Lesson video

Hello, welcome to KS3 history.

I'm Ms. Dawson.

Today we're starting our first lesson of a six lesson enquiry into when was the turning point in the second world war.

Today, we're going to be looking at something called Blitzkrieg and how the Nazis had control of Europe at the beginning of the second world war.

What I'm going to do now, is get my head out of the way so that you can pause your video and copy down today's title.

Once you've done that, resume the video and we'll get going.

Off we go.

Okay, let's get started.

For today's lesson you're going to need a piece of paper, a pen, a ruler and a pencil.

You'll also need to make sure you're somewhere nice and calm and quiet where you've got space to work and you don't have any distractions.

Well done if you're all ready good to go.

If you need to get something, go ahead, pause the video and get whatever you need and get yourself set up, resume the video when you're ready to start.

I'd like us to start off by taking a look at this image.

This image was taken in June 1940, and it gives us some context into what we're going to talk about today.

If you need to put your video on pause, what can you see in this image that's significant and what might it be telling you about what's happening? Well done if you noticed that we can see at the front of this image, Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany.

So this is clearly an important photo of the beginning of the second world war.

What else did we notice? Do you recognise this building in the background? This is the Eiffel tower, a famous monument in Paris, which is in France.

So why might it be in June 1940, really, really significant that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi leaders are taking a picture in front of a famous building in France.

So, as I've already reminded you, this photo was taken in June 1940.

It shows Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany and his most trusted aides walking through Paris.

The second world war had been happening since September 1939.

So this picture tells us, if the war started in September 1939 and in June 1940 there was a picture of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Paris.

How might the war have gone at the beginning for the Nazis? Have a think about it.

What I'd like you to do now, is to use what you've gleaned so far from looking at this image to write up a quick answer about what the picture shows and what that could suggest.

Use some of the clues that I've given you to help you in your answer.

You can also use the sentence starters to help write in full sentences.

Put the video on pause for a minute.

Once you've written something down resume and we'll check it against mine.

Off you go.

Welcome back.

Remember your answer and mine might look different, that doesn't mean that yours is wrong.

Let's take a look at what I put.

This picture shows Adolf Hitler, walking through Paris in June 1940.

This suggests that Germany had defeated France.

So well done if you used historical details from the source, such as Adolf Hitler is walking through Paris and well done if you worked out that the fact that the German leader is in Paris might suggest that Germany defeated France early in the beginning of the war.

Don't panic if you didn't, that's absolutely fine.

Give yourself a big tick.

If you've written anything that looks like this.

Through our enquiry we're going to cover six lessons and we're going to look at different parts of the second world war.

Our question is, when was the turning point of the second world war? And I'm going to talk to you in a bit more detail about what that means shortly.

But you may have worked out from this image we looked at at the beginning that at the start of the war it looked a little bit like Nazi Germany was going to win, but we know that they didn't.

So the turning point, is the point at which Nazis winning became a lot less likely and it became a lot more likely that the Allies would win.

Today we're going to look at the beginning of the war when the Nazis were doing quite well, using their tactics of Blitzkrieg to gain control of Europe.

And then we will follow with five more lessons where the fortunes changed slightly.

The second world war took place between 1939 and 1945.

Really, really recently, it's not that far away from today at all and it's important for us to recognise this when we talk about the second world war.

It's a very significant event that was not that long ago.

I'm going to give us now a very basic chronology, just so we can get ourselves contextualised for today.

And we will have more details on this as we go.

So I've already said the war took place between 1939 and 1945.

So, 1939 was when Britain and France declared war on Germany.

And we're going to talk a bit more about that in a moment.

So that's the beginning of the war.

By 1940 France had surrendered to Germany, so that picture that was taken in Paris shows that the Nazis had successfully defeated and occupied France within less than a year, by 1940.

1941 was a significant year because this was the year that United States entered the war.

So up until 1941, the United States had not been fighting.

And 1945 was when Germany surrendered.

Now this is a very basic chronology of the second world war, there'll be much more to come.

But these are the things you need to know in order to access today's work.

So we're going to talk a little bit about the different sides in the war and the world war two was fought between what we call the Allied powers and the Axis powers.

