Lesson video

Hello, welcome to Key Stage 3 History, I'm Ms. Dawson.

Today is our fifth lesson of a six lesson inquiry looking at when the turning point was in the Second World War.

If you've already done lessons one to four, well done, you are in the right place.

If you haven't, you're going to need to go and do those first before you try and access this lesson.

Today's lesson is going to be all about Stalingrad and D-Day.

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

Pause your video in order to do this.

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

In today's lesson, you are going to need some paper, a pen, a ruler, a pencil and your turning point table that you've been working on for the duration of this inquiry.

You also need to be sat somewhere calm and quiet with lots of space so that you can work away from distractions.

If you've done that already, good job.

If you haven't pause your video and get yourself set up, ready to work now, resume the video when you're good to go.

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

What's happening? What details do we need to zoom in on to make sense of this? Well done if you've noticed that the key thing we need to look at in this image, are heavy amounts of destruction in the background.

This is a picture of a place called Stalingrad after it had been liberated.

So after the end of the war, this is what Stalingrad looked like.

So we can tell already that clearly a very significant battle took place at Stalingrad.

We have looked so far at Nazi early successes in Europe using their tactics of Blitzkrieg in 1940.

We've looked at their attempts to wipe out the RAF and the reasons that that failed in the Battle of Britain.

We've looked at the reasons that Hitler decided to go back on his promise to Stalin and invade the USSR.

We've looked at reasons why the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and the impact that this had on the war.

Today we're going to be returning to the USSR to look at an important Battle of Stalingrad, which is in the USSR.

And then we're also going to look at the D-Day landings.

So a huge amount of content to cover in today's lesson.

And the next lesson, we will look at the end of the war.

So we need to think then about what the status of the war was like in 1942.

And we're going to look at this map, I showed you a very similar one last lesson, but from December of 1941.

So things for us to note, Europe's looking quite similar by December of 1941, Germany had almost completely conquered Europe any way.

There's a few countries not shaded in black.

Britain is blue because Britain still hadn't surrendered or hadn't been conquered and then we've got Sweden, which is grey because it wasn't involved in the war, so hadn't been occupied because it wasn't fighting.

We've got some differences over in the East.

Japan's territory has expanded considerably.

The sort of black areas in the Pacific, are all areas that are controlled by Axis powers.

So these were all areas that had been controlled and colonised by Japan.

And this has gotten quite a lot bigger since we looked at December, 1941 last lesson.

So interesting for us to note, the war still seems to be in some ways going on the side of the Axis powers.

Today we're focusing on Europe specifically because we're looking at the Battle of Stalingrad.

So it's important for us to know these are all territories that had been controlled or occupied by the Axis powers, Germany and Italy.

And we can see that the Soviet Union, as so far not been occupied and conquered, but it represents a really, really big territory that the Germans wanted to expand into.

So their plan was to expand further into Soviet territory and resettle German speaking people there to conquer as their living space.

And it looks like they're very well positioned to do this because they control almost all of Europe.

So far it seems like the war's potentially still going in Germany's favour.

Stalingrad was a really, really key battle of the Second World War.

You've already potentially been able to tell from looking at this image that it was a heavily destructive battle.

So it's one of the bloodiest battles in history.

At the Battle of Stalingrad, your average soldier from the USSR, so your average Soviet soldier survived for 24 hours.

So there was a huge death toll in this battle.

The numbers very much vary depending on where you are looking, just because of the way it's been reported, but estimates that the USSR or the Soviets had 1.

2 million casualties.

So that's people who were killed and very badly wounded.

And the Axis casualties were about 800,000.

So serious amounts of deaths in the course of this battle.

It's often referred to as a turning point in the Second World War, because there are many people who think that this is a point when Germany's fortune started to shift.

The Germans were defeated at the Battle of Stalingrad and there were pushed into a full retreat.

So, not only did they not take the Soviet Union or Stalingrad, but the Russians pushed them back and continued to push them back all the way across Europe until they reached Berlin in 1945 and the Germans surrendered.

So literally the Germans turned around.

So some people refer to this as a turning point.

