Lesson video

Hello, welcome back to KS3 History, I'm Ms. Dawson.

Today, we are looking at our third lesson of a six lesson inquiry, asking when was the turning point in the Second World War? Today, we are going to be looking at the invasion of the USSR.

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

Once you've done that, resume the video and we'll get started off you go.

Fantastic, let's get started.

So just to remind you of the equipment you're going to need in order to complete this lesson, you will need paper, a pen, a ruler, a pencil, and you will need your "Turning point table" from the last two lessons.

I'm going to be referring to this throughout the inquiry, so don't lose it.

You also need to make sure that you are set up somewhere calm and quiet with space to work without distractions.

I you've done this already, great job, if you haven't pause the video, get a hold of the equipment you need and get yourself set up somewhere ready to go.

Resume the video once you're happy.

Great, let's get started.

I'd like us to start by taking a look at this quite unusual political cartoon.

This is going to be quite difficult for us to unpack, so don't worry at all if you're not sure what the message is right now.

When we look at political cartoons, we look for the symbols.

We look for texts, we look for faces and we try and put those together to see if we can work out what's being said.

Feel free if he wants to put the video on pause for a moment, so you can take note of the clues in this image, and then you can unpause it when you're ready to get a bit of help from me.

What do we think this is trying to say? So, well done, if one of the things that you noticed is that there were two world leaders here in this image.

If you're not sure who they are, don't worry, I'm going to explain it to you.

So this is a map of Europe between 1939 and 1941, so around the time when this cartoon would have been made.

So one of the people in the cartoon we just looked at was Adolf Hitler, who was the leader of Germany, the leader of Nazi Germany.

So Adolf Hitler was one of the people in this picture.

The other person in this picture was Joseph Stalin, who was the leader of the USSR.

And remember the USSR was a territory that compressive Russia, the country that was formally Russia, and some other land area that it had acquired, okay.

So if you're a little bit confused about where the USSR is, we want to think Russia, but bigger.

So first thing we've worked out is that this was a cartoon showing Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin getting married.

Now they didn't actually get married, so we need to have a think about what that might mean.

Let's keep going.

Something else you might have noticed was that there were two symbols on this wedding cake.

And we need to have a think about what they mean, and what that message might be trying to show.

So those two symbols represent what are called different political systems. So on the left hand side, we have what we would call a left wing government, which is communism.

Since the communism is the government of the USSR.

And if you look in the top left hand corner of that flag, which was the flag of the USSR, it's the same symbol that was on the cake.

On the right, right-wing, we have fascism, which was the government of Nazi Germany.

And again, if you look on the Nazi flag, that symbol, the swastika, was the same one that was on the cake.

Now to explain the difference between left and right wing is something that we could spend whole inquiries on in itself.

And so I'm not going to dwell on this for a long time.

If you want to know a little bit more about what the big differences between communist and fascist governments are, there are other inquiries that you could look at.

You could look at the inquiry on the Bolsheviks and you could look at the inquiry on fascists.

But what we do need to know is that the reason that they're on opposite sides, so one of them is called left wing and one of them is called right wing, is because they are very different, they are opposites.

Communism and fascism believe completely separate things.

And they're world leaders, so Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, would have a completely different way of looking at the world, so we need to know that.

Our final clue that we might have honed in on is this bit at thee bottom of the image, where it says, "Wonder how long the honeymoon will last?" So let's try and put these things together, again.

I've told you that we have got a picture here of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin getting married.

I've also told you that those two symbols that are next to each other represent their completely different political views.

So perhaps it's unusual that if they're so different and so opposite, that they are depicted as getting married.

And then at the bottom, this question, wonder how long the honeymoon will last? Perhaps this is intended to imply, that because of their opposite views, this match, or this marriage, isn't going to last for very long.

Now, this was quite a difficult cartoon, so very well done if you followed along with some of the explanation as to what we're looking at.

Hopefully after the lesson, this will make even more sense to you.