And I'm going to talk you through who those were in a moment.

Make sure you're paying attention because I'm going to test your knowledge on it in a second.

So, the first of the Allied powers was the United Kingdom, then we have France, then we have the USSR.

The USSR is another word for the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union, you may note did not become one of the Allied powers until June 1941.

And I'll explain a little bit more about what that means in a moment.

You may have heard that during the first world war, Britain and France were Allied with a country called Russia.

The Soviet Union was a newer country formed after the first world war, that contained Russia and also surrounding territories.

So, by the time the second world war came around, we wouldn't use the word Russia, we would use the word USSR, but some of the territory overlaps.

The United States entered the war in December 1941 and again, we've got another lesson coming up shortly for us to see why it is that they entered then.

And then China had been fighting a war against Japan since 1937 and we're not going to talk about that today, but we are going to look at the war in the Pacific or in the non European theatre of war later on in the enquiry.

So those are who we would consider to be the Allied powers.

Remember, I'm going to test you on these in a moment.

Let's take a look at who they fought against.

The Axis powers.

So the first of the Axis powers was Nazi Germany.

So Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler.

Then we have Italy, Italy was under the rule of a leader called Mussolini.

Italy was one of the Axis powers until 1943.

And then we've got Japan, and Japan was part of the war in the Pacific, which we will talk about in a few lessons time.

Are you going to be able to remember these? Okay, so I would like us to take a moment now to pause our video and see if we can sort the powers into the correct sides.

You should have a pencil and ruler, so you can draw a table that looks like the one on the left hand side of the screen.

And then in the correct sides of the tables, I want you to note here with the Allied powers and who are the Axis powers.

Pause the video take two or three minutes to do it and resume the video when you're happy and I'll go over the answers.

Off you go.

Welcome back.

Let's see how you did it and we go over the answers.

So on the side of the Allied powers, we've got the United Kingdom, France, the USA, the USSR and China.

Very well done, if you've got those correct.

You may have done even better than me and noted that the USA and the USSR were part of the Allied powers from 1941.

On the right hand side, the Axis powers were Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan.

And again, you might've improved on my answer and written that Italy was part of the Axis powers until 1943.

Tick the answers you've got right and correct the ones you got wrong, then get ready to move on.

I'm going to very briefly start by talking about the reasons that was the second world war.

On the map in front of you can see the major European powers that were part of the second world war.

We're going to talk a bit more about the war in Asia later on in the enquiry.

So one of the reasons there was a second world war was because of the legacy of the first world war.

After the first world war, Germany was treated incredibly harshly.

They had their military reduced by a huge amount, they were forced to pay huge amounts of reparations to their Allied powers.

And they were forced to accept that the first world war was all their fault.

This caused lots of upset and resentment among the German people and it was one of the reasons why Adolf Hitler was able to come to power.

Because he had promised Germany that he was going to reverse this harsh treatment.

Another reason the second world war broke out was because of Economic crash.

In the 1930's there was a great depression which caused huge problems in unemployment, rising prices and political difficulties.

This gave rise to extreme governance in Germany, Italy and in Japan.

The third and final reason for the second world war was what's known as a Policy of Appeasement.

Appeasement, we can remember this because it sounds a little bit like the word please.

Appeasement was a policy followed by Britain and France in order to try and please Hitler and Germany by allowing Germany to expand, hoping that it would not cause another war.

It didn't really help, it backfired.

We're going to look in more detail at what that means in a second.

But these are three reasons why the second world war broke out.

In more detail I'm going to go through the early steps to war and talk you through what they mean.

So in 1936, Germany remilitarized a key area called the Rhineland.

So just a moment ago, I told you that at the end of the first world war Germany was forced to have the size of that army reduced as part of their punishment.

This was because Britain, France and Russia didn't want Germany to be strong and be able to attack them again.

So remilitarizing means that Germany started rebuilding up their military.

They weren't supposed to do this under the agreements they'd signed at the end of the first world war, but they did it anyway, because Hitler felt that it was unfair that Germany wasn't allowed to have an army.

