Years of Crisis: The Interwar
Period
1920s-1930s
Journal #15

The Russian Revolution is an example of a
violent, political revolution. However, is
this the only type of revolution? What are
some other kinds of “revolutions”?
The Interwar Years

A time of contradictions…
◦ Tensions between old and new
◦ Mood of optimism and anxiety
◦ How do we get from WWI to WWII?
Today’s Essential Questions
How did new scientific ideas challenge old
beliefs?
 Why did philosophers begin to question
old thinking?
 What were the new styles in art, music,
and literature?

Group Presentation Questions
Based on your documents, what
inferences can you make about the
attitude and ideas of this time period? If
the document is from the 1920s or 1930s,
how might World War I have influenced
its message?
 How do your documents demonstrate
“revolutionary” ideas or changes?

Important Terms to Know:
Existentialism
 Surrealism
 Suffrage

Journal #16
List one revolutionary change in art,
science, literature, or society from
yesterday’s class.
How might these radical and revolutionary
changes be threatening to those who
want to go back to the way the world
used to be? Predict what you think might
happen in some European countries in
the 1930s in response to these changes.
Germany in the 1920s
Weimar Republic blamed
 Hyperinflation
 Dawes Plan helps

◦ US sends money to Germany, decides on a
more reasonable plan for reparations

Bad economy makes people want strong
leaders
◦ Threatens democratic governments
Great Depression
Begins in the United States
 Long term problems:

 Most Americans could not afford goods
 Farmers in debt
1929: Stock Market Crash
 Depression spreads around the world

Stock Market

Terms to know: stocks, shares, on margin,
dividends, stockholders, brokers
Journal #17

What would life be like if you lived in a
country where you did not have the
freedom to choose what you buy, where
you work, what you eat, or what you say.
What would you miss the most?
Competing ideologies of the 20th
century

Ideology:
◦ A system of ideas and ideals, esp. one that
forms the basis of economic or political policy

Ideologies are isms
◦ What are –isms, anyways?

Some you may know: atheism, capitalism,
humanism, optimism, racism, idealism,
imperialism
Isms
Definition: The name of a system of
theory or practice (religious,
philosophical, political, social, etc).
 Important Vocab.:

◦
◦
◦
◦
Communism
Totalitarianism
Fascism
Democracy
Totalitarianism
Includes both Fascism (Nazi Germany,
Italy) and Communism (USSR)
 Government takes control over every
aspect of public and private life

◦ Charismatic leader (demagogue for the
masses)
◦ Police terror
◦ Indoctrination and propaganda
Fascism
Fascis, ancient Rome:
 Began in Italy

◦ October 1922: March on Rome, Mussolini
takes power
◦ Il Duce: “The Leader”
Nazism
National Socialist German Worker’s Party
 Leader of the Nazi Party: Hitler (der
Fuhrer)
 Great Depression grows party
 1933: Hindenburg names Hitler chancellor

◦ Reichstag fire leads to Hitler taking more and
more power

Anti-semitism
As you watch each video…

List:
◦ Verbal messages (what are they saying?)
◦ Actions (what are people doing?)
◦ Symbols/images you notice
Fascism

“Fascism may be defined as a form of
political behavior marked by obsessive
preoccupation with community decline,
humiliation or victimhood and by
compensatory cults of unity, energy and
purity, in which a massed-based party of
committed nationalist militants, working in
uneasy but effective collaboration with
traditional elites, abandons democratic
liberties and pursues with redemptive
violence and without ethical or legal
restraints goals of internal cleansing and
external explansion.” (Paxton, op. cit., p.
218)
Journal #18

List one aspect of either fascism or
totalitarianism, without looking at notes!
Review!

For each picture, write down what
characteristic of fascism and/or
totalitarianism it represents.
Mussolini, Italy
Nazi Propaganda: “Long Live
Germany!”
Hitler Youth: “Youth serves the
Leader”
White Rose Resistance, all executed
Specific Characteristics of Nazism
Anti-semitism
 Volk
 Lebensraum
 Aryan
 Other racial attitudes

◦ Poles, gypsies
◦ Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, mentally
disabled
“Aryan Family”
Anti-semitism: “The eternal Jew”
Why anti-semitism?

Connected with:
◦
◦
◦
◦
Communism
Money lending/banking
Christian anti-Jewish history
“New” ideas
 Sexual freedom
 Einstein
 Modern art
Timeline
1933: Sterilization Laws
 1935: Nuremberg Laws

◦ German Jews no longer citizens, cannot marry
“Aryans”
1937: Jewish businesses taken
 1938: Kristallnacht, “Night of Broken
Glass”
 1939: Deportation to concentration
camps begins; euthanasia of “unfit”

Other Dictatorships
Peron in Argentina
 Franco in Spain
 Eastern European dictatorships

Journal #19

Communism and fascism are both
totalitarian forms of government. What is
one similarity and one difference?

Remember:
◦ Communism (USSR, Stalin)
◦ Fascism (Mussolini’s Italy, Nazi Germany)
Comparing Fascism and
Communism
Journal # 20

Give your opinion…
◦ Do you think fascism could happen here in
the United States?
Review