But what I would like you to do now is using some of the clues and a support I've given you is to write out what you think the message of this cartoon is and using details from the cartoon to support your answer.

So I've given you three sentence starters here, you can finish the sentences.

Put your video on pause in order to do this, and once you've done it, resume the video and we'll take a look at my answer, off you go.

Well done, welcome back.

This is quite tough, so really well done.

Remember your answer and my answer might not look the same, but that does not mean that yours is wrong.

I'll read my answer to you.

The message of this cartoon is that the alliance between Hitler and Stalin may not have been permanent.

Details which suggests this are the fact that it says, "Wonder how long the honeymoon will last?" This makes me think the cartoonist is trying to suggest that their alliance will eventually break up.

I've used the word alliance in this answer, because as I said to you, Hitler and Stalin did not actually get married, this image of them being married is supposed to suggest them trying to work together.

And the cartoonist is not convinced that that's going to last because of the fact they have very different political views.

Very well done, give yourself a big tick if your answer looks anything like this.

If you're not sure you've got that quite right, pause the video and add some details using my notes.

So just a reminder of what we've covered so far and what we've got left to do.

We're at our third lesson of this six lesson inquiry.

So in our first lesson, we looked at Blitzkrieg.

So we looked at Nazi success across Northwestern Europe how they conquered and took over Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and then France.

Last lesson, we looked at the Battle of Britain and aerial bombardment.

So we looked at German attempts to overcome the British Royal Air Force.

And then today we are going to look at the invasion of the USSR.

So following the sort of lack of success in the Battle of Britain and attempting to take over Britain, Hitler decided that he would try and conquer the USSR to the East instead.

And remember when I say USSR, we are talking about the territory that was Russia, but it got a little bit bigger, got a slightly different government, so therefore we refer to it as the USSR, instead of Russia.

Then we've got three more lessons to come before we decide when the turning point was.

I'm going to go over some key contextual details about Russia and Germany's relationship that will help us understand what's going on in today's lesson.

So, 1938 was something which was called the Munich Agreement, which we looked at in lesson one.

This was when the Western allies, so Britain and France, negotiated with Hitler before what the Second World War had started.

And they negotiated with Hitler in order to allow him to expand into an area of Czechoslovakia.

Now on the surface, this doesn't sound necessarily like it has much to do with Russia or the USSR, but it's important that we know that they were really, really worried by this.

So Britain and France, allowing Hitler to expand and to take over part of another country, Czechoslovakia, made Stalin worried that Britain and France wouldn't mind if Hitler did that to his country.

So this is sort of area of mistrust between the USSR and Britain.

And it's something that causes Stalin to look for an alliance or an agreement with Hitler, with Germany.

So in 1939, despite the fact that the USSR and Germany do not naturally get on, they've got completely opposite political opinions, they signed an agreement together.

They signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact where Germany and the USSR both agreed that they will not invade each other, so it's what we call a non-aggression pact, and as well as agreeing not to invade each other, they agreed that they will conquer Poland together, and that they'll divide it in two.

That they do later on in the year.

So in September of 1939, Germany invades Poland, the USSR also invades, they concur it and divide it between the two countries, which is what they agreed in the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

Despite the fact that Hitler had made an agreement with Stalin, a mutual non-aggression pact, in 1914, Hitler started making plans to invade the USSR.

So this tells us that, although he signed an agreement with them, they weren't ever really proper allies, they didn't have a relationship that was built to last because as soon as Hitler had gotten Poland, he did use their support to get hold of Poland, he started planning to invade them.

In 1941, that's exactly what he did, and the code name for this invasion of the USSR was Operation Barbarossa.

And that's what we're going to be looking at today.

So we're going to be looking at the impact of Hitler's decision to invade the USSR when he was supposed to be working with them.

So hopefully this image makes a little bit more sense now that we've realised they were sort of forced together into this sort of weird convenient arrangement, but it wasn't a true match, it wasn't a true alliance and they were destined to break up.

