Germany In-Depth, 1918-45
Students will conduct an in-depth investigation how Germany devolved from a vibrant democracy to a totalitarian regime. This class supports I.B./GCSE/A-Level/A.P. courses of study.
Keith (M.A. Military History)
Average rating:
5.0
Number of reviews:(362)
What's included
1 live meeting
1 in-class hours per weekHomework
Available upon request.Assessment
Available upon request.Class Experience
US Grade 8 - 11
Beginner - Intermediate Level
Since this is a investigative, discussion-based class and we will take our time exploring these topics, below is a general plan for the course. "Drop in" students are welcome and are encouraged to partake on various topics-of-the-day.
This class examines these dramatic events, looking both at the years of optimism in the new democratic regime of the 1920s and at the horrors of the Third Reich in the 1930s and 1940s. We will begin in our first unit by exploring the reasons why a democratic state, known as the Weimar REPUBLIC, was created in Germany in the aftermath of the First World War and why it was able to survive a series of difficult challenges only to be replaced by the Nazi DICTATORSHIP in 1933. Unit 2 (Topic 3 & 4) of the class will investigate the nature of that dictatorship and its impact on the German people. Finally, we will look at how Hitler’s foreign policies, after initial success, once again brought Germany to ruin.
In this class, the following topics will be covered in depth:
Month of October Key topic 1: Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start?
How did Germany emerge from defeat at the end of the First World War?
What was the impact of the Treaty of Versailles on the Republic?
To what extent did the Republic recover after 1923?
What were the achievements of the Weimar period?
Month of November Key topic 2: Why was Hitler able to dominate Germany by 1934?
What did the Nazi Party stand for in the 1920s?
Why did the Nazis have little success before 1930?
Why was Hitler able to become Chancellor by 1933?
How did Hitler consolidate his power in 1933–34?
Month of December Key topic 3: The Nazi regime
How effectively did the Nazis control Germany, 1933–45?
How much opposition was there to the Nazi regime?
How effectively did the Nazis deal with their political opponents?
How did the Nazis use culture and the mass media to control the people?
Why did the Nazis persecute many groups in German society?
Was Nazi Germany a totalitarian state?
Month of January: Key topic 3a:
What was it like to live in Nazi Germany?
How did young people react to the Nazi regime?
How successful were Nazi policies towards women and the family?
Did most people in Germany benefit from Nazi rule?
How did the coming of war change life in Nazi Germany?
Months of February forward - Topics: German Grand Strategic origins, Blitzkrieg Doctrine, Military Operations 1936-45, Resistance in Nazi Germany.
This class requires a minimum of 3-5 students - if low enrollment please inquire about a Private Tutorial which would include exam board specific instruction, source based activities, and marked assessments.Learning Goals
Students will investigate evidence and conduct source-based inquiries on various topics
Students will learn about the Weimar Constitution, its strengths and weaknesses
Students will investigate the nature of a one-party, totalitarian state.
Students will learn about Germany from many different perspectives.
Students will learn about the impact of the Paris Peace Conference 1919
Students will learn about the establishment of Weimar Germany
Students will learn about the challenges facing Weimar Germany
Students will learn about the impact of the World Depression on Weimar Germany
Students will learn about the rise of the National Socialist Party in Germany
Students will learn about the rise of political extremism in Weimar Germany
Students will learn how Adolf Hitler rose to power
Students will learn about the National Socialist regime 1933-39
Students will learn about German Foreign Policy 1933-39
Students will learn about the causes of the Second World War
Students will learn about The Second World War and its aftermath.
Other Details
Parental Guidance
This is an academic history course which covers Germany from 1919-45 and will be presented as a secondary level (high school) history course (I.B./GCSE/A-Level/I.B.) with historical sources derived from exam board approved textbooks and reliable scholarship (see below). For specific exam preparation for your learner please enroll in a Private Tutorial.
External Resources
Learners will not need to use any apps or websites beyond the standard Outschool tools.
