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Name________________
Teacher____________
Class Period_____
Due Date__________
Introduction to the Extra Credit Assignment: An interdisciplinary extra credit assignment is
being offered to 8th Grade students who would like to participate, this is NOT mandatory. We
will be connecting the relationship between a musical performance and a time period in
history; 8th grade students will be learning about World War II in the spring time in their social
studies classes.
Directions: Please read and complete the attached questions about the invasion of the Soviet
Union by the German army during World War II, which the song you will listen to will be
depicting. Then complete the musical interpretation question sheet. Both the history and
musical interpretation question sheets need to be completed in order to receive all extra
credit points.
If you are attending the field trip on November 20th the NY Philharmonic will be performing
Shostakovich’s 8th Symphony at Lincoln Center. If you are attending, you will take the Musical
Interpretation Question sheet with you on the trip and answer the questions as you listen to
the musical performance, so be sure to bring a pen!
If you are not attending the field trip you can listen to this song via YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKshbAYacnA
As you listen to the song, please answer the questions about the performance on the Musical
Interpretation Question sheet.
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Musical Interpretation Questions
Directions: All answers must be in complete sentences.
11. As the song begins, What is the first emotion you feel is being expressed in the song, What instruments are being
utilized to express this emotion?
12.As the song progresses, What musical instruments are being utilized to express fear or danger?
13.From the History reading, What weapons were used during WWII that may signify stress or anxiety in the song?
14.Half way through the song, what emotion are the trumpets being used to symbolize that is most likely felt by the
Soviet army as it repels the German offensive?
15.What instruments are being used to signify a collide, clash or cannon fire?
16.When the music becomes faint what can we deduce about the battle?
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Jun 22, 1941:
Germany launches Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of Russia
On this day in 1941, over 3 million German troops invade Russia in three parallel offensives, in what is the most powerful invasion force
in history. Nineteen panzer divisions, 3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces pour across a thousand-mile front as Hitler
goes to war on a second front.
Despite the fact that Germany and Russia had signed a "pact" in 1939, each guaranteeing the other a specific region of influence
without interference from the other, suspicion remained high. When the Soviet Union invaded Rumania in 1940, Hitler saw a threat to
his Balkan oil supply. He immediately responded by moving two armored and 10 infantry divisions into Poland, posing a counterthreat
to Russia. But what began as a defensive move turned into a plan for a German first-strike. Despite warnings from his advisers that
Germany could not fight the war on two fronts (as Germany's experience in World War I proved), Hitler became convinced that England
was holding out against German assaults, refusing to surrender, because it had struck a secret deal with Russia. Fearing he would be
"strangled" from the East and the West, he created, in December 1940, "Directive No. 21: Case Barbarossa"–the plan to invade and
occupy the very nation he had actually asked to join the Axis only a month before!
On June 22, 1941, having postponed the invasion of Russia after Italy's attack on Greece forced Hitler to bail out his struggling ally in
order to keep the Allies from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, three German army groups struck Russia hard by surprise. The Russian
army was larger than German intelligence had anticipated, but they were demobilized. Stalin had shrugged off warnings from his own
advisers, even Winston Churchill himself, that a German attack was imminent. (Although Hitler had telegraphed his territorial designs
on Russia as early as 1925–in his autobiography, Mein Kampf.) By the end of the first day of the invasion, the German air force had
destroyed more than 1,000 Soviet aircraft. And despite the toughness of the Russian troops, and the number of tanks and other
armaments at their disposal, the Red Army was disorganized, enabling the Germans to penetrate up to 300 miles into Russian territory
within the next few days. Exactly 129 years and one day before Operation Barbarossa, another "dictator" foreign to the country he
controlled, invaded Russia–making it all the way to the capital. But despite this early success, Napoleon would be escorted back to
France–by Russian troops.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-launches-operation-barbarossa--the-invasion-of-russia
1. Describe the vast German force used to invade the Soviet Union.
2. Why did Germany feel threatended by the Soviets invasion into Romania?
3. What did Hitler’s advisors warn him about?
4. Some historians suggest that Hitler may have suffered from paranoia. How could his paranoia have led him to
create Operation Barbarossa?
5. What did the German army destroy and what problems did the Soviet “Red” Army face on the first day off the
invasion?
