BW Abitur History Bilingual FR LF study guide
BW Abitur History Bilingual FR LF · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Baden-Württemberg Abitur in History (bilingual French, Leistungsfach) is a school-leaving examination taken as one of the two advanced courses (Leistungsfächer) within the German Abitur. It is designed for Gymnasium pupils in Baden-Württemberg who have followed the bilingual French strand and who want to sit a history examination in which French sources, French task instructions and French-language answers have a legitimate place alongside German ones. The BW Abitur History Bilingual FR LF study guide has 8 sections and about 3,379 words.
01Modernity and upheaval: revolutions, industrialisation and social change (c. 1789–1914)
This domain tests whether you can explain how the political revolution that began in France in 1789 and the industrial transformation that started in Britain interacted to dissolve the corporate society of the ancien régime and to create new classes, ideologies and institutions in France and Germany - and whether you can compare the two national paths without collapsing them into one story. Doppelte Revolution (Hobsbawm's "dual revolution"): treat the French political and the British industrial revolutions as interacting processes.
473 words, about 2 min02Imperialism, World War I and the interwar order (c. 1880–1933)
This domain examines why European states escalated colonial rivalry into a world war, how the war was fought and remembered, and whether the Paris settlement of 1919 made a stable interwar order possible. The exam rewards causal differentiation - long-term structures versus decisions in July 1914 - and precise knowledge of treaty terms.
431 words, about 2 min03National Socialism, World War II and the Holocaust (1933–1945)
The exam tests your ability to explain how a pluralistic republic was transformed within months into a dictatorship, how persecution escalated into industrial mass murder, and how war, occupation and genocide were interconnected - supported by source evidence rather than moral assertion. 1933–34 Machtergreifung/Gleichschaltung : Reichstag Fire Decree (28 February 1933), Enabling Act (24 March 1933), law against the formation of parties (14 July 1933), Röhm purge 1934, death of Hindenburg and the merging of Reich President and Chancellor offices.
418 words, about 2 min04Cold War, division and European integration (1945–1990)
This domain asks how the anti-Hitler coalition collapsed into a bipolar confrontation, how the two German states were built into rival blocs, and how West European integration and later détente managed that conflict until 1989–90. Bloc formation : Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan 1947, Cominform 1947, Berlin Blockade and airlift 1948–49, NATO 1949, Grundgesetz (23 May 1949) and GDR constitution (7 October 1949), Warsaw Pact 1955, Hallstein Doctrine 1955.
393 words, about 2 min05Germany and France in bilateral and European perspective (deutsch-französische Beziehungen)
This domain examines the Franco-German relationship as a conflict history (1870–1945) that was deliberately converted into a motor of European integration after 1950. The exam tests your ability to name concrete treaties and actors, and to distinguish the rhetoric of friendship from institutional substance and remaining asymmetries.
440 words, about 2 min06Transformation of the international order since 1990 and current conflicts
This domain asks you to describe the post-Cold-War order, its erosion and the conflicts that followed, and to weigh competing characterisations such as "liberal unipolar moment", "multipolarity" or "return of great-power competition" against evidence. 1990–91 settlement : Two-Plus-Four Treaty, Charter of Paris (1990), dissolution of the Soviet Union (December 1991), Gulf War 1991 with UN mandate.
421 words, about 2 min07Source analysis: written, visual and statistical sources in German and French
This domain tests a procedural skill: you must analyse German- and French-language sources - texts, caricatures and posters, statistics - using a method, and integrate the analysis into a historical argument rather than merely describing content. Method, applied every time : (1) Analyse the source - type, author, date, addressee, occasion, transmission; (2) describe content and structure ; (3) explain intention and language ; (4) evaluate reliability and limits ; (5) place in context and draw a conclusion (Quellenwert).
388 words, about 2 min08Historical methodology: chronology, continuity and change, multiperspectivity, historical judgement
This domain tests the meta-level: whether you can justify the categories you use - periodisation, continuity and change, perspective and the distinction between factual and value judgements - while writing a clear, evidence-based argument. Chronology is constructed : dates such as 1789, 1871, 1914, 1933, 1945, 1989 mark political breaks but may obscure structural continuities (industrialisation, welfare-state growth, gender orders).
415 words, about 2 min