Hopefully you will find it useful!
I was thinking of turning it into a PowerPoint Presentation - if you have a chance to read through, suggest any necessary amendments / improvements I'd really appreciate it.
Russ.
The notes:
Teacher introduction:
The study of the causes of World War Two are central to any understanding of the world today. I am going to deliver a short seminar and your job is to make notes in the back of your book.
1. The end of Hitler’s Germany
On the afternoon of Monday 30 April 1945, a handful of Adolf Hitler's most faithful followers entered his underground study in Berlin and saw their Fuhrer for the last time. His body, slumped on a couch, was still warm. Blood oozed from his mouth and from a gunshot wound in the right temple. Next to Hitler was the body of Eva Braun, who had crunched a poison capsule as her part in one of history's most notorious suicide pacts and shortest marriages. The newly-weds were wrapped in grey army blankets and carried into the shell-torn Chancellory garden. A large quantity of gasoline was poured over the couple and ignited. The two corpses were enveloped in a sheet of flame. On 1 May, Hamburg Radio interrupted a performance of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony with a roll of drums and a sombre announcement that Adolf Hitler: 'Fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany this afternoon in his operational headquarters in the Reich Chancellory.'
• Hitler had dreamt of a “Thousand Year Reich”. It lasted only 12 years.
2. Legacy – (a) The world he has created:
• Middle East: Israel created in response to the Holocaust, but at the expense of infuriating Arabs. Israel’s seizure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip following an Arab attack in the 1960’s still is a massive problem today.
• Africa: The exhaustion of France, Britain and Belgium > 1945 led to the hasty breakup of Empires and a power vacuum which led to civil war in places such as Kenya and starvation in Ethiopia
• Asia: The British Raj broken up between Pakistan and India.
• Eastern Europe: power vacuum leads to Iron curtain between East and West, fallout today in former Yugoslavia.
3. Legacy – (
The lessons which he has taught us: • Dictators such as Saddam Hussein are currently the subject of much debate and soul-searching on the part of the Western powers, led by the USA.
• Some argue that he should be trodden on harshly – but others point out that this is what we did to Germany after World War One in the Treaty of Versailles, and that this created all sorts of problems for the future.
• Others argue that Iraq has just as much right to have weapons as we do – but others reply that this is comparable to the way we appeased Hitler in the 1930’s.
• Either way, the example of Hitler is thrown out again and again.
• A German minister compared George Bush to Hitler, whilst Bush compared Hussein to Hitler.
• All this stresses that Adolf Hitler is the most powerful character of the 20th century. It is crucial that we study him in depth to understand the world we live in and how we should respond to it.
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