That's what this cartoon is trying to show.

So it's what historians sometimes refer to as a strange alliance because they were, for all intents and purposes, supposed to be working together, but there was no trust there, there was no fondness there.

So there were natural enemies.

As I've said, communism, which is the government that the USSR had, was one of Hitler's most hated things.

Hitler, hated communism, he continually talked about how he wanted to get rid of communism.

And Stalin, didn't really like fascism either, didn't Hitler's form of government.

They've got completely opposite ideas about how they work.

So they're naturally not supposed to be in an alliance.

So why were they? Stalin didn't trust Britain and France because of the Munich Agreement.

So he'd seen them allow Hitler to take land from another country.

So Stalin didn't want to ally himself with them.

He was worried that they would allow him to be taken over in order to try and please Hitler, in order to protect themselves, so he was feeling mistrustful.

So therefore he thought the best thing that he could do was to just go ahead and make an agreement directly with his enemy to try and protect himself.

He thought that might be safer than relying on Britain and France doing it for him.

Why did Hitler except this? Hitler wanted help in conquering Poland quickly.

And Poland is right in between Germany and the USSR.

So as far as Hitler was concerned, it would be really convenient to use the help of the USSR to invade and concur Poland and then after that, he would make plans to invade the USSR.

So this image shows the plans for Operation Barbarossa.

So on the map, we can see arrows which are coming from the West.

So coming through Poland, which as we now know it was occupied by the Germans and by the USSR, through Ukraine, through Lithuania.

And they're going to, their plan was to invade the USSR, take the main city of Moscow.

And they were going to use it in order to kind of expand their territory.

So the code name was Operation Barbarossa.

One of the reasons for this is that Hitler wanted living space.

So when I said the Germans would expand their territory, he had promised the German people that they would have more room to conquer, settle, expand to be a bigger, greater country.

So parts of his view was that he would take over the USSR and he would settle German speaking people living there and use it as part of their territory.

Hitler believed that Germans were superior, they were superior race.

He believed that they were better than Russians, he believes that they deserved the sort of space, the land in order to grow multiply and that he had no issue at all with sort of getting rid of the native population of Russians who lived there.

He hated communism, he absolutely hated communism, so as well as wanting to give space to his German people, he wanted to get rid of this communist government.

He planned the invasion since 1940.

So only a year after making this agreement with the USSR, Hitler was planning on going against his word.

And then he launched his invasion, Operation Barbarossa, in June of 1941.

So those are our key facts, our when, our why.

Let's have a think about how much we've learned so far.

So what you've got in front of you is a consolidation gapfill based on what we have just talked about.

So I've written up a short paragraph, which contextualises the things that we have just learned, and the words at the bottom are not in the correct order.

I need you to pause the video and to rewrite the paragraph, putting the correct words into the correct places.

As always, I would recommend if you were unsure about some of the words to do it in pencil, so you can rub it up if you get the wrong answer, or if there's one you're really not sure about, you can skip it, try and work out what the rest of them are, and then see what you're left with at the end.

Give yourself a few minutes with which to do this, resume the video when you're happy, and I'll tell you the answers, off you go.

Well done welcome back.

Let's check the answers, get a pen ready to tick or correct as we go through.

The leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, was not a natural ally for the leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler.

The two countries had dramatically opposing systems of government.

The USSR was communist, and Hitler hated communism.

Despite this, the countries became allies in August, 1939 because it was politically convenient for them to do so.

The USSR was worried that Britain and France wouldn't protect them against Germany.

Together, they defeated and conquered Poland in September, 1939 and divided it between them.

However, even though they had signed a pact, Hitler decided in 1940 that he wanted to invade the USSR.

His planned invasion was called Operation Barbarossa.

Really well done, if you've got all of those correct.

If you didn't, pause the video now and make sure that you correct your answers, then we'll move on.

Now, one of the big impacts of Germany deciding to invade the USSR is that it caused the USSR to join the allied powers.

