HI 224
Study Sheet Final
The final exam will contain one component that will be exactly like the previous two
exams (32 multiple-choice questions with the possibility of justifying a choice if you are
insecure). This section will only cover the last third of the class (from Exam II to the end).
The following study questions apply to this section. As usual, they complement the
questions on the readings (Bessel and Schlabrendorff), about which you will also find
questions on the exam.
A second section of the final will contain three or four short essay questions (you will
have a choice of two out of three or three out of four). These essay questions cover the
entire semester including the earlier readings. I decided not to do identifications.
Study Questions III:
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Why were the Nazis disappointed by the March 1933 Reichstag elections?
How did the Nazis consolidate power after January 1933?
What did Gleichschaltung mean?
How did the Hitler dictatorship win broad approval in Germany?
What was the reality behind the “Röhm Putsch”?
What were Hitler’s real aims, and how did the public generally see his aims?
What were the guidelines of Hitler’s foreign policy 1933-1939?
Which were Hitler’s main successes before 1939?
Why was his foreign policy so successful?
How did Germany’s rivals react to Hitler’s foreign policy? How and why did their
policies change?
Was Hitler a strong or a weak dictator? Why?
Which were the priorities of Nazi industry before the war?
What were the claim and the reality of the Volksgemeinschaft?
How did Nazi policies toward women and workers evolve?
What mattered most to the Nazis in the education of German boys and girls?
How did World War II start? Why?
What was Blitzkrieg? Why was it so successful?
What motivated Hitler to attack the Soviet Union?
Why did this attack fail?
Why did Germany loose World War II? Which were the most important factors?
Which stages can you distinguish in the anti-Jewish policies of the Nazis?
How did they treat the Sinti and Roma?
What did eugenics mean for the Nazis?
Which groups were subjected to forced labor?
Which were the channels of Nazi propaganda, and why was it so successful?
How willingly did Germans accept Nazi policies? How popular was Hitler? How
popular were Nazism and the Nazi Party? How much terror was needed to keep
the Germans in line?
What were the rationales behind the Allied bombing of Germany, and how
successful were they? What was a firestorm? When did the heaviest bomb load
fall?
How did the Nazi regime react to the bombings?
How did most Germans experience the end of the war?
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Who were the main representatives of the military, Christian, and communist
resistance to Nazism?
What was the experience of most Germans in the immediate postwar years?
What did the Allies plan to do with Germany?
What did they decide at the Potsdam conference? What were the problems with
the Potsdam conference?
Why did Stalin order the blockade of Berlin? What was the outcome?
Why did the western powers decide to merge their occupation zones?
What characterized the West German constitution of 1949?
How was the German Democratic Republic formed?
How did East Germany and West Germany address the Nazi past?