Following this in 1938, Germany united with the territory of Austria.

This is something also that they were told they weren't allowed to do because the Allied power was didn't want Germany to be really strong, big and militarised because they fear that they could attack.

Later on in 1938, Britain and France allowed Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

So this means that Germany was able to absorb or take a part of the neighbouring country Czechoslovakia and make it part of Germany.

These three actions are all things that Germany was not allowed to do under the agreement it was forced to sign at the end of the first world war.

However, public opinion had started to think that perhaps these terms were too harsh and Germany particularly complained about being treated very harshly and not being treated as an equal.

So when they started taking these steps at first they were allowed to, nobody stopped them.

After being allowed to take part of Czechoslovakia in 1938, Germany then decided they were going to invade and take the rest of it.

So this shows that the steps to war are getting a little bit more extreme now.

Finally in September 1939, Germany invaded Poland.

And when Germany invaded Poland, Britain and France, couldn't ignore what they were doing anymore and they declared war on Germany.

So this is when the second world war started.

We've gone through quite a lot of detail in a short space of time.

So we're going to take a break now to check the knowledge that we've looked at so far.

You've got five statements in front of you, some of them are true and some of them are false.

You need to pause the video and work out which is which.

You can either write out the entire statement and if you come across one that is false, you can rewrite it to make it true.

Or you can just write true or false for each one.

I don't mind which one you do, as long as it's the most useful to you.

Once you've worked out which ones are true and which ones are false resume the video and I'll tell you the answers.

Off you go.

Well done, welcome back.

Let's check your answers.

So statement A was true, Germany did want to regain land it had lost in world war one.

Well done if you've got that right.

Statement B, Economic difficulties caused a rise of extreme governments in Italy, Germany and Japan.

Again well done.

That was true.

Statement C.

When Germany placed troops in the Rhineland, Britain and France didn't stop them.

That was also true.

So three ticks there, if you've got those correct.

Statement D.

Britain and France did not declare war on Germany when it annexed Czechoslovakia.

Do you know why that's wrong? I'm going to tell you in a moment.

But well done if you spotted the mistake.

Statement E.

The United States and the USSR both entered the war in 1940.

Is also false, well done if you spotted the mistake there.

Let's go over and have a look at what was wrong with those statements.

So, Britain and France actually allowed Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia in 1938, then Germany invaded the rest in 1939.

Britain and France did not declare war in Germany until Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.

Very well done if you spotted the mistake there.

The second statement, The United States and the USSR both entered the war in 1940.

What's wrong with this? Did you work out? The United States entered the war in 1941.

The USSR had already been fighting, but they joined the side of the Allied powers in 1941.

Well done.

If you've got that right.

Give yourself a big tick for anything you've got right and if you need to correct any of it, you can pause the video and do so.

If you're ready to move on, let's go.

So, we've already seen this picture from 1940, showing that the Nazis had defeated and occupied France really early on in the war, by 1940.

However, by 1945, Germany had surrendered to the Allies and had lost the war.

This was not a certainty, at the beginning of the war, it seemed like Germany was going to win.

So our question, we're going to try and work out where the turning point of the war was over the course of this enquiry.

A turning point is a time when a decisive change occurs.

So if we're talking about the second world war, the turning point is when it goes from looking like the Nazis are going to win, to looking like they're going to lose.

And over the course of six lessons we're going to work out when that is.

We need to have a good knowledge of what a turning point is because it's in our enquiry question.

So I'm going to ask you to pause the video and write down this definition.

Resume the video when you're ready.

Welcome back.

Now that gone over the context and you know what a turning point is, it's time for you to do your written activity.

I'm going to read you the comprehension questions and direct you to the worksheet where you can answer them.

Question one.

When did Germany invades, Poland? Question two.

When did Britain and France declare war in Germany and why? Question three.

What did Britain and France allow Hitler to do in 1938 and why? Question four.

Why did the USSR sign a non-aggression pact with Germany? Question five.

Why were Germany as an advantage at the beginning of the war? Question six.

What is Blitzkrieg? Question seven.

Which countries did Germany defeats between 1939 and 1940? Question eight.

