Glossary22-99

Glossary of Terms
Auschwitz:	located in Poland, it is the most infamous of the concentration camps; 200,000,000 people were killed there.
Aryan:	the race that Hitler desired all of Germany to be; fair skin with blond hair and blue eyes.
Blitzkrieg:	sudden overpowering bombardment involving massed air forces and mechanized ground forces; violent offensive with great speed and force used by Hitler.
Bund deutscher Madel:	Nazi youth group for girls.
Communism:	a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production; a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably.
Dopolavoro:	national recreation agency in Italy. It established clubhouses, athletic facilities, etc in order to monitor the activities of the citizens in Italy.
Einsatzgruppen:	"death units"; followed the regular German army rounding up Jews and executing them and burying them in mass graves.
Fascism:	a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of the opposition.
Fascio di Combattimento:	first Fascist movement in Europe; headed by Mussolini after World War I.
"Final Solution":	Hitler’s ultimate goal of destroying the Jews and having a final victory of the Aryan Nation; the decision to create the concentration camps as a way to finally exterminate the Jewish race.
Fuhrerprinzip:	the idea of a one-sided party following a single leader.
Gestapo:	Nazi police used to round up Jews often through violence.
Gleichschaltung:	the coordination of all institutes under Nazi control.
The Great Depression:	extreme economic crisis that befell the world in the 1930’s; It brought mass poverty, unemployment, and despair. * enabled totalitarian leaders like Stalin, Hitler, & Mussolini to seize power. *
Hitler Jugend:	Nazi youth group for boys.
Holocaust:	the mass genocide of millions of Jews, Gypsies, Slavic peoples, the handicapped and other "unfavorable"members of society by the Nazis; Groups of people were rounded up by the Nazis and carted off to concentration camps in which they were killed immediately in gas chambers, forced to do hard labor and then killed, or used for medical experiments.
Kraft durch Freude:	"Strength through Joy"; program to offer German workers activities to fill their leisure time (i.e. films, concerts, operas).
Kristallnacht:	November 9-10, 1938 "the night of broken glass"; Nazi rampage in which synagogues were burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses were burned, and approximately 100 Jews were killed, and 30,000 Jewish males were sent to concentration camps.
Kulaks:	well-to-do peasant proprietors in Russia who employed wage labor; targeted as representing capitalism in a communist society.
Madagascar Plan:	failed plan to the Nazis to ship the Jews to the African island of Madagascar.
Mein Kampf:	book written my Hitler in which he describes his political strategies; theories on racial superiority, and thoughts on propaganda and the masses.
Nazism:	the body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the National Socialist Workers' Party in the Third German Reich, including the totalitarian principle of government, state control of all industry, predominance of groups assumed to be racially superior, and the supremacy of the fuhrer.
"Night Witches":	Soviet female pilots who helped to defeat the Germans at Stalingrad.
Nuremberg laws:	created in 1935, separated Jews from the rest of the Germans socially, politically, and economically (i.e., forbade marriages between Jews and "pure" Germans).
Ostara:	periodical published by Lanz von Liebenfels in which he claimed his belief that the German Aryans were an exalted group that was destined to dominate the world.
squadristi:	groups of armed Italian fascists who used terrorist tactics to help achieve fascist political power.
Sturmabteilung:	the police force of the Nazi party.
Yalta:	the site of the peace conference after World War Two during February 5-11, 1945. Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill attended.
People

Neville Chamberlain:	Prime Minister of Great Britain (1936-1940); attended the Munich Conference and agreed to appease all of Hitler’s demands. After the Conference, he declared that the world had "peace for our time".
Winston Churchill:	Prime Minister of Great Britain (1940-45, 1951-56).
Joseph Goebbels:	head of propaganda in Nazi Germany.
Reinhard Heydrich:	head of Schutzstaffel/Reich Security Police (SS); Hitler gave him administrative control over the final solution.
Adolph Hitler:	Dictator of Nazi Germany (1933-1945).
Adolf Lanz:	ex-Catholic monk who believed in the superiority of the Aryan race; published the periodical, Ostara,in the 1920; &30's in which he promulgates these beliefs; greatly influenced Hitler.
Benito Mussolini:	fascist dictator of Italy (1927-1944).
Franklin D. Roosevelt:	President of the United States (1932-1945).