Abitur NRW Geschichte 2023 · GK · Nachtermin · bilingual Englisch

Abiturprüfung 2023 · Geschichte bilingual-englisch, Grundkurs

Aufgabenstellung:

1. Analyse the source. (26 Punkte)

2. Put the source into the context of the relations between Britain and Germany during the era of European imperialism (14 Punkte) and determine how the author views Germany (14 Punkte). (28 Punkte)

3. Take a stance on how the author assesses the political situation. (26 Punkte)

(Darstellungsleistung: 20 Punkte · Gesamtpunktzahl: 100 Punkte)

Materialgrundlage

Anonymous: England and Germany. In: The Saturday Review, 11. September 1897 (No. 2185, Vol. 84), S. 278–279.

Hinweise zum Material: The Saturday Review (of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art): a London weekly newspaper established in 1855. Around the turn of the century it published several articles with an anti-German stance.

England and Germany.

1 THE Old Wise Man of Europe has spoken. And there should fall on England the silence of reflection and preparation. “The chief topic of conversation between the Emperor and the Tsar,” said Prince Bismarck, as quoted by the “Times”, “must have turned on the subject of England.” 1 The old statesman has watched the growth of the grafts 2 he planted on the Prussian

5 stock, and knows that the principalities and provinces of the German Empire are united into a vigorous and organic whole. He knows that Russia, shapeless and vast, an incompressible but docile 3 fluid, may be quietly held off the flanks of Germany, to creep slowly and irrepressibly through the Balkans to the sea. There, in a corner remote from German interests, it may meet the enemies of Germany with explosive violence. And France? Does he not remember how,

10 when the difficulty France appeared to have in accepting the fait accompli 4 of the integrality of the German Empire inspired in him a “prudent mistrust,” he said to Ferry 5: “ ‘Seek some compensation. Found colonies. Take outside of Europe whatever you like; you can have it.’ And Ferry, without my ever having sought to create for him the slightest embarrassment – quite the contrary – obtained Tunis,” and, he might have added, Tonkin? 6 France busy with

15 her Tunis and her Tonkin, Russia quietly pushed to the east and the south, and there was left for Germany the simple task of sitting peacefully on her bulging coffers, while her merchants captured the trade of England and her diplomatist guided the diplomatists of England into perpetual bickerings with other countries.

19 Prince Bismarck has long recognized what at length the people of England are beginning to

20 understand – that in Europe there are two great, irreconcilable, opposing forces, two great nations who would make the whole world their province, and who would levy from it the tribute of commerce. England, with her long history of successful aggression, with her marvellous conviction that in pursuing her own interests she is spreading light among nations dwelling in darkness, and Germany, bone of the same bone, blood of the same blood, with a

25 lesser will-force, but, perhaps, with a keener intelligence, compete in every corner of the globe. In the Transvaal, at the Cape, in Central Africa, in India and the East, in the islands of the Southern Sea, and the far North-West, wherever – and where has it not? – the flag has followed the Bible and trade has followed the flag, there the German bagman is struggling with the English pedlar 7. Is there a mine to exploit, a railway to build, a native to convert

30 from breadfruit to tinned meat, from temperance to trade gin, the German and the Englishman are struggling to be first. A million petty disputes build up the greatest cause of war the world has ever seen: If Germany were extinguished to-morrow, the day after to-morrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not be the richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or a right of succession; must they not fight for two hundred million pounds of

35 commerce?

36 There is something pathetic in the fashion in which the aged statesman sees at once the swift approach of the catastrophe he was the first to anticipate, and the crumbling away of the preparations he had made against its event. Take first the approach of the event. Ten years ago, except to the Prince himself, and perhaps to one or two watchful Englishmen, the idea

40 of a war between the two great Protestant Powers, so alike in temperament and genius, would have seemed impossible. [...] The outrageous follies of William the Witless, the German schemes in the Transvaal, the German breaches of international law in Central Africa 8, what Bismarck calls the “undue nagging of the English” in all diplomatic relations, the notorious set of German policy in the council of Ambassadors at Constantinople 9, and above all the

45 fashion in which England has been made to learn the real extent of German commercial rivalry, have all done their work: and now England and Germany alike realize the imminent probability of war. What Bismarck realized, and what we too may soon come to see, is that not only is there the most real conflict of interests between England and Germany, but that England is the only Great Power who could fight Germany without tremendous risk and

50 without doubt of the issue. Her partners in the Triple Alliance would be useless against England: Austria, because she could do nothing; Italy, because she dare not lay herself open to attack by France. The growth of Germany’s fleet has done no more than to make the blow of England fall on her more heavily. A few days and the ships would be at the bottom or in convoy to English ports; Hamburg and Bremen, the Kiel Canal and the Baltic ports would

55 lie under the guns of England, waiting, until the indemnity were settled. [...]