So as I said after the Germans were defeated, the Russians spent the next two years advancing and pushing them back to Berlin.

So this is a really significant change in terms of the way the direction is being fought.

After Stalingrad, the Germans did not advance any further East into Russian territory again in the war.

They spent the whole rest of the war being pushed backwards.

So now that we've got a little bit of context behind us, I'd like us to do a short answer question, sharing what this image shows and use details from it please, okay.

So use these sentence starters on the left hand side, complete them with what you think this image shows.

What does that suggest, pause your video in order to do it.

And then when you're happy resume the video and we'll take a look at my answer, off you go.

Well done, welcome back.

Remember your answer and mine might look different and that's not a problem at all.

This image shows ruined buildings in the city of Stalingrad.

This suggests that the Battle of Stalingrad was an incredibly destructive one.

Well done, give yourself a big tick if your answer looks similar to that.

If you're not sure if you've got this right, you can pause the video and add some detail.

So we're looking at two really, really important events today.

We're going to look at the Battle of Stalingrad which as I already told you, was a battle that took place in the Soviet Union, where the Germans were pushed back.

We're also going to look at the D-Day landings of 1944.

This map on the right hand side shows us beaches in Northern France.

And if we will remember Northern France had been occupied by the Germans since 1940 and the French had surrendered in June of 1940.

It was really, really important to the European powers that they got France back.

So the D-Day landings was day one of the Operation Overlord.

Operation Overlord was the code name for the Allied efforts to reconquer Europe.

So what they wanted to do is they wanted to invade via Northern France, and they wanted to expand across Northern Europe, push the Nazis back, retake France, retake the Netherlands, retake Belgium, all of these countries that had been forced to surrender.

So D-Day was day one of this big effort to reconquer Europe.

So on the 6th of June, 1944, 156,000 troops landed on these five beaches in Northern France.

This enabled them to secure the beaches and advanced inland because on these beaches, they needed to have space for more troops, more equipment, more fighters, everything to come over on ships so that they could then take the rest of the country.

So D-Day was the sort of establishment of this base in the North of France, from which they would continue to attack.

And we have, as I said, 156,000 troops from Britain, from the United States and from Canada.

This is a picture of what the beaches of Northern France looked like on D-Day.

So we can see huge amounts of equipment.

We can see air support, we can see ships, we can see soldiers.

This was a big plan which had been in the works for a long time and it was the very beginning of taking back Europe.

I'll remind us of the things we've studied so far and contextualise the dates that we're looking at today, because we need to have the good working chronology of the war in order for us to work out when the turning point happened.

So September of 1939 was the declaration of war on Germany.

June of 1940 was when the French surrendered to Germany and France had been occupied and under German control from then, then throughout 1940, we have the Battle of Britain so there's attempts by the German forces to wipe out the RAF, hoping to be able to invade later on in the year, if you will remember, this was not successful and Germany had to cancel Operation Sea Lion So Germany never invaded Britain on land.

They attacked it from air, and December of 1941, the United States entered the war on the side of the Allied powers.

And they did this because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour.

Then we have the Battle of Stalingrad, which is one of the bloodiest battles in history is about six months across 1942.

And then in June, 1944, we have the D-Day landings.

So these two big events that we're looking at today happened just towards the end of the war.

And then in 1945, of course we'll have the end of the war and the Nazi surrender to the Allied powers.

So what I would like you to do now, is to see, without looking, if you can sequence the main events of the Second World War.

and you're at an advantage here because I have just gone through them with you.

Don't panic though if you're not sure.

You could use a pencil if you're worried about writing down something that's wrong and correct it afterwards, that's not a problem at all.

So on your screen in front of you, you have got six events, they are not in the right order.

Can you put them in the correct order? Put your video on pause, give it a go and resume it when you're ready to check the answers.

Well done, welcome back.

Let's have a look and see how you did.

The correct first one is Britain and France declaring war on Germany.

That's the beginning of the war is when the war is declared.

Good job if you got that right.

The second one, France surrenders to Germany, June of 1940.

Third one, Battle of Britain again, 1940.

1941, United States enters the war.

Well done if you've got those all correct so far.