Sources
Secondary School Textbooks/University Textbooks
SHP Germany In-Depth Hodder
Eduqas GCSE History: Germany in transition, 1919-39
Germany 1918-1945: A depth study Greg Lacey, Keith Shepherd
German History, 1770-1866 (Oxford History of Modern Europe) by James Sheehan
A History Of Germany 1918 - 2020: The Divided Nation by Mary Fulbrook
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
The Demise of the Weimar Republic
Feldman, Gerald D. The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914-1924. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
James, Harold. The German Slump: Politics and Economics, 1924-1936. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
Nicholls, Anthony James. Weimar and the Rise of Hitler. 4th ed. Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 2000.
Sneeringer, Julia. Winning Women’s Votes: Propaganda and Politics in Weimar Germany. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2002.
Turner, Henry Ashby. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power: January 1933. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996.
Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP)
Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.
Hamann, Brigitte. Hitler’s Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Jones, Larry Eugene. German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System, 1918-1933. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
Kershaw, Ian. Hitler. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999.
Policies of the Third Reich
Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.
Hayes, Peter. Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Helmreich, Ernst Christian. The German Churches Under Hitler: Background, Struggle and Epilogue. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980.
Leitz, Christian. Nazi Foreign Policy, 1933-1941: The Road to Global War. London: Routledge, 2004.
Mason, Timothy W., and Jane Caplan. Social Policy in the Third Reich: The Working Class and the National Community. Providence: Berg, 1993.
Overy, R. J. War and Economy in the Third Reich. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Schoenbaum, David. Hitler’s Social Revolution; Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966.
Shore, Zachary. What Hitler Knew: The Battle for Information in Nazi Foreign Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Tooze, J. Adam. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. New York: Viking, 2007.
Watt, Donald Cameron. How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938-1939. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.
Weinberg, Gerhard L. The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-1939. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
The Holocaust
Bergen, Doris L. War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009.
Bloxham, Donald. Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Chamberlin, Brewster S., Marcia Feldman, and Robert H. Abzug. The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberators. Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 1987.
Goodell, Stephen, Kevin A. Mahoney, and Sybil Milton. 1945: The Year of Liberation. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.
Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. Rev. ed. 3 vols. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985.
Mikhman, Dan. Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish Perspective: Conceptualizations, Terminology, Approaches, and Fundamental Issues. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003.
Sofsky, Wolfgang. The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
Stone, Dan. The Historiography of the Holocaust. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Taylor, Telford. The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir. New York: Knopf, 1992.
Culture and Society in the Third Reich
Adam, Peter. Art of the Third Reich. New York: H.N Abrams, 1992.
Baird, Jay W. Hitler’s War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Bergmeier, H. J. P. and Rainer E. Lotz. Hitler’s Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Boswell, Matthew. Holocaust Impiety in Literature, Popular Music and Film. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Currid, Brian. A National Acoustics Music and Mass Publicity in Weimar and Nazi Germany. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
Etlin, Richard A. Art, Culture, and Media Under the Third Reich. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
Karina, Lilian and Marion Kant. Hitler’s Dancers: German Modern Dance and the Third Reich. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003.
Maier-Katkin, Birgit. Silence and Acts of Memory: A Postwar Discourse on Literature, History, Anna Seghers, and Women in the Third Reich. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2007.
Petropoulos, Jonathan. The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Schmitz, Helmut. German Culture and the Uncomfortable Past: Representations of National Socialism in Contemporary Germanic Literature. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.
Schoeps, Karl-Heinz. Literature and Film in the Third Reich. Rochester: Camden House, 2004.
Stibbe, Matthew. Women in the Third Reich. London: Arnold, 2003.
Joined September, 2020
5.0
362reviews
Teacher expertise and credentials
3 Degrees
Master's Degree in History from American Military University
Bachelor's Degree in Education from University of Maine at Farmington
Bachelor's Degree in History from Acadia University (Nova Scotia, Canada)
I have taught this subject for the past 30 years in both private and public school settings to prepare students for challenging external examinations (I.B./GCSE/A-Level/AP) - See my profile page for further details. Reviews
Live Group Class
$20
weekly1x per week
60 min
Completed by 9 learners
Live video meetings
Ages: 13-18
3-15 learners per class
