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Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995

The Cold War 1956–1984: Berlin, the arms race, détente and the new Cold War

  • 2 things to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on West German rearmament, the Berlin ultimatum and Wall, the arms race and MAD, the space race, détente, SALT, Ostpolitik, Helsinki and the collapse of détente into the new Cold War.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Numbers

What did the SALT talks achieve?

Who and when

Why was the Berlin Wall built in 1961, and what did it settle?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why was West German rearmament a turning point in the mid-1950s?

    Model answer

    The admission of a rearmed Federal Republic to NATO in 1955 buried hopes of a neutral united Germany and provoked the creation of the Warsaw Pact.

  2. 2

    What was Khrushchev's Berlin ultimatum of 1958?

    Model answer

    He demanded that the western powers leave Berlin within six months and that it become a free demilitarised city, threatening otherwise to hand control of access to the East Germans.

  3. 3

    Why was the Berlin Wall built in 1961, and what did it settle?

    Model answer

    Skilled East Germans were escaping through the open city in unsustainable numbers, so the border was sealed; the crisis passed because the West accepted the Wall rather than fight over it.

  4. 4

    How did the arms race develop after the mid-1950s?

    Model answer

    Both sides moved from bombers to intercontinental missiles and submarine-launched weapons, building arsenals so large that each could destroy the other after absorbing a first strike.

  5. 5

    Define mutually assured destruction.

    Model answer

    It is the condition in which each side can annihilate the other even after being attacked first, so that a deliberate nuclear attack becomes irrational.

  6. 6

    Give two milestones of the space race and explain their Cold War significance.

    Model answer

    The Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 and Gagarin's flight in 1961 suggested communist technological superiority and implied missile capability, which is why the American moon landing of 1969 mattered so much politically.

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BThe caliphate was abolished in 1924.
CThe Latin alphabet was adopted.

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Simony means the buying and selling of Church office.
TrueFalse

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Every question in Y223: The Cold War in Europe 1941–1995, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

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