Don't panic if you didn't just correct them.

Next step was the Battle of Stalingrad, which we are going to look at today.

And then finally, we've got the D-Day landings, which we are also looking at today.

So give yourself a big tick for anything that you got correct.

If there's something you didn't get, you need to pause the video and get them in the right order because you do need to know the order of the war in order to establish when the turning point happened.

If you got them all right, then we can move on.

Okay so, time for us to take a look at our main activity, which is the comprehension task.

I'm going to read the questions to you, then direct you to the worksheet to get on with it.

Question one.

Why were the German army halted in November, 1941? Question two.

What did Hitler decide to do in order to break the stalemate on the Eastern Front? Question three.

When was the Battle of Stalingrad? Question four.

Why were the Germans unable to defeat the Russians during the Battle of Stalingrad? Question five.

When did the Germans surrender to the Red Army at Stalingrad? Question six.

What was D-Day? Question seven.

What success did the Allies experience between June and August, 1944? And our challenge question.

What was the impact of the D-Day landings on Germany? And there are sentence starters you can use to support you answering these question.

A reminder that all of the answers to the question are contained within the worksheet.

So you need to read that carefully before you start.

Please make an effort to challenge yourself by using full sentences with historical information to back up your answers.

Okay, you are ready to pause your video and answer the questions.

When you're happy with your answers resume the video and we'll go through them, off you go.

Well done and welcome back.

Let's have a look and see how you did.

Question one, why were the German army halted in November, 1941? The acceptable answer is, the Russian winter.

A good answer is, the German army initially experienced some success in their invasion of Russia, but in November, 1941, the German army were halted because of the harsh Russian winter.

Good job if you used full sentences.

Question two.

What did Hitler decided to do in order to break the stalemate on the Eastern Front? The acceptable answer is, move his army South.

A good answer with more detail is, Hitler decided to divert the German army South in order to break the stalemate on the Eastern Front, he needed oil so he decided to split the army in two forces and send one around the city of Stalingrad to Baku, which was rich in oil.

The other force would advance directly on the city of Stalingrad.

Really good job if you developed your answer with key details, remember our answers might not look exactly the same and that is fine.

However, if you're not sure you got it right, you can feel free to pause your video at this stage and use my notes to develop your answer.

If not, we'll keep going.

Question three.

When was the Battle of Stalingrad? Acceptable answer is, August, 1942 to February, 1943.

A good answer in full sentences is, the Battle of Stalingrad took place between August, 1942 and February, 1943.

Well done if you used full sentences.

Question four.

Why were the Germans unable to defeat the Russians during the Battle of Stalingrad? The acceptable answer is, the Russians used fierce resistance and a fighting retreat.

A good answer is, there were many reasons why the German army were unable to defeat the Russians.

One reason was that the Germans weren't prepared for the Russian winter or for the close combat.

Another reason is that the Russians resisted fiercely using civilian militia, as well as soldiers.

The Russians were also at risk of being executed if they retreated, so they refused to surrender.

There was several answers to this question.

So really well done if you wrote more than just to show a sentence.

There are many, many things that you could have written.

So don't worry if your answer looks a little bit different to mine.

You may have even developed it further and written something better than me.

Give yourself a tick if you've given any clear reason why the Germans were not successful at Stalingrad.

Question five.

When did the German surrender to the Red Army at Stalingrad? The acceptable answer is, the 2nd of February, 1943.

A good answer in full sentences is, the German army surrendered to the Red Army on the 2nd of February, 1943.

Great job if you got that correct.

Question six.

What was D-Day? The acceptable answer is, an Allied invasion in Normandy.

A good answer is, D-Day was the first day of the Battle of Normandy.

It was an Allied invasion of 156,000 troops on the 6th of June, 1944.

Troops from British, American and Canadian forces landed on the beaches of Normandy.

On the beaches, the Allied troops fought the Germans for control so as to allow a full invasion.

Really well done if you used specific historical details, such as the date, the number of troops that landed.

Great job.

Again, if you want to develop your answer using my notes, pause the video and do so, if you're happy we can move on.

Question six.

What success did the Allies experience between June and August, 1944? The acceptable answer is, they liberated Paris.

