The Great Depression

I. CAUSES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

A. THE PROBLEM OF THE GOLD STANDARD

 

B. GERMAN REPARATIONS PAYMENTS

 

1. The Treaty of Versailles (1919)

 

2. Germany Fails to Pay Reparations

 

3. French Occupation of the Ruhr

 

4. Hyperinflation

German 50 million mark banknote, issued during the Weimar Republic.

C. THE FAILURE OF CAPITALISM?

 

Business cycle: the cycle of periodic fluctuations within a capitalist economy.

Herbert Hoover: U.S. President at the time the Depression began.

 

II. EFFECTS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

A. UNEMPLOYMENT, POVERTY AND STARVATION

 

B. INCREASE IN POLITICAL ACTIVISM.

Father Coughlin: conservative Catholic priest and radio talk show host.

 

III. AMERICAN RESPONSE: THE NEW DEAL.

Franklin Roosevelt: elected President in 1932.

 

A. KEYNESIANISM.

 

John Maynard Keynes: economist who argued that governments needed to stimulate the economy through deficit spending.

 

B. PUBLIC WORKS PROJECTS

IV. INTERPRETATIONS OF THE NEW DEAL

Nazi Germany

I. FASCISM: DEFINITIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS

National Socialist Worker's Party:  full name of the German Nazi Party.

II. THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC AND THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES.

Kaiser Wilhelm: German monarch overthrown at the end of World War One.

A. GERMAN LOSS OF TERRITORY.

 

Saar: important German coal-producing region, taken over by France after World War One.

 

B. DEMILITARIZATION OF THE RHINELAND

 

C. "WAR GUILT"

   

III. ADOLPH HITLER.

A. HITLER'S BACKGROUND

 

B. THE "BEER HALL PUTSCH" (1923). Munich: German city where the "beer hall putsch" took place.

C. HITLER'S WORLDVIEW

   

1. Hitler's Racism

   

Aryans: the supposedly "pure" German race, according to Hitler.

 

Anti-Semitism: hatred of Jews.

2. Lebensraum ("living space"): Hitler's theory that Germans must conquer and colonize territory to the east.

IV. THE NAZI RISE TO POWER

A. NAZI PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES

 

Leni Riefenstahl, director of Triumph of the Will

B. THE WEIMAR POLITICAL SYSTEM:  THE PRESIDENT AND THE CHANCELLOR.

Paul von Hindenburg: elected President of the Weimar Republic in 1925.

 

C. NAZI POPULARITY INCREASES AS THE ECONOMIC SITUATION WORSENS

 

D. HINDENBURG APPOINTS HITLER CHANCELLOR (1933).

 
   

E. THE REICHSTAG FIRE (1933): HITLER CONSOLODATES HIS POWER

Reichstag: The German Parliament.

 

V. THE NAZIS IN POWER

A. THE "ECONOMIC MIRACLE"

 

B. REMILITARIZATION

 

C. GERMAN WITHDRAWL FROM THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (1933)

 

VI. NAZI EXPANSION BEGINS

A. SAAR VOTES TO REJOIN GERMANY (1935)

 

B. REMILITARIZATION OF THE RHINELAND (1936)

VII. ANSCHLUSS (UNIFICATION) WITH AUSTRIA (1938)

VIII. CONQUEST OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA (1938)

A. GERMANS IN THE SUDETENLAND

B. THE MUNICH CONFERENCE.

 

Neville Chamberlain: British Prime Minister who tried to appease Hitler by letting Nazi Germany take over the Sudetenland.

Chamberlain holds up the treaty with Hitler, which he claimed would ensure "peace for our time."

IX.  THE NAZI INVASION OF POLAND (SEPT. 1939) AND THE ONSET OF WAR