Modern History: Germany after the Treaty of Versailles

Resources designed for the new senior Modern History syllabus (implemented in QLD in 2019). The syllabus objectives would also be useful more broadly for English students in other states and countries with an interest in German Nationalism between 1914–1945 (World War I begins –World War II ends).

Context: My school runs this program in Alternative Sequence (yr 11 and 12s in together) due to the small size of the school. This lesson was delivered as a 2 hour block during the term 4 exam block to introduce the unit for the following year and to allow year 10s and 11s who would be studying the subject together to meet each other.

This resource includes:
1 x PowerPoint
1 x Handout

This lesson includes information about:
• Revising what we learned about the Treaty of Versailles – what the Big 3 wanted + the key terms of the treaty
• Fallout of the Treaty of Versailles (issues with the reparations payments and the war guilt clause)
 How to analyse and evaluate visual sources
 A visual source analysis activity
• Germany becoming a Republic
 Goals of the Weimar Republic
 Political opposition in the early stages of the Weimar Republic
• The Stock Market Crash + Great Depression and how this impacted Germany
• The Golden 20s
 Problems which still impacted Germany in this period
 The emergence of the Nazi party
 The 25 points program (1920) + a groupwork task to engage with this source
 The Beer Hall Putsch (1923)
 Mein Kampf
• Hitler’s ideologies, VABs and motives
 Anti Semitism
 Nationalism
 Anti-democracy
• Hitler’s Rise to Power

The worksheet is designed to be used at key points in the lesson