EXAMS

Details of the exam timetable are here
morning of 10 May 2012: Paper 1: 2 hours: choice of 2 questions on the core content
.........and 1 question (choice of 2) on the depth study (Germany 1918-1945)
morning of 18 May 2012: Paper 2: 2 hours: source-based question; no choice
morning of 23 May 2012: Alternative to coursework: 1 hour

A checklist of topics to study.

12th December 2011: Life under the Nazis

We're thinking about opposition to the Nazi regime. Watch the following videos, on
1. life under Hitler for the young;
2. the young people of the whose vain heroics of the White Rose, who canvassed against Hitler and were beheaded.
3. Here's an excellent B.B.C. documentary on the opposition.

9th January 2012, 0800: 45 minute MOCK EXAM

1. read the instructions carefully
2. remember it's a source-based question: look at the source. Focus on what it exactly says. Ask why it matters. Always use it in your answers, but
3. do not just repeat it or paraphrase it. The examiner has already read it, remember. Do things with it.
4. REVISE OVER CHRISTMAS. Re-read the green book.
5. When you see the question, take a few minutes to ask yourself What do I know about this subject already?
6. Think. Don't just start writing whatever bounces through your head. Think. Look at the mark scheme and write accordingly. And then think some more.
7. Plan your answer. Think of at least three separate ideas and then connect them.
8. REVISE.
9. When writing, keep your tone formal. Don't write kids, don't write I kind of think this is really cool, and don't write don't: write do not.
10. Make sure your handwriting is legible, large enough, and as far as possible pleasant to look at. Don't capitalise words or add apostrophes at random. Write on one side of the paper only.
11. REVISE.
12. REVISE, REVISE, REVISE, REVISE, REVISE. Read through the German chapters of the green book three times. REVISE, REVISE, REVISE.

Nazi Atrocities

Munich
Watch the following videos, on life and death in the concentration camps.
2. life and death in the concentration camps

I. What was Weimar Germany like?

First, BBC collection of newsreels: part I
and part II:

Now have a look at this clip from the film Cabaret (1972), about the cultural life of Weimar Germany. We are in Berlin in 1931; in a very little while the Nazis will come to power: meanwhile, here is the dying republic, sleazy, creative, cosmopolitan, hardbitten, defeated, worldly, cynical, careless.

Here's another clip from Cabaret: the Hitler Youth singing joyously of what is to come: Der mogige Tag ist mein.

And here's the real Hitler Youth:

And finally, the outcome: the ruins of Germany in 1945, set, not very tastefully, to music:

II. Political parties

Here is a rough sketch of the political spectrum to illustrate Weimar German history.

III. German history footage

1. The armistice of 1918
2. The experience of defeat (in German)
3. The failed Spartakist revolution of 1919
4. Kapp putsch of 1920
5. The Treaty of Locarno 1925
6. Documentary about Weimar
7. Nazi rally around 1928
8. Hitler on the verge of power in 1932
9. The burial of the republic: Hindenburg's funeral 1934
10.This is Germany: American propaganda, 1945

Here is the greatest piece of Nazi propaganda: Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 movie The Triumph of the Will, about the Nuremberg Rally - 700,000 people, 30 cameras, 105 minutes, one dictator.

V. Fascism and Nazism

Fascism was the invention of Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy (with her inadequate king, Victor Emmanuel III). He achieved some initial success in government, and began to build a colonial empire; he was much imitated throughout Europe: here is a map of fascist regimes in the 1920s and 1930s.

What was the fascist programme? It was
authoritarian:
totalitarian single-party state
nationalist:
mass mobilisation of the nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy
reversal of decadence:
national rebirth, regeneration of nation as organic unity (created by ancestry, culture, history and blood)
dictatorial:
cult of the leader, the strongman
social:
unity of all classes, predominance of state over private property

Weimar decadence: the great Josephine Baker, toast of Weimar Berlin, performs the infamous banana dance.

VII. The rise of the Nazi state

A newsreel of the elections of 1932.

Hitler's speech about Roosevelt's letter.

Hitler: The Rise of Evil. A drama about Hitler's seizure of power: Hindenburg, fights with Communists and ending.

Contacting me

Here is a typical Weimar German disaster:
the destruction of the Hindenburg in 1935.
To email me, click on the flames.
.....