Germany Jahrgangsstufe 9 History
Chapters: 5
1. Weimar Republic: first German democracy
Weimar Republic: Germany's first democracy
- The Weimar Republic: Germany's First Democracy – After the First World War the German Emperor left and Germany became a republic (1918-19) with a democratic constitution and votes for women. The republic carried the burdens of the Treaty of Versailles, survived crisis and hyperinflation to 1923, had stable years from 1924, and was broken by the Great Depression, which helped the Nazis win power in 1933.
2. Nazism, Second World War and Holocaust
Nazi Germany, World War II and the Holocaust
- The Holocaust – The Holocaust (in Hebrew, the Shoah) was the planned, state-organised persecution and murder of about six million European Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies and helpers between 1933 and 1945. It grew out of old antisemitism and Nazi racist ideology. It went step by step: exclusion and laws (1933–38), ghettos and mass shootings (1939–41), and death camps (1942–45). Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Polish and Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war and others were also persecuted and murdered. Jews resisted in many ways, and some people risked their lives as rescuers, while many others looked away. After the war came trials, the 1948 Genocide Convention and remembrance, so that such a crime is never repeated.
3. Human rights past and present
Human rights through history
- Human Rights: Meaning, History, Types and Protection – Human rights are the basic freedoms and protections that belong to every person because they are human. They are universal, inalienable, indivisible and rooted in dignity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) set a common standard, later made binding through treaties. Rights are protected by constitutions, courts, commissions, the UN and civil society, and they can be limited only by fair laws that protect others.
4. Germany and the Allies 1945-1949
Occupied Germany 1945–1949
- The Cold War (1945–1991) – The Cold War was a long contest (1945–1991) between two superpowers: the USA with its Western allies (capitalism, multi-party elections) and the USSR with its Eastern allies (communism, one-party rule). They never fought each other directly. Instead they formed rival alliances (NATO, Warsaw Pact), raced to build nuclear weapons and reach space, backed opposite sides in proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan) and came close to nuclear war in Cuba in 1962. Many new nations, led by India and others, stayed non-aligned. Détente eased tension in the 1970s. Reforms in the USSR, the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the break-up of the USSR (1991) ended it.
5. World politics in the Cold War
World politics in the Cold War
- The Cold War (1945–1991) – The Cold War was a long contest (1945–1991) between two superpowers: the USA with its Western allies (capitalism, multi-party elections) and the USSR with its Eastern allies (communism, one-party rule). They never fought each other directly. Instead they formed rival alliances (NATO, Warsaw Pact), raced to build nuclear weapons and reach space, backed opposite sides in proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan) and came close to nuclear war in Cuba in 1962. Many new nations, led by India and others, stayed non-aligned. Détente eased tension in the 1970s. Reforms in the USSR, the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the break-up of the USSR (1991) ended it.