So up until 1941, the USSR had stayed out of supporting Britain and France, the USA is not in the allied powers yet, and China was fighting Japan on the other side of the world, but not in Europe.

So the USSR had not gotten involved with Britain and France's fight against Germany because they had signed a non-aggression pact with them.

As soon as Hitler broke his promise and invaded the USSR, the USSR formed an alliance with Britain and France against Germany.

So that's a huge change in the way the war is being fought.

And we need to keep that in our heads, when we think about turning points or what could be considered a significant moment in the Second World War.

Okay, so now we've done the main bit of input from me, it's time for you to on with your main task.

You've got comprehension questions in front of you, which you need to answer in full sentences, making use of the worksheet before you start writing them.

Remember to try and use historical details and try and write as much as you possibly can on your own, before we come back and check my answers.

Question one, what to Germany and the USSR sign in 1939? Question two, Why was there tension between Germany and the USSR? Question three, why did Hitler want to invade the USSR? Question four, When was Operation Barbarossa launched? Question five, in what ways was the German invasion of the USSR initially successful? Question six, in what ways did the German invasion of the USSR become difficult later? Question seven, how did the German invasion of the USSR change the relationship between the USSR and Britain? And our challenge question, why was the opening of the Eastern front an important moment? And there are sentence starters there that you can use if you would like to.

Okay, you're ready now to go to the worksheet and start answering the comprehension questions.

Put your video on pause, try and use as much detail as you can and resume the video once you're happy with what you've written to check your answers against mine, off you go.

Well done, welcome back, let's see how you did.

Question one, what did Germany and the USSR sign in 1939? Correct answer was a non-aggression pact.

A good answer, which makes use of full sentences is, Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact in 1939, which shocked the world.

Very well done, if you challenge yourself to use full sentences.

Question two, why was there tension between Germany and the USSR? The acceptable answer is that they had different political systems. A good answer is, there was tension between Germany and the USSR because they had completely different political systems. The USSR was communist, and Hitler hated communism.

He often spoke of how much he wanted to rid the world of communism.

Very well done if you use specific details to back up your answer and full sentences.

if you're not sure if you've got this right, you can go ahead and pause the video and correct your answer using my notes.

But do you remember that our answers may look different and it doesn't necessarily mean yours is wrong.

Question three, why did Hitler want to invade the USSR? The acceptable answer is to get land and oil and destroy communism.

A good answer with more detail is, Hitler wanted to invade the USSR for several reasons.

One of them was that he had promised his German people living space and he believed he could gain this land by invading the USSR.

Hitler also wants to gain natural resources from the USSR, like oil.

Finally, Hitler hated communism, and he believed that he could destroy it if he invaded the USSR.

Really good job, if you worked out there was more than one answer to this question, and if you challenge yourself to write an answer with multiple causes.

Question four, when was Operation Barbarossa launched? The acceptable answer was the 22nd of June, 1941.

Well done, give yourself a tick, 'cause that's correct.

A good answer is, Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, was launched on the 22nd of June, 1941.

Hitler had mobilised four million men, and they invaded the Western USSR along an 1800 mile front.

Great job if you added specific details to back that up.

Question five, in what ways was the German invasion of the USSR initially successful? The acceptable answer is, they occupied valuable parts of the USSR.

A good answer is, the invasion was initially successful for the Germans because within weeks they had occupied some of the most valuable parts of the USSR.

By October, the Nazis were at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad.

Good job if you used the specific names of some of these valuable places that the Nazis had managed to almost get to.

Question six, in what ways did the German invasion of the USSR become difficult later? The acceptable answer is, it became a stalemate.

A good answer is, although the German invasion of the USSR was initially successful, it became a stalemate later.

This is because the USSR had used scorched earth tactics to destroy land and supplies.

When the below freezing winter arrived, the Nazis were in a hostile territory with few supplies.

Really good job if you use specific evidence like the use of scorched earth tactics to back up your answer.

