The West Between the Wars

Depression

A period of low economic activity and rising unemployment.

Collective Barganing

The right of unions to negotiate with employers over wages and hours.

Deficit Spending

when a government pays out more money than it takes in through taxation and other revenues, thus going into debt.

Dawes Plan

Plan devised by U.S. banker to scale back reparation payments for WWI and establish a cycle of loans to Germany which let is pay off outstanding war debts to the Allies.

Treaty of Locarno

Guaranteed Germany's new western borders with France and Belgium.

John Maynard Keynes

British economist who thought deficit spending would create jobs and stimulate the economy.

Weimar Republic

the German republic founded at Weimar in 1919.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Democratic president who created the New Deal to counter the effects of the Great Depression.

New Deal

the historic period (1933-1940) in the U.S. during which President Franklin Roosevelt's economic policies were implemented.

Totalitarian State

a government that aims to control the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural lives of its citizens.

Fascism

a political system headed by a dictator that calls for extreme nationalism and racism and no tolerance of opposition.

New Economic Policy

Policy proclaimed by Vladimir Lenin in 1924 to encourage the revival of the Soviet economy by allowing small private enterprises. Joseph Stalin ended the N.E.P. in 1928 and replaced it with a series of Five-Year Plans.

Politburo

a seven-member committee that became the leading policy-making body of the Communist Party in Russia

Collectivization

a system in which private farms are eliminated and peasants work land owned by the government.

Benito Mussolini

Fascist Dictator of Italy that at first used bullying to gain power, then never had full power.

Joseph Stalin

Russian leader who succeeded Lenin as head of the Communist Party and created a totalitarian state by purging all opposition.

Five-Year Plan

Stalin's economic policy to rebuild the Soviet economy after WWI. tried to improve heavy industry and improve farm output, but resulted in famine.

Francisco Franco

Spanish general whose armies took control of Spain in 1939 and who ruled as a dictator until his death.

Reichstag

the german parliament.

Concentration Camp

a camp where prisoners of war, political prisoners, or members of minority groups are confined, typically under harsh conditions.

Adolf Hitler

Leader of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich in Germany during World War II.

National Socialist German Workers' Party

(Nazi Party) was a far-right, racist political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945.

Mein Kampf

Book written by Hitler while he was exiled, my struggle.

Lebensraum

space sought for occupation by a nation whose population is expanding.

Enabling Act

a provision in a law that confers on appropriate officials the power to implement or enforce the law.

Aryan

a member of the prehistoric people who spoke Proto-Indo European.

Heinrich Himmler

German Nazi who was chief of the SS and the Gestapo and who oversaw the genocide of six million Jews.

Nuremberg Laws

A group of laws that robbed German Jews of their citizenship in 1935.

Kristallnacht

Night of Broken Glass, Nov 9 1938 night when the Nazis killed or injured many jews & destroyed many jewish properties.

Photomontage

a picture made of a combination of photographs.

Surrealism

artistic movement that seeks to depict the world of the unconscious.

Uncertainty Principle

the idea put forth by Heinsberg in 1927 that the behavior of subatomic particles is uncertain, suggesting that all of the physical laws governing the universe are based on uncertainty.