Exam 386...

With much fanfare, the exam for 386:

History 386
World War II in Europe
Midterm exam…for Wednesday, November 2

An all-you-can-eat challenge, a smorgasboard of tasks, one might say…


Directions part I(20%): Objective questions. You will either answer two or three objective questions and/or look at a map from a period just prior to or during the early months of World War II and answer a couple questions based on that map. This part will hit the highlights—it’s not intended as a “gotcha” exercise.

Directions part II(30%): Document analysis. Each person will receive a document or memoir excerpt covering some aspect of the European war to the summer of l941, and then compose a brief answer to a question on it. Here again, the document will not come from outer space. It will be similar to the other documents you have seen up to this time.

Directions part III(50%): Essay. Prepare the following questions, bringing as much relevant and specific evidence as you can in formulating your answer. You will do ONE on test day, but you won’t know WHICH one, so prepare them all unless you are clairvoyant. Feel free to work with others, just make sure that the essay you write is in your own words.


A)Much of the recent scholarship on Nazi Germany in World War II has focused on two words: “race and space.” Write an essay in which you discuss the role these concepts played in the planning and launch of the second global conflict 20 years after the conclusion of the first, the war to "end all wars(!)." You do not need to address anything beyond the invasion of the Soviet Union in this question.


B)After years and years of fulminating against Soviet Russia as a nest of Jewish/Communist menace—and stating his intent to invade that country—Hitler changed his tune in l939 and signed the infamous Nazi-Soviet pact with his fellow tyrant, Joseph Stalin. Why did the two dictators decide on this apparently unlikely step, and what advantages accrued to both men prior to June 22, 1941?


C)The “Holocaust by bullets,” or “Holocaust before the Holocaust” is one of the lesser-known aspects of the Second World War. Explain briefly what is meant by this term, then write an essay in which you make clear how it became possible, some of the consequences for participants and bystanders and its role in the “real” Holocaust of the death camps.