What was Operation Dynamo? And our challenge question.

Why were Britain in a vulnerable position by June, 1940? And their sentence starters below that you can use in order to answer this question.

You may know the answer to some of these already based on what we've already done.

But a reminder from me, that the answers to all of these questions are contained within the worksheet.

So you should read it carefully before you get started on any of these.

Also remember to try and write in full sentences and use historical detail to back up your answers.

Okay, you're ready to give it a go now, so pause the video and use the worksheet to complete these questions in full.

When you're happy you've answered as best as you can resume the video and we'll take a look at my answers.

Off you go.

Well done, welcome back.

Let's take a look at the answers.

Question one.

When did Germany invade Poland? The acceptable answer is, 1st September 1939.

A good answer in full sentences is, Germany invaded Poland on 1st September 1939.

Question two, When did Britain and France declare war on Germany and why? The acceptable answer is, 3rd September 1939.

Germany had invaded Poland.

A good answer using full sentences is, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939.

They did this because they had both promised to protect Poland from Germany expansion and Germany invaded Poland on 1st September 1939.

Well done if you used full sentences and historical detail to support your answer.

Remember our answers might look slightly different, but that doesn't mean yours are wrong.

Did you get the date right? If you did give it a big tick.

Let's have a look at question three.

What did Britain and France allow Hitler to do in 1938 and why? The acceptable answer is, Annex parts of Czechoslovakia to prevent war.

Very well done if you answered that.

A good answer with more detail is, in March 1938, Britain and France signed the Munich agreement with Hitler.

This allowed him to annex the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, which he believed belonged to Germany.

Britain and France had hoped this would prevent a war, it was part of that policy of appeasement.

Really good job, if you used any of the specific historical vocabulary such as annex or appeasement in your answer.

If you would like to add some more details to your answer at this point, feel free to pause the video and use my notes to help you.

If not, let's take a look at the next question.

Question four.

Why did the USSR sign a non-aggression pact with Germany? The acceptable answer is, because of the Munich agreement.

A good more detailed answer is, although in world war one, Russia had been allies with Britain and France, the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in August 1939.

They did this because Britain and France had allowed Germany to annex Czechoslovakia in the Munich Agreement in 1938.

This made Joseph Stalin to think that Britain France would not protect the USSR against Germany either.

Very well done if you used full sentences to answer this question.

Let's take a look at question five.

Why were Germany at an advantage at the beginning of the war? The acceptable correct answer is, they had been preparing for a long time.

A good answer with more detail is, Germany were at an advantage at the beginning of the war, because they had been preparing for war for a long time.

One of Hitler's promises to his people was that he would gain them living space, so he had been building up his army since 1935.

In contrast, Britain and France were more focused on trying to prevent a war.

So they had not been preparing for as long.

Really well done if you used key historical vocabulary to answer this question.

If you want to pause the videos to add some details, go ahead, if not let's move on.

Question six.

What is Blitzkrieg? The acceptable answer is, lightning war.

A good more detailed answer is, Blitzkrieg means "lightning war" and it consists of quick and concentrated attacks from land and air the same time.

Nazi Germany used this in order to defeat Poland quickly.

Well done if you've got this answer correct and you've developed the detail, because you may not remember just on it's own what lightning war means, if that's all you wrote down.

So you might want to add some details to this.

Let's have a look at question seven.

Question seven.

Which countries did Germany defeat, between 1939 and 1940? The acceptable correct answer is, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

A good more detailed answer is, Germany defeated Poland in September 1939 with the help of the USSR and the use of Blitzkrieg.

Then, in the spring of 1940, they used Blitzkrieg to defeat Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

They had surrendered by June, 1940.

This answer is better because it uses specific dates and details of exactly when each country was defeated.

Well done if you challenged yourself to do that.

Question eight.

What was Operation Dynamo? The acceptable answer is, the evacuation of British and French forces from Dunkirk.

A good answer with more detail is, Operation Dynamo was the code name used for the evacuation of British and French forces from the beaches of Dunkirk.

It took place between 26th May and 4th June 1940 and 338,000 troops were evacuated.

Really well done if you use specific dates and the statistic like 338,000 troops.