56 [E]ven under circumstances most favorable to Germany – that is to say, were Bismarck himself pulling the strings of Europe – there could have been only an attempt to moderate the pretensions of England. To this pass has the muddling of the German Emperor brought Germany, and at a time when England has awakened to what is alike inevitable and her best

60 hope of prosperity.

1 reference to a newspaper article in the London Times (8 September 1897) discussing the implications of the “Franco-Russian alliance and England” (title) as well as a visit of the German Emperor to St. Petersburg earlier the same year

2 grafts (image taken from the field of botany): cf. to graft: to unite (plants and stock). The metaphor relates to the idea that the German Empire was grafted onto a Prussian stem.

3 docile: here: easily manageable

4 fait accompli: a presumably irreversible fact

5 Jules Ferry (1832–1893): Prime Minister of France (1880–1881; 1883–1885) and a promoter of colonial expansion

6 Tonkin, a territory in what is today Northern Vietnam, considered key to the Chinese market and invaded by France during the Sino-French War (1884–85)

7 bagman, pedlar [more commonly: peddler]: somebody who offers products for sale in the street or from door to door

8 reference to the establishment of German rule by extreme force and brutality in areas of what is today Tanzania, Cameroon, and Togo and to conflicts between German and British colonialists in Africa

9 council to organize peace talks between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Greece mainly to decide on the fate of the island of Crete following the Greco-Turkish War in 1897

1.

Analyse the source. [26 Punkte]

2.

Put the source into the context of the relations between Britain and Germany during the era of European imperialism (14 Punkte) and determine how the author views Germany (14 Punkte). [28 Punkte]

3.

Take a stance on how the author assesses the political situation. [26 Punkte]

Abiturprüfung 2023 · Geschichte bilingual-englisch, Grundkurs

Aufgabe 2

Materialgrundlage

Burgess Clive: Whither Hitler? In: Saturday review of politics, literature, science and art, London, v. 157, 11. August 1934, S. 953.

Hinweise zum Autor und zum Material:

The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science and art was a British liberal-conservative weekly newspaper that was published from 1855 to 1938. By the 1930s it had lost its influence and was in decline.

Text source: Whither Hitler?

1 HISTORY can furnish no exact parallel to the extraordinary career of the ex-bricklayer, ex-house painter and ex-Lance-Corporal who has risen to the position of apparently undisputed master of a nation of which he only became a full naturalised citizen 1 two years ago. […]

Adolf Hitler was decorated for valour in the War, but he has owed none of his success to

5 military exploits. It is as a demagogue pure and simple, as a political Crusader re-awakening a depressed nation to a sense of its greatness that he has climbed to absolute power.

[…]

Hitler doubtless desired to retain the old associations of his title as Führer, but it was obviously also with an eye on the Reichswehr that he let it be known that his choice of the titles of

10 Führer and Chancellor was due to recognition of the fact that

“the greatness of the departed has lent a unique significance to the title of ‘Reich President.’ It is inseparably connected with the name of the great dead.”

It was a graceful announcement, well calculated to please the Army; and it shows that Hitler, for all his fanatical and emotional impulses, is not without the saving grace of tact.

15 It was a doubly astute move, since the Führer still survives for the Nazis, while the Army is gratified by the compliment paid to its dead hero. Hitler thus stands forth resplendent in his dual rôle as Nazi champion and natural heir to the sacred Hindenburg tradition.

The elaborate honours decreed by the Führer to be paid to the memory of the “Father of the Fatherland”, the victor of Tannenberg, have clearly been partially at least inspired by Hitler’s

20 desire to bask in the glory of the great departed.

