Hello, I'm Mr. Marchin, and thank you for joining me for today's history lesson.

I'll be guiding you through all of our resources today, and my top priority is to make sure that by the end of our lesson, you are able to successfully meet our learning objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on the development of the Cold War, where we've been asking ourselves, how peaceful was peaceful coexistence? By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain why NATO and the Warsaw Pact were formed.

There are three key words which will help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are alliance, controversial, and rearmament.

An alliance is an agreement between countries or political parties to work together to achieve something.

If something is controversial, it causes a lot of disagreement or argument.

And rearmament is the process of supplying yourself or others with new weapons, especially in order to become a strong military power again.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts and we'll begin by thinking about the formation of NATO.

In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or NATO was formed.

NATO was a military alliance of 12 countries led by the USA and including others such as Britain and France.

After the end of the second World War, security remained a critical issue in Western Europe.

Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg had all suffered considerably from invasions, occupations, and other military attacks launched by Germany during the two World Wars.

All five were concerned that Germany might attack them again in the future.

Furthermore, the expansion of Soviet power in Europe was also worrying to these countries.

As a result, in 1947, Britain and France signed a military alliance agreeing to support one another in the event that either was attacked by Germany or the USSR.

In 1948, the Treaty of Brussels expanded the Anglo-French military alliance to include Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

This alliance became known as the Western Union.

So reflecting on what we've just heard, which two states were seen at the main threats to Western Europe after the second World War? Was it Germany, Italy, the USA, or USSR? Remember, you need to pick two of those for this question.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answers.

Okay.

Well done to everybody who said that the two states who were seen as the main threats to Western Europe after World War II were Germany and the USSR.

The Soviet threat appeared to be growing larger by the end of the 1940s.

The USSR was perceived as an aggressor during the takeover as Czechoslovakia by communists in 1948, and again during the Berlin blockade which began that same year.

Although the Western Union was in existence, this did not include the USA.

Both Britain and France realised that the union would not be strong enough to resist a Soviet invasion of Western Europe without American assistance.

In April 1949, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or NATO, was formed.

NATO was a defensive alliance.

Its aim was to prevent the further expansion of the USSR and NATO members committed to defending one another if they were attacked.

This new alliance included the USA, the five members of the Western Union, alongside Canada, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland.

All of these member states were capitalist democracies.

However, West Germany, despite also being a capitalist state located in West Germany, was not invited to join NATO, largely because of the fears of Britain and France.

So thinking about what we've just heard, I want you to identify one event which helped to trigger the formation of NATO in 1949.

Pause video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done to anyone who said either the communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, or the Berlin blockade, which began in 1948 and lasted until 1949.

Both of these events made the USSR appear as an aggressive state that was really threatening the security of Western Europe.

And let's try another question.

This time I want you to write the missing word from the following statement.

NATO was founded to help defend Western European states from possible blank attacks.

So what's the missing word? Pause video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay.

Well done to everybody who said that the missing word was Soviet.

NATO was founded to help defend Western European states from possible Soviet attacks, as the late 1940s was a time when the USSR's power appeared to be rising and the threat that it seemed to pose to Western Europe seemed to be growing.

So we're now in a good position to put all of our knowledge about the formation of NATO into practise.

We have four statements which read, "NATO was the first military alliance including states from Western Europe made after World War II." "NATO was intended to be a defensive alliance." "NATO included some communist countries to avoid worrying the USSR." And "West Germany was invited to join NATO." So I want you to do two things in response to these statements.

Firstly, I want you to identify whether each statement is true or false, and then I want you to correct any false statements.

You should provide additional details to support any corrections.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So firstly, I asked you to identify whether each of our statements was true or false.

For our first statement, you should have said that it was false.

For the second statement, you should have said that it was true.

NATO was intended to be a defensive alliance aimed against the power of the Soviet Union.

For the third statement, you should have said that it was false.

And for the fourth statement, you also should have identified that it was false.

