The Interwar Period

B-D-A Small Group Activity

“Seat at the Table”

Working cooperatively, students will construct their own peace

treaty and path for reconciliation throughout Europe

Using poster board, each group will present their ideas to the class

“I know no parties, I know only Germans!” “As a sign that you are

determined, without party difference without difference of root,

without religious difference be sustained with me through thick and

thin, through misery and death to go, I call on the Executive Boards of

the parties to step up and pledge that to me in the hand.”

1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II

TTYN: Describe the relationship of the above quote and ‘Peace within

the fortress’

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

Essential Question to consider when reviewing Wilson’s 14 Points –

Imagine you are the leader(s) of France and G.B., what will be your

reaction to Wilson’s recommendations?

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

1. No more secret agreements ("Open covenants openly arrived at").

2. Free navigation of all seas.

3. An end to all economic barriers between countries.

4. Countries to reduce weapon numbers.

5. All decisions regarding the colonies should be impartial

6. The German Army is to be removed from Russia. Russia should be

left to develop her own political set-up.

7. Belgium should be independent like before the war.

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

8. France should be fully liberated and allowed to recover Alsace-

Lorraine

9. All Italians are to be allowed to live in Italy. Italy's borders are to

"along clearly recognizable lines of nationality."

10. Self-determination should be allowed for all those living in

Austria-Hungary.

11. Self-determination and guarantees of independence should be

allowed for the Balkan states.

WWICommon Core – “Document of the Day’Adolf Hitler

Who are the ‘‘criminals” that Hitler is referring to?

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

What has caused Hitler to feel so ashamed?

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

The Treaty of Versailles

TTYN: What is the purpose of a treaty

Early 1919, The peacemakers assembled in Paris to accomplish the

following:

• To treat the root causes of the conflict

• Find solutions to problems either created or exacerbated by the War

itself

The ‘Players’ – The Big Three

• Woodrow Wilson – U.S.

• David Lloyd George – G.B.

• Georges Clemenceau -France

Timeline

Armistice DayNov. 11, 1918

Treaty Negotiations CommenceEarly 1919

The Treaty includes no provision for the economic rehabilitation of Europe - nothing to make the defeated Central Powers into good neighbours, nothing to stabilise the new States of Europe, nothing to reclaim Russia; nor does it promote in any way a compact of economic solidarity amongst the Allies themselves; no arrangement was reached at Paris for restoring the disordered finances of France and Italy, or to adjust the systems of the Old World and the New.

It is an extraordinary fact that the fundamental economic problem of a Europe starving and disintegrating before their eyes, was the one question in which it was impossible to arouse the interest of the Four. Reparation was their main excursion into the economic field, and they settled it from every point of view except that of the economic future of the States whose destiny they were handling.

Treaty of VersaillesCommon Core – ‘Document of the Day’John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of Peace (1920)

Weimar Republic

1919, the Kaiser abdicates

Parliamentary republic established

Named after Weimar, the city where the constitutional assembly

took place. Its official name was Deutsches Reich; however, it was

gnerally known as Germany.

1919, a national assembly convened in Weimar, where a new

constitution for the German Reich was written, then adopted on 11

August of that same year.

Social Democratic leadership

Goal of the Weimar: to construct the perfect democracy

Weimar Republic

Strive for Perfection

Included:

A Bill of Rights guaranteed every German citizen freedom of speech and religion, and equality under the law.

All men and women over the age of 20 were given the vote.

There was an elected president and an elected Reichstag (parliament).

The Reichstag made the laws and appointed the government, which had to do what the Reichstag wanted.

As if the war wasn’t bad enough…

The Spanish Flu

• 1918-19 - The influenza pandemic killed more people than the Great

War

• Approx. 50M people perished

• The most devastating epidemic in recorded world history

• More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of

the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351.

• A global disaster

• 1/5 of world’s population infected

"La Grippe"

Country 1929 1933

France 9,000 356,000

Germany 2,484,000 5,599,000

U.K. 1,204,000 2,821,000

Unemployment Figures

The Rise of HitlerCommon Core – ‘Document of the Day’Propaganda LeafletNational Socialist German Workers Party (1920)

Who is Nazi Party speaking to?

____________________________________________________________________

What group is in the Nazi Party’s crosshairs and why? Support with evidence.

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

The Rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

The Rise of Hitler

Patriotic and Nationalistic

Inspired to enlist at the start of WWI

1920, created the “Brown Shirt’s”

Extremely active in Munich

1923, The Munich Putsch or the “Beer Hall Putsch”

Failed attempt by Nazi Party to take over Weimar Republic

Arrested and tried for treason

Spent 9 months in jail

Wrote Mein Kampf while in prison

The Rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party

The Rise of Hitler

Mein Kampf

Targets of the book

Democrats

Communists

Internationalists (foreigners)

Jews

The Rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party

To the teacher:

At the start of the next unit (WWII), I start the unit with a B-D-A

Activity

“Tweeting Europe Into War”