Nazification Discussion Questions

• What were the significant terms of the Treaty of Versailles?

• Identify examples of human rights violations over history, choose examples of current human rights violations, research and discuss. Include the use of documents.

• Explain the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany from 1933-39.

• Discuss the implications of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in the scheme of Hitler's master plan.

• Understand the process of "Aryanization." Give examples and historical events that illustrate.

• What occupations were the most controlled by the Nazis and why?

• Identify some of the danger signals that were evident in Germany preceding the genocide of the Jewish people.

• Why did so many Jews not leave Germany?

• Could you leave everything behind you and emigrate from your own country? Under what circumstances would you do that?

• Why would books be outlawed and destroyed?

• Describe how ignorance, complacency, and complicity can violate the rights of human beings.

• Explain how prejudice is learned, give examples and illustrate how society can work to erase prejudice.

• What's the difference between physical and emotional abuse? How were each used against the victims of the Third Reich? Which was more powerful and why?

• Analyze the use of propaganda by the Nazis.

  Why did Hitler have a propaganda minister?

• Evaluate the continuing role of the mass media and propaganda in Nazi Germany, including use of the "Big Lie" and the corruption of language.

• Investigate the reasons why specific groups became victims of the Nazis, including children, Gypsies, Blacks, Jehovah's Witnesses, the handicapped, homosexuals, and others, and investigate the reasons for their respective treatment.

• Why did the Nazi party consider teachers to be dangerous?

• Why did the Nazi led German government call itself the Third Reich?

• How is prejudice taught? Give examples and discuss.

• Many laws were written in Germany when the Nazis came to power that limited the freedom of Jewish citizens. Select one of those laws and examine the reason for the law, its impact on Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, and its relationship to other events taking place in Germany at the time.

• Did Poland have any advanced warning that Germany might invade?

• Did any of the Jewish population leave prior to the invasion?

• Who qualified as Slavs under Nazi racial theory and why were they considered undesirable?
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