Operation Barbarossa was a monumental blunder
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Haskew, Michael E. World War II 16.2 (Jul 2001): 97.
It was the ultimate act of treachery, a bold stroke, but most of all a colossal blunder. At 3:15 a.m. on June 22, 1941,
a Nazi juggernaut was unleashed upon the Soviet Union. On a front stretching 1,250 miles from the Black Sea to the
Baltic, 3 million soldiers, more than 3,000 tanks and 600,000 transport vehicles struck an unsuspecting Red Army.
Back in August 1939, representatives of the Soviet Union and Germany had signed a nonaggression pact.
Furthermore, in a secret protocol the powers had agreed to invade Poland from east and west, then partition the
conquered territory between them.
Now, his territorial ambitions still unsated, Adolf Hitler had turned on his fellow conspirators and taken them
completely by surprise. The Soviet military was totally unprepared for what happened.
Although Stalin believed that war would eventually come, he had remained resolute in abiding by the terms of the
nonaggression pact and proved remarkably naive about Hitler's intentions. Since the 1920s, the Soviets had assisted
German rearmament efforts, allowing troops to train secretly in their territory and working cooperatively on arms
development. Trade between the two nations continued, and Soviet oil and grain shipments to Germany were routine.
In fact, the last such shipment departed for Germany on the day of the invasion.
In hindsight, it appears that the warning signs were everywhere. A month before was Operation Barbarossa
launched, Richard Sorge, the Soviet master spy, reported from Tokyo that the invasion was imminent. Four days
before it took place, a Soviet spy in Switzerland delivered the plans for invasion to Moscow. On June 18, a German
soldier defected and disclosed that the invasion was coming on June 22. The Soviet leadership did not take the reports
seriously.
On the eve of the invasion, Hitler had predicted a swift victory against the Soviets. "We have only to kick in the front
door, and the whole rotten edifice will come down," he said. Indeed, the Nazi onslaught appeared unstoppable in the
summer and early fall of 1941. However, Hitler's interference with his commanders, the onset of winter and stiffening
Red Army resistance drained the Germans' momentum.
While the weather helped hold off the Germans, the Soviets transferred fresh troops from Siberia to the front.
Factories were dismantled and reassembled east of the Ural Mountains, safe from the enemy, and anything that might
aid the invaders that could not be moved was burned.
Eventually, what the Soviets would call "the Great Patriotic War" was won. While they suffered 20 million civilian and
military casualties, the Soviets and their allies destroyed most of Germany's military capability. Four years after began
Operation Barbarossa, the hammer-and-sickle banner of the Soviet Union flew from the Reichstag in Berlin. M.E.H.
6. At the start of WWII, Germany and the Soviet Union were allies, What country did they agree to invade and based on
their geography from which direction would the Soviet Union invade this country from? from which direction would
Germany invade this country from?
7. What were some of the warning signs that Germany was going to invade the Soviet Union?
8. Explain some factors that hindered the German offensive into the Soviet Union.
9. What was the outcome of the German invasion into the Soviet Union? What did the Soviets proudly call this war?
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After the German invasion in 1941, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote two patriotic
symphonies (Seventh Symphony, 1942 and Eighth Symphony, 1943) in which the
world heard the inspirational celebration of the heroism and courage of the Soviet
People. Shostakovich’s world fame reached its greatest height. Western
appreciation of Shostakovich waned after the war. One reason for the fading of his
luster was the recognition that the wartime symphonies were not great
compositions by modern aesthetic standards. Another reason was the imposition
of stifling artistic restrictions in the Soviet Union by Stalin’s cultural dictator,
Andrei Zhdanov.
Steeves, Paul D. “Dmitri Shostakovich”
Great Lives From History: The Twentieth Century (2008):1. Biography Reference Center.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=b6h&AN=103331GL20C3661086911&site=brc-live
10. Why did Dmitri Shostakovich compose the Eighth Symphony in 1943?
Hey Guys ,
So this is the completed assignment! With Mairead’s research help,
she gave me multiple articles on the topic. From the articles she gave me,
I chose 3 and made up questions that I feel will help link the historic
background to the song. I plan on giving this to all my 8th graders
November 13th, one week prior to the field trip. If they complete the
entire packet and the answers are correct I was considering giving them
32 extra credit points, 2 points per question. If anyone wants to change
anything let me know!
-Leo