Every card in The twentieth-century world, Year 10: the Nazi economy and Germans at war (Germany 1890–1945 option)
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- The Nazi scheme in which young men had to do six months of manual work, such as draining land and planting forests
The Reich Labour Service (RAD)
HintCompulsory for young men from 1935.
WhyThe men lived in barracks, wore a paramilitary uniform and carried spades. The service was meant to cut unemployment and to teach Nazi ideas.
- Which road-building programme became the showpiece of Nazi job creation?
The autobahns (motorways)
HintYou would drive on it.
WhyRoads of this kind had been planned and begun before 1933, and at its peak in 1936 the scheme employed about 125,000 men directly. Rearmament and conscription did far more to end unemployment.
- Official figures showed unemployment falling fast under the Nazis. Why do historians say those figures overstate the fall?
The Nazis manipulated the statistics and the employment laws
HintThe term used for it is 'invisible unemployment'.
WhySome of the fall came from changes in who was counted and from compulsory labour schemes. Real jobs were created as well, above all by rearmament, which employed millions and prepared Germany for war.
- The one-word term, taken from Greek, for a country producing everything it needs at home so that it does not depend on imports
Autarky
HintGöring's Four Year Plan of 1936 aimed at this.
WhyHitler wanted Germany able to fight a war without being starved by a blockade, as it had been in 1914 to 1918. The plan fell short of its aim.
- Which Nazi organisation replaced the trade unions for German workers in 1933?
The German Labour Front (DAF)
HintLed by Robert Ley.
WhyWorkers lost the right to strike or bargain over pay. In return the 'Strength through Joy' programme offered cheap holidays, concerts and sports. Most workers had a job again, but real wages fell and hours grew longer.
- In which year did food rationing begin in Germany? (year)
1939
HintIt did not wait for shortages to appear.
WhyAt first rations were adequate, because food and goods were taken from occupied countries. Shortages became severe only in the last years of the war.
- Which German port city was devastated by a week of Allied bombing in July 1943?
Hamburg
HintThe raids were code-named Operation Gomorrah.
WhyThe raids caused a firestorm that destroyed much of the city. Tens of thousands of people were killed, and about a million left the city. Bombing made millions of Germans homeless during the war.
- How did Nazi Germany mainly fill its shortage of workers during the war?
With forced labourers from occupied countries
HintMillions were brought in against their will.
WhyAt the peak, forced labourers, both foreign civilians and prisoners of war, made up about a fifth of Germany's workforce, many of them in harsh conditions. The Nazis were slower than Britain to call up women for war work, because it clashed with their ideas about women's role.
- Goebbels's call in February 1943 for every German to give everything to the war effort
Total war
HintMade in a speech in Berlin soon after the defeat at Stalingrad.
WhyUnder the armaments minister, Albert Speer, weapons production reached its peak in the summer of 1944, even under heavy bombing.
- Why did millions of German civilians flee westwards in the winter of 1944 to 1945?
To escape the advancing Soviet army
HintLook at which front was moving towards them.
WhyRefugees from East Prussia and other eastern regions crowded into cities that were already bombed and short of food. Many died on the journey in bitter winter weather.
1★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0044
2★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0045
3★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0046
4★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0047
5★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0048
6★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0049
7★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0050
8★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0051
9★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0052
10★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0053
Keep what you learn
Here, nothing is saved. In your child’s own sky every card is scheduled — it comes back just before they’d forget it — and the professor who wrote it is one tap away.