Question seven, how did the German invasion of the USSR changed the relationship between the USSR and Britain? The acceptable answer is, it caused them to become allies.

The good answer is, although initially Britain had been anti-communist the German invasion of the USSR caused them to work together.

Churchill realised that Stalin could help them in the war against Germany and promised to send the USSR supplies to help them in the fight.

They even began to refer to Stalin as Uncle Joe.

Great job if you've developed your sentences and used specific details to back up your answer.

If you would like to, you can pause the video and add some detail to your notes from my answer.

If you're happy with what you've got, lets move on.

And our challenge question, why was the opening of the Eastern front an important moment? The acceptable answer is, it caused a war on two fronts.

A good answer is, the opening of the Eastern front was an important moment because this now meant that the Nazis were fighting a war on two fronts.

They were fighting Britain in the West and the USSR in the East.

This may have meant that it gave the British army a chance to recover as the Nazis deployed 75% of their forces to the Eastern front.

Really good job if you use specific knowledge, such as 75% of Nazi forces went to the Eastern front, that's thinking and backing up your answer like a historian.

Great job on the comprehension questions.

It's now time for us to think about this turning point question.

So I'm only giving you a model answer for the very first week that we did, because this inquiry is all about you working out your own opinion as to when the turning point was.

And I don't want to take that away from you by doing that work for you.

So it is up to you for each date in each lesson that we look at to decide who you think looks most likely to win the war and why, so that you can work out when you think it was that the fortunes shifted.

So I would like you them please to get your "Turning point table" from last time, be prepared to add to it, using your pencil and ruler, use the worksheet in order to fill it in with evidence that justifies your view.

So go ahead and pause the video now and complete today's section of the "Turning point table", resume once you're finished.

Welcome back really great job.

There is one extension question that we can have a look at, if you are feeling like really challenging yourself.

the question says, how did Operation Barbarossa make Nazi Germany vulnerable? And I'll give you some support on how to answer this.

So we've got sentenced starters on the left hand side of the screen that you can use.

And we have got some key words on the right hand side of the screen that might give you a hint about things that I would suggest that you look at.

I remember I would read through the worksheet again in order to find some evidence to help you answer this question.

And go ahead, pause the video and completely extension question, resume the video when you're finished and I'll show you a model of mine, off you go.

Well done, welcome back.

Let's take a look at my model, remember that yours might look different.

Operation Barbarossa made Nazi Germany vulnerable because it infected heavy damages and it split the focus of their army.

Evidence to support this fact, is the fact that there were a million German casualties in the initial invasion of the USSR.

In addition to this, they were now fighting a war on two fronts against the USSR in the East and Britain in the West.

This would have meant that it would have drained their resources and morale.

A final reason that Operation Barbarossa made Germany vulnerable is that it caused the USSR and Britain to become allies.

This was important because they can now work together in order to defeat Germany, Very well done, if you used any evidence to back up your answer.

If you said anything along the lines of, fighting a war on two fronts, causing Britain and the USSR to become allies, if you said anything about loss of German soldiers, any and all of those things would be evidence to support your answer to this question.

Okay, so that brings us towards the end of today's lesson.

Really great job for today's work and for everything you've done so far in this inquiry.

Hopefully you're beginning to see that there have been some shifts in fortunes of how the war had been going, by this point.

You might not have necessarily decided that the turning points happened.

It might be still after Operation Barbarossa that it's still possible, in your opinion, that Germany could have won the war.

The turning point may be still to come.

You might've decided based on today that the turning point happened then, that this is the moment when the Nazis got something wrong when that fortunes are shifted, and when they're no longer likely to win the war.

That's up to you because you are the historian, making the opinion in this inquiry.

Looking forward to seeing you for lesson four, great job for today.

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

And if you would like to, you're very welcome to ask your parents or carer to share your work with us so we can see what you've been doing.

If you'd like to do that, ask your parent or carer to use Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Thanks so much, see you next time.