So we can then think about the second part of task A where I ask you to correct any of the false statements and provide additional details to support those corrections.

Your answers may have included.

There were other military alliances, including states from Western Europe before NATO was founded, like the Western Union, which was founded in 1948.

NATO did not include any communist states.

It was made up of capitalist democracies and West Germany was not invited to join NATO even though it was not a communist state.

So really well done if your own responses look something like those models which we've seen.

And now we're ready to move on to the second part of our lesson for today where we are going to consider Germany and NATO.

In the early 1950s, discussions began amongst leading NATO members about the possibility of West Germany joining the alliance.

German participation in NATO was controversial mainly because it involved the issue of rearmament.

Aside from the original members of NATO, there were other countries in Europe who felt threatened by the Soviet Union.

In 1952, both Greece and Turkey became new members of NATO.

West Germany also hoped to be able to join the alliance.

However, West German entry into NATO would also involve allowing the country to rebuild its military strength.

This was very controversial, especially in France and to a lesser extent in Britain, who worried about the potential future threat a re-armed Germany could pose to them.

Rearmament of West Germany was also opposed by the USSR, which had also suffered terribly during World War II after it was invaded by Nazi Germany.

The agreement at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 to disarm Germany had been aimed at calming Soviet security concerns as much of those of Western countries.

In negotiations over German rearmament, Britain raised concerns about the risk of upsetting the USSR.

Nevertheless, the USA was particularly determined by the mid-1950s for West Germany to be rearmed and included in the military alliance.

If NATO could benefit from the addition of hundreds of thousands of German troops, it might have a much greater chance at defeating any potential Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

In 1955, West Germany formally joined NATO.

So let's make sure we have a secure understanding of what we've just heard.

What agreement was reached regarding the German military at the Potsdam Conference in 1945? Pause video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay.

Well done to everybody who said that at the Potsdam conference, it was agreed that Germany's military should be disarmed.

This was intended to keep the country weak and ensure that it couldn't inflict the destruction and damage that it had on other nations, like the Soviet Union, France, and Britain during World War II.

And let's try another question.

This time we have a statement which reads, "Countries other than the USSR were worried about West German rearmament." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay.

Well done everybody who said that that statement was true, but we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that Britain and France both expressed opposition at times to re-arming West Germany.

And the second says that the USA had to be convinced by European countries to support West German rearmament.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct justification was A.

Britain and France both expressed opposition at times to re-arming West Germany.

Both Western European countries, just like the USSR, were worried that if Germany rebuilt its military strength, it might target this against them in future.

And let's try another question.

In which year did West Germany join NATO? Was it 1949, 1952, 1955 or 1958? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was 1955.

That was the year in which West Germany joined NATO.

So we are now in a good position to put all of our knowledge about Germany and NATO into practise.

We have a view from Jacob.

Jacob says that the rearmament of West Germany was controversial in many parts of Europe.

I want you to explain why Jacob's view is correct.

You should consider the reaction of both communist and non-communist countries.

So pause video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So we had Jacob's view that the rearmament of West Germany was controversial in many parts of Europe.

And I asked you to explain why that view was correct.

So your answer may have included, "Although West Germany joined NATO and began to re-arm in 1955, this decision had previously been seen as controversial in many parts of Europe.

France, for instance, had opposed US attempts to have West Germany join NATO earlier in the 1950s as it still did not trust Germany post-World War II.

Similarly, the USSR had also perceived the rearmament of West Germany as a serious security threat to itself.

Meanwhile, Britain had expressed concerns that re-arming West Germany would make relations between the West and the USSR even more tense." So really well done if your own response looks something like that model there.

And now we're ready to move on to the third and final part of today's lesson where we are going to think about the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War.

The entry of West Germany into NATO was received poorly in the Soviet Union.

This expansion of the Western Military Alliance and the Soviet reaction to it were very important for the development of the Cold War in the mid-1950s.

West German rearmament and entry into NATO alarmed Soviet leaders.