A good answer with more detail is, after the D-Day landings, the Allies managed to secure the beaches of Normandy within a week.

They then shipped in troops, vehicles and equipment to advance through France and pushed the Germans back By August, 1944, they had liberated Paris.

Good job if you used full sentences.

And our challenge question.

What was the impact of the D-Day landings on Germany? The acceptable answer is, it meant that they were being closed in on both sides.

A good answer with more detail is, the impact of the D-Day landings was that Germany suffered a huge military blow.

Evidence to support this is that the Germans had not only been pushed back by the Allied powers, but had been unable to send reinforcements to the Eastern Front, to protect themselves against the Russians.

This was important because it meant that the Germans were now being attacked from two directions.

Really good job if you developed that.

We've come to the end of the comprehension questions now, if you need to go back and add any detail from my answers and pause the video, you're very welcome to do so.

If not, let's think about how these compare as turning points.

So you should hopefully have with you your turning point table, that you've completed an entry for each lesson.

So along the side, there are key dates that we need to think about who was winning the war at this point.

So we've got June, 1940.

When I'd said that arguably Nazi, Germany was winning the war.

That's from lesson one,.

Lesson two, we had May, 1941.

So the end of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.

From lesson three, we had November, 1941.

So after the Nazis first invaded the USSR in Operation Barbarossa.

December, 1941 was when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour.

And then we've got two dates here for today's lesson.

So you need to fill in two entries, which is important.

We've got February of 1943, which is after the Germans surrendered at Stalingrad.

And we've got June of 1944, which is when the D-Day landings were.

Again a reminder, I'm being a little bit mean here and not giving you a model answer, but it's because I want you to have the satisfaction of working out when the turning point is yourself.

You need to have your own historical opinion about this.

There's no right or wrong answer.

You can back it up yourself as to when you think that the fortune's changed.

So go ahead, pause the video and complete today's section of the turning point table.

Remembering that you need to fill in two entries for today 'cause we looked at two events Stalingrad and D-Day.

Pause the video, off you go.

Really great job, welcome back.

Hopefully you're starting to get a clear idea of when the turning points are in the Second World War.

Our extension activity is to think about one of those in more detail.

Question says, why could the Battle of Stalingrad be considered the turning point in the war? Even if you don't think this is the turning point, you need to show some awareness of why someone else might do.

So, on the left hand side of the screen there are sentence starters that you can use in order to develop this answer.

Remember, you want to try and use full sentences with historical detail and back up your view.

On the right hand side, there are some key words you can use to help you.

So go ahead now, put the video on pause and complete the extension question.

When you're happy, you can resume the video and we'll check your answer against mine.

Off you go.

Well done, welcome back.

Remember your answer might not look the same as mine.

That's not a problem at all.

Let's read through my model answer.

The Battle of Stalingrad could be considered a turning point in the Second World War because the Russian tactic of a fighting retreat enabled them to secure a major defeat over the German army.

Evidence to support this is the fact that after the Russians had forced the Germans to surrender at Stalingrad, the Russians were able to continue to advance on to Berlin.

This was because the Germans had spent huge amounts of equipment and energy in the Battle of Stalingrad.

This was important, because it showed that the German army were no longer in a position to advance further forward into Russia to attack.

So it gave the Russians the opportunity to approach Berlin.

Great job if you used details about what helped the Russians to be successful at Stalingrad and very well done if you talked about the fact that Germany was then no longer able to advance any further and actually were pushed backwards.

So this is why people talk about Stalingrad as being a turning point.

Great job.

Okay, really well done.

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

We've done five out of six in our inquiry and next lesson, we're going to look at the end of the war and we're going to make up our mind when was the turning point in the Second World War.

Really well done for all of your hard work today.

And I will see you in less than six.

Don't forget, before you leave to complete the exit quiz to double check all the things you've managed to learn today.

And finally, if you would like to, you are very welcome to ask your parent or carer to share your work with Oak National so we can see what you've gotten up to.

So if you wanted to do that, ask your parent or carer to use Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and hashtag #LearnwithOak.

Thank you so much, see you next time.