That's historical detail, very well done.

And finally, our challenge question.

Why were Britain in a vulnerable position by June 1940? The acceptable answer is, other countries had surrendered.

A good answer with more detail is, by June 1940, Britain were vulnerable, as they were the only remaining European country that had not surrendered to Germany.

In addition to this, they had lost huge amounts of soldiers and equipment in their failed campaigns in Europe before they had to be evacuated from Dunkirk.

Very well done if you developed with more detail.

Great job.

Now that we've done our comprehension activity, it's time for us to start an activity that's going to take us through this whole enquiry.

The enquiry asks us, what the turning point of the second world war was? And I told you, that is the point at which it stops looking like the Nazis are going to win the war and starts looking like the Allied powers are going to win the war.

So after the end of each lesson, we're going to fill in a turning point table.

So, I'm going to give you a date and you are going to say, in this date who you think, in your opinion, looked the most likely to win the war.

So the date I've picked today, is June 1940, so this is just after, the French have surrendered and the British have evacuated from Dunkirk.

And then in the last column you need some evidence to justify your view.

You're going to need a pencil and ruler in order to draw this table.

And what I would suggest you do is to take a whole page and draw a really big one, because you're going to need to fill this in, six times as we do this over the course of six lessons.

So, draw it nice and big, keep it and bring it to each next lesson.

So now that you know what you need to do, I would like you to pause the video and complete the turning point entry for today's lesson.

At the end of what we've learned today, who looks like they are going to win the war and why? You can pause the video and resume it once you've had a go to take a look at what I wrote.

Well done, welcome back.

Let's take a look at my answer.

So, in my opinion, by June 1940, it looked like Nazi Germany was likely to win the war.

The evidence to justify my view, is the fact that by June 1940, they had defeated Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

And they had forced the British and French to evacuate.

This is an example of using historical evidence to back up your opinion.

Very well done if you did the same.

If you need to add some evidence to your third column, then go ahead, pause the video and do so.

Great job for today.

Really, really impressed.

If you've made it this far and would like to challenge yourself even further, we can go ahead and complete an extension activity now.

And this is writing up something very similar to what we just did in our turning point activity.

The extension question says, which country had the most success in the second world war by June 1940? To successfully answer this question, you can use these sentence starters on the left hand side and these key words on the right hand side.

Remember to write in full sentences, use historical evidence.

Now that you've had some help from me, you're ready to pause the video and complete the extension question.

Remember, you can look in the worksheet for evidence to help you, so that you've got supporting historical detail, when you're ready, resume the video and we'll go over it.

Well done.

Welcome back.

A reminder, your answer might look different to mine, but that doesn't necessarily mean that yours is wrong.

I'll read you my model and you can compare it with yours.

Give yourself a tick, if you've written any historical evidence that backs up your view.

The most successful country in the war by June 1940 was Nazi Germany.

Evidence to support this point is that they had successfully used Blitzkrieg tactics to force several European countries to surrender.

For example, they defeated Poland in September 1939 and France in June 1940.

They had also mounted a successful invasion from three directions that had forced the British and French forces to be evacuated from Dunkirk.

This meant that Britain and France had lost lots of soldiers and equipment, but gained no territory.

Therefore Germany was the most successful country because they had gained lots of territory and equipment, and defeated many European countries.

They now only had Britain left to defeat.

Really well done if you've challenge yourself to answer this question and if your answer looks anything like mine.

Give yourself a big tick if you use any evidence to support the fact that by June 1940, it looked like Germany was going to win the war.

That takes us to the end of today's lesson.

Really a good job for today.

I'm looking forward to seeing you next time when we'll start working out, when it is that this turning point occurred and why it is that Nazi Germany did not win the war when it really looked like they were going to in June 1940.

Thanks very much and see you next time.

Don't forget after you've closed this window to go and complete the exit quiz to test how much you've managed to learn today.

And if you would like to, you are very free to ask your parent or carer to share your work with us so we can see what you've been up to.

In order to do that, they would need to use Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and tag @OakNational or #LearnwithOak.

Thanks very much.

I'll see you in lesson two.