Anschluss with Austria, 1938

A fun and engaging double period lesson covering Hitler’s successful Anschluss with Austria in 1938. Incorporating source analysis, scaffolded exam practice, dual coding tasks and more this lesson is a tried and tested favourite with my GCSE students!

Of all of the stages of Hitler’s foreign policy, students’ recall of specific details and key turning points is routinely strong with Anschluss, as well as their understanding of the significance of the event itself within the wider context of Hitler’s foreign policy aims, growing confidence and subsequent efforts to achieve dominance in Europe.

This lesson has been used with great success as part of a scheme of work for Chapter 3 of the Cambridge IGCSE, the Edexcel IGCSE (Germany topic) and British GCSE exam boards and is suitable for all IGCSE abilities due to the differentiated range of tasks.

Specific content:
Slide 1 and 2 - Source of Inference grid starter (political cartoon) with star challenge.
Slide 3 and 4 - Source analysis of written texts for content and message to get students to predict what Hitler is planning next.
Slide 5 - ‘Our Big Learning Question’ and breakdown of learning objectives.
Slide 6-7 - Think pair share - Scaffolded recap of Hitler’s foreign policy aims and feedback slide.
Slide 8-14 - Examining the events of Hitler’s Anschluss with Austria via a step by step dual coding task. Star challenge questions embedded throughout the main task.
Slide 15 - Refer back to the original Source of Inference starter and students complete the last box with their new contextual knowledge. Use completed source of inference grid to complete full write up of Paper 2 source question. Structure guidance provided on A3 sheet.
Slide 16-18 - Primary sources of the Anschluss.
Slide 19 - Consequences of Anschluss and predictions of where Hitler will head next…

Resources
1 x Powerpoint presentation (19 slides, fully editable)
1 x A3 sheet containing source analysis tasks and exam practice activities.
1 x Picture wheel for dual coding task

Duration:
This lesson consists of a minimum of 2 hours of content. Each activity has been carefully designed using tried and tested methods to guarantee maximum engagement and understanding to facilitate maximum progress.

Associated resources:
Paper 1 CIE IGCSE Full Course Review
Paper 1 Model Answers CIE IGCSE
Cambridge IGCSE Chapter One Review - In a nutshell
FREE Treaty of Versailles Revision Mindmap