West Germany's location along the borders of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe made it appear threatening to the USSR.

Furthermore, Soviet leaders perceived the decision as aggressive because it seemed to break agreements made at the end of the Second World War about keeping Germany weak.

Just over a week after West Germany was allowed to join NATO, the Soviets announced the establishment of an equivalent military alliance, the Warsaw Pact.

In addition to the USSR, the members of the Warsaw Pact were Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and the German Democratic Republic, better known as East Germany.

The alliance was under the command of the USSR and the leadership was entirely Soviet.

This differed from NATO, which did depend on the USA, but drew leaders from all of its member states.

The establishment of the Warsaw Pact meant that there could no longer be any doubts that Europe was a divided continent.

Although Soviet leaders like Nikita Khrushchev spoke of peaceful coexistence, the east and west were now formally divided into different military camps, one under the protection of the USA and the other led by the Soviet Union.

This split helped to intensify the arms race and led some people to worry that conflict between the USA and USSR had become more likely as either might be dragged into a war in defence of one of their allies in Europe.

So let's reflect on what we've just heard.

I want you to discuss the following with a partner.

Why were Soviet leaders concerned that West Germany had been allowed to join NATO in May 1955? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your discussion.

Okay, well done to anybody whose discussion involved the following point: that Soviet leaders believed that an armed and powerful Germany on the borders of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe would be a military threat to the USSR.

And let's try a second question.

Which of these free countries were members of the Warsaw Pact? Czechoslovakia, East Germany, France, or Poland? Remember, you are looking for three correct answers to this question, so pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answers.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the three countries which were members of the Warsaw Pact from our list were Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland.

France was a member of NATO, the western military alliance, which rivalled the Warsaw Pact.

And let's try one more question.

This time we have a statement which reads, "The formation of the Warsaw Pact suggested peaceful coexistence had been achieved." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false.

But we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that most of Eastern and Western Europe were formally separated into different military camps after 1955.

And the second says that most of Eastern and Western Europe went to war against one another after 1955.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct justification was A.

Most of Eastern and Western Europe were formally separated into different military camps after 1955 as a result of the creation of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

So we are now in a good position to put all of our knowledge about the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War into practise.

I want you to explain how NATO's expansion helped to intensify the Cold War.

You may find it helpful to think about where NATO expansion took place, how the USSR responded to this, and the significance of the Soviet response.

Pause video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your answer.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So I asked you to explain how NATO expansion helped to intensify the Cold War.

And your answer may have included NATO expansion occurred in 1955 when West Germany was allowed to join the western military alliance.

This helped to intensify the Cold War because it led to the USSR establishing the Warsaw Pact, a rival alliance system, less than a week after West Germany's entry into NATO.

The Soviet Union had already viewed the creation of NATO as an aggressive action that threatened the USSR and other communist states in Eastern Europe.

And these concerns had only increased when West Germany was allowed to join.

The formation of the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance of communist countries, in response to NATO's expansion meant that Europe had formally become divided into two competing, armed alliances.

Many people worry that the existence both NATO and the Warsaw Pact meant that small disagreements between countries in Europe would be much more likely to escalate into significant conflicts involving many countries, including the two nuclear superpowers.

Really well done if your own response looks something like that model which we've just seen.

And that means we've now reached the end of today's lesson, which puts us in a good position to summarise our learning about NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

We've seen that after World War II, Western European states like Britain and France worried about the threat posed by both the USSR and Germany.

NATO was a US-led military alliance formed in 1949 to defend Western Europe against attacks by the Soviet Union.

NATO expanded after 1949, admitting Greece and Turkey in 1952, and West Germany in 1955.

West German entry into NATO worried the USSR, who formed an alliance of their own, the Warsaw Pact, the same year.

So really well done for all of your effort during today's lesson.

It's been a pleasure to help guide you through our resources today, and I look forward to seeing you again in future as we think further about the development of the Cold War and continue to ask ourselves, how peaceful was peaceful coexistence?.