Hitler had learnt as Chancellor to appreciate the merits of the popular idol. There were times when he found himself deferring to Hindenburg’s advice, times when the presence of his heroic figure behind him was both a comfort and a source of strength. And now that Hindenburg has gone, his shade is invoked to add lustre to Hitler’s own fame and to create the impression

25 that he has handed on his torch of patriotic service to the new Reichsführer.

Hitler, with all his immense self-confidence, must be painfully aware that the absence of Hindenburg’s restraining hand on the Army may introduce a new and serious complication for himself. Perhaps it was for that reason that the form of allegiance oath prescribed for the army was altered from “defence of the country and constitution” to “unconditional obedience to

30 the Leader of the German Reich, and People, Adolf Hitler.” However that may be, no time has been lost in securing the army’s allegiance for the Reichsführer.

The resort to a plebiscite for confirming Hitler in his new position is an indication that he is fully alive to the necessity of founding his dictatorship on what he is pleased to call “the will of the people.” The plebiscite of August 19 2 will doubtless be “managed” as adroitly as that

35 of last year. But Hitler could so easily have done without this popular sanction. That he has deliberately sought it must be accounted to him as sign of grace.

[…]

His Probable Course

So one can say with truth that he has started well. How will he continue? Has he either the

40 character or the gifts for the successful wielding of absolute power in a modern State of the size of Germany and at a time when that State is facing an extremely grave economic crisis?

The real Hitler has perhaps not yet been wholly revealed to us. He may have more strength of character and greater sanity of judgment than the outside world has been inclined to credit him; he may have more weaknesses that his own adoring following do not even dimly suspect.

45 If one might venture a prediction about a man of such incalculable possibilities, it would be to say that the probabilities point to his moving warily, avoiding dangerous adventures that might provoke foreign hostility, while, under Army and Junker influence, dropping his pseudo-Socialism and concentrating more and more on the nationalist side of his programme.

The leopard cannot change his spots 3, nor is Hitler in the least likely to abandon for all time

50 his expansionist dreams. But in the immediate future his main preoccupations must be with Germany’s internal troubles.

His path will be beset with difficulties which his magnetic personality alone cannot solve. He will be called upon to display other and higher qualities than those which has enabled him to climb to his present eminence.

55 And the answer to the question whether his régime will survive the severe task confronting it seems to rest not so much with his own achievements as with Fate personified in the German Army.

1 Hitler had renounced his Austrian citizenship in 1925 and obtained German citizenship in 1932 in order to be able to stand for election of the office of Imperial President.

2 In July 1933, a law had been passed that allowed the government to hold plebiscites on new laws and any other actions of government. On August 19, 1934, a plebiscite was held on the merging of the offices of chancellor and president.

3 A leopard cannot change his spots. (saying): A person cannot change their character.

1.

Analyze the source. [26 Punkte]

2.

Using the source as your starting point, explain the strategies Hitler used to gain and secure his power [14 Punkte] and examine the way in which the author portrays Hitler [14 Punkte]. [28 Punkte]

3.

Take a critical stand on the way the author views Hitler. [26 Punkte]

Hinweis zur Gesamtbewertung: Für die inhaltliche Leistung in den drei Teilaufgaben werden 80 Punkte vergeben, für die Darstellungsleistung (Strukturierung, Bezugnahme, Belege/Zitate, Fachsprache, sprachliche Richtigkeit) 20 Punkte. Insgesamt sind 100 Punkte erreichbar.

Abiturprüfung 2023 – Geschichte bilingual-englisch, Grundkurs

Aufgabenstellung:

1.

Analyse the source.

(26 Punkte)

2.

Using the text as your starting point, explain the historical references made to the Cold War and to German Unification (14 Punkte), and characterize how the self and the other are portrayed in this excerpt from Pompeo’s speech (14 Punkte).

(28 Punkte)

3.

Take a stance on what the author claims in the text.

(26 Punkte)

Materialgrundlage:

Michael R. Pompeo: The Lessons of 1989. Freedom and Our Future, Körber-Stiftung, Berlin, 8. November 2019.

(Rechtschreibung und Hervorhebungen wie im Original)

Hinweise zum Autor und zum Material:

Michael R. Pompeo (*1963): Secretary of State in the Trump Administration (2018 – 2021).

