HSC Modern History (NSW) key terms

The 1919 peace settlement ending World War I with Germany, imposing territorial losses, military limits, reparations and a war-guilt clause, and creating the League of Nations.

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, which made Germany accept responsibility for causing the war and became a focus of nationalist grievance and propaganda.

Compensation payments required from a defeated state for war damage. Germany's obligations under Versailles fuelled hyperinflation in 1923 and recurring political crises.

The first international organisation aimed at collective security, established in 1920. Its lack of enforcement power and the absence of key powers limited its effectiveness.

The principle that aggression against one state is treated as aggression against all, to be met by joint action. It underpinned the League's Covenant but proved hard to enforce.

The 'stab-in-the-back' myth claiming Germany's army was undefeated in 1918 but betrayed by civilians, socialists and republicans, used by nationalist groups to discredit the Weimar Republic.

Germany's democratic regime from 1919 to 1933, created after the abdication of the Kaiser. It faced instability, extremist challenges and economic crises before collapsing under Nazi pressure.

A Weimar constitution provision allowing the president to rule by emergency decree, suspending civil rights. Used repeatedly after 1930, it enabled government without parliamentary majorities.

The German national parliament. Its proportional representation system produced fragmented coalitions, and the 1933 Reichstag fire gave the Nazis a pretext for mass repression.

A currency collapse in which German money became almost worthless after Ruhr occupation and printing of banknotes, wiping out savings and deepening middle-class distrust of the republic.

Hitler's failed 1923 attempt to seize power in Bavaria. Its trial gave him publicity, and its failure pushed the Nazi Party toward contesting elections rather than open insurrection.

Hitler's autobiographical manifesto, written in prison after the Munich Putsch, setting out racial ideology, antisemitism, Lebensraum ambitions and hostility to democracy and Marxism.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party led by Hitler, which combined extreme nationalism, racial antisemitism and paramilitary violence to win support during the Depression.

The Nazi paramilitary 'brownshirts', used to intimidate opponents and disrupt meetings. Its growing power led Hitler to purge its leadership in the 1934 Night of the Long Knives.

The June 1934 purge in which Hitler's regime murdered SA leaders and other rivals, securing army support and consolidating his personal authority after Hindenburg's declining health.

The leadership principle holding that the Führer's will is the supreme source of law and authority, with obedience flowing downward through a hierarchy of appointed officials.

A law allowing Hitler's government to legislate without the Reichstag for four years. Passed after intimidation of deputies, it provided the legal basis for dictatorship.

The Nazi process of 'coordination', bringing political parties, unions, cultural bodies, education and state institutions under party control to eliminate independent organised life.

A system seeking total control over public and private life through a single party, ideology, terror, propaganda and surveillance, a concept often applied to Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR.

Deliberately biased communication used to shape beliefs and mobilise support. Under Goebbels, Nazi propaganda drew on mass rallies, radio, film and antisemitic imagery.

The suppression of information or expression deemed unacceptable. Nazi book burnings, control of the press and banning of rival publications narrowed public debate sharply.

The Nazi idea of 'living space', asserting that Germany needed territory in eastern Europe for expansion and settlement, a concept tied to racial hierarchy and later justifying invasion.

Hostility toward or discrimination against Jewish people. Nazi antisemitism moved from legal exclusion and boycotts to violence and finally to the Holocaust.

1935 legislation stripping German Jews of citizenship and banning marriage or relationships with 'Aryan' Germans, embedding racial discrimination in law and defining Jewish identity by ancestry.

The November 1938 state-orchestrated pogrom of violence against Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues, followed by mass arrests and fines, marking a sharp escalation of persecution.

The systematic Nazi genocide of European Jews, alongside Roma, disabled people and others, carried out through ghettos, mass shootings and extermination camps during World War II.

The policy of conceding to aggressive demands to avoid war, associated with Britain and France in the 1930s. The Munich Agreement of 1938 is its most cited example.

The 1938 deal permitting Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Made without Czech consent, it symbolised appeasement and failed to secure lasting peace.

The 1939 non-aggression treaty between Germany and the USSR, with secret provisions dividing eastern Europe, which removed the risk of a two-front war for Hitler's invasion of Poland.

Stalin's campaigns of the late 1930s involving show trials, executions and mass arrests of party members, military officers and citizens, entrenching terror as an instrument of rule.

Stalin's policy of merging peasant farms into state-controlled collective units, pursued to extract grain and fund industrialisation, causing resistance, deportation and famine.

Centralised Soviet targets for industrial output from 1928, prioritising heavy industry, which raised production but imposed harsh conditions and consumed resources at great human cost.

An ideology emphasising the interests, identity and sovereignty of a nation, often mobilising populations for unity or expansion and shaping conflicts in the modern world.

The glorification of military power and the dominance of armed forces in state policy and society, a factor in arms races and the outbreak of major wars.

Formal agreements between states to support one another, intended as deterrence but capable of turning local disputes into wider wars through obligations and escalation.

The extension of a state's power through colonial or territorial control, generating rivalry over markets, resources and prestige that contributed to international tension.

The principle that peoples should choose their own political status and government, promoted after World War I but applied selectively, creating grievances and new minorities.

The prolonged ideological and strategic rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies after 1945, fought through alliances, proxy conflicts, arms races and propaganda.

The US policy of limiting the spread of communism through economic aid, alliances and military commitment, articulated in the late 1940s and applied in Europe and Asia.

A conflict in which major powers support opposing local forces rather than fighting each other directly, as in Korea and Vietnam, limiting direct confrontation between nuclear states.

A period of eased tension between superpowers in the 1970s, marked by arms control talks and improved dialogue, though competition continued in other regions.

The process by which colonies gained independence from imperial powers, accelerating after World War II and reshaping international politics through new sovereign states.

Campaigns to end racial segregation and discrimination, especially in the United States, using legal challenges, boycotts, marches and civil disobedience to secure legislative change.

The deliberate, non-violent refusal to obey unjust laws or commands, used by movements such as those led by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr to expose injustice.

Movements and ideas seeking equal rights and opportunities for women, challenging legal, economic and social inequalities in areas such as suffrage, work and reproductive rights.

The system of institutionalised racial segregation and white minority rule in South Africa, dismantled through internal resistance and international pressure in the early 1990s.

The use or threat of violence against civilians to achieve political aims through fear, a contested term whose application shapes debates about legitimacy and security responses.

Acts committed with intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, a concept defined after World War II and central to studies of mass atrocity.