Aufgabe 4 · Abitur NRW Geschichte GK · Haupttermin · bilingual Englisch 2022

Abiturprüfung 2022 – Geschichte bilingual-englisch, Grundkurs

Aufgabenstellung:

1.

Analyse the text. (26 Punkte)

2.

Determine how the author views Hitler (14 Punkte) and examine the way he builds his argument (14 Punkte). (28 Punkte)

3.

Assess the position taken by the author. (26 Punkte)

Materialgrundlage:

Brendan Simms: Hitler – a global biography. New York 2019, S. 551 – 555.

Hinweise zum Autor:

Brendan Peter Simms (born 1967): Professor in the History of International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. He focuses on the history of Germany and Europe.

1 [...] The Anglo-American capitalist world order against which Hitler revolted structured

his entire political career. Sometime before he ever began to speak about the Jews, Hitler

experienced the might of the British Empire in Flanders, the demographic and industrial power

of the United States at the second Battle of the Marne and the economic stranglehold of global

5 capitalism after the imposition of the Versailles Treaty. Shortly after, he became convinced

that the Jews – whose relationship with Anglo-America was in his view essentially symbiotic –

were the driving force behind international capitalism and the coalition which had brought

down the Reich. Among the instruments used to undermine Germany from within, Hitler

believed, was the virus of Bolshevism, which he regarded as a much greater threat than the

10 Soviet Union itself. The root of his Jew-hatred, therefore, was primarily to be found in his

hostility to global high finance rather than his hatred of the radical left. Those who do not

want to speak about Hitler's anti-capitalism should remain silent on his anti-Semitism.

Hitler's solution to the perceived German predicament fell into two parts. First of all, he

called for a programme of racial transformation within Germany, which eliminated 'harmful'

15 elements, especially the Jews, and encouraged the 'elevation' of the racial 'high value' strands

in the German Volk. Secondly, Hitler demanded the acquisition of Lebensraum in the east,

which would provide the land and resources to offer a comparable living standard to the

United States, and thus end the debilitating emigration of the nation's best and brightest,

who might return as enemy soldiers at some future date. It would also make Germany

20 'blockadeproof' in the event of a renewed round of warfare with Anglo-America.

If Hitler's relationship with the British Empire and the United States was ultimately

antagonistic, it was also admiring and entangled. He long hoped for a British alliance and he

never ceased to exalt the supposed racial qualities of the 'Anglo-Saxons' on both sides of the

Atlantic, and to believe that they represented Germany's 'better' racial half 1. Anglo-America

25 was Hitler's model, much more so than Stalin's Russia or even Mussolini's Italy. The original

for the Lebensraum project was the British Empire, and especially the American colonization

of the west 2. Hitler and the Third Reich were thus a reaction not to the Russian Revolution

but to the dominance of Anglo-America and global capitalism. The Holocaust was not a

distorted copy of Stalin's Great Terror, but a pre-emptive strike against Roosevelt's America.

30 After he came to power, the British Empire and the United States remained the focal point of

Hitler's policies. His entire domestic programme was designed to match the 'living standards'

offered by the 'American Dream'. His true nemesis 3 was the British Empire and especially

the United States, against whom he battled for control of the 'trophy' of the 'world'. It was

Roosevelt's hostility which caused Hitler to speed up his programme from late 1937, British

35 resistance during the May crisis of 1938 4 which led him to bring forward the dismemberment

of Czechoslovakia. The struggle against Britain and America eventually 'forced' Hitler to go

to war against them both, and then to extend the theatre of operations ever more widely. The

quest for Lebensraum led to conflict with Britain over Poland, which in turn 'required' him

to occupy much of Scandinavia, France, the Low Countries, the Balkans and North Africa.

40 It drove the attack on Russia. Hitler had originally set out to make Germany a world power,

not to achieve global domination, but each gain seemed to require another. By 1941-2, when

he was directing operations on three continents, and across the seven seas, it seemed as if only

the world would be enough for Hitler. But the prize eluded him: the trophy was lifted once

more by the Anglo-Americans, with substantial help from their Soviet allies, of course.

[...]

1 In a heterosexual marriage, (male) partners sometimes refer to their (female) partners as their "better half".

2 American colonization of the west: the process of nineteenth-century settlement in the US of the territory between the Mississippi river and Pacific Ocean by European immigrants, completed by 1890

3 nemesis (Greek; meaning "to give what is due"): an ancient Greek goddess who pursues and takes retribution on those who are arrogant (especially towards the gods)

4 a short time of international tension in 1938 triggered by reports of German troop movements against Czechoslovakia allegedly signalling an impending outbreak of war