The Körber Foundation (German: Körber-Stiftung): a non-profit organization providing a platform to develop projects on social and political issues, e. g. in key areas of European foreign policy. In November 2019 the foundation hosted a congress (“Global Leaders Dialogue”) in Berlin, which was attended by high-ranking German and international officials. Pompeo’s speech was live-streamed and is available on online video sharing platforms.

1 [...] Together, we won the Cold War: Germany, Germany and the United States, and all of

2 our Allies and partners. And so it’s why I am really thrilled and happy to be here. It’s why

3 I’m so proud – speaking mere feet from where the Wall once stood – to celebrate its demise

4 now three decades ago. Sometimes we need to take a victory lap. We get caught up in the

5 challenge of the day and we forget the greatness that we have achieved to lift billions of

6 people out of horrific conditions, and that we did so together.

[...]

8 Now, I know, too, that many of you in the audience today – no matter what side of the Wall

9 you grew up on – won’t forget the horrors of the German Democratic Republic.

10 In 1961, the Vopos first jackhammered this city’s pavement and laid the cornerstones of

11 cruelty.

12 Those stones became 27 miles of wall snaking through the German capital, dividing a people.

13 The Wall wasn’t there to keep the West out. It was there to keep the East German people in.

14 That’s how authoritarian regimes operate then. It’s how they operate today. They force people

15 against their own will to not have the capacity to sustain themselves and be dependent on

16 that regime.

17 President Reagan thought that communism was a “disease” and he called it an “insanity.”

18 How right he was. We should never forget how many millions of people suffered and died

19 from the communist cause in the 20th century.

20 Indeed, the bleakness of East Germany was clear to me too, when I was stationed here. I

21 could see it, although only from a distance, and only a short distance across that border. But

22 I knew – I was young, I was in my early 20s – but what kind of country needed bricks and

23 barbed wire and machine guns just to keep its people from fleeing, and they needed a Stasi

24 to keep people from talking? Yesterday, I had a chance to go revisit some of the same ground

25 I walked when I was in my early 20s. I saw the tools of terror from the perspective of the

26 other side. I’d never been across that piece of terrain before. I’d seen Modlareuth¹, but only

27 from one side. Yesterday, I got to see it from the other side.

28 And yet for all of that, for all of that governmental power, all of that authoritarianism, the

29 GDR couldn’t crush the human spirit. The Germans maintained their imperishable hope of

30 freedom and a better future even under that authoritarian regime.

31 Countless East Germans – so many of them Berliners, and maybe some of them related to

32 you that are sitting right here today – made the daring flight against the – across the “kill

33 zone” and the Wall. And a number of them, of course, died trying. Our Embassy here in

34 Berlin, where the American flag flies proudly today, sits on the land that was once in that

35 “kill zone.”

[...]

37 We knew that deep down, deep down, a system that was afraid of its own people could never

38 be sustained. I believe that wholeheartedly today. (Applause.) We just didn’t – thank you.

39 We just didn’t know when it would end. Neither the lieutenant in the field nor the president

40 of the United States nor the chancellor of Germany knew the moment that it would come,

41 but we knew it was absolutely imperative that we fight for it. And I think there is a real lesson

42 there. There’s a lesson there for those of us who think that authoritarian regimes are destined

43 to live forever. They are not.

44 In 1989, on the day before George H.W. Bush’s inauguration, Erich Honecker predicted the

45 Wall would stand in, quote, “fifty and even one hundred years,” end of quote. I had just left.

46 I left in the beginning of October of 1989 to return to my next duty assignment. I had no idea

47 that I left just a couple weeks early. German courage – German courage brought it down

48 294 days later. It’s made my visit to St. Nicholas Church last night in Leipzig particularly

49 poignant for me.

50 The German triumph inspired others to throw off the chains of the Soviet empire, too, and

51 secure their own freedom, their own future, their own dignity.

52 So here we are on this three-decade anniversary celebrating a monumental victory for

53 mankind’s natural longing for freedom, for this great city of Berlin, for Germany, for the

54 German people, but also for the West – all of us. [...]

¹ Mödlareuth: Between 1949 and 1990, the northern part of this German village on the Bavarian-Thuringian border was in East Germany and the southern part in West Germany. It was called “Little Berlin” because a wall divided it. It became a symbol of separation between the West and East, later also a symbol of reunification.