans; forced peasants to give up their land and animals and become members of collective farms; highly opposed by peasants, who retaliated by destroying crops and livestock, leading to dire food shortages; destroyed agriculture, but was successful in a totalitarian sense

"iron curtain"

phrase used to describe the division of Europe into Western and Eastern blocs during the Cold War

containment

policy adopted to deal with Communism; trying to confine it to the areas where it had already taken hold and not allowing it to spread to new areas

third way

policy employed by East German reform communists, who tried to make communism work in the framework of democracy; was unsuccessful

Jacques Chirac

replace Mitterrand; had promised vigorous attack on unemployment, but wasn't able to because of the Maastricht Treaty; instead had to cut expenses, which led to strikes

Lenin

seized power during the Russian Revolution; introduced the New Economic Policy

Yalta

site of a meeting between the Big Three; decided that Eastern European countries could have freely elected governments, but these governments had to be friendly towards Russia; this agreement was impossible in places such as Poland; also decided that Germany would be divided into 4 occupational zones

Teheran

site of a meeting between the Big Three; decided that a second front would attack Germany through France; implication was that Russia would be responsible for liberating Eastern Europe; Churchill was not in favor of it, but it made sense militarily

Potsdam

site of another meeting; this time, Truman's the US president, and Churchill gets replaced halfway through; basically Truman vs. Stalin; Truman wanted free elections

Brezhnev Doctrine

statement that Soviet Union had a responsibility to Communist countries to make sure that they were functioning properly

Truman Doctrine

statement that the US would send aid to freer governments when it appeared that Communism was threatening to take over

National Organization for Women (NOW)

successful in securing better rights in the workplace but their efforts to make divorce easier and legalize abortion were more controversial

kulaks

the "better-off" peasants; propagandized as rich peasants who had taken advantage of their poorer comrades; were really just the ones who most opposed collectivization

Velvet Revolution

the revolution in Czechoslovakia; people declared they didn't want a Communist government and the government didn't resist

Stalin

took power after Lenin's death; established Five-Year Plans which failed agriculturally but were quite successful industrially; but there were some social benefits under Stalin like old-age pensions, free education, free medical services, reduced unemployment; there was much more social mobility and women had more opportunity even though sexist attitude was still present

Nikita Khrushchev

took power after Stalin died in 1953; gave a "secret" speech that denounced Stalin's regime, calling it a cult of personality; began de-Stalinization policies; foreign policy associated with "peaceful coexistence"; de-Stalinizing policies led to reform movements in Eastern Europe that he didn't anticipate, problems particularly in Hungary; lost influence after Cuban missile crisis

Helmut Kohl

took the lead in trying to unite East and West Germany; sponsored the Alliance for Germany party in East Germany; succeeded in uniting East and West Germany because there was nationalistic sentiment and East Germany was offered a good exchange rate on the currency

Alexander Dubchek

tried to democratize Communism and liberate Czechoslovakia; other Eastern Europeans worried that he would undermine their power, which led to Prague Spring

Maastricht Treaty

tried to set the stage for a single monetary unit; for this to be possible, every government has to meet the same fiscal standards and certain guidelines were set down; was negotiated by bureaucrats who didn't really seem to answer to anybody, which created concerns about who was really in charge and how much budgets needed to be adjusted; the treaty limited the actions of some leaders like Chirac

Pope John Paul II

when elected pope, was invited by the Communist party in Poland to speak there because they wanted to use him, but instead he denounced them and electrified Poland

Brenner Pass

where Mussolini stopped Hitler on his first attempt to annex Austria; Mussolini had expected British/French assistance, but when it didn't come, he realized that it might be more to his benefit to be allies with Hitler

Pasternack

wrote Dr. Zhivago, which didn't give a good impression of the Russian Revolution; wasn't allowed to publish in Russia and wasn't allowed to accept his Nobel Prize, but he wasn't killed; an example of freer press under Khrushchev

Solzhenitsyn

wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; portrayed a Stalinist concentration camp; an example of freer press under Khrushchev

Betty Freidan

wrote The Feminine Mystique; much like Simone de Beauvoir; both women were very battered; but she had faith in group action (unlike Beauvoir)

Simone de Beauvoir

wrote The Second Sex; made feminists arguments from an existentialist point of view (was the lover of Jean-Paul Sartre); argued that women are limited by conditions of family life