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Y221: Democracy and Dictatorships in Germany 1919–1963

The impact of war and defeat on Germany: 1939–1949 — war economy and Total War, morale and rationing

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on the war economy and Total War, impact of bombing, war and racial policies, the Final Solution, morale and rationing.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Numbers

How did Speer change German war production after February 1942?

Key term

Explain why the German war economy was poorly prepared for a long war in 1939.

Who and when

What did Goebbels call for in his Sportpalast speech of February 1943?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Explain why the German war economy was poorly prepared for a long war in 1939.

    Model answer

    Rearmament had been aimed at short campaigns, resources were divided among competing agencies, and civilian production was protected for too long to keep morale high.

  2. 2

    How did Speer change German war production after February 1942?

    Model answer

    As Armaments Minister he centralised planning, concentrated output in fewer plants and standardised designs, roughly trebling armaments production by 1944 despite the bombing.

  3. 3

    What did Goebbels call for in his Sportpalast speech of February 1943?

    Model answer

    Total war, meaning the complete mobilisation of civilian life, labour and resources after the defeat at Stalingrad.

  4. 4

    How did Germany fill the labour gap created by conscription?

    Model answer

    It imported and coerced foreign workers and prisoners of war on a huge scale, so that by 1944 around seven million foreigners were working in the German economy.

  5. 5

    What were the effects of the Allied bombing campaign on Germany?

    Model answer

    Cities such as Hamburg and Dresden were devastated and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, and although morale did not break, transport, oil supplies and industrial organisation were badly disrupted.

  6. 6

    How did the killing of Jews change after the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941?

    Model answer

    Einsatzgruppen carried out mass shootings behind the front line, and from 1941–42 the murder was industrialised in purpose-built extermination camps such as Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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